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After I somehow managed to stop Aste, I asked Maxwell to seal this place off. Only Aste and Maxwell knew of this place, but I couldn’t trust Aste to not sneak in here.

Since I couldn’t take my secret collection with me, it was better to seal it off.

Also, we had almost no time left. It was almost sunrise. I was so sleepy that my head drooped every time I loosened my focus.

For my young body, staying up all night was a very burdening action. We decided to part with Aste outside my base and return back right away. We were using Kabby as my replacement, but there were still problems with that plan.

“Well then, I’m worried about the inn, so we’ll return now. You can carry those materials home yourself, right?”
“Yeah, this much is nothing. I’ll deliver it to Raum when it’s done. You can pay at that time.”
“I’d be pretty troubled if you slap me with a huge bill…”
“Well, I can just send it to Maxwell in the worst case.”

After saying that, he quickly teleported back to his cave. He was quite a strange guy. He had a playful personality, but was quite stubborn too sometimes. You’d think he’d give you some freebies, but he’s actually stingy when it counts.

I couldn’t read his personality at all.

“Well then, let us return, shall we?”
“Yeah, Maria or Cortina could drop by to check on me if we don’t hurry.”
“My familiar is there, so you should not worry too much. It does not seem like they visited the room yet.”
“Oh, right, you can share your vision with your familiar.”

Maxwell, who could share his vision, said the situation was fine, so Maria and Cortina probably just went to sleep. Well, it was difficult to imagine them still being up until so late.

Well, I still wouldn’t put it past Lyell to trespass into my room, but I still hoped that he wasn’t so shameless as to sneak into a room full of girls.

“Well, we should return while we can. Today’s events tired me quite a bit. I can only rest for a bit if we go back now, but it’s still better than nothing.”
“Good grief. This is why you are still a child.”
“I can say the same to you. Isn’t it a bit hard for an old man like you to stay up all night?”

Not to mention, Maxwell used Cargo magic, too. It was a spell that strengthened the body through magic power, but that extra stamina didn’t come from the thin air. It simply compensated for stamina with magic power.

This old man had nigh bottomless magic power reserves, but he had to teleport 300 people today. He had to be feeling some fatigue after all that.

“Well, unlike you, I continued fighting ever since your death. My magic power increased even more.”
“Seriously? Now that I think about it, Maria seemed to have learned the teleportation magic quite easily.”
“In her case, she already had the aptitude for it. She simply practiced the skills she already knew.”
“I’m so jealous.”

I can’t even use mid-grade magic. I barely finished learning elementary magic. I understand that Maria, who was originally a pure rear-guard, would have different qualities compared to me, but it didn’t change that I was jealous.

In an attempt to shake those feelings off, I urged Maxwell to hurry up with returning.

“Oh, well, let’s just go back already. Our business in the Sword Kingdom of Alecmarle is done with this.”
“Good grief, you are no fun.”

Despite his complaints, he worked his magic fast and opened the Teleport Gate. He was messing around, but his spell activation was as smooth as ever. You really couldn’t find faults with him when it came to magic.

The next morning, I made an excuse that the last day’s fatigue and fainting had made me feel bad, and I managed to sleep through the rest of the day. I was cutting my sleep short due to my usual training and hunting.

You could say that my body was under constant stress. Upon reflection, there was a possibility that it was actually having the opposite effect on my stamina growth. As such, I decided to make use of this opportunity and get plenty of sleep.

Thus, I used Kabby as a body pillow and slept all day. We had a tour of the history museum scheduled for that day. I was a local, so it was pretty meaningless for me.

When they returned, my classmates started giggling after they saw me hugging Kabby in my sleep, but I didn’t really care.

And, during our free time in the afternoon, I tagged with Letina to buy souvenirs—I only had Finia and Michelle to give them to—and we spent our final night in Alecmarle.

After being dragged around day after day, the students’ energy hit rock bottom. They slept like logs, and the day of return finally arrived.

After Maxwell returned us today, he had to visit Matara Alliance and the United Alliance and bring the other students back as well. In exchange, Cortina had to take command of all students afterward.

Naturally, with her long experience as a teacher on top of being an army commander, there were no problems with that.

After she gave a precautionary speech to the students gathered in the schoolyard, we finally broke up. Since she had to deal with the aftermath, she ended up working overtime that day.

Together with Elliot, who wasn’t able to participate this time, they started going over the documents and contacted the students that did not go on the trip.

Seeing her so busy showed me that she really was just one teacher working here.

It was still forenoon now, but I decided to return home straight away to hand the souvenirs to Michelle and Finia.

Letina had to return to her mansion to not worry her mother, so I was by my lonesome… Actually, Kabby was with me.

When I reached Cortina’s house, I noticed some kind of conflict in front of it. On a closer inspection, it turned out that Finia was engaged in a fierce quarrel with Michelle at the entrance. It was extremely rare for them to have a dispute.

I tried to get between their conversation as casually as I could and arbitrate it.

“I’m back. What’s wrong with you two?”
“Ah, Lady Nicole! Welcome back.”
“Nicole, we have an emergency!”

Finia greeted me as part of her attendant duties, while Michelle rushed towards me with a heated-up expression. Her eyes were bloodshot, so I could tell she wasn’t her normal self.

“W-What’s wrong? You seem to be in panic…”
“Cloud has… Cloud has been caught!”

She dropped yet another unexpected information on me.