The Demon Prince goes to the Academy

llowed me to easily overcome that period.

It was an overall even improvement.
If compared to my stats from the beginning of the first semester, it could be used as an ideal example of physical growth.

If I strengthened my body with Self-Suggestion, they might even go up to B-.

The rank of Self-Suggestion had also risen quite a bit, so the reinforcement it granted was quite substantial.

Thinking about the time when my physical abilities were still shown as F and D, I felt kind of nostalgic.

I was going to imprint my third talent soon.

Unless something big happened, it would be a talent related to magic.

“Erich! You’ve grown a lot, you punk!”

“Hmm… Is that so? I still have a long way ahead of me.”

Kono Lint hit Erich on his shoulder when he saw his updated physical data table.
I did hear that he worked out during the vacation.

‘Let me check.’

 

A-9 Erich de Lafaeri

[Strength 10.2(C)] 

[Agility 6.4(D)] 

[Dexterity 5.40(D-)]

[Magical Power 4.10(F+)] 

[Stamina 8(C-)] 

[Divine Power -]

Talents

[Divine power] [Swordsmanship] [Martial Arts]

 

Did he just do some weight training?

That bastard wasn’t really interested in those kinds of things at first, so his old physical data wasn’t even good to begin with, but he had definitely improved.

His agility, dexterity, and stamina were too far behind his other stats.
‘Dude, you have to grow in a balanced manner.’

Still, Erich’s strength was higher in rank than mine.
Although his potential was overflowing, he never put any effort into anything, so I had no idea why that deadbeat decided to try now.

He had more talents than before, but he had neglected training his divine powers to the point that he didn’t even get a rank for it.

“Hey, if you keep this up, won’t you reach first place in no time?”

“Come on, how could that be?”

Erich shrugged his shoulders at the praise of his brothers, acting humble.
‘Speaking of, what about Kono Lint?’

I was rather sure that his stats were freaking bad.

 

A-8 Kono Lint

[Strength 3.1(F)] 

[Agility 7(D+)] 

[Dexterity 5.1(D-)]

[Magical Power 1.4(F-)] 

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[Stamina 4(F+)]

 

Talents

[Teleportation]

 

Wow.

Even the words “freaking bad” weren’t enough to describe it. 

Didn’t the physical training we had to do in our common classes show any results?

He wasn’t like Erich.
That guy got put into the Royal Class purely because of his supernatural powers while having such abilities, right?

Kono Lint’s physical abilities weren’t even as good as mine in my first semester there.

No, I didn’t plan on looking at those pieces of garbage to begin with.

A-2 Ellen

[Strength 18.5(B+)] 

[Agility 20.3(A-)]

[Dexterity 23.1(A)]

[Magical Power 27.2(A+)] 

[Stamina 20.5(A-)]

Talents

[Weapon mastery] [Mana Control]

At the beginning of the first semester, most of Ellen’s stats were at B-rank, but almost all of them had reached A-rank.
She was getting closer and closer to the limits of a human being, so her growth was somewhat slower compared to someone like me.

As we got closer to those limits, our rate of growth was bound to decrease.
The Hero’s blood wasn’t an ability that allowed one to simply push past the limits of man. 

Although none of our classmates could have been her equal in the first semester as well, it was clear that she had grown stronger.

If she were to use magic body strengthening, her physical abilities would explosively improve.

I wasn’t sure by how much, but I wondered if she would be able to go up to S-rank when using it.
If one thought about it that way, she really was a tremendous monster.

All the others were looking at Ellen’s physical stats and were bound to just stare wide-eyed.
She had been a monster before, but she was even more of a monster.

Of course, Ellen Artorius wasn’t interested in that.
She was just sitting in her seat, staring blankly at the blackboard with her chin resting on one hand.

 

* * *

 

Even though we had reached our second semester, the contents of our common classes were pretty much the same.
As it was still summer, our P.E.
class was still replaced by swimming classes.

At the start of the first semester, I was completely drained by the P.E classes, but after vacations, I was able to handle the curriculum without too much difficulty. 

That day, there were some that didn’t return after class and just stayed in the classroom.

-This one, let’s take that class.

-Yeah, yeah.
I think that’ll be quite fun.

Adelia and Harriet, who wanted to apply for the same lectures, and Ellen and I did that.
The three idiot brothers were also talking among each other, probably trying to take the same classes as well, although they were of different majors.

And.,,

Ellen filled in her course registration form at her seat and immediately left the classroom.

No, that was it?

I immediately got up from my seat and called out to Ellen, who was on her way to the teacher’s office.

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“H-hey!”

“…What?”

That girl just tilted her head as if there was something wrong with me.

No, seriously.

Wasn’t that a bit sad, huh?!

“Hey, shouldn’t we also discuss which classes we should take together?”

During those times, we had gotten so much closer that I had completely forgotten how awkward she was.
Now that I think about it, even when we got closer during our first semester, we had never even made proper eye contact when we met in the hallways or anything. 

“…Why do we have to take the same lectures?”

I felt like she probably didn’t understand what being close had to do with attending the same classes.

She was someone who had trouble with the social aspects of life.
It had been a while since I felt it.
She was rather slow when it came to those things.

Yeah, there wasn’t any reason for us to go to the same classes.
Strictly speaking, we didn’t have to.
Erm.
Yeah.
Obviously. 

“If there are any classes that overlap, then we could go to them together!”

She wasn’t a supernatural power user, but even if she couldn’t go to the supernatural power classes, we could still take swordsmanship classes together!

“…Do you want me to show you?”

Ellen showed me her course registration form as I made a fuss.

She didn’t know why I was so angry, but it seemed like she didn’t mind if I wanted to go to the same classes as her.
It felt kind of strange how she showed me her registration form so casually.

What?

Why did I feel like I was kind of obsessed about that?

No, was that obsession?

S-still… wasn’t it good to have someone one was close with in one’s course? Wasn’t it like that?

Wasn’t she acting like someone who didn’t really care about me?

Even though I had such thoughts running through my mind, I wrote down the swordsmanship class Ellen had applied for as well as the Demon Ecology class.
Her timetable contained various individual professor’s lectures on magic enhancement instead of Mana Sensitivity Classes, meaning they were classes that I couldn’t take with her. 

“By the way…”

“…What?”

Ellen looked at me and asked something as she watched me fill out my registration form in the hallway.

“Do you want to be together with me so badly?”

“…What?”

It felt like she was asking me because she was really curious, not because she wanted to tease me.

“We’re always together anyway.
We’ve been training together as well:”

Do you want to be with me so bad that you even want to take the same classes as me, even though we are practically together all the time regardless of our classes? Why?

That was probably what she was thinking.

There were no signs that she was trying to tease me like saying ‘Do you like me that much?’

So my guess was that she was really just curious.

Was she actually a real monster who was unable to understand a human’s mind? What was she even saying to me?

Cold sweat was running down my spine because I felt a form of shame that is rather hard to describe.

“Doesn’t matter.
Get out of here!”

“…?”

I had seen Ellen getting upset from time to time but that was the first time I got upset.

And the fact that I was so upset with a kid made me want to hide myself in a hole.

____