I Became the Academy's Turn-Based Swordsman - Chapter 36

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Irevi

Chapter 36: Problem Child

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The training ground was a wreck.

Dozens of ice flowers that had yet to melt were scattered across one side, while flames still flickered over the blackened floor on the other.

‘So it was Senia and Luna after all.’

The ice flowers had to be the power of Lapis Lazuli, and the flames were likely Luna’s Arts. Her Arts specialized in fire magic.

“Haah.”

A sigh escaped me.

I’d decided to look into the two of them this morning. Had some monkey’s paw appeared and granted my wish?

Looking around, I spotted four people standing in the middle of the half-destroyed training ground.

Senia and Luna. Then Adeline and a bespectacled instructor standing over them after subduing them.

It was Calux, who had taken charge of the Raid Corps in Adeline’s place.

Since classes took place in the afternoon, the two of them apparently had enough free time in the morning to clean up this mess.

Noticing my gaze, Adeline smiled and waved.

“What is it, Halibal? Did you come running because you were worried about the young lady?”

“Instructor, what happened?”

“Instructor sounds so stiff. Call me Captain like usual. You can call me Big Sis too.”

What kind of big sister?

I’d never called her that even once.

As if reacting to my voice, Senia and Luna, who had been restrained, turned their heads at the same time.

“Ah, Halibal. Is something wrong?”

Senia greeted me with her usual smile.

“That’s what I should be asking.”

“Ahaha, you’re right. Sorry. You probably came because of me, didn’t you?”

This time, I looked at Luna, who Calux was holding.

She opened her mouth.

“Don’t worry. Nothing you need to worry about will happen.”

After saying that, she clamped her mouth shut.

‘Hmm.’

My brow furrowed without me realizing it.

Something had already happened, so what was she even talking about?

Adeline shrugged.

“As you can see, the two young ladies had a little fight. The details are...”

“Instructor Adeline Windsor.”

Calux cut in.

“We have no obligation to explain internal Academy matters to an ordinary student.”

Bluish hair, hollow cheeks, and sharp eyes behind rimless glasses.

Calux Russell. He had been notorious in the original story as an extremely by-the-book instructor.

He looked like a mage, but surprisingly, he was a rogue-type character who used daggers.

“Halibal isn’t an ordinary student. He’s the hero who cleared an Evil God Dungeon.”

“...Even so, as long as he is in the Academy, he is a student. He should be treated the same as the other students.”

“Then I’ll call him my disciple. I taught him swordsmanship myself when he was in the military.”

“...Then I have even less reason to allow this!”

Adeline calmly scratched her head.

“Don’t want to.”

“...Excuse me?”

“I said I don’t want to. I want to tell him.”

“...Why are you deciding that on your own?”

“Then I’ll put your name on the report and quit being an instructor. If you’ve got a problem with that, take off your rank insignia and fight me.”

Calux’s expression stiffened at the Empire’s Greatest Sword’s unreasonable logic.

Adeline, who always did things her own way, and Calux, who followed the rules to the letter. They had been practically natural enemies in the original story, so this wasn’t an unfamiliar sight.

After confirming Calux’s silence, Adeline spoke.

“It wasn’t a big deal. Senia and Luna got into an argument during training. It got a little heated and eventually turned into a fistfight.”

Was that really not a big deal?

Still, one look at the state of the training ground was enough to make the situation clear without an explanation.

What mattered was how it had happened.

‘Senia did openly dislike Luna, but...’

Cecilia and Luna had fought in the original story too.

It had never escalated into a physical clash.

In the original story, Luna provoked Cecilia first, and Cecilia snapped back.

When Luna got angry and tried to use her Arts, Aren stopped her.

So this should have been something similar.

“Oh, and Senia struck first.”

“?”

“Senia used her Arts first, and Luna responded. I never knew the young lady who looked so gentle could be that hot-blooded.”

No, I hadn’t known that either.

Senia had struck first?

I’d thought she was the kind of person who kept personal matters separate from work.

What on earth had happened?

Then I heard a breathless voice from behind me.

“Haah... haah... Is my sister here?!”

It was Cecilia.

She must have recognized Lapis Lazuli or the Ren House’s sword style and rushed over immediately.

Without even catching her breath, she walked straight up to Senia, who was being held by Adeline.

“Ah, Cecil. You’re here.”

Then she grabbed Senia by the back of the neck and forced her to bow her head.

“I’m sorry! My sister caused trouble!”

“Cecil, wait, let me explain...”

“Enough! I’m not listening! What excuse could you possibly have after turning the training ground into this?!”

Senia could only smile awkwardly at Cecilia’s shout.

“No matter how much you hate the Grace Family, this crossed a line!”

Then Cecilia’s gaze suddenly landed on me.

“Halibal? Why are you here...”

It seemed she had a lot to tell me.

Her attitude alone made it clear that she knew something.

“I was waiting for you.”

“Me, me?”

About Senia Ren, someone who hadn’t existed in the original story.

When I checked the time, Basic Physical Conditioning class had already started a while ago.

I’d be late if I went now.

So I said,

“Let’s go to a cafe.”

⁎⁎⁎

Senia and Luna were immediately taken to the staff room.

Calux told them they would be penalized.

Cecilia’s expression darkened as she watched them leave.

“Here.”

When I handed her flower tea and vanilla cake, her stiff expression eased a little.

“...What? You remembered?”

“I’m not going to forget two menu items.”

We were sitting in a cafe inside the Academy.

I wanted to ask Cecilia about Senia.

Honestly, my impression of Senia so far was that she was a problem child.

