I finished changing my clothes and headed to the same venue where the unveiling party had been held. Chairs numbered from 1 to 51 were lined up just like that time as well. Since then, they have yet to do anything about my personal makeshift seat.
Today they would announce what the exam for the audition’s first stage would consist of. The previous years all had this be a series of mock battles, but apparently they were switching things up this time.
After I followed the crowd and found my seat, Heath took a stand in front of us all.
“Before explaining the first round of judging, I would like to talk to you all about the next round of voting. Once the first exam has been completed, we will set aside an adequate period of time to allow the public to cast their votes. Each person will be allowed to vote for four out of the fifty-one contestants. New ranks will be assigned by combining the number of votes you receive in this round to the votes you have already received, and anyone below 30th place will be eliminated from the competition.”
A line of murmurs ran around me. The cutoff for the first screening is 30th place, the same as it was the year before. However this year they recognized the “legacy occupation,” so some people thought the cut-off point would have been higher as well.
“30th place….not 31st. Is it really that different?”
Melia was using her fingers to calculate the difference, but really, was there anything you needed to calculate?
“Yeah. Either way, it’s a distant rank for us.”
“True….”
While Melia and my shoulders fell, Heath continued his explanation of the first round.
“The task for the first screening will be, ‘responding to requests’. You will each form teams of five and solve the problems plaguing the people.”
Basically, a heroes and guilds’ job can change depending on what kind of requests they take–a request being issued whenever someone is in trouble and needs help.
The content of these requests can vary wildly, going anywhere from exterminating dangerous monsters to doing someone’s chores.
The requests collected for the first screening fall into two types. The first has us stay in the capital, completing a bunch of chores for the citizens while the second type has us going to the suburbs to slay monsters. Easy mode versus hard mode.
Thankfully, a major guild will be assisting anyone who decides to hunt monsters. If nothing else, it wouldn’t look good if one of the noble girls who grew up sheltered their whole lives ended up getting hurt.
When you solve a request, points are awarded to the team depending on how difficult it was. The first leg of the competition has teams competing against each other to complete requests and earn the most points.
Members of the teams with the highest points are rewarded with bonus votes, and they get shown off more to the crowds, improving their image.
Heath only explained the rules and requirements of the competition, but I figure the goal for the teams can be roughly divided into two different types depending on how you want to go about advancing in the Hero Audition.
The first is someone who wants to win the public’s support to secure more votes. The country’s population is heavily concentrated to the capital, so even if the requests here are “small,” you can steadily complete them and win more support.
The other is for those people who have mostly given up on winning the Hero Audition and plan to join a major guild instead. The reason why you would leave the city to kill monsters is to show off your abilities and appeal to the higher ups of the guilds who will be providing support. You are sacrificing general popularity to appeal to a more specific audience.
Even if I were to go out monster slaying, I’m a dancer. The chances of any guild wanting to pick me up are low. I should stay in the capital and steadily complete people’s chores.
Team formation began immediately after Heath finished speaking.
The way it works is that the person at the top of the provisional ranking will choose their teammates first, and they will work down the list from there. As last place, this means there is no chance I will get to decide who I am teaming up with.
Since she is ranked first, Lily stepped forward. Like always she walked with a straight back and her head held high. Her silver hair hung straight down behind her.
She was given a loudspeaker, and she began listing off names in her usual calm voice. The fact that this is a team formed by Lily, the provisional first rank, means it will inevitably stand out.
Just by joining this team there is a chance you will be recognized by someone influential, so everyone probably wants to join up. Of course that includes me too.
“Then, here are my choices. Nerine Candy. Ran Longines.”
Nerine and Ran were first up. The current second and fourth places left their seats to join her at the front.
While those two were walking up, I thought Lily had made eye-contact with me. She might have been looking at Melia who is sitting next to me, but I had the faintest hope she was going to call my name.
“Olive Elijah. …..Peony Laeria.”
My name wasn’t called. There were forty-five other people left behind who were all thinking the same thing and sighed at the same time I did.
“That’s amazing Peony. Popularity really is important after all.”
Melia let her lamentations leak out from the seat next to me.
Lily made the perfect team. She called up 2nd through fourth place, and with Olive being seventh, they have popularity on their side.
But even without worrying about the popularity, they have a flawless formation as well.
The traditional nobles Lily and Olive, the newcomer noble Candy, and the commoners Ran and Peony.
Olive and Nerine are mages with Lily and Ran serving as the frontliners while Peony acts as the healer.
It is a team that covers various origins and roles. It can also help affirm Lily’s message: “I accept people of all origins and walks of life.”
Of course, there’s the major premise that you need the ability to back it all up, so there was no room for me to slip in.
