CH 134

Although Sophie was leading the discussion last time, she left the discussion to all the gold star students without joining in. She would answer if asked, but she wouldn’t give a clear answer but hint instead, emphasizing the autonomy of the gold star.

This person is…

Suddenly, Luca recalled the story of Talis.

Didn’t Sophie mention the merchants of Talis developed voluntarily?

But wasn’t it Sophie who induced it to happen to begin with?

Then she made it as their respective achievement, giving them confidence through the successful experience.

When Luca glanced at Sophie, he saw her smiling a little. The wind coming in through the window shook her long black hair, but she didn’t seem to be bothered by that as her green eyes looked straight at each gold star student.

The girl who had a lively expression like a child when she rode her horse had a gaze fitting of a purple star today.

—This person has a wide vision.

Luca naturally felt so.

Of course she did. She was the purple star, after all; the person who stood on a similar pedestal as Lorenzo.

Luca should have known it well. However, anxiety suddenly struck him.

I wonder how much effort I need to make in order to make myself worthy enough to stand alongside these people…?

Perhaps his status made him unworthy to have such thoughts and it was something he shouldn’t even dream of. However, he was also afraid to be left behind.

As Luca imagined the invisible future, he felt the illusion make his feet shake with uncertainty and his heart beat at an unpleasant rate. Although he managed to suppress his mouth from trembling, he felt powerless at his unstable self and his impatience seemed to be apparent in his expression. 

“Luca?”

“Eh… Ah, yes!”

“Are you okay? You seem to have a bad complexion there.”

Sure enough, she got worried about him. His own immaturity made him disgusted.

Luca felt the desire to speak out about his own weakness for a moment, but he immediately swallowed it back.

Weak, he was weak. However, Luca didn’t want to be spoiled because of that weakness.

Especially by the girl in front of him—

“Don’t worry about it. I’m okay.”

“But…”

“The conversations between the gold star students are just too difficult for me so they are making me think hard as I try to understand them.”

It was a terrible excuse, but Sophie chose to back down.

“Please don’t overdo it if you feel sick and tell me early. Luca is piling up exhaustion by serving as my escort after all.”

“No, I wouldn’t be weak from that…”

There really wasn’t any physical problem involved. It was to the point he got excess power to spend because his training time was reduced.

“You are still in the middle of your growth phase, so overdoing it would be bad for your body.”

“I’m really okay… Ah!”

“What’s wrong?”

“I-I’m sorry, I didn’t notice it until now! Is Sophie-sama not exhausted as well?”

Sophie acted so normally that Luca totally forgot about something important.

Many copper star students would suffer from muscle aches after the mountain exercises. Even though they didn’t climb all the way to the mountain peak, it was still an amount of exercise that was enough to exhaust a normal person.

Luca worried about Sophie’s physical condition in a hurry, but he couldn’t see any trace of exhaustion in Sophie’s expression, rather she looked refreshed because she managed to vent her stress.

Even now, she was standing as she watched the discussion of the gold star students and hadn’t sat since Luca entered the room. Even though Luca immediately offered a chair for her, she refused because everyone there also stood during the discussion.

When Luca looked at Lars, the other participant of the mountain exercise yesterday, he was sitting on the chair alone with the expression of a sick person as he listened to the discussion of the other gold star students who were all standing. He would make occasional remarks, but his voice lacked enthusiasm, as he seemed to have a hard time even breathing.

“…Is Lars-dono really okay?”

“I also told him to rest in his room today, but he insisted that he is okay.”

“That’s…”

Since Lars saw how a girl of a similar age as him was energetic, of course he would insist not to rest due to his pride as a man. Even Luca, who belonged to the copper star, had a slight fear of Sophie, who didn’t have any trace of muscle aches and exhaustion at all after the mountain exercise yesterday.

In the afternoon, with the exception of the dying Lars, the debate made gradual progress as it continued. However, since the set time for the activity had already passed, the gold star teacher, who came to see the situation just in case, was surprised to find all of them were still in the classroom.

Even though the contents of the discussion could be heard from outside the room, the teacher said nothing in particular about that and only reminded the students to not forget to lock the door after they were done and then left, which made Luca feel strange.

Luca softly asked Sophie.

“Sophie-sama, is there something wrong regarding the matter with the dining hall?”

“No, that’s not what’s happening here.”

“Eh?”

“I wonder who thought of this? ‘The King’s Sword’ sure came up with something interesting, it really is intriguing.”

“Ha… ah?”

Luca let out a weird voice due to a lack of understanding of what Sophie was talking about.

“How does one find something new in the usual scenes of their daily life? One needs to stop thinking about the status quo and instead always look for improvement and keep an eye out for defects. I guess that kind temperament is important for a gold star.”

Before Luca could ask what Sophie meant by that, a boy walked up to Sophie.

It was a boy who stood behind a debating gold star earlier. Luca thought he was also a gold star student, but now that Luca looked closer, it wasn’t a face seen among the usual gold stars. After thinking for a while, Luca recalled the boy was a silver star student.

“But the same could be said for the silver stars. —You see, Firth? Don’t you think so as well? Although the things you sought differed, I think the spirit of inquiry and the spirit of exploration of the two stars are just the same. It’s a waste to have your eyes clouded because of the insistence of seeing one another as superior and inferior.”

The boy called Firth nodded his head as he ruminated on the meaning of the gently spun words.

Luca had no idea about the prior conversation they had before he came, but he could see what Sophie meant to say properly reached the boy. His eyes were filled with a light of curiosity.

“It’s hard to say that I can understand the thoughts of gold stars, but it is certainly intriguing.”

Luca was unable to understand the exchange between the two and stepped back as he stared at their backs.

On their way back, Sophie handed over the book to Lars, who couldn’t even walk steadily.

It was “that book” that Sophie mentioned before.

Upon receiving the book, Lars thanked Sophie with moistened eyes. His expression seemed to say he just obtained great happiness, changing his earlier dying expression into a full-blown smile.

What exactly is written in that book…?

Luca was sure it was something that a person who knew nothing but a sword couldn’t understand.

When Luca thought so, yet another sigh came out of him—

A/N:

That’s the end of Luca’s POV here.

We returned to Sophie’s POV next.

And finally, Lorenzo is coming. (/・ω・)/