Chapter 96
Chapter 96
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>Translator: Lord First
>Chapter: 96
>Chapter Title: Real Combat is Common Sense (1)
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*
Of everything in the principal's office, what he needed to pack wouldn't even fill a single bag. His weapons were already at headquarters, leaving only daily necessities, most of which could be provided by the command's supply depot anyway.
So, for the first time in a while, Ivan took out a notebook from under his desk in the principal's office.
“…”
It was filled to the brim with scribbles he had hastily written when he first thought this world was the prologue of an academy story. The 'common sense' rules of the academy, written in a state of urgency.
Despite it not even being a few months, Ivan felt a vague sense of nostalgia as he flipped through the notebook. Surprisingly, many of the 'common sense' points he had written down back then had already been resolved.
Wait.
Resolved?
Ivan sat down, trying hard to pull out a vague memory floating in his mind.
Staring intently at the notebook, he tried to recall something he had heard somewhere. What was it? It had been quite memorable… Right.
Ah.
-Title: Seriously, the most annoying thing about academy stories
-The protagonist takes all the growth events, all the quest rewards, all the hidden pieces, monopolizes all the heroine-saving narratives, and then whenever a problem arises, he's like, 'I guess I have to step in after all.' What a load of crap.
>ㄴTrue lol
“Oh…”
Finally piecing his thoughts together, Ivan quietly looked down at his notebook.
The academy's first tutorial. The train attack. I handled it.
The field training attack, I... handled it.
The academy's secret room. I handled that one, too.
The tournament, the so-called flower of the academy genre. I... no, that wasn't related to the academy in the first place.
Dealing with the nobles plotting against the princess (headmistress). From a broader perspective, this is close to an academy genre cliché (Death Eaters), so yes. I handled that one, too.
At this point, Ivan put down the notebook for a moment and thought.
Isn't this... making the hero's party too weak?
I've been overseeing some minor training, but in academy stories, training is just a passing mention in the daily narrative. It's common sense that the protagonist doesn't get stronger through training.
Studying at school isn't an academy story; it's a documentary. An academy isn't a place for teaching things; it should pursue the lioness's method of education—throwing students into terrible hardships to raise them.
A protagonist's typical path to awakening is through real combat, hardship, adversity, friendship, and love. There's no such thing as a protagonist who gets stronger through physical conditioning and skill training.
This world isn't so earnest and soft. That's just how academy stories are. Even Naruto couldn't get strong through training alone. It might be easier to understand if you recall the fate of a certain martial artist boy who dared to try getting stronger through effort. (That village was so serious about real combat they used elementary schoolers as child soldiers.)
So, isn't this... a rather big problem right now?
At this rate, he was facing a crisis where he'd have to take down the final boss—probably the Demon King or someone of that caliber—all by himself. Setting aside whether that was even possible, the bigger issue was whether it would even count as an ending.
Enrique had told him to turn his own page, but looking at the series of events unfolding, wasn't it crystal clear that the genre of this story was 'academy'?
“They need to gain real combat experience, not just training.”
Ivan finally reached a conclusion. He even felt a sense of crisis, a feeling that he couldn't just let the children of the Hero's Party continue to focus on their studies peacefully.
Even in literary fiction, no one studies at school. In literary fiction, you're more likely to see murders or passionate dramas between men. A school is never a place for studying. (It's not.)
Real combat, real combat…
Ivan stared with dry eyes at one of the walls in his office.
At the sight of countless weapons, meticulously maintained every day, resting cleanly on their racks.
At the memory of the days when he had to wield them with all his might, rampaging on the battlefield.
The northern front, where snow used to fall.
Ah, that's right.
“Summer break is coming soon.”
It's common sense for academy students to go on a sort of training retreat as part of their vacation. Ivan nodded quietly in the darkness.
Late at night, in the pitch-black principal's office, Ivan sat at the table with his fingers interlaced, his two eyes glowing with a solitary blue light.
The protagonists need real combat,
And to him, real combat meant killing.
Ep 15. The Academy Summer Break Event is, of Course, Real Combat
Saint Yansk University is always lively. In fact, that's only natural. Considering the university's enormous tuition fees, the students who could afford it generally didn't have to worry about things like their college grades or life after graduation.
It's easier to understand if you think of an arts university on Earth. Parents who can send their children to an arts university for four years are fundamentally wealthy. In such an environment, arts universities were almost always full of life.
No matter how poorly a noble's child does after graduation, they will still inherit their family's title, which means they're guaranteed to become the lord of a large estate. It helps to remember that studying isn't a mandatory virtue for the child of a factory owner.
Therefore, with the final exams having just ended, Saint Yansk University was enjoying a festive atmosphere day after day.
“Bella! What are you doing after school? Want to go to a café?”
>“No, I'm busy.”
Isabelle trudged along with a gloomy expression, scanning her surroundings. Of course, she wasn't looking for other students. She was searching for a certain man who had been missing for several days now.
Was he hurt again? She had definitely seen him collapse, but after hearing that the princess herself was nursing him, the hospital had been sealed off, so she couldn't visit.
It was the same after that. The orphanage was still under repair, and for some reason, the Counter-Intelligence Command was cut off from the outside world and bustling with activity. (Then again, intelligence agencies are supposed to be cut off from the outside world.)
So,
-Mister, I heard you failed to get married! Oh, how sad. Doesn't this mean someone really needs to take you in? Do you even know any women?
-Hmph. I guess it can't be helped. Well. Then just wait two years. If you're still single by the time I graduate, I suppose I'll have to take you in, out of charity.
-Don't get too emotional about it. Hehe, I'm in my prime, you know? Who knows? I might meet someone else in the meantime.
-No, no, no, don't be so hurt! There's no one! No one, I tell you! I'm not even thinking about it!
