Side Story - Spring Is Nice, Isn’t It?

The elven girl Milia walked along, her long green hair swaying behind her. Looking through the window at the sky, she could feel the warmth of the sunlight, while even the breeze drifting through the open window seemed somehow gentle and fragrant. With their third year over and the new students moving into the dormitories, Milia finally felt that she truly had advanced to the next year.

“It somehow feels like it was both long and short. More importantly, these rankings are unexpected.”

Walking down the school building’s corridor, Milia glanced sideways at the bulletin board, then stopped to think.

The final overall rankings for the third year had been posted, listing the top ten students. Surprisingly, Rudel had taken first place, followed by Luecke and Unias. Overall rankings were determined by written exams, practical skills, and assignments. The fact that Unias, whose written scores were disastrous, still ranked so highly was largely thanks to his performance in practical exercises and assignments.

Luecke, meanwhile, was perfect when it came to written work, but his practical scores were only somewhat above average. That was impressive enough by itself, yet the reason he still failed to take first place was Rudel, who might not rank first in any individual category but reliably placed second or third in everything.

Rudel was inferior to Unias in swordsmanship. He was inferior to Luecke in written studies and magic. Yet Rudel ranked first overall. It could be said that he had very few weak areas. Among upperclassmen, whose grades tended to lean heavily toward either civil or military disciplines depending on their chosen careers, that was unusual.

Neither Izumi nor Milia’s name appeared on the list, but that did not mean their grades were poor. Encouraging herself with that thought, Milia looked away from the posted rankings and continued walking down the corridor.

(When I first met him, I thought he was just some foolish noble brat… Is he seriously aiming to become a Dragoon? With grades like these, his future is practically guaranteed.)

Their first meeting had been terrible. That was only natural, considering it had begun with Milia making fun of Rudel for reading a picture book. Because of that, she still had not managed to close the distance between them.

Glancing outside through an open window, she spotted students from her year speaking to the new arrivals. The ones approaching the inexperienced freshmen were Aleist and his friends.

“So, how about it? We can show you around, and maybe grab some tea while we’re at it?”

“It’ll just be tea, okay?”

…They were hitting on them. Aleist had been treated like a monster when he first enrolled, but now he had been overshadowed by Rudel and the others. Even so, because of their usual behavior and remarks, all four were collectively treated as problem children. In Aleist’s case, he had actually become much easier to get along with than he had been at first, which made his situation rather unfortunate.

“We’ve got the Dragon Maniac, the Magic Maniac, and the Swordsmanship Maniac… What would Aleist be? More importantly, none of them can read the room, and they don’t even try. And yet they’re all near the top of the rankings.”

Growing increasingly grumbly, Milia resumed walking down the corridor and found herself remembering everything that had happened so far. When she first enrolled, she had thought it would be troublesome after hearing that the heirs of all Three Dukes would be attending. Now, most stories involving them had become amusing anecdotes, and Aleist was sometimes even treated like a mascot character.

Luecke repeatedly destroyed facilities during practical magic exercises, while Unias constantly went too far in swordsmanship matches. Aleist occasionally acted in ways that made people wonder whether he lacked common sense entirely. But!

“Rudel is definitely the biggest problem child.”

He joined Luecke’s magical experiments and helped destroy facilities, wrecked arenas during his matches against Unias, and repeatedly caused incidents suggesting that he possessed even less common sense than Aleist. On top of that, his grades were excellent and his attitude in class was serious, making it difficult for teachers to reprimand him. The fact that he never acted maliciously only made him even harder to deal with.

“Genius and madness really are separated by a very thin line…”

Aleist was accompanying his friends while they hit on girls. Truthfully, Aleist enjoyed spending time with his friends more than hitting on anyone, so he was not particularly enthusiastic about it. When he happened to glance toward the school building, he spotted Milia, the elven girl, walking down the corridor. There was something beautiful about the way her green hair swayed as she walked.

When he became absorbed in watching her, his friends, having failed in their attempts to pick up girls, began teasing him.

“What’s this, Aleist? Milia your type?”

“N-No! I just happened to see her walking down the corridor…”

Aleist denied it, but he had originally been attracted to Milia because she was one of the romanceable characters. However, that had merely been one-sided affection based on the game, with Aleist deciding what kind of person Milia was without truly knowing her. Recently, partly because of Rudel, he had gradually begun suppressing his habit of thinking of everything as merely part of a game.

