A Knight Hates Exams (3)

Trolls.

The monsters also called man-eaters were said to have been born when beings that once guarded the forest fell to corruption. A forest guardian, betrayed by humankind, became one with the rock to take its revenge and turned into a monster that devoured people. The tale was famous even as a fairy story and a comedy. And if an oral legend comes into being at all, it is also so that even children will know a troll's violence, and the threat it carries.

The representative telling went like this.

A nightmare, plain and simple. A monster's legend that would have kept children of every station from sleeping. And the power of the trolls those legends described was, in truth, terror itself. Bringing one down took a knight order on the move, and even then there was no promise the order would not pay in blood. So the troll reigned as the nightmare of warriors.

And yet the virtues of a troll's heart and blood held a value vast enough to make even that nightmare forgettable. Drink the blood, and not only ordinary sickness but every wound would close. Eat the heart, and countless effects followed, the lengthening of one's life among them. Eat either unrefined, of course, and you died. Even so, if a troll showed itself in the woods or the mountains near a domain, it was a treasure that had to be taken somehow. Sacrifice might come with the hunt, but there was no greater windfall than a successful one.

Countless mercenaries and seekers had therefore labored to find them, and still, regrettably, the troll had become a rare creature. Reckless capture and hunting had made it hard to see in any ordinary forest or mountain. One had to go to the lands called the Magic Realm just to meet one, and only barely.

Which was why.

"Someone was saying it today. In the sword faculty exam, can you really watch them fight an actual troll? What a stupid question. Think for a moment. A real troll isn't going to be sitting in the Royal Capital."

Anyone who looked at the artificial product dragged out for a departmental exam and asked whether it was a real troll clearly had very little inside their head. The cold remark belonged to Karin Guinevere, a girl like a violet in deep and beautiful purple. The boy whose hair she was grooming today, clutched against her like a favorite doll, flushed and answered.

"L-Lady Karin, if you could step back a little..."

"Isn't it ridiculous? How would anyone even get hold of a monster like a troll? The only thing you can get is a Rock Troll made by alchemy."

"...Mm."

Her bewitching scent was difficult to endure. His body was still young and quick, and it felt as if it might answer her. Born an introvert, Derek ducked down and did everything he could to get away.

Smack.

"Where do you keep trying to go?"

"......"

It was pointless.

"Honestly, calling that thing a troll is a joke too. They're just rocks with troll blood smeared on them. Oh, and that blood was a copy, wasn't it?"

"Th-they're still threatening, aren't they?"

"Well. To ordinary people, yes."

The artificial life-forms called artificial man-eaters, or Rock Trolls, were in truth closer to golems, things one could hardly call alive. Trolls had grown so difficult to find that alchemists, trying to replicate a troll's heart and blood, had produced them as one fruit of the effort. The copies, though, barely managed to imitate even two-tenths of what troll blood could do. Many had been disappointed for that reason, and yet two-tenths was still something. A great many products had been developed because of it, and the Rock Troll was one.

They had merely let stone drink replicated troll blood, and the things had come into being. Plenty of people still did not understand the principle. Their fighting power, however, did not even reach half the original, which was why they were so often dragged out for training, or for measuring someone's skill. The sword faculty exam was one such case.

"I've seen one. Sometimes the house buys them and sets the new knights on them. Pathetic beyond words. For a monster they call a demon of the forest, or a man-eater, it was miserably weak."

"...It's only a copy. It can't be helped."

Somewhere along the way Derek gave up shaking off her hands and accepted the fate of having his hair put in order. He still answered her questions dutifully, but a strange look had settled over him.

"Hm? Was there something odd in what I said? Why the sudden reaction?"

"N-no. I just had something to think about for a moment."

"Hmm. Standing beside a splendid woman like me, and you still have room for other thoughts. Disappointing."

"!?"

"Hmph!"

"W-wait... L-Lady Karin...?"

"Hmph!"

"......"

At a time like this, how in the world was a man supposed to soothe a woman's mood? Derek had no choice but to sink into thought like a man set before the hardest problem on earth.

More importantly, I really do have to figure out what to do soon.

Even while he worked to ease the delicate girl's temper, Derek's head was a hopeless tangle. He had bumbled his way into the academy exam chapter. The chapter before it should have happened first, and yet, strangely, it never had.

The illegal mages were supposed to commit their terror, and that never happened either.

He had been preparing to report an Illegal Mage disguised as an academy instructor to the knight order, and overnight the man had vanished. Startling as it was, the terror had not come, and that was a relief. Even so.

What happens to Odewal's corruption route?

Even the main story was failing to occur, and Derek was beginning to feel the danger. Every piece of information he knew was worse than tangled. It was turning useless. He could not say with any certainty what would happen in this chapter either, and that worried him all the more.

The exam chapter is something I can't do anything about. That makes it worse.

He had no way to predict what kind of butterfly effect had already taken place. The exam-period chapter was thick with uncertainty. Set aside the fact that his information no longer held: this was the same as a forced event. Derek also had neither the justification nor the authority to stop the exam. All he possessed was the standing of a single student.

I'm powerless.

What good was information, when he could do nothing alone?

"...Why are you making that face?"

"Yes?"

"I'm asking why you suddenly look so sad."

"Ah, no, it's just..."

"I'm not angry. I can see you're enduring something, so I'm asking."

"......"

"Come here."

"I... I..."

"Come on. Are you going to refuse the courage a woman offered first?"

"......"

He was drawn in.

At the scolding of a girl who saw straight through him, Derek found himself in her arms before he knew it. She was plainly younger than he was, and yet here he was, comforted against her. It was shameful.

Even so.

I feel better.

However high his mental age, it seemed the age of his body could not be ignored. An age ruled by hormones. Derek was comforted that way, and Karin gently stroked the boy's gray hair, hoping that the eyes of this much-wounded boy might soften, if only a little.

