The Demon Prince goes to the Academy

The Demon Prince goes to the Academy

Chapter 98

Seeing the traces of a fire and food, Ellen concluded that there were others living on this island separate from Class A and B.

“Then is this somehow related to those special conditions?”

“That’s right.”

Ellen was a lot more vigilant on our way back. She knew that nothing life-threatening should happen because we were still within the bounds of the mission.

Of course, that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be any emergencies. Ellen vigilantly took the lead while I followed her.

Perhaps because she was smart, she was able to find hints regarding the special condition right away.

Anyway, we were so nervous that we wore our wet clothes and returned to the camp immediately. 

This was important information, so Bertus immediately stopped all work and gathered everyone in one place when I reported it to him.

The kids became happy when they heard that we had discovered a stream but looked surprised when we told them that there was someone or something else on this island besides us.

“Wh-what should we do? Are they cannibals?”

“Wha-what are you even saying?!”

As Kono Lint’s face turned pale, fear began to slowly spread among them. It was only natural that everyone’s faces turned completely white.

“The fact that this island isn’t actually uninhabited is probably part of this mission. This must have been planned by Temple. There’s nothing to be scared about; I think this is related to the special conditions…”

Of course, Bertus stayed calm. Since this was only a mission, he came to the natural conclusion that this situation was a controlled one.

“That means if we find that person that isn’t part of our group, we’ll be able to finish this mission right away, right?”

“That’s what I hope for, but we can’t be sure if that’s the case.”

“I guess so…”

If the presence of this other person besides us had something to do with those clear conditions, the mission would end if we found that person. At Bertus’ words, the mood changed drastically.

“Th-then, do we just have to find that person?”

Harriet’s mood suddenly became bright.

It was everyone’s dearest wish to quickly get out of this environment. Bertus nodded his head as if he understood the feelings behind Harriet’s words.

“I don’t know that much yet. But it’s true that it would probably help us finish the mission early if we were to find that person.”

“Then let’s search the island! If we find that person first, we can go back!” Cayer shouted—and everyone seemed to agree with him. It was only right to quickly find that mysterious person and put an end to this mission.

“Hmm… That seems to be the right choice, but…”

Bertus pondered while looking at me.

“Reinhardt, what do you think?”

At those words, everyone’s eyes focused on me.

I knew that their opinion of me had drastically changed. Those guys—who’d been treating me with indifference before—had become all fussy over whatever I did. They seemed to think I was something like a vending machine that would spit out the right answers.

Even those guys who hated my guts felt that it was only right to listen to what I had to say for the time being.

But honestly, I didn’t want to give them any more hints; it was true that I wanted Class A to get better results than they did in the original novel, but if I were to give them a hint, Class A would win.

To be honest, I wanted Class B to win this mission so that Charlotte’s side gained more strength.

“Hmm… I’m not sure, but how about we all go to the stream first?”

I didn’t know about any of those complicated things, but my suggestion about going to play in the water was probably the best answer I could give in that situation.

* * *

Ellen was of the opinion that it would be dangerous but failed to convince any of them; the only thing they wanted to focus on was talk of that stream.

It took about 30 minutes for all eleven of us to reach the stream through the route Ellen had laid out.

Everyone was sweaty and exhausted but, spurred on by the hope that they’d be able to wash up at the end of the journey, they kept on following Ellen without complaining.

“Uwaah…”

As soon as we arrived at the stream, their eyes widened. The stream was even bigger than they had imagined.

After a moment of silence, everyone plunged into the stream all at once.

“Urg! It’s so cold!”

“Be careful, there are some deep areas in there.”

However, those guys who threw themselves into the water didn’t seem to hear me.

Ellen also threw herself in again and started splashing around.

She told them not to go there because it was dangerous, but when she laid her eyes on the water again, she seemed to lose all sense of caution.

-Woah!

In a situation where they had felt like they were about to turn into puddles of sweat, those kids immediately began to play in the water like the kids they were as soon as they arrived at the stream; Bertus also jumped in without hesitation, smiling unpretentiously.

Yes, that was what kids should be like.

* * *

* * *

* * *

The water in the stream was quite deep, so there were some guys who ended up thrashing and squealing after they stepped into deeper places. Of course, Ellen, Bertus, and I—those of us who knew how to swim—fished them out.

There were also times when things got a bit bizarre.

“Nuwoah!”

Kono Lint suddenly appeared outside of the water. Perhaps he had fallen into the deep parts of the stream.

”Kyaaa!”

“Y-you! You crazy bastard!”

“H-hey!”

Naturally, he escaped by teleporting—leaving his clothes in the stream. The female students who saw him screamed, and the male students burst out into laughter when they witnessed that scene.

“U-uwaah! D-don’t look!”

“Clothes! Someone bring him some clothes!” Harriet shouted in agitation while covering her eyes with her hands. Bertus giggled after fishing Kono Lint’s clothes out of the water as he handed them to him. 

It made sense that he used his teleportation in the face of death, so I put up with it.

Everyone was playing in the same pool as the girls started to chatter among themselves.

“Erm, Bertus.” Harriet called out to Bertus, who was sitting idle in the water as our representative.

“Ah, Saint-Owan, what’s the matter?”

“We’d like to… Erm. Wash up… further upstream…“ Harriet mumbled with her face reddened, too embarrassed to say what she meant directly.

Of course, Bertus nodded his head, understanding what she was talking about.

