After the short and thick summer vacation in the Perdalos estate, the morning of the journey to return to the academy finally dawned.

I was waiting for the carriage to come in front of the gate of the Perdalos Mansion, carrying only the necessary amount of luggage.

Delphina came out with them on the way for the last time and saw them off.

I said there was no need to see him off, but he still wanted to see me getting into the carriage.

I stood side by side with her and talked for a long time.

As the carriage was almost arriving, I handed the present to my sister.

“Delphina.”

“Did you call me, brother?”

“Take this.”

“What is this? The jingling must be a pouch of coins.”

“Check it out.”

Delphina, who always looked like a model of a noble lady, accepted the sack that came out of my arms with a bewildered expression.

As soon as I checked the contents of the heavy sack, my eyelids fluttered wide.

“Oh, brother?! What is this? Could it be that the coins in this sack are all gold coins, no silver coins or copper coins?”

“There will be about two hundred. I haven’t counted them all.”

The sale price of the guy he hunted at the hunting festival was a little over 500 gold coins.

From there, except for the distribution of the other two party members or my personal money, the rest would probably be about that amount.

“This, two hundred outlines?!”

“Because it’s pocket money given to my sister by my older brother, you can use it wherever you want.

Whether it was used to buy new windows in preparation for entering the academy next year, or used for tuition, the remaining money was used to manage the estate. Do whatever you feel like.”

“Wow, where did you get this much money… . Could it be that the contents of the letter from before were all true?”

“I still didn’t believe you.”

Before leaving, I showed Delphina the small sign attached to her cloak one last time.

It was an honorable medal given only to the winner of the Academy Hunting Festival.

There was no way that Delphina, who was rich in culture, would not be able to figure out what this medal was when she saw it.

The look in my sister’s eyes toward me grew even more respectful.

“After processing the monsters caught in the hunting festival, I made quite a profit.”

“Like, how many monsters did you deal with… .”

“If even this amount is not enough, write as many letters as necessary and send them. I can send you more anytime.”

“This is enough, brother. Besides, this alone has already exceeded the budget for one year of the Perdalos estate.”

Delphina’s face was reddened, perhaps because she was moved, and her eyes were even slightly welling up with tears.

If we continued like this, we would continue to feel embarrassing for each other.

“The carriage has arrived, I will go back now.”

After patting Delphina on the shoulder, he got on the carriage to return to the academy.

“Ah, goodbye, brother… .”

“See you at the academy next year. Don’t forget to submit your application form.”

“Yes Yes… .”

Finally, after saying goodbye to Delphina, who was weeping, he started the carriage heading to the High Garden estate.

It was the end of the most valuable summer vacation where I was able to shake off a lot of things that were stuck in my heart.

⁎ ⁎ ⁎

After returning to the academy from the Perdalos Territory, a month passed in an instant.

The first thing he did upon returning from the estate was to meet Stella and Lulu.

To be precise, it was a process to check how the two of them spent their summer vacation.

It was especially important to check Stella’s growth.

Originally, the last hunting festival would have been an opportunity for her to gain practical experience.

Unfortunately, there were no conspicuous situations in which Stella could play an active role last time.

Somehow, my presence could have been a hindrance to her now.

It was a process to confirm that it was not.

Fortunately, the report back from Stella was an answer that made me seriously think about acting with me in the future.

First of all, I thought it was enough to support her growth.

As soon as summer vacation began, Stella requested her father, Professor McDowell, and received intensive swordsmanship training for about two months during the vacation.

He was making good use of his father’s advantage as a swordsmanship professor.

As soon as I asked if I could show off the skills I learned during the vacation as a test, it returned to a series of movements that were so fast that it was hard to follow with my eyes.

Compared to his previous life, he was growing much faster.

I was curious about what made Stella try so hard, so I asked.

These words came back from her without hesitation.

“It’s because I also want to become strong enough to not lose to senior Conrad as soon as possible, and become a person who is not ashamed to stand by senior sunbaenim!”

It was as if my presence was having a positive effect on her.

Also, it was a fairly satisfying answer to hear.

In any case, it meant that the actions I was taking now for Stella would eventually change her in a better direction than before.

Now that her swordsmanship skills were unparalleled even compared to those of upperclassmen, what she needed from now on was more hands-on experience.

That’s why I was taking him along with me on hunting activities as much as possible and developing the flexible thinking needed to respond to immediate situations.

In the case of Lulu, unlike Stella, she did not achieve explosive growth during vacation.

The skills Lulu learned at the academy so far were not direct combat skills, and there would be no personal teacher like Stella to teach her.

Instead, as soon as this semester started, she first signed up for three combat classes.

One is dagger sparring, which teaches her how to handle her main weapon, the dagger, and builds her interpersonal skills through actual combat.

