However, the main reason why the Weaver's Festival was so popular was because of the romantic aspect. People would go to the river, light up lanterns atop paper boats and let them sail down the waters. The idea was that the guy would put a love letter in the boat and hope it reached the girl that he planned to confess to. Thanks to magic and homing techology, the girls would be able to sense which of the boats was meant for them, and they would wait on the other side of the river to collect the boats. After opening the letter, they would all meet at the bridge, where a dance party would be held. Lovers or would-be lovers, the guys who wrote the love letters and the girls who received the boats would unite and dance with each other.

Provided the girl accepted the guy's concession, of course. Sometimes a single girl would receive multiple love letters, and she would have to make a choice. There were also close friends who would just dance for fun, and since the dance event went on for a while, you could choose to dance with multiple partners if you wish.

…well, whatever. It didn't concern me. I had no interest in indulging in romantic festivals. Anastasia was gone – not that we were ever officially in a relations.h.i.+p, and before that, the one girlfriend I had, Alicia Violet, had pa.s.sed away. I felt a little hollow inside, but that was fine. My goal was to become a mercenary hero, to emulate my father. Not to become some harem king or get married or whatever.

Besides, these few weeks, I had been busy.

"Sensei, here I come!"

"Watch out, Brother Richie!"

"Hmph. Naïve."

I smirked as Melina and Adrian attacked me from both sides, sweeping across from opposite directions for a flanking attack. Twirling my two swords, I swung them both in different directions to block the two attacks, and then followed up with dual ripostes that almost took them by surprise.

However, I had trained them well. Adrian and Melina quickly evaded, ducking under my swings and the retaliating with a ferocity I would never have seen a month ago. I was barely able to parry their next strikes, and was forced back onto the defensive.

"Not bad."

"Heh." Adrian smirked as well, and a huge shadow fell upon me. His Treeant swung its ma.s.sive branch – about the size of a pillar – down on me, trying to pulverize me. Before it could, however, Taurus slammed into it from the side, knocking it over. His maw yawned and a gout of flames poured over the poor Treeant, incinerating it with Aldebaran.

"No fair, Brother Richie!" Adrian complained, trying to strike at my flank again, while hundreds of Sakura petals swirled around his wooden blade. "Using a fire spell against my wood-type Treeant! Of course you'll have an elemental advantage!"

"Do you seriously think your opponent is going to care about honor and refrain from using a spell that has elemental advantage over your Soul Beast when he possses it?" I scoffed before knocking the poor kid back. Spinning around, I kicked up a cloud of dust at Melina, who was charging to stab me in the back. She coughed and stumbled through the dust, blinded, and then tumbled over when I struck her on the back of her neck.

"Ugh!"

However, her golden aura glowed brightly, absorbing most of the power from the blow and she whirled around to counterattack, forcing me to parry her thrust with my crossed swords.

"Oh? Not bad."

For a moment, she had seemed to corner me, her barrage of attacks overwhelming me through sheer strength. Despite her slender body being smaller than mine, she appeared to possess greater physical strength – thanks to her magic, which buffed and endowed her otherwise diminutive frame with great power.

"But aren't you forgetting something?"

"?!"

Melina was thrown off her feet when ice erupted from the ground, half-entombing her. she lay sprawled on the ground, struggling to break free of the ice that now covered her legs and most of her lowr body.

"Ugh…"

"It's over." I tapped my sword on her head and causing her to wince. "I would have finished you off with this strike."

"Man…we still can't beat you, Brother Richie!" Adrian complained, sagging back in resignation while licking his wounds. Not literally, of course.

"The day you beat me is the day I have nothing left to teach you," I replied with a shrug. Not technically true, of course. To be honest, there was still a lot I could learn from the kids. This wasn't a one-way process where I taught Adrian and Melina. I found that I was learning a lot from them too.

The moment you were arrogant to think that you had nothing left to learn, even from an opponent who was less skilled than you, was the day you stopped growing as a warrior. The same principle applied in academia – whether I was a teaching a.s.sistant or had a PhD, there was still a lot I could learn from my students. Similarly, just because I was current their sensei didn't mean I didn't have anything to learn from my disciples.

Pus.h.i.+ng my gla.s.ses up my nose, I turned and caught sight of Amelia. She smiled as she approached with a towel, which she handed to Melina. The blond girl had finally broken free of my ice, and was frantically wiping the melting moisture off her legs.

"Oh my. It's already summer vacation, and yet you three are still so fired up. Thanks for the hard work."

"It's nothing," I muttered, accepting the towel from her to wipe off the perspiration. Adrian was the last to receive one, and he also followed my example.

"Huff…but we're still a long way from reaching Brother Richie's level."

"I'll be scared out of my wits if you reach my level despite being three years younger than me."

"Anyway, you guys should go get ready for the festival tonight." Amelia gestured back toward the house. I nodded and waved for the two kids to go. They smiled and jumped up excitedly, their sore muscles and bruises forgotten, and ran back to their house. Amelia bowed her head slightly toward me, and then excused herself.

I wasn't really interested in the festival, so I decided to take a break by having some snacks and mango juice. As I gulped down mango juice from the bottle I took from the fridge, Melina hurried toward me, flas.h.i.+ng a simple but elegant dress.

"Sensei, please look at this!"

