The Demon Prince goes to the Academy - Chapter 107

Chapter 107

The Demon Prince goes to the Academy

Chapter 107

Around Sunday evening we finally returned to Temple.

“There’s no place like home right?”

“Isn’t that a little strange to say for the guy that seemed to have had the most fun?”

“Is it?”

Ludwig chuckled as he listened to my words. I wasn’t sure if the dormitory could be called home… Anyway it was similar to one. After everyone laid eyes upon Temple they realized that they had returned to their normal daily life; the same went for Ludwig.

It wasn’t just us who returned.

“Junior!”

Adriana and her class also came back from their group mission so there were second years rushing towards the Royal Class dormitory as well.

Seeing how happy she was my heart fluttered a bit.

“Oh senior.”

“Did you also just arrive?”

“Ah yes. That’s right.”

“What? It’s just Reinhardt.”

Next to Adriana stood the second year’s A-1 Redian the little kid who skipped a grade.

“For me to meet you as soon as I come back to Temple. Next week will be an unlucky one.”

She crossed her arms and shook her head jokingly.

“Did you only learn how to flap your lips during the group mission?”

“What? Flap my-? Are you picking a fight?”

“Stop stop.”

When she saw two fires light up in Redina’s eyes Adriana intervened and stopped her.

“Please understand junior. Redina just feels bad after losing in the group mission okay?”

“What?! That’s not it! And we won!”

“So you feel bad because you lost.”

“No that’s not it!”

It seemed that the second years lost to Class B in their mission. I giggled at Redina.

“So that’s the reason. I’m in a good mood after winning so I’ll cut you some slack.”

As I spoke to her teasingly Redina’s face turned red.

“Adriana! Please scold him!”

“Okay.”

-Whack!

“Urgh! Why are you hitting me?”

“You’ve really gotten better at purposely doing exactly the things I hate junior.”

Adriana took Redina’s hand and headed towards the dormitory seeming so angry that she didn’t know what else to do.

“Anyway congratulations on winning junior! See you tomorrow then right?”

“Yes.”

“Adriana! Scold him more!”

“I’m hungry let’s go in and have dinner.”

“Okay…”

When I saw the two of them walking hand in hand I couldn’t help but think they looked like sisters. They didn’t look like classmates at all. Although they had quite the height difference between them it wasn’t just that.

* * *

After having our dinner at Temple after a long time.

“…It’s kind of weird for me to say this since I’m here as well but isn’t it a bit too soon to go back to your daily routine already?”

“?”

On the day we returned Ellen began wielding her sword and training in the gym right after dinner. Of course I was also here getting back to training as soon as possible.

“Hold it tight if you can.”

Ellen threw one of the training swords towards me and my reflexes were trained enough that I could catch it easily.

“Sigh… I’m going to be in pain again.”

Ellen had so many talents that it was difficult to name them in one go. However behind that talent stood the years that she had trained and put in every bit of effort.

Erich de Lafeari was also talented but how could someone who barely put any effort into training their talent beat someone like her?

Ellen trained her own talents every single moment of her life.

She was a hard-working genius.

In fact when I was watching Ellen fight that orc I thought she was simply incredible—she didn’t even allow a single attack of that giant muscle pig to hit her.

Even her noticing the javelin stuck in the orc pulling it out and immediately stabbing it into its eye made me seriously doubt my eyes.

I’d never be able to defeat her. Ever.

“I’m coming.”

“Okay.”

However being able to trade blows with someone like her for free every single day was a huge benefit already.

-Kaang!

“…”

Of course things always ended with the same result.

* * *

After returning to my usual routine I did my morning training and practiced my swordsmanship in the gym even after classes were over. Perhaps because I had to go through some less than ideal environmental conditions during the mission I felt like my normal training schedule was like heaven.

I finally realized how incredible it was that I could drink water whenever I wanted and eat whenever I wanted. Drinking water could be found everywhere here.

Even the gym was air-conditioned. It was a rather fresh outlook on things making me feel fortunate to be able to train in such a divine environment.

That was it.

After experiencing absolute poverty once one’s small little studio apartment felt like a hotel. It was something like that—it was something similar to having a winning mentality.

Actually that was kind of funny as my supernatural power was also based on keeping a winning mentality so that way of thinking fits me quite well.

Anyway it was good that my motivation to train had gotten even stronger after experiencing having to survive on an uninhabited island.

Meanwhile on Wednesday.

Bertus called me and suddenly handed me a big bag.

“…Huh? What’s this?”

“What do you think it is? It’s money.”

It was a red bag that seemed to be made of silk. It was full of shiny gold coins.

Oh right.

“For the jaguar leather?”

But it was still in the process of being treated right?

“Yeah. It’s easier for me to find a buyer than you on your own right? They paid in advance already. I’ll tell Mr. Epinhauser where he’s supposed to send it.”

I already thought that it would be pretty hard for me to find a buyer for such expensive leather so it seemed like Bertus had already looked for one before I could even start. It also looked like they paid in advance.

Anyway wasn’t it quite touching how much he was taking care of me? Well it felt more like payment for doing various things for him during the mission though.

“No but… Isn’t that too much?”

I thought I heard that I would get about 10 gold coins but judging by the bag’s weight its content far exceeded 10.

“To tell you the truth the buyer is my grandfather on my mother’s side so he gave me quite the generous payment. I won the first group mission of the Royal Class so it was only natural that he would be quite generous when it came to buying loot that came out of that.”

The Family of Bertus’s mother was Duke Salerian.

So the person Bertus meant was of course Duke Salerian.

Having been in the position of being almost killed by Duke Salerian’s knights before Bertus’s words were quite eerie.

His grandson who might become the Emperor in the future won his first group mission of the Royal Class. To Duke Salerian the jaguar leather signified his victory over Charlotte.

