Today, it’s finally time for the training camp. Everyone is to gather at the Academy at eight in the morning, and go to the training camp by bus.

There are thousands of students at the Academy, so more than ten buses are required. You can go inside any bus that you want, so long as it has seats remaining. Surprisingly, a lot of people asked me to go on the same bus as theirs. It’s not just my potential harem members. There’s also the clique that Yui is in, the guys from Shut-Ins Club, and even some people whose clubs I visited. This gives me a real headache. Whom should I sit with?

In the end, I decided to sit with my potential harem members: Sakuya, Ichika and Mashiro. I feel bad for everyone else who invited me, but my objective here is to steal Yuuji’s harem, after all, so I need to spend as much time as possible with them.

Speaking of our protagonist, he was almost late to the gathering, and was yelled at for taking his time. Thankfully, he got on a different bus than us and Yui’s, so no danger of him speaking to them.

There are six rows of seats in a bus, and all of them can be adjusted to face backwards. Mashiro and I are sitting next to each other, with Sakuya and Ichika sitting opposite and facing us after adjusting their seats.

‘Yay~, the long-awaited training camp is finally here! We’re going to have so much fun!’ Sakuya says happily.

‘President, the camp is for training ourselves, not to have fun.’ Ichika tells her.

‘Boo~. You’re no fun, Ichika-chan.’ Sakuya pouts.

‘Sakuya-senpai, I just remembered something important. During lunchtime, we’re supposed to cook our own lunch, right?’

‘Why, yes. Of course, you won’t be alone, and will be cooking with your classmate.’

‘Then promise me this. You will let your classmates handle all the cooking.’

‘Huh? But, I want to cook t…’

‘Promise. Me.’ I demand firmly.

‘...Fine. I promise.’

I notice some of the students secretly let out a sigh of relief. They’re probably her classmates.

Not long after we depart, I hear Yuuji singing at the top of his lung somewhere behind us.

Oh right. This was the part where Yuuji starts to sing the school anthem, since he thinks that camps are all about singing, never mind the fact that there isn’t any campfire around.

In the anime, all the students have started to acknowledge and respect him after he defeated the boss vampire and became A Rank, and they chose to sing along. Now, he’s still the number one most hated guy in the Academy, so he’s the only one singing.

‘I swear, that Takuto Yuuji just loves causing trouble for the others…’ Ichika says with barely contained anger.

‘Now, now, Ichika-chan. I’m sure Takuto-kun doesn’t mean any harm. I do hope that he would at least wait until the campfire at night, though.’ Sakuya tells her.

‘He’s too loud…’ Mashiro complains.

I’m kind of pleased to notice that the three of them don’t have a single favourable impression of him, since it was kind of the opposite in the anime.

Ichika was annoyed at first, but gradually start to hum along the tune. Sakuya was openly singing, all the while thinking that Yuuji will be a fine leader in the future from the way he influenced everyone to sing along. They only did a cameo shot for Mashiro, but they did show her flashing a smile when he started to sing.

Soon, we reach the mountain, and we got down from our bus. The building that we will train in for the next few days is almost as big as the Academy, although much older looking and less glamorous.

This building used to be a military training base where soldiers trained to fight human enemies. Ever since the Destroyers appeared around half a century ago, the army is disbanded due to its ineffectiveness to fight Destroyers, and this base was converted into a place to train students of the Academy.

Next to the base is another old looking building, which was the soldiers’ barrack. Now, it’s our temporary hostel.

According to our schedule, we will be given some time to put our stuff in our room, then we are to gather outside the hostel. Leaving Ichika to give a stern lecture to Yuuji, I head for my room.

The room is for three person, and I have to share a room with Shimazaki and Miyahara. Man, it’s gonna be so awkward.

‘Which bunk bed do you guys want?’ Shimazaki asks Miyahara and I.

‘I prefer the one at the top.’ I say.

‘The bottom one for me.’ Miyahara already dives into the lowest bed.

‘Guess the middles one’s mine, then.’

After deciding the bed, we went outside, where students are to line up according to classes and grades. There, Principal Morifuji has the teachers hand out our schedule of the training camp.

The schedule was filled to the brim with theory classes, sparring practice, stamina training, and all sorts of other stuff. Except for the final day. There’s no lessons at all, just one whole day of free time, and ends with a test of courage.

‘I was the one who proposed the timetable for the final day~!’ Sakuya says proudly.

Principal Morifuji sighs at that, his expression of someone defeated. He’s a strict educator, but also a doting father.

After the briefing is over, we are to move according to our schedule. My class’s morning schedule is theory class, so we move to the designated place to accept our lecture. It lasted for the whole morning, and we’re only dismissed when it’s lunchtime.

