Pickup Artist Boy And Reincarnated Boy

Rudel had successfully enrolled in the academy. For roughly three months, the academy had been evaluating each new student’s abilities through basic reviews and individual assessments. Everyone had grown up in different circumstances… so the academy needed to determine future instruction based on differences in both personal ability and background.

That was how the academy evaluated its new students… but Rudel’s results had caused an argument among the teachers.

“This is impossible! Forget the fact that he’s already completed his basic education… He’s mastered beginner-level magic, and even his evaluations in swordsmanship and martial arts are abnormal!”

“I had heard that Rudel-sama of the Arses family was rather incompetent?”

“We have an exceptional crop this year… The heirs of the other houses among the Three Dukes are also specialized in magic or swordsmanship.”

“Compared to the abnormality that is Aleist Hardy, isn’t this rather tame? He can use advanced magic, correct? And I’ve heard his self-taught swordsmanship is quite impressive as well?”

“Being able to use something and having mastered it are entirely different! This is exactly why bookworms are such a pain… Rudel-sama has already mastered beginner-level magic. The examiner who fought him in the mock match became so frightened that he forfeited halfway through!”

The teachers were troubled… Yes, being incapable was a problem, but being too capable was just as troublesome. At least when it came to figuring out how to handle the student…

Rudel, who had been officially categorized as a problem student, was fundamentally an idiot, but he was also earnest. He listened seriously in class, and there were no problems with his attitude toward the teachers. He also had a tendency to despise underhanded bullying, which kept the rest of his class in check.

There was very little left to teach him. Or rather, nothing!

In practical mock matches, he had already defeated several examiners. They might only have been instructors for the basic curriculum, but they were still competent fighters.

On top of that, Rudel occasionally took outrageous actions. He challenged students who had already earned their knight qualifications to matches, asked outstanding students and teachers researching magic about anything he did not understand… He actively did things that ordinary students simply would not.

Another problem was that he openly declared, “I want to become a Dragoon.” Dragoons were the greatest of the nation’s heroes, a position attained by only a tiny handful of people… If some pampered noble boy announced that he wanted to become one, there would inevitably be people who picked fights with him. And with Rudel’s status being so extraordinarily high, if anything happened to him, it would not have been surprising for every teacher present to lose their head over it.

“Why did things turn out like this?! He’s annoyingly talented and serious, so we can’t even reprimand him, and locking him away under suspension would be difficult too…”

The teachers’ suffering continued…

Three months after enrolling, Rudel had been reviewing lessons in the classroom together with Izumi. Since Izumi had originally struggled with the foreign language, reviewing the material was indispensable for her.

“This is difficult…”

Izumi was strong with numbers, but she was hopeless when it came to language subjects such as word problems. If things continued like this, she would undoubtedly find herself in serious trouble.

Rudel sat beside her reading a book while watching over her studies. But Rudel had a problem of his own. Izumi was dressed lightly. …And since Rudel had begun taking an interest in such things, he was having great difficulty calming himself down.

(Damn it! Why are you dressed so lightly… I can practically see your skin through that!!!)

Rudel, a fifteen-year-old boy in the middle of puberty, had finally begun taking an interest in things other than dragons. And recently, he had been having one encounter after another. There was the female knight in charge of security at the girls’ dormitory, then his basic magic instructor… and every single one of them was a woman.

(Is this some kind of trial meant to tempt me and prevent me from becoming a Dragoon? If so, I won’t lose!!!)

Rudel renewed his determination in an utterly bizarre direction. Why did his thinking always end up sounding like that of an ascetic monk?

So Rudel consulted Bargas about it.

“…And? Stop reacting every single time a girl wears something revealing! And any student is going to have some contact with the woman who manages the girls’ dormitory or a female teacher! How old are you?”

Bargas answered Rudel’s consultation with obvious exasperation.

“Fifteen.”

“I know that! I’m asking how old you are mentally! Listen, a little bit of…”

While Bargas was explaining, a female teacher passed by. When she saw the two of them, she waved in greeting. Bargas immediately grinned foolishly and waved back… while Rudel stared at him as though he had something he wanted to say.

