Around Sunday evening, we finally returned to Temple.
“There’s no place like home, right?”
“Isn’t that a little strange to say for the guy that seemed to have had the most fun?”
“Is it?”
Ludwig chuckled as he listened to my words. I wasn’t sure if the dormitory could be called home… Anyway, it was similar to one. After everyone laid eyes upon Temple, they realized that they had returned to their normal daily life; the same went for Ludwig.
It wasn’t just us who returned.
“Junior!”
Adriana and her class also came back from their group mission, so there were second years rushing towards the Royal Class dormitory as well.
Seeing how happy she was, my heart fluttered a bit.
“Oh, senior.”
“Did you also just arrive?”
“Ah, yes. That’s right.”
“What? It’s just Reinhardt.”
Next to Adriana stood the second year’s 1, Redian, the little kid who skipped a grade.
“For me to meet you as soon as I come back to Temple. Next week will be an unlucky one.”
She crossed her arms and shook her head jokingly.
“Did you only learn how to flap your lips during the group mission?”
“What? Flap my-? Are you picking a fight?”
“Stop, stop.”
When she saw two fires light up in Redina’s eyes, Adriana intervened and stopped her.
“Please understand, junior. Redina just feels bad after losing in the group mission, okay?”
“What?! That’s not it! And we won!”
“So you feel bad because you lost.”
“No, that’s not it!”
It seemed that the second years lost to Class B in their mission. I giggled at Redina.
“So that’s the reason. I’m in a good mood after winning, so I’ll cut you some slack.”
As I spoke to her teasingly, Redina’s face turned red.
“Adriana! Please scold him!”
“Okay.”
-Whack!
“Urgh! Why are you hitting me?”
“You’ve really gotten better at purposely doing exactly the things I hate, junior.”
Adriana took Redina’s hand and headed towards the dormitory, seeming so angry that she didn’t know what else to do.
“Anyway, congratulations on winning, junior! See you tomorrow then, right?”
“Yes.”
“Adriana! Scold him more!”
“I’m hungry, let’s go in and have dinner.”
“Okay…”
When I saw the two of them walking hand in hand, I couldn’t help but think they looked like sisters. They didn’t look like classmates at all. Although they had quite the height difference between them, it wasn’t just that.
After having our dinner at Temple after a long time.
“…It’s kind of weird for me to say this since I’m here as well, but isn’t it a bit too soon to go back to your daily routine already?”
On the day we returned, Ellen began wielding her sword and training in the gym right after dinner. Of course, I was also here getting back to training as soon as possible.
“Hold it tight, if you can.”
Ellen threw one of the training swords towards me, and my reflexes were trained enough that I could catch it easily.
“Sigh… I’m going to be in pain again.”
Ellen had so many talents that it was difficult to name them in one go. However, behind that talent stood the years that she had trained and put in every bit of effort.
Erich de Lafeari was also talented, but how could someone who barely put any effort into training their talent beat someone like her?
Ellen trained her own talents every single moment of her life.
She was a hard-working genius.
In fact, when I was watching Ellen fight that orc, I thought she was simply incredible—she didn’t even allow a single attack of that giant muscle pig to hit her.
Even her noticing the javelin stuck in the orc, pulling it out, and immediately stabbing it into its eye made me seriously doubt my eyes.
I’d never be able to defeat her. Ever.
“I’m coming.”
“Okay.”
However, being able to trade blows with someone like her for free every single day was a huge benefit already.
-Kaang!
Of course, things always ended with the same result.
After returning to my usual routine, I did my morning training and practiced my swordsmanship in the gym even after classes were over. Perhaps because I had to go through some less than ideal environmental conditions during the mission, I felt like my normal training schedule was like heaven.
I finally realized how incredible it was that I could drink water whenever I wanted and eat whenever I wanted. Drinking water could be found everywhere here.
