Chapter 42: Training Grounds
"Huwaa sniff...! Uwaa...!"
"H-hey, could you back off?! Hey! L-Leiden, y-your snot!"
Eiros did everything he could. He tried to push Leiden’s head off his shoulder, the guy’s face was genuinely pale, tears still spilling nonstop, along with a sticky trail of snot dripping onto Eiros’s shoulder.
Eiros’s own face was just as pale.
"I-I really thought... you were going to die, uwaaa...!!!"
But nothing Eiros said got through to him at all. Leiden clung on even tighter, snot and tears starting to spill everywhere, making Eiros’s expression twist into something genuinely awful.
"L-let go!"
"Noooo..!! I’m not letting go of you... Huhu... My buddy...!"
That somehow got Eiros thinking about his own karma. Was this some kind of punishment for how uncomfortable and awkward he always felt whenever Erness hugged him?
The thought made him wince.
’...I’d honestly rather be hugged by Erness, please.’
Either way, Eiros ended up spending an absurd amount of time just trying to calm Leiden down. Long enough that the students around them started giving them strange looks.
Eiros, his expression dark and his clothes now covered in snot, let out a miserable sigh.
’I just became popular, and it’s already about to come with awful rumors attached. What rotten luck.’
"Sniff... Sniff... Congrats on your Awakening, by the way."
Leiden spoke beside him, his face still pale from crying, his voice sounding worn out as he talked.
Hearing that, Eiros went quiet for a moment, then nodded. Well, in the end, having a friend who cared this much, like Leiden did, wasn’t such a bad thing, right?
Even if his behavior was a little strange.
"By the way, were you waiting here for me, and how did you even know I’d be here?"
Hearing that, Leiden shrugged, clearing his throat to steady his voice.
"Well... why wouldn’t I be? You just Awakened, so it only makes sense you’d come here to test out your abilities, right?"
That made sense.
Even though Eiros had no real intention of fighting right now, well, if the chance came up, it’d be great to have a fair fight for once.
Yes, a fair one.
Not against some monster sitting at a tier way above his own!
’I’m not the protagonist... I won’t be as lucky as they are.’
Eiros laughed weakly.
After that, he finally stepped into the training grounds together with Leiden, and found himself completely stunned by just how impressive the place was.
At a glance, it was a corridor leading into a room. But the moment Eiros stepped inside, what he found instead was a wide open space where students trained directly under the open sky.
The training grounds were massive, with about five large arenas, each one used by students to duel one another.
There were also plenty of students who’d decided to just watch the matches. It was a lively place, packed with cheering.
Eiros’s lips twitched as he watched Leiden head toward a table where a long line of students had gathered.
’...Of course. There’s bound to be some illegal betting system going on here.’
He genuinely didn’t know what to say about that. Anyway, leaving Leiden to it, Eiros looked around again. That was when he spotted an arena with a far bigger crowd than the rest, roaring with excitement.
"Uwooghj!! There he is! Prince Rein is absolutely incredible! He’s fought seventeen matches in a row without a single loss! How is that even possible?!"
Clap clap!! Clap clap!!
’Prince?’
Eiros hadn’t expected to see Rein in person after everything that had happened. He glanced through the crowd, and there, the crown prince of the Augusta Empire stood, his body neatly clad in gleaming golden armor. In each hand, he held a massive sword and a shield that looked incredibly heavy.
A challenger stepped into the arena—one of the first-year students. At that point, the crowd started placing bets on who’d come out on top.
"Please go easy on me, Your Highness!"
The challenger was a girl with short brown hair. Her face showed remarkable confidence, while the crown prince, Rein, nodded back with an easy tone.
"No need to be so formal, we’re at the academy. Please look after me."
The match began quickly.
The girl held something that looked like a pair of scissors, though large enough to split a grown man in half with ease.
Along with that, a faint tremor rippled through the air around her body.
The crown prince himself looked completely relaxed. His body, wrapped in golden armor, gave off a faint golden glow, making him look like the dawn itself given human form.
The moment the two of them charged, the fight played out with the girl holding the upper hand at first. Still, that didn’t stop the crowd from cheering for the crown prince.
The match dragged on for quite a while, and what had once looked like a clear lead for the girl slowly evened out, then slowly tipped the other way.
The crown prince gained the upper hand, hard. He raised his shield, then shoved forward with tremendous weight behind it. The girl, though still smiling, was forced back, wincing slightly.
Then the prince lowered his shield just a fraction, revealing his sword darting out from behind it. The girl flinched, squeezing her eyes shut in a panic.
The prince stopped the blade precisely, right beside her neck.
"...I win."
The crowd erupted into a roar.
Eiros hadn’t noticed before, but there was no way a match like this would go unsupervised by a professor. So he glanced around and, sure enough, found a professor keeping watch, before turning his attention back to the crown prince.
"Uwooghj!! There he is!"
"Eighteen wins in a row, let’s gooo!!!!"
"Damn! That’s so cool!? When am I ever gonna be like that?!"
Watching that fight, could it be said that the crown prince’s ability made him grow stronger the harder his opponent pushed him?
Or maybe he simply grew stronger the longer a fight dragged on?
That was somewhat similar to Eiros’s own ability. The difference was, the crown prince probably didn’t need to nearly die for it—while Eiros did.
Letting out a sigh, he glanced around, scratching the back of his head.
"Kinda looks fun, huh?"
Well, considering Eiros himself had no real combat experience, he could probably make good use of this.
It was also proof of just how much he’d changed. He’d genuinely stopped being passive, leaving behind his old wish to just take it easy.
Yes, that wish was still there, buried underneath everything, but he knew by now that taking it easy would be the very last thing he’d ever get to do with this life.
Just then, the students around began to murmur.
"Oh, hey... wait... he looks kind of familiar?"
Eiros stepped up into the arena with an easy smile, radiating politeness the whole way.
"I-it’s Eiros! They said he’s the one who saved Prince Rein!"
"S-seriously, is that really him?!"
Just like that, the cheering grew even louder, while Eiros noticed the crown prince’s body trembling slightly. The golden helmet the prince wore dissolved into golden fragments, revealing his face.
Messy gray hair, pale golden pupils, and an expression carrying both gentleness and calm.
"Ah... I heard you’re the one who saved me."
"I just happened to be passing by, Your Highness."
"....Haha, so humble, huh? That doesn’t change the fact that you saved me, though, and I’m sorry for not visiting once you woke up. I’ve genuinely been busy—Reina’s been chewing me out for the past few days because... well..."
Seeing the hesitation on his face, Eiros blinked, then decided to cut the sentence short once he realized the prince seemed unable to actually say the reason.
"It’s fine, really, we ended up meeting anyway, didn’t we?"
The crown prince paused for a moment, then nodded.
"Yeah! Exactly! I really can’t thank you enough! If you ever need anything, just say the word. I owe you big time."
Eiros chuckled hearing that. Looking at him now, didn’t the crown prince honestly fit the role of a hero far better than Alen, who’d wolfed down his chocolate the other day?
But then again, considering his bloodline, that was probably to be expected. After all, the Imperial family were descendants of the heroes of this era.
You could probably say that’s exactly why they’d been targeted.
"...In that case, I’ll be counting on you?"
Eiros asked, hesitating slightly, and right at that moment the air around him shifted rapidly, the temperature dropping as red sparks of lightning began crackling around his body.
Craaack!!
A red sword, as tall as his own body, then appeared in Eiros’s hand.
The crowd’s cheering grew almost unbearably loud.
***