"Hey! Karvaldr!"

It was just as I was leaving the Training Tower to head to the campus cafeteria as evening approached.

The moment something landed on my left shoulder with a thump, I heard a voice call out this transmigrated body's name.

In this situation, it's natural reflex to turn your head to the left to check behind you...

"Reisir...? What is this?"

The result of that natural action was quite absurd.

Because Reisir was holding up the index finger of the hand resting on my shoulder, his finger poked my cheek.

As I stared at Reisir with a dumbfounded expression, he burst into hearty laughter, clearly amused.

"Do you think I'm a child? To pull such a childish prank?"

"Shouldn't the person who fell for that childish prank be the last one talking?"

"Instead of spouting nonsense, just get your hand off me."

Rather than refuting Reisir's words and dragging out the conversation, I smacked his hand off my shoulder.

I didn't forget to pointedly brush off my shoulder and rub my cheek while making a displeased expression.

Despite that, Reisir maintained a beaming smile, finding my reaction amusing.

I want to snap at him to stop smiling because it's making me grow fond of him, but if I do, he might get delighted and shove his smiling face at me all the time.

No, he definitely would.

I had no choice but to turn my head away and resume my halted steps.

At that, Reisir, who had been standing behind me, quickly hurried over to walk beside me.

"...Why are you here?"

"I also used the personal training ground in this Training Tower after my afternoon lecture, with the key you gave me!"

"I thought you were busy studying for the exams."

"You said it would be a waste of money to rent it and not even use it for half a semester."

"For such a reason?"

"You must be looking down on me because I took remedial classes last vacation, but that was purely because I couldn't take the final exams because of you. I'm ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) confident I can get at least a B just by studying in the library after dinner."

Judging by the way he said it, it seemed he wasn't aiming for an A.

A wise decision, considering he has to withdraw from the academy at the end of this semester and frequently travel to the Demon Realm.

Though Reisir made that judgment without knowing that fact.

"Anyway. Karvaldr, you use the personal training ground even after dinner, right? Are you perhaps preparing for the practical exams?"

"...And if I am?"

"I heard you're learning swordsmanship from Vigdís? I can teach you martial arts, so should I help? My main specialty is spear techniques, but I'm pretty good at unarmed combat too."

Of course he would be.

Reisir is the protagonist of 《NaSE》 and awakened a whole 10 years ago.

Moreover, his teaching ability couldn't possibly be as abysmal as Vigdís's.

There was no scene in the original work where Reisir taught someone, but I could still be certain.

Because if a novel had two characters with such a unique trait, their individuality would actually weaken.

Didn't Senna make the lightning attribute rare specifically to make Reisir stand out?

An author like that would never give the protagonist's unique trait to a supporting character as well.

In short, accepting Reisir's offer would surely be helpful, but...

"I refuse."

It's only half a semester of education anyway.

And he developed his skills by enjoying the training correction effect from an early awakening, while also being an amateur with no experience teaching others.

Furthermore, martial arts wasn't his main specialty, nor was it mine.

'He's already friendly enough to play pranks on me, so if I learn martial arts from him, the distance between us will shrink to an unmanageable degree.'

It wasn't an offer with enough merit to make me endure that.

"Are you sure you'll be okay? The martial arts course syllabus said sparring begins after the midterms. The final exam will probably be sparring too."

"I'm fine with getting a D in a couple of subjects."

"To say that so readily, you really must have no confidence, huh? In two subjects at that."

"......"

"You're smart, so if you took theory lectures, you could easily get good grades. Why did you choose combat subjects you're not confident in?"

"If it's something I can already do well without learning, then there's no need to learn it, is there?"

"But if you learn it, you can do even better. Besides, do you think swordsmanship and martial arts are things you don't really need to learn?"

He said he wanted to know more about me, and he really does have a lot of questions.

"Stay out of it. Whether I learn them or not has nothing to do with you, does it?"

I didn't want to be bombarded with questions the entire way to the campus cafeteria.

So I spoke rather coldly to cut off the conversation, and Reisir grumbled with a sullen expression.

"It wasn't meddling, I was just curious..."

Wondering if he was hurt, I stole a glance at him to check his mood.

But I immediately realized it was a needless concern.

Because he immediately said this:

"You really don't need my help?"

"I don't need it."

"Actually, I saw you going into the Training Tower earlier. You looked like you had a lot on your mind. Wasn't that because you were worried about the practical exams?"

Completely unfazed by my cold words and attitude, Reisir meddled again.

His behavior even felt strangely obsessive.

Reisir in the original work was persistent, but I don't think he was this tenacious.

Was it simply because the main characters willingly engaged in conversation with him?

