Who Needs Magic in a Fantasy World Anyway?

Chapter 27: Determination

"Is that her?" Someone in the cafeteria asked.

"Yeah, the girl that was busted for leeching." Another snickered.

"Are you sure? She doesn't look like the type to-"

"How else would someone have just twenty-one MP at her age?" The one that had snickered before asked while interrupting the other. "There's no other way that someone that's level eighteen would have that low of magical ability."

"I guess so..." The first agreed, though Koko was already used to this by now. She'd already spent a week at the academy and already the rumors about her being nothing but a noble who gained her levels by leeching had already spread to everyone there. Meanwhile, Christina was being treated as though she were an untouchable goddess while having several fan clubs within the academy already and Richard was living out his own personal harem anime with the girls that he'd helped...

"So good..." Koko couldn't help but smile to herself and sigh when she took a bite of the cafeteria's pudding and felt all of her worries fade away with the sweetness of it. Truth be told, she didn't care about all of the rumors about her because she'd squash any bullying as soon as it appeared. Though thankfully people seemed to leave her alone for the most part seeing as they had other things to do other than bother her. Though, what they did instead irked her as she couldn't believe what she was seeing.

Rather than spend time at the academy training to become better adventurers, all of the students seemed absolutely obsessed with finding their spouses early on, and it was fairly difficult to walk anywhere without seeing at least three couples being all 'Lovey Dovey'. Whenever Koko saw it, she wondered just why everyone was acting like this, seeing as they all had the opportunity to become adventurers. They were living the lives that other people only dreamed about, yet they didn't have any other interests other than love?!

Taking another bite of pudding, Koko forgot all of her worries again before she finished her dinner and proceeded to take her dishes to be cleaned. Afterwards, she left the cafeteria entirely and headed back to her dorm room, ready to spend another fruitless night attempting to increase her magical ability seeing as she couldn't seem to raise it at all.

When she returned to her room, Christina was already sitting at her desk while writing a letter, and both she and Koko ignored each other as Koko walked over to and sat down on her bed before closing her eyes and concentrating her magic on her hand. This was a nightly ritual for her now as she desperately attempted to increase her MP so that Magic Domination would no longer affect her. However, it wasn't anything different from what she'd been doing for the past eight years, and as expected there were no results at all. Still, she attempted it, giving it her best effort for appearances sake at least before she finally drained almost all of her MP and climbed into the covers to sleep.

Once Christina went to bed as well, Koko opened a single eye and waited for her roommate to fall asleep. She waited until she heard the girl's soft snores before she climbed out of bed and exited the room as quietly as she could, though she was by no means silent as she definitely wasn't a rogue.

Slipping out of the dormitory altogether, Koko then ran at a steady jog away from Goldgate and into the forest where she infused focus into her eyes so that she could see in the dark surroundings. She did this because, for one it was against the rules to leave the dorms at night, and two because this was the only way that she could truly train to get rid of her weakness.

Austin had repeatedly told her that she simply needed to increase her magical ability by training, but that obviously wasn't going to work and she feared that she'd be expelled if she told him why. And so, really, the only option was going into the forest at night and attempting to find some monsters that were able to use Magic Domination. She needed to encounter it in order to become resistant to it or find new ways to fight against it, because as she was now, she didn't think that she could ever become an adventurer.

Searching through the forest, Koko encountered several weak monsters such as slimes and Segu Rabbits, though they were both to weak to be of any use to her. And thankfully, just when she was about to turn back around midnight, she finally came across a group of kobolds and wasted no time in combating them. However, even if they were slightly stronger monsters than the Segu Rabbits, none of them appeared to have to ability to use Magic Domination, and Koko sighed to herself as she returned to the academy after wasting her time, despite having killed all of the monsters and taken all of the currency that had dropped from them.

Eventually reaching the door again, Koko walked all the way back to her room in a slump before quietly opening the door and sneaking inside, though she was afraid that she'd woken Christina as the girl had stopped her snoring. However, it eventually seemed as if she'd been mistaken as her roommate hadn't stirred, and Koko fell asleep while still disappointed about her wasted time until she was woken up the next morning by the sounds of Christina getting ready for the day.

"If you don't get up soon, you'll be late for the first class." Christina warned right before she left.

"Kaaay..." Koko said sleepily, her eyes still half closed as she sat up out of bed. And after seeing that it was already light outside, she suddenly panicked, rushing to get ready without any time to waste as the washrooms would be closed otherwise. After rushing out of the room with one of her spare uniforms in hand, Koko thankfully made it to the washroom in time to take a quick shower before she changed and got ready for another day of studying monster biology and training, all the while ignoring the comments from the other girls as they spotted her callused knuckles, elbows, knees and feet.

After bringing her dirty robes back to her dorm room, Koko now had to sprint in order to reach the classroom in time. And the bell that was on top of the academy had already started ringing by the time that Koko reached her classroom and threw herself inside, managing to make it before the bell finished ringing.

"I'm glad that you could join us, Ms. Cryner." Austin sighed at the front of the room as everyone looked at her from her sudden entry. "In the future, try to be in class at least five minutes before the bell so that you don't distract the class."

"Sorry!" Koko apologized before quickly moving to her desk, attempting not to notice the glares from Richard's harem as her seat just so happened to be right beside his. And after smirking at them in reply, which caused all of them to be even more angry with her, Koko sat down and sighed as she opened the large book of monster biology and started studying. After all, even if rising through the ranks wasn't working out as well as she'd hoped, she still didn't want to slack in her studies.