WeTried Translations
Translator: Botanica
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◈ Academy's Pure Love Dark Knight ◈
Chapter 131
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Episode 131. The Professors Are Moving Too Fast.
Kkamangi and Hayangi's relationship looked a lot like mine and Phine's.
"Woof! Huff, huff."
"Awoooo..."
Though to be precise, it was the exact opposite.
The black puppy ran, chasing after the white wolf. The sight of a ball of fluff tearing across the field caught the eyes of everyone around.
"..So much energy."
"Seems that way. It's like it took after its owner, only backwards."
Unlike me, unable to be honest with Phine, Kkamangi was aggressive about it.
If anything, you'd think the Pomeranian should be the one needing protection by the wolf. But it kept clinging on, licking its face over and over.
The exact opposite of Phine, who'd been shaking my heart lately, the wolf named Hayangi was running away.
A food pyramid with the strong and the weak flipped upside down.
"Whine.. whimper.."
"Woof! Ruff!!"
The wolf now seemed frightened of Kkamangi, tail tucked, trembling. Though from my spirit's perspective, it was probably just its way of trying to get friendly.
"Licht. Your spirit's a strange one too."
"Kainel?.."
Kainel approached, scratch marks on his arms and face. Judging by how anxious Ariel looked, her spirit was probably responsible.
"What on earth happened to you...."
"This? It's nothing. Ariel's spirit did it."
A red cat purred contentedly, curled up comfortably in his arms. Maybe it reflected Ariel's tsundere personality.
So very her, attacking fiercely one moment and going quiet the instant Kainel got serious.
"This one, I wonder who it takes after, being so finicky."
I'd never seen the hero couple's spirits in the game. Curious, I'd tried to pet it just once, only for Ariel's spirit to bare its claws at me. Right, so it already has an owner, is that it?
"I'm sorry.. Kai..! Hey! You! Why'd you do that!!"
"Meeeow-"
The cat brushed off Ariel's scolding without a second thought. Beside them, Yellow Dog was growling at the other students, as if trying to protect the hero couple.
'Spirits are creatures conceived from emotion....'
Watching the scene unfold, I recalled something Asha Aureus had once said.
The way Ariel's spirit dropped its aggression the second Kainel held it, the state Yellow Dog was in, and now whatever this thing between Hayangi and Kkamangi was. I was mulling it over, chin propped on my hand out of habit, when
"What do I do.. Licht.. Hayangi's trying to eat Kkamangi.."
Phine's teary voice, tugging at my arm, cut my thoughts off.
Right in front of us, the white wolf looked like it had thrown its jaws wide to bite down on the black Pomeranian. But the reality was different.
"Ah, that's probably a sign it's not attacking."
Its teeth never touched the black Pomeranian's fur. I'd seen a video once, in real life, of a Siberian husky showing affection this exact way.
Just pretending to nip at the head or the scruff of the neck, like a vow to someone precious that it would suppress every ounce of aggression and predatory instinct.
"It really is.. Amazing.."
"This is my first time actually seeing it too."
My mouth fell open a little in surprise. The wolf and the dog rolled around in the grass, playing with each other.
Seeing a predator and a gentle pet get along so well, maybe spirits really were crystallizations of the emotions humans felt.
The other spirits were the same. Some, belonging to students who carried an air of romance like they were dating, nuzzled cheek to cheek, flaunting their affection.
'In Leon's case, it's mandarin ducks.'
Looking around, I spotted the blond-haired paladin, already surrounded by a full harem. Had he not managed to break the habit even after I'd warned him during the grade exams?
I'd seen it in a documentary about animal romance once. Contrary to the popular image of a devoted couple, mandarin ducks actually practice polygamy.
Most birds mate for life with a single partner, but exceptions like that do exist.
'An albatross..?'
Just then, a large sky-blue bird appeared and drove the other spirits off with its wings. Animals like a peacock and a cow scattered out of the way.
Must be the spirits of that country girl and the noble young lady I'd seen before. I let out a hollow laugh at how blatantly obvious the spirit's appearance was. Was there some connection to its owner?
Phine's Hayangi had a mix of fox and wolf features, and Kkamangi leaned heavily into being a Pomeranian, so maybe that theory held up after all.
"You lot. Quit hanging all over Leon."
"..."
The albatross's owner was Windy, who mainly used wind magic. The mage approached Leon, hair the same color as her spirit streaming behind her.
"Thanks. Windy."
"Leon, why haven't you sorted out the other women yet? You said you only had eyes for me."
So it looked like she'd finally claimed the position of first wife. Seemed my advice to pick just one and settle down had actually sunk in.
Windy hauled the man up, his clothes shredded to rags after the spirits had nearly torn them off. Even out of the harem, he still didn't look like a free man.
"That's the thing, I definitely told them we were done.. They just wouldn't accept it...."
"Ugh, honestly. This idiot.."
That's what happens when you go around saying "I love you" to just anyone. Everyone feels the same way about not wanting to lose the person they love to someone else.
"They're still fighting over it, saying it should be them and not you as the girlfriend...."
The man who swore he loved only them, cutting ties so he could officially date someone else? Even I would've been furious in their shoes.
A harem could only exist where there was a vertical hierarchy, not an equal relationship. It was the same reason a first wife and concubines were divided in the first place.
