Chapter 9 – An Extra Wanted to Live (2)

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Translated by Jinmu

Read only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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Around midnight, I was sitting on a bench in a quiet courtyard. I was trying to settle my startled heart a little, look at the stars, and steel my resolve for the future.

Mm, but I really didn’t understand this situation right now. How could the timing be so exquisitely, ridiculously bad?

“Hey, could you move over a little?”

Long bluish hair neatly brushed down to her waist, clear golden eyes that sparkled brilliantly, a fine jawline, and features that somehow felt inevitable in how perfectly arranged they were.

The way the navy training tights and crop top fit her was devastating enough to make my mind go blank. A smooth line of legs tracing an exquisite curve from top to bottom, then dropping cleanly straight below the hips.

Maybe the spring breeze was still a little cold, because she wore a beige cardigan draped over her shoulders like a cape, and a claymore sheathed in white hung at her waist.

I hadn’t realized it at the entrance ceremony because I had only looked from a distance, but now that I saw her properly, admiration escaped me on its own. Her appearance was so unreal that it felt like the standard for beauty itself had changed between before and after seeing her.

While I merely opened and closed my mouth soundlessly for a moment, Abel stared at me in silence. Her atmosphere was cool yet intellectual, as though the moon shone for her alone.

But.

Did this bench come with four seats marked as mine? It was academy property, shared by everyone. For a moment I actually wondered whether there was some bullshit school rule saying special advancement students weren’t even allowed to sit on benches freely. Then again, at this insane academy, that wouldn’t have been all that surprising. The fact that I had already gotten used to this class society gave me a brief reality check.

Sheesh.

Still, whatever the reason, for now I wanted to avoid getting involved if at all possible. I had only just set my own policy of not becoming entangled with the official storyline. Meeting a beauty was always welcome, but in my current position it wasn’t something I could simply enjoy. There was nothing more dangerous than getting tangled up with a main heroine.

On top of that, because of what happened with Chloe the other day, I wasn’t in the mood to deal with anyone. Every time Chloe’s clouded eyes flickered briefly through my mind, my hands trembled a little.

Well, she wasn’t extorting me or anything. She was just asking me to move over a little, and that wasn’t exactly a hard request.

So just as I braced my weak knees and was about to get up.

“You don’t have to leave. Just move over a little to the side.”

Tilting her head slightly, Abel stepped right up beside me. She gestured as if telling me to scoot over, so I slid my rear toward the edge. It looked like she had just come back from training or exercise, because a line of sweat ran down her forehead like dew.

“…”

“…”

Silence settled into the quiet dawn. Even the crickets seemed to have gone off work already, and all that remained was the sound of the trees swaying in the wind.

I turned only my chin slightly to the side. Abel was wiping away the sweat running down her face with her sleeve while looking up at the sky. The heroine buff on her was so strong that my eyes kept being drawn in her direction on their own.

“This place shows the stars best.”

Somewhat unexpectedly, the one who first broke the silence was Abel. Her gaze was still fixed on the night sky.

I couldn’t help being surprised by the sight of Abel looking up at the heavens with shining eyes. Was this really the very same Abel von Nibelung, granddaughter of the Sword Emperor?

In the game, Abel was not a character you could honestly call kindhearted. You know the type, right? The kind of character who started off aloof and prickly, and only after you endure all sorts of trials together could you slowly build anything like affection.

Even the handsome protagonist himself had barely managed to exchange a few words with her in the early parts because of how hostile her attitude was.

That was why the fact that she was speaking to me with comparative friendliness felt strange. Abel, who had been looking up at the sea of stars, turned her gaze toward me.

“Is your weapon a sword too?”

I answered with a small nod. Her clear voice tickled my ears.

“Grandfather said that swordsmen’s eyes look a little different from other people’s.”

After saying that, Abel quietly looked me over with half-lidded eyes. Her long, swaying hair trailed over her shoulder and brushed across her chest. Tilting her head, she rubbed her chin, then held out the sword she had set against the armrest.

“Want to hold it once?”

“I’m not really tempted.”

At that answer, Abel made a displeased little face. One cheek puffed out. Then she abruptly turned her head away. Was she sulking? After sitting in silence for a while like that, Abel spoke again.

“You know who I am, right?”

“More or less.”

“I don’t know who you are.”

What?

“Isn’t that a little unfair? You know my name, but I don’t know who you are at all.”

“We only just met. Do I really have to tell you my name too?”

I narrowed my eyes and glared at her, but Abel went on as if nothing were wrong.

“Who knows? You might be a spy from the Demon King sneaking into the academy disguised as a student. Or else I can’t think of any reason you’d be out here alone this late at night.”

When I looked at her with a blank, incredulous expression, Abel tapped her fingernail against the sword hilt. Her gaze seemed as though it were trying to measure me. Looking only at her eyes, it was impossible to tell whether she was joking or not.

“Then what are you?”

When I coldly shot the question back at her, Abel stared at me in disbelief for a while, then let out a short sigh and answered.

“Can’t you tell just by looking? I just came back from training and exercise, and you were the one sprawled out on the bench.”

“I was exercising too.”

“What kind of exercise?”

“Breathing.”

