CH 3

“To introduce myself, I’m the headmaster Evory Maxwell. Pleasure, Tsuchio-bou.”

The headmaster is a grandma who wears a large robe and ties her hair back. A staff leans against the desk, so I’m sure she uses magic.

“Um…So the academy, what kind of people enroll in it?”

“As long as you have no criminal record, anyone can be admitted. ’13+’, an age limit’s the only thing we’re affixing. Come to think of it, how old’er you, Tsuchio-bou?”

“16.”

“Oh, I misestimated. Surely, I had thought you would be around 14.”

Japanese people are baby-faced apparently. When you go to a foreign country, seems that they won’t sell you liquor too.

“The entrance examination’s two days later. Well, it’s only an magic and skill inspection, so there’s no need to be too nervous.”

“I understand. Come to think of it, where should I stay? I had heard it was a boarding system.”

“Until you’re admitted, find an inn. You’ve received quite a sum of money from Kisato-bou, no?”

“Yes but…Is there even an inn where Ruu can stay with me?”

“I’ll name a few, so tell’em my name once there. They’ll be more flexible to your needs. As far as helping you Tsuchio-bou, this is it. After this it’s up to you.”

“Yes, thank you for everything.”

As for the inn that had been introduced by the headmaster, it seemed that it was the inn for Tamers, and I was able to see a lot of monsters. Ruu was looked at quite a lot too though.

Apparently the Kingdom’s currency consists of stone coins, copper coins, silver coins, gold coins, and platinum coins. Each coin can be exchanged for 100 of its lower denomination. One night’s stay costs 10 coppers, so I think the respective values are 10 yen, 1,000 yen, 100,000 yen, 1,000,000 yen, and 1,000,000,000 yen. At the end of the day though, that’s in Japanese yen terms.

For the two days afterwards, I practiced nothing but flying in the sky and mana manipulation. As for whether I myself have mana, I won’t know until I get it examined.

And after the second day has passed, I once again stood in front of the academy gates. Besides myself, several other children were walking in. I should hurry up and take the test, and then go prepare for school or something.

I enter the main building, and write my name down at the reception desk. It’s made so that it’ll know even if you use a fake name; magic is awesome. By the way, the words are converted automatically in my brain into Japanese upon reading, or from Japanese into the local language upon writing. Deus ex machina banzai!

“Now then, please wait in the lobby until your number is called.”

My number is…143. That means I’m the 143rd person huh. Guess I’ll wait on a bench or something.

When I sit down on the bench, Ruu sits down nearby and places her head on my lap. I’ve been petting her a bunch lately, so it looks like she’s taken a liking to it. Well, her closing her eyes and purring is really cute though.

While waiting leisurely for my turn, the people steadily increase. Surrounded by people happily chatting away with their new-found acquaintances, I continue to pet Ruu….For some reason, nobody comes close to the bench I’m sitting on… It’s probably because Ruu is scary… Wonder why but,

“Jiiiiii…”

“…”

“Jiiiiii…”

Since a while ago, a small girl has been staring at Ruu and me. Her abundant hair is swept in front of both shoulders and tied with black ribbons.

She’s pretty short, maybe less than 140cm.

“Wanna feel?”

“Is it okay-dearimasuka!?”

‘dearimasu’, huh… What kinda genius dog-eared maiden science chief are you…

(TLN: Rico from Dog Days reference.)

“Y, yah. Don’t touch her head. Otherwise she’ll rip your hand to shreds. Pat her back in a downwards motion.”

“Uh, understood-dearimasu…”

Gingerly, the girl goes to stroke Ruu. When her hand touches, Ruu tries to move away, but I stop her with a look. If you rampage here, it’s kinda decided my school life would be gray-colored.

“Ohhhhhh-! It’s so slippery-dearimasuna…”

“Because I washed her yesterday.”

“She’s warmer than I thought-dearimasunaa…”

“Th, that so. That’s great then?”

The girl continues to be engrossed in stroking Ruu.Gradually Ruu’s mood is getting worse. Gonna have to stop you soon or it’ll be bad.

“Okay, that’s all-”

“Aaaa…”

I pull her hand off of Ruu. Only reluctantly, unwillingly does she let go. As if to say ‘Praise me praise me-!’, Ruu nuzzles her head against me.

