230 – Black Footprints (5)
“Try covering your eyes again.”
As Callius said, I closed my eyes again. And then, before my breathing could stabilize, Callius threw a stone.
Woong-
My facial muscles twitched slightly in reaction to the sound of the wind being cut.
Callius let out a low groan.
“I’ll have to cover your eyes and ears. It’s not bad to have sensitive senses, but it’s only getting in the way of your training right now.”
“….”
Then, something rustled in the bushes nearby, not us.
Since it was the first time I had been interrupted in my training by something like this, my attention immediately turned to where the sound came from.
As I tried to pick up my wooden sword, Callius signaled me to stay still with his hand.
The forbidden forest where we are located is an area completely devoid of demons. In that case, it could be identified as something like a labyrinth worker. If not…
“Oh, you were here!”
Trisha was the one who came out of the bushes, pushing them aside.
“Whew.”
“Oh, Grandpa?”
“Isn’t this the disaster collector, Azrael?”
“Ack! Grandpa!”
Trisha ran over, bouncing. She then greeted Callius cheerfully. What the heck. Did the two of them know each other?
“hehehe, the little missy has grown so much in the meantime. hehehe.”
“Grandpa, can you burn that for me? Seagull!”
“No. Now that you’re a lady, you need to learn how to play a little more gracefully.”
“Oh, that’s right. I’m a complete lady now!”
“By the way, why did you come all the way here, miss?”
“I came to see a friend! That jerk over there!”
Callius glanced at me and then turned his head back to Trisha.
Trisha even came with her disguise off, and even with her jangly white hair. This was the first time I had seen an outsider who knew her real name and appearance. It seemed like Callius had been watching Trisha since she was young, but they didn’t seem to be related by blood. Was he one of Trisha’s many teachers?
I can’t seem to focus at all with Trisha here. I don’t know about anything else, but she’s definitely getting in the way of my meditation. I wonder if I’ll make a mistake. I wonder if I’ll have an accident. I’m starting to worry.
From Noble mtl dot com
I’d have to say it feels like I left a child near a cliff.
“Little miss, come over here for a moment.”
Callius and Trisha stepped away from me and began to chat animatedly. Callius would say something, and Trisha would laugh out loud. I think I heard my name for a moment. What on earth are they doing.
“Grandpa, I’m going to go now! Take good care of my friend!”
Trisha left after only a few minutes. Why on earth did she come here?
When Callius returned, he began to berate me out of nowhere.
“You damn fool!”
“…Did she happen to say anything bad about me?”
“No, that little girl only said good things about you. Are you that suspicious?”
“Then why are you acting like this?”
“Have you even looked into that child’s eyes recently?”
What was Trisha, who I had to see every day, trying to say?
“What do you mean?”
“She doesn’t like you! How dense can you be? How else do you think she ended up finding you? Look at this idiot.”
She likes me? Can you tell that just by looking into someone’s eyes? Are you some kind of mind reader? It was such an abrupt announcement that I felt like I had been hit in the back of the head.
“…I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“How closed off can you be to not even sense that? Don’t you know how precious that pure heart is?”
“….”
“We’re done with training for today. Go back.”
“It’s only been a little while?”
“Go on a date with that kid tomorrow.”
“What the….”
“Is this a part of your training too? Yes, this is also part of your training, so go on a date and satisfy that kid. I’m not joking, so listen carefully. If I ask you about it next time and you haven’t satisfied her, I’ll send you back until you do, so keep that in mind.”
What kind of nonsense is this? Ordering me to go on a date out of the blue.
“But before that, a wizard can’t love….”
“I said the kid likes you, when did I say she loves you? And that kid is not a wizard. She’s more than that.”
“….”
What could possibly be a level higher than a wizard? A grand wizard? A god? In my eyes, Trisha is just a friend who is lacking in many ways to be called by such a grand title.
“Did I ask you to get married? It’s just one date, so don’t get your hopes up. Oh, and ask her out properly. If you tell her I told you to do it, it’ll be void.”
The swordsmanship that I really wanted to learn, I’ve never been taught it, and all of a sudden, my training has gone in an unexpected direction.
There is one lesson I learned when I was a training apprentice at the forge. When you’re learning, you have to kill your ego.
If you whine and doubt everything, your growth will be slow, and sometimes you’ll end up on the wrong path. You have to accept it first.
***
“Alright, class is over, so anyone who wants to keep drawing can stay. Oh, Lilit, can you help me water the plants?”
“Yes.”
With Professor Georgia’s words, the class was over.
I stayed in the greenhouse to finish my drawing since there was still time left.
