Noboru’s mind raced as he walked down the halls back to the barracks. Aiden’s words echoed in his head. It means you aren’t a hero.

What does that mean? I was summoned along with the others, but I’m not a hero? And this book, what could it tell me? Ah, it’s no use, I can’t figure it out, but for some reason I’m scared. Noboru’s thoughts raced and he rapidly became heated. His mind traced back to being unceremoniously kicked out of the room before he could ask any questions. Who does that?! Just drops a bomb like that then kicks me out. Realizing that getting worked up will do him no good, he began to try to control his breathing and clear his mind. Tomorrow, I just have to wait until then and then I’ll figure out what exactly is going on, but until then I have to put it out of my mind.

He was able to calm down somewhat before he reached the barracks. When he arrived, he found not just Yuriko, Akane, and Emiko, but Orochi, Gorou, Mika, and Naoko too.

“Wow, it’s a party in here.”

Everyone beckoned Noboru to come closer to their circle. They were all seated, either on the floor, on the beds, or on the two chairs in the room.

“Come on, sit with us.”

Noboru took a seat on the floor next to Gorou after tossing the book on his desk.

“I hope you guys didn’t kick Minori out, it’s his room too you know.”

“Don’t worry, we didn’t, he’s out with Kei right now, exploring the castle.”

“Hmmm? Kei and Minori, eh? I didn’t expect that, are they dating?”

Akane quickly jumped on the topic of love. Being a lively maiden, she was very interested in conversations such as these. Everyone turned to the one who told them about Minori and Kei, Naoko.

“Hmmm, I’m not sure, they’ve been close for a while though, so they might be.”

It seemed that even Naoko was unsure, despite being Kei’s best friend. Akane seemed to be very interested in this, and pounced immediately.

“You don’t even know? I thought you and Kei told each other everything, Naoko?”

“W-Well, not everything. B-but when it gets serious I’m sure she’ll tell me!”

Gorou spoke up. “Well, considering how you two were in school, I’m sure she will.”

Gorou’s mention of school caused everyone to flashback to the times when the two groups, Noboru, Yuriko, Akane, Orochi, and Gorou, and Emiko, Kei, Naoko, Mika, and Minori, met.

…

A younger, but not by much, Gorou walked the school halls alongside an also younger Orochi. They were messing around while walking, not really paying any attention, when a group of three ran into them.

“Ah! Noboru, Yuriko, Akane! We were looking for you!” Gorou was the first to speak up. “Since it’s the start of the new school year I was hoping we’d still be in the same class but I wanted to wait for you guys to check.”

“Ahaha,” Noboru laughed slightly uncomfortably, “Well, Akane found me and Yuriko first and kinda dragged us to the class sheets…” He scratched the back of his head awkwardly. Akane also looked down in embarrassment.

“What! Hey, Akane! So you’ll wait for Noboru but not us?! How rude!”

Akane’s eye’s shot upward. Her cheeks were still flushed red from embarrassment, but the look on her face was no longer embarrassed, it was now mad.

“Hey! Don’t call me rude! It was just a small oversight, no big deal.”

“Hunh?! A small oversight?! We’re two of your best friends and we’re just a small oversight?!”

Akane opened her mouth to retort, but was quickly cut off by Noboru. “Now, now. It’s not all bad news. Now you don’t have to check the class sheets because you’re both in the same class as us again. So quit fighting alright? I don’t want the first impression the teacher gets of us to be bad.”

Gorou still looked like he had things to say but he obediently shut his mouth. Akane crossed her arms and looked away with a “Hmph!” The five of them began walking towards their classroom, Orochi and Gorou following the lead of the others. By the time they arrived, Akane and Gorou were no longer angry, and were instead joking around with each other. There were already five people sitting in the classroom by the time they entered. A pair of girls sitting next to one another with a boy next to them, and two other women sitting on their own. Akane, being the loudest of the group, quickly waved her hand and called out a greeting to the five.

“Hi hi! I’m Kawahara Akane! Just call me Akane, nice to meet all of you!”

The other four quickly followed Akane’s introduction, and the five in the room started to introduce themselves as well. The first to speak was a girl in the group of three, she had bright blue hair and it seemed her personality was similar to Akane’s.

“Hiiii! I’m Tamaki Naoko! Just call me Naoko as well! Nice to meet you! This is Handa Kei.” She pointed at the blonde hair, blue eyed woman next to her, “And this is Soma Minori.” She pointed to the guy sitting next to them. The two nodded as they were introduced, each smiling at both Naoko’s and Akane’s attitude.