“…”

Abel twisted her mouth once, then pressed at her temple and shook her head. There were pieces of gauze or bandages stuck here and there across the hand she’d raised. When my eyes flicked toward them, she quickly hid the hand behind her back and awkwardly scratched her cheek.

The gap between the image I’d had of her and the girl in front of me was so extreme that I had to wonder whether she was really the same cold, untouchable girl I knew from the story. In the plot she had definitely given the textbook impression of being distant and proud, but the girl before my eyes was showing quite a variety of expressions.

Abel fidgeted her fingers and sneaked glances my way, watching my reaction. Every so often she brushed back the hair falling over her face.

“You’re working hard.”

“Well, yeah.”

A shadow crossed Abel’s face.

“People don’t know what it means to inherit Nibelung blood. You always have to be the best, and you have to be perfect. They’ll jump on you instantly over even the smallest flaw. You know it too, don’t you? I wasn’t top student this year. Honestly, it’s the first time in my life I’ve ever lost to someone.”

Abel drew her lips in and bit down on them hard. Then she forced an awkward smile.

“But you know something? In a way, it felt kind of refreshing.”

While Abel kept talking, I didn’t bother seizing on the end of every phrase.

“Even so, I am curious who that top student is. I want to know who beat me. That way, the next time I meet him, I can surpass him. No, next time I’ll definitely crush him.”

“You don’t have to go that far…”

“Honestly, it hurts my pride. I begged Grandfather and got it out of him, but apparently that top student isn’t even in our class. On top of that, he even passed on the top-student oath ceremony. Do you know how miserable that makes second place feel…?”

She muttered that in a sullen voice for a moment, then shook her head as if to clear the thoughts away.

“I’m being silly too, talking about this kind of thing to someone I just met. I guess the test results really were that much of a shock.”

“Why are you telling me all this?”

“Hm? Because you look weak. My family creed is, ‘Be strict with the strong, be merciful to the weak!’ And all the people in my class are awful, so I don’t really have any friends either.”

So that was why she was cold to the protagonist.

Abel stretched once, brushed the dust off her tights, and stood up.

“I should get going now.”

“Yeah, take care.”

“So when are you going to tell me your name?”

“I don’t want to.”

“Hey!”

* * *

We were strangers with no real connection, and yet he was a strange boy.

“That was fun, actually. It’s been a while.”

She could hardly remember the last time she had shared her true feelings so candidly with someone.

Outside, there was always the pressure that came with the heavy title of descendant of Nibelung and granddaughter of the Sword Emperor.

And at the academy, where she spent her days among her peers, she had long grown sick of the mixture of awe and jealousy in the eyes turned toward her.

Then, on a whim, she had spoken to a nameless boy, and that boy had looked only at her herself. They say silence was also a conversation, didn’t they?

There hadn’t been a great many words exchanged. But somehow, that very attitude of his had a talent for drawing honesty out of her.

He had been rather rude. No, more than that, he had actually been kind of irritating. He hadn’t even told her his name in the end. The boys in the same class were practically taking number tickets just for a chance to talk to her once.

“It feels like I got rejected even though I never confessed…”

With a bitter little smile, Abel walked down the dim path toward the dormitory.

Her steps felt lighter than usual.

* * *

The moment day broke, I went straight to the library.

It was a library worthy of the reputation of the world’s greatest academy, grand on an absurd scale. An eight-story high-rise that resembled the Leaning Tower of Pisa. At the very least, when it came to sheer scale, this world really did things right.

The inside of the library was even more spectacular. A cylindrical central hall formed the heart of the structure, and books wrapped around it in dense walls all the way up to the top floor.

After briefly taking in the inside of the library, which was quiet because it was the weekend, I found a suitable seat.

This really did make me feel like an actual student.

To be honest, I’d never really had a close relationship with books in my life. Part of that was because I had started working in society right after getting my middle-school diploma, but another reason was that just seeing dense text made me feel dizzy.

Pushing that restless feeling aside, I ran through what I needed to look up first. Introductory books about this world’s setting, and knowledge I would need in order to survive.

Among those, I needed to prioritize learning how blessings were used, as well as the list of demonic beasts I would run into during the practical combat training later in the semester.

Back when I played in my previous life, I had left all monster hunting to auto-battle, so I had no knowledge at all of attack patterns. Whenever I got stuck, I simply smashed through it with cash on the spot. Because of that, everything ahead of me felt unfamiliar, which meant I needed to investigate it personally.

Of course, I also intended to keep training my body and learning ordinary swordsmanship at the same time. Until my body was fully shaped, I planned to hold back on using the Blessing of the Sword God as much as possible. Only when my life was hanging by a thread. Though honestly, I didn’t know whether things would really go according to plan.

At times of real danger, I feel like I’d reflexively pull out the sashimi knife first.

Even so, what could I ? Even if things never went exactly as planned, I still had to try my best.

I slowly looked over the library categories. Then a single book sticking oddly out from the corner caught my eye.

A red magazine titled The Secret Private Life of the Bitch Headmaster ♥.

The cover had faded almost white from how many hands had touched it. A dry laugh slipped out at the thought that no matter where you went, people were all the same, and I picked it up.

“My luck’s not bad.”

Studying was important, sure, but for a young man at the peak of his blood and vigor, there were things even more important than that.