The Knight Department of Artheris Academy.
Even though the semester had closed, for the group of knight scholarship students, the word "closed semester" didn't truly exist. Of course, the time for training and going home was more flexible than during the open semester, but they still had to come train according to the hours that Professor Foden had set, and that training was conducted jointly with all the senior knight scholarship students and it was quite intense indeed.
The sound of a whistle blown from Professor Foden's mouth was a signal for the students running laps around the field to run faster.
Cut to the clashing of students using their family techniques. Magic light of various colors mixed together, and of course Rafinya St.Pauli's red was the most clearly visible color. Second to her was Senior Chiesa in gold, Senior Helena in white.
"Prepare yourself well, Rafinya."
Her sparring partner today... Senior Jenny Vardy from the Vardy family of Leicester bared a smile and pointed her family-marked sword, a symbol of the 'fox,' then thrust forward.
The match was intense, just like every other pair that the instructor assigned. Rafinya performed her role flawlessly, her senses as sharp as the blade of her sword had once been. Every movement, every calculation, until Senior Jenny's sweat began to fall because no matter how much she attacked, Rafinya could counter everything with a blank, expressionless face.
Professor Foden turned to look at Gronk, the student who came to substitute for Dan, who was matched against Senior Aaron, and he was fighting him with full effort. But whenever the professor turned his gaze back to Rafinya's side, they could sense a clear difference in potential... no one objected. This was the talent that came once in every 10 years.
But still... what Professor Foden and the other instructors didn't know was...
In Rafinya's head,
it was completely empty.
What are we doing here?
Senior Jenny's sword strike wasn't that it wasn't dangerous. It was dangerous of course, and Rafinya would feel some apprehension about the swiftness of that technique.
But it was because she had already faced something more dangerous than this.
She had just come to deeply understand the words that her father's soldiers spoke to each other: "Whenever you survive crossing the line of death, everything in life becomes small."
Whenever we pass through something that is more frightening than this, worse than this, more heartbreaking than this, greater loss than this... our ceiling of perception gets pushed up. And that's what's called an experience that made her see the world in a new light.
No... he was faster than this.
Because she had encountered the speed of Fury's true form in his demon body, it made Rafinya's perception reset completely.
Senior Jenny's attack became slow.
Not just Jenny alone.
But when she looked around in all directions,
whether it was Chiesa, Aaron, Gronk, Helena, or even Professor Foden himself... it was unlikely that anyone could make Rafinya feel the same sense of danger as on that day anymore.
While thinking that way,
Rafinya's stance shifted from defensive to offensive and she began to swing her sword down, countering with sparks of flame that grew faster and faster until Senior Jenny faltered.
Ugh!? ... What!?
She tried to block Rafinya, but the weight of the sword strikes grew heavier, faster, until she couldn't find an opening to counter back in time. It forced her to retreat step by step until she nearly fell off the edge of the arena.
But for Rafinya, what was in her head was...
No... faster... faster than this... he's faster than this.
She didn't see that in front of her was Jenny.
She saw Lord Fury of Diablo in the form of a demon with its mouth open, sharp fangs rushing toward her.
Hair standing on end, gripping the sword firmly to stop the trembling, eyes wide and frozen, fangs slowly bared along with clenched jaws... the image that appeared made Senior Jenny's hair stand on end.
And of course, Professor Foden himself faltered.
"Wait, wait!? Hold on Rafinya!!! I can't hold anymore!!! Stop, I'm going to fall off the stage!!!"
Senior Jenny's voice of distress caused Rafinya to abruptly stop.
"... I'm sorry, Senior."
She drew the flame back into the sword sheath, turned to look at the clock.
Break time.
"That girl... what was that?"
Aaron whispered to Chiesa, and the young man just shook his head unable to understand.
Senior Helena herself watched as Rafinya walked past.
It was possible to understand that she was a complicated person... but this period was really strange... what happened?
"Did she have a fight at home?"
"That's unlikely."
Chiesa said,
"I've known her since we were children. Even if she had a fight at home, Rafinya wouldn't show it like this."
"Then what kind of symptom is it, sir?"
Gronk asked that way, and he fell silent for a moment...
"Maybe she's thinking about Dan?"
Rafinya sipped water from her own flask while walking past the training dummies...
She turned to look at it. The training dummy that stood there year after year, she'd walked past it many times, but this time...
She just noticed that this dummy was about 2 meters tall... and moreover it had been decorated with things students put on it as a joke... but she could no longer see it as a joke because it had a shape similar to... Fury.
"... About this tall, right?"
Until the time passed to 5 o'clock in the evening.
"Everyone dismissed."
"Yes, Professor!"
Everyone packed their things, but Rafinya packed faster than anyone else, and Senior Chiesa hadn't even had time to walk in and greet her...
"Rafin—"
"See you later, Senior."
"Ah..."
She walked past them.
Out the door.
Rafinya walked through the empty buildings of the institution toward her own dormitory...
But when she walked past the area leading to the exit toward the outer fence, or rather the path that turned toward the direction of Anfield,
Rafinya's boots stopped moving.
She stood still.
And then she turned to look...
"......"
She turned to look at the original path, the one that should have gone straight to the dormitory.
But in the end she turned back to the forest exit... and she decided to...
The sound of footsteps treading through grass, pushing through the undergrowth, belonged to the dawn knight. She walked through a route that she had only recently gotten to know, carrying a medium brown leather backpack that she still hadn't put away.
She emerged at the long river that was familiar, and when she looked to the left... she saw it.
The shadow of the cottage standing in the distance.