Enough that the Cecilia from the original story looked normal by comparison.

If I left that problem child alone, she’d obviously keep creating unpredictable variables like she had today. Even if I couldn’t control her, I should at least understand her.

After taking a sip of flower tea, Cecilia cautiously began.

“My sister... doesn’t dislike most people.”

“That much was obvious.”

Senia got along well with others.

She treated everyone kindly regardless of status, so she had a good reputation in the unit too.

That was why what she’d shown during the entrance exam felt so jarring. Someone like that had suddenly turned into a crazy bitch.

“But that doesn’t mean my sister likes people.”

“...What?”

“It’s the opposite. She isn’t interested in most people. That’s why she can treat them all the same.”

A chill ran down the back of my neck.

Did that mean everything she’d shown until now was an act?

Reading my expression, Cecilia shook her head and added,

“That doesn’t mean she has no emotions. She clearly has things she likes and dislikes. For example...”

After hesitating for a moment, she said,

“It’s embarrassing to say it myself, but... she likes me.”

Yeah, it looked that way.

“Ah! Not in the way you’re thinking! She just likes me as her younger sister!”

I hadn’t been thinking anything else.

“And she probably likes you, Mine, and Instructor Adeline too.”

“Instructor Adeline as well?”

“Yeah. She likes strong swordfighters.”

Cecilia cut off a small piece of cake with her fork and put it into her mouth.

“When it comes to people she likes, she expresses her feelings more clearly than anyone. It’s like she shows them exactly how she feels.”

“...”

“I’ve said this much, so you get it, right? There are people she dislikes too.”

“Luna Grace.”

“Yeah. More precisely, she dislikes the entire Grace Family.”

The Cecilia from the original story had been the same.

The conflict between the two families had been severe for a long time.

Sword and magic were like oil and water.

Still, something was strange.

‘Why is she talking as if this is someone else’s problem?’

If Senia disliked Luna, then Cecilia should naturally feel the same way.

Yet the Cecilia I knew hadn’t seemed particularly interested in Luna.

She was the kind of person whose face immediately showed when she hated something, but she seemed indifferent whenever she saw Luna.

Then Cecilia brought up something unexpected.

“The reason she hates the Grace Family... is because of our mother’s death.”

Their mother was Seidin Ren.

A former Sword Princess, a background character said to have died from illness.

“There were rumors that they were involved in Mother’s death. There’s no evidence, but she seems certain about something. She never told me, though.”

Seidin’s death was connected to the Grace Family?

During the entrance exam, Senia had told me she’d lost her goal.

Had that goal been her mother?

Now that I’d heard Cecilia’s explanation, I could understand Senia’s attitude.

A family that might have driven her mother, her goal, to death. If Luna was that family’s daughter, Senia would naturally not want to see her face.

“Because of family rules, I grew up outside the estate from a young age. So to me, Seidin Ren is only someone I share blood with. I don’t think of her as my mother. The only mother I had was my nursemaid.”

Cecilia’s voice was calm.

“If my nursemaid had died because of the Grace Family, I wouldn’t have been able to forgive Luna either.”

Followers of the Evil God had killed her nursemaid.

The black flames only they could use, along with pitch-black burn marks like mine, had been left on the body.

That was why the current Cecilia directed all her hatred solely at the followers of the Evil God.

‘Wait.’

Then how was I supposed to explain Cecilia’s attitude in the original story?

One possibility came to mind.

“If Senia had died because of the Grace Family... what do you think you would have done?”

“What? Do we really need to make that assumption?”

Cecilia frowned, then fell into thought.

“If that had happened... my answer would be the same. I never would have forgiven them.”

That confirmed it.

In the original story, Senia had died without being rescued by me.

If evidence had come out that the Grace Family was involved in that process, it made perfect sense that Cecilia’s anger would have been directed at Luna.

In other words, something that had only remained background lore in the original story was becoming reality right before my eyes.

Viktor Grace was the kind of person who would even join hands with followers of the Evil God, so I couldn’t rule out the possibility that the Grace Family had been involved in Senia’s kidnapping.

The Cecilia from the original story knew that, which was why she had shown hostility toward Luna.

But their relationship eventually improved.

If so, the Senia kidnapping incident was probably unrelated to the Grace Family.

The problem was Seidin Ren’s death.

I couldn’t be certain about that.

There was one thing I could be certain of, though.

‘At least it wasn’t Luna.’

According to Cecilia, Seidin had died when Senia was around seven years old.

It was hard to believe seven-year-old Luna had been involved in Seidin’s death.

In the end, Senia’s hostility toward Luna was simply misplaced anger.

The problem was that I couldn’t ignore it.

‘Playable characters shouldn’t fight each other if I can help it.’

I couldn’t let people whose actions I might need at any moment turn against each other and cause trouble.

Even if Cecilia didn’t care much about Luna right now, if the conflict between the two continued, Cecilia wouldn’t be able to see Luna in a favorable light either.

And when a situation came where I needed several magic DPS characters, this conflict would hold me back.

‘I need to find some way to patch things up.’

Fortunately, there was a way.

A friendship event that had occurred in the original story.

I knew the item that triggered it.

Of course, this was reality, so giving them gifts wouldn’t suddenly repair their relationship.

Still, it should at least help patch things up or serve as a bridge between them.

The rest could be resolved gradually over time.

Fortunately, the gift Luna needed wasn’t hard to find. I could easily get it from a doll shop in Nevil.

‘I know what Luna likes. But...’

The problem was Senia’s gift.

I knew nothing about what she liked.