Things like that, you know.
Those kinds of situations. Hoping for those situations, she went to the training grounds every day, waited blankly in the courtyard at night, and even wandered the campus during lunch looking for a certain suspicious gardener.
But he wasn't there. She couldn't find Ivan anywhere. And then, a sudden anxiety welled up inside her.
The mister is an intelligence agent, a very competent one at that, and a high-ranking agent who takes orders directly from the princess.
On top of that, he was so serious about marriage that he personally participated in the princess's marriage tournament and fought with all his might against the so-called strongest elf, an old man (he's not).
Could the princess... also be interested in the mister?
“No way!!”
That can't be right. Of course not. Even if his eyes are a little pretty, look at that beard. It's always long and unkempt, yet annoyingly well-textured, and his hair is always a bird's nest. Who would want a man whose daily attire is a shabby work uniform?
Right, that's it. He's just a pitiful old man (he's not) that no one but me would take in.
Then was he really badly hurt? So much that he can't even move?
Isabelle grumbled to herself for a while as she walked. Today, she was going to try making that fermented vegetable stew again, but this time she planned to pickle it with the salted meat the mister liked.
If Ivan had seen it, it was a dish that would have made him tear up and exclaim, "The day has come when I can eat Spam wrapped in kimchi."
*
“Miss Einarsdottir, if you don't have any plans after school today, would you like to….”
>“Oh, I'm sorry. My fiancé wouldn't like that.”
>“Fian...?! You're engaged...?”
>“Yes, hehe. My father was quite insistent. We plan to marry right after graduation.”
Esidis was enjoying her life in the conducting department.
These prospective unemployed nobles, who didn't play instruments themselves, were generally among the most sociable students at the arts university. This was due to the academic nature of their field, which greatly dulled the sharp edge typical of artists.
Issues like how cheap or expensive someone's instrument was, or what they did to afford it, were distant matters to the conducting department.
There were plenty of expensive batons, of course, but even one carved from solid gold was, from a noble's perspective, just an expensive stick. The price ceiling was on a completely different level from high-end instruments.
On top of that, Esidis's baton was a steel rod. The Goddess Who Sings of Fury, Kwang-kwang-yi (the 2nd: 2 months old), was actually shaped more like a mace than a baton.
A foreign princess, neat in appearance, with a gentle personality and even a frugal demeanor. Faced with the boiling passion of first-year university students, Esidis could never be lonely.
“Miss Einarsdottir is engaged...?”
>“No... No way...!”
>“This can't be real. What was the point of me coming to this university...?”
Thus, the male students of the conducting department screamed at this thunderous news and scattered like a disorderly mob. (They did accept it, however, as engagements were a common form of marriage.)
“Esi! Who's your fiancé? Is he handsome?”
>“Hmm. I found out recently that he's a provincial noble... He is handsome. He's a friend of my father's...”
>“Ack.”
Engaged to her dad's friend...? Then how old is he?
The faces of the students beside Esidis, who had been fluttering with excitement over this romance of the century, cracked.
Esi's dad is... the Butcher of Droan, Great King Einar...
Uh-oh, if the 'Butcher' approved of him... and he's a friend of a similar age... their tastes are probably similar...
An image of a muscular, middle-aged man bursting into laughter with a beard full of beer foam flashed through the students' minds.
“Miss Einarsdottir! M-Marriage must be considered more carefully...! No matter how important political matters are, they are not more important than your life, Miss Einarsdottir! Do you understand? I, I will save you, I swear it!!”
Some kid, the son of Count Tilles, wailed and ran off. Esidis watched his retreating back with a cold gaze before shaking her head.
“Where is he now? If he's in Fritzenkaya, I'd love to see him sometime!”
At her classmate's words, with whom she had become quite close, Esidis's expression hardened.
Right, where could he be.
The man who, despite being engaged, entered a tournament to marry another woman, fought until he passed out, was carried away, and then vanished without a word.
Fundamentally, this was unacceptable behavior in Droan. Droan was a civilized society where monogamy was a firm tradition. Such barbaric concubinage was something that deserved to be subjected to a 'traditional game.' Usually, in such cases, it meant castration.
Since they were only engaged with the permission of both parents, it wouldn't come to that... but still, thinking of their future married life, she needed to establish some discipline.
Esidis quietly stroked Kwang-kwang-yi (baton: steel) and fell into worried thought.
*
At that moment, Ivan was in the command headquarters' operations room, looking over a military map of Krasilov.
“Supply lines?”
>“We can secure them from a nearby territory. Yelavinsk happens to be in the vicinity. The newly enthroned Duke Sheretif will certainly be favorable to headquarters' operations.”
>“Excellent. What's our available troop strength?”
>“Excluding the agents operating within Fritzenkaya, and also excluding personnel dispatched to the north and west... the total number of personnel within the southern Krasilov region is approximately 63.”
>“And the armed personnel, excluding essential staff from the domestic intelligence department?”
>“In that case, 47 remain.”
>“That's sufficient.”
He couldn't touch the agents currently deployed on missions, so if he requisitioned the personnel on standby for training, he'd have just under 50 people.
That was more than enough to form a strike team capable of acting as a rear disruption unit in a small-scale theater of operations.
Meaning it was overkill for managing a group of five or six people.
Ivan nodded in satisfaction. The operations officer asked cautiously.
“We're about to post the training notice. Will you be submitting an operation plan?”
>“I'll do it myself. The operation name is…”
Summer Retreat.
It was, after all, an essential element of an academy's summer break.
He would establish an operational area encompassing both the sea and the mountains, and within it, conduct 'real combat' training that incorporated all of his own battle experience.
So, the operation name would be Summer Retreat. That was all it needed.
Ivan nodded and rose from his seat.
*