[The King’s Birthday]
Many students were going to the birthday festival of His Majesty the King.
I myself was looking forward to seeing what kind of festival it was, but from the morning of the event, the royal capital was bustling with people.
“T-talk about festive…”
“Right…”
It was still early in the morning and the crowd was already so big.
The royal capital was famous for its morning market, so it wouldn’t be that strange to see many people up and about in the morning in the first place, but the number of people at today’s birthday festival was incomparable.
The student council and the Knights of the Academy were here today to protect the safety of the students who were going to enjoy the festival.
When there was a festival, there was going to be alcohol.
As such, violent incidents would be inevitable.
It would be terrible if some students got caught up in them.
We didn’t need to worry about noble students since they definitely would have a couple of bodyguards following them around. Whom we had to look out for were commoner students like Raul. While the academy was a place where talents gathered, not all students had the same level of combat power as us. They were easy targets for people with bad intentions.
Still, it wasn’t like we could forbid them from going to such a lively event—that was why it was customary for the student council to patrol during the festival.
We had met up in front of the dorms and come to the royal capital when the morning mist was still thick but seemed like we were still too late.
With so many people around, it’d be difficult to find other students—or so I thought, when…
“Huh? Isn’t that…”
What caught my eye was a father and daughter setting up a food stall.
Especially the daughter.
She was our classmate.
“I see. There are students helping up their parents, too.”
We’d never considered that. What a blind spot.
We’d only been planning to patrol around the main street since it was the busiest, but it seemed like we’d best to expand our patrol area.
Besides students, there was one more I person I was planning to look out for.
It was—the academy’s alumnus.
The one who was involved in the riot group that put Tayte in danger. I didn’t want to imagine something like that happening here, but… Principal Abigail had been concerned about the possibility.
Either way, we had to mark those who seemed suspicious. Thankfully, many knights had been dispatched to ensure the festival to go smoothly, so we’d be able to report to them immediately if something happened.
After confirming these points, we divided into groups that had been decided in advance and started patrolling around the birthday festival.
The group I was in went to the south side of the royal capital.
By the way, the members were me and Tayte, and…
“There are so many people, it’s making me dizzy…”
The exhausted Kleine.
“Are you okay, Kleine?”
“Y-yeah… I’m okay, Tayte.”
“Don’t push yourself. Let’s take a short break.”
“…………”
“What? Something on my face?”
“No… it’s just I can’t seem to get used to you speaking kindly to me.”
I thought I had fixed my reputation at the academy me, but it seemed Kleine still didn’t trust me completely. Well, she had always been cautious, and I used to treat her girlfriend? Melia quiet badly, so it couldn’t be helped…
“K-Kleine…! Barrett has turned a new leaf!”
“…I know, I know, I’ve seen everything he’s done this past year, but still…”
Kleine looked awkward facing Tayte’s appeal.
Looks like I still need to build up more rapport with her—I thought when…
“Hm?”
I caught sight of a somewhat suspicious trio of men entering the back alley.
…Geez, I smelled trouble coming.
