Chapter 7
Chapter 7
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>Translator: Lord First
>Chapter: 7
>Chapter Title: A Helper Appears
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3. Terror always occurs on the academy entrance train. (5)
*
“Ugh… hhhk… ghk….”
“It’s alright. You won’t die.”
“Just kill me….”
“Don’t say that.”
Ivan whispered affectionately as he trickled a potion over Hugo’s body.
Each time the viscous, cold liquid touched his skin, Hugo’s body flinched, and a small scream escaped his lips.
Ivan knew exactly what this man was feeling. After all, healing potions were one of the most hated things among soldiers who had served on the front lines. (The fact that healing potions were ranked just after field rations, superiors, commanders, generals, and the enemy spoke volumes about their reputation.)
In fact, he himself had once been forcibly administered a healing potion when his forearm was nearly torn off.
-Just cut my arm off!! Aaaargh!!
>-Don’t say such things, Sir Petrovich. Your body is a treasure of our nation!
>-Who treats a treasure like this?!!
It was an experience from his younger, more inexperienced days. After that horrifying ordeal, Ivan did his best to avoid any major injuries.
The healing potion induced a level of pain that matched a particularly nasty medicine he could only recall by digging through his memories as Kim Seon-woo. The name of that cursed oral antiseptic, of course, was Albothyl.
Thanks to this, Ivan had discovered a new use for healing potions during his service in the Annihilation Squad.
A healing potion inflicted pain comparable to pouring salt on a burn.
>But it would always heal the wound.
>This meant that interrogation could continue even while treating the injuries sustained during the process.
It was, in a word, sustainable interrogation. At the time, Ivan’s fellow agents in the Annihilation Squad had been horrified by his idea. (But sadly, as there was no Geneva Convention in this other world, prisoners of war had no human rights.)
“No… no more… I don’t… I don’t know… anything else…! Really… I swear… so please, stop….”
“You’re more useless than I thought.”
“Save… no, kill me….”
“No, you must live.”
Because you’re the tutorial boss.
-Drip, drip.
Ivan let more of the potion trickle down, silencing the man as he stood up.
He had learned that the criminal group that had instigated the train terror wore thick coats, consisted of adult men, and had their faces concealed by a recognition-inhibiting spell.
It was January. Which meant it was the season when, naturally, adult men wore thick coats.
He couldn’t even identify their nationality by their speech or accent. He hadn’t anticipated that this man would be a country bumpkin incapable of distinguishing such things.
A dead end. Ivan clicked his tongue and surveyed his surroundings. The train was still quiet. That was a good sign.
‘Princess Esidis is still fighting.’
If Princess Esidis had been defeated, the bandits would have swarmed out of the train. They may not have found gold bars, but they would have captured a high-value noble.
The fact that no one had emerged from the train yet was, conversely, proof of Esidis’s safety.
Just as Ivan thought this and turned to head toward the train.
In that instant, his Death Line Perception sent a fierce warning to his brow.
His brow?
No, to his entire face.
-Whoooosh—
It came with the sound of tearing wind.
-Craaaaaaash—!!
A boulder, flying like a shot put, swept through the spot where Ivan had just been standing.
Ivan quickly threw himself aside, dodging the successive death lines. *Crash, crash, crash!* Boulders slammed down precisely where he had been.
“Come out.”
Judging by the throws, this was an opponent of considerable strength.
>In that case, his opponent must also be aware of Death Line Perception.
Since it was clear this would have to be settled in close combat, the opponent would have to reveal himself eventually.
-The captain is a real monster!!
Had he underestimated the words of a grunt who couldn't even use Death Line Perception? Did this mean the man he’d just dealt with wasn't the captain? Then he’d just wasted a precious potion.
Ivan glared coldly at the man approaching from a distance.
“You’ve got some skill.”
A middle-aged man with a physique of solid, chiseled muscle strode forward and growled.