Noboru laughed. “It seems like Naoko and Akane will get along well. How about you two?” Noboru looked at the two girls who were sitting alone. One of them was a normal looking, black haired girl, but when Noboru looked at her, she quickly looked away.

“Amanosawa Emiko.” She said quietly, before putting her attention elsewhere. It was clear she didn’t want to continue talking. Almost everyone shrugged their shoulders, figuring that she’s a shy person. However, Noboru tilted his head and looked at her in slight confusion.

The other girl in the room was anything but normal. Even sitting you could tell she was taller than anyone else in the room. Her hair was short and as black as her eyes. However, when she saw Akane, she smiled brightly.

“Ah! Mika! I was so busy introducing myself I didn’t notice it was you!” Akane quickly rushed over to the still sitting Mika and hugged her.

“Haha. That’s alright, Akane. You’re always like this anyway.” She turned towards the rest of the people in the room while still being hugged by Akane. “I’m Mae Mika, I’m on the basketball team and I met Akane while she was helping the cheerleaders for one of my games. Nice to meet you all.”

“Hey hey, this teacher doesn’t have a seating chart so we can sit wherever. Why don’t all of you sit by us?” Naoko spoke up after Mika introduced herself. The others nodded and all chose seats around Naoko and her two friends. Only Emiko didn’t move. Noboru quickly looked towards her.

“What about you, Emiko? Want to sit by us? I promise we aren’t bad people.”

Immediately after Noboru spoke, Akane also spoke. “Yeah yeah! We don't bite.” She said while moving over to her and pulling her by the arm. It seemed that Akane wasn’t taking no for an answer.

“O-Okay.” Emiko stuttered as she was dragged to the group. In the end, she ended up sitting next to Noboru for the rest of the year.

…

“Now that I think about it, even when we met, Minori was next to Kei the whole time. I guess I just never seriously thought about it but it’d make sense if they were dating.” Akane put her hand on her chin in thought as she spoke.

“I know right? They do fit each other…” Naoko suddenly stood up. “I know! I’ll ask her at night since we’re rooming!”

Akane also stood. “Oh good idea! Then we can talk about it tomorrow too!”

The remaining hour before dinner was filled with lively conversation between everyone in the group, and Noboru was able to put Aiden’s words out of his head. After that hour passed, the door to the room opened, and a man in a butler suit appeared.

“Dinner is about to be ready, you may want to begin moving to the dining hall.”

“Thank you. We’ll do just that.” Noboru responded quickly while standing up. I thought we were responsible for getting there on time, well I guess they didn’t want to leave it to chance. The butler’s eyes widened slightly seeing the book that Noboru tossed on his desk, but it was almost imperceptible so none of the students noticed his odd behavior. The student’s quickly filed out of the room leaving only the butler behind, who took one last look at the book before leaving with a look of thought.

When the students arrived at the dining hall they found that Kei and Minori were already waiting for them at the entrance.

“Jeez, you guys are late.” Kei cheekily chastised the other students. Naoko leaned in close and whispered into her ear.

“Well we didn’t want to interrupt your alone time with Minori.” Naoko pulled back and smiled with a little eyebrow wiggle. Kei’s cheeky smile was quickly replaced by a drawn mouth and a deep blush.

“Y-You!” She half-heartedly swung at Naoko before looking towards the others. After seeing their mocking grins she dropped her gaze, her blush deepening. Noboru, figuring that this will only continue if left as is, began to usher everyone into the dining hall. Inside the hall, Aiden, Gaharad, Prince Harold, Princess Elizabeth, Queen Julianne, Grand Cardinal James, and King John all sat in a half circle, with the King in the seat of honor. One one side of the King was his family, the Queen and their two children in order of age with the Princess at the outside, on the other was James, who sat right next to the king, and Aiden and Gaharad. The students were led to their seats quickly by the maids, again with Noboru and Gorou at the ends. Noboru was sat next to the Princess, who smiled at his approach, while Gorou was put next to the ever apathetic Aiden.

Once everyone was seated, the King spoke up. “Thank you, heroes, for indulging my selfish request to dine with the n-ahem with the ten of you. Please relax, do not treat us as people of higher stature than you tonight, for tonight is purely for everyone’s enjoyment. Please feel free to change your seating and mingle. I know that Harold and Elizabeth were very excited for tonight so please indulge them in some conversation.” With a wave of his hand, the maids began to bring platters of drinks and food. The table quickly filled, and once it did, the royalty began to move about. Prince Harold was the first to move, he quickly moved to where Akane was sitting and began to conversate. The King moved next, he quickly walked up to Gorou and Minori and engaged them in a bit of conversation. Naoko and Kei, meanwhile, moved to the Queen and began asking all sorts of things about royalty and what their life is like, specifically focusing on her love life. Gaharad pulled Aiden along and began to talk to Yuriko, Mika, Orochi, and Emiko. The Princess was the last to make a move, instead deciding to simply turn sideways and look at Noboru.

