In the western expanse of Yugria lay a range of rugged peaks known as the Euhrad Mountains. While the range as a whole was on the smaller side compared to some of Yugria’s others, it also included Mount Euhrad itself, the kingdom’s second-tallest mountain and home to many exceptionally dangerous monsters. Even excluding the towering Mount Euhrad as an outlier, however, the rest of the range’s peaks—generally around three thousand to five thousand meters tall—were all notable for featuring some of the heaviest snowfall in not only Yugria, but across the entire continent of Rondene.
The week following their unprecedented triumph at the Royal Academy’s fall school camp—an excursion more accurately described as a hellish military exercise—the members of Class 1-A arrived at Mount Porinth, one of the smaller mountains in the Euhrad range, for a (slightly premature) winter training camp. The instigator of said training camp, of course, was none other than Allen Rovene, reincarnated former bookworm and the protagonist of this very tale, and his postcamp depression was the catalyst.
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I sighed gloomily. “I was really looking forward to the camping trip too... It was over way too quickly...”
I was slumped over my desk, watching through the window as the clouds drifted by and being generally morose, when Al—resident blue-haired ice mage of Class 1-A—approached.
“What’s wrong, Allen? It’s weird to hear you sounding so depressed. I guess even you would feel exhausted after a camp like that, huh... Still, it was a really fulfilling experience!” he said with an irritatingly satisfied grin.
I immediately objected. “Fulfilling?! It was the complete opposite! Unlike you guys, I spent basically the entire week alone because of our stupid geezer of a teacher and his dumb schemes! Do you know how much I was looking forward to enjoying one of youth’s most precious experiences?! Nah, it missed the mark entirely! I was robbed! Robbed, I tell you”
Upon hearing this, Kate (our class’s answer to the stereotypical student council president character) sighed pointedly. “Honestly, Allen... Everything you did out there, and you’re still not satisfied? When I woke up the morning after we got back, I was so sore that I couldn’t move a single muscle from the neck down! It felt like my body wasn’t even my own... It was awful,” she said with a shudder. Her comment received a unanimous round of, Yeah, me too’s and I barely managed to get up’s, among other uninspiring agreements. Much to my annoyance, this was immediately followed by shared laughter at their disgusting display of cohesion—cohesion I had been cruelly excluded from.
Damn it... It’s like they’re still getting friendlier by the day! This is all Godolphen’s fault, the bastard...
“That’s not the point, Kate! All I wanted was a chance to spend time with my friends, to run around in the fields by day and gossip about our crushes by night... A school camp’s meant to be a place to make lifelong memories!” I protested, teary-eyed, to which Kate responded with a grimace.
“Come on, Allen. It’s not something to cry about, especially when you clearly did enjoy the camp more than anyone else...” She sighed. “Besides, if you want to spend time running around with your friends, how about actually doing your job as coach of the Hill Path Club for once? Everyone’s been begging me to get you to give them some proper advice, since you’ve been too busy to do so recently.”
“You’re not listening to me, Kate! This is different! A school camp is a unique experience—” Just then, a flash of inspiration hit me. “That’s it! You’re a genius, Kate! Let’s hold a club training camp!”
The Hill Path Club I’d founded—of which I was also the (ostensible) coach—was modeled on the school sports clubs of my native Japan. Our purpose was a relatively simple one, focused on improving fundamental stamina and magical manipulation through daily practice. Incidentally, everyone in Class 1-A was a founding member, and Kate was also the head manager; primarily, her role involved recording the progress of the respective club members and developing training schedules and nutritional plans.
My classmates exchanged identically reluctant glances. Having only just returned from the camping trip—the main (aka the most exhausting) event on the second semester’s calendar—they didn’t seem very eager about the idea of another camp.
Come on, how can the words “training camp” not get your engines going?! A training camp’s the epitome of youth!
Stella—my pink-haired, slightly thuggish classmate, and the captain of said Hill Path Club—was the first to reply. “Well, I guess a training camp’s not a bad idea, really... I mean, we basically just run around in circles every day, so it does get a little boring. It’ll be a little difficult, but if we start planning right now we should be able to get something organized before winter break—”
I shook my head, cutting her off before she could finish what I considered to be an unacceptable suggestion. “Winter break? Are you still asleep, Stella? Is that why you’re talking nonsense? No, we’ll leave after classes end tomorrow, and hold it over the weekend. It’s settled. And as for our destination... Well, for a winter club training camp, it’s gotta be in the snow, right? We can reach the Euhrad Mountains in the Endymion Region on an overnight train, if I remember correctly. I wouldn’t wanna go there in the middle of winter, but right now the snow conditions should be perfect!” I declared, unilaterally deciding on our plans based on whatever first came to mind.
