By the time I noticed, the Iceman was already split in two. “Aah…?” The Iceman seemed just as surprised. There was a line going down his body from his left shoulder to his right side. His body followed the line and fell apart. Then he finally understood that he had been done in. “Argh…gyaaaaaaah!” A scream. “M-my powers…why can’t I heal…?! Hrggggh!” He couldn’t regenerate after being cut with the divine element. Mana started gushing out of his wounds like a geyser. “AAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!” As the Iceman was in his death throes, I met August’s gaze. The face on the stomach moved his lips, but the diagonal cut prevented him from forming words. A strange feeling came over me at the sight of those shocked and cloudy eyes…but this was the end of our story with August Allsand. “Impossible… I…am supposed to be immortal!” The Iceman splayed out on the ground, gazing at the sky. His body withered at an extraordinary rate…but as his muscles shrank, his mana grew. “If I’m going to die… I won’t die alone…!” He was going to self-destruct. Not that it was going to work against us. We’d already teleported ourselves far away. “Oh…” The possibility of his enemies escaping had never occurred to him. Here was a Wight King lying at death’s door, and suddenly he found his once-sharp mind clouded. “Aaaaaaaah! Whyyyyyyy!” And that was the end of Iceman. The explosion was powerful, I guess, but we were nowhere near it. To us, the blast was only a breeze that ruffled Fran’s bangs. Iceman had
been an opponent that could’ve actually beaten us, but the way he went out was nothing short of dumb. Still, Fran and Jet were more than satisfied. “We did it…!” “Woof! They celebrated their victory with a high five. Things didn’t go quite as planned, but this marks the end of our training! “Hm!” “Woof!”
Epilogue “SO WHAT ARE YOU going to do now, Fran?” asked Amanda. “Hmm. Teacher?” Let me think. After defeating Fran’s mortal enemy, Iceman, we regrouped with Amanda and Aristea. We didn’t really have anything we needed to do, though there was a lot we wanted to do. Personally, I want to go check out Aristea’s request. That dueling instructor thing. It sounds interesting. I was more interested in the schools of this world than the quest itself. Fran’s ultimate goal was dispelling the curse placed on the Black Cat Tribe. She had put off going to school in order to achieve that goal. She probably thought it was too late to start attending. Still, I thought spending time with kids her age was very important for her. Maybe she would want to go to school once she knew what it was like. I certainly wanted her to go. Not that I was going to push it on her, but I wasn’t going to oppose her if she said she wanted to attend. In order to get to that point, though, she would first have to go to school. “I wanna check it out, too.” Oh? Really? Did Fran secretly want to go to school? Her interest in the school lay elsewhere, however. “Hm. I want to meet a high elf.” I see. “They’re the strongest race in the world. I’m interested.” Always thinking about combat before anything else, huh? But if Fran wanted to go to the Academy, we had a destination. We’re off to the Academy of Magic in Belioth for us, I guess.
“Hm.” “I’ll give you a letter of introduction. It should keep you from having to wait for days to see Winalene,” said Aristea. Is Winalene the high elf we’re meeting? “Yes. She is the headmistress of the Academy of Magic.” A few days just to see her. Aristea made it sound like Winalene was on the level of nobility… “The Academy is recognized as an independent power, after all. Winalene is like a viscount in that respect. You won’t see her without an introduction.” And I thought being headmistress of a magic academy was a big enough accomplishment. Then again, she had to be very important if she held that title and was among the strongest magic-users in the world. “What’s she like?” “Well…she’s very amicable. Friendly, even. But her outlandish behavior sometimes throws her surroundings into confusion. She doesn’t mean anything bad by it, though. She’s just a little strange. You have nothing to worry about.” I’m not sure if that’s true. A high elf who threw her surroundings into confusion without any ill will sounded like bad news to me. “I understand. But she is a good person at heart. She has been headmistress of the Academy for centuries and is venerated everywhere. Although, ah…I suppose more people hate her than love her…” Can you please not end with something distressing?! I don’t feel like going anymore now. “Oh, don’t be that way. Are you still interested, Fran?” “Hm. Your high elf friend sounds fun. I’d like to see her.” “You heard the girl.” Ugh. Well, if Fran wanted to see her, nothing I could do about that. Fine…
That meant we needed to cross the border. How would we go about doing that? I asked Amanda, and apparently the B-Rank adventurer card would have us covered. “Security has gotten tighter because of what’s been going on with Raydoss, so I highly suggest going through a border checkpoint.” “Okay.” Are there walls there? “No, but the government will keep track of your immigration records. You need to be careful these days.” I guess things might get messy if Fran got asked for some ID and she wasn’t logged in the immigration records. “I would love to come with you,” Aristea began, “but…” I thought you finished looking into Fanatix. “Not quite. There’s still the investigation regarding the former Marquis Aschtner.” Aristea was going through Aschtner’s remaining documents with the help of Garrus and a team of investigators. I thought that any papers concerning a Godsword would be kept under lock and key by the kingdom, but the king had worked out an agreement. Are you sure you can tell the king about your identity? King Granzell wasn’t laid back like the Beast King. Conspiracies and forcefulness weren’t out of the question if there was something that he wanted. Amanda reassured us that wasn’t the case. “Don’t worry. Garrus arranged her meeting with the king. And if you think about it, he definitely doesn’t want to make enemies of a worldrenowned blacksmith and a Godsmith. Especially not under current circumstances. Besides, governments don’t tend to try anything funny with Godsmiths.” “Why’s that?” “You never know what manatech they might be packing or who might be backing them. They won’t brag about it, but your average Godsmith has ties to a number of kingdoms and renowned adventurers.”