I watched as teams continued to be formed while comforting Melia.
All the following teams were made up completely of either nobles or commoners. The two groups would only be mixed in Lily’s team and whoever ends up in the last team full of the leftovers.
In the end, ten teams were formed. With ten teams consisting of five people each, you will have fifty people total. As the fifty-first person, I was the only one left remaining in my seat. Rather, it’s obvious just from the rules that one person is going to get left out, not that anyone bothered to point that out. I saw this coming from a mile away though, so I’ve just been sitting here this whole time waiting to see where I’m going to end up.
The eyes of fifty different hero candidates along with the audience members who came to watch this are now boring into my skin. This is not the pleasant kind of attention. How many times are they going to make me experience this?
While I was clenching my fists to kill my frustration and staring at the ground to avoid all those eyes, Heath spoke up.
“This year we have fifty-one hero candidates. Which team would like to accept our last participant, Liffy Ruhuna?”
Even if we get an extra body, she isn’t going to be any help. Nobody was saying anything, but their silence was getting the message across clear enough.
From the point of any of the commoners’ teams, I am a hateful thing who crushed their grassroots opportunities. From the point of view of the nobles, well me being a commoner is reason enough, but I also have the title of dancer. It is clear that no team would want to take me.
There are several people out there I get along with, but that is that. This is this.
“Here! Lily-chan! Come on!”
It was the last team formed that eventually broke the silence. A ragtag squad of nobles and commoners. Melia was waving her arms from the very back of the group.
I don’t know how many times Melia’s kindness has saved me at this point. It all began when she first asked to be my friend at the unveiling party.
Even when we were taken to Ronaldo’s mansion for that grassroots opportunity, she didn’t just escape by herself but called for help. Melia will always be my friend.
I was going to start crying if I let my guard down, so I put all my focus into holding those tears back while heading towards Melia’s team.
Judging by the response, Melia decided on her own to call out to me because by the time I reached them, she had been surrounded by the other members. I recognized only one of them. The forty-ninth place contestant, Dahlia. The other three are probably low-ranked contestants as well. Judging by how nice their clothing is though, they’re probably nobles.
“Melia-san, please refrain from saying or doing anything on your own. What is the benefit in drawing a dancer to us?”
One of the nobles was scolding Melia.
“Um….at least, I was able to show off my kindness a little bit. Now people will say, look at that kind Melia-san who will let someone nobody else wants be with her friends.”
Melia was talking cutesy while fidgeting in place. She’s spinning her wheels, trying to find something to say to get out of this.
I can accept me not being welcome, but I don’t want my being here to make your position worse Melia.
“Ah…. Um…. If it’s a bother, I can find someone else to join….”
All five set of eyes fell on me.
“I agree with Melia. Besides, we cannot go to the suburbs to subjugate monsters with this group, so our requests will consist of chores that even a dancer can do. More bodies will be a plus.”
Dahlia patted my shoulder as she wrapped behind me. I haven’t spoken to Dahlia since that night at the mansion, but if she cares about what happened, she isn’t showing it.
“If we kick her out now, our image will only get worse, so how about we just accept her?”
“It can’t be helped I guess. Just make sure not to get in our way.”
The three nobles reluctantly agreed.
“T-Thank you very much!”
There’s no reason for you to be so rude, but I’ll be the bigger person here. Just let me toss away my pride and bow my head so things go as smoothly as possible. The three nobles snorted and formed a line like before. I intended to click my tongue in my mind, but the three of them spun back around towards me, so I might’ve accidentally did it for real too.
♠
For today, individual teams were just supposed to give a brief greeting to each other before disbanding. We won’t start accepting requests until tomorrow.
But hey, my name made it to the front page of the evening paper for the very first time. The headline read: “Leftover Dancer Liffy Saved by the Saintess Melia!” Most of it was them explaining who Melia was. Although she is still a commoner, apparently her family is well known for their gifted healers in the countryside. Melia truly is a hidden talent.
People who knew her were boasting that as long as you were still alive, she could definitely heal you. There was also an interview from someone in the capital who had reportedly been healed by Melia. Her healing is exceptional and apparently so comfortable it might send you to heaven on its own. The newspaper then officially gave her the nickname Saintess Melia.
What she did had nothing to do with her healing skills, but the rescue boat she sent me in that situation certainly made her no different than a saintess in my eyes. It’s great that Melia’s stock is going up, but is it wrong of me to have wanted the newspaper story to touch on me a little more?
But while that was on the front page, the main story of the newspaper that had caught my attention actually had nothing to do with the audition at all. And it blew any complaints I had about the whole situation clear out of my mind.
Lily’s engagement has been formally announced. Her partner is, as was rumored, the fifth son of the Candy family.