Another is bare-handed self-defense in case a weapon is not in hand or stolen in an emergency situation.

Lastly, it was an understanding of poison that made it possible to overcome the lack of physical ability in various ways and besides, it was possible to use it efficiently in various ways.

All three of them were subjects that she used in her previous life and were no different from Lulu’s specialties.

It must mean that both the Lulu in the previous life and the Lulu in the present must be the Lulu I know.

Even so, I asked because I was worried about applying for three physically demanding subjects at once, and this was the answer that Lulu returned.

“… I can’t just be protected by you forever.”

In other words, it was her own assertion that she could also become a sufficiently useful force.

Of course, Lulu now is helping me enough, and there will be many things in the future that cannot be done without her.

Aside from that, Lulu’s desire to improve would soon return to the advantage for both her and me.

In the case of Lulu, we decided to meet her as often as possible in her free time and manage her condition so that she would not collapse from exhaustion due to the physical burden.

That’s how the two people who will participate in the next hunting party party are roughly confirmed.

There was only one colleague who hadn’t properly grasped the situation yet.

On the last day we talked, it was Xian senior who broke up after proposing to join the party.

Whether or not she decided to join my party. Not to mention I still haven’t heard the answer.

Even though it’s been more than two weeks since the beginning of the semester, Xian-senpai never appeared in front of me at the academy.

For me, who had planned to organize a party with her in the 2nd semester hunting festival, of course, senior Xian’s behavior was embarrassing.

I had a small doubt whether he had properly thought of the proposal I had made before.

There’s no way that would be the case, but if I were to be rejected, I would have had to take another recruitment method.

If we miss this opportunity and our relationship grows apart again, there is a possibility that we will not be able to include senior Xian in the Demon God Subjugation Force.

Because it was such an important matter, I went to see Xian myself on several occasions, but for some reason, I was unable to meet him once and turned my steps around.

At this point, maybe he was intentionally avoiding it, to the point where such a thought naturally came to his mind.

“Did I contact you too soon?”

Although it was true that he attended the same academy as senior Xian in his previous life.

At that time, they started a relationship in which they were completely unaware of each other’s existence until she was included in the subjugation party.

By the time I started to gain attention after liberating Circle 5 in earnest, Senior Xian had already graduated from the academy and had returned to his hometown, the Forest of the World Tree.

At this time, it was true that Xian and I originally didn’t know each other.

That’s why I said it was amazing luck to build a relationship with senior Xian at the last hunting festival.

Besides, I thought we became close friends after saving Xian-senpai’s life at the hunting festival and talking together at a drinking party.

Maybe I was the only one who thought that way, and senior Xian might have felt uncomfortable with me inside.

Thinking that I might have acted too hastily, my head became complicated as if a tangle of threads was tangled.

That frustrating feeling continued until someone appeared in front of my eyes.

“What’re you doing?”

While sitting on a bench after an evening workout and contemplating what to do next.

Xian sunbaenim finally showed his face in front of me without any warning.

“Senior Xian?”

“Why are you sitting there holding your head in such a hat? As if there is something to worry about.”

Senior Xian sat down on the bench next to him and opened his mouth with a dry expression, probably not thinking that he was the cause of the trouble at all.

“I thought kids like you lived without knowing worries or worries.”

“Don’t talk nonsense. I do worry about it too.”

“If you’re worried about your age… . Could it be a problem with the opposite sex?”

“It’s because of Xian-senpai.”

“… me? Is it because of me?”

Xian sunbaenim showed an unusually flustered appearance, and then her pure white face was quickly dyed pink.

“I asked you to come to our party the other day, but you didn’t answer and you didn’t even show your face.”

After hearing my words, Xian put on a sorry expression and pressed his panicked expression back to normal.

“… Do not make me confused.”

It wasn’t something senior Xian could have said.

Including the vacation period, we haven’t seen each other for over three months.

If I exaggerate a little, it means that a long time has passed without meeting her to the extent that I wonder if I have forgotten the existence of me.

“I’ve visited you a couple of times, but you avoided it on purpose, right?”

“… It took me a while to organize my thoughts. Before that, I didn’t think he would answer me anyway, so I avoided him.”

“What do you think? Any thoughts on continuing with the previous party members?”

“That’s not the case, because the question remains whether you won’t regret joining your party.”

“What do you have to regret? It’s strange that I and Xian-senpai can’t win at the same party.”

“That is normal. My question is something else.”

As soon as I heard the next words from Xian-senpai’s mouth, memories of her during the drank punitive squad came to my mind.

“The question of whether you, junior Konrad, are really stronger than me.”

As befits an elf race with a strong sense of self-pride, she also had a rather troublesome personality.