"Come on!" Kufa clapped his hands together and bowed his head. "Just this once!"

"What do you even need me for, anyway? I'm not a student of Saint Teresa Academy. I'm just here on exchange!"

"Blame it on Saya…" Kufa hesitated when he caught my look. "David told me that you encountered her. I'm sure you saw how much of a b.i.t.c.h she is."

"Well, she certainly is quite the aloof person, but I wouldn't go that far."

"You don't know her well enough! She's looking down on our school because she has scored more Chiropteran kills! She's mocking us for being weaker and less competent!"

"Ignore her then. She sounds like a childish person."

"If only it's that easy." Kufa sighed, reverting back to his usual composed self. "The problem is that reputation is tied to the number of missions we request. At this rate, the Hunter a.s.sociation will be sending more requests to Hennepin Academy instead of Saint Teresa Academy. They will only exclusively give Saya these missions."

"Great! Let her deal with all of them then!"

I honestly couldn't care less. While I would certainly hunt the Chiropterans if they were threatening civilians, I wasn't some greedy b.a.s.t.a.r.d seeking honor, glory and credit. If there were other people dealing with the Chiropteran threat, they were more than welcome to. I was more interested in the safety of civilians and innocents than I was in bagging bragging rights.

"That's not the point…" Kufa sighed and buried his face in his palm. He straightened up. "Anyway, the next time we have a mission, I'll ask you to come along."

"Uh, you do realize that I'm quite busy, right?" I had training with Adrian and Melina on top of my own, as well as homework and other school stuff. Plus I wanted to take other missions. I wasn't fond of the idea of being randomly called up in the middle of the night to go slay monsters. I would still do it, of course, but I would prefer to have some semblance of organization or schedule rather than be at Kufa's beck and call.

"Yes, I understand." Kufa nodded. "I will try my best to not take up too much of your time. And you're welcome to refuse, of course. There's where Saya and I come in – we'll do the work. It's just that an additional teammate will help me out a lot."

I sighed. "How often do these Chiropterans show up? I hope it's not every night or something. That would mean you're understaffed, and they shouldn't be handing these missions out to students."

"Oh, yeah. Not that often. Maybe once a month, after the higher-ups in the Hunter a.s.sociation detect a possible Chiropteran. You've met David – he's in charge of tracking down possible leads. Then Saya and I come in to sniff them out, and exterminate them."

"Once a month? That's not so bad. Sure, if I happen to be free on that day, I will help." When I meant free, I meant if I wasn't in the midst of a mission of my own.

Kufa understood that, and he nodded. Then he looked a little guilty.

"Well, to tell you the truth…this mission isn't official. They are not recognized by the school. For it to be recognized, the Hunter a.s.sociation has to formally submit a request to the school, but I get this straight from them, without going through the school. That's normally not allowed. Especially since the Hunter a.s.sociation is just sending the requests straight to Saya instead of to our school. And we are not supposed to be…uh, stealing missions from students from other schools. So if we get caught doing them, we might get into trouble."

"What?" I glared at him through my gla.s.ses. "And you want me to get involved in this?"

"I'm sorry!" Kufa bowed deeply. "But this concerns the lives of people, so we don't have a choice! If we wait for the Hunter a.s.sociation to formally send a request, and for the school to approve the missions, the Chiropterans will claim another victim in the meantime! As competent as Saya is, she's just one person. She can't do everything by herself! That's why it's so important that we bring back up our reputation up, so that the Hunter a.s.sociation will formally send the requests to Saint Teresa Academy!"

"Fine." I sighed heavily as I scratched my head. "Call me if there's an emergency. But only if there's an emergency and peope's lives are in danger. Got it? I don't want to get involved in all this political bulls.h.i.+t and school rivalry."

"Ugh…" Kufa looked a little disappointed, but he nodded. "Understood."

I sighed in relief, and then turned away from him to head toward Adrian and Melina's manor. I waved, and even without glancing back, I knew that he was going his separate way. I wasn't sure what to do, but I honestly didn't want to get involved in this.

However, if innocent people were in danger…

"Ugh! Why does everything have to be so complicated?!"

Shaking my head in exasperation, I strode up to the gate. To my surprise, it was open, and there were a few familiar figures waiting for me.

"Brother Richie!"

"Sensei!"

Adrian and Melina ran up to me excitedly, glad to see me after so long. I nodded and waved at them.

"How are you guys doing?"

"Good, I guess." Adrian grinned and shrugged. Melina nodded.

"I believe I've gotten stronger. I look forward to showing you my progress during training, Sensei!"

"That's great to hear." I nodded and patted their heads. I then turned to nod politely at Amelia, who responded with a smile.

"It's good to see you again, Master Richard."

"Yeah, it's been a while. And I told you that you don't have to be so formal."

"Not at all. I am but a mere servant of the Franklin household. Perhaps you prefer to dispense with such propriety, but I insist on it. It is not befitting of a maid to conduct herself in such a casual manner, especially the head maid of this particular manor."

Yikes. I found the whole thing stifling, but I didn't argue. It would be pointless. So I nodded and followed the kids back into the mansion.

"Whoa…it really has been a while." Looking around, I felt a bit amazed, and couldn't help but smile. "I don't know how I'll be able to return to school now."