For lunch, students of the entire Academy gather at an open field somewhere a bit further than the base, where stoves, long wooden tables, chairs, all kinds of ingredients and cooking utensils are waiting for us. In case of rain, there are also pole tents. The teachers have their own lunch waiting at their lounge, so they’re only here to supervise.

Even though I’m tired from the theory class, I’m still eager to cook up a storm. However, I remembered that I’m part of a team right now, so I hold off my urge.

‘So, what are we cooking, Kagenashi-kun?’ Oomori asks me all of a sudden.

‘Huh? Why are you asking me? Shouldn’t all of us decide?’

‘Well, the rest of us decided that we would leave the planning to you, since your cooking skill is great!’

Our classmates nod in agreement. Looks like the rumor reached their ears too.

‘Without my consent. All right, if that’s what you want.’

I go to the pile of ingredients and take a quick glance. It took me a few seconds to come up with a menu. When I go back to my classmates, I tell them the things we’re cooking.

‘Seafood risottos, deep-fried breaded prawns, salt-grilled mackerels and some salad.’

My menu caused quite a commotion.

‘Wow, I was expecting curry, or something simpler.’ Miyahara says.

‘Oh no no no no, we are not going to cook curry. I had been cooking curry during school outings for way too many times. Now that I’m in charge, I want to cook something different. Unless you guys want a different leader.’

Surprisingly, they don’t. Before we start cooking, we divided ourselves up into two groups, those who can cook and those who can’t.

The roles of those who can cook are cleaning and cutting up the mackerels, and cooking the risottos. For those who can’t cook, they are responsible for shelling the prawns and preparing the salad. The duties of frying the prawns and grilling the mackerels are shared among the two groups.

While we are busy, I smell food being cooked all over the place, and most of them smell like curry. Not too surprising there.

After some time, our food are starting to get done. The risottos and the salads are already finished, leaving only the breaded prawns and the mackerels. These two had to be the last since the prawn might get soggy and it’s better to eat freshly cooked mackerels than those left too long after cooked.

‘Wow, they smell really nice!’ Sakuya suddenly appears behind me while I’m frying some prawns.

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‘Whoa! Sakuya-senpai! What are you doing here?’ she almost gave me a heart attack.

‘You told me to stay out of the kitchen, remember?’ Sakuya reminds me while pouting.

‘Oh, right. Well, can you stand a bit further? It’s dangerous.’

She ignores me and looks at the prawns that are already done. ‘Oh, are these done? Can I have some?’

‘Yes, yes, you may.’ I pick up a prawn with my free hand and put it in front of her.

She bites away the flesh without biting on the shell left on the tail. She chews a few times, then makes a blessed expression.

‘Mmm~! As I thought, the food you make are the best~!’

‘Thank you for your compliment. Now could you please…’

I froze up as I realized what I had just done. My classmates who saw the scene are busy taking out their phones.

‘Come on, Kagenashi-kun! Do it again!’ Oomori shouts while pointing her phone at us.

‘Do as she says, Akira-kun! Your big sister wants more prawns!’

‘You people better keep those phones of yours before I break them for you! As for you, senpai, please get it yourself! As you can see, I’m very busy here!’

‘‘‘Aw~!’’’

‘Boo~!’

I look over at Principal Morifuji. He saw me feeding Sakuya too, and the expression he’s making implies that he wants to skin me alive, or worse.

I gulp loudly and quickly chase Sakuya away before things got worse, and continue to fry the prawns.

After we are finally done with our cooking, we sat down on the grass to eat, as there are are no chairs provided. The cooking was very straining, but everyone is keep saying how much fun they had, so it was totally worth it.

After sitting with them for a while, I got up and go to the designated place of Class 6 to visit the trio from the Shut-Ins Club.

On the way, I saw girls lining up to feed Mashiro with the food they made, with a bewildered-looking Ichika overseeing the event. That explains why she didn’t come asking me for food like she usually does.

As for Sakuya, she is eating some curry rice while chatting happily with her classmates. Based on the fact that none of them are dying, it’s safe to assume that Sakuya kept her promise and didn’t participate in the cooking.

I manage to find to trio quite easily, since they are eating their curry rice while sitting quite far away from their classmates.

I don’t see Yuuji around, though, so he’s probably eating alone somewhere. Not that I care.

‘Why aren’t you guys sitting with your classmates?’ I ask while sitting opposite them.

‘Classmates? The three of us might think that they’re our classmates, but the feeling isn’t mutual.’ Takagi says bitterly.

‘What do you mean?’

