A Childhood Friend
Nearly a month had passed since I enrolled at the academy, and by now every student had more or less found their place.
There were clusters of commoners who stuck together, groups of nobles who had known one another since childhood, and even a few mismatched packs whose reasons for banding together remained a complete mystery.
Among all those circles, the one I had settled into was the one everyone already knew: the Cielian–Anne–Elicia trio.
Cielian had been famous from the very first day, so plenty of students tried to approach her—yet none of them ever managed to join our little group; they all drifted away in the end.
Anne, for her part, wandered all over the place and somehow managed to be on friendly terms with every single kid in the class. Of course, no matter how far she roamed, she always ended up right back in the rearmost seats with Cielian and me.
And me?
For reasons I still could not fathom, even after almost a full month I had failed to grow close to anyone except Cielian and Anne. Sure, I exchanged the usual polite greetings with classmates and nodded hello if we passed each other outside, but that was as far as it went.
On the first practical swordsmanship lesson there had been kids who came up to me the way Anne did. How had things ended up like this? I was starting to seriously question my social skills.
I had even tried approaching people first and striking up conversations, but the moment Cielian spotted me she would naturally start talking to me. And once that happened I had no choice but to pay attention to her, which meant the conversation with the other student inevitably fizzled out.
…
…
!
Now that I thought about it, the whole mess was my fault!
If you invite someone to talk and then suddenly start chatting alone with someone else, of course they would feel offended.
But what else was I supposed to do? If I had to choose, my own life came first. Surely my entire social circle at the academy would not end up being just Anne and Cielian… right?
What? You say I have Ian?
Ian is… well… sort of like the freebie they throw in when you buy something.
Comparing a person to an object is rude, I know, but that was roughly the feeling.
I could chat with Ian as comfortably as I liked and we both considered each other friends, yet because we belonged to different groups—and because I was glued to Anne’s side—thinking of him that way simply felt natural.
Anyway, now that most students had grown used to life inside their own classes, people finally had the mental energy to look beyond their immediate circles.
Which meant situations I would once have walked right past while focused solely on Cielian were starting to catch my eye.
“H-here… the chocolate bread I mentioned earlier…”
A timid-looking girl held out a bread roll, only for a girl who had been giggling with her friends to snatch it away with a flick of her wrist.
“What the—? Where’s mine?”
Where’s mine? Where’s mine?
Boys and girls alike in the little clique tossed one-liners at the girl who had just brought the bread.
Yet the girl had no more bread left; instead she stood there fidgeting and apologizing.
“I-I’m sorry… Th-this was the one Sena asked for earlier…”
“Hey! If you’re gonna make her run errands, make her get ours too! How cheap can you be, only ordering for yourself?”
“What are you talking about? She’s the one with no sense. Why are you yelling at me?”
Ah. I had seen this scene plenty of times. No—more accurately, I had lived it plenty of times.
Back in the assassin guild, being the youngest by a wide margin meant I was constantly summoned under the pretext of “errands.”
In reality those “errands” were just an excuse to call me over whenever they needed to vent their stress.
I never understood why they felt the need to pick on me inside such a tiny guild where we saw each other’s faces every day, but at the time it had been a considerable source of stress.
So what did I do about it?
What else? I just clenched my teeth and trained harder. Looking back, I could almost say I reached my current level thanks to those bastards.
Whenever the same guys tried to pull the old “errand” routine, I would silently draw my sword, brush imaginary dust off the blade, and let a little Aura leak out. They quieted down on their own after that.
If they still refused to shut up, I simply gave them a quick poke. Just a poke!
Before long the only person left who dared give me grief was the Guild Master. Not that I killed the bullies—the bullying simply stopped.
Anyway, the situation unfolding in front of me was painfully obvious.
On paper the girl who had brought the bread was one of their own, and the request had been framed as a simple favor between friends.
I was no saint, and there was no real reason for me to step in. But dredging up those old memories had pissed me off all over again, so intervening did not feel strange at all.
Still, even if I butted in right now, the bullying would not disappear. I might stop whatever was happening while I was watching, but since we were in different classes the harassment would simply continue—maybe even grow nastier—the moment I was out of sight.
So for the moment I held back.
Instead—
“My goodness, it’s been so long. I never imagined we’d end up at the same academy…”
I caught the girl’s hand and spoke as if we were old acquaintances.
Of course we had never met before, so she looked thoroughly startled. Before she could say a word, however, I turned to the miserable little pack in front of us.
