Club (1)
Several months had already passed since their enrollment at Stella Academy.
To cut straight to the point: the search for the Hero had yielded nothing of any real worth.
Hoping against hope, Kruse had wandered every corner of the academy with the fragment clutched to her chest—yet the Fragment of the Holy Sword had not so much as twitched a single millimeter.
At first she had been brimming with optimism, certain they would find the Hero in no time. But as the days dragged on without a scrap of progress, she wilted like a piece of dried fish left too long in the sun.
Aiolet and Gladia, for their part, carried on as though none of it concerned them.
They attended lectures, trained, and went out together for fun. Kruse tagged along now and then, but nothing fundamental changed—except that the things the two of them used to enjoy alone were now enjoyed by three.
Aiolet had initially made no secret of her irritation at Kruse's constant intrusion. After enough repetitions, though, something like begrudging affection must have taken root; she stopped actively shoving the Saintess away. That did not mean she went out of her way to bring her along, either.
Regardless, their primary occupation remained that of academy students. Even with a prophecy of the Demon King's resurrection hanging over the world, they still had coursework to finish.
Stella Academy lived up to its reputation as the empire's foremost educational institution by driving its students without mercy. Those who could not endure were forced to leave… but those who survived the crucible achieved dazzling growth.
Aiolet was no exception.
Kaaang! Fwaaat!
Early morning. An open training ground on the academy's outskirts.
With a sharp whistle of displaced air, Aiolet's shadows surged in from every direction in a ferocious assault.
Sssrk— Chwaaak!
At a single flick of Aiolet's hand, the shadows transformed into a massive spear and shot toward Gladia at blistering speed.
Shadow Control had always been Aiolet's specialty, but the power and precision on display now were in an entirely different league from before. Even measured against the other mage-track students, her current level was overwhelming.
Yet Gladia, without so much as drawing her blade, slipped past Aiolet's vicious assault with the easy, fluid grace of flowing water. When she casually nudged aside even the shadow spikes erupting from her blind spots with the tip of her foot, Aiolet's competitive fire finally caught.
"Urgh…!"
Big attacks won't land on Dia. In that case…!
Biting down hard on her lip, Aiolet thrust her hand roughly toward the sky.
A vast mass of shadow rocketed upward, splintering in an instant into dozens—then hundreds—of razor-sharp spikes. They came raining down like a black, piercing storm, blanketing Gladia's entire body.
A monochrome downpour filling the heavens.
Facing that deluge, Gladia quietly rested her hand atop her cane.
Click.
Sword Saint
World's Trial has been nullified.
The moment she drew her sword, her vision flooded with light.
In a world that seemed frozen in time, Gladia watched Aiolet's attack plummet toward her with crystalline clarity—then swept her blade through the black rain that filled her sight.
Kaaang—!
Gladia's sword deflected the assault and carved open empty space in an instant. She dove through that gap and closed the distance to Aiolet in a single breath.
"Kh…!"
Aiolet's eyes went wide as Gladia erased the space between them before she could even raise a defense.
She's even faster than before!
Panicking, Aiolet frantically tried to yank up the shadows pooled at her feet—but Gladia was never going to miss a move that obvious. With the sheath in her free hand, she slammed the ground hard at Aiolet's feet.
Taang—!
The impact shattered the shadow just as it began to writhe upward, scattering it uselessly apart.
"Ah…!"
The shockwave through the ground stole Aiolet's balance and sent her lurching into the air. Just as she was about to crash to the dirt, Gladia—already right there—shot out an arm and locked it firmly around her waist.
Thump.
As if they had rehearsed it, Aiolet's unbalanced body dropped neatly into Gladia's embrace. Holding her close, Gladia looked down at her mistress's flustered face with playful eyes and drawled,
"The more rushed you are, the calmer you need to be, my lady. When you panic, you always pull from the shadows at your feet first. That pattern is far too easy to read~"
"L-Let go of me…!"
Aiolet finally came to her senses, face burning red as she thrashed—but she was no match for strength that had long since left human limits behind.
If anything, Gladia only held the squirming girl more securely and lowered her gaze, quite deliberately, to Aiolet's chest.
It was not, of course, because she was Aiolet's one and only maid and wished to confirm just how much her mistress's presence (chest) had grown.
Ever since she had drunk the Hero's Blood, far more changes had been unfolding in Gladia's body than she had expected.
The performance of her Mind's Eye—the sense that compensated for her blindness—had improved by an entire dimension, and the power of Sword Saint itself had skyrocketed as well.
The difference when she opened her eyes was especially dramatic. As if in recompense for all the days she had spent sealed in pitch-black darkness, activating Sword Saint now let her see more than ever before.
And in that sight, Gladia could see the circle spinning furiously around Aiolet's heart.
A dense violet ring of mana, rotating with the heart as its axis—a circle Aiolet had forged by concentrating darkness-attribute mana.
Yet around the edges of that massive violet ring, a flow of mana she had never noticed before was shimmering into existence. Mana of a nature utterly different from darkness was tracing a thin but solid orbit along the outer rim of the existing circle.
It was still faint—but there was no mistaking it. That was the precursor of a second circle.
Given that the circle was built from my lady's own mana, the backlash should have been brutal… and yet the foundation work is already finished?
For a mage, constructing a second circle was an enormous hurdle. The repulsive force generated when mana of differing attributes collided defied imagination—and Aiolet's first circle already held a quantity of condensed mana in a class of its own, which meant the backlash would be correspondingly fiercer and more dangerous.
