Chapter 34

“Hey-, What…what’s going on?”

I was surrounded by the female students as soon as I entered the room.

There was no hostility. At least, none that I could sense.

In fact, it was perfectly clear that they had a great fondness for me.

But, why?

“So the last person has finally arrived.”

“Hello! I’m a Second-Yea…”

“Hey, you! Don’t cut in like that.”

“Early birds get the worm!”

“Well, I won’t back down.”

“Hey! Where are you trying to take him?”

“The last one is pretty cute. Jululie is lucky.”

“It’s not like he’s yours already. Besides, think of your age, you Third-Year.”

“What did you call me!?”

Right. I understood now.

This was a dangerous place. In more ways than one.

I started to wonder if I had gone into the wrong drawing-room, but they all had tags on their uniforms that read ‘Receptionist’ on it.

But there were so many of them.

It was as if all the students in the school were here.

As they didn’t mean any harm, I waited to see what would happen. But by now, I was surrounded by so many people.

Some pulled my arms and some talked to me.

Some whispered in my ear and some tried to subtly wrap their arm around my waist.

Those who got too close to my face were pulled away. What did you try to do?

And then several fights would erupt.

I had only just arrived, but I wanted to leave.

And so I erased my presence and quietly unraveled myself from the arms.

Then I made my way through the crowd and ran up a flight of stairs.

“…Phew. I escaped.”

The room I had been in was the great hall, and the stairs took me to the side of the stage.

I was going up one side, but it seemed to go up quite high.

“It’s too dangerous to go back down, so I should just hide here until its time.”

And so I went to the top of the stairs.

There was a terrace on the top, and tables and chairs had been set up.

“Well, there’s no one here. So this will do.”

I pulled out one of the chairs and sat down.

“…Hah… That was tiring.”

The students downstairs were clearly from the Royal Academy.

I suppose they were candidates for Patrons.

And as they had already had their opening ceremony a few days ago, students from all three grades were present.

I closed my eyes and tried to remember how many there had been.

The room had been densely packed… Maybe 700 or 800 people.

So that meant it was close to half of all the students.

“It’s no wonder they were telling me to be careful.”

It was like an official school match-making party.

Matching Dragon Master with Patrons.

If they were serious about it, then this opening ceremony was the perfect hunting ground.

It made me feel quite sad.

“…Huh?”

A single female student entered.

As I had erased my presence, it took her a while to notice me.

Well, I had given up erasing it, since someone had entered the room already.

She was holding a tray with a steaming cup on it and seemed to be too stunned to move.

Of course, she was.

Hell, I was surprised.

After all, I would never have imagined that I’d see her here.

“…Leon?”

She asked. Her eyes were still wide.

“Hey, Linda. It-it’s been a while.”

On the day of the ceremony, I had reunited with my childhood friend, Linda Lucena.