‘We’re the gross anime and game loving nerds, remember? You think they’ll respect us? They straight up tell us not to eat near them.’

‘Ouch.’

‘At least they bothered to cook our food.’

‘Yeah, at least there’s that.’

I took pity on them, so I hang out with them until lunchtime’s over. After that, there’s the cleaning up to do. While we’re doing it, it’s the teachers’ turn to have lunch.

It wasn’t long before the whole place is cleaned up. We left everything there, as we’ll be using all these equipment until the camp’s over.

My class’s next schedule is a joint sparring sessions between our class and Class 1, so my classmates and I and students of Class 1 head back to our room to get changed into track suits. After that, we head to the designated training area inside the base.

In this session, the teacher present will just stand by in case of injuries and won’t give any lessons unless there are students who ask for it. Students can spar, exchange information on anything at all, or just chill. Just the type of lesson I need after the torturing morning lesson.

Of course, I did not waste my time and just rest. Today, I tend to focus on something that I never had a chance to ever since I got here: magic.

I ask the best spellcaster in Class 2, a girl called Arima Sayuri to teach me on magic.

‘It’s not that I mind, but why didn’t you ask President Morifuji or Vice President Kurogane? One is SSS Rank in magic, while the other is S Rank. I’m sure they’re better teachers than I am.’

‘Well that’s the thing, they’re not. I tried asking Sakuya-senpai once, and she just told me to ‘don’t think, just do it~!’.’

‘...I see. And Vice President Kurogane?’

‘Try to decipher this. Keep in mind that these are really what she said. ‘First you go fuuuuuh. Then you go haaaaaah! After that, you can go boom and dokaan as much as you want!’.’

It was around five minutes before Arima starts to speak again.

‘Let us begin.’

‘I’ll be in your care.’

‘First of all, when we use magic, we will use up mana, something that’s similar to our stamina. The mana can be extracted from our body, or you can borrow it from Regalias or Pseudo Regalias.’

‘So even though I’m a C Rank in magic, it increased to A because I have an A Rank Regalia, right?’

‘Correct. And now that you’re A Rank, even if in name only, you can still use stronger and more variety of magic.’

‘I tried using magic once, back in the cavern where Excalibur was. It wasn’t a big deal, but I still got tired after that.’

‘That’s because you tried to run before you could crawl. Start with something small, like a sphere of water the size of a basketball. After you’re used to it, summon another sphere. That’s how you practice.’

I did as she advised and conjure up a small water sphere. I feel myself tire out a little when I did that, but it’s not as bad as when I summoned a whole wave. Next, I try to make it float around me like a bubble, all the while concentrating so the sphere don’t burst or disappear.

After a while, I start to tire out, so I let the sphere fall to the ground as a puddle.

‘Keep doing that, and you’ll improve eventually. Remember, do it step by step and don’t try anything big all of a sudden.’

‘Got it.’

‘By the way,’ Arima says while looking over my shoulders. ‘Vice President Kurogane has been looking at you while sparring with her opponents for quite a while.’

‘...Yeah, I know. I felt her gaze ever since we came inside this place.’

‘It’s kind of amazing how she managed to fence with them without actually looking at them.’

I turn around to look at Ichika, who immediately averts her gaze and looks at her losing opponent.

‘Well, thanks for your guidance. I hope you can teach me again when I need your help.’

‘Anytime.’

I walk over to where Ichika is. She’s trying very hard not to look at me, a feat that can be done easily, since she’s still sparring with her opponent.

I patiently wait for them to finish, and then I talk to her.

‘Hey there, Ichika.’

‘Oh, Akira. Fancy seeing you here.’ she’s pretending like she saw me just now.

‘Um, this is a joint practice between Class 2 and Class 1. Of course you will see me here.’

‘Oh, right. Of course.’

‘So, I promised to train with you. Is it okay if it’s right now?’

‘Of course!’ she says without even bothering to hide her excitement.

‘Well, I’ll be in your care then.’

‘Likewise!’

And so, the two of us train together like always, only this time with people watching us. She finally thinks I’m strong enough to spar with her, so we had a bout. Naturally, she wiped the floor with me, even though I could tell she’s holding back. A lot.

‘You are much stronger than back when we were at the cavern.’ Ichika tells me while we take a break.

‘Well, I trained like crazy ever since. Still no match for you though.’

‘You are improving at a great pace. Just keep it up, and you will become very strong. I guarantee it.’

‘Yeah. I will.’

While still resting, I see Mashiro teaching a bunch of students on using the correct techniques to summon Destroyers. The students are somewhat paying attention, although I see a few female students are secretly taking photos of Mashiro.

