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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: FusionX
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“Millia, go inside and sleep.”
“Hmm…”
She must be sleepy.
Millia, who had been chatting non-stop for a few hours, finally seemed tired and started blinking her eyes.
Seeing her yawn, she was really sleepy.
Millia, who was dozing off with her head nodding, stretched out her arms to me.
“Carry me…”
What is she doing, she’s not a little kid.
“Get up and go by yourself.”
“I’m too lazy to go to the room…”
Her whining with her eyes rubbing looked exactly like a child.
I carefully carried Millia on my back.
Despite her behavior, Millia’s body seemed to be the same age as Karina, so I felt a considerable weight.
…Is she fat?
No, before that, do dullahans get fat? Do they age?
“Johann, you’re thinking… weird…”
“I wasn’t thinking much.”
Was it obvious?
I started moving my legs to roughly gloss over it.
As the regular swaying continued, Millia soon fell asleep with an even breathing sound.
“It’s hard to take care of a child once…”
Although she only looked a little younger than Karina on the outside, why did it feel like taking care of a child who would be anxious if left by the water?
Is it because she acts like a child?
But I don’t dislike it.
Just like a puppy or a cat seeking attention from its owner, Millia also seemed to be seeking affection from someone.
For me, who longed for the scent of flesh, I was grateful even for this kind of whim.
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The next afternoon, after finishing lunch, I decided to have a one-on-one conversation with Renny right away.
Millia went out for a walk in the garden alone after lunch, saying she was going for a stroll.
Millia really liked walking around, perhaps because she had been stuck in a dungeon for a long time.
Even when we were making a boat on the deserted island, whenever she had time, she would go around the island collecting seashells or take walks on the beach with Karina.
“Renny. Are there any decent jobs to work at the academy?”
At my question, Renny sighed and tapped the teacup with her finger.
The reddish liquid remaining in the teacup rippled.
With that monstrous strength and that level of vibration, her power control is amazing.
If she made a mistake, it seemed like she could make the teacup explode like a grenade.
Anyway, Renny answered me with a gloomy expression.
“Hmm… I asked around while you were gone in the dungeon… I somehow resolved the issue of your identity, you know? But since you don’t have any experience, they said it’s difficult to employ you.”
“Even here, they’re a bit iffy about inexperienced newcomers, huh.”
“What?”
“It’s nothing.”
In my original world, they liked experienced newcomers so much, and it seemed not much different here either.
Of course, the nuance would be different.
There, they wanted to hire experienced people with a new employee salary, and here, they were hiring people to work at the most prestigious academy in the world, so to speak.
Naturally, they couldn’t hire someone without experience even if they wanted to.
For such a position, it would only be possible through the parachute of high-ranking people in the first place.
In fact, wasn’t there a professor like that in the academy?
I vaguely remembered there being one, although my memory was hazy.
Anyway, could I accumulate experience right away?
That was also difficult.
Unless I catch the entire Halphas Cult alone, the story might be different… But would it still be difficult?
I might be misunderstood as a spy instead.
The status window didn’t give me that as a mission for no reason.
This was a really troublesome problem.
At the very least, it needed to be a job that allowed me to enter and leave the academy, and also a job with a wide range of activities.
It was really difficult to meet those conditions.
The easiest way would be to get a job as Karina’s servant, but it would be ambiguous if I wanted to continue to intervene in the original story in the future.
How can a mere servant get involved in incidents occurring within the school?
Rather, I’d have to become an escort knight like Renny… Huh?
“Renny, by any chance, are there any escort knight positions available?”
“What?”
Renny looked at me as if dumbfounded by my words.
Well, it was a bit absurd even after I said it.
The position of the saint’s escort knight was definitely not an easy one.
Still, my question seemed quite intriguing, as Renny didn’t deny it right away and looked at the ceiling for a moment with her chin resting, then rolled her eyes back to me.
“An escort knight position… It might actually be easier.”
“It might be easier?”
That was an unexpected answer.
“Do you know what the most important qualification for an escort knight is?”
“…Trust?”
At my answer, Renny smiled with satisfaction and poured liquor into the teacup.
Is that liquor or black tea?
This isn’t Russia, and you’re drinking liquor mixed with tea.
