Chapter 362: Chapter 2.79 (Schwarz)

“Don’t dally around girls! Put down your luggage and get onto a cart!” One of the teachers accompanying the first years shouted in the distance.

As usual, the girls nagged the most as they realised we wouldn’t ride with high class carriages, but rather with simple carts which had benches installed. At least they were covered by a tarp, so we couldn’t get any sunstroke.

There was a lot of clamour on who wanted to share a cart during the first day of our journey, but like usual, there was at least one voice of reason.

“Hey, Olivia! I don’t think you and Dan on one cart would be a great idea…” She was like a shining beacon in the distance, her voice crystal clear reaching even the deepest parts of me. Whenever I saw her, my heart skipped a beat.

I loved Lucy.

She was vastly different from anyone else, and I mean that in a good way.

I had grown up in a very poor family which could hardly feed sixth mouths … and as the seventh son, it was me who had to hunger often … which was why I ran away at the age of eight.

A frail boy, first begging in the streets of the capital city and then working as one of the best adventurers never got any affection from anyone. Either I was despised because I was poor, or some tried to suck up to me once I got powerful. But nobody showed they actually cared about me … until she made sure I was alright after being beaten by the guild master.

Since that day, I had a crush on her, that was for sure. It didn’t take long for her to reappear in my life since we went to the same school. It was fate.

And so, I couldn’t help but scratch the back of my head and walk over towards her. I didn’t know if she even spotted me as she kept arguing with a few of her classmates about who should ride with who. Only as she finished doing so did she look at me with a gentle smile on her lips.

“Hey Schwarz. How are you doing?” She asked seemingly happy to see me. I gulped a little as my heart kept hammering against my ribcage, but calmed down somewhat shortly afterwards.

“I’m fine. Hey, is there a seat empty on your cart?” I asked casually. There was no need for her to think I was nervous to be around her after all.

“… you haven’t been asked by anyone else to join them, have you?” That was certainly a nice way of saying nobody else wanted me on their cart. It was this gentleness that I adored about her.

“No.” I admitted quietly. I had to admit that I had a hard time finding any friends, but that wasn’t my fault. Most of the others just couldn’t deal with someone who was way stronger and more knowledgable than they were.

“Ah … that’s going to be difficult. Wait a second.” She said and turned around to talk to two other girls. I didn’t know what that was about but at some point, these two looked over to me with pity and then nodded to her. Suddenly, Lucy hugged these two and came back to me shortly afterwards.

“It’s alright … but only if you can behave. Otherwise my sister and I will make sure you will.” She said and looked straight in my eyes. Naturally, it wouldn’t be a problem for me to be nice to everyone, so I nodded right away.

It was only fifteen minutes later that I realised what she actually meant. Obviously, it wasn’t just us two on the same cart, but also her friend Luna, Ellie and … Louis. That prince who never lifted a finger in his entire life was once again there to ruin everything.

As much as he could, he was around Lucy which must have gotten on her nerves already. I knew she would never tell him because she was nice, but he was just a prince with no value other than that.

“Schwarz … what are you doing here?” Louis asked while squinting his eyes.

“I guess this is a perfect timing for you two to start getting along. This is the girls bench,” Lucy pointed towards the left side of the cart. “And this is the boys bench.”

She didn’t accept any refusal, that much was clear. Instead, she picked up a book from her seat and began to read right away. It was quite awkward for several minutes as Louis and I sat at the very edges of the bench with a whole seat in between us. Not many words were spoken, mostly because those who usually took care of a cheerful atmosphere remained silent.

“And we are going.” I didn’t know that Miss Dove was riding the carriage, but I could easily identify her by her voice. Once she said that, the cart jerked forwards and our journey began.

Awkwardness filled the cart once more, but neither Luna nor Lucy cared to brighten up the mood at all. Ellie was … a competitive but quiet girl? It was hard to read her in all honesty.

And so, it was back to being awkward. That’s not how I imagined my time with Lucy to play out in all honesty.

“Hey, I think we sh-“ Louis started, but I couldn’t take it at all. As if I wanted to talk with a good for nothing prince who was also my rival? No way.

“Shut up.” I said angrily and directly earned his and Ellie’s ire.

“What’s your goddamn problem?” I could see Lucy glancing up from the book for a split second, but she returned to reading right away.

