Chapter 12
Stray Cat (1)
As you know, games are usually played from the protagonist’s point of view, so there isn’t much that I can do as a person who has already fallen and retired.
The good news, though, is that we’ve already done it several times from the protagonist’s point of view. First of all, if you think about the time and the academy schedule carefully, you can roughly guess what events are going on.
So, you don’t have to feel frustrated because you don’t know what’s going on at the Academy or what’s going on. This is a comforting fact.
On the contrary, since it was only told from Tailley’s point of view, it made me wonder if there were quite a few parts I didn’t know about.
For example, how the Ministry of Magic’s curriculum works.
The main character, Tailly, is a member of the combat club, befitting his title of ‘failed swordsman’. Therefore, it is impossible to know what kind of life students belonging to the Ministry of Magic live.
The same goes for things that happen outside of Tailley’s activity radius.
New buildings and statues being built under the patronage of ‘The Golden Daughter Lortel’ A small royal bodyguard stationed at the entrance to the teaching building to guard ‘Princess Fenia of Charity’.
Well… the world, which is off the main stage but is clearly running, seemed rather refreshing.
In fact, while playing Sylvania’s Failed Swordsman, there were quite a few incidents that I was curious about after the fact that were not directly revealed.
If I were to pick them one by one, there would be too many to count, but if I had to pick one, it would be the Yenica Failover.
As the final boss of Act 1, her story of falling into the clutches of Robesper, a high-ranking dark spirit, is not given much importance.
That’s a good thing to say. It’s the final boss of Act 1, but the real Act 1 boss is actually the right-hand man of Glaskan, the highest-ranking dark spirit she summons.
However, high-ranking dark spirits descend through the darkness or pessimistic thoughts in the spiritist’s mind.
Well, no matter how big or small, there is darkness in everyone’s heart, so it may not be something to consider too strange… But isn’t Yenica Palover a person who is completely far from such darkness?
I know. Her brightness is innate and her liveliness is innate.
What on earth made Yenica Palover fall into the clutches of a high-ranking dark spirit?
…Of course, I don’t have time to worry about that.
Anyway, Tailley will take care of defeating Glaskan’s right-hand man who has taken over the student center.
*
“It’s too tight…?”
About ten days have passed since the start of school.
“I’m not going to die like this, really…?”
While I was sitting on a wooden bench in the professor building at sunset and taking a break, Sage Time suddenly came up without warning.
My daily routine since school started is as follows.
Before the sun rises, first wash your body in the weather stream. Clean every corner in case there is a smell.
Walking from the northern forest to Gyosu-dong, wearing everyday clothes that are washed every day.
By the time I arrive, I’m covered in sweat, so I secretly wash my face one more time in the bathroom of the professor’s wing of Glokt Hall. Then, I change into the school uniform I brought with me and hide my regular clothes among the grass in the rose garden in Gyosu-dong to take with me after school.
Head straight to the classroom where the class takes place. From here, you will begin to meet children from all kinds of noble families and excellent students, so you must be careful to behave well.
Of course, my evaluation within the Academy is at the lowest level, so I have to deal with all kinds of gossip that flies into my ears every time I show my face.
These days, when I don’t hear such gossip, I feel like something is missing. I have become quite accustomed to being treated as invisible in various classes.
If you focus on class like that, it’s lunch time.
Since I can’t use the jaw-droppingly expensive and luxurious Ofilis Building cafeteria or the student center cafeteria, I eat boxed lunches. The lunch boxes are wild meals brought from camp.
These days, beef jerky made by pickling with rock salt is being put to good use. After drying the salted meat for about three days on a simple drying rack I had made to dry laundry, it turned out to be a decent jerky.
It’s portable and suppresses hunger well, so there’s no other convenience food like this. As a bonus, my cooking skills were also sweetened.
Well, after satisfying my hunger and finishing the afternoon lecture as an invisible man again, it will be after school.
I take my street clothes, which I had hidden among the rose garden bushes, and set off again towards the northern forest. If you leave when the sun sets, you will arrive when it gets dark.
