Chapter 82 (1/2)

When Fii turned towards the voices, she found five unfamiliar boys standing there, overlooking the training grounds.

And out of the five of them, the mushroom-haired boy and the long-haired boy were very clearly making fools of them.

This caused a lot of the apprentice knights to grow noisy.

Looking at the mushroom boy, some of the apprentices exclaimed,

“That’s Rizil! Ever since he joined the Quinzy dojo, everyone’s called him a genius!”

“Last year he was top 4 in the Orstollian Youth Swordsmans.h.i.+p Compet.i.tion!”

Upon looking at the long-haired boy, a different group of youths exclaimed,

“What, the one next to him was the runner up, Luca!”

“The son of the Coyil Viscounty famous for its knights…!?”

Upon checking the other newcomers, the conversation grew even more heated.

“That’s Kerio, the best student of my dojo!”

“And there’s Jerid… Glen too… All of them were in the top 8 in last year’s compet.i.tion…”

“What are they even here for…?”

Furthermore, all of these boys had been winners during this year’s entrance exam.

In other words, out of the twelve winners, five of them were standing right there.

Having seen such disquiet amongst her fellow dormmates, Fii moved to Gorms’ side and voiced her thoughts.

“Hey, hey, what kind of compet.i.tion is the ‘Orstollian Youth Swordsmans.h.i.+p Compet.i.tion’?”

“A compet.i.tion that pretty much all the boys of every dojo, as well as all the n.o.ble kids following the path of the sword, will take part in. It’s considered the way to definitively decide the best swordsman in the land.”

“Wooow!”

It sounded pretty amazing. Fii was even more curious now.

“Did you partic.i.p.ate too, Gorms?”

“My dojo forbids compet.i.tion. I wanted to try it, but I couldn’t.”

“I seee~”

Although pretty much every dojo partic.i.p.ated, apparently not every one did without exception.

Fii supposed that each dojo had its own rules and traits.

“Did you, Doug?”

Doug shook his head.

“My master and all his disciples lived in the mountains.”

It seemed that despite being a n.o.ble, Doug grew up on a mountain.

But then, his master was a former n.o.ble, and Doug had grown up on his family estate prior to that, so he had already learnt the bearings of a n.o.ble.

“Carnegith-senpai was right,” sneered the long-haired Luca. “The Northern Dormitory really is a collection of losers.”

Next to him, Rizil gave an affected shrug before adding fuel to the flame.

“C’mon, don’t be so straight with them. I’m sure even these guys have a bit of pride.”

“You have a point.”

Luca combed his hair back foppishly.

Suddenly, Fii realised she had heard his name before.

It was that boy that the maids had said was both similar to Crow and completely different.

As for Fii’s conclusion―――

(They’re totally different!)

Despite their outrage at the boys’ words, the apprentice knights of the Northern Dormitory made no move, perhaps because of their fame. But Gorms stepped forward, arms crossed, and spoke.

“Sure are running your mouths.”

Perhaps the old Gorms would have been angry, but right now he simply looked at them with one eye closed, completely calm.

“So you’re Gorms from the Sarthik Dojo. They say that you’re strong, but you can only think that because none of you compete. You didn’t make it into our dorm. Isn’t that proof?” mocked the blonde.