“It’s you! You are my problem. You have no idea about life at all, and yet you act like you know everything! Just admit you are useless, that you cannot even protect her from any danger. Have you even seen a demon in your whole life? No? Then what right do you have to stick around her?” Whenever I saw him, he acted all high and mighty. But he was not.

“What are you talking about?” He asked angrily.

“For fucks sake, is it so hard? Can’t you see she needs protection? For all I know, some … some vampire might be lurking in the darkness, attempting to drink her blood! And you? You cannot protect her at all.” Lucy let her gaze wander above her sunglasses once more and looked at me in interest … at least that’s what I hoped, because it felt more like she was trying to make sense of my words. A split second later, she was already back at reading as if nothing had happened.

Surprisingly, she didn’t say anything thus far, not even that she didn’t need any protection. Everyone was aware of the dangers uninhabited land posed, and everyone would be glad to have some sort of security with them.

Thus, the bickering between Louis and me obviously didn’t stop during the next hours, even though Ellie and Luna sometimes tried to calm the atmosphere. Only Lucy was strangely detached from the argument, at least, until her best friend had enough.

“Lucy, they aren’t listening to us at all and I’m getting headaches, so could you please do something?” Luna asked which made Lucy sigh loudly. She stood up in the cart, stepped across the middle and sat down on the free space in between Louis and me.

It only took a few minutes before everything started again though.

“At least I’m not a weakling.” I just couldn’t let him have the last word about me being unreliable. I just couldn’t.

“Silence.” Lucy growled without looking up from her book at all. And with that, it was silent afterwards. Neither Louis nor I wanted to anger her in any way, because both of us wanted to be on her good side.

Like this, hours went by slowly and we arrived at our first resting spot at around six. Everyone of us was sore from the uncomfortable benches but we still had stuff to do. The school didn’t plan for any accommodation during our travel and thus, the teachers picked out rather common resting spots for merchants to spent the night at.

And that meant we had to set up tents. Each cart were given two tents, large enough to fit three students in them. And then, we were left to our own demise.

“You don’t know how to set up a tent?” Even though Ellie and Lucy didn’t get along that well either, Ellie didn’t make fun of Lucy for not knowing something so basic. Meanwhile, I used every opportunity I could get to make Louis look dumb and couldn’t help but laugh at his pitiful attempts to set everything up.

“Are we also like them … Luna?” I heard Ellie saying and looked over towards them. Lucy was just working on pushing one of the many iron rods through a leash while the other two worked on something else.

“Not as much, but yeah.” Luna said unhappily.

“Hey Lucy … let’s get along more from now on, okay?” Ellie let everything go and walked next to Lucy to extend her hand.

“Gladly.” Lucy took hers without any hesitation and smiled brightly. It was truly a wonderful sight to see, even though I had no clue why these two girls suddenly got along.

In the end, the girls even managed to out outpace us and finish quicker than we did. Well, Louis messed up everything he did, so I basically had to do everything on my own.

Afterwards, we had a large campfire for every class, which kind of forced me to go back to them and ate plenty. As I got back to my tent, I overheard how Ellie was talking to Miss Dove, Lucy’s sister.

“… it’s not working out. Can’t you … separate them?” Ellie asked, which didn’t surprise me much. It was obvious she was on Louis side.

“I’m not going to force anyone out of the cart, if that is what you want. All I could hear was some bickering … and you are all old enough to solve these problems on your own.” Miss Dove said adamantly, but she also didn’t get that I wasn’t the problem.

“But …” Ellie muttered, and stopped as she saw me in the distance. Directly, I started walking to my tent again.

“No ‘but’. And now get to bed.” Miss Dove said and shooed her to the girl’s tent. I really wished I could have a quick look inside as I heard a lot of giggling from the inside, but I knew none of them would take it well.

And so, I was left with no other choice but to crawl into the tent I had to share with Louis and grumble unhappily. Each of us laid as far away from the middle as humanely possible, so that we wouldn’t get on each other’s nerves too much. A few minutes later, I was already dreaming about all the heroic feats I wanted to accomplish one day.

Slaying a dragon, defeating the demon king, rescuing Lucy … and so much more.

At last though, I remembered climbing a very cold mountain because … I didn’t know actually. It was probably because cold air got into the tent and I was shaken awake by Lucy … in her nightgown which mostly consisted of a way oversized t-shirt. What startled me the most though were her missing sunglasses, because … because she looked even more beautiful without them.