She’d been mixing it while talking to me, and it seemed she had already drunk about half the bottle.
It was impressive that her face didn’t turn red even after doing that.
Well, she was marinated in that strong drug mushroom and still beat up every monster out there, so she probably won’t get drunk on alcohol either.
“That’s right. Trust. Because of that one thing, all the bastards who wanted to become the saint’s escort knight were rejected. Really all sorts of guys applied. Noble lords obsessed with honor, mediocre guys who mistakenly think they’re skilled. Delusional patients whose ulterior motives are clearly visible. It’s not for no reason that I’m the only one working as an escort knight.”
Renny’s voice was filled with undisguisable irritation, as if she had been through a lot.
“You’ve had a hard time.”
“Well, until recently, it was still manageable working as an escort knight alone. But the situation has changed quite a bit.”
I could hear teeth grinding.
It was the sound coming from Renny’s mouth.
It must be because of the incident we experienced before coming to this academy.
It was a memory I didn’t want to recall either.
“Is it because of the Halphas bastards?”
“Yeah.”
An unexpected risk factor.
The ambush and attack by the Halphas Cult.
The ambush that occurred brazenly when Renny was away was truly fatal.
In the game, such an ambush occurred in the mid-to-late part, so the protagonist’s party fought it off together, but an ambush in the early part without even proper companions.
There was no such absurdity.
Is this also the effect of the True Ending addition?
I should have at least read the True Ending DLC trailer or patch notes.
“I’m not a golem, so it’s difficult for me to stay by Lady Karina’s side 24 hours a day. So I need someone who can protect Lady Karina when I’m not there.”
“…Am I trustworthy?”
“At least more than those idiots. It’s a bit awkward to say it myself, but… you’ve never touched Lady Karina, right? Honestly, it wouldn’t have been strange if you had touched her in that situation… It must have built up a lot.”
Renny scratched her cheek and avoided my gaze as if it was uncomfortable for her to bring up such a story.
It certainly was a bit awkward to talk about it openly.
From my perspective, it was closer to not even thinking about laying a hand on her because she was a main character in the original work.
It was already ridiculous that the world I fell into was inside ‘Survival Academy’, and the one who drifted to the deserted island with me was Karina, the main heroine.
Would I touch her if I was crazy?
“Thanks for seeing me in a good light.”
“Well, both Lady Karina and I had our lives saved by you. Just think of it as repaying a favor.”
If you think of it that way.
“I understand. So if I pass the trust part, is the next thing skill?”
Renny nodded at my words.
It was only natural since there was nothing else that could come out besides skill.
Renny sipped the liquid that was either liquor or tea and opened her mouth.
“Yeah. No matter how trustworthy a person is, if they don’t have the ability to protect the person they’re escorting, it’s meaningless. In that sense, your skill is… very good for the condition of guarding an escort target.”
“Aren’t there quite a few people who are more skilled than me?”
“I can’t say there aren’t. But there are also few people I trust more than you, and the important thing is whether you can secure an escape route or not. You can dig into the ground anywhere and hide or create passages to move, right?”
“…That’s right.”
“I think that ability alone is an undeniable merit even if used only for escort. I can somehow handle direct combat on my end. However…”
“However?”
“This time too, your lack of experience is holding you back. I have the authority to write a recommendation letter, but you still need something like experience to convince the higher-ups. But it’s a bit much to count your 10 years of life on the deserted island as experience, right? We’ve at least seen a bit of what you’ve been through, but the higher-ups haven’t.”
Indeed.
In any case, it means that there needs to be something that won’t make them say, ‘No matter what, this is a bit…’.
But a career is not something that can be built up in a short period of time.
“Is there any way?”
“It’s not completely absent. I’m not sure if this will work, but…”
It seemed Renny had also thought of a way on her own.
I waited for Renny to speak while drinking my portion of tea.
Renny paused as if organizing her thoughts in her head, then opened her mouth.
“So here’s the thing, I’ll write recommendation letters as much as I can, so go to each guild and take their tests. If you can pass a few of them and get some certifications, wouldn’t that be good enough?”
That was a really ridiculous method.
I readily nodded at her answer to push through with sheer volume.
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