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Since then, we’ve had several classes together, and I was able to approach, get noticed, and talk to her; I even got into talking terms with Palra—a commoner who aspires to become a hunter—things that would have been unthinkable for the lonesome old Bell.
However, the two of them are in a different homeroom class, so Bell couldn’t be with them all the time… Still, I’m now a bit excited about going to the academy. Even the Combat Training I hate feels just a bit bearable with the two of them there. And while we don’t meet during homeroom, at least one of them is present in most of Bell’s courses, so I even want to just skip over homeroom and get to the classes ASAP.

Palra, in particular, always gestures to me whenever she sees me, so Bell can rest assured and sit next to her, and she also talks with me a lot, so I kind of feel like we’re really close. Ailneige is… It’s weird to say when Bell is the one pursuing her, but she’s a bit hard to approach, so—

「Palra, what do you think of Ailneige?」
「Of Ailneige?」

—One day, since Bell had the chance to talk privately with Palra, Bell asked for her thoughts. Bell has been curious about how Palra sees Ailneige since they’ve been together longer, and I also wanted to hear other people’s impressions of her.

「Let’s see… It’s just a hunch of mine, but she’s probably a noble, isn’t she?」
「Bell thinks so as well.」
「But she doesn’t seem to be concerned about status and stuff, though it’ll probably be scary to get on her bad side either way.」
「Is it because she’s that strong?」
「All I know is that she’s likely far stronger than me—」
「Is that so? Understood. Thank you very much.」
「Oh, but you know, I want to get much closer to Ailneige.」
「Bell… Bell would like to become closer with her too.」

As I thought, normal people can’t seem to tell just how strong Ailneige is. Which is probably why she’s not getting talked about. After all, she’s the strongest among everyone Bell has ever seen, and that includes the principal. Bell even wonders why she’s in the academy.
Still, since she’s here, Bell wants her to stay in the academy until graduation, but Bell also thinks that the slight distance is fine. Bell just needs to be careful not to make her mad.

◇◇◇

It’s finally come: the Field Training course. Dragging my feet there, Bell was then sentenced to grouping with other people. If Bell ever joins a party with strangers, Bell would surely be ignored. That would be the best case; Bell might just get straight up bullied.
You see, after forming the party, we’ll be going into a mountain. Since the teachers’ eyes won’t always be present there, if Bell gets bullied, Bell might just die.
But very, very, very, very, very fortunately for Bell, she miraculously has acquaintances. Just as Bell had decided to turn around and run if the three of us didn’t end up in the same party, 「Shall we form a party with the three of us?」 Ailneige made a proposal.

If Bell misses this chance, there might be no other chances left, so I immediately nodded my head.

And with that, our formed party went inside the mountain, where—while it was already obvious before—Bell learned that only she has no stamina. Before that, Bell had to tell Palra that she was a noble, but Palra accepted Bell, which was really a weight off the shoulders, so that was nice. Now, with no need to keep secrets, Bell feels like we’ve gotten a bit more closer.
Bell was really surprised when Ailneige asked Palra if she wanted to know Ailneige’s true identity, but it seems like talking about it won’t really inconvenience Ailneige. In that case, then she must be a very high-status person. People occasionally get killed for knowing a high noble’s secrets, so Bell is of the opinion that Palra’s cautious judgment was correct.

If you needlessly poke your nose in other people’s business, you’ll only get dragged into trouble. Just like father’s bad tempers.

That aside, back to my stamina issue. I already knew it during Combat Training, but both Ailneige and Palra have plenty of stamina. But they’re also kind of reversed? For some reason, Ailneige, who’s a sorcerer, has even more stamina than Palra, who lived in the mountain her whole childhood.
Meanwhile, Bell gets tired after just a short walk on the mountain trail, and we had to rest because of that. If Bell had to make an excuse, keeping alert while walking made me tired much easier. But Palra, who was doing the same, seemed completely fine, so Bell probably just doesn’t have stamina.

The two of them didn’t get angry at all, and after the break we took, we ended up encountering our first monster—a goblin.
Ailneige stood in front so we only had to attack, but we were overwhelmed with this first fight with a monster, so we couldn’t move for a while even after getting instructions.
Moreover, while we were in the middle of battle, we couldn’t keep our eyes off of Ailneige’s movements. The way Ailneige fought with her rapier was, as the namesake Sword Dancing describes, smooth and almost rehearsed; it looked as if she was really dancing. When we finally remembered our current situation, we quickly returned to attacking, but in the end, Ailneige practically defeated it alone. If she were alone, she would have probably ended the fight faster.

It’s not like Bell wants to become a hunter, but Bell hates being a burden like this even more. Ailneige said that we’d eventually get used to it, but it felt as though Bell was told that she was useless, which I can’t necessarily deny.

No. That’s not it. Bell is scared of being abandoned by Ailneige. Bell is scared of being left behind, of no longer being able to experience this now-fun academy life.

That’s why Bell secretly asked Palra if we can train a bit together during our free time so that Bell can fight even just a bit better.