Even the gym was air-conditioned. It was a rather fresh outlook on things, making me feel fortunate to be able to train in such a divine environment.
That was it.
After experiencing absolute poverty once, one’s small little studio apartment felt like a hotel. It was something like that—it was something similar to having a winning mentality.
Actually, that was kind of funny as my supernatural power was also based on keeping a winning mentality, so that way of thinking fits me quite well.
Anyway, it was good that my motivation to train had gotten even stronger after experiencing having to survive on an uninhabited island.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday.
Bertus called me and suddenly handed me a big bag.
“…Huh? What’s this?”
“What do you think it is? It’s money.”
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It was a red bag that seemed to be made of silk. It was full of shiny gold coins.
Oh, right.
“For the jaguar leather?”
But it was still in the process of being treated, right?
“Yeah. It’s easier for me to find a buyer than you on your own, right? They paid in advance already. I’ll tell Mr. Epinhauser where he’s supposed to send it.”
I already thought that it would be pretty hard for me to find a buyer for such expensive leather, so it seemed like Bertus had already looked for one before I could even start. It also looked like they paid in advance.
Anyway, wasn’t it quite touching how much he was taking care of me? Well, it felt more like payment for doing various things for him during the mission though.
“No, but… Isn’t that too much?”
I thought I heard that I would get about 10 gold coins, but judging by the bag’s weight, its content far exceeded 10.
“To tell you the truth, the buyer is my grandfather on my mother’s side, so he gave me quite the generous payment. I won the first group mission of the Royal Class, so it was only natural that he would be quite generous when it came to buying loot that came out of that.”
The Family of Bertus’s mother was Duke Salerian.
So, the person Bertus meant was, of course, Duke Salerian.
Having been in the position of being almost killed by Duke Salerian’s knights before, Bertus’s words were quite eerie.
His grandson, who might become the Emperor in the future, won his first group mission of the Royal Class. To Duke Salerian, the jaguar leather signified his victory over Charlotte.
Everything depended on the meaning someone gave it. So Bertus just sold it to the person who would offer the most money for it.
It felt kind of nasty that it was the head of the group that tried to kill me once.
“Anyway, thank you.”
I even got indirectly involved with Duke Salerian, something I would have never dared to imagine while I was trying to escape the Demon King’s Castle.
I received 30 gold coins as payment for the jaguar leather—that would be about 30 million won. What I almost left to rot in the jungle turned into a huge pile of money when I came back, so I was rather startled. If Ellen hadn’t brought it back with her, and if Delphine hadn’t properly skinned it, I wouldn’t have received that much money.
Liana was also involved, but she said she wasn’t interested in the money, so I didn’t bother going to her.
After school, I took Ellen to Class B’s dormitory and called out Delphin; then, I held out bundles with 10 gold coins in each of them to the two.
“Since we got 30 gold coins for it, let’s take one-third each. That would be 10 gold coins.”
“Okay.”
“Wow… You sold it for so much?”
“I didn’t do it directly. Bertus sold it for me.”
Delphin couldn’t believe it when she saw the bundle of 10 gold coins in front of her. She was hesitant to take the money I was giving her.
“I mean, all I did was skin the jaguar with my poor skills… Can I even accept this…?”
It wasn’t that big a deal, but it seemed like she felt a bit guilty accepting such a huge amount of money.
“If we follow your logic, I got this money by simply hitting a beast’s head while it was electrocuted. What’s the difference between mine and your contribution? Just take it.”
If we were talking about who worked the hardest, that would probably be Ellen.
“I-is that so…? Well, thank you anyway. I really wanted to go eat something delicious with the others.”
Delphin seemed to have planned to buy the others something with the huge amount of money. With the exception of Charlotte, all of Class B were commoners. Ellen put her 10 gold coins in the pocket of her school uniform and looked at me.
“Let’s go eat something delicious.”
“…Don’t you want to go eat something expensive, not just something delicious? Like something that you usually wouldn’t be able to eat because it’s too expensive?”
