CH 4

[There is No Entrance Ceremony]

Two years have passed since the exciting dungeon exploration.

I finally turned 15 years old and decided to enroll in the Adventurer Academy.

I cried at my parents’ house and moved to the student dormitory in the academy.

I am very grateful for the existence of my parents; they are lovable people who cooked and did the housework while I was leveling. I’m grateful that they loved and raised me without abandoning me, who thinks this kind of thing spontaneously.

Based on the fact that my father went around to various places asking if there’s a way to hasten my enrollment even by a minute or by a second, and that my mother was raising money so that they could move while I away, I’m thinking of doing filial piety properly someday.

Therefore, I will definitely return home, so please be prepared and wait.

With memories of such a wonderful family in mind, I ignore the entrance ceremony with all my might and invade the academy dungeon, and is secured by the members of the disciplinary committee, who are supervising the academy.

It seems because I had slipped through many times, even they have learned and devised countermeasures from my behavioral pattern. Even so, to abandon the security of the entrance ceremony and put all the personnel inside the dungeon, I think there’s something wrong with their heads.

How dare you guys ganging up on me and cornering me with magic! Are you guys mountain bandits! What do you think people are!! I’m innocent!! Call my lawyer!!

“You don’t have that right.”

Even while I protest against the violation of human rights until I feel refreshed, they carry me in a state where my hands and my feet are tied to a pole.

Suddenly, I notice that this posture is suitable for training my semicircular canals. See, when my body swings, I begin earning some experience points. Ohh, new training, found. For now, let’s try it!!

“Be quiet!”

“Noisyy—! I’m busy right now!! Just shut up and carry me!”

“Y-yo-you, I don’t want to hear that from you!? Hey, why are you swinging with such a smile!? S-scary!!”

“Uhoohohoho, crap, it’s getting more fun. If I do my best, won’t I be able to do one rotation? Hey, hey, carry me properly, ‘kay?”

“What’s with this guy! He’s insane!?”

“Dammit, let’s bring him to the head of the discipline committee chairman quickly! I feel like I’m going to be crazy!”

To not understand this fun, this is why people who can’t see the experience point are no good.

However, I have no time to mind you guys. Now that I have finally found a way to raise the level of my semicircular canals, I have to raise its level as much as possible before reaching the student guidance room.

…No, what the heck is the level of the semicircular canals? This is the first time I heard such words. But level is level, if it exists, you should raise it. Yooosh! Daddy, I’m going to rotate twice next! Here I go, round and round!

While I’m leveling in that way, I’m thrown into the student guidance room. To do such a heartless thing when someone is leveling happily, I want to see the faces of their parents.

“You are the rumored boy, huh.”

When I turn to the owner of the voice, there is a female student there.

She wears a hairband with white floral decoration on top of her shoulder length bob cut black hair, and she has a pair of large eyes that shine dignifiedly on her lovely face.

If I have to say, rather than beautiful, she is cute, and rather than a beautiful woman, she is more like a beautiful girl. And contrary to her appearance, she is currently pointing a sharp gaze at me.

A blue ribbon is wrapped below her breasts, that are pushing up her pure white uniform from inside; that color indicating that she is an upper classman at the Adventurer Academy.

“My name is Higaki Ao. I am the chairman of this academy’s disciplinary committee.”

“Ao-chan!”

“You are being over familiar.”

“Yes.”

I correct my posture and sit upright on the floor. As expected, I’m not going to play around in front of an original work character; if I don’t take it seriously, I don’t know what I’ll be dragged into.

The chairman of the disciplinary committee, ‘Higaki Ao’.

One of the heroines who appeared in the original game, a female swordsman who received a training from the dead legendary personage called the ‘Sword Saint’.

Although she looks cute, her behavior is like a dignified beauty, she is a female student who has the charm in that gap, which she is seemingly trying to overstretching herself.

As a character, when she met the original work protagonist, although she had received training from the ‘Sword Saint’, there are only few skills that she could inherit. While pursuing that reason, she trained to learn his final secret technique, ‘Glorious Fire Decapitation’, from the memoirs he left behind.

In the process, she acted as a disciplinary committee member to browse the academy’s materials related to the Sword Saint, and as a result, she brilliantly climbed up to be the chairman… so was her background.

She is such a stoic girl, but she is a heroine after all.

Recalling the reason why she picked up the sword while interacting with the protagonist, instead of mastering the Sword Saint’s technique, she devised the ‘Glorious “Flower” Decapitation’ as her own technique, and that’s how she embraced her love for the protagonist who became the impetus that led to that… well, following the flow of mainstream development, they officially became comrades.