“She really likes you-dearimasuna!”

“‘Cause our meeting was intense…”

“Is that so-dearimasu….Ah, I haven’t introduced myself yet-dearimasu! I’m, Triss-dearimasu! I’m a dwarf-dearimasu!”

“I’m Tsuchio. Pleasure.”

When naming yourself here, sounds like first name only’s the norm. I should follow suit.

“Nice to meet you-dearimasu, Tsuchio-san!”

“Why ‘-san’! Why not ‘-dono’!”

“Nn? Is it better to use ‘-dono’-dearimasuka?”

“Well, I had though so.”

“Is that the case-dearimasu. Then, I’ll do so from today-dearimasu! Nice to meet you-dearimasu, Tsuchio-dono!”

Awrite! Don’t really get it, but -dono’s become her honorific. Yeah, if you end your sentences with -dearimasu you’ve gotta use the ‘-dono’ honorific after all!

Wait, did you just say ‘dwarf’!? It’s usually set that Dwarven girls are petite and have a lot of hair, but this world is the same too huh.

“Tsuchio-dono are you a tamer-dearimasuka?”

“Ahh. Triss you’re a dwarf, so are you aiming to become a blacksmith?”

As soon as it became the topic of blacksmiths, Triss’ face instantly became cloudy….So that was a landmine huh.

“…I, I came to learn martial arts-dearimasu. Since dwarves are strong-dearimasu.”

Triss’ face clouded for only a moment, and quickly returned to a smile. Most likely, blacksmith potential is measured based on skills too.

“I still don’t know what kind of skills I have. I think I have the Tame skill, but I’m excited to see what other skills I have.”

“I see-dearimasune…I’m excited too-dearimasu!”

“Entry #143, please proceed to Room 11.”

My turn. Finally going to find out my mana capacity and skills.

“Mkay, I’m heading in. Later, Triss. Ruu, c’mere”

“Ah, yes. Do your best-dearimasu, Tsuchio-dono!”

“Ain’t nothing to do my best on. Eh, do your best too Triss.”

I take Ruu along, and head for the door with the number 11 written on it. The guys Ruu looks at get out of the way on their own, so it’s nice that there’s no need to move anyone aside.

The door is human-sized, so I decide to have Ruu wait in front of the room. If it feels like anyone’s going to touch her, I told her it was fine to threaten them, so I doubt anyone will mess with her.

When I knock, “Enter” comes a voice belonging to a young woman. I go in and there is a beautiful woman, wearing glasses with her hair tied back, sitting behind a desk opposite of me. On top of the desk, there is a big crystal ball and an A4 size paper laid on top of the ball.

“Please sit here.”

I sit in front on a chair of the desk. For some reason, it’s like the times I interviewed for a job…I, I’m getting nervous…

“First we will examine your skills; please place your hands on this paper.”

As instructed, I place my hands on top of the paper. After waiting for a bit, some kind of images begin to come out on the paper.

“This, this is?”

“The earlier the faster acquired, however these are your talents and latent skills. In addition the darker the color, the greater the latent talent. Based on the image, we can see what kind of skill it is. This would be…’Taming’. The color is quite dark, therefore it appears to be quite strong.”

“Really. Ah, the next one came out.”

This time another image comes out. Definitely lighter than ‘Taming’.

“This is …’Caress’?”

“Hah?”

“Apparently, you seem to be good at petting. Are you good?”

“Well, to some extent…I pet pretty often.”

“Then that’s that. Skinship is important for monsters to be attached to you, so I believe it’s convenient.”

‘Caress’…Even something like that becomes a skill huh…No, that just means that I’ve raised it enough for it to become a skill?

“Is there more?”

“Talent is sleeping in everyone. The average I believe is around 3.”

“Haa…Then, I guess that means this one’s my last.”

The image that came out was a little lighter than Caress. How good must I be at petting…

“This is…’Magic Hands’.”

“Magic Hands? What the heck is that?”

“You are able to manipulate mana with your hands. You haven’t experienced it before?”

…When Ruu was using strengthening magic, I was able to strengthen the effect by moving her mana. Maybe it’s that.

“Maybe, but I might have.”

“Then that’s good. You do not have the trouble of not being aware of your skills after all.”

