Chapter 12 (1/2)

‘You pa.s.sed, yanno.’

For a moment Fii thought she was hearing voices.

But there was no mistake.

Crow had told her ‘you pa.s.sed’.

“Eh-, wha-, why…!?”

“Well, even if you ask that, n.o.body said that you’d fail if you lost, right?”

(N-, Now that he mentions it… But normally…)

“It’s true that you’d have an advantage if you won, and those who make it as far as the semi-finals will be guaranteed a spot. But that’s not all. Why do you think we knights were watching the matches? We do that so we can scout out skill sets and talents that our respective units need.”

Crow turned to smile at Fii.

“And there’s a captain that wants you as their apprentice knight. Congrats. You pa.s.sed. Isn’t that great, Heath?”

Fii stared in disbelief at the paper that he handed her.

But the name ‘Heath’ was definitely there. And that Heath now belonged to the 18th Knight Division.

(Huh…? Was there an eighteenth unit…?)

Fii tilted her head in puzzlement.

Of course she was confused. The Orstollian knight order was only supposed to have seventeen knight divisions.

“Aahh, so you do know about our knight order. Don’t worry about it, the 18th really exists. There are some circ.u.mstances so it doesn’t officially exist, but well, that’s just on paper. We get treated as a proper knight division, and as long as you graduate from being an apprentice, you’ll get your identification papers as a knight. I’m also with the 18th you see. We’re kind of like special forces, or a secret unit. Are you not fine with that?”

“No! No such thing!” exclaimed Fii, as she shook her head.

As long as she could gain an ident.i.ty as a knight, it didn’t matter to her which unit she joined. She was actually happy about it because now she would be in the same knight division as Crow.

After those words came out of mouth, the fact that she had pa.s.sed finally struck her.

“Wahhh… Crow-san…”

Now that the stress was leaving her, she began to cry even harder than before.

“Oi, oi, you’re going to cry after you pa.s.s as well? Geez, a kid like you is…”

Giving another troubled smile, Crow pulled Heath’s head in and patted it.

“This is the only time I’m going to console a guy, alright?”

After Fii cried for a while longer, the two of them decided to head to the 18th’s gathering place.

“Time to greet everyone. Can you walk?”

“Yes! I can walk!”

Even though she was depressed just a moment ago, Fii was so cheerful now, that she was wagging her proverbial tail. Crow couldn’t help but smile in amus.e.m.e.nt.

“Whoa, so energetic now that you know you’ve pa.s.sed huh. What happened to the gloom from earlier? What a mercenary kid you are.”

“That was because I thought I’d failed for sure…”

Fii reddened and turned away in a huff in response to the teasing.

But she quickly returned to a happy smile and looked back towards Crow.

“By the way, why did they want me! Could it be that they realised my hidden talent with the sword!?”

“Apparently it’s because you’re tiny and were good at scurrying about.”

“Hahh!? What’s that supposed to mean!”

She wasn’t very happy. That hardly sounded knightly at all.