Translator: Tsukii
Editor: Lilia
Read at Watashi wa Sugoi Desu!
Chapter 56 – Thus Spoke the Bard
It was a summer day so hot that people worried the leaves would burn.
“Haruto-kun, I see that you did very well on the special assignment.”
“Thank you very much.”
In the staff room where cooling magic was applied, a blond, blue-eyed student looking like a prince from a picture book sat quietly at attention.
The homeroom teacher talking to him flipped back her wavy hair and held the submitted report in her hand.
“‘Strategic Value Analysis of Creating Special Environment-Specific Monsters’… it is a valuable report with insight beyond the level of a student. I sent it to the strategy research group in the royal capital and it was very well received.”
“I’m glad then. I hope it can be of some help to the knights of the kingdom.”
Seeing the student smile brightly, the teacher also smiled.
“……So, have you apologized for the large-scale battle that occurred near the important ruins during the investigation and the destruction that resulted?”
“I already went and apologized, and I’m very sorry about that.”
The student Haruto immediately genuflected on the spot.
“Geez, I understand that enemies have to be exterminated, but…! You should learn how to fight while minimizing the collateral damage a little more! Rather, I already taught you so much about that, right?!”
“No, really, my hands just slipped, like, beams came out from my sword…”
“That’s not an excuse!”
The teacher banged the desk while half-crying.
As Haruto glanced up, he was relieved to see his teacher was still as cute as usual.
“……! It seems you aren’t reflecting at all.”
“N-no, that’s not true!”
Apparently, his inner thoughts were seen through.
The teacher sighed and urged him to stand up.
“You understand the importance of social appearance well enough and it seems you intend to utilize that from now on, so I’m teaching you a lot of things. If you want to expand your connections, please refrain from acting rashly.”
“Yes, of course.”
Haruto nodded with a serious expression.
Seeing his behavior, the teacher’s expression suddenly softened.
“……You sure have changed, in good ways.”
“Eh?”
“Back when you first enrolled, no matter what anyone said, you hardly responded, right?”
Haruto seemed to recall when she mentioned that.
He was so desperate to do everything he could, he didn’t have any leisure to see or listen to anything else.
But that wasn’t the case now. It was thanks to his friends who kept knocking on his door without giving up.
“……Is that really the case?”
“It is. You talk properly to sensei now.”
“That’s because sensei is beautiful.”
Hearing his immediate response, the teacher smiled at Haruto.
“Aah, geez… you really learned a lot of good-for-nothing stuff from Aias-kun.”
“I’m aware of that.”
It was a sad realization.
Although Haruto was aware that he regained his humanity thanks to his friends, he also learned something that was clearly unnecessary.
“Please do things in moderation, yes, in moderation… also please stop destroying the school buildings.”
“That’s their fault.”
“All of you really won’t stop blaming each other when it comes to this topic, won’t you…?!”
◇
After leaving the staff room, Haruto walked down the hallway, wondering how to spend his time after school.
His classmate Cadenta held a joint study session almost every day and he was obligated to participate, but he felt like skipping it for today.
He could have spent his time training, but it was just too hot… just as he thought this, his feet suddenly stopped.
At the end of the hallway, he could see a boy walking slowly, carrying several large bags.
Upon seeing white hair, Haruto immediately realized it was one of his classmates.
“Aias, what are you carrying?”
Haruto walked faster and caught up to his classmate, Aias Vanguard.
“Aah, isn’t it my best friend? As you can see, I was inspired and started writing poems, and it ended up with this ridiculous amount.”
“So all of those are handwritten… we can just take them to the usual warehouse, right? Give me some, I’ll help you carry it.”
Haruto held out his hand.
Of the only five students in the school, all of them were problematic, but Aias was the only one who committed the outrageous behavior of taking over a facility for personal use.
Some of the warehouses modified by him became living spaces and storage rooms that were dozens of times larger than they looked from the outside.
Obviously, if a teacher or school official opened the door, they would only enter a normal warehouse.
When Aias said, “I just skewed the dimensions, it’s just that simple,” with a smug expression, the other four students got pissed, ganged up on him, and beat him mercilessly.
“Is it okay?”
“You should ask for help at a time like this.”
At Haruto’s words, Aias smiled with an annoying sparkly effect.
His smile was about 100 times more suspicious looking than what Haruto showed in the staff room earlier.
“Oi oi, my best friend, it seems you don’t understand. When I do something like this, someone will come to help. Then after chatting, I’ll suggest we go to dinner as thanks for their help, and then lo and behold, me and the woman somehow end up enjoying coffee together while watching the sunrise.”
“……Are you trying to do that full course on me?”
“No no, it seems you really don’t understand a thing. This method can be used by both men and women, and there will be tons of women out there who will try that on you. You shouldn’t casually help people who look troubled whenever you find one. Have you learned your lesson?”
“You sure make me learn a lot of unpleasant stuff…”
Haruto shifted the weight of the baggage he received and started walking with Aias.
