08 Friends 1
「Well, at least dwarf girls are cute……」
Adel who had finally returned to her room muttered while laying spread out on top of her bed.
Elven men and women have a delicate build and are quite tall. In contrast to that, Dwarven women are somewhat shorter than human women and appear to be a little rotund, but all in all they are not that different. They don’t share the burly build of the male Dwarfs and of course they don’t have beards either. In human terms they are comparable to a short prepubescent girl with a bit of meat on her bones…
Due to this contrast, the Elven and Dwarven features largely balance out, thus apparently diminishing the impact on Adel and leaving her with a body height on the small side. Sadly, these inhuman features seem to amplify their effect in regards to her chest…
No, this wasn’t a certainty yet!
All of this was surely just her overthinking.
She’ll just get the truth from the nanomachines….
「As if I can ask that~~!!
What am I supposed to do if I ask them and it turns out I was right!?
Dreadful! Too scary!!」
『You called?』
「No！」
Adel shouted back without thinking.
Zezezeze…
When she noticed her slip, Adel looked at the walls of her dorm room in panic. But it seemed that neither of her neighbors had returned to their rooms yet so she wouldn’t need to fear them being annoyed by the ruckus she had made.
Adel was in a good mood when she went to classes the next week. Her work on yesterday’s day off had earned her 2 silver pieces and she had been allowed to take a lot of unsold bread which has been immediately stored in the Item Box where it won’t decay.
But when she entered the classroom, Adel froze.
「Good morning, Adel-chan!」
「How did you spend yesterday?」
「Let’s eat lunch together today!」
The boys attacked.
To be honest, Adel was prime material. The brains to get into Class A combined with the athletic ability to become a knight and her overwhelming talent in magic. To top it off, she possessed a humble personality that made her want to hide these abilities.
Additionally, despite her being announced as a commoner, it was said that her entrance was certain regardless of the examination and that she received money from her home instead of a stipend…
In three years, everyone here would become a member, and a full-fledged adult just two years later. So, even though they were barely ten years old, there were quite a lot of students in this top class trying to make connections or looking for possible life partners.
「You guys again! Can’t you see that you are bothering Adel-chan!」
The same girl with the class president feel… well just class president is fine, helped her out.
「T-Thank you. I haven’t talked to boys very often…」
After thanking the class president and talking to her for a while Adel made an observation.
(This, this seems like something friends would do! Friends!!)
Including her previous life, this was Adel’s first friend. Most of the boys who had heard Adel’s words decided that being too forceful would only have the opposite effect and decided to hold back while a minority banked on being able to score Adel by being even more forceful since she apparently had built up no resistance against men. That Adel started to obviously avoid the boys who tried to force their way was still a bit in the future.
The first week was completely filled with theoretical classes. As expected, they wouldn’t just throw them into practical combat or magic practice from the start. In addition to their general education, theoretical and safety aspects of martial arts and magic were covered as well.
For Adel these classes were easy. It would have been shameful for her as an 18-year old from a world hundreds of years more advanced, to have problems at this point after all. Her mind and memory were the same as when she had been Misato.
Did god think it would have been problematic for Adel to get dumber while retaining Misato’s consciousness? Or maybe magic had slowed this world’s progress and the people where actually quite smart?
Adel spent her time in class peacefully, not bothering to correct her magic teacher despite knowing the taught content was slightly wrong.
Like this it was already the day before the weekly holiday.
「Adel-san, there is something I would like to talk to you about.」
Hearing these words from Marcella, the third daughter of a baron, who was accompanied by her two friends, caused Adel’s heart to soar.
Friends! An invitation from a Friend!
「O-Of course！ Where would be a good place… My room! It’s quite spacious. Would that be fine?」
「Eh? Why, yes, I don’t mind…」
Marcella hesitantly replied.
For those looking at them from a distance, Marcella the third daughter of a baron, Monika, the daughter of a middle class merchant, and Oriana, a commoner who had entered on a scholarship, were a noble girl and her entourage.
