Blacksmith Volume 2 Chapter 7
“Shisho (Master), have you determined your electives yet?”
Today is the school’s weekend holiday, it’s kinda funny how today should be our break and yet Crossy came to my apartment for some reason.
“Hmm… Herbalism, as well as Medical Science, but I still still need to choose two more.”
“Is that so? I’ve gone with Martial Arts and Emperor studies, though the others are undecided still.”
With choosing electives it’s better to be careful and take your time choosing rather locking in a choice and regretting it later.
With my anxious feelings gone, I stopped tempering the iron I was working on. Looking over my shoulder I asked:
“Oh yeah, you weren’t together with Vaine today?”
“Yeah, today is the one holiday we get a week so he told me to use it to rest my body. Even so, I wonder where he disappeared to all of sudden? All sneaky like… the nerve of some people!”
“It’s his private day too you know, do try to forgive him.”
“…I guess it can’t be helped if Shisho says so.”
Crossy said so with puffed cheeks, showing that really he still hadn’t forgiven him. That’s good though, it looks like they’ve been getting along recently.
“Well, we still have some spare time, so what do you want to do Shisho?”
No, I don’t really have spare at all.
Really, I want to look through the Electives document, and then start studying the 4th grimoire now that I’m done with the 3rd.
Also, shouldn’t I be allowed to have some private time to myself?! I by no means have spare time.
“I don’t really have spare time, so why don’t you try to find out where Vaine tried to secretly escape to today?”
“Oh! That sounds interesting! Let’s go together, Shisho!”
This is bad, his eyes are shining. It really is heartwarming to see how much he wants to spend his time with me.
I feel a little bad for Vaine, but this is my important disciple’s spare time here.
…Ugh, I dug my own grave, and although it’s just a little, I’m curious as to what Vaine’s hiding. Where did he go today? This is a problem that must be investigated!
Says the no-good human that claims he has no free time, and then decides to just go along with whatever event that pops up.
“Then let’s go.”
“Yes!”
When looking for someone, first you need to narrow down the places they might be. Usually, you would first go to a tavern where the exchange rate for information is fixed, but unfortunately there is no tavern here. We do have the next best thing though, the cafeteria. If he’s there, Vaine will easily be found due to his large build.
Surely there has to be someone who had seen him.
Entering the cafeteria, we were unable to spot Vaine, so we decided to look around for somebody that would give information to us when we found a pair of girls gossiping with each other.
“Excuse me, but have either of you two seen a student named Vaine around?”
“Vaine is… that really tall person right? I think I saw him leaving the dormitory, but that’s all I know.”
“That’s perfect, thank you.”
After thanking the two of them, we left the cafeteria.
“At the very least, now we’re certain that he’s left the dormitory. Now, where to next?”
“He probably went to a place where’d he have enough space to train, so the park maybe?”
“Well it’s our best bet, so let’s go.”
Once we arrived at the playground, there were already a lot of people doing exercises in pairs, but no Vaine though.
Catching a girl who was still stretching, I decided to ask about Vaine.
“Him? Oh, yeah I saw him, he was jogging around here this morning, mumbling about ‘banishing evil thoughts’ or something.”
“So do you know where he went?”
“Not really, I saw him come out of the bathhouse, but I’m not sure where he went next.”
“Thanks, and good luck with your exercise. It would be nice if we could talk again someday.”
“Yeah, I’d like to speak with you again too, Kururi-san.”
After we finished our greetings with the girl, we left the park.
“So he really was here…”
Crossy placed his hand on his chin, thinking about where we should search next.
“Maybe he decided to leave school grounds?”
“It’s probably because you don’t leave school often, but it’s actually quite a walk to just get out there, so for now let’s go and check out the stable’s lending records.”
“Yeah.”
Though, what are we going to do if there is a record that Vaine took a horse? Are we going to chase after him? Even though I had a feeling that doing so would be fun, I think that would be the moment where it’d be better just to quit already.
“Vaine huh? Give me a second, I need to check over today’s records.”
We arrived at the stables, and the issue requested by me caused the clerk to immediately break out into a run.
Removing the lending roster, he opened it up to today’s date.
Tracing it over with his finger, he checked over the name’s carefully one by one.
“There aren’t any records of a student named Vaine, but I wonder… You said he was rather tall, to the point that it made him stick out, right? I saw someone like that