"Hey, it's not my fault that you kept forgetting about it, Cat Girl."

  "Yeah, but……I don't know, you could have reminded me or something!" She argued.

  It was the middle of June, it had been over two months since the Brawl of Glory ended, and we were just about a couple of weeks away from our mid-year exams.

  After which, we'd finally be able to take on Quests.

  Oh right, you're probably wondering how the rest of the tournament went.

  Ekai won the second semi-final with relative ease. His opponent Fuo had briefly managed to evade his attacks while firing those ice arrows, but was helpless when he used that flame tornado attack he'd used against Persia.

  As for the final, Misen put up a decent fight, his spear was able to sort of match and counter Ekai's flames, but he eventually ran out of steam and was overwhelmed by his opponent's immense literal firepower.

  And that was that.

  Oh yeah, and since I'd finished as a semi-finalist, I was guaranteed a minimum of B-Rank when I graduated and became an Adventurer, though that was still over two and half years away. But more immediately, after the mid-year exams were done, I'd be given an interim B-Rank and be able to take on upto A-Ranked Quests, which my Group members were permitted to accompany me on.

  A few days after the tournament, the Academy's Headmaster, Raedal Yiserir, called me to his office. I'd been pretty nervous, with no idea why he'd called me, but it just turned out to be him commending and encouraging me for my performance in the tournament.

  Well, this country is known for having the weakest Adventurers among the five countries, so I guess it made sense that they'd get excited over a strong first year student. Later I heard that Gela, Rai and Persia had been called by him too.

  As for the upperclassmen we'd met in the tournament, we thankfully hadn't run in to Misen since then, while Vi would often greet us whenever she'd see us. On the training front, I've continued sneaking out of the walls about once every three nights, and Persia joins me most of the time.

  I'd also eventually managed to get Persia to tell me about the blades she'd gotten me.

  Turns out that her parents run a high-end weapon and equipment shop in addition to their jobs as merchants, and after I'd broken my old dagger on the first day of the tournament, she'd asked the blacksmith who worked for them to forge the weapons. Apparently Black Steel could be forged into weapons pretty easily and quickly, that's why they were ready by the next day.

  That had been a pretty flustered conversation, she'd been all embarrassed while explaining it, and after she finished explaining, I'd felt really touched, and didn't know what to say, as I awkwardly thanked her.

  Oh, another good thing had happened. So, this one day, Arg bumped into me and said……

  "Watch it, Leftover trash!"

  "Huh? You bumped into me, you prick. And I'm getting pretty sick of your shit. You can act superior all you want, but let's think back to the results of the Brawl of Glory. I'm just saying, going by your logic, you were outperformed by trash. How does that make you feel?"

  "Don't think you can get away with talking down to me! Y-you just got lucky, yeah, that's it!"

  "Lucky? We both faced the same last opponent, and I think it's pretty undeniable that I fared a lot better. Plus my third round opponent was one of The Big Five too. Ugh, okay now it just sounds like I'm bragging. My point is……actually, I don't need to justify anything to someone like you, who's lower than trash."

  The conversation continued for a bit longer, but to cut to the chase……from the next day onwards, Arg stopped showing up, and seemed to have completely disappeared.

  To no one's dismay.

  Anyway, back to the present.

  It was night time, and I was outside the walls. Persia was here too. We were outside the Goblin caves as usual, though we rarely bothered fighting them anymore, these days they usually ran away when they saw us anyway.

  Right, so when we got here tonight, I said to her 'I'll race you to that jagged rock over there', and she went all quiet. That's when I remembered, she'd won that race we'd had when we were training for the Brawl of Glory, for which we'd said that the winner would get to command the loser once, we'd both completely forgotten about it. Until now.

  "Huh, how long ago did we do that?" I wondered, trying to recall exactly when it happened.

  "I can't believe I forgot! You should have said something, Kuro!"

  "Hey, it's not my fault that you kept forgetting about it too, Cat Girl."

  "Yeah, but……I don't know, you could have reminded me or something!" She argued, not very convincingly.

  "I reminded you now, didn't I? Unintentionally as it may have been, uh……better late than never?"

  "Well……I guess so."

  "Alright then, let's get it over with, what do want me to do?"

  "Oh, uh……hang on, let me think about it."

  "You didn't have something in mind already? It's been."

  "Shut up, I'm trying to think!"

