Chapter 545:
The Bear Gets to Yufaria’s Academy
“HAAH...” I SIGHED.
I’d been wrong to think that I could avoid trouble by just not wearing my bear onesie. If I had been in my regular gear, I would have just written this off as normal. Maybe I was just fated to run into trouble from birth?
Still, I’d technically been the one to ask for this fight.
“So where should we hold the duel?”
It wasn’t like we could have it here, with this much pedestrian traffic.
“Oh, of course,” Seleiyu said. “As I would be the one assigning a guard to Noir, we could hold it at my house. But I would like to speak to Shia first, so let’s go to the academy instead. The campus is large, so we won’t inconvenience anyone.”
Seleiyu was acting like she’d already won. Well, I hadn’t been chosen as part of the magical delegation, and my biceps and palms were pretty soft and flabby. Her confidence was completely understandable.
Seleiyu started walking toward the academy. Noa and I followed after her.
“Are you certain about this, Yuna?” Noa looked a little worried. “I’m so very sorry you had to do this for me.”
“Don’t apologize, Noa. It’s not your fault. Plus, you already know I’m powerful enough.”
“Yeah.”
“It’ll be fine. I’m not going to let anyone else take my spot as your guard.”
“Yuna, thank you...”
Noa seemed happy to hear that. She grabbed my bear puppet hand and started to march forward.
I asked her, “So you’ve met?”
“Yes, a few times now. I saw her at His Majesty’s birthday festival, but she was wearing a beautiful dress then, so I didn’t recognize her at first.”
You could make a person unrecognizable just by changing their clothes or hairstyle. If I took off my bear onesie, for example, people I only interacted with occasionally wouldn’t recognize me at all.
“Actually, I remember that she enjoyed the pudding served at His Majesty’s banquet.”
So she’d had my cooking before. That was back when the king had asked me to make pudding out of nowhere, and I had to do all of it by myself. Wow, good times. Fina and Morin had watched, but they’d refused to help.
“Is she strong, then?”
“I’m sorry. I don’t really know. She’s older than me, and we haven’t seen each other much. I haven’t asked her directly. Shia would know, though.”
Noa looked really apologetic. They were pretty far apart in age, so I didn’t blame her for not knowing when they didn’t seem very close.
“That’s okay. When it comes down to it, I just need to win the duel.”
“Oh, you sure are confident. I have no intention to lose, either.”
Seleiyu, walking ahead, turned around to face us as she was. She radiated confidence too. If she was that sure of herself, then I could only assume it was because she’d started sword training while really young.
When I thought about how she’d have to face me, someone who’d been literally blessed by a god, I felt a teensy bit guilty. I decided I’d only use the kind of sword I’d played with in my game to fight. I couldn’t lift a heavy sword without my bear puppets, so I’d still be relying on the power of my gear, but it was better than taking advantage of magical abilities I normally wouldn’t have.
“Lady Seleiyu, why were you here in the first place? Do they not need you at the academy?”
“I finished my studies for today, so I was simply taking a walk. Then I ran into the two of you.”
“Oh, I’m sorry...”
“It’s all right. I got to see you again, after all.”
“But you were chosen to participate in the gathering, weren’t you? Don’t you need to practice?”
“We have opened the school grounds so the students from the capital may train. The Yufarian students are not practicing. It wouldn’t be fair of us to keep practicing up until the matches begin when we are already familiar with the campus grounds.”
Right. The home team always had an advantage no matter the sport. Thinking about it that way, it made sense to give up their campus for training.
“So Shia should be training right now?” Noa asked.
“Yes, I believe so.”
Ah, so that was why Shia had said she wouldn’t be able to see us right away. She couldn’t exactly slip out to meet us while everyone was practicing. It seemed like we were going to be reunited with her earlier than expected, though.
We arrived at the bridge, which stretched all the way over the lake to the island in the middle.
“It’s pretty long.”
The bridge was vast, marked by a massive building where it met the island. That must have been the academy.
“Is the academy the only thing on this island?”
“No. Part of the island is open for sightseeing, so there are other amenities,” Seleiyu answered frankly.
Noa must have really wanted to see her sister, since she started running for the bridge. It was dangerous for her to go on ahead without us... That was how she’d ended up tripping and running into Seleiyu, after all. Seleiyu and I followed closely after her.
The bridge really was long. It would have been a real pain to cross it without my bear shoes. I was impressed by all the students who had to walk across this thing every single day. It wasn’t sloped, at least, which made it a bit easier, and the breeze blowing on us was pretty nice. The walk was probably cold in the winter.
After we crossed the bridge and walked for a while, we arrived at the front of the academy. Size-wise, it was on par with the capital’s academy.
“It’s kind of cool that it’s in the middle of a lake.” It was like something straight out of a game or manga.