Although Marcella appeared to fit in the stereotype of an arrogant princess, she actually was quite caring, helping the commoner Oriana who was lost in this new environment with the help of her friend Monika. She viewed taking care of the people as a noble’s duty.
And nowadays the three were never far apart from the other.
「But what could she have meant with her room being spacious? Every dormitory room has the same layout….」
「Who knows? Well, we will find it out once we get there.
We will show this presumptuous girl her place!」
「「Yes!!」」
Marcella couldn’t stand her. That Adel girl.
She hadn’t seen it in person, but apparently that girl showed extreme talent in the entry examination…
But that was fine. Humans all had things they were good and bad at.
What she couldn’t forgive was that she had the gall to hog all the boys just because she was slightly cute.
For Marcella those next two years would decide her future. After that period she would have to return home to begin preparing for marriage. If she was lucky, she would become the fifth wife of a noble in his forties or a rich person wanting to buy his way into nobility. If not, she would end up as the lover of an influential aristocrat.
In a school filled with girls sharing her fate it was obvious that a girl, with the talent to choose her own path in life, yet monopolized the boys as well couldn’t be forgiven. She needed to be admonished for that.
These feelings steered Marcella, the third daughter of an impoverished noble house.
Monika and Oriana were, due to being commoners, not that backed into a corner, but they wanted to support their friend who had helped them out in the past.
Kon Kon
Adel jumped to open the door when she heard the knocking on it.
「We-Welcome to my room! Please enter!」
This was the first time, including her previous life, that classmates of her had entered Adel’s room, causing her to stiffen.
It was then that she noticed….
（Oh no! I only have one chair!）
She had been careless.
She couldn’t let guests sit on the bed, not to mention the three of them sitting on the bed and herself on a chair. That would put only her on a higher level, making it seem like she looked down on them. She also didn’t like the 3 Vs. 1 split this seating would induce. Thinking this Adel nervously apologized.
「I-I’m so sorry, I forget to ready enough chairs! Please wait here while I’ll go and get some from the recreation room downstairs!」
Leaving no room for a reply, Adel rushed out of the room.
「This girl has no shred of composure!」
「I couldn’t agree more… But now I understand what she meant when she said her room was spacious.」
Monika replied to Marcella’s statement. Yes, it certainly was spacious. It still shared the same layout as the other rooms, but there were no chests or trunks she had brought with her. Neither were there any personal effects, decorations, candles or stuffed animals. It was no different from an unused room.
「There really is nothing in here…」
Oriana voiced in surprise. Even in her room, she had a carrier bag for her belongings, a second hand trunk she had bought in town, and lots of small things the villagers had gifted her.
Marcella then put her hand on the handle of the built-in closet.
「Milady！ Wouldn’t that be going too far?」
Marcella ignored Monika’s attempt at reigning her actions in and opened the closet.
「There are no normal clothes….」
In there only hang the uniform and sports clothing provided by the school.
Next, Marcella opened the drawer on the bottom.
「You can’t！ This isn’t right！」
Monika tried to stop Marcella by grabbing her hand, but by then the drawer was already opened.
「Empty…」
The drawer was completely empty.
「Ugh…」
A voice as if someone was strangled to death made Marcella and Monika turn around to find Oriana almost crying while she stood in front of the table’s drawer she had, encouraged by Marcella, pulled out.
「What happened!?」
Marcella stormed over to look at the drawer’s content with Monika following behind with a guilty conscience.
Both took in the drawer’s content.
「「Ugh…」」
Marcella stopped cold while tears built up in the corners of Monika’s eyes. Those tears were already flowing freely from Oriana’s eyes.
Contained in there was a single bone.
A single bone without a speck of meat clinging to it, draped carefully on top of a plate. They didn’t know whether Adel had gotten it from the kitchen, but it was plastered with bite marks all over, this single bone.
「Is this, that girl’s, snack…?」
The unbidden words left the stunned Marcella’s mouth.
