Chapter 52 (1/2)

The greatly antic.i.p.ated match was casually turned down by Heath.

And then as though it was no concern of hers, Heath went to sit with Slad and the others and simply started eating.

Doug was frozen with his sword brandished for a whole minute before he could move again.

With an anxious expression, he rushed over to Heath to challenge her again.

“F-Fight me!”

“No way. Didn’t I just turn you down.”

“WHY!?”

“Why? What kind of merit would accepting even have for me?”

As everyone heard Heath’s reply, they all recalled her personality.

Because of her small and cute appearance, at first glance she seemed weak. But in contrast to that, she was strong-willed, wasn’t afraid of anyone, and said exactly whatever she pleased.

Although she normally acted like an idiot, at heart she was a realist.

Everybody had gotten caught up in the momentum, but now an odd bit of calm came back to them.

Thinking about it carefully, as long as Heath didn’t accept, none of this would be a problem.

And then considering Heath’s personality, the chances of her accepting were essentially zero.

But the boys all had a thought.

‘Couldn’t she have handled it in any other way…?’

Although they were all apprentices, they were still training to become knights.

Even though they would be hard pressed to concretely describe what a knight was to them, at the very least, they knew that knights were cool, probably.

When a knight was challenged by another knight, they would accept and engage in a pa.s.sionate battle with all their strength. At least that was how the boys saw it.

That was what they envisioned when Doug first arrived.

But…

Not fighting because there was no merit―――It made sense… It made sense, but…