Planning for a Dive

Entering a small bar in the city center, I quickly made my way to the table with the icy-eyed model, sitting at a table for four in the corner.

It was quite a picturesque scene. All of the bar's furniture was almost exclusively carved out of wood, and instead of glasses, most people were holding big mugs in their hands. It was almost to the point where I would have liked to call it a tavern.

The silver-haired girl was sitting with a mug of her own, waiting for me to show up. We had already decided beforehand that we would meet up to make some strategic plans for tomorrow when we would be doing our first dive together. Which was also the reason as to why there was another girl next to her.

An innocent-looking, blue-haired girl who turned ghastly pale when I came up to the table. There was no helping it, Akane was also part of our group, thus we had to have her involved if we wanted to do well.

What I didn't expect was that there would be a fourth actor in this play; Suzuka was also already her, sitting across from her sister, which would make it so she would be seated next to me when I sat down on the empty chair.

When I reached the table, I didn't feel like creating unnecessary tension by questioning her presence, so I decided to go with just a simple "Hey guys."

The reaction from my audience was very mixed. Lindsey just replied with a casual, "Hey, Miren.", and Suzuka did something similar, although a bit colder. Akane, on the other hand, flinched heavily at my words, and quickly downed a glass of wine that was in front of her before finally letting out a very quiet, "Hi..."

Although I didn't want to care all that much, it felt a bit bad seeing the cheerful and bubbly Akane reduced to this state. However, in the end, it wasn't up to me to choose how she felt, thus I took my seat and ignored her weak reception of me.

"I didn't think you would show up. There were a lot of rumors that you were bedridden in the infirmary after some kind of accident. Maybe the rumors were exaggerated?"

It was Suzuka who had opened her mouth, as she looked at me suspiciously, seemingly knowing a lot more about it than she should. 'Rumors my ass... She has probably kept tabs on me for a while now...'

Even if it wasn't completely unexpected that she wanted to know what I was up to, as to make sure she could help her sister avoid uncomfortable situations, it still didn't sit right with me knowing she had her eyes on me.

"Miren, is that true?!"

Lindsey actually showed her emotions in front of other people, though where I saw an incredibly worried friend, they probably just saw her as somewhat curious.

Now, the truth of the matter was that it had indeed been quite serious. My internal organs had gotten fried by the electrocution, and my skin was severely burnt. However, thanks to, what I assume, was an incredibly skilled rize user, I was already up and running.

It almost made me think that maybe I had to get a personal rize user that could heal me when I overused my skills or my art. It would certainly make everything a bit easier for me, not having to worry about getting put out of commission for an extended amount of time just because I had a tough fight.

"I'm fine, Lindsey. It is true that I was put in the infirmary yesterday, but would I be here if it was something serious?"

"Yes, you would. 100% you would be getting up from your bed if there wasn't anyone to force you to stay."

She didn't buy my little casual explanation, instead, she hurled some pretty hurtful words at me, acting as if I was some kind of moron who always acted without thinking. Pretending I didn't feel incredibly offended, I moved the conversation along.

"Should we start discussing our plans for tomorrow?"

Everyone nodded in acknowledgment and so we got started. Because her being a lot more experienced than me and Akane in the ways of fighting monsters, Lindsey naturally became the one to lead the conversation.

"I think our roles are pretty naturally lined up. I will be the spearhead, and try to act as a sort of pseudo-tanker. I might not be able to take all the monsters head-on, but I can at least try to slow them down as much as possible before. Akane will act as a backline supporter, using her buffs to keep me going for as long as possible and her offensive spells to inflict damage at range."

She turned her head to me and carried on, "Although I'm not entirely sure, you're an assassin right, Miren? So you should be the scout of our team and try to either kill priority monsters like mages or finish off those who are already wounded.

Maybe it had been because of my duel with James but her idea that I was an assassin had dulled a bit, not being quite as clear-cut as it once had been. Which was fair, as it wasn't truly the role I had. I couldn't use any stealth-related skills, nor could I use spells to gather information. However, even if Mike and the principal had used the word executioner, I had been thinking a lot about it.

There were probably not a lot of people who would be comfortable with me describing myself as a killer, thus I had figured out another way of explaining my role in a more discrete manner; a duelist. Someone who excelled in one-on-one combat, and instead might be lacking when it came to larger-scale battles.

Sadly, there was a bigger reason as to why it was not optimal to regard me as a scout or assassin, "Sorry, but I can't use any spells at all, nor do I have any skill related to stealth. There is no way for me to be the scouter unless it is by me just walking forward by myself and then running away if I see any monsters. I'm pretty much useless in most aspects except for killing."

...

Our table got silent, no one knowing how to react to my words. It was probably something they didn't expect to hear and the sound of nothing filled out ears until Lindsey finally spoke, "Right... Our teacher did say something along those lines when you were gone..."

For some reason, her words triggered something inside of me, and my pulse instantly sped up.

'The gorilla talked shit about me behind my back?!'

Yes, in hindsight it was probably a pretty reasonable thing to do by our teacher, to explain to the class what they could expect if they ended up with me in their group. However, in this moment, it pissed me off immensely thinking about Mike talking about how useless I was with a smile on his face.

Luckily enough, Lindsey took the lead once again, not letting me fall too far into my dark thoughts. "Well, even if you can't be a scout of our party, you can still fulfill the second part. Killing off priority targets and acting as a sweeper if a monster is injured."

*Bom!*

Suddenly, she brought out a huge stack of paper and let it fall on the table. "Now, here is all the information for the academy dungeons between 1-star and 3-star. Please read through it so we can then start to discuss the contents."

This wasn't what I had expected. In my mind, we would be having a similar meeting as when me, Bayyan, and Sarah met up. Talking through scenarios that could happen, planning when we would retreat, etc. I didn't think that our meeting was actually a study session in disguise. Even Akane looked distressed by the sudden appearance of what appeared to be a hundred pages of suspiciously detailed information.

Biting our tongues, not wanting to offend the ambitious girl who must have spent hours and hours compiling this information, we took a bundle each and started reading.

'The average height of a dire wolf is 1 meter and 70 cm. In the case of it being larger than this, there is a relatively large chance that it is a mutant... Are we having a quiz later or something?!'

In the end, I could only shut my mouth and continue reading about what we should be expecting when doing our dive, even if it was unnecessarily detailed to an extreme degree.