  After a few minutes of silence passed by……

  "Look, if you can't think of anything specifically, how about something simple, like I'll treat you to a meal or something?" I suggested.

  "……"

  "……or maybe, uh……how about you just say the first thing that comes to mind? So long as it's not impossible, I'll do it. You know, your wish is my command, and whatnot."

  "Um, well……I guess there is something……"

  "Great! Well, what is it?"

  "It's, uh……it's kinda embarrassing. I'll, um……say what it is once we're back in the walls! L-let's train for now!"

  That's what she said, but after she nearly crashed headfirst onto the ground after losing control of Propulsion, it soon became clear that she couldn't focus on training, we headed back early.

  We snuck back in past the walls, after which she silently led me up the city rooftops.

  "So, uh……why are we up here?" I inquired curiously, as we stopped on some restaurant's rooftop.

  "I, uh, just didn't want to risk being spotted. D-don't take that the wrong way or anything!"

  I tried to calm myself down as my heart skipped a beat. Stay calm, she had just worded it poorly, she even said not to take it the wrong way, it was definitely something totally innocuous!

  "R-right, so uhh……you still haven't told me what you want me to do."

  Hurry up and tell me before my mind starts speculating, there's no telling where my thoughts could lead!

  "Y-yeah, I'm getting to that! I uh……want you to, um……do that th-thing you did……last time," She mumbled, as her face turned bright red.

  Last time? Well, that wasn't vague at all……

  "Huh? I'm not sure I follow," I replied in confusion.

  "D-don't make me sp-spell it out, idiot……! It's, um……I want you to do……" She whispered nervously, before grabbing my hands and raising them, "……this."

  She averted her gaze as she placed my hands on her cat ears, her blush growing deeper.

  H-h-huuuhhhhhh!?!?!!

  My heart began racing so fast that it felt like there was a motor in my chest, my thoughts were completely incoherent and muddled, and I felt my face heating up like a microwave dinner.

  "W-w-wait, what!? I th-thought y-y-you hated it the last time!?"

  "N-no, I never said that! It w-was really, really embarrassing……b-but, um……it also felt really nice, okay?"

  Was I dreaming? I felt like I could die without any regrets right now. This, despite the fact that I'd only died as recently as less than six months ago.

  "W-well, in that case……" I gulped, and began stroking her cat ears.

  I felt like my mind wasn't actually processing what was going on right now, but……I didn't care. I ran my fingers across the soft, fluffy fur covering them, tracing the inner sides with my thumbs. She then leaned forward and buried her face in my chest.

  "H-hey, you okay?"

  "Y-yeah, it's just r-really embarrassing to face you right now. D-don't mind me, j-just keep doing what you're doing," She whispered, as her warm breath tickled me, goosebumps spreading through my body.

  She was so cute……

  I gently stroked her head and then ran my fingers through her hair around her ears, they were so soft and silky.

  "By the way, I was wondering. How different do your cat ears feel to your human ears?" I inquired, as I continued to pet her head.

  "Shh, no talking. But to answer your question, my old human ears are kinda redundant, after my Anima mutations started and these cat- I mean, panther ears grew out on top of my head, I could hear a lot better with them. My old ears still work just fine, but my new ones make them pretty pointless," She explained in a relaxed whisper, her voice slightly vibrating, almost like she was……purring?

  So……cute.

  "I-I see," I stuttered in reply, as my thoughts became even more jumbled and incoherent.

  Okay, I might actually pass out if I don't calm down at least a little. I took a deep breath and slowed my hands down, trying to get my heart rate to drop by a few digits. As soon as I began to ease up on my hand movements, she looked up at me.

  "U-um……if y-you don't mind……keep going a b-bit longer?" She asked, staring up at me with expectant eyes, blinking bashfully as her face turned into a deeper red.

  Whatever little I had managed to slow down my heart rate just then was completely undone, as the pounding in my chest sped up so much that I could feel the thumps resonating throughout my whole body.

  As I felt her tail slowly curl around my leg, I stared back down at her, looking into her eyes, desperately trying to get my thoughts in order and calm down my racing heart……I was suddenly snapped out of it as I heard footsteps ascending towards the entrance to this rooftop.

  "Is someone up there?" Came a wary, cautious, voice from behind the door leading to this rooftop.

  As the handle began to turn, I picked up Persia in my arms before I could think, quietly and quickly jumping away. I silently hopped across a bunch of rooftops until we were well away from that spot……

  Okay, it looks like we got away safely.