“Lucy, why are you here?” She didn’t answer, but rather proceeded to wake that prince up as well.

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“You two, come with me.” She whispered and crawled outside the tent again, only to wait for us outside. From a wooden crate, she picked up a thick blanket and nodded towards one of the teachers watching over the surroundings. It did look that whatever she planned was already agreed upon by the teachers. “What are you waiting for? Come?” She giggled quietly and walked away from the camp towards the street we were following earlier.

She didn’t wear much, only the blanket over her shoulders, her gloves she never took off an boots. She revealed a whole lot of fair skin, but I was way more entranced by her beautiful green eyes, sparkling with wisdom and kindness.

“Where are we going?” Louis asked by my side and for once, I couldn’t find any fault in his question.

“Not too far.” We already made some good metres and walked onwards a little more until we reached a rather tall stone, which was already in use by her fully clothed sister. Lucy didn’t mind though and sat right next to her, leaving us two standing.

“You two have a lot of energy, don’t you?” Miss Dove asked looking at both of us intensely.

“I certainly do, Miss.” I said. Miss Dove smiled happily and jumped off the rock after making sure her little sister was mostly covered by the blanket.

“That’s great. I couldn’t help but wonder how much you two spent on wooing my sister though … don’t you see you are troubling her with that?” Lucy looked away awkwardly with reddened cheeks. She wasn’t ready to accept my feelings yet, but I knew it was only a matter of time until she faced them directly.

“I know … but I won’t stop. One day, I will capture her heart, no matter the cost.” I stated clearly.

“And so do I.” I really wished Louis would stop speaking after me …

“Hmm … how about you two show my sister how much you really love her? How about this: We will play tag for now and if you manage to catch me … my sister will kiss the winner.” I was quite stupefied by her proposal, but Miss Dove apparently talked to Lucy already as she didn’t show much of a reaction, except tucking herself deeper into the blanket.

“Is this really alright? I mean … your sister being the price is kind of …” Louis started but was soon interrupted my an embarrassed Lucy.

“It’s alright … I don’t think my sis will lose anyway.” She said meekly. If she was really alright with everything …

“I’ll win this.” I had no chance against Miss Dove in combat, as much as I hated to admit it. But catching her once shouldn’t be too hard, right?

And thus, I obviously made the first move and rushed towards her, extending my arm to touch her as fast as possible. As soon as I got close to her, she suddenly jumped backwards and floated through the air a little bit until she stepped onto the ground again.

“You might need to be a little bit faster than that.” Miss Dove said while laughing a bit. Louis was already rushing towards her, trying to do the same as I did, but quickly realised he wouldn’t get far with that technique either as she simply sidestepped and evaded him altogether.

“Is that how far your love goes?” She said with a grin on her face and I couldn’t help but to look at Lucy for a second. She was gazing back, observing us as much as we had an eye for her sister. And we surely made a pathetic display.

“Rush” Louis chanted loudly and ran faster towards her than ever before. I followed suit with my shadow steps, allowing me to increase my movement speed as well and to hide my steps a little. For the time being, I circled around Miss Dove while the fool still tried to catch her from the front. As she was right in between me and him, I ran towards her once more, my hand so short of touching her. But apparently, I was still far of as she kicked the ground and a strong gust of wind carried her to the side, away from us.

We still had our momentum though, and so, we crashed into each other and fell into the mud together.

“What are you doing?” I asked angrily while standing up slowly. My whole attire was dirty and my attempt to catch her resulted in a disaster, all thanks to him.

“You were suddenly in my way!” He shouted out angrily.

“Lucy …. I don’t think I can approve of either of them. Both want to be heroes, but none of them have the character or skills to back their dreams up.” Miss Dove said, not even turning towards us, but rather her sister as if she didn’t even need to concentrate on us.

Angrily, I noticed how Louis was already running towards her once more, but I wasn’t willing to let myself be bested by him. I was faster than him, that was for sure and ran straight behind him, hoping Miss Dove would only concentrate on him for the time being.

Shortly before he could reach her, I pushed him out of the way and scooted past him while he stumbled and fell down onto the ground. Once again, my hand was so close to her and she still faced Lucy, which gave me the best opportunity I ever had.

That idiot had to ruin everything though. As he fell down, he somehow got a hold on my ankle and didn’t let go at all. I fell down once more, directly in front of my target, my hands a few centimetres away from touching her.