Seen that way, the people who had once been nothing more than characters now appeared far more attractive than they ever had in the game. Milia, whom he had once viewed as merely one member of his future harem, did not seem like someone who could simply disappear among a crowd of other women when he looked at her now.

She had beautiful green hair, pale skin, and delicate features… Her slender build made her appear fragile, yet she was also an elven warrior capable of fighting. Aleist had been captivated several times by the wings of elven mana she manifested in battle. Alongside her somewhat cold impression, Aleist also thought her strong-willed personality was one of her charms.

“She acts tough and aloof, but Milia likes Rudel, doesn’t she?”

Then one of his friends dropped that shocking revelation on him. Aleist spun toward him and shouted,

“You’re kidding!”

“No, seriously. That’s why I was going to tell you that if you don’t make a move soon, it’ll be too late for all sorts of reasons! …Hey, Aleist, are you listening?”

“No way… But Rudel’s from one of the Three Dukes, gets excellent grades, and he’s handsome too. Still, I don’t lose when it comes to looks… Wait, I lose in almost everything else, so that doesn’t help…”

“Ah, here we go again.”

“Yep.”

His friends comforted the depressed Aleist, and from that day onward, they began helping him with his love life.

The fact that new students were moving into the dormitories meant that the graduating students had already left. The fifth-year students who had served as dormitory prefects also needed to be replaced… and an argument had broken out over who would take the positions.

“No way in hell! Why should I become a prefect when there are four ultra-problem children here at the same time?!”

“Your family belongs to the Arses faction, doesn’t it? You be the prefect.”

“No, impossible. There’s no way I can stop Rudel!”

“We should’ve just made Bargas-san repeat a year! Then we wouldn’t have to suffer through any of this…”

Opinions flew back and forth throughout the boys’ dormitory meeting room as everyone heatedly tried to force the prefect position onto someone else. Normally, a noble student would serve as leader while commoners worked beneath him and handled the miscellaneous duties. But the previous year, they had taken the unusual measure of filling every position with commoner students who had qualified as knights.

It was Rudel’s fault. The reason such an unprecedented measure had become necessary in the first place was because Rudel repeatedly caused trouble. The pickup incident, challenging people to matches, sneaking into the girls’ dormitory…

“What the hell is with that guy getting waved straight into the girls’ dormitory?! I’m past being jealous—I actually respect him!”

“Sneaking into the girls’ dormitory used to practically be an annual tradition, but surely nobody’s stupid enough to sneak into it now that Senior Knights are stationed there… right?”

“Of course not! Imagine even starting a rumor involving the Second Princess. You’d be lucky if getting disowned was the only thing your family did to you.”

“I heard Senior Knights are supposedly allowed to cut down male intruders under the excuse of protecting the princess’s chastity.”

“They probably couldn’t cut down one of the Three Dukes, though.”

“But suppose—just suppose—that while you’re prefect, some idiot other than Rudel gets into the girls’ dormitory…”

The meeting room fell silent. This was another reason they could not reach a decision. Fina’s presence had made the responsibilities of the boys’ dormitory prefect far heavier. The threat of actually being cut down was probably just intimidation, but there was no guarantee that this year’s incoming class would not include some fool reckless enough to try.

“I’m absolutely not doing it!”

“A-Are there any problem students among the freshmen?”

“There are some every year, but several students from marquis families are enrolling this time…”

“Let’s just pray there isn’t some huge rookie on Rudel’s level.”

In an ordinary year, one of a prefect’s duties had effectively been to overlook the sons of powerful nobles sneaking into the girls’ dormitory. Some had even considered it a cheap price to pay if doing so helped them build useful connections. Trying that now, however, would be far too dangerous.

Then one of them remembered Izumi. She was the only person capable of stopping Rudel with words alone, and even the other heirs of the Three Dukes obeyed what she said. Izumi, that miraculous existence, had become almost as famous as Rudel himself.

“Wait, wasn’t there that foreign girl Izumi in the fourth year? What if we ask her to be prefect?”

“That is an absolutely brilliant suggestion, but impossible.”

“Yeah, figured.”

The fifth-years could not understand why they had to struggle this much over the issue. Eventually, time ran out that day, and no dormitory prefect was chosen.