Chapter 38
Chapter 38
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: crow
Chapter Title: Chapter 38
EP.11 – The Knight Hates Spellcasters (5)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
...In short, Lee Han and Odwal were summoned to the Dean and got an earful.
Lee Han's case was for twisting Odwal's wrist.
However, since Odwal had grabbed his collar first, and it happened accidentally while trying to shake him off, it was taken into consideration as an extenuating circumstance.
Odwal, on the other hand, got a severe scolding from the Dean.
Not only had he barged into another department's territory without permission, but causing a disturbance made it impossible to view leniently.
Odwal ended up with a six-month pay deduction.
'For a guy with massive sponsorship funds, that's hardly a punishment.'
Lee Han, who had long heard that enormous sponsorship money poured into his pockets on a weekly basis—enough to make a regular instructor's monthly salary negligible—knew that penalty wasn't much of a hit.
The Dean probably knew it too.
Yet the fact that he issued such a punishment anyway meant...
'Did this old geezer take a bribe too?'
Lee Han couldn't help but suspect as much.
But he soon realized it was a misunderstanding.
"The Dean isn't in a position to kowtow to nobles."
"The Dean's family is wealthy. One of the top five in the kingdom. Even if five major merchant guilds pressured him, he wouldn't budge."
"On the contrary, if any nobles tried slipping him bribes, he'd send them to the guillotine by tomorrow, haha."
...Turns out he's an even more outrageous person?
Lee Han blinked in surprise as he learned new facts from the instructors he'd recently befriended.
"Then why did that guy only get such a light punishment?"
"To protect you, Sir Turtle."
"Me?"
"Yes. Of course, Sir Turtle isn't intimidated by Duke Odwal, but dealing with the other people involved—the nobles sponsoring Duke Odwal—would be tricky, wouldn't it?"
"...?"
Me?
The words hit him right in the throat, but Lee Han decided to hear them out for now.
"I suspect the Dean made that judgment to prevent you from suffering at the hands of the nobles."
"Even for someone as strong as you, Sir Turtle, clashing with nobles brings all sorts of problems, right?"
"Nobles are a headache, after all."
They showed a somewhat bitter expression.
They had probably been on the bad side of nobles before.
Makes sense—they were commoners or fallen nobles with exceptional talent, so troubles were bound to arise.
"Well, the Dean made a wise call. Let it go this time, Sir Turtle. Unless you have solid backing, tangling with Duke Odwal would be foolish, wouldn't it?"
"Mm."
It was genuine concern from those who cared for him, and Lee Han nodded slightly.
The instructors smiled brightly in response.
See, he was just a bit rough at the entrance ceremony—he's actually a refined knight.
......However.
'Backing, huh?'
That rare night, Lee Han pulled out a sheet of stationery, wrote a single sentence on the blank paper, sealed it, and handed it to the blissfully oblivious maid.
And a few days later.
"It's you! It has to be you...! No one else but you...!!"
Odwal went berserk again, disrupting the swordsmanship department class, and Lee Han just shrugged at the mage.
"What're you on about?"
As if he knew nothing.
He had merely...
'Asked an acquaintance for some [relationship advice], so why's he acting up?'
Lee Han stared at Odwal like he was a madman, and finally, Odwal clutched the back of his neck and collapsed.
Half a day later, word quietly spread that the nobles sponsoring Odwal had cut him off, turning the academy upside down.
With poison, treat poison.
Just as poison is countered with poison, a powerhouse must be countered with another powerhouse.
......Though it felt like he might have used a bit too strong a poison.
The academy had been anything but boring lately.
More precisely, a string of attention-grabbing topics kept popping up, giving everyone plenty to gossip about.
-I heard Professor Odwal picked a fight with a knight from the swordsmanship department.
-I heard a swordsmanship instructor snapped Odwal's wrist.
-I heard Professor Odwal and the swordsmanship knight are competing over Duke Galahad's foster daughter.
-Actually, the swordsmanship knight has the favor of a great noble.
Gossip starting with "I heard..." was timeless, no matter the era.
To the energetic young cadets starving for entertainment, fun, and thrills, the mage-knight feud was the perfect spectacle.
Who would win between the two? It was endlessly fascinating.
And one gray-haired cadet, hearing all this buzz, fell into deep thought.
"This isn't right... It shouldn't be like this...."
The gray-haired cadet wasn't pondering something childish like betting on mage versus knight, like the others.
......It was because of the drastically altered 'story'.
'Odwal is definitely one of the main antagonists who helps the villainous lady corner the protagonist, but he's appearing on stage already?'
Originally, there should have been half a year left before the [main story] began.
Yet things were progressing unnaturally fast, and the gray-haired cadet's head ached endlessly as the information he knew kept proving wrong.