“You want us to leave tomorrow?!” Kate spluttered, her face decidedly ashen. “Calm down for a minute, Allen! I’ll admit we’ve been taking it a little easy during practice this past week, and I can understand why you might think we’ve lost the ‘Combat Readiness’ you’ve worked so hard to instill in us. We’ve let you down, and I’m sorry for that. But sending us all into the freezing mountains with basically no planning at all is way too dangerous! Besides, do you even know just how many students you’re talking about—”
She continued on in this way for a while, desperately listing all of the flaws with my (admittedly perfunctory) plan, while the rest of my classmates watched on with icy stares. Clearly, I’d need to reassure them of the true brilliance of my idea.
“You guys spend too much time listening to that stupid old geezer, I swear... This isn’t another of his supplementary classes—it’s a fun-filled club activity! Besides, we’re not gonna be in any danger. It might be called a training camp, but all we do in the Hill Path Club is run, remember? We don’t actually need to do any extra training to get us over the final hurdle or anything like that. Nah, it’s just gonna be a bonding experience! Hanging out on the slopes, having snowball fights, sleeping in a nice warm log cabin—it’ll be perfect!” I paused for a moment to let this sink in. “You’re probably right about the number of participants though—it’ll be hard to find a log cabin big enough to fit everyone in the club. Let’s limit it to first-year students for the inaugural camp, and we’ll make it voluntary participation too. If you don’t wanna come, there’s no need to force yourselves, okay? You do all look pretty tired...” I finished, my tone deliberately nonchalant.
Of course, Leo (son of a duke, top student in our year, and alleged once-in-a-century prodigy) took this as a challenge. “And pass up an opportunity like this? Never. In fact, I was just thinking about doing some extra training. I’ll follow you, Allen—to the bitter end,” he replied stubbornly, glowering at me with his stupidly handsome face and firmly set jaw.
Why’s he making it sound like we’re marching into battle? For someone who’s meant to be a genius, he can be a real idiot sometimes... Was he even listening to me at all?!
“Count me in too! It sounds pretty exciting!” Al added, his eyes burning with far too much fiery passion for someone who was supposed to be an ice mage.
“Yeah, bring it on!”
“We’ll show you, Allen! Let’s all make it back in one piece!”
One by one, my other classmates confirmed their own participation with cringeworthy sincerity.
I said it was meant to be fun...
“I will of course be joining you too, Allen. Will there be anything we’ll require? House Reverence will be more than happy to provide any necessary supplies or equipment,” Jewel said with a kind smile.
“Come on, guys... You’re taking this too seriously! Loosen up a bit, will you?” I said, demonstrating for them by rolling my shoulders in the universal sign of, Just relax. Unfortunately I received only dubious stares in return, and rather than relaxing, they actually seemed more tense, so I gave up and moved the conversation forward.
“You’ll all only need to bring enough clothes for the weekend, and we can pick up some food nearby when we get there. Oh, and there’s one more thing that’s mandatory—coach’s orders.” I purposefully said this last bit as though I’d suddenly remembered something important and was rewarded with audible gulps of tense anticipation. “You all need to bring snacks—three riels worth at most. Got it?”
In reality, the only reason for this snack-based requirement (and subsequent limitation) was that it had been a hallmark of school field trips and club outings back in Japan, to the point where most people assumed “Students are forbidden to bring more than three hundred yen worth of snacks” was an official rule set by the Ministry of Education. One riel was equivalent to about one dollar, so when converted to yen it was probably just over the three hundred yen limit, but it was close enough. The key point was that the budget needed to be a little tight. Working within that limitation, we’d prepare our favorite snacks, show them off to one another, and negotiate trades while huddled in front of a roaring fire in a (hopefully adequate) imitation of the quintessential adolescent experience I’d longed to have in my previous life.
“That’s just like you, Allen... Those emergency rations could mean the difference between life and death out there in the snow, and you’re setting the budget at a measly three riels? I guess most of your ‘fun’ ideas do have a tinge of ‘fatality’ to them too, so really, I don’t know what else I expected...” Fey drawled, grinning at me in the dangerously feline way I’d unfortunately become familiar with.
“Th-Three riels?! We need some more information here, Allen! Is that the market value, or are we allowed to bring more if we buy things on sale?!”
“What about snacks sourced from our own domains, like the dried fruits my family’s business produces?!”
My classmates, sharp as they were, immediately grasped the basic idea and began hounding me with further questions. Smirking at the touch of desperation in their widened eyes, I kindly answered their many queries.