But she still stood still... her hand gripping the backpack strap.
How should I go in? And what should I tell them I came for?
That's what Rafinya's eyes conveyed.
But when she came to her senses again, her feet began to step forward on their own.
But then, just a few meters before reaching the cottage...
"Huh?"
"... Huh?"
She encountered Princess Nora Ophilis in a black dress pushing through the grass at the same time, just a few meters away.
At the same moment in the house,
Dan was sitting leisurely reading an astronomy book, and in the prayer room, Casca was kneeling with her head bowed to the mat.
The hair on her arm prickled, the spell threads of light that were strewn in lines surrounding the entire house trembled...
"Fury."
"Yes?"
"Someone's coming."
.
.
Nora looked at her with a confused gaze.
"What for?"
Rafinya didn't answer immediately.
She didn't know what to answer.
But looking down, she saw Nora holding her personal notebook with a pen.
"I..."
And then suddenly Dan opened the door.
"You two really..."
"!"
Coming so suddenly without having time to prepare themselves, Rafinya froze for a moment.
"Good evening, Mr. Fury."
Nora changed her attitude instantly when he appeared.
"Are you going to interview me again?"
Dan saw Nora's notebook and already understood.
"I'm sorry to bother you, Mr. Fury."
"Does the princess have no real business to attend to?"
Dan narrowed his eyes and turned to the other person.
"And you? Do you have something?"
Dan raised one eyebrow and waited for an answer, but Rafinya was stammering, still unable to speak, stuck in her throat until...
"Because we're having a BBQ tonight anyway, I invited her myself."
Casca appeared behind Dan and winked at Rafinya once.
"Really? You're busy watching over your child's face more?"
"Eh?"
"Not subtle."
Dan turned back.
"What business do you have? Don't tell me you can't access the forbidden library?"
"No."
Now Rafinya answered immediately.
"I already sent someone to apply for library access. But it takes a week to approve it."
"A week already?"
Casca: "10 years ago it was a month."
"Oh? Then that's good news. You came just to tell me that, didn't you?"
"... Yes. I'll excuse myself."
Rafinya turned to leave, but suddenly Casca's voice spoke up.
"Hey, wait a minute. You came all the way into the forest from far away. You can't go back empty-handed, can you?"
Casca said with inviting words,
"We're having a BBQ tonight. If you're not too busy, why don't you join us, Rafinya? I'd like to hear about the training of the scholarship students these days."
Dan glanced at Casca and then back to Rafinya.
For him, if his wife ordered it, there wasn't much he could refuse.
.
.
Campfire.
An iron grill placed over the fire served as a hand-made stove; Casca was the one grilling and distributing to everyone. Rafinya and Nora sat together, and Dan and Casca on the other side.
"Zeedee isn't here, Mr. Fury?"
Nora asked.
"He'll be here soon. I sent him to pick up supplies."
He had barely finished speaking when the sound of footsteps returning echoed from the other side.
"Yaho~~ Lord, I'm back! Whoa, who are these!?"
Zeedee lamb's eyes nearly bulged from their sockets when he saw Nora and Rafinya sitting holding BBQ sticks, one stick each.
"Lord! How did they sprout?"
Nora: "It's been a while since we've seen each other."
"My beloved isn't a library that you can enter and leave whenever you please, you know."
"Come on, stop complaining and come here, Freya."
Zeedee made a threatening hissing sound like a snake as he walked past Nora and Rafinya and sat down next to Dan.
"Is it normally like this?"
Rafinya turned and asked Nora. The princess nodded vaguely.
"Is this not normal for you?"
Dan asked Rafinya back.
"No, it's not."
"I don't know how the Pauli family raised you, but for me I'm more accustomed to sleeping on hard ground... Casca too."
Because they had to sleep on the ground during the war, sleep anywhere they had to, sleep cramped together, dirty as it was.
Unlike Rafinya, who had grown up with support systems and convenience, with a soft bed to sleep on when tired from training, or even having masseuses to massage her with oil and relieve her muscles when she was injured.
It was completely different. It wasn't strange that Rafinya would see everything as a class divide—the upper class had to live one way, and the other class had to live another way.
Rafinya's eyes grew duller.
So it was probably true that Nora would say she was just a lady's maid pampered with diapers.
"... Mr. Fury."
Rafinya slowly opened her mouth,
"I..."
But she fell silent.
"What is it?"
"Nothing... never mind."
Zeedee: "What is it?"
Casca: "Quiet."
Casca turned to her.
"Rafinya, in our camp, this is a safe area, you know. No one in this territory has to feel uncomfortable or anything like that."
The young woman's face was still hesitant, but still she gathered what she wanted to say again.
"Since I finished the exam... every day when I have to go train with the knight department..."
She shook her head.
"I can't find any purpose in being there anymore... It's... empty."
It felt like just a playground.
Perhaps what Rafinya was seeking... it might be with Dan on that day when he transformed.
"Nora was like this too, wasn't she?"
Dan turned and asked with his eyes. The princess avoided his gaze.
"It'll go away on its own eventually. After all, children like you still need good grades anyway."
"So I thought... I would withdraw from the knight department."
Casca turned around abruptly, and Nora herself froze.
Rafinya said what?
"You're right... Mr. Fury. True learning can only come from actually getting into the real thing."
Rafinya gripped the BBQ stick, her eyes staring into the flames.
"You once said... I could ask one question a day, right?"
"Yes."
"Can I ask then... if all the victories I've won mean nothing... then what has value?"
Or perhaps I could rephrase that question.
Mr. Fury... in your eyes, is there anything in me that counts as an achievement?
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