Will summer come again?

“Huh, what?”

With the crowd waiting in anticipation, I looked beside me and stared at Kuroi, who only raised an eyebrow back at me. I assumed she didn't know about this either; this was entirely the man's own impromptu plan.

“Does he hate me or something?!”

With him smiling brightly at me, coupled with hundreds of students staring directly at me, I took a long breath and stood up. My feet moved with a rhythmic clack, completely stiff from sheer nervousness.

"Please, right here."

I could feel my hand trembling not from excitement, but from pure panic while this man just smiled and guided me to his spot at the podium. As I arrived and looked out, reality hit me incredibly hard as I saw the true scale of the crowd from up here.

“Crap, my stomach.”

Just standing there made my stomach churn violently. I felt dizzy on the inside, even though I maintained my flat, expressionless face on the outside. I decided to just focus on not looking at the crowd.

"Miss Asteria, everyone!"

"Yeahhh!"

Clapping!

“Oh, that just makes it worse.”

As if he were doing it on purpose, the man completely abandoned the podium, handing it over to me, and walked over to start chatting with Kuroi. Inside, I was absolutely glaring at him. If I could have used my magic right then, I would have already stabbed him.

Trying to forcefully calm myself down, I looked down at my own feet, then straight ahead at the exit doors anywhere but the students. I leaned my face close to the microphone, and the silence in the room deepened.

“I don't care. It is better for me to just get this over with immediately.”

"Hello, I am Asteria."

“That sounded like a nervous student trying to introduce herself on the first day!”

Inside my head, I was holding my head with both hands and screaming in embarrassment.

"Fighting monsters is... not a wise thing to do…"

“Ugh, I am probably not supposed to say that, right?!”

"You can die... or worse. If you have a family, you will only make them sad…"

“It is getting worse! Why am I saying this to young people?!”

Inside, my miniature self was already repeatedly banging her head against a wall.

"My point is... your life is important. So, please choose wisely."

“Whatever, I just want to run away from here.”

After finishing that absolute disaster of a speech, I turned my back and walked straight back to my seat beside Kuroi. The man was staring at me with wide eyes and his mouth hanging wide open in sheer surprise.

“I don't care. This is entirely your fault for forcing me to talk.”

As I moved stiffly backward, suddenly…

Clap! Clap! Clap!

"Uwoghh! Miss Asteria, you are so cool!!!"

"She really does care about people!"

"That is our 'Lady Knight of the People' right there!!!"

"Please step on me! Kyaaa!"

Looking over my shoulder as I froze in place, I saw the entire student body standing up, clapping wildly, and looking even more enthusiastic than before. It left me completely bewildered.

“What?!”

“I am… I feel completely confused here. Even your teacher is making a strange face.”

Unlike the festively cheering students, the man's eyebrows were heavily wrinkled, his eyes were still wide, and his mouth was stuck in a perfect 'O' shape, as if his soul had just been sucked out of his body.

Ignoring the noisy, celebrating students, I shooed the man away and sat down beside Kuroi again.

The man just stood near us for a moment before turning back to me with a strange smile and holding out his hand, looking slightly dejected.

"Miss Asteria, to think you are capable of speaking with these youngsters so easily and gaining their profound respect... it looks like this is my loss."

"What?"

I shook his hand, but I genuinely did not understand a single thing he was talking about, nor the meaning behind his words.

After the event in the hall finally finished, the man guided us on a tour around the school, showing us the classrooms, the teacher and staff rooms, and other facilities.

"As you can see, despite being an Adventurer Academy, we still hold regular classes. Except, other than basic knowledge, the curriculum mainly focuses on dungeons."

"Our teachers are a combination of military personnel and formal educators."

"Perhaps our teachers could learn a thing or two from you about how to properly connect with these youngsters."

I completely stopped listening to what he was saying as we passed several other places, still trying to recover my mental energy and zoning out.

"And here is our most important facility: the gymnasium and the arena."

Snapping back to reality, I looked at the man as he explained the facility where the students exercised their bodies outside of actual combat training.

"Usually, in the past, people never did this. They just exercised by constantly dueling or fighting monsters over and over again," I muttered.

I thought this was a genuinely good idea because they could build strong bodies without risking getting killed. Finally, the man pointed to a spacious area covered in tiles, with a large, square platform in the center. That was the arena.

"Here, they train their martial arts, and of course, use it for dueling practice."

I could feel some of the students watching me. They started murmuring among themselves and stopped their activities. I really wished they would stop staring; I felt like a rare animal on display again.

"Miss Asteria, could you kindly do us the honor?"

"What?"

The man suddenly grabbed two wooden swords and offered one directly to me. I was already completely fed up with this entire day, but then I remembered what Kuroi had told me about needing to act like an educator.

“Argh, whatever.”

“I am just going to beat you up to relieve my stress.”

As we stepped into the arena, both holding wooden swords, my usual flat expression vanished. I glared at him fiercely because he was the one forcing me to go through all of this.

"Oh, you really have the glare of an apex predator, Miss Asteria. Hahaha."

"You damn musclehead, do not say something so ridiculous!"

The space between us was about twenty to thirty feet. He immediately pointed his sword at me, while I simply shifted my stance slightly to the right.

"Miss over there, could you act as the referee?"

The man pointed at Kuroi. She frowned heavily and let out a long sigh.

"Whatever. Okay then. Ready, set, fight!"

"Orahh!"

