Chapter 69
Chapter 69
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 69
Chapter Title: A Nasty Guy to the End (4)
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The first Zodiac Knight, and the head of the Gaznae family, considered the most prominent of the Eight Families.
‘I knew we'd meet again soon.’
The Black Knight, Gaznae, was right before my eyes.
Her attire, black from head to toe, and her languid eyes, which seemed weary and transcendent of worldly affairs.
Everything was just as it had been when we parted.
The only difference was that she looked a good ten years younger.
*Whoosh.*
The wind blew.
Her long, flowing black hair fluttered.
Revealing the crest on her collar hidden beneath.
“Huh?”
“Th-the black full moon…?”
The kids, who had been standing around blankly, began to stir.
“No way…”
“It can't be…”
The small stir quickly grew into a huge commotion.
“My god! It's the crest of the Gaznae family!”
“A Black Moon Knight from the Gaznae family!”
Eventually, the frenzied kids were running wild.
Whether they were from minor houses or prestigious ones, there were no exceptions.
The racket from the nine kids was deafening.
“I am…”
Just then, she spoke for the first time.
Her voice carried with unusual clarity, even amidst the kids' screams.
*Silence.*
As if by magic, the commotion ceased.
“A 6-star knight, Navie Gaznae. For the record, this is my first time at the Cradle.”
She introduced herself with a straight face.
Spitting out all sorts of lies without batting an eye.
A 6-star knight named Navie.
It was absurd enough that she'd lowered her proper rank by three whole levels, but her lazy alias was just baffling.
Navian, Navie.
The sheer shamelessness of changing just the last syllable and pretending to be someone else was astounding.
Could anyone possibly fall for such a flimsy disguise?
“My god! The Gaznae family!”
“I'm so glad I got into Squad 3!”
Apparently, yes.
“Ah.”
Come to think of it, it made sense.
The head of one of the Eight Families rarely had reason to leave their estate in the first place.
The head of the Gaznae family held a supreme status, capable of moving the world with a flick of a finger from their throne.
Moreover, unlike the other Eight Families or prestigious houses that actively associated with one another, the Gaznae were inherently reclusive.
On the rare occasion she did leave, she was always clad head-to-toe in jet-black armor and a helmet, so it was only natural that few outsiders had ever seen her bare face.
Even if they tried to piece together her identity based on known information, her age wouldn't match.
Whatever trick she'd pulled, she looked a good ten years younger than her actual self, making it stranger to connect her with the current head of the Gaznae family.
To anyone looking, she was nothing more than a young knight in her mid-twenties.
“We're in your care, Professor Navie!”
The kids shouted, bowing deeply at the waist.
No one questioned her overly youthful appearance for a professor.
The foremost of the Empire's Eight Families.
The name Gaznae, the greatest martial family of the era, carried that much weight.
The kids all seemed thrilled, simply overjoyed at the fact that they would be taught by a knight from the renowned Gaznae family.
After all, when would one ever get an opportunity to be taught by a knight from the Gaznae family, universally acknowledged as the Empire's greatest martial house?
What's more, her true identity was that of the Empire's greatest knight.
This was truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
If, that is, they could keep up with her teachings.
“Ugh…”
The memory of her tearing me to shreds dozens of times with her Mind Sword under the guise of "guidance" flashed through my mind.
Even now, the thought of it is enough to make me jolt awake from a sound sleep.
And now, I was stuck receiving that torture-like guidance every single day.
It was enough to drive me mad.
My eyes met with Navian's—no, Professor Navie's.
Her eyes curved ever so slightly.
*A creeping sensation.*
A subtle aura of energy began to flow from her.
I reflexively took a step back.
“Well then,”
Professor Navie began, staring straight at me.
“Come.”
An abrupt command.
“...?”
No one understood what she meant.
I was the only one who felt the energy flowing from her body, the only one who sensed something was wrong.
*Stealthily.*
I backed away a few more steps as discreetly as I could.
But it was too late.
“If you won't come, then I will.”
By then, she had already kicked off the ground.
*Fwip.*
The afterimage she left behind vanished like a phantom.
She reappeared in the middle of the cadets.
“Huh?”
Seeing the kids still standing around cluelessly, I whipped around and started running.
In the opposite direction of Professor Navie.
I shouted,
“Run!”
At that moment, behind me,
*BOOM!*
An explosion erupted from the spot where I'd just been standing.
***
In this world, there are things called natural disasters.
Storms, floods, earthquakes, and so on.
Though each took a different form, these "disasters" all had one thing in common.
The fact that you couldn't stop them, even if you saw them coming.
In my past life, that was Roman. In this life, it was Professor Navie.
“Guh.”
“Ugh…”
Groans echoed from all around.
Some were sprawled face down, others were strewn about.
Some were unconscious, some were not.
Their positions and conditions varied slightly, but they were all a complete mess.
I was the only one still standing on two feet.
No, "standing" might be a stretch.
*Tremble, tremble.*
My legs were shaking like a leaf.
It was the result of a tremendous burst of energy exploding nearby.
My stomach churned.
Bile rose to the back of my throat.
I felt like I was going to vomit at any moment.
And this was after sensing the danger and putting distance between us early on.
I almost felt sorry for the kids who'd taken that monstrous blast head-on.
Of course, this wasn't exactly a good time to be worrying about others.
“As expected…”
Professor Navie was staring intently at me.
Licking her lips.
Was this how someone would look at a perfectly roasted piece of meat after starving for four days?
Or finding an oasis after wandering the desert?
Her expression was one of someone itching to bite, tear, chew, and savor.
She looked ready to pounce at any second.