I finished changing my clothes and headed to the same venue where the unveiling party had been held. Chairs numbered from 1 to 51 were lined up just like that time as well. Since then, they have yet to do anything about my personal makeshift seat.
Today they would announce what the exam for the audition’s first stage would consist of. The previous years all had this be a series of mock battles, but apparently they were switching things up this time.
After I followed the crowd and found my seat, Heath took a stand in front of us all.
“Before explaining the first round of judging, I would like to talk to you all about the next round of voting. Once the first exam has been completed, we will set aside an adequate period of time to allow the public to cast their votes. Each person will be allowed to vote for four out of the fifty-one contestants. New ranks will be assigned by combining the number of votes you receive in this round to the votes you have already received, and anyone below 30th place will be eliminated from the competition.”
A line of murmurs ran around me. The cutoff for the first screening is 30th place, the same as it was the year before. However this year they recognized the “legacy occupation,” so some people thought the cut-off point would have been higher as well.
“30th place….not 31st. Is it really that different?”
Melia was using her fingers to calculate the difference, but really, was there anything you needed to calculate?
“Yeah. Either way, it’s a distant rank for us.”
“True….”
While Melia and my shoulders fell, Heath continued his explanation of the first round.
“The task for the first screening will be, ‘responding to requests’. You will each form teams of five and solve the problems plaguing the people.”
Basically, a heroes and guilds’ job can change depending on what kind of requests they take–a request being issued whenever someone is in trouble and needs help.
The content of these requests can vary wildly, going anywhere from exterminating dangerous monsters to doing someone’s chores.
The requests collected for the first screening fall into two types. The first has us stay in the capital, completing a bunch of chores for the citizens while the second type has us going to the suburbs to slay monsters. Easy mode versus hard mode.
Thankfully, a major guild will be assisting anyone who decides to hunt monsters. If nothing else, it wouldn’t look good if one of the noble girls who grew up sheltered their whole lives ended up getting hurt.
When you solve a request, points are awarded to the team depending on how difficult it was. The first leg of the competition has teams competing against each other to complete requests and earn the most points.
Members of the teams with the highest points are rewarded with bonus votes, and they get shown off more to the crowds, improving their image.
Heath only explained the rules and requirements of the competition, but I figure the goal for the teams can be roughly divided into two different types depending on how you want to go about advancing in the Hero Audition.
The first is someone who wants to win the public’s support to secure more votes. The country’s population is heavily concentrated to the capital, so even if the requests here are “small,” you can steadily complete them and win more support.
The other is for those people who have mostly given up on winning the Hero Audition and plan to join a major guild instead. The reason why you would leave the city to kill monsters is to show off your abilities and appeal to the higher ups of the guilds who will be providing support. You are sacrificing general popularity to appeal to a more specific audience.
Even if I were to go out monster slaying, I’m a dancer. The chances of any guild wanting to pick me up are low. I should stay in the capital and steadily complete people’s chores.
Team formation began immediately after Heath finished speaking.
The way it works is that the person at the top of the provisional ranking will choose their teammates first, and they will work down the list from there. As last place, this means there is no chance I will get to decide who I am teaming up with.
Since she is ranked first, Lily stepped forward. Like always she walked with a straight back and her head held high. Her silver hair hung straight down behind her.
She was given a loudspeaker, and she began listing off names in her usual calm voice. The fact that this is a team formed by Lily, the provisional first rank, means it will inevitably stand out.
Just by joining this team there is a chance you will be recognized by someone influential, so everyone probably wants to join up. Of course that includes me too.
“Then, here are my choices. Nerine Candy. Ran Longines.”
Nerine and Ran were first up. The current second and fourth places left their seats to join her at the front.
While those two were walking up, I thought Lily had made eye-contact with me. She might have been looking at Melia who is sitting next to me, but I had the faintest hope she was going to call my name.
“Olive Elijah. …..Peony Laeria.”
My name wasn’t called. There were forty-five other people left behind who were all thinking the same thing and sighed at the same time I did.
“That’s amazing Peony. Popularity really is important after all.”
Melia let her lamentations leak out from the seat next to me.
Lily made the perfect team. She called up 2nd through fourth place, and with Olive being seventh, they have popularity on their side.
But even without worrying about the popularity, they have a flawless formation as well.
The traditional nobles Lily and Olive, the newcomer noble Candy, and the commoners Ran and Peony.
Olive and Nerine are mages with Lily and Ran serving as the frontliners while Peony acts as the healer.
It is a team that covers various origins and roles. It can also help affirm Lily’s message: “I accept people of all origins and walks of life.”
Of course, there’s the major premise that you need the ability to back it all up, so there was no room for me to slip in.
