Chapter 80
Chapter 80
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 80
Chapter Title: How Underachievers Fight (5)
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Knights possess a pride unimaginable to common folk.
The tale of two knights who faced off for three days and nights on a narrow bridge, each waiting for the other to step aside first, was so famous that not a soul in my past life hadn't heard of it.
That was the kind of creature a knight was.
Of course, not all knights were so inflexible and foolish.
But it was an undeniable fact that, on the whole, their pride was abnormally strong.
They exalted it as ‘honor’ and considered the act of defending that honor a great virtue.
The only problem was that there were several other things they considered virtues, and unfortunately, they were all more or less the same as this thing called honor.
Honor, chivalry, reputation, and so on.
The complex fusion of all these things gave birth to the creed of never retreating.
When it was time to fight, knights simply did not back down.
Whether the situation was unfavorable or other circumstances were at play, the reasons mattered little.
If there was an enemy, they fought first and thought later.
That was a knight.
It wasn't hard to predict what would happen if you cornered such knights in a confined space.
As it happened, the result was right before my eyes.
“Hah!”
“Uraagh!”
Battle cries erupted from all sides.
The sharp clang of metal was incessant.
The cadets were tangled together in a chaotic melee.
Whether because they trusted their protective gear or were simply high on the thrill of continuous battle, the sword strikes they exchanged were utterly ferocious.
A good number of cadets had already been eliminated.
Despite that, the battle showed no signs of ending.
“How in the world did things get like this…!”
Someone screamed.
Though no one else said it, they all seemed to be thinking the same thing.
How did it come to this?
That was the look on their faces.
“How did it get like this, you ask…”
I’m the one who made it this way.
“Kekeke.”
The battlefield, composed of abandoned houses and collapsed ruins, could easily be called a labyrinth.
I had already scouted out a few locations.
The conditions were roughly as follows:
First, it had to be accessible from different directions.
Second, the entry points had to be easy to block.
Third, it had to be spacious enough for a large number of people to swing their swords freely.
As luck would have it, there was a suitable clearing among the places I’d noted.
And so, I herded all the brats into that pre-selected clearing.
From there, things proceeded as planned.
The kids who entered from different directions came face-to-face with the kids from the other squads, exchanged a brief stare-down, and…
“Push them back!”
“Don’t let Squad 1 get the best of us!”
A free-for-all erupted.
“That’s right. Fight well.”
I sat on a roof, watching the brats’ chaotic battle.
“So relaxed all by yourself! Did you come here to watch the show?!”
Down below, Udo, who was struggling between Squad 1 and Squad 2, ground his teeth as he looked at me.
I paid him no mind.
I had already done more than my fair share.
I was the one who drew the kids out from their base, and I was the one who lured them here.
“All you did was give orders…!”
It seemed Cadet Udo was quite dissatisfied with the division of labor.
But that was a shortsighted view.
He first needed to understand how much thought I’d put into giving those orders.
Just drawing the brats out was a considerable challenge in itself.
Simply getting them to come out wouldn't have been that hard.
All I had to do was provoke, insult, or taunt them.
The problem was modulating the intensity.
If the provocation was too weak, the brats wouldn’t come out. If it was too strong, it could instill more hostility than necessary in our opponents.
Just enough to not leave any lingering grudges, just enough so that Squad 3 wouldn’t be the primary target in future squad competitions.
It had to be calibrated to that precise level.
After much deliberation, I finally came up with a suitable method and immediately put it into action.
‘I thought it would be easier to deal with Squad 1 than Squad 2…’
‘I judged we’d have a better chance of winning against Squad 2 than Squad 1…’
Since ancient times, there’s been no better way to start a fight than by making comparisons.
As expected, the effect was tremendous.
The kids from Squad 1 and Squad 2 not only left their base of their own accord, but their competitive spirits were so ignited that they drew their swords without hesitation against the rivals they suddenly encountered.
Well, they seemed to be realizing something was wrong now.
In any case, there was no reason for me to indulge Udo’s complaints.
Besides, it wasn’t like I was just lazing around.
“Hup.”
Watching the battle from the rooftop, I threw a blunted dagger.
A kid from Squad 2, who was about to land a decisive blow on a kid from Squad 1, hastily retreated.
I continued to bestow my mercy upon the brats in peril.
I didn’t care which squad they belonged to.
I was just interfering enough to ensure the melee didn’t end too quickly.
*Ping.*
Just then, a sharp whizzing sound came from somewhere.
“Whoa.”
I quickly rolled away.
*Thwack.*
An arrow, tipped with a blunt piece of metal instead of a sharp point, embedded itself where I had been moments before.
I quickly righted myself and searched for the person who had fired the arrow.
On the roof of a building across the clearing where the melee was taking place, a kid holding a longbow as tall as himself was looking my way.
Judging by his insignia, he seemed to be from Squad 2, but I couldn’t remember his name.
He was likely the cadet the other kids had mentioned was skilled with a bow.
He beckoned to me with his hand.
In short, the last shot was a greeting.
“So full of himself.”
I muttered and got to my feet.
I took out the shortbow I had packed before the exercise began and nocked an arrow.
Until that moment, he had been watching me with a relaxed posture.
He seemed to think it would only be fair to exchange one shot at a time.
But I had no intention of playing along.
*Twang. Twang. Twang. Twang. Twang.*
I loosed a volley of arrows.
“…!”
He shouted something in the middle of it, but I didn’t listen.
It was too noisy to hear clearly anyway.
*Twang. Twang. Twang.*
I continued to draw and release the bowstring.
*Clatter.*
The kid, who had been dodging the arrows, missed his footing and fell from the roof.
“…Huh?”