"…are you giving the dress to me?" I asked, feeling a sense of dread. I would rather die than walk around in public, wearing that dress. And it was too small for me, anyway.

"Wrong." Melina glared at me, wondering if I was joking. I was, actually, but with my deadpan tone she couldn't tell. Fl.u.s.tered, she held her dress up. "It's for the Weaver's Festival tonight. It's a major festival for the city."

"Oh, yeah. I heard about it." I nodded. "It takes place with the river as the center. Yeah, that dress looks good. I'm sure you'll look lovely in it. I mean, you're planning to wear it for tonight's festival, right? For the dance?"

"Yeah." Melina spun around happily. She then peered at me curiously. "Did Jing Tian City not have festivals?"

"Oh, we did. But not the Weaver's Festival. We do have dumpling festival, and midautumn festival, though. I always love the mooncakes." I was so looking forward to the mooncakes in fall. Oh, d.a.m.n. Flandor City didn't celebrate the midautumn festival, so I probably had to order several mooncakes online, and have them s.h.i.+pped from Jing Tian City to Flandor. My dad would be more than happy to buy them for me.

Hey! That was an excuse to have that Miyamoto dojo gathering for us to celebrate Adrian and Melina's progress! I had better write it down in my calendar.

"Sensei, keep this a secret from Adrian." Melina leaned over and whispered into my ear. "I want to surprise him."

"Yeah, for sure." I nodded and grinned. "I'm very certain that he will be surprised to see you wearing that. He'll definitely fall for you."

"Heh. Maybe." Melina giggled a little, and then she looked a little wistfully. "It'd be great if I could dance with him at the end of the festival…"

"The dance after the fireworks, right? Yeah, I think he'd like that." I scratched my head, running the events through my mind. "I know for sure that he will be coming! Didn't you guys tell me that you'll be going to the festival together?"

"That's right!" Melina nodded. The two of them hadn't invited me because I would be a third wheel, and in any event, I had already told them that I had other plans that night. They a.s.sumed I would be accompanying some other girl from Saint Teresa Academy.

They were dead wrong.

Well, they didn't need to know that. Flas.h.i.+ng a thumb's up, I grinned and encouraged my disciple. "Good luck, Melina!"

"Thank you, Sensei!" Melina gripped her dress tightly, and then turned around to run out of the kitchen. She paused for a moment and turned back with a big smile. "I'll do my best!"

"Yeah, I'm sure you will."

I watched her disappear, and then I stuffed the bottle back into the fridge. Stretching myself, I then strode out of the kitchen and returned to my room.

Before I could reach it, however, I spotted Adrian hurrying over.

"Brother Richie! There you are!"

"Yeah, what's up?" I stopped and waited for him to catch up with me. He was holding a pen and a piece of paper. Not just any piece of paper, now that I was taking a good look at it. It was a card, embroidered with flowers at the edges.

"A…a letter," Adrian stammered. I didn't need to ask any further. It was obviously a love letter. The question was…to who?

"For Melina?" I asked. Adrian turned red and nodded, his head lowered. I tried to suppress a chuckle and ruffled his hair. "This takes a good deal of courage, and I'm sure you'll be able to overcome this trial. Good luck!"

"Ah…wait! Brother Richie!" Adrian was fl.u.s.tered. "I need your help!"

No, he didn't, but I decided not to say that. Instead, I nodded patiently and smiled encouragingly.

"What do you need me to do?"

"Um, well…this is my first time doing this, and I don't know how to write a love letter. I was hoping that you could provide some advice…several suggestions?"

"Oh…uh…" I scratched my head sheepishly. "You're asking the wrong person, Adrian. I've never written a love letter before either."

"EH!?" Adrian almost yelled, and I had to wave at him to get him to keep quiet. "How is that possible?!" Then he paused. "Wait, how did you and Sister Alicia…?"

"Um…that sort of happened," I mumbled, either too embarra.s.sed to remember or to distraught to speak about her.

"Oh, right. She was the one who kissed you in front of everybody."

"Yeah…anyway…" I hastened to change the subject. "Let's see what we can do for you. First, we'll have to do some research."

I was already conjuring up a holographic window and using Google to search for ways to write love letters.

"Eh…?" Adrian looked disappointed. "But Brother Richie, that's so…unromantic."

"Well, you have a better idea?"

As it turned out, he didn't. So we ended up spending the next few minutes reading through stuff that made us cringe, and I helped him come up with something that wasn't too cheesy and flowery. Let's just say���I didn't want to write about our efforts here because…yeah.

Then the time came, and Adrian and Melina met at the entrance before getting ready to go. As I expected, Adrian was taken aback by how lovely Melina looked, and his eyes went wide. Suppressing a chuckle, I waved at them.

"Take care, you two."

"We'll be off, Sensei," Melina replied, looking at me somewhat forlornly.

"Don't stay at home and make sure you attend the festival too!" Adrian told me somewhat sternly. Was he trying to tell me what to do? You're three years too early for that, kid!

Of course, I didn't say that and instead plastered an encouraging smile on my face, waving to send them off. "Yeah, I will. Make sure you enjoy yourselves!"

And then they were gone, and for some reason, I felt as if they had grown up very quickly. There was a slight tinge of nostalgia, back when we had only just started training, and then it was gone.

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