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「It’s important for making coordinated actions as a party.」
「That’s certainly one factor. Particularly for sorcerers and archers attacking from behind, it’s important to raise your voice; otherwise you might accidentally hit your companions. One more utility of yelling is to catch the attention of the enemy as a front-liner; this gives your other party members greater leeway to prepare their spells and can also help raise overall morale.
Even when you’re not up against monsters, it’s still useful to communicate during large-scale battles.」

After giving Ciel that explanation, Mr. Ishparht then turned to Grimid.

「With this information, reflect on why you lost until our next meeting.」
「Ugh… understood.」

Handed an assignment, Grimid nodded with a sour look on his face.

He can probably give an answer right now, but as expected of an educator, Mr. Ishparht wants Grimid to really contemplate about the match. He’ll remember it more than if he was simply told the answer, and more importantly, it’ll help train critical thinking skills.

Since hunters are free to choose their work, you encounter many situations where you really have to think carefully before you act. Even the act of choosing a request to work on requires you to think for yourselves. While hunters are mainly classified by rank, there are individuals who specialize in material gathering and ones who specialize in fighting.

Even among the battle specialists, there are those who have outstanding offensive capabilities and those that focus on keeping the value of the monster’s materials high by subjugating them with as little damage as possible. For your own future growth, you need to be able to reflect on your actions. Otherwise, becoming a high-rank hunter will be difficult―or so they say. We’ve skipped several steps in our promotion, so while Carol did teach us a lot, we lack common sense in a lot of stuff.

Which, I suppose, is why we’re here at the academy.

Not long after Grimid and Mr. Ishparht’s exchange ended, the teachers announced our class period was officially over.

From here on, we are to return to the dressing rooms to change into our uniform for the afternoon homeroom meeting. These days, we walk together with Palra (who we share homeroom with) and Belltina (who we don’t, but is in our party) to our destination. From the second week after the start of the classes, Palra would lend Belltina a shoulder after class since she’d be unsteady on her feet from the physical exhaustion.

The reason why we don’t help―while it’s also partly because Palra does it voluntarily―is because Ailneige can’t really support Belltina with her physique. While we do plan to help if Palra has difficulties, but compared to Ailniege, Palra is much more physically capable, particularly because of her Job. Even if we intervened, our contribution would likely be minimal.

And so today, while firmly holding Belltina’s hand, Palra came right before us.

「You were amazing today, too, Ailneige. I couldn’t take my eyes off of you. I think you’re probably the strongest in our year?」
「Not far in the future, that…」
『Grimid.』
「Grimid would likely be able to overpower me.」
「Really?」

Palra said while tilting her head.

「Really; I’m just a sorcerer, after all.」
「Oh, yeah, that’s right. But you still look really cool when swinging a sword, you know?」
「Thank you for the praise.」

Ciel answered in an obligatory tone, but Palra doesn’t seem to take offense from it at all. This patient nature of hers is probably one of the factors that kept us willing to interact with her.

Palra has gotten more friendly and easy-going than before, but she still never oversteps our personal boundaries. A certain church-affiliated girl could learn from her example.

While chatting here and there, we returned to the dressing room. Before, we changed clothes at our own pace, but recently we’ve been changing together more.

This is mostly to help Belltina change into her uniform, though. Unlike before, Belltina is able to recover enough to be able to change on her own, so you could say that is a vestige of that practice.

Belltina looks like Palra’s little sister when being helped into new clothes; it’s really adorable. It doesn’t happen much these days, but whenever Belltina is especially tired, you can see Palra taking care of her.

It appears that Belltina has really opened up to Palra, as even when she looks well enough to change on her own, she occasionally asks Palra to help her change.

As we finished changing, Belltina reluctantly returned to her class with the look of a calf going to the market to be sold.

While I’ve never actually seen a calf about to be sold before, her face is just filled with sadness. I really hope she can make friends in her own homeroom class. Though if that were easy to do, neither Belltina nor Palra would be suffering as much as they do.

「Ailneige, can we talk a bit after the teacher’s announcements?」
『How should I answer?』
『What do you want to do, Ciel?』
『I think chatting shouldn’t be a problem? No, it might be nice to have a chat with her.』
『In that case, let’s hear her out.』

If Ciel was not inclined to hear her out, I was thinking that I could listen in her place, but since Ciel is willing to go herself, there’s no need to complicate things.

I wonder if this is because Ciel has opened up to the two girls. If that’s really the case, I feel happy, yet also lonely; it seems like I’m never going to outgrow Ciel at this rate. Well, I don’t plan on doing so, though.

「It’s fine. While we’re at it, why don’t we have dinner at the cafeteria as well?」
「Sure, and thanks. Also, do you mean the academy one?」
「There will probably be fewer people, you see.」
「Good point. Okay, I got it.」
『Is that alright?』
『Yes, of course. In that case, however, let’s contact Mia as well.』
『Understood.』

Since bringing attendants is allowed in the academy, you can ask to send a message to your own room. With that, we can inform Mia that we won’t be needing dinner.

Mom might get angry if you eat dinner outside without prior notice, after all. Well, Mia’s not our mom, and she probably wouldn’t get angry, but there’s no need to needlessly inconvenience her.

And so, Ciel sent Mia a message before returning to the classroom.