  "U-um, Kuro……"

  Hm?

  "Oh! Uh, sorry," I apologized, slowly putting her down.

  "No, d-don't worry about it. S-so, uh……that was……," She trailed off, her face turning red.

  Now that it was over, I felt incredibly embarrassed and unable to talk.

  "Y-yeah, that was, er……," I began, before trailing off as I felt too embarrassed to put it into words.

  This……was awkward.

  "Saying it out loud is a bit……difficult," She admitted, staring down and fidgeting.

  "Y-yeah, it is."

  "M-maybe we should……put it aside and talk about it some other time, I feel like I need a while to process everything, I don't think it's fully sunk in yet. I, um……I don't really know what to think, my head feels like a jigsaw puzzle with mismatched pieces right now."

  That was a pretty fitting analogy, my thoughts were similarly unclear right now.

  Also……I guess jigsaw puzzles exist in this world.

  "That sounds good……I definitely need some time to sort out my jumbled mind," I agreed, before adding, "Though, if there's one thing I can be sure of, it's that I, uh……r-really liked……th-this."

  "U-u-um, y-yeah……so did I……a l-lot. So, hey……until we're ready to talk about this, whenever that may be……let's just keep everything that happened between the two of us."

  "Y-yeah, definitely! That goes without saying, it'd be way too embarrassing to talk about with someone else, anyway."

  "Heh, yeah……I know, right," She smiled slightly in reply.

  An awkward silence ensued as we both ran out of things to say, so after a bit of stuttering on both our parts……we decided to call it a night.

  We split up and went our separate ways, as I headed back to the inn and snuck in through the window to my room.

  As I changed out of my gear and lay down on the bed, I began going through the events of the night in my head……

  And then quickly stopped as my heart rate began to go out of control and my face heated up.

  Holy fucking……I can't believe that just happened!

  I swear, if this turns out to be a dream……I'll become a villain and kill everyone in this world! Well, maybe not that far……but I'd for sure be pissed as hell.

  That had been the greatest moment of my life. Correction, lives.

  That night, I got no sleep at all.

  In the subsequent days, things went more or less back to normal, I spoke with Persia the same as usual, though every now and then an awkward tension would form between the two of us when we'd get reminded of that night.

  But, as the mid-year exams got closer, the stress kept the awkwardness at bay.

  We would be tested on five areas. Combat, which definitely wasn't a problem for me. Then there was the written test, which……I wasn't so confident with. Next would be Elemental Magic, also not a problem. Followed by the General Magic exam where we'd be given a blank scroll to fill out and turn into a working Spell Scroll, which I was still pretty hopeless at.

  And finally, a group exam, which would be a display of combination moves between group members.

  It was currently a few days before the exams would begin. We had booked one of the extra training rooms at the Academy to come up with and work on a few combos for the group exam.

  And so far, it was going……uhhhh……let's just say that it could be worse.

  I had expected myself to be the weak link in this area since I'd worked solo for so long, but that didn't quite turn out to be the case……

  all five of us were more or less equally weak links when it came to combos.

  During that Goblin Quest, we'd each taken individual turns instead of pairing up and trying joint combos. It's a good thing we did that, since now that we were actually trying combo moves, it was clear that we sucked at them.

  "Ugh, this is impossible! We just keep getting in each other's way!" I exclaimed in frustration, as another attempt failed.

  Matching each other's timing was where all of us were mainly going wrong. We had tried both combat combos and Elemental combos, with very few positive pair-ups. The only pairing that had worked for me was combat combo moves with Persia.

  Well, we do spar and train with each other multiple times a week and were both extremely familiar with each other's fighting style, timing and attack patterns, so it made sense.

  Other than that, only two other pairings had at least somewhat decent results, both Elemental combinations. The first was between Key and Persia, in which the latter fires a blast of wind through the flaming sword of the former, creating a sort of makeshift fireball.

  And the second was between Key and Azyl, he briefly surrounded her flaming sword with a thin membrane of water to create a seriously hot steam slash.

  Rai's chain-sickle made combat combos with him really difficult, and he was the only one so far who hadn't yet been able to pull of a successful combo move with even one of the rest of us. I had tried combining lightning bolts with him, but he wasn't very good at firing long range blasts, so it didn't really work.

