Chapter 93
Chapter 93
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 93
Chapter Title: Descent or Advent (3)
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Hair like ebony and the hem of a pitch-black coat.
“Professor Navian…?”
The moment I realized who it was, the tension in me snapped.
My eyes closed on their own, and my consciousness began to fade.
I forced them open, holding on.
How many times had I been carried off after losing consciousness since becoming a student at the Cradle?
Not this time.
*Grip.*
I bit my lip.
A sharp pain and the coppery taste of blood spread through my mouth.
It cleared my head, if only a little.
“Professor, how did you get here…?”
I belatedly asked Professor Navian.
“I came to rescue you.”
She replied as if it were nothing.
That wasn't the answer I was looking for.
What I really wanted to know was how she knew to come all this way.
“On my own two feet.”
“…”
Thinking back, my conversations with her always went like this.
It wasn't anything new.
“Thank you.”
So, instead of pestering her with questions, I simply expressed my gratitude.
Instead of replying, she lifted me into her arms.
“W-wait, just a moment…!”
Lifting a person with broken legs like that—there was no way my body would hold up.
“…?”
It did.
I didn't feel the pain I should have.
Instead, a gentle warmth enveloped my body.
It was the unique energy of Professor Navian, something I had felt once before.
Awkwardly.
I, who had opened my mouth as if to scream, slowly closed it.
My eyes darted around for a moment before I belatedly remembered the wyvern and looked up.
It was gone.
The wyvern that had been plummeting toward me with such terrifying force moments ago was nowhere to be seen.
Far away, high in the distant sky, I could only glimpse a tiny dot.
Even that soon disappeared from sight completely.
The male wyvern, seeking to take my life to avenge its family, had fled in terror.
And I had escaped the death that had been right at my doorstep.
“Let’s go back.”
Professor Navian turned around.
With every step she took, the scenery surrounding me flew backward.
But the landscape vanishing from my view was utterly devastated.
Massive trees, snapped at their bases.
The corpses of countless types of monsters.
And the black-robed assailants, sprawled about and covered in blood.
“Hm?”
I felt like I had seen something out of place in a forest like this, but it must have been my imagination.
There was no way people would be in a forest teeming with monsters.
The scene had flashed by in an instant, so I must have seen it wrong.
I closed my eyes.
The view wasn't beautiful enough to warrant enduring the harsh wind, and watching the rapidly changing scenery was making me dizzy.
Sleep washed over me.
I couldn't fight it, and at some point, I began to nod off.
But it seemed I had only been dozing.
“Huh?”
When I came to my senses, dawn was already breaking in the distance.
Had she really run all night while carrying me?
I was utterly humbled.
The fact that the Empire's greatest knight had rushed such a long distance to save me, and that the head of the Gaznae family, one of the finest of the Eight Families, had personally carried me through the night—it was all so overwhelming.
*Glance.*
I looked up at Professor Navian.
I suddenly wondered.
Why did she go to such lengths for me?
But I didn't open my mouth to ask her.
Even if I did, I’d only get some bizarre answer.
Besides, the assembly point was already just ahead.
“…”
I frowned.
Torches illuminated the area, and guards were posted everywhere.
The air was unusually heavy.
The faint scent of blood lingered.
It was an atmosphere one would expect on a battlefield.
The level of security seemed a bit excessive for just one missing cadet.
“Hey! Someone’s back!”
One of the cadets on watch spotted Professor Navian and me and shouted at the top of his lungs.
“Who? Who’s back!”
“Don’t tell me the Sky Knights are back already!”
With a rising clamor, people poured out of the tents.
Nowhere on the faces of those who appeared was there any sign of having just woken up.
What caught my eye before the deep exhaustion under their eyes was their attire—they were fully armed.
A perfect combat-ready stance.
I knew it instinctively.
Something had definitely happened.
“Professor Navian?”
“Did she give up halfway and come back?”
The crowd that had rushed to the entrance of the assembly point murmured as they looked our way.
“Huh? Someone’s being carried!”
