"Hmmm, where should I go?" Glynne pondered while wandering around the school.
The place was quite vast so it would take a lot of time to explore the place fully. Regretfully, since he have something to do after this, like fixing up his room, he could only explore around for a little bit.
As he walked around, he noticed there's a lot less student than before. Which was quite understandable since classes have already ended since a while ago. Most of the students have probably gone home by now. Those that remained on the school grounds may have some business left to do or they just plainly wanted to train more.
"Would appreciate it if they don't look at me weirdly though..." Glynne muttered in complaint. But as he thought about what Himeko said earlier, his shoulders just dropped down as there's nothing much he could do about it.
After a few minutes of wandering around, a particular building caught his interest. It was the classic firing range. There's nothing fancy on it like life-like holographic moving targets or ever-changing obstacles, it's just the plain old classic firing range with stationary targets on an open field.
That said, this was quite fine for Glynne, or rather, he preferred it this way.
He had shown his ID to a nearby scanner in order to log in his name. After he got his confirmation, he began his preparation like setting up his target and bringing out his gun.
The gun he had was a M1911 pistol. From the looks of it, it seemed like it's quite old and used up as its original black coloring was fading and few small scratches could be seen on some parts. However, it had quite a sentimental value for Glynne as he looked at with a gentle gaze.
After doing a quick check on his gun, he aimed his weapon and open fired at the target. The target's distance was about forty-five meters away, just barely inside the effective range. After firing his seventh round, he stopped to reload as he looked over at the target to see seven holes inside the inner most circle.
It was an impressive feat of accuracy but Glynne didn't care much of it as he proceeded to setup another target. This time, the target was about twice the distance from the first one.
With the target being out of the effective range of his weapon, there's a visible decrease in his performance. This was quite evident when his first shot barely hit the outer circle.
However, each shot became more and more accurate as he was getting quite used to it. By the time he reloaded and fired his ninth round, he hit the bullseye. The next shots after that didn't go far from the inner circles.
As he emptied his third magazine, he stopped to assess his performance.
"Still have a long way to go..." Glynne thought while putting a hand under his chin. He can't help but compare himself to his mentor. Although what he did was already impressive enough as it is but when it comes to his mentor, this much was nothing.
This doesn't really discourage him that much though. Rather, it fired up his feeling of competitiveness quite a lot. As they say, the higher the mountain, the greater the feeling after reaching it's peak.
"Woah, that's quite impressive!"
As he was thinking on what he needs to improve on, he got startled when someone suddenly spoke beside him. He turned around and immediately grabbed his gun before gaining a bit of distance.
"Ah, did I surprised you? Hehe, sorry about that."
"..."
Glynne didn't reply as he observed the person that sneaked up behind him. It was a girl with blue eyes and long white hair tied into two braids. She didn't seemed to be someone dangerous, rather she looked quite carefree. Looking at her closely, he remembered her from while ago.
The girl's name was... he kind of forgot as he didn't pay attention that time. He had to jog up his mind a bit as he remember it was Kuna... He shook his head once again as it didn't sound right. Kayna..? Katarina..? Katna..? It took him a bit to remember it was Kiana Kaslana.
In any case, since she wasn't someone dangerous, he can't help but let out a huge sigh as he began to relaxed his body.
"Hey, can you hear me?"
Now that he thought about it, there shouldn't be anyone in St. Freya Academy that would want to target him. He was just overly paranoid at nothing.
"Geez, can you stopped ignoring me..."
Still, it was quite careless of him not to notice someone approaching his back even in a safe place. That said he was confused as he was not this careless usually. Perhaps, he got a bit too distracted by the thoughts of his mentor. Or perhaps, he was just happy to see Theresa once again that he dropped his guard a bit.
"I said... Don't ignore me!"
As the white haired girl couldn't stand being ignored any longer, she tried to grab him to get his attention. However, her hand was swatted away.
"Couldn't you see I'm thinking about something?" Glynne spoke while glaring at the girl.
"W-what's up with you?" Surprised by the boy's rudeness, Kiana couldn't help but retaliate back. "Don't you think it's rude to ignore someone trying to talk to you? At least say something."
"Hah?" Glynne frowned. "If I remember correctly, it was you who is the rude one here for bothering me during training."
"I was only trying to give a compliment though!" Kiana exclaimed.
Glynne widened his eyes as he began to recall what happened earlier. He couldn't help but scratch the back of his head upon realizing his mistake.
Seeing him being awkward like that, the white-haired girl had a smug expression on her face as she crossed her arms. "Seemed like you realized it."
Glynne felt the edge of his lips twitched seeing the look her face. She reminded him a lot of his mentor. He clenched his fist as he had a hard time trying to resist his desire to wipe that smirk off her face.
He took a deep breath as he try to calm himself down. "... Right. Well I'm sorry, it's my mistake."
"Eh?" However, the white-haired girl seemed like she didn't expect for Glynne to admit his mistakes so easily.
"What are you acting so surprised for?" the boy asked while narrowing his eyes.
"N-nothing!" Kiana replied while stuttering. "S-since you apologized, I guess I'll forgive you."