To sum up, that means, I’m not particularly interested in her because she is a person who only has events that are not related to leveling.

“I’m sorry, if it was before I knew the existence of level, it might be possible, but now I don’t feel like to go out with you.”

“It seems that you are good at stroking people’s nerves. However, to protect the order of the academy, I will no longer tolerate your crimes.”

“Yes?”

“Illegal invasion to the dungeon, theft from the training room. Abandoning your obligation to report of the finding of the undiscovered area due to the use of explosives in the dungeon. If I state the other ones, there will be no end to it.”

I see. That means she collected my piled up usual deeds and turned them into fangs to bite me.

In that case, I should resign to my fate like a gracious gentleman should. I straighten my back, stare at Higaki-san firmly, and declare with a very serious voice.

“I admit the illegal invasion, but do you have evidence for the other ones!!!”

“Y-you…!?”

Even though I am a gentleman, I’m the triple tongue British gentleman[1]!! There’s no way I’m going to step on the charges head-on!!!

“I admit the illegal invasion, I was caught red-handed, so I won’t object at all. However, things like stealing from the training room or explosives or the likes – I totally deny them!”

“You think I will let such things pass?”

“Then why did the disciplinary committee continue to take the means of ‘capturing’ me until now? If there is evidence proving that what everything Higaki-san said is true, then you should have report it to the Knight Order(Police) so that I could easily be caught and raised my level at the reform school. However, the fact you didn’t do that meant that you had no other means than ‘capturing me red-handed’, right? Do you lot have the evidence of the all kinds of deeds I did!!?”

I don’t have the right to say it, but illegal invasion, theft and explosion are all legitimate crimes. If they have the evidence, the right thing to do is to report it to the Knight Order, and let them take care of me.

However, since the first illegal invasion, I had never been caught or even paid close attention to until this day. I hadn’t been tracked until I got home, and I was careful not to leave any evidence in the first place.

This is also a simple application of the way of walking I learned from Uncle Bonus. In a world where there are no surveillance cameras, acquiring a movement technique that can also trick people’s gaze is convenient.

“I’d be troubled if you are underestimating us, we do have the evidence. However, it’d be inconvenience for us if the Knight Order get involved in the issue, that’s why we want to settle it quietly.”

“I see, in other words, Higaki-san is shelving the evidence to prevent the Knight Order from intervening in this case.”

“…what, that’s foolish.”

“It’s something you can understand it just with a little thought, isn’t it?”

I remembered that recently, I hosted the ‘Trap system with me’, in which I blocked enemy spawn points in the third layer with earth and sand, adjusting the spawn position and speed of the monsters, and killed the spawned enemies in order from the front.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that the criminal (I) is a dangerous individual based on what he has done so far; it is no wonder that some people judge that the outwitted disciplinary committee members can no longer solve the problem. Under such circumstances, it’s foolish of them if they continue to thinking of capturing the criminal by themselves obstinately. No doubt, there must be some voice raised wishing for the Knight Order to intervene

However, seeing that only the disciplinary committee members participating in the securing operation this time, it appears that the Knight Order isn’t involved.

In that case, there must have been a person who stopped the rising voice, and that would be none other than the chairman of the disciplinary committee who has the final say on the activity.

“If there is evidence, it is strange that you didn’t hand it over to the Knight Order. Since there is none, you could only catch the criminal red-handed. On top of that, since you’re saying that ‘there is evidence’, I can’t help but think that ‘Higaki-san didn’t report to the Knight Order because of personal reason’ on top of accusing me as the criminal for some reason I don’t know.”

“Why would I do such a thing?”

“Well, that’s why I said I don’t know. Just that, well, that’s right…”

While saying that, I stand up, step closer to Higaki-san, focus on her eyes, so that I don’t miss the emotions rooted deep in them, and say firmly.

“I understand the reason why I’m disliked, but I really don’t understand the reason why I’m being ‘grudged’. Can you say it directly to me?”

From that time when I was taken to this room and met her eyes.

I kept wondering why she kept looking at me with a gaze filled with grudge.

We continue to stare at each other eyes for a while.

As if she finally made up her mind and as if to cool the heat that had accumulated in her, she exhales a long, thin breath from her red lips and walks towards her door.

Then after peeking into the corridor and confirm that there is no one around two to three times, as if not to let me escape… no, as if not to let anyone gets in the way, she locks the door.

“Grudge, grudge, huh… that’s right. That’s probably why I want to meet you even through unjustifiable means.”

The mask of the disciplinary committee member is taken off, and the true feelings of an individual named Higaki Ao is turned to me.

I’m delighted that the talk deviated from the pursuit of my crime to thorough investigation of her personal reason.