"You saw wrong. I have no worries..."

I was about to cut off Reisir's words once again.

So that he would stop meddling in my affairs.

But I had to stop.

'He's the original protagonist, and Skati is a supporting character with a significant role in the original work, isn't she?'

A protagonist has a duty to help supporting characters overcome their emotional wounds.

Even more so if, as I suspect, Skati has also been bullied like Reisir.

Isn't it a cliché for them to sympathize with each other through shared suffering, tend to each other's wounds, and grow together?

"So you really did have something on your mind!"

"...You seem happy about it?"

"N-no! I think it's very regrettable that you have a worry. But the fact that you hesitated means you have a desire to confide in me, right? I was just happy about that..."

"But you're still happy, aren't you?"

"Ah...!"

Wow, I really don't want to talk about this.

But still, it's probably best to hand a supporting character's problem over to the protagonist.

Especially since Skati is scheduled to begin her Einherjar activities under orders from the Imperial Family after this semester ends, and that's something I absolutely cannot prevent.

Her getting entangled with Reisir and dying is an unavoidable fate.

'Still, I can't completely turn away from her problem.'

From our very first meeting, there was something questionable about Skati.

In the original work, she was someone who said the time she spent teaching students was the most rewarding and dazzling period of her life.

The description of her enjoying teaching Reisir couldn't have been a lie.

And the Skati I had seen truly was like that.

When teaching students, Skati's face was full of passion, and she was genuinely happy whenever the students improved.

Despite that, in the first lecture, she said she was doing this job unwillingly and told us to hurry and change our timetable if we planned to.

'Could this contradictory attitude and Skati's experience of being bullied be separate issues?'

If those two problems are connected, then the conclusion comes down to one thing.

The bullying she is suffering isn't in the past, but ongoing.

I can't just pretend not to know after realizing that.

'Is it the other professors? Are they jealous that Skati got in through connections despite being a criminal, while they had to work hard to prove their qualifications in order to become professors?'

I can't just leave her to endure it simply because she'll only be at the academy for half a semester.

Because Skati herself doesn't know that she'll be leaving the academy after this semester.

I knew I could escape the bullying once I graduated, but enduring those three years of middle school was still unbearably painful.

So when I ran into my middle school bully again in high school, the bullying started all over again.

I didn't have the confidence to endure another three years, and I was so terrified and desperate that I had no choice but to run away by dropping out.

School itself felt so horrible that I didn't even want to consider the option of transferring. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

'It's a good thing Valhalla Academy's structure and lecture halls are fantasy-style... If they resembled real-life middle and high schools, I would have been suffering from PTSD every single day.'

In the first place, I was only able to accept attending the academy because there had been a long 10-year gap after I dropped out.

Or maybe it feels tolerable because this world isn't reality, but the world inside a novel.

Because from childhood until now, novels have always been a source of comfort to me.

Anyway, it's a hardship that's difficult to endure even when you know it will eventually end.

So if you don't know when it will end, how frightening and bleak would every day feel?

And yet, if she's pretending to stay cheerful for her students, shouldn't someone reach out a helping hand as soon as possible?

"I'm sorry if my attitude seemed lighthearted, Karvaldr. But that doesn't mean I'm taking your worries lightly. So if it's okay, would you mind confiding in me?"

Reisir asked me to confide in him with an extremely serious and cautious expression.

Truly, a splendid level of meddlesomeness befitting the protagonist of a novel.

If that's the case, then he would surely be eager to resolve the pain of a supporting character destined to become his future companion.

"Have you ever heard of a professor named 'Skati' who's in charge of the dagger techniques lecture?"

"No. I haven't heard of her, but Helga probably knows. She has a lot of friends."

Then he should ask Helga to let him join her friend group, so why does he keep pestering me to be friends?

But since I needed to hand the Skati problem over to Reisir now, I decided to endure it and move on.

"...It seems that professor is somewhat out of the loop and only recently found out that I bullied you last semester."

"So?"

"It seems she's come to view me very negatively, to the point of calling me aside after class just to get angry at me."

"Why? Does she not know yet that you helped save Helga, or that we're getting along now?"

Reisir muttered with a puzzled expression, tilting his head.

And before continuing the story, I decided to correct his assumption.

"You and I just eat together. We're not close."

"Even though we're walking together and talking so amicably like this right now?"

"...We're just heading in the same direction."

"Even though I'm listening to your worries like this right now?"

"......"

I'm starting to think I should've just let it go without correcting him.

No, but if I had, wouldn't Reisir have snickered and said, 'You're not denying it? So you admit we're friends, right?'

Truly, caught between a rock and a hard place.