I decided to canter as much as possible on my way home to improve my physical strength, but after the practical classes where I would directly use my magical power began, I lost so much energy that I decided to just walk slowly.
After returning home to camp, the first thing to do is wash your sweaty casual clothes. You have to dry it in advance so you can wear it again tomorrow.
Also, check here and there about school uniforms, which must always be kept neat and classy. It is inspected to see if there are any dirty or torn parts, and if such parts are found, they are repaired using thread taken from other fabrics.
After a quick clothing inspection, it’s time to do the day’s work. What to do at this time varies from time to time.
If there are any herbs or medicinal herbs that have been collected, they are collected and the condition of the trimmed wood is checked.
When they run out of meat stored in dug holes, they go hunting with bows. In fact, it was easier to hunt with a harpoon or an improvised spear, but if I was thinking about the future, I had to improve my bow skills, so I forced myself to hunt with a bow.
Well, if I thought my hunting performance that day was too poor, I would hunt in a different way. Because once you eat, you have to live.
After the sun has completely set, light a bonfire to secure a light source. It was time to do homework.
We check each day’s practical tasks on a workbench improvised using a wide stone slab. Fields where handwriting was important, such as magical history or elemental science, were my strengths. Fortunately, my head still seemed to be spinning.
It’s been quite a while since I picked up a pen, but there was a time when I was a student taking the exam. The blood of hard-core test takers who passed the college entrance exam during a turbulent time still remains.
Long live the Korean private education craze…!
The notes are memorized by writing them down on a stone tablet using a small poker with ashes on them, and the books are borrowed from the student library in the teaching building. There is no way to afford to use a quill pen or personal ink book.
And when the moon rises in the sky, I practice magic alone.
First of all, the goal is to reach level 10 in elemental basic magic. The Ministry of Magic’s second-year curriculum already assumes intermediate level magic, but there is no answer as I am lost in basic magic.
Still, it would be better to train my magic in a practical way, so I used a wind blade to trim the trees and used fire-type magic to control the embers of the bonfire.
Then, I slowly fall asleep. But it’s not time to sleep yet. There was still a lot of work left before bed.
We review the wooden shelter to see if there are any defects, replenish firewood to keep the campfire going all night, and review the number of beef jerky to be eaten for lunch tomorrow. If the drinking water container was empty, drinking water had to be scooped up.
Then, remember tomorrow’s timetable, organize your thoughts on how to spend the day, fill the shelter with bonfire smoke to prevent flying insects as much as possible, ventilate it, and go to bed. Then, you can still sleep for about 4 hours.
Well, the good news is that no matter how tired I am, I am not prone to oversleeping. Thanks to this, I adapted quickly even when I was in the military.
I roughly maintained this lifestyle for ten days.
My whole body was already screaming from muscle pain.
Sitting on a wooden bench looking at the red sky, the current situation is also a small deviation. When we get back to camp, there is a lot of work to do.
“Maybe I should move the camp closer…”
I thought about that and shook my head again. There was nothing good about having to live in the living area of other students for no reason. Plus, such long distances help with physical strength training… so don’t be discouraged.
“Uh huh huh.”
I barely got my creaking body up and headed out on the road again. Anyway, what can I do if I’m possessed with a body like this?
I have to accept this level of suffering.
The sunny day will definitely come.
*
Still, there is something fortunate.
That thought occurred to me as I crossed the northern forest.
After maintaining this lifestyle for about 10 days… I became somewhat confident about sustainability.
It’s really fucking hard and tiring, but you can somehow keep it going. Because life as a second-year student at the Ministry of Magic was more peaceful and calm than I imagined.
Everywhere I go, they look at me with disdain and whisper, and that’s what they’re doing now. What can I do? It’s not something I did, but there’s a lot of unfavorable stacks built up by Ed Rothtaylor in the first place.
Still, it will be much better than the situation of first-year students. It must be a place of wild, wild adventures where accidents happen every chance you get.
At the beginning of the first semester, all kinds of events will already be happening, such as Ziggs, the spear of vegetation, blowing up the laboratory building, or Sloth Lucy electrocuting the dean’s cat with lightning magic.
