Chapter 45: Hunter and prey (1)
"The Saintess never leaves the temple?"
"Right."
Following Reina and Rein, Eiros arrived at the academy cafeteria. Well, thankfully it wasn’t anything too heavy, like leaving the academy grounds to go to some fancy restaurant.
If it had been that, Eiros might’ve genuinely felt the pressure. Luckily, because of what had happened a few days ago, the academy staff had finally banned students from leaving the grounds for the time being.
Things were still a bit of a mess, which had made the academy extremely defensive when it came to its students.
So here Eiros was now. With plenty of other students around in the cafeteria, combined with Eiros’s own popularity and that of the Imperial siblings, it was hardly surprising that they became the center of attention.
Fortunately, Eiros didn’t feel nervous at all. Well, talking with Reina was admittedly a little tense, but the girl was genuinely so quiet that Eiros actually found it kind of comfortable. He was even starting to doubt what Rein had said about Reina liking to play with living dolls.
That said, because Reina was so quiet, Eiros now had to work hard just to keep their conversation from stalling out entirely. At first, the questions mostly circled around the academy environment, stigmata, and talk about the beginning-of-semester exams.
All of that took a fair amount of effort on Eiros’s part. Then, eventually, purely out of curiosity, Eiros asked about the Saintess’s situation.
"...She’s not dealing with trauma, is she? I hope she recovers soon."
Eiros spoke somewhat hesitantly. As it turned out, the Saintess hadn’t left the temple since that incident, and there were rumors that she’d been praying nonstop all day, to the point of skipping her meals.
That was genuinely a form of self-inflicted torture.
Eiros probably couldn’t fully understand what the Saintess was feeling, but at the very least, he understood that her level of despair was nothing to take lightly.
He remembered the supervisor—a man who’d lost his life fighting to protect the Saintess and the Imperial children.
Beyond the fact that the Saintess had become a burden, and the fact that someone had died protecting her, Eiros felt that her reaction was somewhat understandable, given just how kind and innocent her character had been written to be.
Eiros glanced briefly at Reina, who was quietly enjoying a cold drink from her glass, then turned his gaze to Rein, who looked utterly deflated.
"Reina... Reina..."
His voice honestly sounded like a zombie’s, seriously, Eiros wasn’t exaggerating when he thought that. Rein had his head down flat on the table, tears spilling nonstop, muttering Reina’s name over and over.
That made Eiros feel a little... well, it was a bit pathetic, honestly. But what was he supposed to do about it?
So Eiros decided to just look away and pretend he hadn’t noticed anything.
"...Erness, she’s your girlfriend, right?"
Just then, Reina suddenly spoke up, making Eiros glance at her and nod awkwardly.
"...Yeah, that’s basically our relationship."
"Tell her I’m grateful too. Thanks to her, we managed to escape safely."
Eiros smiled and nodded.
"I’ll pass that along."
After that, the conversation flowed on gently, with Eiros carrying most of the topics. He genuinely worked hard at it, since Reina seemed like the kind of introverted girl who’d never really experienced anything worth talking about in her life.
Meanwhile, Rein kept getting paler by the minute, looking like he might just drop dead at any moment if left like that. That was what finally got Reina, who’d been ignoring him the whole time, to stand up from the table.
She said her goodbyes to Eiros, mentioning it was time to go. Then, reluctantly, she tapped Rein’s hand and pulled him along with her.
Eiros wasn’t exaggerating. He watched Rein’s utterly wrecked expression light up with life in an instant, obediently trailing after Reina like a puppy.
Once again, Eiros just didn’t get it.
Where, exactly, had all the dignity of this world’s great figures gone...?
***
Eiros’s routine from then on could be described as fairly uneventful. He’d wake up early to visit Estiel, chat about a few things, and try to get her tightly sealed lips to open up and hand him a bit more information.
But, just as expected, Estiel only ever handed him information she judged Eiros could actually handle, refusing to give up anything more dangerous—something worth respecting, honestly, since it meant Eiros didn’t have to worry about accidentally learning something he wasn’t ready for.
Once the sun climbed higher, he’d move on to training his own fighting style in a private training room the academy had set up for him. In there was a movable training dummy that made for a surprisingly useful sparring partner.
Then, in the afternoons, well... Eiros generally chose to spend time with others. Sometimes he’d be with Erness, sometimes with Alen and the rest of them, or occasionally chatting with the Imperial siblings, or hanging out with Leiden.
He kept his life balanced, careful not to push himself so hard that he burned out. Emotional balance, of course, mattered a great deal to Eiros, since it kept the corruption seed from growing out of control.
Thanks to Erness, Eiros had been able to learn a lot more about that seed, enough to keep its growth from speeding up too much.
During this stretch of time, the system also hadn’t handed him a single mission, which made him realize these were probably some of the more peaceful days he’d get, and Eiros wasn’t about to let a single moment of it go to waste.
And after all that, the time for the beginning-of-semester exams finally arrived. The first-year students were split into several groups due to their sheer numbers.
Eiros was still grouped under the "others" class for now, given how busy the professors currently were—between repairing several damaged areas and preparing for the exams themselves.
Since the total number of first-years reached several hundred at once, they ended up divided into ten groups, each holding somewhere between ten to fifteen students.
"Which group are you in?"
"Me? Ah, I’m in six."
"Really? I’m in group one!"
The one speaking with such an upbeat, cheerful voice was, of course, Lovia.
"Oh... I’m in group seven, guess we’re all scattered around, huh?"
Alen voiced his thought while checking his own group assignment, and Valkas, chuckling nearby, answered him.
"Doesn’t really matter, I mean, wasn’t it already said this group split was just to organize the written exam?"
"That’s what I heard too," Godon said, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. "Since the main exam’s apparently themed around survival. Hunter and prey, if I remember right."
Hunter and prey.
For some reason, Eiros couldn’t help but feel amused hearing that. Just from Godon’s words alone, he could already tell this exam was going to be an absolute headache.
He was just hoping to land in the top fifty at the very least—that way, his monthly soul stone allowance wouldn’t turn out too terrible.
Eiros then fell quiet for a moment.
’No, I need to aim higher than that.’
If he only landed in the top fifty, reaching the Luminous tier would be tough. Not without reason, either—with no missions coming from the system right now, Eiros couldn’t count on any extra help.
’....Honestly, I really should’ve studied a bit.’
If only he’d been a little smarter for the written exam, that part alone could’ve made a real difference in his final results. But unfortunately, Eiros wasn’t the least bit confident in his own intelligence.
The moment the professor’s voice called out for the students to line up in their respective groups, Eiros and the others scattered, heading out onto the field under the blazing sun.
There were stands marking each group’s designated spot, so everyone started gathering together, and that was when Eiros spotted a familiar face wearing an unusually dignified expression.
Yes, it was genuinely dignified.
"...Leiden?"
Leiden had been hard to track down lately, and when Eiros asked why, it turned out Leiden had decided to give up on using his stigmata during the exam altogether, choosing instead to focus on studying and scoring high on the written test.
So, seeing Leiden looking this dignified now—having somehow pulled out a pair of glasses from who knows where and put them on his face—Eiros watched as Leiden adjusted the glasses slightly, combed his hair back, and looked straight at him.
"Eiros... I think I’ve been possessed by the wisest man in the world right now. I’m feeling incredibly confident."
"...Uh-huh...okay...?"
***