“Time's Up! Put the pens away and hand the exam sheets to the front! Don't forget to put your names on them!”

Chatter broke out in the lecture room as the teacher announced the end of the exam. Many students immediately talked to their seat neighbors about the just finished tasks. Some had worrying expressions on their face, others were enthusiastic.

All Squads have been scattered around multiple lecture rooms, since we were so many. None of mine have been in the same room as me.

To be frank, the exam went pretty well for me. I could remember the answers to most questions since I saw them yesterday in the books we had been studying in the library. Who would've thought that the cramming session has been just as useful for me as for Jonath.

“Yo, Adel! Did you do well on the exam?”

A boy with light-brown hair and a warm smile approached me. His name is Roland Gathenbod, he is a member of Squad 7. I've talked to him many times since we came to NEAS and he is a very kindhearted man. He is also pretty popular with the girls I heard.

“Yeah, I did not have too much trouble remembering the answers to the questions.”

“Glad to hear that! I was worried, you were affected by Jonath's carelessness.”

“Don't lump me together with him! If it wasn't for Rie and me, he would have forgotten that there was an exam to begin with!”

“Haha~ I'm just kidding, Adel.”

Roland chuckled softly. He gave off a similar positive vibe as Rie.

“-Heh, I bet if we were in High-School, you'd be the typical popular guy, Roland.”

“W-what are you saying...? Jonath fits that role way better than me.”

Roland blushed a bit awkwardly.

“That airhead would be the class clown at best.”

I looked annoyed to the side.

Roland began to grin.

“You both get along pretty well, don't you?”

Before I could respond to that, the lecture rooms door opened and the boy in question came running inside towards me with excited eyes.

“Adel!”

Jonath shouted my name as he stopped at my desk.

“What's wrong, Jonath? Did you fail that hard?”

I asked him, of course with a tone of sarcasm. If he failed it would be quite troublesome actually.

Jonath, however, simply grinned widely and pointed with his thumb to himself proudly.

“Exactly the opposite! I completed the questions without breaking a sweat! I was the first to finish as well!”

Roland and I were surprised hearing that.

“Really? I actually needed quite a lot of time for the tasks on the second page. Especially with the planning of the correct Battle-Formation with the given situation.”

Jonath twitched when he heard Roland's explanation, and his grin seemed way more forced within seconds.

“-Eh?”

“The questions on the second page. Were they no problem for you?”

Roland asked Jonath again, tilting his head to the side questioning.

Don't tell me...

I looked at Jonath and his proud and enthusiastic expression vanished completely from his face, leaving a shocked look on it.

“You're kidding, right? You seriously forgot to turn the sheet around and complete the second page?!”

Roland raised his voice in concern for Jonath, who stood like an undead before us.

I began to laugh loudly. He really is an airhead.

“Arghhh!!!!! You gotta' be shitting me! Even though, I did so well on the first page!”

Jonath sacked to his knees, screaming out his frustration.

“Well, there's still hope. As long as you did well enough on the first page you should be able to pass anyway.”

I then eased his mind. Jonath looked at me with hope.

“Really?! Thank god! I thought it was over for me!”

That was a quick change of mood.

“You can say that after you got your results, Jonath!”

At the same moment, a blonde haired girl came to us from the other side of the room.

“Roland, we have a Squad meeting in Room 291 in 10 minutes, did you forget?”

The boy in question looked at her and smiled gently.

“Of course not, Helce! I'll be there!”

“You say that, but last time you almost didn't come at all because you hung around with that Adel!”

“Hehe~ sorry, sorry!”

Roland chuckled as a response and then turned around to Jonath and me.

“I did not introduce you guys yet! This here is Shrogers Helce, a fellow member of Squad 7. She is a very kind girl, but often takes things too serious.”

“Maybe, because you don't take things serious at all, Roland!”

“And these two here are Adel Habensburg and Jonath Ordwald from Squad 10!”

“Nice to meet you!”

Jonath grinned kindly.

Helce faced us then, also smiling.

“I have heard a lot about your Squad already, it's an honor to meet you! Thank you for taking good care of our leader~”

She then mustered us one by one and turned around to leave.

“Okay, the others are waiting already, I'll be going then.”

“I go as well! See you around, Adel and Jonath!”

Roland joined her as she left.

“That Helce girl is really pretty, don't you think, Adel?”

“Huh? You think she is better than Rie?”

“Of course not! Rie is the only number one!”

“...Hehe~ Thank you, Jonath!”