The first practical class where students from the Combat Department, Magic Department, and Pension Department gathered together to deal with monsters was probably held. It’s almost time for the protagonist Tailly and the main characters to meet each other.
However, taking a step back, behind the stage, surprisingly, a calm and regular daily life continues. Yeah… it’s not that bad if you think about it in these terms.
If you continue to repeat your difficult and difficult lifestyle, there comes a point where you get used to it.
All I have to do is maintain my life by taking a step away from the main characters. Then, when I got my diploma and the crisis at school arrived, I said bye-bye.
Well, that doesn’t mean the school will fail, and it’s an ordeal that will be resolved on its own, so there’s no reason for me to go through the trouble to solve it.
When I think about it that way, I think I got the first step right. Yes, there is no reason to be frustrated.
However, the variable is still the Yenica Failrover.
– ‘hi!’
– ‘What are you eating?! ‘Is it dried meat?’
– ‘good morning!’
– ‘What are you taking in next class? ‘Elementology?’
– ‘Do you want to eat together at the student cafeteria?’
Over the past 10 days, Jenica’s lively and lively greetings whenever she encounters her while walking around the faculty building has not changed.
Of course, her two best friends appear, grab her arms, and then disappear unnaturally, repeating the same thing over and over again.
“Hmm…”
This was unplanned. There is no reason for her to be this interested in me. It felt like there was definitely a mistake or some aspect I wasn’t aware of.
“…I guess it’ll be okay.”
Across the branches of the forest at sunset, I could see a camp that was now as comfortable as my home. It was a long way home.
As I say over and over again, I am a foreign being in this world where things go as they should.
If it becomes a variable that can upset the flow of the world as it goes along, the advantage of knowing the future will be thrown away.
Therefore, it is right to maintain a certain appropriate distance from important people in this world. Well… if you try to force yourself to become friends, you may have to go through an awkward and difficult process, but it’s easy to keep your distance.
can do!
I don’t know why, but the wise man time that was pounding my heart has faded to some extent. And a feeling of hope that we could do well again took its place.
it will work out somehow!
Maintaining an appropriate distance is something you’ve tried countless times in your social life. It’s okay, you can do it!
With a heart full of hope, I entered the camp to live hard today.
“Zzz- Zzz-.”
That was when I found the girl sleeping inside my makeshift shelter, curled up in my arms.
The brim of the witch’s hat around her neck was so wide that it almost covered the girl’s face, and the sound of her breathing as if she was annoyed by everything in the world made her identity known as soon as she heard it.
I sat down on the rock chair and stroked my face with one hand.
“Whoa…”
It was a sigh that came from deep in my heart.
“Why on earth is he… sleeping here???”
Even though it was my first time meeting, I couldn’t not know.
This girl is the one who plays an active role from the beginning to the end of the ‘Sylvania’s Failed Sword Saint’ scenario… In terms of proportion, she has a presence that is comparable to that of the four major heroines.
It is difficult to judge based on appearance alone. This girl, who appears to be extremely lazy, is an overwhelming person of interest even among persons of interest.
Why on earth is he sleeping here like this?
“…”
I raised my head for a moment and looked at my camp.
Forest north of Aken Island. A deep place where no one visits. However, it is not that deep for this genius girl who can walk with magical power so quickly that it can be said to be as fast as breathing.
In the first place, this girl’s behavioral radius was the same as that of stray cats.
Thanks to its small body and ability to walk like a bouncy horse, it can go anywhere, whether it’s the top of the clock tower or the roof of Glokt Building, or any place where the neck is good and the sun is good and it’s good for a nap.
So where is this place?
There are no people, it is far from the class building, and thankfully, there is a shelter with a roof in a nice place where there is a cool breeze and the pleasant sound of the stream.
There is no other place like this where you can take a nap after skipping class.
“……It was a blessing in disguise!”
Oh my…!
Even if I shouted it out only then, it was a meaningless monologue.
I had no choice but to sit quietly for a while, covering my eyes with one hand, while listening to ‘Lazy Lucy’, breathing softly as if whispering, talking in her sleep.