*Whoosh.*
But instead of lunging, she returned to her original spot and whispered in a small voice,
“Stand.”
At that not-so-loud voice, the kids who had been groaning on the floor shot to their feet.
“They say all the geniuses of the Empire gather at the Cradle, but all I see is a bunch of chaff.”
She suddenly spat insults at the kids, who were still dazed and recovering from the shock.
Despite being hit by a sudden blast of energy, sent tumbling to the ground, and then verbally abused, not a single one of them showed any sign of resentment.
Her background, her very aura, made it so.
“You see,”
Professor Navie said, scanning the kids who stood with ramrod-straight backs like disciplined new recruits.
“I'm quite fond of the saying, 'The more you fold steel, the tougher it gets; the more you hammer it, the harder it becomes.'”
The moment I heard that, my vision went dark.
It didn't sound like a simple metaphor, but a promise to frequently fold and hammer us for the rest of our time here.
“Then, again.”
As always, my bad feelings were never wrong.
“Block it, or dodge it. Use any means necessary.”
Folding and hammering. Of the two, she chose to start with hammering.
*Thwack.*
Professor Navie attacked the kids one by one.
Unlike before, she moved slowly enough for them to prepare.
“Ack!”
“Gaaah!”
But not a single kid managed to block or dodge the blatantly obvious attacks.
They couldn't even dream of counterattacking.
They were either kicked or punched.
The kids went flying.
“Hoh.”
And then it was my turn.
Professor Navie stood in place and looked at me.
I was expecting a fist or a foot, even raising my shield in preparation, when a brilliant blue sword light suddenly flashed.
A slash flew straight for my neck.
I instinctively raised my shield to cover my neck.
*Clang.*
The tremendous impact sent me collapsing to the ground.
“...?”
The area was quiet.
The kids looked at me with confusion in their eyes.
And that confusion soon turned to ridicule.
“What's he doing all by himself?”
“Did he get scared, back away, and fall on his ass?”
Only then did I realize that the slash that had flown at me wasn't real, but a Mind Sword.
To them, it must have looked like I got scared of Professor Navie, flailed around on my own, and collapsed.
“Coward.”
“The shame of Squad 3.”
I couldn't think of an excuse in the face of the kids' jeers.
“...”
I forced myself to act nonchalant as I dusted off my rear and stood up.
The same thing happened again.
“Ack!”
“Gack!”
The kids singled out by Professor Navie flew through the air with bizarre screams.
“Ugh.”
*Stagger, thump.*
I, struck by the Mind Sword, tumbled disgracefully to the ground.
“He acted so high and mighty, but look at him now. What an eyesore.”
“It's almost pathetic.”
The kids, who had no way of seeing the Mind Sword, mocked me for being a coward.
The same scene played out several times.
“If we win the squad competition, we should kick him out first…”
“If he's like that in a spar, he'll be useless in a real fight.”
And so, by the end of class, I had become Squad 3's prime candidate for expulsion.
It was unfair.
But I didn't even have the energy left to argue.
“*Pant, pant.*”
After a dozen near-death experiences, I was completely drained, both mentally and physically. All I could do in that state was lie on the ground, gasping for breath.
“You okay?”
Only Pon, whom I'd gotten to know a bit during the entrance exam, showed me any concern.
“No, not okay at all.”
At my pained voice, Pon gave an awkward laugh.
“We'll continue this next class.”
The culprit behind this whole situation, Professor Navie, declared the end of class.
Just then, Lian—the kid who was our squad leader—cautiously approached and asked her a question.
To summarize, he was asking when the real lessons would begin.
To this, Professor Navie declared with a nonchalant expression,
“Don't even dream of it until you can block one of my strikes.”
Not a chance until you pass the test.
And with that, having given them an utterly impossible task, Professor Navie sauntered out of the training grounds.
With the leisurely gait of a well-fed cat.
Lying on the ground, I turned my head to follow her retreating back and sighed inwardly.
The first day was a reckless tournament, the second was a reckless assault.
Was the Cradle always like this, or was it because we got the "wrong" professor?
It was baffling that I'd been a cadet at the Cradle for two days now and hadn't received a single proper lesson.
But it seemed I was the only one who thought so.
“As expected of a Gaznae knight. She must first test our qualifications to be taught.”
“Right. This is a kind of test.”
The other kids seemed to have no complaints about the flimsy lesson content.
“I wonder who will be the first to pass the test.”
“What's there to say? It'll be me, obviously.”
“Not a chance. I will be the one to pass Professor Navie's test first.”
In fact, they were burning with motivation, each vowing to be the hero who first parried her strike.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
Do those guys have any idea how ridiculous the goal they've set for themselves is?
My mouth itched to speak.
I clenched my jaw and covered my ears.
Otherwise, I felt like I would say it.
Snap out of it.
Blocking the sword of the greatest knight of the era.
As far as I knew, there was only one monster capable of such a feat.
But that one-of-a-kind person wasn't here right now.
Which meant that for a long time to come—perhaps until I left the Cradle—I might just end up being folded and hammered like steel until the very end.
“*Heave.*”
After resting on the ground for a bit, my depleted energy returned.
I staggered to my feet and headed straight for my dorm.
[The Emperor Who Abandoned His Country] Wargame.
[The Emperor Who Abandoned His Country] Wargame.
As if on cue, the Emperor Who Abandoned His Country urged me to start the wargame.
But unfortunately, I didn't have the energy to comply with his request today.
My plan was to collapse onto my bed the moment I got back.
That was the plan.
*Rumble-rumble-rumble.*
Until a sudden roar echoed and the ground beneath my feet began to shake.
“...!”
The entire satellite city was shaking.
As if it were about to fall from the sky.