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Around half a month passed since I was told that the hero from one of the neighboring countries, Zelvis, was going to join Luvias’ party. They only appointed a hero there recently, probably realizing they could not ignore the state of the world any longer, and the person they chose was a female elf. Considering elves have a much longer lifespan compared to humans, she probably looks similar to me or Karin, but could easily be more than a hundred years old.

I was told she is a proficient archer and can use spiritual magic, and as a member of their army, she has plenty of combat experience. Hearing that I also felt like she could really have a stubborn personality, but that was something I’d only know for sure once I met her.

“This is just torture! There’s nothing resembling training to this!”

Diaria screamed while I made her run together with the other students in the medium archery course. The other students had so little energy left they could not utter a word, merely moving their shaky legs trying to keep running. Only someone chosen as a hero could have the spirit to keep insulting me in such a situation. Though I did not find that trait commendable in the least.

“I shouldn’t have come here! I told them I didn’t want to be here!”

I had heard how she was chosen as a hero the very day she arrived at my house. Then again, she was going to be part of our party from there on as well, so I figured it was best to know each other to have a healthy friendship, and decided to let her live together with us.

Usually, when someone with a tricky personality joins a party it can lead to a lot of internal conflicts and the eventual disbanding of the party, so I was relieved seeing she had a rather lively character. But soon I realized that her abilities were a few steps behind Karin’s. It was obvious she had told the truth when she informed us she only got selected as a hero through pure luck. We also noticed how good her luck was for ourselves soon enough.

We decided to run a few tests with her to see how her luck reacted. First, we had her throw dice and see how often she could guess the result, or how many tails when flipping coins, and many other tests. In all of them, she had an unusually high winning ratio. Unless she somehow had a similarly acute vision as mine that allowed her to instantly guess the result of a toss, she truly had inhuman luck.

That luck also helped her in unusual places, when she shot an arrow that normally would go way off target, it would draw strange arcs in the air and still her target dead on. Karin and the rest of the group seemed really excited seeing that, knowing she would become an extremely reliant rearguard once I had trained her enough.

Without me, Luvias’ party was focused too much on full-out attacks. There were two warriors and a magician, while no one offered any healing or support. Ciel’s magic was getting stronger, but arrows could be shot more easily. Powerful magic had the disadvantage of easily affecting one’s allies if they stood too close to the enemy after all. So adding an archer to our group meant that healing aside, the two front-liners could rely on the rear guard to support them with precise arrows when needed, and also giving Ciel more time to focus and chant. It was a good addition all around.

So none of them were against Diaria joining our party. They were all girls too, and she would be a great help on the battlefield. But when it mattered the most…

“Diaria, why are you staying still?”
“Isn’t it obvious?! I’m at my limit! I can’t even feel my legs anymore!”
“You seem quite lively talking back to me like that. Go and keep working.”

I slapped her head and she grumbled more complaints as she began running again. This really took me by surprise, at first she was really willing to train, but only one hour in and this happened. I thought maybe she was completely average aside from her luck, but she seemed more resilient than the other students so she had to be more talented. I began thinking that maybe she simply hated putting effort into things, not like anyone likes to work hard, but it was rare to see someone so against it as her. After all, everyone else training here had come of their own volition and bore with the pain.

“Well, it’s not like we have all the time in the world to train. If she hates it so much, maybe I shouldn’t force her.”

I muttered to myself as I kept watching her.