“I, Is that so…”

“…However, ‘Caress’ and ‘Magic Hands’….Quite the fiendish, no powerful combination…”

“Huh?”

“Simply talking to myself.”

Fiendish…Next time, I’ll examine it in detail.

“Ah, it appears there is more. The number of your talents are above average.”

“Please don’t say it in such a ‘anything other than that is below average’ tone…”

“Sorry, force of habit. What appeared this time is, ‘Support Magic’. It’s not all that dark, so it’s best not to expect too much of it.”

“Like I said, why are you phrasing it in such a heartbreaking manner! Did I do something that rubbed you the wrong way!?”

“Sorry, force of habit.”

“Pavlovian response!?”

“Pav-…What’s that?”

“No, nevermind.It’s nothing…”

Earth’s words, of course, aren’t understood. It’d be problematic to be treated as a weirdo, so gotta be careful to not say anything.

“This appears to be the end of it, thus we’ll move on to mana capacity inspection. Please place your hand on this crystal.”

I place my hand on the crystal. Were this a novel, this would be the part where I’d have a crazy mana capacity, and break the crystal though…I’m not expecting that. I mean, there’s no mana on Earth right. And I’m an earthling. Therefore, I don’t have mana. Such brilliant deductive reasoning!

In the first place, the fact that Ruu was tamed by me was miraculous. From here on out it’s all up to my hard work, I suppose.

After leaving my hand on the crystal and waiting for a while, the center begins to shine dimly. The light is really weak, and looks like it’ll disappear even now.Ahhhhh, as expected.Life, you never go that well.

“…Considerably miniscule, enough that it’d be faster to say 0. My condolences.”

“Gee thanks.”

“You’re not surprised huh. On the contrary, it’s abnormal for it to be so small. I don’t even think you’ll be able to use that shabby support magic. Moreover, monster battles with scarce mana are quite challenging…”

“It’s fine, I had expected as much.”

“Is that so. It’s not 0, so you will likely be able to use Magic Hands. It may increase going forward, therefore please keep doing your best.”

Saying that I leave the room. ‘Kay, I made Ruu wait, so let’s pet her a bunch. Looks like I’ve got the talent anyway. Pet and pet and pet, and cultivate that talent! Enough to be able to make monsters melt for me! …And if possible, girls too maybe.

Triss wasn’t in the lobby. Maybe, she was called to her inspection too. After returning to the receptionist, I was passed my dorm key and a metal plate that had a number written on it. Ruu is to live in the bestiary, I’m told. This would apparently be the key. There’s probably magic cast on it. How convenient.

First I take Ruu to the bestiary. While looking at a wolf with horns and stupidly huge snake in the bestiary, I search for the room matching my plate. Oh, here.

“Ruu, this is your nest from today onwards. When I’m not here, you’ll be staying here alright.”

“Guru”

Ruu obediently enters the room. Huh, I thought she’d resist more but…She’s strangely obedient.

“Okay then, sleep…tight?”

“Guru?”

As I motion to leave, Ruu stops me by biting my the hem of my shirt. Then she drags me close, and wraps me in her coils. This guy, you don’t intend to let me go huh…Up until now we’d been sleeping together, so it’s probably normal to Ruu though!

“Hey, Ruu. I’m not sleeping here. The one sleeping here is only Ruu.”

“Guru!? Gurururu!”

Even if you say ‘No, no!’…Rules are rules, and I want to sleep in a soft bed too…Ruu is pretty soft, but she does lose out to a bed.

“Gururu …”

“This is just a place to sleep. During the day, we can be together…supposedly.So, please sleep here. Okay?”

“Guru …”

She was pretty reluctant, but it looks like she would rather not trouble me. Even while looking like she was about to cry, Ruu let go of me….Somehow, I feel like I did something bad…

“Once I put my stuff in the room, I’ll immediately come and let you out okay? I’ll even come first thing in the morning okay? So, please be a little patient.”

“Guruu…”

When I lock the room, a transparent membrane covers the entrance of the room. I try touching it, but ‘zap!‘ runs static electricity. An electric fence eh…

“I’ll be back soon okay. Be good.”

“Guru…”

Ruu turns her back to me, and coils up. Let’s come back as quickly as possible…

Author’s Note: Anyways, last for today.