A terrifying killing intent, strong enough to make one’s whole body tingle, swirled around him.
“But to think of touching my nephew. For all your skill, you’re a fool.”
Nephew. This man’s relative? This was getting complicated.
Ivan clicked his tongue, holstered his pistol, and gripped an axe in each hand.
“I hope you know something.”
“Nonsense… Come. I’ll kill you.”
The man ground his teeth and raised his own axe.
In the next instant, the two men clashed.
*
-Whoooosh-! *Crack!!*
Esidis gritted her teeth as she heard the sound of the violin’s fingerboard twisting.
“Kkangk-kkangi, just hold on a little longer!”
A violin is not made for bludgeoning things. As is the case with most musical instruments. (The electric guitar is an exception. It is perfected by being smashed on stage.)
Thus, this delicate and fragile wooden string instrument was slowly being destroyed, its front plate splintering and fingerboard warping with every swing of Esidis’s arm.
But Kkangk-kkangi (violin, age 2) would never let the memories and friendship it shared with Esidis be in vain.
Each time Kkangk-kkangi was swung, things tended to break. Mostly, the skulls of adult men.
“C-Crazy bitch!! What is she?!!”
“Where are the gold bars! Hey! What happened in the cargo car!”
“There’s nothing!! We were tricked!”
The bandits wanted to run. There was no gold, the army would surely be after them for blowing up the train, and the crazy woman before them was bashing people’s heads in with a violin.
Esidis wanted to run, too. She could feel Kkangk-kkangi’s life fading with every passing moment, fighting was terrifying, and she had no idea where she was.
-Thwack!
>-Crack!
When Kkangk-kkangi harvested the teeth of another bandit and finally breathed its last.
>Esidis clutched the remaining fragment of the violin’s fingerboard and groaned in despair.
“Kkangk-kkangi… you were a fine instrument….”
“Crazy bitch, crazy bitch!!”
“Shouldn’t we be running? This isn’t the time to fight!”
“Dammit, you think she’s just going to let us walk away?”
“Aaargh! Where the hell is the big boss?!”
Unaware that their big boss was currently caught between a muscular old beast and a special forces officer, the bandits shuffled back, murmuring amongst themselves.
That was a mistake.
‘Slaughterer’ Einar’s daughter resembled her mother in many ways, but at least in ‘rage,’ ‘fighting spirit,’ and ‘combat skill,’ she was the spitting image of her father.
To the warriors of Droan, a comrade-in-arms was like a sworn brother. She could not let the death of her long-time comrade, Kkangk-kkangi (two years old, an instrument), be for nothing.
She gently caressed the remains of Kkangk-kkangi, then slowly straightened up.
“Kkangk-kkangi, I won’t forget your sacrifice. Thank you for everything, and I’m sorry.”
“I’ll hold off this madwoman. The rest of you, run.”
“Boss!!”
“Go! At least you guys have to get out alive!”
At the bandit’s shout, the remaining stragglers turned in unison and began to flee. Tears welled in their eyes as they headed toward the main group where their big boss was supposed to be.
After a glance at them, the lone bandit who remained turned to face Esidis with a resolute expression.
“This is a misunderstanding, my lady.”
“…Huh?”
“We had no idea you were on this train. But if you spare me, I am willing to go to court and testify. Krasilov is a nation of laws, is it not? Please spare me!”
The bandit threw down his weapon and fell to his knees, shouting. It was a wise decision.
Because at that very moment, the bandits who had fled were breaking out in a cold sweat, caught between an enraged Huscarl and an enraged Annihilation Squad officer.
*
“What do you think will change just because you brought a few more grunts?!!”
“…More of them survived than I thought. But it changes nothing.”
The two men, who had been trading axe blows, shouted simultaneously as they saw the bandits pour out of the train.
“Esidis, what happened to the woman on that train? There should have been a young woman with blonde hair. Is she safe?”
