Alicia woke up early in the morning. She slowly opened her eyes and looked at an unfamiliar ceiling. She began to remember what had happened yesterday.
Yesterday, she went to Alex's room and somehow slept on his lap. She abruptly stood up. She scanned the room but didn't see Alex.
She then left the bed in her pajamas. She opened the door and wanted to go back to her own room. But soon after she opened the door, she froze.
"Alicia?" There was someone who passed by.
"Mo… mother."
The one who passed by right when Alicia opened the door was her mother.
"Why are you here?" The madam asked.
"Mother, where is Alex?" Alicia ignored her question and asked back.
"Alex... He was already gone to the training room. The one in our basement," the madam answered.
"I see."
"Now back to the topic. Why are you coming out of Alex's room? What are you doing here?"
Alicia's face turned beet red to her mother's question. "I... I... Mother why are you bullying me?" She ran away.
The madam looked at her running away with a bit astonished look on her face. She secretly thought that leaving them in the same room in the academy seemed like it didn't go in vain. She shook her head helplessly and continued to walk.
Meanwhile, Alex was in the training room practicing his Spin Throwing again.
He held the spear based on the instruction provided in the scroll. However, as soon as he threw the spear, it flew at a very high speed toward the wall and broke again. Suddenly,
"Argh...!" Alex grabbed his right hand. He felt a sudden pain in his hand.
He speculated that the pain must come from the throwing. "I think I need to master this technique first. I might get hurt like this again if I don't. The pain was coming from my muscle, luckily I already refined my muscle with a Muscle Refining Pill."
Alex now pondered what he was going to do next. With his hand being hurt, he couldn't practice the Throwing Techniques. He wondered if he should endure the pain or stopped his training for the day.
He then decided to endure the pain, although he would not practice his throwing with a spear. However, he would keep training only by imitating the movement for now. This would increase his understanding of this Throwing Technique.
Just as he tried to continue, there were footsteps coming from the stairs. He turned and looked at the door. Since the duke often came to the room to chat with him, he thought probably it was the duke again who came to check on him.
However, he was wrong. He was surprised because it wasn't the duke that came through the door. Rather it was Alicia who came down there to visit him.
"Alex."
"Alicia, why are you coming here?"
"I... I just want to check on you. Since you always train and train and train more training," she complained. As she noticed the injury in Alex's hand, she suddenly said, "Look! This is what I mean. Look at your arm getting injured like this!"
She looked at Alex's right hand worriedly, while Alex could only smile bitterly. "Don't worry, it's only a small scratch."
"You..."
When he looked at her angry face, Alex smiled, "Alicia."
"Mmm?"
"No, never mind that."
"This again. Why?"
Alex only shrugged his shoulder and laughed. But in his heart, he swore to protect her, although the war has started to make him worried.
"Alex, I want to ask you something. What are you planning to do with the hero? Are you going to kill him?"
"Hmm, I want to kill him. But I won't do that when he is within the territory of our kingdom. If I do that, the kingdom will suffer the consequences and I don't want that. Other kingdoms, especially the Holy Kingdom will think that our kingdom is too overbearing and might start a war against us along with Zircodina. Do you know how does the relationship between our kingdom and other races?"
"Other races?" Alicia was surprised by Alex's question. She pondered a bit and began to tell him the story, "Two years ago, we from the Acacia Kingdom didn't have any good relationship with the demon race. However, you can say that we were quite neutral with them. We were neither enemies nor allies. As for the demi-human... Uncle Marco has a somewhat good relationship with the dwarf and elf.
He was saved by a dwarf and before he came back to this kingdom, he saved a high-ranked elf. However, there are still some demi-human factions that hate us. It was all the fault of the slave trader," Alicia told Alex.
"Slave trader? I never see any slaves in this kingdom," Alex confused. He never saw any slaves in the kingdom from the time he arrived at the Acacia Kingdom territory and came to stay at Alicia's house.
"It is only in Zircodina. Even the Holy Kingdom has a few slave traders there. We abolished the slavery system three hundred years ago. Other kingdoms didn't do the same, though."
Alex was shocked, "Then these kingdoms must meet many oppositions around that time."
"Of course," Alicia looked a bit down. "According to our history, at that time, our kingdom was very strong. We could suppress three other kingdoms."
"Three? Weren't there only two other kingdoms? The Zircodina and the Holy Kingdom?"
"The third was the Mizalia Kingdom. That kingdom was destroyed when they wanted to imitate us for abolishing the slavery system."
Alex frowned, this event must have made some big impact on this kingdom.
"At that time, we had around 50 fighters of ranks 8 in this kingdom. Twenty more than the total of rank 8 in other kingdoms. That time, if I'm not mistaken, Zircodina had 11, the Holy Kingdom had 13, and Mizalia had 8 since they were only a small kingdom.