  The longest ranged attack he had was the full swing of his chain-sickle, but it was hard to pull off a combo move with that weapon without getting caught up in it yourself. His close range hand-to-hand combat was about average, and he could use Lightning Boost with full control at a maximum of a x2.5 boost, though I was still slightly faster than him with my current maximum of a x2.2 boost, thanks to my speed and strength in my normal state being superior to his.

  He had decent reaction time, though he couldn't extend Lightning Boost too much into his eyes, so the faster he moved, the harder it would get for his eyes to keep up. And of course, he was pretty good at using Stream.

  To sum it up, he could move around pretty fast and had a good reach with his weapon, but his abilities aren't very compatible when it comes to combos, it'd take a lot of practice to get used to working with his chain-sickle.

  Key had a great sword technique, and had fairly good skills in bare handed combat too, but they were very orthodox and by the book, the results of repetitive practice with little room for instinctive flexibility. In other words, they weren't easy to adjust and adapt to work with someone else who was using a different timing and technique.

  Her Elemental Magic was limited to engulfing her sword in flames, so there weren't many options in that aspect. Simply put, her solid yet rigid technique got in the way of any further combos.

  As for Azyl, we did manage to come up with some simple combos, like he spreads a puddle of water at the target's feet and then Rai or I zap the puddle. But when we tried out more complex ideas, matching his lazy tempo proved to be rather challenging. Plus, he definitely seemed to be holding back a lot.

  As for Persia, she's been the most compatible member of the group for combos, but that really wasn't saying much, considering how……dysfunctional the rest of us were.

  Her Elemental Magic only effectively combined with Key's fire. As for her combat abilities, only Rai and I could keep up in terms of speed, though like I'd mentioned before, his weapon got in the way, so that left me as the only one who could pull of combat combos with her.

  We had come up with a bunch of ideas, but executing them was much harder than we'd imagined. We tried combining lightning and wind, but it didn't really result in anything significant. We'd also tried combining lightning, wind and water to try and create a storm and……yeah, that didn't work like I'd imagined either.

  "The idea of team combo attacks seemed much cooler in my head……this just isn't working," Panted Rai, wiping away some sweat and trying to catch his breath.

  We'd been at this for days now, and our progress had been so minimal that even his boundless optimism had dried up.

  "I have to admit……this is rather frustrating," Sighed Key, sitting down on the floor.

  "This is hell," Muttered Azyl while laying on the ground, the dark circles under his eyes had gotten so deep that he almost looked like a panda.

  "The group exam is the last one, we'll just have to keep grinding away on whatever is working for us and hope that'll be enough. I honestly can't picture any of us pulling off any complex combination moves at this point," I groaned.

  "Will that really be enough? We have like……three or four working combos, and all of them are just pairs. Maybe we should look to have at least one combo that takes three of us. Although, it's just like Kuro said……I just can't picture it at this point," Chimed in Persia, as we barely had a drop of motivation left between the five of us.

  After we continued to complain for a few more minutes, we slowly got back up, and half-heartedly continued practicing.

  Truth be told, I could see that our timing and cohesiveness were slowly but surely improving. It's just that there was extra emphasis on the 'slowly'.

  The fact that no one had completely given up probably meant that they had realized it too, that we were making progress, snail-paced though it may be.

  The main problem was that we only had a few days left.

  "Hey, we should start winding down soon, the timeslot we booked is almost over," Informed Rai, after we had practiced a bit more.

  Just then, the entrance to the training room opened and a few people walked in. It was Group A, minus the missing Arg, of course.

  Just great.

  "Oh, it's the Leftovers. Hurry up and clear out, we've booked this training room at this timeslot, so……get out," Sneered an irritating voice.

  Lamasa Phiban. She'd always been bitchy, but ever since Arg disappeared, she took his place as the unofficial leader of Group A and has just gotten bitchier and bitchier.

  She was particularly hostile towards our group, especially to Persia. Not surprising, after the results of the mock tournament.

  Over the last few months, our Group D had improved our standing. Gela and her Group B had completely stopped antagonizing us, though she was still giving me plenty of creepy, smirking stares whenever I met her gaze.

  Group C mostly ignored us too, Tuck Lehosa seemed to be in a much better mood now that his brother wasn't around. Like, he was still pretty grumpy, but a lot less so than before.

  That left Group A. Honestly, the other members didn't bother us that much. Which made sense, three of us had gone up against some of The Big Five and had managed to put up a fight, at the very least. It didn't really make sense to call us by a nickname like the 'Leftovers' anymore, but she still did. We typically just tried to ignore her though.