I watched as teams continued to be formed while comforting Melia.
All the following teams were made up completely of either nobles or commoners. The two groups would only be mixed in Lily’s team and whoever ends up in the last team full of the leftovers.
In the end, ten teams were formed. With ten teams consisting of five people each, you will have fifty people total. As the fifty-first person, I was the only one left remaining in my seat. Rather, it’s obvious just from the rules that one person is going to get left out, not that anyone bothered to point that out. I saw this coming from a mile away though, so I’ve just been sitting here this whole time waiting to see where I’m going to end up.
The eyes of fifty different hero candidates along with the audience members who came to watch this are now boring into my skin. This is not the pleasant kind of attention. How many times are they going to make me experience this?
While I was clenching my fists to kill my frustration and staring at the ground to avoid all those eyes, Heath spoke up.
“This year we have fifty-one hero candidates. Which team would like to accept our last participant, Liffy Ruhuna?”
Even if we get an extra body, she isn’t going to be any help. Nobody was saying anything, but their silence was getting the message across clear enough.
From the point of any of the commoners’ teams, I am a hateful thing who crushed their grassroots opportunities. From the point of view of the nobles, well me being a commoner is reason enough, but I also have the title of dancer. It is clear that no team would want to take me.
There are several people out there I get along with, but that is that. This is this.
“Here! Lily-chan! Come on!”
It was the last team formed that eventually broke the silence. A ragtag squad of nobles and commoners. Melia was waving her arms from the very back of the group.
I don’t know how many times Melia’s kindness has saved me at this point. It all began when she first asked to be my friend at the unveiling party.
Even when we were taken to Ronaldo’s mansion for that grassroots opportunity, she didn’t just escape by herself but called for help. Melia will always be my friend.
I was going to start crying if I let my guard down, so I put all my focus into holding those tears back while heading towards Melia’s team.
Judging by the response, Melia decided on her own to call out to me because by the time I reached them, she had been surrounded by the other members. I recognized only one of them. The forty-ninth place contestant, Dahlia. The other three are probably low-ranked contestants as well. Judging by how nice their clothing is though, they’re probably nobles.
“Melia-san, please refrain from saying or doing anything on your own. What is the benefit in drawing a dancer to us?”
One of the nobles was scolding Melia.
“Um….at least, I was able to show off my kindness a little bit. Now people will say, look at that kind Melia-san who will let someone nobody else wants be with her friends.”
Melia was talking cutesy while fidgeting in place. She’s spinning her wheels, trying to find something to say to get out of this.
I can accept me not being welcome, but I don’t want my being here to make your position worse Melia.
“Ah…. Um…. If it’s a bother, I can find someone else to join….”
All five set of eyes fell on me.
“I agree with Melia. Besides, we cannot go to the suburbs to subjugate monsters with this group, so our requests will consist of chores that even a dancer can do. More bodies will be a plus.”
Dahlia patted my shoulder as she wrapped behind me. I haven’t spoken to Dahlia since that night at the mansion, but if she cares about what happened, she isn’t showing it.
“If we kick her out now, our image will only get worse, so how about we just accept her?”
“It can’t be helped I guess. Just make sure not to get in our way.”
The three nobles reluctantly agreed.
“T-Thank you very much!”
There’s no reason for you to be so rude, but I’ll be the bigger person here. Just let me toss away my pride and bow my head so things go as smoothly as possible. The three nobles snorted and formed a line like before. I intended to click my tongue in my mind, but the three of them spun back around towards me, so I might’ve accidentally did it for real too.
♠
For today, individual teams were just supposed to give a brief greeting to each other before disbanding. We won’t start accepting requests until tomorrow.
But hey, my name made it to the front page of the evening paper for the very first time. The headline read: “Leftover Dancer Liffy Saved by the Saintess Melia!” Most of it was them explaining who Melia was. Although she is still a commoner, apparently her family is well known for their gifted healers in the countryside. Melia truly is a hidden talent.
People who knew her were boasting that as long as you were still alive, she could definitely heal you. There was also an interview from someone in the capital who had reportedly been healed by Melia. Her healing is exceptional and apparently so comfortable it might send you to heaven on its own. The newspaper then officially gave her the nickname Saintess Melia.
What she did had nothing to do with her healing skills, but the rescue boat she sent me in that situation certainly made her no different than a saintess in my eyes. It’s great that Melia’s stock is going up, but is it wrong of me to have wanted the newspaper story to touch on me a little more?
But while that was on the front page, the main story of the newspaper that had caught my attention actually had nothing to do with the audition at all. And it blew any complaints I had about the whole situation clear out of my mind.
Lily’s engagement has been formally announced. Her partner is, as was rumored, the fifth son of the Candy family.