“Sorry to interrupt your fun. She’s an old friend I haven’t seen in ages. Mind if I borrow her for a bit?”
I smiled sweetly as I spoke, but the sudden intrusion naturally drew pushback.
“Who the hell are you? What’s your problem all of a sudden—”
“Hey, hey. That’s her—the one who hangs around with Cielian…”
Fortunately one of them recognized me and stopped the others from jumping up. I was not particularly grateful, but at least the annoyance vanished.
“Well then, we’ll be going.”
With that I forcibly led the girl away. Still completely lost, she kept twisting her head this way and that, face full of confusion as she was dragged along.
We ended up in a quiet corner of the campus where few people ever looked.
Ah. If anyone saw us right now they might think I was the one shaking her down.
I pulled her even farther out of sight, all the way behind a storage shed in the corner.
The farther we went the more terrified she seemed… but clearing up a misunderstanding was easy enough.
Only once we had reached a spot no one could possibly see did I finally open my mouth.
“Sorry for dragging you off like that.”
“U-um… I don’t remember what I did wrong, but… I’m sorry. It was my fault…”
The girl apologized right back at me, face pale with fear. Ah. She had thoroughly misunderstood.
“No, please don’t. I only brought you here because I wanted to talk.”
“B-but…”
“I really just want to talk. If you keep looking so scared, you’ll hurt my feelings, you know?”
Even after saying that I still had to soothe her for quite a while before she was calm enough to hold a conversation.
“I’m Elicia. Swordsmanship Class One.”
I dipped my head lightly in greeting. The girl, still as cautious as a squirrel, timidly bowed back.
“I’m… wait. Elicia? Elicia?”
The girl who had been eyeing me warily suddenly rounded her eyes and began examining my face from every angle.
What?
“But Elicia is… no, that silver hair and those red eyes—there’s no mistake…”
She was even muttering to herself. Something felt off. I had the distinct sensation I had just poked something I should have left alone.
“Could you be… Elicia Frentz?”
Had I ever spoken the name Frentz out loud since coming to the academy?
No. Not even when talking with Cielian had I ever mentioned the Frentz family. The information had been carefully fabricated for the assassination request, of course, but just in case I had done everything possible to avoid saying the name.
Yet the girl in front of me had just spoken the name Frentz—something I had never once uttered at the academy.
“It’s me! Me! Yuri Atilea! We used to play together when we were little!”
Ah… I’m fucked…
“I see… You must have had such a hard time. I’m the one who should apologize for not realizing sooner.”
Fortunately I managed to gloss over it. The fact that the Frentz count family had been wiped out by a demon attack more than a decade ago was common knowledge.
So the excuse that the sole surviving Elicia Frentz had endured so much hardship that her childhood memories of a close friend had grown hazy seemed to land well enough.
“No, I’m the one who should apologize for not recognizing you.”
I waved my hands and continued.
“But if you’re Yuri Atilea… do you mean the Atilea family that has a Sword Master?”
There were only eight Sword Masters on the entire continent. One of them was Craig Atilea. In other words, the girl in front of me was close enough to that family to share its name.
“Mm. That’s my father.”
…Huh?
That made even less sense. Someone was bullying the daughter of a Sword Master? Only a complete lunatic would dare.
My expression must have given my thoughts away, because Yuri answered the unspoken question herself.
“I don’t really look like Father… and I’m not good with a sword. So even inside the family no one pays me much attention. Father wants both my older brother and me to grow strong, but…”
There was already a proper heir, and she was no sword prodigy like her father. Without either status or talent, the daughter of the house had simply been left on the sidelines.
Even so, she was still an Atilea—of the Atilea marquisate. Even if the Sword Master himself never lifted a finger, the name alone should have made most noble children think twice. The fact that they still ostracized and bullied her meant these kids came from families with at least some real power.
On top of that, the academy officially forbade any distinction of rank, and by imperial decree no house was allowed to interfere—directly or indirectly—in academy affairs, no matter how much everyone pretended otherwise.
“So you really don’t have to worry about it. If anything, El might… ah! Sorry. Old habit.”
“No, please feel free to call me El.”
The moment I said she could call me El, she lit up with pure delight over nothing more than a nickname and beamed at me.
“Okay! El! Anyway, it might cause trouble for you, so you really don’t have to worry about me.”
Even now this pitiful girl was fretting over my feelings.
She was the one suffering the most, yet she was worrying about someone else.
Truly… it had been a long time since I felt this filthy.