A night walk with Sera felt a bit magical.
First of all, it was odd seeing someone who should have been lying down for a week moving so freely. The vibes were just peculiar.
She was a fascinating person.
Crazy about dueling, but didn’t dwell on the outcomes. She didn’t care how the last duel went, and she held no particular feelings towards me.
There was a complete lack of prejudice in how she treated people. I was dealing with her as a person too.
It should have been normal, but I hadn’t been treated normally before.
“D-Don’t touch me!”
“What a monster of a girl.”
Not a monster of a girl, but an actual monster!
I wiped the illusions of the past from my mind.
I didn’t completely lack feelings. I just felt them more faintly than others.
Thinking back on the past made me a bit down. I walked silently beside Sera.
At first, I thought she was acting, but when I met her eyes, it was clear she wasn’t.
If there was one thing I could gather from that, it was that she wasn’t a bad person.
Not a bad person, just a little quirky.
“How long did it take you?”
Sera asked as she walked ahead.
It was a tricky question to answer right away. I kept silent, trying to grasp the meaning behind her words.
But Sera quickly added more.
“I meant how long it took to reach the top student rank. Or more accurately, how long I spent getting this strong.”
“…”
“It took me about 14 years to get where I am now. In this world, strength is everything, so I was desperate to get stronger.”
Her words were spot on.
In this world, strength was paramount.
Only the strong beings survive, while the weak are eaten by those stronger.
For me, born as a stronger existence who fed on the weak, her words resonated easily.
The only reason I was still alive was that I was stronger than the others.
On the other hand, the monster, Amy, who had hurt humans like me, suffered cruelly before dying. Because she was weaker than the humans.
I listened to Sera. I was curious about what she would say next.
“When I was young, my parents were killed by a monster. At that time, my parents were pretty renowned mages in the village, but they fell when trying to repel the intruding monster.”
“Was it due to a lack of strength?”
“I guess so. If I had been strong enough, it wouldn’t have happened, right?”
As Sera walked along the night road, she was definitely smiling, but her smile wasn’t entirely genuine.
It looked a bit bittersweet.
“I was seven then, and after that, I went into the orphanage… um. Basically, I focused on studying magic since then, and here I am now.”
“…”
“But it wasn’t all that bad. I had a friend in the orphanage who worked hard too. Actually, they might have worked even harder than I did.”
Sera said that while gazing at the sky.
The starry night was lovely to look at, perfect for reminiscing about monstrous memories.
She was staring at the sky, recalling someone. I didn’t know who. Sera couldn’t read memories just by looking, especially in her current state.
Seeing her condition and the lack of visible memories, it seemed that mental defense mechanisms came from mana.
Since I couldn’t read her memories, I had to ask directly. So I did.
“Are you still close with that person?”
Sera wasn’t the only one with someone from the past.
I had Riana, and Rena had Wendy and Celine.
And Rena and I didn’t have a happy ending.
Riana disappeared, and Rena’s bond with Wendy fell apart when Celine died.
In a dangerous world like this, friends could disappear at any moment. Even if you had been close, they might vanish in an instant.
So what about Sera?
Curiosity struck, and I asked if she was still connected with a past friend.
Sera scratched her cheek with a puzzled expression. As if to say I was asking strange questions.
“Huh? Of course, we’re close. We’re in the same school.”
“…?”
“You didn’t know? Ariel and I are from the same orphanage.”
I had no idea.
“What? Seriously didn’t know?”
I nodded.
A bit of conversation passed between us.
*
Sera and Ariel were childhood friends.
They had been close since old times, and even though they were in different classes now, they occasionally had duels.
There was a bit of misunderstanding there.
Sera thought I was following Ariel because I liked him.
And despite pretending otherwise, Sera also wanted a deeper relationship with Ariel. The freshness of a girl’s childhood love was indeed a depth difficult to fathom.
For that reason, Sera, the top student of the first year, seemed to think I, a silver-haired girl she didn’t know much about, was a formidable opponent.
So, she proposed a duel.
Sera, being somewhat awkward, had no means to express herself other than dueling.
“I-I don’t like him.”
“Huh? Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Then why have you been following him?”
What should I say?
It was a complicated story, so I couldn’t spill the truth. Saying I was investigating someone who might be the protagonist of this world would just raise unnecessary suspicions.
So I opted for a vague excuse.
Sera’s personality reminded me a bit of Rena. Despite being strong, you could still sense the innocence of her age.
If that was the case, wouldn’t her thought process be similar?
I recalled the last time I explained myself to Rena.
“I like girls.”
“Oh, I see.”
“…”
Her reaction was somewhat unexpected.
Was it because she was free from prejudice? Maybe I wasn’t aligning my points correctly.
So I brought up a topic I thought she’d like.
“And I also love dueling.”
Sera’s eyes lit up.
The girl who had been walking ahead quickly turned her head and grabbed my wrist.
“Ah! So that’s why! I mean, it’s well known that you’re the strongest in the academy. I think I understand how you feel! When someone is strong, don’t you want to fight them at least once?”
“…”
“Actually, I feel the same way! Ah, you’re so cute! So you ended up following me around without being able to talk?”
I felt like this was being understood in a completely different way, but I nodded for now since I couldn’t think of any other excuses.
“It’s really strange. You’re so strong, yet your personality is so timid.”
“…That’s just rude.”
While pinching my cheek, Sera giggled. I couldn’t speak properly with my cheek pinched.
So I told her to let go first.
After a conversation that wasn’t short, I could clear up the misunderstanding between us.
I was simply curious about Ariel and had no intention of getting in the way of their friendship.
Sera’s gaze softened a bit more after I clarified that.
Before, she looked at me like an acquaintance, but now it felt like she was looking at an old friend.
We walked a bit longer. It was a path near the internal hospital of the academy.
“You must have had a tough time too, to get that strong. After all, nothing can truly be achieved through talent alone.”
“…”
“This is the best educational institution in the continent. It’s filled with talented individuals. Maybe in a small place, talent could suffice, but at the Imperial Academy, you can’t become the top student just with talent. I believe those who have held the top position worked hard in obscurity.”
Sera must have been someone who had been called a genius continually. It was said she built an incredible skill at a young age due to her talent.
But she didn’t seem to like the word talent.
That’s because she didn’t rise to her place through mere talent. Rather, she worked harder than anyone else.
The skills she built through daily rigorous effort. The more her skills improved, the more evident it became in dueling.
People don’t seem to care much about someone’s efforts.
They admire and envy exceptional talent. Thus, they criticize the hard work of others. If they can’t climb to the top themselves, they tear others down for some mental comfort.
They’d say things like how lucky they are to have been born with amazing talent and got to live life easily.
“Are you the same?”
Sera asked me, and I didn’t answer for a while.
I wasn’t as extraordinary a person as she was. I had accidentally fallen into this world and had just coincidentally been transformed into a strong body.
Sera thought I was someone as incredible as she was because I had defeated her in a duel.
But that wasn’t the case.
I was just barely surviving, having never really made an effort before. I couldn’t resonate with her words about hard work.
Maybe that’s why.
“Yes.”
Some strangely mismatched conversation flowed between us. At that point, I felt a slight sense of discomfort.
Was it because I couldn’t relate to her words that I was a monster?
Because I was born a monster too strong from the start, could I not grasp her feelings of having worked hard to rise through legitimate effort?
“…”
I didn’t know.
Today too, my thoughts wandered alone.
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