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For my first school lunch in a week, we decided to eat at the gazebo on the west side of the training grounds. It had been built last year from leftover materials when the training area was renovated. It was your typical six-meter-wide hexagonal gazebo; there was a big table in the center with benches all around, enough for seven or eight people to sit comfortably. Counting the benches along the walls, it was big enough to fit all the girls in our class.

But today, just the upper-rank students had come. Corin, Dana, Mia, Bibi, me, and then Mary and Helena, seven of us total. Basically, the usual crew.

And for some reason, I was sitting on Mia’s lap. Yep. Lunch, while sitting on Mia’s lap, my back sinking into her soft, cushion-like thighs. It was… a surreal experience.

For some reason, she’s been glued to me since morning; she wouldn’t leave my side at all. Leading me to think that something was up. She kept muttering things like, “Danger is dangerous…” and even now, she was hugging me while sniffing my hair. It was kind of embarrassing, so I would really love it if she could give me some space.

“So, Su, you leveled the whole hill?”
“That’s amazing, Big sis Su!”
“You’re so cool, Big sis Su!”

When I told them about how I set up the campsite, Mia looked astonished, and Helena and Mary both started squealing with excitement.

“Helena, Mary, you do realize normal people can’t do that, right?”

Corin scolded the two, who were all worked up, implying, not so subtly, that I was not normal. It honestly felt kind of rude.

“Wait, what?! You cut up the rocks you made with Rock Block to build a table?! You know that not just anyone can make boulders of a size fit for a table, right?! Let alone cut it! Who are you, some kind of master?!”

Now even Bibi was piling on, firing one accusation after another, as if to say I was completely absurd.

“You understand, right? This is not something you can use as a reference,” Corin added while looking at Helena and Mary, hammering it in for good measure.

(Seriously…? The more I talk about my trial, the more everyone looks at me like I’m some kind of anomaly.)

To top it off, Bibi even lumped me in with Dana and Irvine as one of the muscleheads.

(I object!)

***

“So? You heard anything?”

After lunch, as we were having tea, Bibi suddenly turned to me.

“Just that the vanguard arrived this morning…”

She must’ve been curious about the knight orders’ movements. But all I knew was what Papa Howard told me early this morning, that the messenger from the Amukham House had brought word of their arrival.

“I see… well, that makes sense. It only happened this morning, after all.”

Bibi sighed and slumped a little.

“My father left for Amukham House early this morning, too… Looks like things are about to get hectic.”
“My dad went to Wand Village with Mom yesterday… He said they’ll be gone for a month.”
“My dad hasn’t been back for three months. And big bro Pan’s been gone half a year.”
“It’s true… almost all of the household heads from the twelve families are away right now.”
“That just shows how bad the Overflow is getting! Everyone’s short on manpower!”
“But Papa said the 10th team still has enough people, so we don’t need to worry about the knight order.”
“Ugh, I can’t just sit around! Hey, what if we all go hunting this weekend?!”

They all understood how serious the situation in Amukham was. Dana did too, of course, but her body tended to act before her brain could stop her.

“There’s no way the children’s permit would be approved in one or two days! Especially not with an Overflow happening!”
“She’s right. They wouldn’t accept it right now anyway, and even if they did, we can’t leave the safe zone. There’s no way we could handle the Overflow ourselves.”
“Yeah, you’d have to be as strong as Su to even stand a chance.”
“Ugh… yeah, you’re right. If we ran into a Red Pongo pack, we’d be toast.”
“You really are amazing, Big sis!”
“Ah! Big sis Su! Please teach me how to throw knives next time!”

While Dana slumped in disappointment, Helena clasped her hands near her chest, her soft strawberry-blonde curls catching the light, her innocent malachite-green eyes sparkling as she praised me.

(W-whoa, what’s with that pure, radiant gaze?! It’s too bright! Too bright, Helena!)

And then Mary, with her soft, platinum-blonde hair cut in the same medium length as her brother Victor, shook her head, her own eyes shining as she pleaded with me.

(Stop! It’s too much! Too dazzling! Those innocent, glittering eyes, they’re blinding me!! Please! Stop it, you two!)

“What? Wait, Mary… you want to learn knife throwing?”
“Yes! That knife technique where you crush distant enemies with a single strike! I have to learn it!”
“Ah! That’s unfair, Mary! I want to learn too, Big sis Su!”
“Eh? Ah, um… y-yeah, okay.”

“Hey, Su! What about spears? Is there a way to shoot something holding the tip, like you usually do?”
“Uh, maybe? I think so?”

(If I remember right, the Impact-type skills work with weapons other than knives and staves… But, this is troublesome… everyone’s seen me use Impact-type skills, haven’t they? Maybe I got a little too flashy that time. Well, too late now! Even if I can teach them, actually using it is a whole different matter.)

“Really? Awesome! Hehe, guess I’ll have to train until I can shoot like that!”
“But that only works if you can properly channel sword Chi into your weapon. You should probably focus on stabilizing your Chi first, Dana.”
“Right, I figured as much. Still… even when I try that spin move, where I swing the spear and clear out everything around me, it never comes out right.”

(She must be talking about Wind Blow. Dana always relies too much on brute strength, so she doesn’t focus enough on directing her Chi outward.)

“That move also won’t work unless you fully grasp your sword Chi.”
“Yeah, sword chi is so hard to control, it’s almost as tricky as Mana.”
“But unlike magic, Dana, you’ve already learned to sense your Chi. Now it’s just about training your control.”
“That’s true! All right, then, Su, you’re training with me this afternoon!”
“Ah! Dana, that’s unfair! She’s teaching me knife throwing, remember!”
“Yeah, Dana, no fair! We asked first!”
“Eh? Ah, oh, right, sorry.”
“It’s fine. Let’s all do it together. I’ll watch all three and give advice, okay?”
“Heck yeah! Then this afternoon, we all train at the training area!”

Dana just went ahead and decided on our afternoon plans.

“In that case, Corin, you and your group should join us too!”
“Huh? Us?”
“Yeah! We haven’t trained with you in a while. We should keep our skills sharp, and it’s not too early to build stamina for the trial!”
“If Su’s going, then I’m going too!”
“All right then, let’s have a proper sparring session for the first time in a while.”

And so, that afternoon, all the girls ended up training together at the training area. No matter what, none of them could sit still for long.

By the way, even the magic users did regular physical training here. In Amukham, there was no such thing as “mages don’t use their bodies.”

For those who specialized in magic, raising their Mana was paramount. And to increase one’s Mana, one had to strengthen the mind. And the fastest, most reliable way to strengthen the mind… was to train the body!

A very muscle-brained philosophy, really, but still it was true that the mages in Amukham did not forgo their physical training. According to Mr. Henry, this approach was unique to Amukham, but given that Amukham natives generally had much higher Mana than average, it didn’t seem wrong. Still… this mindset really was just like Amukham, huh?

Anyway, thanks to that, even Bibi and the other magic group girls were strong enough to take down a street thug barehanded.