  "Did you not hear me? Hurry up and leave, already!" She snapped impatiently, as we began clearing up our stuff.

  On second thought, maybe ignoring her was being too kind.

  "Actually, it's still two minutes left in our timeslot, so……you leave, bitch," I suggested in a fake friendly tone, with a exaggeratedly polite smile on my face.

  "Quit acting all high and mighty just because you guys happened to get some attention after the Brawl of Glory! Nothing will change the fact that I'm better that you all!"

  Did she seriously just say that? How narcissistic could one person be?

  "Oh, my. Such subtly. And that humility. What an enviably superior human specimen we have here," I mockingly gasped in awe, using a formal-sounding tone.

  Ahh, this felt good, it's been a while since I've let myself turn off the filter and just say whatever pops into my head.

  "I swear, one of these days……," She growled angrily.

  "You'll do what, exactly? Trying to scare us with empty threats? Well, based on everything I've seen, your very existence is nothing but an empty threat. You're just a- hey!"

  "Hey man, let's go. Not that it isn't satisfying to see you tear into her, but the timeslot we booked is seconds away from ending," Interrupted Rai, as he grabbed my arm and began to drag me out.

  Aw, I was just starting to have fun too. Well, whatever. I'd probably come off as childish if I protested, so I guess that's that.

  As soon as we exited the training room and shut the door, I grabbed Rai's tail and zapped him.

  "You had a point, but don't ever drag me again," I informed him, as I stretched my arms up.

  "R-right, I'll keep that in mind. It just felt like a 'quit while you're ahead' moment back there," He replied, as he attempted to smooth down his frazzled tail fur.

  "I thought it was fun to watch," Argued Azyl, chiming in unexpectedly.

  "Yeah, what he said, that was great," Agreed Persia.

  "Well, putting that aside, we should use the rest of the day to work on studying for the written exam and the Spell Scroll exam," Suggested Key, as we headed away from the training room.

  "I'm fairly confident with the written exam, but creating Spell Scrolls are a pain, I can't even make a basic barrier without constantly referring to the command line guidebook," Sighed Persia in exasperation.

  Yeah, with the exception of Azyl, the rest of us were completely hopeless with creating valid Spell Scrolls. We had tried memorizing the commands used for some of the simplest options, but even those were hard to wrap our heads around. As for the written exam……

  "If we're being frank, only Rai and Kuro are in trouble with the written exam. You two are studying the class notes, I assume?" Inquired Key, raising an eyebrow.

  "I-I, uh……tried. But I got so bored that I ended up getting distracted by random stuff around my room. There's just……too much to go through, pages and pages of words after words, it was just……overwhelming," Admitted Rai sheepishly.

  Hmm, that came off a bit idiotic, but he had the right idea, honesty might be the best policy here……if I lied and said that I had studied, I'd look pretty stupid if they decided to test me.

  "I haven't either……though it shouldn't be a problem, I'll just cram and memorize the important areas a couple of nights prior to the exam day. No worries- ow!"

  "With an attitude like that, you'll definitely fail," Sighed Persia, grabbing the top of my ear and pulling it, "And don't fake it, we all know that doesn't hurt you."

  "Okay, first of all, anything can happen in a written exam. Cheating, for instance. And secondly, that had been a superficial 'ow', like you know how you sometimes prematurely cry out in pain when you expect something to hurt, but then it turns out not to hurt, and your 'ow' feels pretty anticlimactic? And I already told you……I'm not immune to pain, I'm just used to it!"

  "I totally get what you mean! When you think you're about to feel pain, but-!" Began Rai.

  "This really isn't a topic worth dragging out. Azyl, time to tutor the rest of us on creating Spell Scrolls, if you don't mind," Said Key, turning to him.

  "You say that like I have a choice. Tutoring you guys is the worst," He sighed in reply.

  As we began looking for an empty classroom to study in, I couldn't help but compare this to my old life. I'd never gone to school back then, and while I was made to study to the extent where I had highschool level knowledge, I'd never actually taken real tests or had to desperately cram and study like this.

  So……this was what exam season in school was like, huh?……

  yeah, I didn't like it.

  If there's one thing I miss about my old life……it's the fact that I never had take exams there.

  _____________________________________________

  Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Don't forget to vote, and feel free to leave a comment, I appreciate any and all feedback and criticism! Also, check out my Instagram account @aimdaqs for posts relating to this book.