Glynne couldn't help but smile. Although she was acting all high and mighty, it was obvious to him that she was only doing it to save face.
People tend to be stubborn on some strange things, one of these things was not quickly admitting to one's own mistake. It was as such that Kiana might have expected for him make some random excuses to try to shift the blame. Though he have lost the argument, seeing her reactions was definitely worth the exchange.
Kiana cleared her throat, as she seems like she moved on a bit from that rocky start. "Anyways, are you new here? It's my first time seeing you."
"Oh, you're quite incredible for knowing everyone here." Glynne complimented. If he remember correctly, there's like about six or so hundred students in St. Freya Academy. To memorize many faces here was no ordinary feat.
"Well... it's nothing to be amazed at though." The girl said while scratching her cheeks. "Especially since the boys here can only be counted on one hand."
"Ah... I-is that so." Glynne couldn't help but scratch his head as the atmosphere became a bit awkward. "... R-right, I think I haven't introduce myself yet. My name is Glynne Romero, a simple Chevalier."
Even if he already knows her name, he needed something to change of subject. This might also good thing for him too as Glynne suddenly calling her by her name without any proper introductions would be a bit weird and creepy.
"Ah, my name's Kiana Kaslana." The white-haired girl introduced herself while pounding her chest. "My aim is to become the best Valkyrie one day!"
"Oh~" Glynne was quite amused by her introduction.
"What, you think I can't do it?" Kiana asked with narrowed eyes.
"Can't say for sure." Glynne shrugged his shoulders. "Just that, you have a long road ahead of you."
"Then that's good! The harder the challenge, the better the rewards!" Kiana declared as Glynne widened his eyes.
He had to cover his mouth as he hada hard time holding back his laughter. However, it seemed like Kiana was able to sense it as she pouted.
"Muuuuu... what's so funny about what I said?" Kiana asked.
"I-it's nothing l-like that... Pft. I s-swear." Glynne tried to explain himself but with him being like that, he doesn't look that convincing. This just made Kiana even more annoyed.
"If you don't believe me, then why don't have a competition right now?!" Kiana declared as Glynne quickly look at her with surprised look on his face.
"Eh? Right now?"
"Yes, right now." Kiana immediately replied and crossed her arms. She seemed like she wasn't going to accept a "No" for an answer.
Glynne furrowed his eyebrows as he brought out his phone to check on the time.
"You aren't thinking of escaping do you?" Upon seeing his reaction, Kiana tried to provoke him. "Scared of losing?"
"Heh, you're quite confident with yours skills, huh." Glynne said as his lips formed into a smirk. "Don't cry after I beat you, okay?"
"Oh, do you really think you could beat me?" Kiana asked while glaring at him. She watched him train a while ago. She had to admit that he's quite good. However, she was in doubt if he's good enough to beat her.
"A hundred percent." Glynne declared without any doubt in his voice.
"Let's find it out then." Kiana said as the two of them both stared at each other's eyes.
That said, Glynne suddenly closed his eyes and stepped back. "Unfortunately though, that needs to wait."
"Chickening out?" Kiana asked while raising an eyebrow. After raising her competitive spirit like that, he was quite bold to back out right now. She wasn't going to let him go so easily.
"Of course not." Glynne replied. "Unfortunately, I have to go fix my room first so I don't have any free time right now. I just arrived here today, you know."
"Do you expect me to believe that?" Kiana questioned while looking at him with suspicion.
"You can come with me to my room if you like?" Glynne suggested but Kiana widened her eyes as her face reddened immediately.
"Huh, a-are you kidding me?!" Kiana yelled as he pointing at him. "Don't tell me, you've been aiming for this from the start?!"
"Hah? What are you talking about?" Glynne furrowed his brows as question marks appear on top of his head. However, Kiana's reaction wasn't unusual. Just that the black-haired boy failed to grasp the hidden meaning of the act of inviting a girl to his room. "You know, you could simply turn it down if you don't like it. No need to overreact."
Kiana glared at him and even contemplated on calling the cops. But strangely enough, she doesn't feel any malicious intent from him. She might have been overthinking it earlier. Still, it's better to be on the safe side of things. Especially since, they only just met and still more or less strangers.
"Fine, I'll believe you for now." Kiana said and sighed. "But on one condition!"
"Condition?" Glynne tilted his head.
"Yep, this way it will make things interesting." Kiana said while looking smug. "Let's see... Hmm, how about the loser will get need to obey one order from the winner?"
"Oh, are you sure about this?" Glynne asked. To obey anything someone demands has quite the high chance of going wrong.
"Well, treat it as giving some motivation to my opponent." Kiana shrugged her shoulders.
"Fine..." Glynne sighed as he reached out his hand. "You better not regret this."
"Of course not, I'll win anyways." Kiana said and sealed their deal with a handshake. "So don't disappoint me and put up a good fight, okay?"
"That's my line." Glynne said with a smirk.
=========================
Hmmm... this turned out a bit of a challenge. This scene was originally part of the previous chapter but decided to cut it since the bit with Theresa makes for a good chapter end. That said, it left me a bit too little to work with XD.
Anyways, THANKS FOR READING!