Most of the seniors and juniors left for their next class.
As I drew, I had a headache thinking about how I should ask Trisha out on a date.
After a couple of hours, the art club president, Hailey, entered the greenhouse.
“Newbie, are you still here?”
“You’re here?”
Hailey came behind me and rested her chin on my head to look at the painting on the easel.
“What are you drawing? It looks familiar.”
“I’m copying a painting by Lautrec.”
“Newbie, your drawing is getting better. More importantly, are you ready for Claridium? The schedule should be out soon.”
“Don’t I just have to show up?”
“No, you need a lot of money to have fun. You need to think about how you’re going to entertain the seniors you like, and as soon as you get back, you have your final evaluations, and after that, you have the exchange match preliminaries, so the end of the semester will be busy.”
I wasn’t too worried about the final evaluations. The combat department focused on basic physical fitness and magic studies, so the difficulty level wasn’t high, and the liberal arts and material studies that I took separately were things I already knew.
“Are you ready, senior?”
“Oh. That’s right. Your friend, the blonde one from the drama club.”
“Yes. Do you mean Luna?”
“Yeah. The blonde who’s less pretty than me.”
“….”
Hailey pinched my jawline as she spoke.
“Yes, that’s her.”
“Yes.”
“She was hanging around near the greenhouse with a basket. Did you call her?”
“No. Is she still there now?”
“I just saw her a moment ago?”
“…I’ll be right back.”
I walked out of the greenhouse and circled around it. And sure enough, there was Luna, hugging the wall of the building with her head down, holding a basket.
I walked up to her.
“Luna?”
Luna reacted immediately, lifting her head. But her eyes were bloodshot. And her body was shaking slightly. She had been crying over something.
“What’s wrong?”
As I approached her, she retreated as I got closer. It was as if she had returned to the old days when she was afraid of me.
Her appearance shocked me quite a bit. Ever since we defeated the black spirit, we had only grown closer, never further apart.
“Luna, what’s going on?”
“….”
What on earth had happened to make her like this?
She looked at me with tearful eyes. It seemed as if she would burst into tears at the slightest touch. Luna silently put down the basket, turned around, and ran away.
I checked the contents of the basket.
Inside were the outer and undergarments that Cecil had worn yesterday. I don’t know how Luna got her hands on this, but it was clear that she had seriously misunderstood something.
She couldn’t have been disappointed that Cecil had stayed overnight at my place. If that had been a problem, she wouldn’t have tolerated living in the same building as Trisha in the first place.
Hailey approached me slowly from behind.
“Newbie, I saw you two together by accident.”
“….”
“Did you two fight?”
“No… To be honest, I don’t really understand why. She never acts like this normally.”
“Sometimes things happen. Women tend to get sensitive at certain times. Their emotions explode, their appetites go haywire, and their abilities drop in various ways.”
“….”
“At times like that, it’s best to just accept it and talk to them again after the storm has passed.”
“Senior….”
“Eggy, if you put the effort you put into that blonde into Jenia, you would have already gotten married.”
“…….”
I needed to explain things to Luna, but the problem was that my date with Trisha was scheduled for this afternoon.
I was worried that the unresolved misunderstanding and emotional turmoil would only deepen.
***
“Ahem~”
Inside the running carriage, Trisha hums a cheerful tune.
Since there were prying eyes watching, I brought Trisha out of the campus for the time being.
Trisha had always been a fan of going out to play, so she accepted my suggestion without much hesitation.
“Damian!”
“Yes.”
“Why are you being so nice all of a sudden? Have you finally made up your mind?”
“Made up my mind about what?”
“To serve me!”
“No, not yet.”
“This is a rare opportunity! If I become someone of great stature, it’ll be too late to beg me then!”
“I’ll think about it when the time comes.”
“Tch.”
Trisha snorted and turned her gaze out the window. She continued to look out the window, mumbling to herself, then said,
“Damian, can you summon something other than a sparrow?”
“No, why?”
“There are so many white crows outside. But they keep following our carriage. I thought they were our friends.”
“Really?”
I also checked outside the window.
But I couldn’t see any of the white crows that Trisha was talking about.
“I don’t see them?”
“Over there, I can see them clearly?”
Trisha pointed to a spot with her hand. But in that direction, there was nothing but the blue sky.
“I still don’t see them.”
If Trisha could see them and I couldn’t… perhaps they were spirits.
Trisha’s eyes, which were looking out the window, suddenly widened.
“There are more of them. Why are there so many? There must be dozens of them!”
The girls are becoming more and more obsessed, good luck Mc.