'At this rate, everything I know might become meaningless.'
The gray-haired cadet was smart, with a mind that turned quickly.
That's why he reviewed all the recent events, spotted the common obstacle, and reached a conclusion.
'...The swordsmanship department instructor.'
Lee Han Turtle.
The center of the commotion, the one out-of-place [character] whose existence he alone hadn't known about.
Recalling the oddly familiar-named instructor, the boy pondered.
Maybe he should meet him once.
Just talking to him might clear up some doubts.
......The problem was.
"Hey."
"!!?"
"Oh? What's wrong?"
"N-No, nothing. I was just... startled."
The boy had an extreme communication disorder, making even basic conversations excruciatingly difficult.
And not just that.
"Really? You aren't catching a cold or something? Your face is so red."
"Th-That's..."
"......Oh my."
The closer the beautiful noble lady cadet approached, the redder the boy's face got, and her fresh reaction made the girl cadet grin as she drew nearer.
The mischievous girl seemed to have noticed his state, and realizing this, the boy squeezed his eyes shut and silently chanted a spell in his mind.
'Until the East Sea and Mount Baekdu are worn away...'
The boy not only struggled with communication but had zero immunity to the opposite sex.
From an all-boys rural elementary school with five boys and a male teacher, to boys' middle, boys' high, engineering college, military, and an all-male game company.
That was the boy's life tech tree, and he'd never even had a proper conversation with a girl in all that time.
The boy chanted up to the fourth verse to calm himself, but apparently...
"What's your name?"
"...!!"
...this mischievous girl had no intention of letting him off easy.
The overly stimulating lilac flower scent assaulted his zero-immunity senses, and the boy whipped around and bolted.
"H-Hey...! H-He already made it that far?"
The gray-haired boy was incredibly fast, and the girl blinked in astonishment.
It wasn't just his speed that surprised her.
Her sharp ears had caught the words he muttered.
"[Acceleration], didn't he say?"
Unfortunately, the boy who could answer her question had long since fled far away.
Tak!
"Pick it up, sword-grubber!"
"......He's finally lost it."
Over the past four days, the relationship between Odwal and Lee Han had devolved into something fiercer than sworn enemies, with the atmosphere growing increasingly hostile.
Well, it was mostly Odwal picking fights one-sidedly and getting wrecked,
but even an earthworm writhes when stepped on—how could this prideful mage endure the humiliation of losing to a knight?
With his sponsorship cut off and a string of humiliations and shames piling up, had the mage finally lost his reason? He came throwing a gauntlet at Lee Han.
A custom popular among nobles.
Throwing down a gauntlet meant challenging to a 'duel' or 'contest'.
Lee Han glanced alternately at the gauntlet on the ground and the spellcaster, smirking.
"Given up on living, have you?"
Sring.
Instead of picking up the gauntlet, he pointed his wooden sword.
There was no reason to fear a mere wooden sword, but for a moment, Odwal felt a chill.
It was a shabby, worn wooden sword.
Yet the instant it aimed at him, why did it feel like a razor-sharp spear tip was thrusting toward him?
Odwal wiped the sweat beading on his forehead and waved his hand dismissively.
"A-A misunderstanding! Of course, I'm not talking about fighting you, sword-grubber."
"Spouting nonsense? What the hell have you been—"
"It means a duel between my cadet and your cadet!"
"...What?"
He thought it was nonsense at first, but Odwal quickly spat out an excuse proving it wasn't entirely.
"U-Unfortunately, fights between instructors aren't permitted by the academy. It's a direct royal decree."
"......"
"Ahem."
As Lee Han finally lowered his wooden sword and listened silently, Odwal continued.
"Wh-What I'm saying is this: Direct duels between instructors are impossible, but cadet duels have no such major obstacles. In fact, the academy encourages competition."
"Hm."
Hyper-competition philosophy.
The academy's creed: people grow through rivalry.
Not particularly strange.
There were plenty of contests of wisdom or skill, so competing in 'martial prowess' wasn't odd either.
However.
"So, you're saying 'proxy war'?"
"Exactly."
"...Pathetic bastard. Can't win yourself, so you're pimping out your students...."
No matter how you sliced it, he seemed to realize he had no chance one-on-one, so dragging in cadets was ridiculous.
Lee Han clicked his tongue and shook his head, and Odwal exploded in rage.
......Or tried to.
"You bastard!"
"You're younger than me, aren't you? Who're you calling bastard, you ill-mannered punk."
"......"
He was shut down instantly.
"You greenhorn punk daring to—!"
"Green? Who's green...?"
"Hey! To your senior!"
"......"
"Pak!"
"......"
Before the power of Confucianism—long dormant within Lee Han and now awakened—the spellcaster was utterly powerless.