Everything depended on the meaning someone gave it. So Bertus just sold it to the person who would offer the most money for it.

It felt kind of nasty that it was the head of the group that tried to kill me once.

“Anyway thank you.”

I even got indirectly involved with Duke Salerian something I would have never dared to imagine while I was trying to escape the Demon King’s Castle.

* * *

* * *

* * *

I received 30 gold coins as payment for the jaguar leather—that would be about 30 million won. What I almost left to rot in the jungle turned into a huge pile of money when I came back so I was rather startled. If Ellen hadn’t brought it back with her and if Delphine hadn’t properly skinned it I wouldn’t have received that much money.

Liana was also involved but she said she wasn’t interested in the money so I didn’t bother going to her.

After school I took Ellen to Class B’s dormitory and called out Delphin; then I held out bundles with 10 gold coins in each of them to the two.

“Since we got 30 gold coins for it let’s take one-third each. That would be 10 gold coins.”

“Okay.”

“Wow… You sold it for so much?”

“I didn’t do it directly. Bertus sold it for me.”

Delphin couldn’t believe it when she saw the bundle of 10 gold coins in front of her. She was hesitant to take the money I was giving her.

“I mean all I did was skin the jaguar with my poor skills… Can I even accept this…?”

It wasn’t that big a deal but it seemed like she felt a bit guilty accepting such a huge amount of money.

“If we follow your logic I got this money by simply hitting a beast’s head while it was electrocuted. What’s the difference between mine and your contribution? Just take it.”

If we were talking about who worked the hardest that would probably be Ellen.

“I-is that so…? Well thank you anyway. I really wanted to go eat something delicious with the others.”

Delphin seemed to have planned to buy the others something with the huge amount of money. With the exception of Charlotte all of Class B were commoners. Ellen put her 10 gold coins in the pocket of her school uniform and looked at me.

“Let’s go eat something delicious.”

“…Don’t you want to go eat something expensive not just something delicious? Like something that you usually wouldn’t be able to eat because it’s too expensive?”

“ Yes.”

…She was only thinking about eating the same food prepared differently.

In the end Ellen and I went to eat a full course at one of Temple’s most luxurious restaurants where only the kids of noble families went.

It was delicious.

It was delicious but…

“How could they ask for one gold coin for a dish? How does that make sense?”

It was a bit more expensive than we thought it would be.

“You’re right.”

“I mean it was tasty but I’m not paying that money just to eat that!”

“…Is that so?”

It was delicious so Ellen seemed to be alright with it.

“The amount was just too little.”

“…Seriously there just has to be a dimensional crack in your stomach.”

I was completely convinced that the Gates already opened disguised as Ellen’s stomach.

Anyway Ellen said that she was still hungry so she bought three hot dogs from the street.

* * *

After I returned to my daily schedule of studying and training nothing really happened. If there was one thing that changed it was that my physical abilities gradually rose.

And…

And!

[Strength 6.2 (D)]

[Agility 6.7(D)]

[Dexterity 7.7 (D+)]

[Magic 11.3 (B-)]

[Stamina 10.8(C+)]

[Demon Domination D](An Archdemon’s unique ability)

(Cannot be used in current state.)

[Self Suggestion D]

[Swordsmanship F]

Comprehensive Ability Assessment – Lowest Level Demon

Battle Level Evaluation : D+

As one could see.

My pseudo-swordsmanship had finally evolved into swordsmanship.

I did it. I’ve got it.

Self-suggestion also rose to D rank so my combat level rose to D+ Rank. It jumped right up from F+!

“Kuhuk…”

It might feel like insignificant growth to some but to me it showed the results of my hard work.

“…?”

Ellen tilted her head as if she didn’t know why I suddenly sat down on the gym floor and looked thrilled. That girl was 90% responsible for the evolution of my swordsmanship.

“Thank you! It’s all thanks to you!”

“…Are you sick?”

When I teared up and expressed my extreme gratitude to her Ellen put her hand on my forehead and said: “You don’t have a fever so what’s wrong with you?”

“Kuhuk… I-I could actually do it. I… Always believed I could do it!”

It was such an emotional thing for me to have finally escaped pseudo-swordsmanship. Every time I checked my status and saw that I felt dirty!

…Of course it was a bit disappointing that my evaluation only rose to D+ after all the shit I did but it couldn’t be helped.

Life was long.

In other words there was still a lot of time left for me to work hard.

Only one semester had passed but when I remembered the simple fact that I still had several years of that shit left to live through I suddenly felt like my body had lost all its strength.

“…Sigh I want to quit.”

When I despaired by myself after I got all happy Ellen just turned around and started swinging her sword on her own.

However thinking about all the people who were a lot stronger than me—who was just a D+ Rank—I found my motivation again.

* * *

In any case I wasn’t leading an idle life but there just wasn’t anything special happening during my daily training sessions. The only small pleasure I had was checking my gradual growth in stats occasionally.

In the morning I exercised with Adriana and after class I did strength training until dinner then I would practice my swordsmanship in the gym.

However there was a problem.

I was getting more and more afraid of my morning training.

“Let’s just go once okay? Please Junior?”

The church sister was getting more aggressive with her preaching.

My biggest problem was that I had to keep in my temper because I received too many things from her up to then. I couldn’t curse at her after she had been so good to me but I didn’t know how to politely refuse someone kind of close to me asking such things of me.

“If you decide that you don’t like it after going there just once it’s okay if you don’t want to come anymore. So just come with me this once.”

Sister you’re killing me!

“Aah! Fine!”

Eventually I fell to her persistent missionary work.

“However just once.”

“That’s fine Junior! I’m sure you’ll also come to like it!”

It was nice to see Adriana smile so broadly. With that I eventually accepted my defeat.

____