Seeing the frowning Descendant of the Hero, the aspiring bard told him not to be so sullen.
“I’m just worrying about my best friend in my own way. It’s good that you became more human-like, but you’re just too naïve. At this rate, I’m worried that you will start saying that five of us should share a house together when we graduate.”
“……I’m aware that I tend to have narrow yet deep friendships.”
Aias’s warehouse was just outside the school building.
The two opened the door, went inside, and placed their belongings in the vast space.
“You totally ignored us when you first enrolled, but you sure have changed a lot. You seemed so unresponsive that you would have ignored fireworks exploding right in front of you. Do you have any idea how much our delicate hearts have been wounded by that?”
“Delicate hearts…?”
“Yep, wounded just like now~”
Aias raised his hands in a playful manner, then scooted over to grab Haruto’s shoulder.
“But you really should be grateful, you know. We worked so hard and finally managed to push your rubbish social skills to the bare minimum after all.”
“I can’t deny that, but stop wording it that way.”
“Especially Cadenta, she was so aggressive in making advances toward you since the beginning of the school period… I thought the both of you might end up dating but-”
At that casual remark, the Descendant of the Hero frowned.
Of course, he didn’t notice that the tone of Aias’ voice had changed slightly.
“You shouldn’t look at your best friend like that.”
There was no way to continue after the topic was cut off like that.
“Tch. I guess it is hard to matchmake the idiotic man too occupied with quitting being a human and the idiotic woman too occupied by her status…if only she was a woman with looser morals who responded roughly to provocation, things would have been easier~” 1
After grumbling in whispers that others couldn’t hear, Aias laid down on the floor with a resigned look on his face.
“Well, let’s leave that aside. Since we’re already here, we might as well chill.”
“Oh, that’s a good idea. Let’s take it easy here today.”
“What’s with your tone?” 2
Haruto also laid down on the sofa, then turned to lie on his side.
Haruto closed his eyes and began to construct a magic formula in his head.
“O~oi, I can tell that you’re researching magic constructs~. I won’t call that resting.”
“Okay, okay…”
“I won’t be able to rest if you’re doing something like that. Let’s take it easy.”
“What’s with your tone?”
But it seemed it was impossible to continue thinking next to a man who was talking noisily.
After laughing lightly, Haruto tried to spend his time doing nothing for the first time in a while but-
BAM! There was the sound of a door swinging open with great momentum.
That was a door that could only be opened by students approved by Aias.
The two boys stood up at the same time.
The intruder was a female student with fiery red hair who was glaring at them.
“Hou! It seems you’re so great that you are slacking now, my compatriots!”
“Shit, the mad dog is here! Let’s bail, Haruto! Or she’ll bite us to death!”
“Damn it…! I shouldn’t have run away to a place easy to guess…!”
The two came to learn that the vast space was very suitable for a game of magic tag.
◇
I had a nostalgic dream today.
I think it was the time of my life when I felt the most omnipotent.
It was the time when I thought I could achieve anything together with them.
“…………”
As I was walking to the classroom for morning homeroom, I suddenly looked around the hallway.
Since it had been rebuilt over and over, it wasn’t exactly the school building in my memories.
But when I was in this space, I sometimes remembered the faces of the people I was studying with.
“……It feels tough to be back here because of this.”
After exhaling, I entered the classroom.
There were only three desks lined up, each with a flashy looking student waiting for me.
“Good morning~ Teach’!”
“Good morning.”
“Morning~♡”
I smiled back at the three who greeted me cheerfully.
“Aah, good morning everyone.”
“Uuh… isn’t that expression of his a bad sign?”
“It’s no good. It’s the expression that says he’s going to give us a weird lesson.”
“Let’s run away ♡”
“Hey, hey, hey.”
The three of them grabbed their bags and started moving toward the windows and doors.
To think these girls were trying to disperse and shake off pursuers…
“It’s not like we’re going to do anything weird, okay?”
“Really? Then there’s nothing?”
“Nothing in particular. I just want to suggest for us to have elective class today by making doujinshi-”
“Scatter!!”
Along with Kuyumi’s shout, the three disappeared.
Erin used movement skills from the SwordX family, Sharon used a magic jet that had been deployed ahead of time and left through the window, and Kuyumi used her technique, escaping from the classroom in an instant.
“……We were problematic students back then, but these girls are not much different.”
After hanging my head weakly, I sighed.
To think that I, who was once the chased, now became the chaser.
Well, I just reenacted the scene when Aias and I screamed as we were pitifully captured by Cadenta.
After placing the attendance record on the teacher’s desk, I checked the direction each person had fled and quickly headed to capture them.
──As for Kuyumi, who managed to persevere until the end, with great regret, I had no choice but to catch her using the foul impact discharge magic that I had seen and copied the other day.
The accuracy was low, so I guess I would ask Sir Gowasu about it the next time I saw him…
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