Chapter 77 \n<h1>Chapter 77: A Present for the Nape of the Neck</h1>\nA lot of thoughts flew by my head.
In any case, with the carrot tossed in front of me by Headmistress Ortensia, and a grasp of good teachers for improving my academic ability, I created a self-study plan and began the first boot camp.
As a rough schedule, we would gather in the library’s study room after school and work on our studies for a month and a half.
Then, once this goal was accomplished, we would go out into the school grounds to practice our practical skills until the end of the day to see how long it takes us to lose focus.
Fortunately, the teachers who favored the test were the magic and music teachers who worked with practical skills, so I got each teacher’s favorite magic and favorite music piece to practice, and then I decided to focus on the range.
The arithmetic teacher was not very cooperative with the test, but I was able to teach this world’s standards with ease, so it wasn’t much of a problem. Thank goodness.
The first session went according to this schedule, and both the practical and vocal exercises went well.
…That’s the reason I was here.
***\n““I’m curious.””
The next day, as we were working on ‘Iceball Magic’ for our practical skills, Brother Will and I dared to look away from a certain direction and muttered to each other at the same time.
“…So Brother Will was curious too?”
“Yes, I’m curious. I think he’s hiding…”
Yes. Someone has been surreptitiously observing our self-study since yesterday.
I was aware of the fact that there were always multiple eyes on me as I passed by, or if I was sneaking in through the schoolhouse window, but that’s not what Brother Will and I were talking about. We were talking about the shadow in the plants in front of us.
“…Alice-sama, how may I help you?”
Johann, who seemed to have noticed our gaze as well, interrupted his practice and walked over.\nYulena and Matilda were also fidgeting. Laurier-sama and Letitia-sama, who were super desperate to practice, still hadn’t noticed…Oh, Leticia-sama just failed.
What do we do now? There must be a reason why he was watching.
…The owner of that gaze.
He was staring at us from the shadows of the grass as if he were looking at an enemy of his parents.
I sensed a tremendous amount of heat or will power. I could feel it.
“Umm, yeah, that’s right…”
For the time being, I decided to activate the same magic that everyone else had been practicing.
I held my Athame with one hand, closed my eyes and visualized the target location.
<Amidst the snow, white steel!> (***T/N: Other translations could be “nearby snow” or “snow on the side” or “beside the snow,” but “amidst the snow” seemed to sound the best.)
\n“C-Cold, ugh, this is…What did you do!?!”
“What the…I put some ice on the nape of your neck to cool it down. Were you that surprised?”
I replied quickly, and Ivan-sama became even fussier! His ‘cat ears’ and ‘cat tail stood up on end.
I couldn’t hide my smiling mouth at the scene.
Yes.
In this world, there was also that race that modern Japanese otakus loved……
The Beastman race is real!!!!!!
[Original Author Notes]: I’ve been itching to bring them out for a while now, so here they are, the beastmen! Cat ears sure are romantic, right?