Jonath turned shocked around and to our surprise, Rie and Leyrid stood behind him out of nowhere.

“R-Rie?! Why are you here?”

“Why not? Leyrid and I wanted to celebrate together with you that we finished our exams~”

Rie was in high-spirits now that she got the study work done.

“We were also looking for Ralph, but it seems he went to train again already.”

Leyrid joined into the conversation.

“If you are worried about his exam, you shouldn't. He seems to be a delinquent who does whatever he wants, but he is actually very serious about him being high-ranked. Ralph won't risk getting bad marks by neglecting to study.”

With that I seem to have eased the mind of Leyrid.

“It's good to see that you trust him, Adel.”

“Well, trust is essential in a Squad, isn't it?”

Leyrid didn't reply to my statement, but rather simply approved of it by showing a faint smile and a nod.

“Anyways, Rie and I thought of going to the Swimming Pool of NEAS after the exam. Care to join us?”

Now that I think about it, I haven’t been at the Pool once yet. It would be a good time to pay it a visit now.

“Sure, we are free for today from lessons anyways. I’ll tag along. What about you, Jonath?”

We looked at him, but he seemed like his mind went completely blank as he just stared in the air and muttered to himself.

“…the pool … Rie… the pool…”

“Hello? Can you hear me Jonath?”

I waved with my hand in front of his face to check if he was still there.

“Ohhhhhh Yeah! We are going to the Swimming Pool together!”

Jonath screamed out of excitement and jumped around like a child.

I think your intentions are a bit too clear to see, Jonath…

“Well, that settles it. Let us meet at the Campus Centre in about an hour. Don’t be late~”

Leyrid was pleased with Jonaths reaction and with that, Rie and her left the room.

“Adel … this day is going to be awesome!”

“Hearing that from you, makes me think if it was a mistake to come along.”

“Now, now, don’t be like that~”

Jonath hung his arm around me and grinned widely.

He definitely has planned something already…

We made our way back to our dorm and started to pack our bags for the upcoming event.

---

“Hey, Adel, which one of these swimming trunks looks cooler on me? The black one? Or is it the white one?”

“I don’t know … white I guess.”

“Alright! Now I gotta’ find a good outfit! But it’s so hard to decide…”

“What are you … a girl?”

“Well, excuse me that I care about my appearance!”

In the meantime, I already packed my stuff and was ready to go. I also changed into summer free time clothes, a black shirt paired with cargo shorts.

My mind always wanders since yesterday to the discovery I made in the library. Although, it wasn’t something groundbreaking, it still came to my mind from time to time making me even more curious about it.

“Hey, Jonath. Did you ever heard of a place called Kargtal before?”

“Huh? Ehm … no I didn’t. Never. Why are you asking?”

“…No particular reason. Forget it, it wasn’t important. Are you ready to go?”

“Yeah! All packed up! Let’s hurry, we don’t want them to wait for us, Adel!”

So Jonath never heard of it before either. I just picked a random province of those many, that were new to me from that map.

Well, it doesn’t necessarily have to mean anything. It is probably just some smaller, unknown one, like the other ones.

After a couple of minutes we arrived at the Campus Centre, Leyrid and Rie already waiting for us.

They also changed into free time clothes, like we did. Rie is wearing a cute short dress with a red shirt. Leyrid, on the other hand, wore hot-pants paired with a white top.

“Pretty daring clothing style, Leyrid.”

“A simple [Wow, you look amazing!], would have been enough, Adel.”

“Sorry, let me try again. Wow, you look amazing, Leyrid!”

Even though, I said it provocatively, she seemed to be pleased by it.

Well, it’s not like I didn’t mean it. She does look great.

I could even see, how almost all boys in the surrounding area couldn’t take their eyes off her.

“Okay! Let’s go to the Pool! I can’t wait!”

“Wait, Jonath. We are still missing someone~”

“-Huh? Who is it, Rie?”

“…That would be me.”

Jonath and I turned around. Behind us was none other than Ralph himself.

“R-Ralph?! I never thought you’d wanna’ hang out with us!”

“Tch- What the hell is that supposed to mean, punk?! Are you saying that I am not allowed to join my Squad?!”

Ralph immediately snapped at Jonath, who was surprised by his appearance.

“N-No, not at all…! I’m glad that you wanna’ spend time with us!”

With that, Ralph calmed down again.

He really does have a short temper.

“Well, it wasn’t my idea anyway. Lil’ Rie there was insisting that I’d come after they found me training.”