With that cue, the man sprinted toward me with impressive speed, his sword still pointed straight ahead for a thrust. I decided not to move from my spot and simply wait to receive his attack.

"Rarghhhh!"

Swoosh.

He lunged forward, extending his reach, but his movements were far too monotone and predictable. I casually readied my sword, and then…

Thud.

I cleanly swiped his blade aside, breaking his posture as the force of his lunge was violently redirected to the side. As I gathered my strength, fully intending to knock him unconscious, he hastily backed up to create space.

"Oh, no you don't."

Refusing to let him escape, I instantly closed the distance as he retreated. I saw him raise his sword high above his head, bringing it down with all his might.

Slash.

Easily sidestepping the heavy blow, I flanked him. While he was crouched low from planting his sword into the floor, I lightly tapped his shoulder with the broad side of my wooden sword.

"Stop. The winner is Miss Asteria."

Clap! Clap! Clap!

"Woah, that was amazing."

"I am never going to forget this."

Looking down and sighing, I shook the teacher's hand as he stood back up and laughed off his defeat.

"Aiyahhh, I really lost! Hahaha, you are incredibly strong."

"You are strong, but you are entirely too predictable."

"Haha, is that so? Well, if you are the one saying it, then it must be true. Okay then! Who wants to try fighting Miss Asteria next?!"

"Hey, that is enough. I want to go back home already."

Just when I thought it was finally over, he still wanted his students to fight me! And with an invitation like that, almost every single student in the room immediately threw their hand in the air. I clicked my tongue in sheer annoyance.

"Hmm, all of them want a turn. What do you think, Miss Asteria? Well, I suppose I will just choose…"

The man pondered for a moment, scanning the crowd until he stopped and pointed directly at one specific student.

"Akira, you are up."

The chosen student walked down and entered the arena. He had a rather gloomy aura, with black hair and long bangs that almost completely covered his eyes.

“Well, it is not like I am one to call someone else gloomy.”

“But why is he glaring at me like that?~”

He was staring at me with incredibly sharp, intense eyes, even before he had drawn a wooden sword. He might have been in his early teens, but the moment he readied his stance, he didn't feel like a normal kid at all.

"Then, ready, set, fight."

With Kuroi starting the match again, the boy, Akira, was the first to move. He charged straight at me, just like his teacher had, while I remained in my relaxed stance.

Just as I thought this boy was going to do the exact same predictable thrust, he suddenly rapidly side-stepped and aimed a vicious strike at my left side an area completely out of reach of my current sword guard.

"Oh~"

Swoosh.

I smoothly pivoted and dodged his attack, letting the wooden blade slide harmlessly past me. But he didn't stop. From a low angle, he swung the sword violently upward, aiming higher than his own head. I refused to just follow his rhythm, so I easily created space between us.

"Tch!"

"Haha, if you want to make me dance, you are going to have to be a lot more proactive."

Hearing that, he fiercely tried to close the gap, swinging his sword from multiple angles in rapid succession thrusts, right side, left side, overhead strikes, and more. Of course, I effortlessly parried every single one of them.

"Arghhh!"

“Isn't he getting a bit too heated for a simple sparring match?”

I thought to myself as I deflected his blade.

He then pulled his sword back for a heavy stab. Because the telegraph was so incredibly obvious, I simply raised my sword slightly and lightly tapped the top of his head with the flat side of my blade.

Thud.

"Stop. Miss Asteria wins."

I could see him breathing heavily, clutching his knees while looking down at the floor. I decided to approach him.

"You are very good at attacking, but you need to think about your defense sometimes."

Perhaps I shouldn't have given him advice, because when he looked up at me, he was still glaring with those same intense, angry eyes. I simply turned around and walked out of the arena.

"I think that is enough for today."

"Haha, that was a truly excellent display. Very insightful."

The teacher tried to laugh it off and ease the tension. I just prayed there wouldn't be any more surprises. Thankfully, he finally guided us down the corridor to head outside.

But before we left…

"I am truly sorry for dragging you into that, Miss Asteria, especially with my selfish request for a duel."

He bowed his head deeply in apology. Kuroi quickly dismissed his concerns, and as we continued walking toward the exit, he began talking about the boy.

"Please do not think too poorly of Akira. He really is just a very intense boy for his age."

"Why is that?"

"Well... perhaps it is because both of his parents were killed when the dungeons first surfaced, while he wasn't at home."

.

..

…

“I really shouldn't have asked.”

Inside, I mentally slapped myself for asking such a sensitive question. As we finally stepped outside, the teacher offered his hand, and I shook it one last time.

"It was truly a pleasure to welcome you to our academy."

I just nodded and quickly got into our car. Looking out the window, I could see several students waving at us from the school windows, likely shouting their goodbyes.

"Miss, did you enjoy today?"

Kuroi's question from beside me caught me off guard.

"Why do you ask?"

"Because you actually smiled just now. And you smiled earlier when you were fighting that boy, Akira."

"Did I?"

It seemed that, without me even noticing, today hadn't been that bad after all. And regarding Akira... maybe it was because of that.

“He is almost exactly like that boy. Fufu.”

I could still clearly remember the smell of summer, the scent of burnt plants from that era, and his brown hair that matched the color of the season, always bickering with me. As I stared blankly up at the car's ceiling…

"That was really fun."

I closed my eyes and imagined the open fields and the dense forest surrounding our old wooden house, watching him swing his wooden sword wildly.

Yes, today really felt exactly like that.