“You can leave this to me, all right?” said Cú, snorting with pride. “I’m a master. I’ve got tons of experience!”
After getting out of the bath, Blade had returned to his dorm room with Cú and Lunaria. Currently, Lunaria was busy using a towel to dry the young dragon’s hair.
“Um…don’t you have an attendant, Blade?” she asked.
“Who are you, some kinda princess?”
Even an ex-Hero like Blade could tell what she was driving at. She probably saw drying hair as servant work. Not a lick of common sense, this girl.
Come to think of it, Blade had once saved a princess from another kingdom, and she’d said pretty much the same thing. They’d been in a vast wilderness, and she’d glanced all around, saying, “didn’t you bring any servants with you?” Getting her back home had been incredibly stressful.
“I’m the world’s foremost authority when it comes to inter-species exchange!” Cú declared. “And the advice I have for you is…pay more attention to meeeee! Once you’re done drying my hair, next you gotta roll it up and tease it all out, okay?”
“I don’t understand what you mean,” said Lunaria.
“She can’t sleep unless she’s clinging to something,” Blade explained. “Just pat her on the back a few times, and she’ll pass right out.”
“She will…?”
Lunaria had never taken care of such a young girl before. Ever so cautiously, she combed Cú’s hair, lay down beside her, and gently tapped her back.
“Hold me,” said the dragon.
“Um, all right… Like this?”
“Now pat me.”
“Um…is this okay?”
“Zzzzzzz…”
“Whoa! That was fast! But…are you sure this plan of hers is going to work, Blade?”
“Don’t worry. Just let my beloved daughter take care of things. She’s an expert.”
Blade winked at Lunaria, but she was too entangled in Cú’s arms to move.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Take me on!”
Cú stood, arms folded, in the middle of the hallway. Lunaria followed suit. Blade, acting as her cornerman, also had his arms folded for some reason.
“Huh? Who? Me?”
The first victim who happened to pass by was Kassim. He pointed at himself and looked around. Nobody else was in sight.
“What do you mean, ‘take me on’? I don’t really like my chances here…”
“It doesn’t have to be a fight,” explained Cú. “Any kind of contest will work. Just do whatever you’re best at, Kassim.”
“What I’m best at? Anything?”
“Anything.”
“Um… Okay. Then how about a contest to see who can make a girl fall in love with them the fastest?”
“Booo! That’s what you want to be best at, not what you are best at. And you’re never going to get what you want, Kassim!”
“Whoa! Stop being so mean! What am I good at, then?”
“Oh, I know. You’re really good at guessing girls’, um, ‘measurements’!”
“Huh? That’s what you want to take me on with?”
“What are mine, Kassim?”
“Twenty-six, twenty, twenty-eight.”
“You’re right! What about Lunaria?”
“Thirty-eight, twenty-two, thirty-six.”
“Wha—…?!” Lunaria blushed and tried to cover up her body. The reaction seemed to indicate that Kassim was right.
Blade couldn’t help but be impressed. As an ex-Hero, he also had the uncanny ability to gauge an opponent’s fighting skill with a single glance. Kassim’s skills were, in their own way, a great technique for gauging a woman’s prowess.
“Why are you so surprised?” Kassim asked Lunaria.
He was dumbfounded. The man was completely unaware of what he was capable of, totally oblivious to the greatness of his achievement. His lack of awareness was even more impressive than the skill itself. He couldn’t have been more of a natural. A true talent, thought Blade, deeply moved, is something you’re not even aware of.
“…All right! That’ll be our competition, then,” Lunaria declared. “Hmph! I’m a genius, you know. I can see a technique like yours just once and copy it at will! I’m not some fake, you know!”
And with that, the competition began.
Girls comprised around half of the academy’s student body. Between them, the king’s guard, the dining hall staff, and so on, the final results came like this:
Kassim: Sixty-five correct out of sixty-five.
Lunaria: Five correct out of sixty-five (four suspected cases of cheating due to already knowing the target’s measurements).
