chapter3 · 042-ep42

Episode 42: The Enchanter's Senpai

A week had passed since then, and Mibu hadn't come to school once.

Of course, I hadn't thought she'd be able to come right away.

That video had spread, Mibu's name was being mentioned at school, and it was all being linked oddly to the Awakener Development Program.

It would be stranger if she could show up like nothing had happened in that state.

Even I understood that much.

But understanding it and not seeing her at all for a whole week were a little different.

Mibu and I were in different classes.

So it wasn't as if I saw her empty seat directly every day.

Even so, word that she wasn't coming reached me.

Family circumstances.

Apparently she'd be absent for a while.

Apparently the teachers weren't saying anything in detail either.

Only fragments like that walked around the school without her in it.

I hadn't sent her a message.

I'd thought about it.

Are you okay?

Are you not coming to school?

Is there anything I can do?

I drafted a few messages, and each time, all of them felt wrong, so I stopped.

There was no way she was okay.

I roughly knew why she wasn't coming to school.

And so, a week passed without me sending anything in the end.

"Ren-kun. You aren't concentrating, are you?"

At Nanami-san's voice, I raised my face a little late.

Nanami-san was in front of me.

We were on a bench along the riverbank, a little ways from the station.

Maybe because it was Saturday afternoon, there were a fair number of people along the river.

But where we sat was a little off the walking path, so almost no one passed nearby.

The sound of the river.

Cars passing in the distance.

Children playing a little ways off.

Nanami-san and I sitting on a bench.

Just listing that much, it looked more like a normal holiday stroll than training.

No, at worst, it could even look a little like a date.

Well, what we were actually doing was the quietly exhausting task of keeping an enchant on Nanami-san while she continually tested my judgment as a support Job.

"Sorry."

"No, don't worry about it. More importantly, are you okay? You looked like you were thinking hard about something."

"...You could tell?"

"Of course. I'm your senpai, Ren-kun."

"That's true."

Still, it was only here that I thought, Ohhh, senpai... What a wonderful sound.

I let out a light breath and adjusted the sensation of the Endurance enchant I had on Nanami-san.

This was the kind of training we normally could have been doing as part of the Awakener Development Program.

But because of the video incident, the Program had been suspended for the time being.

So Nanami-san making time for me individually like this was less official Program training and more a kindness of hers as a fellow Enchanter.

A place with outside noise.

A place with the presence of people.

A place where the field of vision was too wide.

Today's training was to maintain an enchant and focus even in a place like that.

That was why we were on the riverbank.

I got the logic as training.

I did, but sitting with Nanami-san on a riverbank bench on a Saturday afternoon made it hard for the training feeling not to fade a little.

Well, what we were doing was normally tough, though.

"Is it about Iroha-chan?"

Nanami-san asked that.

I was silent for only a moment.

It wasn't something I needed to hide.

If anything, claiming I hadn't been thinking about Mibu in this state would be stranger.

"Yes."

"Still not at school?"

"She hasn't come."

"I see. I hope she can come back soon."

Nanami-san didn't press any further.

It was something to be grateful for.

But it also left a slightly awkward silence instead.

Nanami-san didn't force things out of people at times like this.

But she didn't leave them alone either; when she thought it was necessary, she only spoke up at the necessary moment.

She was absurdly good at that distance.

That was the impression Nanami-san gave me: an unbelievably soothing big-sis type who could read the room.

Nanami-san opened the notebook resting on her lap.

"All right, Ren-kun. A question here."

Nanami-san lightly tapped her notebook with the tip of her pen.

"The front line is being pushed back. The back line needs distance. The enemy is one step away from reaching the back line. What enchant would you choose right now, Ren-kun?"

Enchanter pop quiz had started out of nowhere.

Think while buffing Nanami-san with Endurance.

That was kind of devilish, wasn't it?

Thinking that, I turned it over in my head.

First, if I applied Endurance, the front line could hold.

If the front line didn't collapse, the chance of the enemy reaching the back line went down.

But that didn't necessarily mean the back line could make distance in the meantime.

On the other hand, if I applied Agility, the back line could retreat more easily.

But the front line's defense would become weaker.

The premise of enchants was helping your allies.

But if you used them wrong, it could lead to the party collapsing.

That part was truly troublesome.

"Agility, I think."

"Why?"

"I'd prioritize moving the back line back over having the front line endure. If it's gotten to where the enemy can reach the back line, then even if I apply Endurance there, I feel like the next point to collapse will be behind them."

Nanami-san narrowed her eyes just slightly, then nodded.

"Mm. I think that's good for this situation. A support Job doesn't just watch the person in the most danger right now. You watch the point that's likely to collapse next."

"The point likely to collapse next?"

"That's right. If you only watch the front line being pushed back in front of you, you'll want to apply Endurance. But if the back line's retreat is the real danger, it can be more stable to apply Agility to the whole group and pull back once."

"Don't support Jobs have way too much to do?"

"They do."

Nanami-san said that clearly.

"But doing that is what a support Job does."

"Right."

Apparently, we Enchanters applied enchants to allies or ourselves, but just doing that didn't give us XP.

Then how did we level up?

According to Nanami-san, when an ally we had enchanted defeated an enemy, we received part of that XP.

In other words, support Jobs could gain XP without defeating enemies directly.

But that only applied when they were involved in combat or a defeat.

Apparently just keeping an Endurance enchant on Nanami-san at a riverbank like this didn't increase XP.