“A-aah. I know what you’re trying to say. But are you sure? We don’t know what’s up there…”

It seemed like he fully understood that they wanted to go wash themselves and their clothes. However, Bertus didn’t know what might be up there, so he asked them if it was okay for them to just take their clothes off over there.

“Ellen said she’ll be on the lookout.”

“Then I’m relieved. Okay. I won’t let any of the other guys go up there.”

The other female students along with Harriet began heading upstream to a place that couldn’t be seen by the boys.

“You roughly know what they are doing, right?” Bertus announced as if he didn’t want to explain it with his own mouth. Everyone nodded quietly, becoming a little shy.

Just thinking about their female classmates being naked up there seemed to make their hearts flutter.

It wasn’t hard to read that they were imagining things they shouldn’t imagine. Were they all lewd devils? These kids.

Kono Lint stared at the female students going up with a sullen expression.

He seemed to think about using his teleportation to peep on them.

“Don’t even think about doing something so useless. You’d be caught right away.”

“W-who said I’d do something?”

At my warning, Kono Lint shook his head violently.

Of course, they eventually forgot about these things, washed their clothes, hung them on rocks, and started playing in the water again.

It didn’t really matter because the two places were so far apart that one couldn’t see the place upstream from below or the place downstream from up top.

The biggest pain in the ass was Kono Lint.

“Look!”

-Pat!

When there were only men around, he started to play around with his teleportation. He suddenly teleported to the water’s surface after diving in and did some bizarre things.

“Water Walking!”

-Papapapapat!

Kono could teleport continuously, the only problem his power had was the fact that his clothes would come off. His activation speed and control were actually top-notch. However, he was a pitiful fellow whose true worth only came to the surface after giving up all his dignity as a human being.

Bertus took off his clothes as well. It wasn’t that unusual for us to see each others’ naked bodies because we’d often see them when we used the shower rooms after P.E.

“Hmm… There’s definitely something over there.”

Bertus seemed convinced that the island wasn’t so uninhabited after seeing the traces of meals being eaten—including the hardly visible bones of animals. Bertus looked at me as I was just sitting around idly. 

“Would it be too risky to move our camp here?” he asked.

“Well, it has its merits and demerits. It would be good to find that person, but wild animals might appear quite frequently.”

Bertus nodded at my explanation. Since the stream was filled with plenty of drinking water, it would be good to set up our camp there—and we might also be able to find that other person.

However, we wouldn’t know what kinds of threats would await us at night. We would also have to throw away the camp we’d already built up.

“Let’s talk about that with everyone else later.”

Bertus put this decision off for now.

After some time…

After we finished washing up and drying our clothes, we regrouped again. The female students, obviously, had a much more cheerful expression adorning their faces.

Harriet was smiling for the first time ever since we had arrived at the island.

I thought it was good seeing her mood improve some.

“Everyone is of the opinion that this would be a good place to set up our camp, right?”

Everyone nodded at Bertus’ words.

“Let’s think about whether we want to make another camp here or go back to our old camp.”

“I don’t think we can make one here.”

Liana, who seemed to have something to say about this, shook her head. The other female students did the same. Except for Ellen, all of them looked a bit exhausted.

“A snake came out… Up there.”

“This one.”

Ellen held up a fairly big, dead snake—stabbed through its head with a javelin.

Snake.

With the single mention of that word, it was unanimously decided that we’d withdraw from the stream.

* * *

After we returned to our camp, everyone let out a sigh again. Still, one couldn’t say that we hadn’t achieved anything that day—we were able to refill our water canteens, after all.

Of course, they drank as much as they could from the canteens. However, we filled up the large pot with water so we wouldn’t have to worry about it for a while.

“Should we rest today?”

Bertus came to me to speak as the sun was beginning to set. If we were to sweat again, what we had done just then would become useless.

“How about we take a break after we finish the camp?”

However, I disagreed; we weren’t done making the wooden flooring for the tents yet.

At my words, everyone glared at me with daggers in their eyes. They wanted to rest, but I criticized them, asking them to work more.

“No, I just think that it’s only appropriate that we finish what we started first.”

You punks.

Get ready to bow down to me tomorrow.

* * *

After working on our camp, Harriet cast underwater breathing magic on Ellen and me before we went hunting for our dinner.

Just walking underwater with that magic cast on us was amazing, even if we weren’t hunting.

Ellen was probably thinking similarly to me, as she stopped sometimes to admire the little fish moving through the coral reefs.

Ellen looked at the small yellow fish that were biting her finger as she reached out for them. While I was watching that scene, Ellen met my eyes.

-…

-…

We weren’t able to speak while underwater, but we could tell what we felt at the moment just by looking at each others’ faces.

Ellen’s black hair that moved with the flow of water was quite impressive.

Our harvest was three lobsters and two large fish that resembled snappers—they were so large that it seemed like we could feed all eleven of us with just those.

After leaving the water, completely drenched once again, we stood on the beach and watched the sunset. Ellen didn’t follow me back to the camp.

When I looked back, I saw Ellen still staring at the flaming sunset.

“What are you doing? Aren’t you coming?”

“Yes.“

Ellen stopped admiring the scenery after I called out to her and walked towards me with her back to the setting sun.

I wasn’t able to see what kind of expression she wore with the light shining from behind her.

“I think this is fun.”

Perhaps she was smiling.

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