“U-Um, I’m sorry about running into you earlier…” She awkwardly attempted to strike up a conversation.

Noboru shook his head with a light chuckle. “You know you don’t have to be so stiff with me, Eliza. Especially since I was the one who ran into you.”

Hearing Noboru use her nickname caused the Princess to blush lightly, but she quickly got a hold of her emotions and began to slowly talk more comfortably with Noboru. While the two talked, Akane looked over in annoyance. She was just close enough to hear Noboru use the Princess’s nickname, and the thought of them getting closer seemed to get on her nerves. Prince Harold seemed to pick up on this and his brow twitched in anger. He watched Akane for a few moments, before a wide smile broke out on his face.

He nudged Akane, “Hey, that guy’s name is Noboru, right?” Akane, slightly embarrassed that he saw her looking at Noboru, quickly nodded her head. Harold’s smile grew even wider. “Well, watch this then.” It was then that Akane finally turned to look at the Prince. The smile on his face was warm, befitting of royalty, but for some reason it chilled Akane to the bone. She reached out a hand to stop him, but was too late, he had already turned and was walking towards Noboru. She slowly retracted her hand and hoped that nothing bad would happen, but deep in her mind she knew that that hope was wrong.

The King, who was currently listening to a story being told by Gorou, spotted Harold stalking over to Noboru. He raised an eyebrow in surprise, before smiling. The smile was every bit the same as Harold. It was warm and befitting of royalty, but everyone who saw it felt a shiver run down their spines. This will be interesting. The King thought as he kept his attention on his son.

Noboru, while actually enjoying his leisurely conversation with Elizabeth, felt a cold chill on his back. He turned to see the Prince walking towards him with an eerie smile on his face. Elizabeth, seeing that Noboru turned, also looked in that direction, before letting out a strangled grunt. She turned towards Noboru, but the aura he was giving off had changed severely. It turned sharp as he went on guard, making him very hard to approach. “U-Um, Noboru…” The Princess tried to call out to him, to maybe lessen the tension, but Noboru’s focus was entirely on the man in front of him. He seemed to sense that Harold’s intentions were anything but pure.

“Woah, no need to be so on guard, great hero. I merely had a request I wanted to make of you. Since you heroes are supposed to be much stronger than the average person, I wanted to spar a bit to see this strength for myself. I heard from the Grand Cardinal that you have the highest stats out of all the heroes, so I was wondering if you would like to be my partner?” Harold had phrased it innocently, but the bloodlust he was exuding was anything but. Noboru opened his mouth to politely turn down the Prince, when a voice suddenly rang out.

“Oho, that sounds interesting.” The person no one expected to call out, Aiden, voiced his opinion. “This could be a good learning experience, don’t you think, Your Highness?” He looked towards the King for approval. The King sighed and gave a slightly self-mocking grin. “Yes, I suppose you are correct. Why not?” He waved his hand towards a servant near him. The servant quickly scurried off. “I’ll have them set up the training grounds right now, let us go and get the two of them ready, shall we?”

Noboru lightly clicked his tongue, before bowing slightly towards the King. “It would be my pleasure.” Seeing Noboru’s reply, Harold’s smile grew even wider, yet it’s brightness somehow lowered, revealing a devilish aura. Aiden walked up to Noboru before turning towards the Prince, “Prince Harold, Gaharad will take you to the practice armory. I’ll lead Noboru there after Gaharad returns.” Harold nodded, and turned to follow an already moving Gaharad. Aiden watched them leave before turning towards Noboru. Noboru, slightly confused, asked Aiden, “Why did you want this fight to happen, I mean, isn’t fighting royalty bad?” Aiden just smiled.

“This is good practice for you, fighting against a manipulator will help you learn how to fight in this world. After all, your previous world didn’t have anything like manipulation, right?”

“Well, yeah, but I feel like there was a better way to go about this, fighting the Prince just to gain some experience seems too reckless.”

Aiden laughed in response, “It’s not like either of you will be killed, and our castle healers are on standby. They specialize in light manipulation, which contains general use healing spells. However if Emiko could use her abilities already, her healing power would be far greater than anything they could whip up. Besides, I gave you the book to read up on, so you should have some ideas already.”

“Ah. Well… I kinda haven’t looked at the book yet. I was hanging out with the other stu-... other heroes.” Noboru scratched the back of his head in embarrassment. Aiden stopped for a moment before snorting.

“Well, then this’ll be an even more entertaining fight.”