“Y-Yeah. I guess what this means is that you and I are both still young, right? Yeah!”

“How do I stop caring about it? Honestly, spending time enduring it feels like such a waste…”

“Who knows? Maybe it’d be different if you got some experience.”

That single irresponsible remark from Bargas immediately drove Rudel into action. Rudel stood up on the spot, renewed his determination, and…

“Got it! I’ll go get some experience! Thanks, Bargas!”

…At first, Bargas simply waved him off. It was only after Rudel disappeared from sight that he realized what had just happened.

“Ah! W-Wait! Rudel!!!”

Rudel had neglected to ask what kind of “experience” Bargas meant. So Rudel went to the library to gather information. In the library befitting a national academy, Rudel began by searching for books about experience.

“…No good. I can’t find anything.”

Rudel normally used the library to research subjects such as dragon ecology or the skills required of a Dragoon, so it had never occurred to him that finding what he wanted might take so much time. Then I should just ask someone! Following that instinct, he repeatedly approached people and asked…

“The following student is hereby suspended: Rudel Arses.”

Rudel sat in a chair inside the boys’ dormitory’s disciplinary room. All he could do was pray that this would not affect his future prospects. This won’t stop me from becoming a Dragoon, right? And isn’t two weeks of suspension way too long? All I did was ask people to “give me some experience!” and ask what “experience” meant…

While Rudel sat there thinking such things, Bargas arrived carrying his meal.

“What the hell were you doing?! Listen, when people talk about ‘experience’ between a man and a woman, they mean XXX! If you go around saying stuff like that with a straight face… you’re a pervert!”

“True, I’ve never heard anyone casually greet someone with something like, ‘Want to XXX?’ But I don’t think we can definitively say that nobody does.”

“What kind of thought process is that?!”

As an aside, among the women Rudel approached… he spoke to several hundred of them, and several dozen gave him vaguely favorable responses.

Among them, a handful of female students even explicitly said yes.

After implementing the strategy of casting as wide a net as possible, Rudel became feared by the male students from that day onward and was bestowed with the title of “Pickup Artist.”

Aleist Hardy was a reincarnator. Golden hair, heterochromatic eyes, and an unnaturally handsome face… that was Aleist. He understood everything about this world. The growth system, events, walkthrough strategies… Everything belonged to the world of a game he had loved.

Yet within it existed someone who could only be called an irregularity: Rudel.

Rudel’s role was supposed to be that of the arrogant son of a great noble house, the embodiment of a corrupt aristocrat who tormented his people. He hated effort, tried to solve everything with money, and had no hesitation about using cowardly methods.

For Aleist, the protagonist, Rudel was nothing more than a stepping-stone character. During an early event, Aleist was supposed to stylishly defeat Rudel when Rudel harassed an elf girl, after which he would trigger a relationship flag with her.

Then, shortly afterward, Rudel was supposed to cause trouble at the girls’ dormitory with his entourage. Once again, the elf girl would ask Aleist for help, and he would defeat Rudel and his followers. …It was supposed to be a major event that would instantly make him popular, but although Rudel did show up, he immediately left.

“What’s going on? Is it because I’m not a commoner like the protagonist was supposed to be? Since I’m a count, are the girls too intimidated to approach me? …If that’s the reason, this is the worst! Why the hell did I wish for the rank of count ‘back then’?! I’m such an idiot!!!”

But surely that would only last so long. Near the end of the first year, another event awaited him. The year-level tournament… a series of one-on-one mock matches fought by five representatives from each class.

“My current class is the advanced ‘Rune Knight,’ and I can use advanced magic too. At this point, I could honestly fight graduates. So how am I supposed to kill time until then…? The main characters haven’t even reached their events yet, and I haven’t seen the elf ‘Milia’ since that day either… Ahh, I’m bored.”

For Aleist, who had known the growth system inside and out from the very beginning, reaching an advanced class at the age of fifteen had been easy. Thanks to his magical skill and swordsmanship, Aleist was regarded as the strongest student in his year.

…Meanwhile, the early-game characters Aleist had mentioned—“Milia,” “Izumi,” and “Bargas”—had already come into contact with Rudel.

Try actually looking for them, Aleist-kun…