That was precisely why, before they enrolled at the academy, Gladia had deliberately avoided pushing Aiolet to increase her circle count during training. More circles did not automatically mean more strength, and fewer circles did not automatically mean weakness. She had instead hammered into Aiolet the best build she knew—one that could unleash overwhelming power with a single circle alone.
But Aiolet's talent had lightly vaulted over Gladia's every calculation.
As if she needed no outside help whatsoever, Aiolet had crushed that murderous repulsive force through nothing but her own monstrous talent and sheer obsession, and had finally completed the skeleton of a second circle entirely on her own.
After gazing at Aiolet's chest for a long moment, Gladia quietly smiled down at her lady's somehow reddened face.
"My lady… you've grown so much."
"…Where exactly are you looking when you say that?! Put me down already!"
Whoa…
From a corner of the training ground, Kruse watched Aiolet and Gladia bickering and let out a silent gasp of admiration.
To her eyes, the two of them were simply off the charts. This was Stella Academy, gathering place of the empire's finest talents—and yet the magic and swordsmanship those two had just displayed belonged to an entirely different realm, a monstrous level that left every other student far behind.
The Goddess didn't tell me to seek their help for nothing.
There had been a time when Kruse resented being chosen by the Goddess. But after spending these recent days at their side and witnessing their power firsthand, she had to admit the Goddess had been right.
And with that thought, the memory of the café—when the Fragment of the Holy Sword had gone berserk—surfaced unbidden.
She had been desperately denying reality, insisting the fragment must simply be broken. But the more she confirmed those two's absurd talent, the harder it became to shake the suspicion circling in her mind: what if one of them really was the Hero?
Talent that outrageous would not be the slightest bit insufficient for the legendary Hero meant to save the world.
Then the glittering personalities(?) of those two ladies flickered through Kruse's mind.
— Hey, quack. This month's "sincerity" is a little light, don't you think?
— Now, now, my lady. Calm yourself. Surely the Saintess's friendship is worth more than that? Isn't that right, Saintess?
Kruse shuddered violently and shook her head hard enough to rattle her brain.
No, no, no! Even so, it can't be those two!
As it was, the monthly "sincerity" she paid those two had ballooned her expenses so much that the Church had recently started asking where the money was going. The Church's support was generous and Kruse herself was not hard up for cash, so the amount was not exactly crushing…
But one of those two thugs being the Hero destined to save the world? That was something she simply could not accept.
It was while Kruse was desperately rejecting her own thoughts that—
"Are you going to let go or not?! Training's over, so put me down already!"
"Oh, come now, my lady. You overdid it so thoroughly your legs have gone weak."
Accompanied by the sounds of their squabbling, Aiolet and Gladia approached Kruse's corner. More precisely: Gladia had effortlessly suppressed Aiolet's resistance and was walking over with her still held in her arms.
Having already sheathed her sword at some point, Gladia now produced a handkerchief from somewhere and carefully wiped the sweat from the face of the girl thrashing in her embrace.
Aiolet had resisted the touch at first—then finally gave up and simply accepted it in silence.
When they reached Kruse, they addressed the girl who was staring blankly at them.
"Hey, quack. What are you doing? Heal me already."
"Ah—yes, ma'am!"
Kruse snapped back to herself and hurried over, drawing up her holy power to begin treatment.
Warm, sacred light flowed from both of Kruse's hands and gently enveloped Aiolet's body. Under the Saintess's holy power, Aiolet's frame—punished by the sparring with Gladia—recovered at remarkable speed.
"Haaah…"
The healing was far more immediate and pleasant than even Principal Rustiel's restoration magic; Aiolet exhaled a languid breath. For all that she casually called Kruse a quack, deep down she had already conceded that the girl really was a Saintess. Faced with holy power and healing speed on an entirely different level, she had no choice but to admit it whether she wanted to or not.
What's more, by joining Aiolet and Gladia's training lately, Kruse's healing speed had only gotten faster. She herself failed to notice her own growth, blinded by the other two's talent—but she had long since left first-year standards behind. Talent worthy of being recognized as a Saintess, indeed.
…Not that it's done anything for how dense she is.
Still, if they kept her around, Gladia could be treated the moment she got hurt, right?
For reasons like that, Aiolet had more or less accepted Kruse into the fold of late.
Fatigue thoroughly washed away, Aiolet remained leaning against Gladia's chest and only turned her head slightly to ask,
"Dia, what's next on our schedule?"
"Apparently Professor Ellahim has summoned every first-year."
"Professor Ellahim?"
Ellahim was the 1st-Year General Coordinator Professor, but she did not personally teach first-year lectures, so after seeing her once at the start of enrollment they had barely crossed paths—and Aiolet had more or less wiped her from memory.
Aiolet briefly furrowed her brow, fishing through the scraps of recollection buried in a dusty corner of her mind.
"What's that about?"
"Sounds like she has an announcement. It shouldn't take long, so shall we check it and then go eat?"
"Yeah, let's. All this sweat has me feeling gross—I need a wash first."
At last set gently on her feet, Aiolet stretched lightly and started toward their room. Gladia fell in behind her as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
"Shall I wash your back for you, my lady? It's been a while~"
"Shut up. Just get a change of clothes ready."
"I-I'll come too!"
The witch, the maid, and the Saintess.
The bickering footsteps of three people who did not belong together filled the morning air with cheerful noise as they faded into the distance.
And so another peaceful day at Stella Academy, no different from any other, began to dawn once more.