Because our kingdom abolished slavery, many slave traders turned against us and even backed by other kingdoms. They used many schemes to kill many of our rank 8 fighters. Fortunately, the Mizalia Kingdom didn't join them to attack us. At that time we were at war with Zircodina, Holy Kingdom, and the slave traders. We were too late at knowing the alliance between those three. If not, we would have been able to defeat them easily.
Although we won that war, we lost most of our rank 8 fighters. Look at us now, we only have 10 fighters of rank 8 in our kingdom," Alicia explained. Alex noticed a bit of hatred in her last sentence.
"Then, how about Zircodina and Holy Kingdom?"
"Today, Zircodina has three and Holy Kingdom has five. They are not in a better state since that fight. However, although we have more than them now, we still can't defeat them. Even If we manage to win, we will not be able to win the war unscathed," Alicia sighed.
"How about the Mizalia Kingdom?" Alex asked.
"Hm, After that war, all the parties that participated in it left a deep scar on them. The Mizalia Kingdom thought that this was the opportunity to get rid of the slave traders. Although Zircodina, Acacia, and the Holy Kingdom didn't get involved in this event. At that time one of the slave traders sacrificed himself. They kidnapped the elven princess and the demon prince, then brought them to the Mizalia Kingdom. The kingdom was razed to the ground with the two races alliance."
"Fortunately, they didn't do the same dirty tactic to this kingdom," Alex said.
"It's not that they didn't do it. They did it, but our fighter managed to thwart their plan all the time. Sometimes it was a trap, and our rank 8 fighters fell for their trap," she said hatefully.
Alex looked at her solemnly. From the look of it, Alicia seemed to love this kingdom a lot.
When Alicia noticed Alex's gaze, she turned to him. "What is it?"
Alex shook his head, "Nothing, I've just realized that you seem very knowledgeable in history."
"Only about this kingdom," she pouted, then she puffed her chest proudly. "I love this kingdom and its subjects. I will destroy anyone who wants to destroy my kingdom."
Alex smiled and teased her a bit, "And what if I am the one who destroys it?" Though he said this jokingly, in his heart, he was serious about it.
"What?! Don't joke about something like this!" Alicia pouted.
Alex only laughed and then stood up. He made it a bit mysterious when he said to Alicia, "Let's go back for lunch."
"Sure," Alicia also stood up and followed him. However, her mind kept pondering Alex's words just now and she seemed to realize something.
"Alex," she called him.
Alex turned back and looked at her.
"Whatever you do, I will support you. Even if the whole world becomes your enemy I will stand beside you. Trust me, I will never leave you," she said to him while looking at his face seriously. She realized what Alex was worried about.
If Alex hurt the hero or killed him, Zircodina and the Holy Kingdom might target him right away. Even though Acacia was strong, it wouldn't leave unscathed. Alex was probably afraid that his action might destroy the Acacia Kingdom. If Alex left this kingdom or this kingdom abandoned him. Then... upon thinking about this, Alicia came to a new resolution.
Alex was shocked by what she had said. He didn't see any lies, or rather, all her words were filled with determination and sincerity. Alex was moved by her words and he thought that it was nice to be loved like this. Unwittingly, he let a tear form on the corner of his eyes. Alex smiled at her.
Alicia was surprised and didn't believe her eyes. She also could see the tear on the corner of his eyes. Alicia felt awkward with the atmosphere and tried to turn it into a playful mood. She wanted to lessen the mood, so she teased him, "Alex, are you crying?"
"No," Alex was embarrassed because he unwittingly did that, "You must be seeing things."
"I saw it just now, though."
"It must be a sweat."
"But I didn't see you sweating this whole time."
"That was..."
Alicia continued to tease him until they reached the dining room.
***
In the dining room, everybody was startled knowing that Alex injured his hand. Although it was only bruised on the surface. Alex reassured them by saying that it would get better soon.
The following week, he continued to train his Spin Throwing and somehow managed to master it before the holiday was over.
The day before the class started, Alicia and Alex already arrived in their room. Alex immediately went to his teacher's room.
He was looking around, but the dean was not in his office, so he went to his courtyard.
"Teacher."
"Oh Alex, you finally remember me!"
"I always think about you, Teacher. How are you, Teacher?"
"I'm good. I am just lazing around here. That's right, how about you? Do you want to make other pills or forging again?"
Alex pondered for a moment, "I want to make rank 3 pills." Then he took out a paper and wrote the ingredients. Once he finished, he gave the paper to the dean.
When the dean looked at the ingredients, he was shocked to the point that he even dropped the paper.