37 – Tournaments (1)

* * * *

wickedness. squeak.

My sword drew curves like tangled threads.

Piles of training grounds that soon become straw and rain water falls down.

Even so, feeling unsure, I wiped my lips with my tongue and tilted my head. As a result, the traces of intense effort felt salty on the tongue.

It is certain that my skills improved over time, but it was because the picture I pursued did not draw well from a certain point.

It didn’t stop me from doing what I could do.

The range of actions that could be done simply increased as my skills increased, but strangely, the problem was that my skills did not improve that much.

“The tournament is right around the corner, so this is how it will work…”

It was an anxiety that I started to feel as Ian’s skill was drawing a steep upward curve befitting the name of the main character not too long ago.

The tournament is a duo system.

Among the many faculties of the academy, the faculties that are treated as combat-related faculties form a two-on-two party to compete for the winner.

The winners are Year 1, Year 2 and Year 3. Two people are selected each in this way, and the winning prize is… .

-Help me to be the chief?

The right for the winner to continue to hold a senior position in the Faculty for one year.

I used this as an excuse to ask Lily for help.

Along with an apology that was like a promise that he would never look at Lily that way again.

– If you have skills like yours, can’t you win the championship even if it’s not me?

Lily asked me that question with a suspicious look on her face, so I conveyed the sad but obvious truth.

‘I have no one to go out with.’

-ah… .

Grace and Anna, who are in the same party, are not combat related. Besides, since Grace is a Divinity Faculty, she had to work as a healer on the day of the tournament.

-What about Ian Cedric? We always went together.

‘He already has a mate. My name is Selina, second-in-command of the Faculty of Magic.’

I haven’t checked it myself, but it must be so.

In the first place, the reason why this tournament was held as a duo was to prevent any disruption to Ian and Selina’s behavior later.

But that was the trigger for me to apply for a partner with Lily, so I had no complaints.

I said that to Lily, but I have no intention of stealing the championship from Ian and Selina, so there won’t be a major disruption to the flow of the original story.

Rather, as they rise to the top as the only chief, the flow of the story will enter the normal track again.

What I was aiming for was a prize that I could get when I placed second.

It was because I remembered the mention in the work.

-With this tournament, Selina and I became closer than before. Thanks to the two of them working together and continuing the tournament, now I could even tell what she was trying to say just by looking at her eyes.

-But there was a duo that developed a relationship that was incomparable to us. Losing to us in the final… … It was a party.

After the tournament ended in commemoration of receiving the pass for the secret flower garden given as the second prize, the two immediately headed to the secret flower garden, and suddenly, they became inseparable from each other.

Secret Garden Pass.

I couldn’t figure out what the hell was going on in it.

There is no doubt that the fact that it was mentioned in the work had a significant effect on the improvement of the relationship between men and women.

“But that’s why…”

Holding the white night again, he took three steps forward, drawing a line on the training dummy at the same time.

A sword that aimed only at the fatal vital points that could cause death if allowed to attack.

Saaak. Chow!

I bit my lip as my sword blade, which had been drawing a faint line like the wind, made a thick and deep cut on the pile again, leading to a normal slashing motion.

Obviously, this was a sufficiently effective attack, but it was not the sword path I was seeking and trying to draw.

My wrist moved completely different from the image in my mind, and even a sigh came out.

“ha….”

It wasn’t that I was nervous that I was weaker than Ian. From what I’ve seen, Ian still hasn’t surpassed me.

However, my plan was based on the premise that I was definitely stronger than Ian.

When I want to beat Ian, I win. When I wanted to lose, I saw the possibility because I had enough skills to lose without being obvious.

However, now Ian was clearly stronger than at the same time in the original work.

I didn’t know if Ian’s party got a chance from the mission that Ian left, or if the existence of a rival called Ian was the result of stimulating Ian’s growth.

In any case, Ian began to grow rapidly at some point,

Because of that, the important conclusion was that it might be impossible for me to deliberately lose to Ian in a way that would not be obvious.

But winning was a handshake within a handshake.

I became the only person looking for a way to lose tournaments, despite my skills.

It was impossible to ask Anna to receive and use an elixir with a temporary weakening effect.

In this tournament, you had to use common weapons provided by the academy instead of your original weapons.

As a result, the use of artifacts such as elixirs and others was also limited.

Sigh.

At the moment when I was still thinking about whether there would be a groundbreaking plan, the partner I had been waiting for finally came to the training ground.

How do you always arrive on time and without a minute’s error?

“Did you come earlier today to train? Aren’t you tired?”

“I’m from the Swordsmanship Department. It’s only natural that I have more stamina than Her Highness, the Magic Department.”

“For that matter, it seems like they train longer than the other swordsmanship departments…Well, there’s a saying that talent doesn’t shine without effort.”

Saying that, she closed the door to my exclusive training ground. Then the magic was applied and the door was automatically locked.

It was possible because I had put her on the access list in advance.

“I like the student council because it’s like this, so it’s so convenient in many ways.”

At that, I could only nod my head.

Although it was said to be a training ground exclusively for me, there was a separate training ground assigned to her as a member of the student council.

Those who are not members of the student council had no choice but to match each other in the common training ground that everyone could see.

A structure that has no choice but to practice while risking strategy leaks in the position of preparing for the tournament to somehow steal the chief.

In a word, it was the rich and the poor.

“Still, isn’t the common training ground ten times as large here?”

“But what I hate is what I hate. What is that, like a clown who plays around in front of everyone.”

He licked his lips as he had nothing to say.

Then Lily throws a pretty expensive water bottle at me, wondering where she bought it.

“Now, it’s getting hotter on the viewing side, so take a break while drinking this. You have about 3 hours to spare anyway, so take your time.”

“thank you.”

“It’s not a big deal, so you don’t have to bow your head like that. Then this side will be more burdensome, Berry.”

Lily called my name without hesitation, as if she was used to it.

It wasn’t long after we started training together that she felt a bit wary of me.

But that’s for a while.

When I continued to treat her casually with my literal tongue-biting mentality, she also allowed me this distance.

Thanks to the information Grace gave me, I realized that what I needed now was to eat away at my fiancé’s share little by little.

If he wasn’t by his side in the first place, there would be no way to raise his favorability more than this.

Then, rather than rapidly advancing the relationship by using something like a heroine rescue event,

It would be the surest way to build a friendship with her by continuing to pretend to be by her side and pretending to have cut off affection for her.

“Come to think of it, Ian Cedric’s partner, Selina, doesn’t seem to be easy? Maybe she’s on par with me now.”

“…Did these strike a pair of giyeon….”

“yes?”

“Ah, no no. I’m just talking to myself. By the way… the second-in-command in the Faculty of Magic has reached a level comparable to Her Highness’s Highness?”

Lily nodded and bit her lip.

It was her habit that came out whenever there was something she didn’t like.

“If we don’t do something wrong, we could lose. Even though rumors spread throughout the academy that the heads of the swordsmanship and magic departments had gathered.”

It seems that there is something in her behavior as a princess that defeat is not allowed.

‘If you find out that I’m deliberately planning to lose like this, I’ll be half dead?’

I felt guilty about the strange dream at the wrong time, and I confessed my feelings that I didn’t even have.

“No matter how much we will lose. As you said, we are united by the chief.”

He said that and smiled.

If not only Ian but also Selina became stronger than the original, it was because there was a plan I could use.

But in Lily’s eyes, my smile was a win-win smile, so she smiled at me too.

“You say things you like sometimes too, Berry?”

Her smile, which I hadn’t seen in a long time, was so sweet that I was able to fall asleep that night without any discomfort.