‘Hey, where are you looking at?’

Ichika’s shout brought my attention back to her.

‘Huh?’

‘What do you mean, “Huh?”? You were totally staring at Fuyukaze! The person you should look at is me!’

Upon hearing this, some students either gasp loudly or scream gleefully.

As for Ichika, she realized what she had said, and is now blushing furiously.

‘W-What I intend to say is that you should be concentrate while you are training, even if we are taking a break! There is no hidden meaning in what I said!’

‘Alright, alright. You should stop talking before you cause more misunderstanding.’

Yup, it’s just a misunderstanding. Right?

Anyway, to prevent the situation from being even more awkward, we quickly resume our sparring which lasted the entire afternoon.

Evening came, and so did dinner time. As mentioned, dinner is provided to us. For our first dinner here, the menu consists of grilled salmon, some pickled radishes, miso soup and rice in a plastic bento box. A simple Japanese dinner. We are to have our dinner at the same place we made our lunch.

Once again, I’m eating with my classmates, and I see the trio from Shut-Ins Club sitting all by themselves again. I want to invite them to eat with us, but remembered that it would be very awkward for mutual friends who are practically strangers to share the same space.

I finish my dinner rather quickly, and throw away my plastic box inside the provided trash can.

‘Kagenashi-kun, are you leaving already?’ Takayama asks me.

‘Yeah, I’m going to the bath right now, since most people are still here.’

As I predicted, the shower room is empty, so I can afford to take my time. If you guys are wondering if this place has any open baths that will leads to a fanservice scene, there isn’t. This is a former military base, not a hot spring resort.

I take off my tracksuit and use my teleport magic to teleport it to my room back in the Academy. After I’m done with my bath, I take out my towel and my spare track suits from my closet.

Man, this magic is the epitome of convenience. The only drawback this magic has is that it would require a huge amount of mana to teleport a person, that’s why people always leave it to the Destroyers that can use teleport magic.

The sparring session with Ichika took a toll from me, so I go back to my room immediately and try to sleep. Unfortunately, I failed, so I got up and watch random videos from my phone.

After a while, Shimazaki and Miyahara also come inside the room. Both of them also look like they just took a bath.

‘Kagenashi, you shouldn’t have come back here so quickly. We had a campfire and stuff, and it was really fun!’ Miyahara tells me.

‘Sorry, I was quite tired from this afternoon, so I just wanted to rest.’

‘Speaking of which, both you and Vice President Kurogane caused quite a scene.’

‘She did. Not me.’

‘Either way, everyone’s talking about it.’

I sigh. ‘Great…’

‘Are the two of you going out? You’re on first names basis, after all.’ Miyahara asks curiously while climbing into his bed.

‘Hey, based on that logic, does that mean family members are going out too?’

‘Huh. It makes sense if you put it that way…’

‘Do you guys have anyone you like?’ Shimazaki asks from his bed all of a sudden.

‘Whoa, where did that come from?’ Of all the person to ask that question, I was not expecting Shimazaki.

‘It’s just that, I have a fiance. She was chosen by my family, and we’re supposed to get married when we graduate.’

Wow, now I’m even more surprised.

‘Is she a student from the Academy?’

‘No, just a regular rich girl that’s attending a school for rich girls.’

‘I don’t think the word “regular” and “rich” goes together.’

‘Is that the problem here?’ Miyaraha asks. ‘Anyway, you having a fiance sure is surprising. You hid it well from us.’

‘Sorry, I never had any intention of hiding it. It’s just that it was kind of hard to bring it up.’

‘So why did you do it now? And what does it have to do with us having anyone that we like?’

‘I figured it would be easier if it’s only us guys. As for your second question, we’re practically strangers, so I don’t know whether if it’s okay to just follow our parents’ wishes.’

‘Ah. Have you seen her before?’

‘Three times so far.’

‘What does she look like? Any photos?’

Shimazaki hands me his phone, and on it is a pretty girl who fits right in in a huge mansion with lots of servants. I pass back the phone to Shimazaki, and he also shows it to Miyahara.

‘Yup, she’s a rich lady alright.’ Miyahara comments.

‘And her personality?’

‘She’s nice enough, although it’s hard to say whether that’s how she acts when she’s alone.’

‘Well, you could go on a few dates with her. Maybe some feelings will blossom after you guys get to know each other.’ Miyahara suggests.

‘Dates, huh? I guess it might work.’

Shimazaki wants to asks some more questions, but it’s already time for lights-out, so we had to turn off the lights and go to sleep. After I closed my eyes, I realized I just had a guys talk with two guys I thought I would never get along with.