The genius just couldn’t hack it. Even after seeing Kassim pull off the move sixty-five times, she still couldn’t figure it out. She was all bark and no bite.
“Well…you beat me,” she said.
“I can’t say I’m overjoyed about winning a fight like this… Can I go now?”
“Sure thing. Thanks.”
Blade waved good-bye to Kassim. Right up to the end, he remained fully unaware of his own awesomeness. Perhaps guessing the size of the girls’ breasts had reduced his rating among them by tens of thousands of points, but since that rating had started out at zero and remained zero, nothing had really changed.
“I lost… A—a genius like me…” Luna was on all fours, unable to stand up.
“C’mon, pull yourself together!” said Blade. “The next competition awaits!”
“Huh? The next one…? Wait… I’m still tasting this first bitter defeat…”
“You need to lose to a hundred and eight people. We don’t have time to mess around!”
“Huh? What? One hundred and eight people…?”
Lunaria, unable to rise, wound up letting Blade drag her away by her skirt and panties.
“Huh? Something I’m good at?”
Lunaria’s next opponent was Clay. He folded his arms and hemmed and hawed for a while. People often considered themselves a whiz at something they weren’t actually that skilled in. In fact, it was often something they were particularly bad at. In the end, the thing they thought they were good at was simply a thing they wished they’d be good at in the future.
…Blade knew that, but he thought he’d give it a shot and ask.
“Right, yeah.” Clay slapped his palm with a fist and flashed Blade a defiant grin. “I know. I can make mud balls that’re really, really hard.”
“What’re mud balls?”
“What are they?” Lunaria asked, joining in.
“Tell me, Clay!” Apparently, Captain Cú didn’t know, either.
“What…? Didn’t you ever play in the mud as a kid?” Clay made it sound like everyone knew about these mysterious objects.
“Of course not,” said Blade. “I’m pretty sure I didn’t have anything close to a normal childhood!”
“Not exactly a noble child’s pastime, is it…?” said Lunaria.
“Not a dragon’s, either!”
“Oh. Sorry. My bad. I…I’m sorry, I guess.” Clay sounded sincere in his apology.
“Why don’t you just tell me what they are?” asked Blade.
“Right!” agreed Lunaria. “I don’t know what kind of competition this is, but if you can give me a demonstration, that’s all I’ll need! I’m a genius, after all!”
“Yeaaah! Let’s plaaay!” agreed Cú.
“All right. In that case…we’ll want some good sand and soil.” Clay said, looking around.
“Soil? What? You mean soil soil? A genius playing in the soil?” Lunaria was aghast.
“Yeah!” Blade exclaimed, already excited.
“Right! Yeaaah!” agreed Cú.
“Okay, here we go!” shouted Clay.
“Whoa… Wait a minute!” shrieked Lunaria. “That one’s shining like a marble! You’re cheating!”
Thud!
“Ha-ha! It went ‘thud!’” said Blade.
“Thuuud!” Cú repeated.
Everyone threw their mud balls at each other. Clay’s were as shiny and black as obsidian—clearly the toughest of them all. He easily crushed the other three competitors.
“Ah-ha-ha-ha! I lost!” Blade cried with a belly laugh.
“I lost!” shouted Cú. “Clay! That was amazing! Ahhh! Give me a big hug!”
“I…I give up… I lost again… A genius like me…”
Blade and Cú were enjoying every minute of the competition. Lunaria, meanwhile, was on her hands and knees in the sand, depressed again.
“Right, see you later, Clay!” said Blade.
“You bet! You can take me on anytime! The champion’s always ready for a challenge!”
“Okay, next! A hundred and six more to go!” Blade grabbed Lunaria by the skirt and panties and dragged her along behind him.
“Ugh… I-I’m sick of losing… Geniuses aren’t meant to lose…”
Blade ignored her muttering and mercilessly dragged her away. There were 106 people to go, and only after she had lost to all of them would he hear her out.