Axion continued to jabber on as if he wouldn’t take the slightest objection. “And the special unit too… They turned out to be a proper team instead of just rising in level. Developing a squad in such a short time… I was very impressed.”
I felt a little better at hearing him acknowledge the special unit. Well, of course. I had tried so hard so that the kids could each do the work of ten people by themselves. I smiled in an open display of my pride for them.
“Anyway, we should go raiding together some… Aah, here comes His Excellency. I’ll be going then.” Axion stopped suddenly in the middle of talking and ran with his tail between his legs. I turned to where he had been looking and, as he had said, Mayer was heading my way. How did Axion notice the captain coming when he was quite far away…?
Ever since he got reprimanded because of how he spoke to me, the flame mage had been trying his best not to offend Mayer. His efforts were laudable indeed, but no one knew if Mayer recognized the man’s pure loyalty.
Taking strides as wide as his long legs, Mayer’s eyes flitted about in search of something. He came over and asked urgently, “Are you okay, Jun? Are you hurt anywhere?”
We were not one squad, but three squads strong, and I was assigned in the rearmost position. How could I possibly be hurt anywhere? I calmed Mayer down with a sigh. “No, Captain. You don’t have to come checking like this every time.”
Mayer would keep on coming to check on me after each group of fellspawn we defeated. Apparently, he had to confirm I was fine with his own eyes despite knowing there was no danger. Well, I suppose he had reason to be nervous. When I was playing the “game”, I had a tendency of making sure my party members were completely healed up before entering battle.
I could somewhat understand Mayer’s obsessive attitude. To think I’d empathize with something like that of all things… Clicking my tongue, I pushed away Mayer, who was still checking me over. “You can tell by how my limbs are all attached and in good condition. What tiny scratch are you trying to look for? A paper cut I got from flipping through reports?”
He became even more anxious. “You have a paper cut? What if you get blood poisoning from that! Where? Where is it?”
I shook my head in disgust, feeling that I should stop talking with this man… He wasn’t normal usually, but he was even weirder today. While he examined me, I examined him as well. An odd mixture of anxiety and tension was lurking beneath his face. It was too complicated to think it was a simple worry for me. He seemed a little excited too… If I were to tell somebody else about this, they would probably be skeptical. They’d ask where I could find any excitement on that rigid face of his, but I could see it clearly. I wasn’t as adept as Mayer was at reading my expressions, but after seeing him so many times, I could somewhat do the same.
It wasn’t long before I realized why Mayer was making more of a fuss than usual. He seemed to be very anxious because he would soon be showing his mana in front of other people for the first time. When considering how his life was affected by his mana, it was understandable why he was panicking like his buttocks were on fire.