“-Eh? Rie did?”

“Yes! I thought it would be more fun together with everyone~”

She radiated her angel-like aura which affected Jonath immediately.

“Okay, then we have everyone here. Let’s get going.”

I then suggested.

The five of us made our way to our summer event to celebrate our finished exams.

---

“Woah! There are quite a lot of students, who had the same idea, as we did!”

“It is summer after all, Jonath.”

“Yeah, you’re right, Leyrid.”

“Okey~ Leyrid and me will go change then!”

Rie grabbed Leyrid by her hand and together they ran to the girls locker room.

I gazed across the fairly large swimming area and saw the students jumping off the springboards and competing in races.

The swimming pool does not feature many activities for free time, since this is a Military Academy and the sole purpose of this area is to do sports and train.

“What are ya’ dozing off for? Move your asses into the locker room!”

Ralph, who already went ahead, yelled at Jonath and me from afar.

“Yeah, yeah we’re coming!”

Jonath shouted and we followed Ralph to change into our swimming trunks.

“Alright, the last one to be in the water is a lame frog!”

“Hey, not fair, Jonath!”

SPLASH

All of us jumped into the swimming pool, finally feeling the refreshing cold water on this hot day.

“Ahhhh~ This feeling is frickin’ amazing!”

“Ralph, you really are enjoying this, aren’t you?”

I teased him, now that he seems to be in a good mood.

“S-Shut up, after hard training, this is exactly what a man needs!”

“Hey, Adel~”

Leyrid swam to me from the side.

“What?”

“You messed up earlier, complimenting my outfit properly, so how about my swimming suit?”

“-Eh…?”

She is wearing a purple two-set swimming suit, of course, looking rather bold which seems to be her style.

“W-Well, it does suit you, I guess…”

Leyrid giggled at my response.

“Tehe~ Thanks, Adel!”

Again, she is teasing me, as if I was her personal entertainment tool.

Now, because she mentioned her swimming suit, I couldn’t help but notice how revealing it was.

I looked awkwardly away, so I wouldn’t stare at her well built breasts.

-Dammit! The fact that I am looking away means I already did!

“Haha~ What are you looking so flustered, all of a sudden?”

“L-Leave me alone, will you!”

“Fine~ I will go and get myself something to drink then.”

With that, Leyrid stepped out of the water and walked to the locker rooms.

In the meantime, Ralph went to jump from the springboard.

Needless to say, he jumps from the highest one.

“Lemme’ show you kids how this is done!”

Many other students watched him sprinting on the board to the end and then jumping off from the height.

SPLASH

“Ralph really is brave isn’t he?”

“-Huh?”

I turned around. Behind me was Roland in companion of his Squad.

“Roland? I thought you had a meeting with your Squad.”

“Yes we did, but he was trying to get over with it as fast as possible, so he could go have some fun.”

It was Helce, who joined into the conversation.

“Haha~ I overheard when I was walking past Leyrid and Rie that they planned to go to the swimming pool and I had to keep thinking about it.”

“What was your meeting about anyways?”

“Ah, we simply talked about our current weak points and how we want to improve on them.”

“Oh… that is actually a good idea, my Squad should hold that meeting as well.”

“Always trying to stay the top Squad, I see! Well, Helce wanted to do some marathon races to train her stamina, so we will be going then. Take care!”

“See you around, Adel!”

With that, Squad 7 left us behind.

Looking around, I spotted Jonath and Rie competing in holding the breath underwater.

“They really are playing around like children.”

I thought loud to my myself.

But it is a good think that they are still able to enjoy themselves.

Soon, we will be going to war as well and the chances of surviving to the end of it is slim.

Thinking about the possibility that my friends might die in this war tightens my chest.

“I swear, that I will do everything in my power to protect all of you on the battlefield.”

“…That is reassuring to hear this from you~”

“-Huh?”

Without realizing, Leyrid came back and stood behind me, on the edge of the pool.

In her hands she had two little bottles of water.

“Here. You can have one. I brought enough for all of us.”

“…Thanks, I’ll take one then.”

As she handed me a bottle, Leyrid sat down on the edge of the pool and hung her feet in the water.

“It really does feel like we live in a peaceful time, if you are so far away from the front-lines.”

Leyrid then said thoughtfully. She looked at Rie and Jonath fooling around as well as Ralph.

“I know, but things won’t stay the way, they currently are. The only reason, we are not risking our lives at the front-lines at the moment, is because we are training to become Elite Soldiers.”