*

The next morning, I was standing in the garden, watching Adrian and Melina spar. She was telling the truth – her skills had improved yet again.

"You really didn't spend the holidays slacking off, eh?"

"Why would I do that?" Melina stared at me blankly. I sighed and shook my head.

"Never mind." Adjusting my gla.s.ses, I smiled. "At this rate, you'll graduate soon. You probably don't need me to teach you any longer."

"That's not true!" Melina protested. "It's all thanks to Sensei that I've gotten this far! Without your tutelage, I'll still be derided as the incompetent talented girl!"

"Are you mistaking yourself for the main character in a certain light novel?" I shook my head again. "Well, anyway, that's it for today. Let's get ready for school. We don't want to be late on the first day back, right?"

"Right!" Adrian agreed wholeheartedly.

After training, we washed up, changed to our uniforms and grabbed a quick breakfast. Then we headed straight to school. On the way there, Melina hummed evidently in a good mood.

"I can't wait for the semester to start!"

"Why?" Personally, I enjoyed holidays more, but that was just me. Adrian smirked before offering an explanation.

"The rankings. We'll be able to challenge other students and rank up again once the semester begins. Melina is itching to see how far up she can climb this time."

"Oh, that would be a sight to see!" I was pretty invested in my students' progress. Honestly, the ranking didn't matter to me – their performance did. I wanted to see how well they fared against other students, and how much of the stuff I taught them that they managed to aster. It was something to be proud of, regardless of what rank they eventually occupied.

We stopped at the gates, having to go our separate ways because the middle school section was located away from the high school division. I waved to them, and then continued on.

"Richard! You!"

I turned around and caught sight of Miura La Noir sprinting toward me furiously. She tried to grab my collar, but I effortlessly dodged her.

"Stay still! You cheater!"

"Why should I?! And what do you mean by that? I didn't cheat on anybody!"

"You still dare to say that!?" Miura was on the verge of tears. "Why were you and Rossetti together in the summer training camp?! How could you partic.i.p.ate in the camp together without me?!���

The f.u.c.k? Well…Rossetti did somewhat warn me about this, so I wasn't surprised, but I was still annoyed by her clingy behavior, especially since we weren't in a relations.h.i.+p to begin with.

"If you have a problem with that, take it up to Headmistress Taylor. She was the one who hired me to provide security for the camp." And good thing she did, or all the middle school kids would have been wiped out by the Black Swordsman.

"I'm not saying that you can't go, but you have to bring me along next time!"

Was she kidding? h.e.l.l no. I found her obnoxious as h.e.l.l.

"Stop bothering Richard, Miura." Thankfully, Kufa came to my aid. "Did you think he was spending time romancing Rossetti during the summer camp?"

"Of course!" I resisted the urge to slap her, and regretted it when she continued rambling on. "What else would a young man and a young woman do when they are alone together!? Worse, I heard from reliable sources that they were even put together in the same room!"

I grimaced and glanced away, hoping that my face wasn't burning. d.a.m.n it, for some reason, I was reminded of that dream with Rossetti. f.u.c.k, I wished I could get that out of my head. This was getting annoying.

Miura seemed to have noticed that I couldn't meet her gaze, and she was vindicated.

"So something did happen after all!"

"Nothing happened!" I snapped, my patience wearing thin. "Look, I don't care if you believe me or not, but nothing happened. And even if it did, it is none of your business."

"You…!"

"He's right, you know." Kufa sighed. "You're not even his girlfriend. All this while, you've been insisting on a one-sided relations.h.i.+p even though the other party has clearly expressed that he is not interested in you at all. You should stop hara.s.sing Richard."

"Y…you're taking his side?!" Miura burst into tears and ran away. Both Kufa and I watched her leave and then shook our heads in perfect synchronicity.

"Sorry about that. That girl is weird."

"Don't worry about it. It's not even your fault." If anything, it was Miura's fault for being annoying. Just because she was beautiful didn't mean I wasn't allowed to reject her…

I frowned, suddenly realizing that she had been play-acting this entire time. There was no way that the usually composed, scheming Miura would pull a stunt like this in front of the school. Was she plotting something?

Whatever it was, I wasn't going to figure it out by standing around here. After bidding Kufa farewell, I proceeded to my cla.s.sroom and took a seat. Teacher Einsberg entered shortly after that, and smiled when he saw me.

"Ah, Richard. You're here again. Had a good summer vacation, I trust?"

"Yeah." I nodded. "I did my best to learn the ice magic spells you taught me. I'm not sure if I've done them correctly, but…"

"Sure. I'll review them." Einsberg beamed. He then glanced around and raised an eyebrow. "I'm kind of surprised that you're the only one who showed up in cla.s.s today. I mean, I know it's the first day and everything, but even so…this is surprising."

"…maybe all the other ice mages caught a cold?" I suggested jokingly, which earned a scoff from Teacher Einsberg.

"Only idiots catch a cold in the summer. And I'm confident that none of my students are stupid."

"If you say so." I shrugged, and patiently waited for the cla.s.s to resume. Fortunately, after a few minutes, a few students began to stream in. I was actually relieved by that. It would be so awkward to be the only one in the cla.s.sroom.

Man, it was good to be back.

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