Wait, hold on, I feel like I've seen this somewhere before.
Hadn't Phine said something like that too, looking at me, about not wanting to lose me to anyone else? The moment I glanced over at the Glass Knight beside me, I found her already staring back at me, and our eyes met.
"..What? Licht?"
"I was just thinking about something you said earlier."
Phine's claim that we weren't in a romantic relationship had stayed lodged in me like a blade all this time. How would she react if I asked her this?
We'd already bathed together up north, so there wasn't much left to hold back over. And judging by how Phine's spirit had just been following me around, she probably didn't hate me.
[Phine, if I were to get a girlfriend, how do you think you'd feel about it?]
[...]
I used voice-transmission magic to keep Phine's identity hidden. A one-on-one channel no one else could reach.
[That will absolutely never happen.]
The cold reply arrived after a brief stretch of silence. She stood there with her arms crossed, an air of total conviction about her.
Could she possibly be about to say she'd be my girlfriend herself? Just imagining it was hazardous to my heart. My pulse racing, I kept probing, trying to fish out what she really meant.
[Why do you say that, Phine.]
[There's no kind soul in this world who'd agree to date a perverted mutt....]
Ugh. A scratch carved itself right across my heart. Sure, whoever dated me would definitely catch flak over my burn scars, that much I'd expected, but a pervert?
I'd worked up a little hope and a little courage to ask. And it had crashed and burned, spectacularly.
[Surely.. there'd be at least one.. wouldn't there..]
[Even if there were, I'd tell her. That you're a pervert who's seen the princess naked....]
Hearing that from Phine, of all people, my head dropped toward the ground on its own. I felt exactly like an ant flipped onto its back, legs flailing.
"Hic. Hff.."
I couldn't hear any more of her answer after that. The white-haired girl had started hiccupping inside her heavy armor. She thumped the center of her chest as though something was stuck.
I got a water flask from the professor and handed it over, and Phine Gransia drank straight through her helmet.
The hot spring incident must have really shaken her.
I'd figured I already knew everything about Phine, seeing as I owned a life-size standee of her. But the real thing had turned out to be far more magnificent, far more overwhelming.
"..Spirits are affected by their owner's emotions more than anything else."
I was tilting my head back at the sky, a hot feeling prickling at my nose, when Maria's explanation continued. The professor tapped the wooden blackboard, sketching a small hamster.
"It's the reason spirit users are stronger than anyone else, and it's also their fatal weakness."
Right beside it, she drew the same small, cute hamster transformed into a hulking mass of muscle, and another sketch of it withered and frail, leaning on a cane.
"What you're seeing right now is your spirits forced awake by magic borrowed from House Aureus."
Maria's tone was low, tinged with something like regret. Even in the game, spirit users had never been a common class, after all.
Nex and the orca young lady's cases were the unusual ones. Since Head Ache's Erasure of Knowledge had vanished off her too, she was probably fine now. Professor Dennis had taken charge of her, so she wouldn't have gotten hurt.
"I hope that someday, all of you can be honest with your own feelings, and handle your spirits without needing resonance magic like this at all."
The pink-haired dryad gazed slowly over the spirits before her.
"We'll end today's class early. Seems like a lot of you got quite a shock from your spirits!"
Maria clapped her hands as the signal to release them, and the spirits vanished in an instant.
"Kkamangi.. is gone.."
"I'm sure we'll see it again someday."
Phine, still unable to stop hiccupping, came up beside me and grabbed my sleeve as she spoke. Where had the habit of lacing our fingers together gone?
"..Licht."
"What is it, Mardol?"
After several deep breaths, Phine finally managed to get one sentence out.
"If Kkamangi and Hayangi.. had a baby, do you think it'd come out a gray wolf?"
The content was genuinely shocking. What? Sure, if a black puppy and a white wolf had a kid, that could happen. But why say it while staring at me?
It felt like she was substituting me into the equation, a crushing sense of responsibility pressing down on my whole body. Maybe it was because there'd been a couple with an egg recently.
Cold sweat poured down my back. Every delusion of what would happen once my affection level with Phine hit a hundred percent came surging up in my mind like rising smoke.
Phine in a wedding dress, the one I'd seen in the beta tester's email. Her calling me "darling," or making beef stew for me every morning....
I'd already imagined not just a son or daughter, but great-grandchildren. This isn't good. Phine was just asking about the relationship between our spirits.
"No, I think.. it'd come out black."
I set my filthy, shameless delusions aside and barely managed the answer. Phine's hair had gone white from stress to begin with, so black had to be the right answer.
The little kid who'd told me about the Mana Rose had had that same hair color, after all. It was a sudden event thick with flag potential, but it stirred up a strange sense of nostalgia all the same.
"That sounds like it'd be really cute too. Licht."
"..."
Phine said it to me in a calm, even voice, like a child hoping for a gift from Santa Claus.
What was I supposed to do with this pure, love-oblivious wolf? Behind us, Ariel, who'd already overheard our whole conversation, was covering her flushed face with her fingers.
"Hyaaaah..!! What is wrong with you two lately!!"
Even with Ariel shouting at the top of her lungs, no one around reacted. She must have realized how serious things had gotten and cast a soundproofing spell for us. Thanks, Mage of Flames.
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