But as fate would have it, Udo was right there.
“I despise archers!”
Udo roared, as if for my benefit, and brought his greatsword down.
“Guuuh!”
And just like that, the nameless kid was eliminated.
While my attention was diverted, the battle below was also nearing its end.
Only three cadets were left standing on two feet.
One from Squad 1, one from Squad 2, and one from our side.
“Hoo.”
The kids, who had briefly retreated to catch their breath, charged in all at once.
Watching them, I…
*Thwip, thwip, thwip.*
…loosed my arrows.
“Gah!”
The brats, who were all hit by an arrow, let out unoriginal screams and collapsed.
“Why me…?”
Udo, who had been struck in the back of the head—a spot unprotected by his gear—looked at me with a dumbfounded expression.
“The numbers don’t add up.”
“What…?”
“Did you forget? Our objective?”
Not to win, but to not lose—that was Squad 3's goal.
For that to happen, Udo had to go down too, making the number of survivors perfectly even.
“Is there really a reason to stick to that plan in this situation… No, wait, why was I the only one hit in the head…?”
I didn’t answer.
The first question was too bothersome to explain, and the second was too awkward to answer.
I couldn’t exactly tell him it was because a sudden rage had boiled up inside me as I looked at the back of the head of the guy who picked a fight with me over every little thing.
“Gack.”
The guy, who had been glaring at me resentfully, rolled his eyes back and passed out.
*Swoosh.*
I looked around.
The fallen warriors(?) were rolling their eyes frantically.
Their protective gear, having absorbed impacts beyond its limit, had inflated and stiffened, leaving them unable to move anything but their eyes.
Among them were the kids from my squad who had lured Squads 1 and 2 to the clearing.
The twin sisters, Dario, Pon, Boen, and Udo.
They all looked like they had something to say.
I had a pretty good idea of what they wanted to tell me.
“That was fun, wasn’t it?”
At my words, the brats shouted as if they had been waiting.
“Squad competitions are the best!”
“Hooray for protective gear!”
The kids from the other squads, though silent, also looked like they had enjoyed themselves.
The ones who had been acting like little old men were now smiling with faces befitting their age.
After all, what else is fun for kids this age?
Moving your body and breaking a sweat—that’s what fun is.
***
In the end, the Silver Eagle class’s first squad competition ended with neither a winner nor a loser.
The instructors and professor who arrived late took care of the fallen warriors(?).
“What’s this? Why is this one unconscious?”
“Maybe the gear was defective.”
Overhearing their hushed voices, I quietly slipped out of the clearing.
But no sooner had I left than I felt a familiar gaze on me.
*Whip.*
I snapped my head up.
A clock tower stood tall in the middle of the battlefield.
And on top of it was a dark silhouette.
“Gasp.”
It was Professor Navian.
I quickly lowered my gaze to the ground before our eyes could meet.
She was so unpredictable that this kind of attention was nothing but a burden.
I hurriedly walked to a spot where the clock tower was out of sight.
As I wandered through the mock battlefield, that sense of unease washed over me again.
“Hmm.”
It felt like I was revisiting a place I had been to a very long time ago.
That was impossible.
This was my first time at the Yoram, in both this life and the last.
“…Is it because it’s in ruins?”
Countless cities had been turned to ruins during the Great War.
And the appearance of a ruined city was, for the most part, the same everywhere.
It wasn't strange at all to feel a sense of familiarity now.
In truth, it wasn’t even worth thinking about.
It seemed I was just being a little oversensitive.
“Cadet Yan.”
Just then, I heard someone call my name.
“Yes, coming!”
I hurried toward the source of the voice.
“The professor is looking for you.”
The instructor who saw me gestured with his chin.
I gave a slight bow and immediately headed in the direction of the professor.
“…?”
When I arrived, both the professor and the vice director were there.
I tilted my head in confusion.
Shouldn’t someone of the vice director’s standing be difficult for a mere cadet to see?
It seemed the position of vice director at the Yoram was, contrary to my thoughts, an incredibly leisurely one.
“You, you’re thinking something quite rude right now.”
The vice director said with a frown, as if he had read my mind.
“You were looking for me…”
I feigned ignorance and asked Professor Dieter Lizner why he had summoned me.
“I heard from the leader of Squad 3.”
Professor Dieter Lizner stared at me for a moment before speaking.
“This was all your handiwork, wasn’t it?”
It wasn’t something worth hiding, so I simply nodded.
“Well, I assume the reason you threw away a victory you had in the bag was to avoid excessive targeting in the next exercise.”
“Could you think of it as me forsaking a minor gain for the greater good?”
“The greater good? What greater good?”
“For example, harmony among my peers?”
“And not because you reluctantly backed down, afraid of being resented?”
“…Hehe.”
As I smiled obsequiously and rubbed my hands together, Professor Dieter Lizner asked an unexpected question.
“Have you ever been part of a mercenary company?”
“…No, I haven’t.”
“Any mercenaries you’re close with?”
“There were the Forsaken Hounds, a group I traveled with to the imperial capital, but…”
“I don’t recognize the name.”
I thought he had called me to ask about the squad competition, but he was only asking strange questions.
“…Then let me rephrase the question.”
Professor Dieter Lizner, who had been lost in his own thoughts for a while, spoke again.
“Do you know of the Dawn Chicken Mercenaries?”
And just like that, I froze.
“No, have you ever met a mercenary named Yanick?”
Because I had never imagined I would hear that name in a place like this, in this way.
The man who united wandering mercenaries and forged them into a force that even the great lords could not ignore.
The eccentric who treated a worthless squire as a friend.
The Mercenary King, Yanick.
The precursor to the war host he led was the Dawn Chicken Mercenaries.