“Hmm … congratulations on missing a stationary target?” Miss Dove laughed loudly and stepped away from me as I rolled around and stared at the prince angrily.

I didn’t hit him, as much as I wanted to, solely because Lucy was still watching us from on top of the rock. Instead, I stood up once more and tried again. And again.

I didn’t know how often I crashed into the prince and somehow, I got the feeling Miss Dove was actively working towards that goal, but I honestly didn’t care. Through the majority of the night, we played tag, even though Lucy excused herself after some time had passed. My goal didn’t change though. I needed to prove Lucy that I could be the man she needed, and not a pathetic loser who couldn’t win in a game of tag at all.

Before sunrise though, Miss Dove called it a day as neither Louis nor I could move very well at this point.

“There is a little stream at the large tree. Go wash yourself. I’ll bring a change of clothes.” Her proposal was a bit odd, but we both weren’t in any condition to argue much. With a bit of distance between us, we stumbled over to said stream and started to unclothe ourselves. I was already mostly unclothed as I heard the humming of an innocent girl behind us.

“Can I come closer?” Lucy asked, her vision on us still blocked by the trees.

“It should be fine.” Louis, equally without any clothing except his underwear answered. And thus, Lucy approached us while looking towards the ground stoically, two sets of new clothing pressed in between her palms and some kind of cloth wrapped around her arm. She was already fully clothed, probably for the better though.

“I hope you don’t mind that I had to search through your stuff.” She said and handed everything over to me while closing her eyes shut. I took them from her carefully and gave Louis his attire.

“It’s fine … shouldn’t you be sleeping though?” It was pretty late, or rather early? My guess was that it was around six, far too early for her to be awake. And sadly, far too late for us to get any meaningful amount of sleep.

“Me? Oh, I don’t need to sleep that long.” She said happily and took off the cloth around her arm. After she dipped it into the stream carefully, she started cleaning her face, arms and legs swiftly while we started dressing.

“Are you clothed?” She asked, still not looking over to us even once.

“Yes.” Both Louis and I said in unison which got on my nerves a little. But I was way too tired to argue with him at this point.

“You know … it says nothing about you if you lose against Hannah. She is … was a special operative in the north as the demons took over. She is strong, far stronger than anyone else I know.” Lucy looked at both of us gently as if she wanted to soothe the anger I felt in my heart.

“It doesn’t change what I have to do.” I would catch her. I needed to prove everyone how strong I was and Miss Dove was just a stepping stone on my path.

“Likewise.” Once again, Louis agreed with me and made me a little angry.

“I see … let’s make sure you have a few hours of sleep, shall we?” She said and started walking back, surprisingly even in the right direction for once. Together, we walked back towards the camp. Miss Dove was nowhere to be seen, probably already sleeping somewhere. Swiftly, we crawled back into our own tent and fell asleep nearly instantly.

…

Only to be woken up a few hours later by laughter outside.

“Wake up boys! We need to get going!” Luna said and shook the tent tarp violently. Groaning, we crawled out of the tent, still tired from everything that happened that night. The three girls stood in front of us, Lucy a little bit in the back and looked at us in wonder.

“Why do you look so tired?” Because we were? Well, apparently Lucy didn’t want us to tell the others because she placed her index finger onto her mouth in secret.

“Boys stuff.” Louis said unhappily and yawned loudly.

“You are late already, so eat your breakfast on the cart. Get going.” And from somewhere behind us, Miss Dove spoke up, looking like usual. She didn’t seem remotely tired as if she went through such hellish endeavours every night.

Without any time to think about the difference between us and her, we were forced to break down the tent, store everything again and get back onto the cart as the last group to finish up.

As usual, Louis and I sat on one bench, far apart from each other, while the other three apparently took a liking to reading books.

“It’s your fault.” Sadly, neither Louis nor I could fall asleep and thus, we started arguing once more while trying to keep the real contents of our argument hidden. A few minutes later though, Lucy furrowed her brows a little and changed seats.

She was right in between us once more and like last time, she made it very clear she didn’t like what we were doing. Forced to shut up, I was left with nothing but to close my eyes and think about where I could improve myself.

I had to be faster, that was for sure. But how?

While I was thinking about this question and more, tiredness began to seep into my bones, and little by little, I leaned towards the right, even though it wasn’t a conscious decision. I was so tired that I barely registered how my shoulder touched hers and my head leaned towards the right until I finally fell asleep.

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