“My nephew!! Is my nephew safe?!”
Ivan paused at the man’s shout.
>Wasn’t *this* guy the nephew?
Ivan glanced at the man who had been knocked unconscious by shrapnel during the fight and groaned.
No wonder this was so difficult.
For an early tutorial, the man before him was an overly engineered boss.
He had wondered if he was one of those bosses in Soulslike games that act as a difficulty spike to filter players, but even for that, he had too many attack patterns. There was no way a beginner could beat him.
In that case….
‘In the Academy genre, the train attack never kills the protagonist. Because a helper always appears to aid them.’
So this guy was the helper.
And the actual tutorial boss fight was probably designed to get the player used to multi-opponent combat by having them fight a few grunts and a weak boss who escaped from the train.
Ivan sighed and put away his axes. Their blades were so chipped they were probably useless now. Weapons were mostly consumables anyway, but it was still a shame.
“Hmm, wait. Weren’t you two on the same side…?”
“I don’t know why you’d think that.”
The man narrowed his eyes as he followed Ivan’s lead and put away his weapon.
“You were pouring a healing potion on that bastard.”
“Mm.”
Explaining that it was an Annihilation Squad interrogation technique would be too much. And he had no way of convincing him anyway.
>Ivan shrugged.
“I had something to find out.”
“Tch, you should’ve said that first.”
You didn’t give me time to explain.
As Ivan looked at the man with a sour expression, the man’s face broke into a wide grin as he saw a woman running energetically from the train.
“Nephew!! Essie!! You’re safe!!”
“Ugh, Uncle?!”
Ivan ignored the man running off and clicked his tongue as he glanced at the bandits, who were terrified by the destruction around them, as if a bomb had gone off.
The target was safe, and the helper was more than capable of protecting her until she reached Saint Yansk University.
And he himself was someone the target must not see. His position would be compromised if his identity were revealed, and he had a history with Esidis.
It was seven long years ago, and back then Esidis was just a kid of about fifteen, but there was still a chance she might remember him.
He had gathered all the information he could here. Ivan turned and withdrew.
*
Esidis, eldest daughter of Berserker Einar.
>Arrived in Krasilov.
One agent from Droan dispatched, presumed Huscarl.
Target’s safety secured.
After sending a short, encrypted telegram to the Eastern Palace, Ivan boarded a train bound for the capital.
It had been a tiring day for little gain.
*
“Essie, do you happen to remember a man named Ivan?”
“Uncle Ivan?! Yes! Of course I do!”
Esidis, who had brightened at the familiar name, soon lowered her head gloomily.
“He was such a good person… kind, and cool….”
“I’m not so sure about that, but anyway.”
The man scowled and continued walking.
>Below a makeshift palanquin fashioned from a train door, five or six terrified bandits carried the litter.
The man made sure Esidis, riding atop the palanquin, couldn’t hear him as he muttered under his breath.
“I’m sure I heard he died two years ago.”
His fighting style had seemed familiar, a dead ringer for the Krasilov special forces.
And his axe-work felt strangely familiar, too, similar to his brother-in-law Einar’s.
If he was a Krasilov operative who had learned to use an axe from Einar, there was only one person who fit the bill.
-Reserve Ivan Petrovich.
More precisely, ‘Hero Reserve’ Ivan Petrovich. One of those deemed worthy of being deployed if a spot opened up in the Hero’s Party.
But that man was said to have died in a mutual kill with one of the Seven Dragon Generals during the extermination campaigns after the Demon King’s death.
It was a pity he hadn’t gotten a good look at the man’s face, what with the thick beard, the dark woods, and his own blinding rage.
Well, he seemed to be with one of the royal intelligence organizations, so he would probably run into him once or twice while working in the capital.
He’d have to make him shave then. The man shrugged and walked on.
A week’s journey to the capital on foot.
The two ‘freshmen’ of Saint Yansk University begin their journey by train-palanquin!
*