Well. Contrary to those noble hearts.

"There they go again."

"Lucky bastard."

"...I want a romance too."

To anyone else, it looked like nothing but a couple rubbing it in.

It was summer.

Thud!

"Ah. So this is the Rock Troll?"

As an instructor of the sword faculty, Lee Han had been allowed to meet the troll the students would fight before the exam.

"...It also kind of looks like a doll with a speaker stuck on it."

A true troll stood roughly six meters tall, no different from a large excavator that had turned itself into a robot. For all that, its whole body was sheathed in rock, and it was savage past taming, a beast through and through. This one, though.

A rush of air. "Slow, small, and weak."

A three-meter troll—no, that thing, nothing more than a monster in the shape of rock—moved. To someone it would have been endlessly threatening. Lee Han felt little.

"This isn't a troll."

He had reached his conclusion. This was not a troll. It was only a shoddy counterfeit that had copied the shape. And so.

"Boring."

Crack!

Lee Han's palm struck the rock monster without hesitation. It was no different from a slap across the face, but the shock that slap threw off was enormous.

Boom!

It burst. The rock monster's back ruptured, and the thing collapsed where it stood.

"Mm. I keep ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠ending up using this."

But the method was so convenient that it sat poorly with him instead. It felt as if he would come to lean on it completely.

Next I ought to look into a different technique.

A convenient method was fine, but if he meant to grow stronger, what use was chasing nothing but shortcuts?

A sting.

"...Still, the toughness is decent."

A numbness at his fingertips, felt in the middle of the thought. It was not a great pain, but his hand buzzed. This imitation was weak, and full of openings, so there were plenty of places to hit. Its defense, in exchange, was nothing to scoff at.

And then it squirmed. It squirmed again.

"So it has some regeneration too?"

He had been wondering why the thing was allowed to use the name troll. The ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠broken body was struggling to stick itself back together. Not a creature of nothing but flaws, then. The moment he stamped its head flat and snuffed the life out of it, he was certain.

This was no opponent a student's level could beat.

The regressor and those three will take it easily. The assistant instructor will be cutting it close. The rest won't.

It was not only the bear series. The young-master series was the same. Give them another year of forging and perhaps. Fight as they were now? They would lose.

The reason?

No destructive power.

He knew it all the better because he had been the one to teach them. Those weaklings were nowhere near ready to face this Rock Troll. And so Lee Han understood that the exam was not built so that one had to defeat the monster in order to pass.

The examiners are elders of the military, they said. Men like that will look at fighting power, but they'll look harder at how intelligently a warrior answers what's in front of him.

It was not a bad method. He could feel the intent to drive them to their limit, take the measure of strength and weakness, and through that confirm potential. It was a fitting way to judge them. Even without having learned Fighting Art, one only had to show excellence, and the will to fight to the last. It was not an entirely unreasonable exam.

However.

"...I see why the bears' seniors only last through the second year."

The bears' seniors. Last year's common-born students had been weak, but they would have cleared the bar Lee Han had in mind. That was why they had climbed as far as the second year. And the moment they became second-years, they must have felt it. What they possessed was the making of a fine soldier, or a strategist, and not the making of a knight. Sensing that limit, the withdrawals would have come in droves.

Truly.

"A stupid business. If they're that capable, you ought to hold onto them even if it means opening high-grade Fighting Art. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠What is so sacred about a little exclusivity that you'd throw talent away?"

"......"

"Don't you think so, friend?"

"...Outsiders are forbidden. You know that?"

"Ha ha. Don't worry. I snuck in."

"......Shameless as anything."

Even at the sudden appearance of an outsider, Lee Han let it pass. He had caught the unfamiliar presence—no, the irritating one—long before, and had deliberately left it alone. There had been neither killing intent nor hostility. What sat poorly was the manner of walking up out of nowhere and reading what was inside him. Had the man learned mind reading?

"Not so much mind reading as a knack for reading what other people think. Not by choice. Just a clumsy trick I happened to pick up."

"...And that isn't mind reading?"

"Ha ha. People call it that too, but real mind reading is what you say after you've seen what my elder brother has. A trifling ability like this doesn't even qualify."

"I'd rather not experience it."

"Ha ha. Meet him and you'll change your mind. Unlike the rumors all over the capital, he's the real thing, our elder brother."

"Spare me. What am I supposed to do, meeting that man?"

"Hm? Did I say who our elder brother is?"

"You'd be a damn fool not to know."

"?"

"......"

A strange fellow. He read people's insides at the level of mind reading, and yet he himself had no sense. Did he truly think he would not be found out, with the brand of a winged lion stamped plain as day on his forearm? The brand was one thing. More than that.

"At least hide your hair, and the shape of your eyes."

"Ah. Did I stand out?"

The jet-black hair distinctive of the North was already something, but eyes like a beast's, as if the man resembled a lion, were a symbol only the blood of a certain house could possess: the house said to have inherited the heart of a lion. And those who bore a lion's eyes were, more often than not—

"Mm. I meant to hide who I was. A shame."

"You don't look as if you meant to hide it at all."

"Ha ha. I did mean to. But I watched for a while, and my blood started boiling, and I didn't even have the leisure to hide."

"......"

"I'm not a man without manners, truly. This is just the nature of our house, so it can't be helped...!"

He grinned, all teeth.

A mad berserker who loved a slaughter-fight. A knight who had inherited the blood of Lionel offered Lee Han a match of carnage that sounded like a confession.

"......Crazy bastard."

Of all the people to get snagged by, why something out of a demonic cult—no, a North Sea Demon Cultist?

Why do only bastards like this come at me acting friendly?

Lee Han could not understand it at all.