The SSS-rank Guide Doesn't Need Saving

The sky hadn’t fully shed its purple hue by the time Aisha’s rental shuttle touched down at the academy’s outer platform. Only a scattering of early risers dotted spaces where a few sentinels were running laps around the training field.

Perfect. No one to witness this disaster.

Or can she even call it like that?

"Stay low," Aisha told the cat-sized creature trotting beside her. Its tiny hooves made no sound against the stone pathway, but the faint glow of green and the shimmering of its silvery scales did little to hide its presence.

It looked up at her, blinked once, and kept glowing.

She sighed and wondered how you make a massive spiritual beast whose origin you didn’t know about listen to you?

Her own spiritual beast didn’t seem to be a good listener either, had bad eating habits, and was lazy. But at the very least, it was still manageable.

But this...

Voices drifted from the far end of the courtyard. A pair of students who arrived early at school like her were getting nearer, chatting amongst themselves.

Aisha quickly sidestepped behind a stone pillar on instinct, pressing her back to it, and glared down at the creature that had followed her without even trying to hide.

"Stay still."

Fortunately, it didn’t move around. And with its size cute-sized from its original form, it didn’t attract the other students’ attention.

"Guru."

Her own spiritual beast chirped from her collar.

Aisha whispered a reply, "This isn’t fun."

It seemed the two spiritual beasts, now two little beasts, found their current situation fun at the expense of exposing them and Aisha to everyone.

The students were getting close to where they were.

Aisha never imagined she’d need to hide from students who were younger than her mental age. But she had no choice. It would’ve been easier to just act normally and get to her classroom fast.

But it’d be suspicious if she was found with two spiritual beasts. And honestly, that wasn’t the only problem. It was the fact that once these two cute beasts ended up getting along with each other, they’d doubled the chaos for her and thought everything was fun for them.

Just on their way to the academy, they’d almost crashed the rental shuttle when they started to play with the console.

Aisha sighed once again, thinking that it might not have been a great idea tagging them along with her.

When there was no one around, Aisha walked toward her classroom.

Fortunately, there wasn’t any student inside yet.

She sat on her chair and bent forward on her desk, planning to rest after warning the two cute beasts not to play around when there were others around and to wake her up if anyone came into the classroom.

***

By the time Kane, Sabel, and Vesper finally arrived in the classroom, Aisha wiped away the trace of sleepiness on her face.

"You’re here early!" Vesper exclaimed the instant he saw her.

Aisha nodded in greeting, exhausted already just from seeing how energetic he was.

"You look like something dragged you through a contaminated zone," Kane said, walking to her side, taking the seat beside her.

"Good morning to you, too."

"No, seriously." Sabel leaned in, squinting. "Did you not sleep?

"I slept," she replied hoarsely.

About only half an hour before a student in their classroom arrived and the two beasts finally woke her up.

But she didn’t reveal that to any of them.

Kane studied her more carefully. "Are you really alright? After last night, I mean. We were worried when you didn’t message us."

That totally slipped from her mind. They’d promised to message each other once they arrived home. Aisha received theirs when she was waiting near the alley. But after that, she completely forgot to send a message because of the back-to-back events that happened to her.

She didn’t even get to open her terminal and see who messaged her, with how preoccupied she was with two mischievous spiritual beasts.

Aisha put on a faint smile and said, "I’m fine. Just a little tired."

None of them looked completely convinced, but they didn’t press her for information.

"Anyway, did you hear?" Vesper took the lead to change the topic. "The new combat instructor will arrive today. Who do you think it is?"

Sabel shook her head. "Doesn’t matter who. We won’t get a chance to meet them. This is Class 7-D."

Although they all had the same lessons, they learned their class was the only one that usually got excluded. The previous combat instructor didn’t even try to call them out for a field test. As for the one who came before them, they’d only tried to check on them before completely ignoring their class.

Thus, no one in the classroom really looked forward to meeting the new combat instructor the academy hired.

They were only interested because students from other classes had been gossiping about it.

Aisha listened to them talk absentmindedly. All she wanted was for the entire class of the day to end early so she could find a place to rest.

But life seemed to have other plans for her.

The bell hadn’t even chimed when the classroom door slid open.

White and gold caught the daylight spilling through the glass windows, gloved hands clasped loosely behind his back, and every murmur in the classroom died down the instant he entered.

He walked in without announcing his entrance.

However, no one in the room could ignore him. Some even forgot to blink and breathe when they caught sight of him.

Then, who knows who started it, but they regained their composure a minute later and spoke in hushed, excited voices.

"Who is that?"

"—He’s wearing clothes from the Association."

"Why is he here?"

"Wait, is he the new combat instructor?"

Aisha didn’t join in their discussion even as Kane sat up straighter in his chair and wouldn’t stop talking to Vesper and Sabel.

Even from where she was sitting, there was no way she could mistake the man before the entire class for somebody else.

"Pu."

At this moment, the hostless spiritual beast suddenly poked its head out of her chest.

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