Chapter 151: Selena’s Favorite is Dodgeball

Lunchtime isn’t the only thing Selena and Jason joined us with. They’ve also started showing up in our after school training sessions; although Selena and Jason have different reasons for joining. Jason joined to diligently train in magecraft, while Selena just joined for fun since the training sessions are like games.

Selena particularly likes dodgeball. It seems like a game of throwing a ball at each other fit perfectly with Selena’s child-like attitude, she’s been participating without taking a break ever since earlier.

The members of the afterschool training, as well as the student council, suddenly increased with the end of the fundamental classes since we’ve now made contact with students other than class A with the start of the attribute-based classes. Many of the greater nobles from class C and D in particular joined thanks to Sola and Hermie’s persuasion.

Naturally the children of lesser nobles have also begun participating. As expected, I guess, a lot of them are second prince faction nobles. Other than them, red folk children too. The first faction nobles, perhaps being considerate to Glen, maintained nonparticipation.

Furthermore, the participation rate of class B students isn’t too good. Having a rivalry against class A, they don’t seem to be thrilled with the student council, since most of class A students are present. At the same time, they seem to be extremely prideful, as they can’t seem to stomach doing the same training with the students of class C and D. We recruited participants with the promise of magecraft and magic skill improvement, but there appears to be an unexpected byproduct for the children of nobility. That is, games; Such as dodgeball, which Selena, who’s playing nonstop, is currently inviting everybody to play with her.

Children of greater nobles, by nature, are made to prioritise their duty to their family, so studying and training takes more precedence than enjoyment. Playing for boys would be martial arts such as sword training, while playing for girls would be play tea parties and so on. Carrying the expectation of their parents to be model ladies and gentlemen, they aren’t able to go against this.1

These children with strict lifestyles are now in this academy, far from their parents’ eyes and free to do what they want. Moreover, while the eyes of the attendants and teachers are still there in the dorms and at class, there are no eyes there at the afterschool training grounds. Specifically, there is still a teacher here supervising them but recently the supervisor for the afterschool training has been the class D homeroom teacher Professor Hender.

I’ll talk about Professor Hender later in detail but, in short, he’s a faculty member unaffiliated to any factions. Just that fact makes him beyond valuable.

Anyways, what I want to say is that, with these children gaining a place where they can relieve the stress that they’ve been accumulating in their daily lives, they were more than glad to start playing with Selena. The most popular game is Selena’s favourite dodgeball, while the second most is kick-the-can.

Though I call it that, canned drinks don’t exactly exist in this world.2 So naturally aluminum and steel cans don’t exist as well, so what they use is a magical tool I’ve prepared, which is not only fine to kick but also can take hits from magic and magecraft. However, I’ve cast a special defensive barrier on it so it can’t be hit unless the caster is a certain distance near it.

The “it” will cast a barrier and defend the magical tool so it doesn’t get kicked, so it’s relatively hectic work. When I played as the “it”, my impregnable barrier and ability to track life essence made the round end instantly, so I’ve been forbidden to play by Selena. Being a sore loser and incapable of holding back is a serious weakness of mine it seems.

Incidentally, contrary to everyone’s expectations, Tebby is extremely bad at kick-the-can. When playing “it”, the magical tool immediately gets hit since he can’t produce barriers well. Meanwhile when he’s on the attack, this time he immediately gets found because his magic is too flashy.

Urania and Selena, who both excel in the physical abilities department, also don’t seem to be good at kick-the-can, and their results have been pretty unfavorable. The ones dominating here are Mahara, Sola, and Hermie. These three seem to have good awareness, their defense and tracking with magic is accurate and they’re extremely good at switching between these.

On the other hand, Tebby, Selena, and Uraina dominate dodgeball. They’re so good that, unless they’re facing against each other, the three of them all have more than a 90% win rate. With that said, Selena’s favourite seems to be dodgeball.

Now then, about Professor Hender, it was an honest coincidence that I got to know him. It started when our usual supervisor Professor Herman couldn’t supervise due to reasons and we asked Professor Hender, who had free time by chance, to supervise us.

Professor Hender is the second son of a Blue Peer Household who was sick of the annoying noble disputes and decided to work in this academy to leave home. While there are still factional disputes here, since he won’t be dragged into it as long as he just gives up on promotion, he decided to idle on until retirement.

Nonetheless, it’s not as if Professor Hender doesn’t have any actual drive and passion. He seems to be teaching the students of class D, who are labelled as failures in this academy, ways of life other than that of a noble’s. The members of “Fyne” seem to have had him as a teacher as well.

Obviously not all of the students accepted his guidance. Rather, there’s no way children that have been living as nobles up until now would just agree to throw that life away. And even when they do, leaving nobility comes with a lot of hardships.

So far, the faculty member I can trust the most in this academy is Professor Hender. If it’s him, then maybe I can tell him my plans.