CH 123

Next to Sophie and Marcus talking, the dying Lars grabbed Luca’s arm.

“Luca-dono! I’m terribly sorry for asking this, but could you teach me how to ride a horse and how to train my stamina?!”

“Eh? …Ah, yes! If you’re okay with me…”

Luca replied in a panic to the request from the gold star, who wouldn’t have even bothered to ask before were it not for Sophie’s existence. For a moment, he was thinking of refusing because he thought he wasn’t strong enough, but seeing how serious Lars’ expression was, Luca ended up agreeing on reflex.

“Oh my, isn’t that wonderful? Luca is good at teaching, and he is also considerate to others, so he is the most suitable to teach.”

“Yes, I’ll do my best…”

Lars replied powerlessly.

“Besides, the important thing is to challenge what you are unable to do. The thing to be ashamed of isn’t the fact you couldn’t do it at the moment, but the thought to give up and think it was fine even if you couldn’t. Lars is a wonderful person because you had the will to better yourself.”

“Y-yes!”

At this moment, the copper star students who saw the two’s exchange thought,

—This ojou-san is an expert in the usage of carrot and stick.

Lars was depressed and exhausted at Sophie’s relentless remark earlier, but now his eyes shone and had a delighted expression like a puppy who was complemented by his owner.

“That’s scary…”

Marcus couldn’t endure it and muttered so.

“Wouldn’t that kind of person be referred to as a villainess?”

“Marcus-san, that’s disrespectful.”

Luca’s blaming voice was unusually hostile.

The Luca that Marcus knew of only wore a wry smile all the time. Marcus never saw Luca’s frown even once despite the years they had been together.

Heeh~ so you actually could make such an expression, thought Marcus as he observed Luca, but it seemed Luca was also confused by the words he said himself so he looked away awkwardly.

If one only looked at their social pedigrees, they were a girl who belonged to the lowest rank of aristocratic families yet was personally granted the greatest star within the kingdom, the young master of a wealthy merchant viscount family, and the third son who had the surname of a marquis family despite originally being a commoner. Such was how it appeared to Marcus, who was a commoner.

Be it the young lady with the purple star or the young master with the gold star, both had nothing to do with Marcus, who was a commoner. Marcus thought they would end up retiring early during the exercise anyway, so he planned to leave the rest to Luca and make appropriate excuses so they wouldn’t feel bad about it.

Yet it is somewhat different from what I thought…

Marcus thought the girl would be a naïve and spoiled young lady, yet he couldn’t get used to her unexpected actions.

“U~hn… I feel somehow tired today, so let’s have lunch around here. O~oi, let’s begin to search for edible things.”

Marcus’ words made the copper star’s students show happy expressions and scatter about to procure food.

“Wait, Marcus. We’ll feel bad if our participation messes up your schedule.”

“I also feel sluggish since I had to climb a mountain two days in a row, and if we walk a bit further, we’ll arrive at the place where mountain water flows, so it’s just the right place to have lunch.”

Marcus definitely didn’t look tired no matter how Sophie looked at it. Sophie was grateful for his words of concern that were thoughtful for Lars’ physical condition.

“Well then, ojou-san just has to sit nearby and eat. We’ll need to procure food first after all.”

“Oh my, I didn’t bring lunch, you know?

“Hah?! Didn’t I tell you to bring your own meal?!”

When Sophie went to change her clothes, Marcus told her to bring her own lunch. Yet Sophie casually told him she didn’t bring her lunch, which made Marcus panic.

“There’s no way that only I am allowed to bring lunch on my own while all of you have to procure food locally and cook it on the spot.”

“No, you should do it! Procuring food locally means you would have to eat grass and the animals around here… seriously…? We don’t have a store nearby, you know!”

Sophie puffed her cheeks at Marcus’ panicked words.

“Hey, don’t say it like I’m a fool who doesn’t understand what that means. I know what it means to procure food locally. According to what I see, the wild plants that could be eaten around here would be tarappo, kakuma, and white strawberries.”

“Eeh…”

Sophie’s precise guessing made Marcus stiffen.

Marcus slowly looked at Luca, but seeing as Luca was as surprised as he was, Marcus understood that Luca wasn’t informed about it beforehand.

“You said the training is divided into several groups, but you have to make sure to not take every wild plant available in the mountain, okay?”

The copper star was divided into about twenty people in each group, but if one group harvested all the wild plants, the other group would be in trouble.

Sophie was calculating that and told them to only harvest the necessary amount, but seeing Sophie casually guess everything correctly made Marcus mutter, “Seriously…?” once again.