“ Yes.”
…She was only thinking about eating the same food prepared differently.
In the end, Ellen and I went to eat a full course at one of Temple’s most luxurious restaurants where only the kids of noble families went.
It was delicious.
It was delicious, but…
“How could they ask for one gold coin for a dish? How does that make sense?”
It was a bit more expensive than we thought it would be.
“You’re right.”
“I mean, it was tasty, but I’m not paying that money just to eat that!”
“…Is that so?”
It was delicious, so Ellen seemed to be alright with it.
“The amount was just too little.”
“…Seriously, there just has to be a dimensional crack in your stomach.”
I was completely convinced that the Gates already opened disguised as Ellen’s stomach.
Anyway, Ellen said that she was still hungry, so she bought three hot dogs from the street.
After I returned to my daily schedule of studying and training, nothing really happened. If there was one thing that changed, it was that my physical abilities gradually rose.
And…
And!
[Strength 6.2 (D)]
[Agility 6.7(D)]
[Dexterity 7.7 (D+)]
[Magic 11.3 (B-)]
[Stamina 10.8(C+)]
[Demon Domination D](An Archdemon’s unique ability)
(Cannot be used in current state.)
[Self Suggestion D]
[Swordsmanship F]
Comprehensive Ability Assessment – Lowest Level Demon
Battle Level Evaluation : D+
As one could see.
My pseudo-swordsmanship had finally evolved into swordsmanship.
I did it. I’ve got it.
Self-suggestion also rose to D rank, so my combat level rose to D+ Rank. It jumped right up from F+!
“Kuhuk…”
It might feel like insignificant growth to some, but to me, it showed the results of my hard work.
Ellen tilted her head as if she didn’t know why I suddenly sat down on the gym floor and looked thrilled. That girl was 90% responsible for the evolution of my swordsmanship.
“Thank you! It’s all thanks to you!”
“…Are you sick?”
When I teared up and expressed my extreme gratitude to her, Ellen put her hand on my forehead and said: “You don’t have a fever, so what’s wrong with you?”
“Kuhuk… I-I could actually do it. I… Always believed I could do it!”
It was such an emotional thing for me to have finally escaped pseudo-swordsmanship. Every time I checked my status and saw that I felt dirty!
…Of course, it was a bit disappointing that my evaluation only rose to D+ after all the sh*t I did, but it couldn’t be helped.
Life was long.
In other words, there was still a lot of time left for me to work hard.
Only one semester had passed, but when I remembered the simple fact that I still had several years of that sh*t left to live through, I suddenly felt like my body had lost all its strength.
“…Sigh, I want to quit.”
When I despaired by myself after I got all happy, Ellen just turned around and started swinging her sword on her own.
However, thinking about all the people who were a lot stronger than me—who was just a D+ Rank—I found my motivation again.
In any case, I wasn’t leading an idle life, but there just wasn’t anything special happening during my daily training sessions. The only small pleasure I had was checking my gradual growth in stats occasionally.
In the morning, I exercised with Adriana, and after class, I did strength training until dinner, then I would practice my swordsmanship in the gym.
However, there was a problem.
I was getting more and more afraid of my morning training.
“Let’s just go once, okay? Please, Junior?”
The church sister was getting more aggressive with her preaching.
My biggest problem was that I had to keep in my temper because I received too many things from her up to then. I couldn’t curse at her after she had been so good to me, but I didn’t know how to politely refuse someone kind of close to me asking such things of me.
“If you decide that you don’t like it after going there just once, it’s okay if you don’t want to come anymore. So just come with me this once.”
Sister, you’re killing me!
“Aah! Fine!”
Eventually, I fell to her persistent missionary work.
“However, just once.”
“That’s fine, Junior! I’m sure you’ll also come to like it!”
It was nice to see Adriana smile so broadly. With that, I eventually accepted my defeat.
Chapter end