“Yes, that is correct … Tell me, Adel…”

“Hm?”

“Are you despising the fact, that we will have to fight in this war?”

She then said, with a grim look on her face.

I took some seconds to think about what she said before answering.

“…No. It is our duty to defend our home and all the people living in it. The only ones I am despising are our enemies, who ruined our country a long time ago.”

“… I see…”

We watched as a couple of students participated in a swim race, trying their best to outperform each other.

Roland was under those students.

“More! If you keep it up at this slow pace, you will never be on the level of an Elite Soldier!”

The instructor, who was present here, yelled at them for not doing well enough.

“If not all of you finish this in under 25 seconds, every single one of you will repeat it once again!”

Even though it was our free time, everyone still did their best to train even harder.

That reminds me of our first swordsmanship lesson, where Jonath and I continued to train even after the lesson was over.

We kept swinging our swords until we collapsed on the ground.

“Everyone’s trying their best, to make our country proud of them.”

I then said, after watching them for a couple of minutes.

“That’s true. Even though, no one might remember them after they fall on the battlefield, they still want to prove themselves.”

Leyrid looked up to the roof thoughtfully while saying that.

I looked at her face, trying to understand what she was thinking.

“…How about you? Do you … despise that we will have to fight, Leyrid?”

She gave it some thought before she answered.

“...Not specifically. I despise the fact, that I wasn’t able to help my parents, when they fought for my sake on the front-lines. I despise how weak I was, not being able to do anything.”

Leyrid then watched Jonath and Rie fooling around again.

“Because of this, I did my best to become stronger and I am still going to! In order to become someone that can actually achieve something. … that is why …”

She then looked at me again, with a cheerful smile on her lips.

“…That is why I want you to also rely on me … no, on everyone of us on the battlefield. I am glad that you care about protecting us, but I also want you to believe that we can do the same for you. We are a Squad after all~”

I was baffled. Of all the answers, I expected from her, this was not one of them.

Could it be ... that her parents also …

Out of nowhere, Leyrid began to chuckle, interrupting my line of thought.

“Tehehe~ Why are you looking so gloomy all of a sudden?”

She leaned forward, to get a good look at my face, exposing her breast area again in my eyesight with her daring swimsuit on.

“Eh?! Y-You’re too close!”

I tried to get away from her a bit, so that I would escape this dangerous position for me.

“Hm? Now you are getting all flustered again~”

“Don’t play dumb, you know exactly why!”

“Fine~ I’ll go and join Rie then.”

With that, Leyrid handed me her empty water bottle and jumped into the pool.

Of course, I would be the one to go and throw these into the trash bin for her.

…But I guess she does have a point. I should also rely on them in combat.

Well, nothing good will come from standing here around, missing out on the opportunity to finally have some fun.

“Hey! Adel! I challenge you to a swimming race with me! I already got permission from the instructor so don’t let me wait!”

Jonath shouted from the other side of the hall where the starting blocks were.

Behind him stood already a couple of students, waiting to watch the event.

“You could have at least asked me, before you make a huge contest out of it…”

I said to myself, while I turned around and ran over to him.

---

“Mhm~ This day was amazing! Thank you guys for coming along with us!”

Rie stretched herself and was overjoyed as we were back at the Campus Centre.

It was already dusk at this time and the sun began to hide behind the horizon.

“Yes~ Even though I was looking forward to the race between Adel and Jonath, who would have thought that Ralph would join in and take the victory for himself!”

Leyrid smirked at Jonath and me, knowing very well that it would rub salt in our wounds.

“Somebody had to show them, how it is really done!”

Ralph clearly enjoyed the praise he got. Even though, he tries to not show it.

“Okay then, we will be on our way to our rooms. It’s getting late so don’t fool around too much.”

Leyrid then took off with Rie, leaving us three behind.

“What are you going to do now, Ralph?”

Jonath asked him.

“Leaving my bag in my room and getting some dinner afterward.”

“Oh! Sounds great! Can we join you? I bet Adel is as hungry as I am!”

Jonath grinned widely at Ralph, who seemed to be annoyed by it.

“…Fine, just don’t get on my nerves, ‘pal.”

“Alright! What are we waiting for then?!”

Not paying attention to Ralph and me anymore, Jonath took the lead while running towards our dormitory.

I sighed for a short moment, before we made our way to our rooms as well.

Considering everything that happened today … it was pretty fun.

It is a great memory, I will cherish and be glad having made when I am going to fight on the battlefield.

Together ... with my friends.