Abducting a Godsmith would make a kingdom the enemy of several other states. “At the moment, Solving the Fanatix problem is Granzell’s top priority. Chaos would happen again if a copy of it was ever made. They’re going to need me, at least until things settle down.” “So there you have it,” added Amanda. “I’m going to start namedropping Aristea from now on, too. Just to make sure they get the point.” Granzell definitely wouldn’t want to get on Amanda’s bad side by hurting Aristea. “Basically, don’t worry about me.” “Hm. All right.” Fran nodded, then bowed deeply to the two women. “Amanda, Aristea, thank you for everything.” Her tone was as flat as ever, but I knew that Fran meant what she said with every fiber of her being. An A Rank adventurer and a Godsmith were some of the busiest people in the world. Yet they had gone out of their way to be with her during her training. Fran knew how fortunate she was. “I enjoyed myself too, you know,” said Amanda. “There were a lot of exciting moments. Thank you, Fran.” “And I should be thanking you for letting me inspect Teacher,” said Aristea. Amanda and Aristea gave her bittersweet smiles. They knew that this was goodbye, for now. “I had so much fun.” “Me too.” Fran gave them a bright smile. She got on Jet’s back, who was now the size of a horse. “Come see us again,” said Fran. “Of course,” said Amanda. “I’ll go to the Magic Academy once I’m done with the investigation,” said Aristea. “Hm. I’ll be waiting for you.”
This parting was different from the ones before. Fran usually had to hold back her sadness, but not this time. She had gotten used to saying goodbye to Aristea and Amanda over the course of half a year. You could say she’d gotten a lot of practice saying goodbye. But she also knew that she was going to see them again. She knew that their parting would be temporary. “Teacher, Jet, let’s go!” You got it! See you around, Amanda! Aristea! “Bark, bark!” “Bye-bye, you two!”
Afterword AS ALWAYS, THANK YOU for your purchase. It has been a while since my last afterword. Like I mentioned last time, I’m not very good at writing afterwords, but I still need to fill for space. Time for me to stall again. “Oh, he is so incompetent!” “Indeed! How many times must this writer make the same mistake before he learns!” “Wait! This is—” “What is it, good madam?” “The writer is using us to fill his pages again!” “The knave!” “We last appeared in volume seven and this is all we do!” “Cease this nonsense! Let us appear in the main story, too!” “Noooo!” No, seriously. I have nothing to write! Anyway, that was the Page Adjusting Ladies, who got quite the response last time. I quite like them, and I enjoy writing them. They will certainly appear in future afterwords. Now that I’m done stalling, some words of gratitude.
My editor, I-san: Thank you for always taking care of me. You’re a great help. Llo-sama, thank you for the great illustrations. As usual, they turned out great. Thank you, Maruyama-sensei, for drawing the manga. Amazing work as always. Thank you to my friends and family, to everyone involved in the printing process, and—last but not least—thank you, Dear Readers. Thank you for everything. The anime is currently in production. I don’t have much to contribute, but I know there are a lot of great creators working on it to make it an amazing show. It’s going to be great, so watch it when it comes out!
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Table of Contents Table of Contents Color Inserts Title Page Copyrights and Credits Table of Contents Page Chapter 1: Alessa Homecoming Chapter 2: The Lingering Scent of Raydoss Chapter 3: Return to the Pedestal True Prologue Chapter 4: Rebirth Chapter 5: New Beginning Epilogue Afterword Extra Chapter: Flight Attendant Fran Newsletter