A little while ago, I probably would have thought that based only on intuition.

But now was different.

Now I could tell by the numbers.

I had become able to tell because of what happened at midnight the day before yesterday.

I had opened my Status and waited for the date to change.

There was one reason.

【C: Check your own Status for 90 days in a row】

For this achievement.

Check my Status for ninety days in a row.

The condition itself was simple.

But precisely because it was simple, there had to be other people aiming for it.

So on that day, I opened my Status right as the date changed.

【World-First Reward will be granted】

【Reward: Precise Status】

【Detailed XP and Job Proficiency display has been unlocked】

I almost let out a normal shout.

Honestly, I'd been worried.

If it was world-first, I had no idea how it handled time zones overseas.

There were regions where the date changed earlier than in Japan.

And regions where it changed later.

I didn't even know which time the Status itself used as the basis for changing a day.

Even if I updated it at midnight, I was only half sure it would really count as world-first.

But the display appeared.

And it didn't end there.

【Multiple people fulfilled the conditions at the same time】

...Apparently I wasn't the only one who had thought of it.

Or rather, if several people got it at this timing, weren't the people I was competing with almost all Japanese too?

World-first.

That was what it displayed.

But it was starting to seem a little questionable whether this world-first really meant the entire Earth.

At the very least, this achievement seemed to be processed at midnight Japan time.

Whether that was coincidence,

or whether the Status itself operated based on Japan,

I didn't know that much.

But one thing I could say was that there were others who had thought the same thing as me and waited for the same moment.

I wasn't the only one aiming for achievements anymore.

Just knowing that was plenty as information.

And now.

With Precise Status unlocked, numbers I couldn't see before were now displayed.

【Level: 10】

【XP: 848/1200】

【Job: Enchanter】

【Job Proficiency: 3】

【Until next proficiency level: 28/100】

And thanks to this display, I found out that Job Proficiency increased every time I used an Ability Grant.

This was huge.

Before, I'd only vaguely felt that was how it worked, so I was insanely grateful.

"Okay, that's enough."

At Nanami-san's voice, I ended the enchant and took a breath.

I was more tired than I'd expected.

Even though I hadn't moved my body much, keeping an enchant active while continuing to think felt like it slowly scraped away at the back of my head.

Nanami-san watched me like that, then opened the small bag by her feet.

What she took out was sandwiches in a clear case.

And not just one or two.

Egg.

Ham.

Lettuce.

There was even something that looked like tuna.

Neatly cut and arranged, they obviously hadn't come from a convenience store.

"You haven't had lunch yet, right? I figured you're still growing, Ren-kun, so I made plenty. Don't hold back, okay?"

"Wait, did Nanami-san make these herself?"

"I did. They're just something simple, though."

Whoa, whoa. What kind of reward was this?

Saturday afternoon.

The riverbank.

A bench with few people around.

Nanami-san's homemade sandwiches.

List that much, and the training feeling was finally disappearing somewhere entirely.

Until just now, I should've been getting hit with nasty questions while maintaining an enchant.

But if you took only this moment, it was completely a caring older girl bringing lunch for her kouhai.

"Then I'll gratefully dig in."

"Mm. Eat properly. Let's do our best with the rest of the training too, okay?"

"Yes!"

I completely forgot about this so-called training afterward, happily picked up a sandwich, and took a bite.

It was normally delicious.

The egg really tasted like egg, and the bread was strangely soft and moist.

The ham and lettuce worked nicely too. For Nanami-san to call these simple, she probably cooked properly all the time.

"It's delicious."

"I'm glad."

Nanami-san smiled just a little.

Seeing that face, I somehow felt like I'd lost a little.

No, I didn't know what I'd lost to.

It was just that, thinking about it calmly, this situation of receiving homemade sandwiches from an older girl on the riverbank was pretty incredible.

If this weren't training, it would completely be an event.

Well, it was training, though.

By the time I finished the sandwiches, some of the focus that had been scraped away earlier had come back.

My MP had recovered a little too.

We'd probably resume enchant training after lunch.

That was how I would gradually build up my proficiency as an Enchanter.

It was plain training, but that was probably the most straightforward way forward.

And in terms of building things up, there had been one other major change for me.

A little while ago, by clearing the ten-thousand-jumps achievement, my achievements had reached ten types.

【B: Unlock 10 or more different achievements】

【Completed】

The reward that appeared then was this.

【Limited Reward】

【Acquisition Slot: 7/11】

【Reward: Personal Achievement function unlocked】

【Personal Achievements are displayed only to their achiever】

【Personal Achievements are not affected by other people's completion status】

【The contents of Personal Achievements differ for each achiever】

【Personal Achievements are revealed one at a time】

No matter how many times I looked, it was still weird.

It was different from a World-First Reward.

Those were first come, first served.

If someone got there before you, that was basically the end of it.

But this was different.

Out of eleven slots, I was seventh.

I wasn't first.

And yet, it wasn't a standard reward either.

A Limited Reward.

In other words, separate from world-first, there were slots prepared for only a limited number of people.

And Personal Achievements were only displayed to their holders.

They didn't disappear even if someone else got there first.

Their contents differed by holder too.

They were displayed only to me.

Achievements that only I might be able to complete.

Different from regular achievements and World-First Rewards.

It meant an entirely separate growth route had opened up.

No.

Even thinking it over again, wasn't this seriously brutal?