Arifureta Vol 5 Chapter 10 (1/2)

Chapter 10 : Ai-chan’s Bodyguards

Hatayama Aiko, 25 years old. Social studies teacher.

As a teacher she taught specialized knowledge to the students, she also tried to improve their academic performance. She wasn’t someone who only gave guidance, but someone exemplary. Surely, those were serious matter for her, even more so, were her “allies”; those who thought of her as the most important person. To put it concretely, she was the adult that the kids could depend on outside of their families.

This was influenced by a big event in her student days, but let’s leave it at that. Anyway, as the ally of the students outside of their houses, Aiko’s pride as a teacher became the pillar of support that helped her call herself a teacher.

Therefore, Aiko was extremely dissatisfied by their current situation. Suddenly, while she was stunned after being summoned to another world and arbitrarily forced into a fantastic situation. The student with the greatest charisma in cla.s.s continued the talks instead of her. And then when she noticed her precious students were preparing for a war.

No matter how she tried to persuade them, the decided “flow” easily swept away her opinion, she was unable to stop her students at all.

“That’s why, I will at least protect my students!”. Is what she was determined to do, but with her rare abilities, she was told to settle with being useful with the duties outside of combat (farmland improvement and development). Although she desperately tried to oppose it, she was persuaded by her students. Aiko herself was unable to object to the point of view of the right person in the right place.

She spent every day anxiously thinking about the students who were fighting beyond her reach. Guarded by temple knights of the Church of the Saints and imperial guards of the Herrlicht kingdom, she visited every farm village and undeveloped area, but when she finally completed that work and returned to the royal palace, what awaited her was a certain student’s death.

At that time, Aiko blamed herself over and over for being unable to force herself to stay with them. “After all, aren’t I just being carried away after thinking myself an ideal teacher!?” Something like that. Certainly, Aiko was perplexed because she couldn’t even be certain if something might have changed with her being there. But, this incident gasun, struck Hatayama Aiko’s head as a teacher, in other words it awakened her.

Toward the students who were unable to stand up because of the overwhelming fear of “death,” the church and the kingdom still wished for them to resume their war preparations. Aiko thought, “As if I would let it happen for a second time!”, stood to oppose the church and the n.o.bles of the kingdom. Using her position and abilities as her s.h.i.+eld, she shouted out, “Don’t come near my students,” to corner them.

As a result, she somehow managed to gain victory. There were no students who refused to fight. But their hearts wavered because of Aiko’s persistence. In addition, her already high popularity was grew further. Although she wouldn’t do anything like war, the ironic result was that, at the very least some of the encouraged students appeared to escort Aiko in her duties running all over the place.

“There’s no need for you to fight” and “Because the knights are escorting me, I’ll be okay”, was how she persuaded them to give up, but some of the students stood up and said “We’ll protect Ai-chan”, filled to the brim with determination. Following that, she was eventually overwhelmed, afterward they followed her around the farmlands, and “I was swept around again. I am such a bad teacher…”, while on all fours was still fresh in her mind.

By the way, this time, although the dedicated knights escorting Aiko a.s.sisted in persuading the students, somehow it became a situation where the students stubbornly refused to back down. If they asked why they opposed the bodyguards, as a consensus of all the students, they blocked everything with the words:

“As if we can leave Ai-chan to someone we don’t know!”

The students’ sense of crisis was directed at not thieves and demonic beasts on the road ahead, but rather it was turned towards Aiko’s dedicated knights. Their reason was that all of the members were good-looking guys. This was the upper echelons’ strategy to tie Aiko’s talent to the kingdom and church. In short, it was a honeytrap-thing. One of the students who noticed it informed the other students and “Protect Ai-chan from the good-looking military men corps” was formed.

However, there was a miscalculation made by the students. The so-called hunter becoming the hunted scenario. To prove it, these were the persuasive words that the knights gave the students.

Commander of the temple knights and the bodyguard, David:

“There is no need to worry. I’ll protect Aiko. I won’t let her get even a scratch. Aiko is… … my everything”

Vice-commander of the temple knights, Chase:

“For her sake, I will even throw away my beliefs. I am determined to dedicate everything for Aiko. Don’t you feel relieved even by this much?”

Imperial knight Chris:

“It’s my destiny to meet Aiko-chan. Did you think I’ll let my destined person die?”

Imperial knight Jade:

“… … I swore to risk my life. Not as an imperial knight. But, as a man”

This time, the students thought, “Just what on earth happened!? They all had a change of heart!”, something like that. In other words, at first they thought it was Aiko who would fall into the honey-trap, but after hearing those words they shout, “We won’t hand Ai-chan to unknown people!”, as if they were her parents, they didn’t want to part from Aiko’s side.

It should be noted, what happened between Aiko and them… … because it’s a long story it’ll be omitted, but Aiko’s idleness and inborn diligence made a gap. Coupled with her sincerity which permeated her surroundings, they had already become Aiko’s believer ‘when they noticed,’ well something along those lines. When told, it could become an entirely new story… … so a lot happened. A lot of things.