“It’s the kid from Team 3 who went missing!”
“Professor Navian is back with the missing cadet!”
No sooner had the words been spoken than a group of cadets standing at the entrance rushed out.
“Yan, you bastard!”
“You damn brat!”
It was Lian and the other cadets from Team 3.
“Good morning.”
I greeted them with a bright smile.
“Good morning, my ass!”
“You punk! Do you have any idea how worried we were?”
“You make everyone worry sick, and then you casually say what? Good morning?”
But what I received wasn't a welcome, but a scolding.
“You damn brat! You should’ve been eaten!”
Udo snapped.
Normally, I would have fired back at his insults and curses, but I didn't.
The emotions on his feigned angry face as he berated me were truly complex and varied.
Relief and gladness.
Guilt and concern.
It was a familiar look.
A look and expression I had seen countless times in my past life.
It was the exact same look on the faces of those who had retreated, leaving comrades behind, only to greet them later upon their unexpected return.
The harsher-than-usual insults were simply an expression of their guilt.
It wasn't just Udo.
Though to varying degrees, they all wore similar expressions.
In other words, they had been genuinely worried about me.
A warm, fuzzy feeling spread through my chest.
“My dear Udo, you missed me that much, didn't you? You look like you’re about to burst into tears.”
The feeling was so unbearable that I spouted nonsense.
“Hearing you talk so cheekily, you must be fine…”
Lian trailed off, a faint smile on his lips.
His eyes, shaking as if an earthquake had struck, scanned my body up and down.
I belatedly realized the state I was in.
The numerous wounds I had sustained while dealing with the young wyvern.
My two legs, dangling uselessly, the price of a reckless escape attempt.
The massive bite mark from where the mother wyvern had chomped down and thrashed me about.
And on top of that, the front of my clothes was completely stained crimson from coughing up blood several times.
My state was so wretched that ‘a complete wreck’ wouldn't even begin to cover it.
“Ah, this? It’s better than it looks. Doesn’t hurt much.”
Seeing the completely pale faces of Lian and the other kids, I deliberately spoke in a cheerful tone.
I even waved my arms for emphasis.
It was something I did as an adult to ease the kids’ worries.
It was an act I would have been better off not doing.
As I swung my arms wide, the wound from the mother wyvern’s bite tore open.
The blood that had stopped flowing gushed out once more.
“It’s fine, it’s fine. I won’t die. You don’t just die from losing a little blood. You guys just don’t know. People don’t die that easily.”
I pressed a hand to the wound, constantly reassuring the kids.
“Ahaha. Why are you all so scared over something like this?”
This, too, would have been better left undone.
Forcing a laugh tensed my stomach, which only made the wound open wider.
“*Cough.*”
To make matters worse, a cough mixed with bloody phlegm escaped my lips.
“Ah. What’s wrong with me?”
While holding the wound with one hand, I used the other to wipe away the blood that was constantly soaking my chin.
“Whoa. Whoa. Huh?”
The world began to spin as if I were drunk.
“You brought him here without even basic first aid? Who in the world transports a patient so recklessly!”
“And why were you all just standing there! Don’t you know emergency first aid? First aid!”
“How is this a living person! He’s a corpse!”
I could hear the voices of the professors who had just arrived, shouting at them.
Even in my dazed state, I instinctively cried out.
Telling them not to say a word to her if they didn't want to die.
But I had lost too much blood and couldn't finish the sentence.
“Don’t want to die…”
Of all the places for my words to cut off, it made me sound exactly like a whining child.
It was too late to correct myself now.
Not only did I lack the energy, but just spitting out the blood that filled my mouth was a struggle.
‘Everyone, move aside. Move! I can’t treat him if you don’t make space!’
Just then, I saw someone pushing through the cadets.
My vision was already so blurry that I couldn't make anything out.
But it wasn't hard to recognize the owner of that voice.
‘This precious blood… is there anything to collect it in? Oh my. Why is it this color? Poison? Tsk, this is completely useless.’
After all, only Professor Yuria would speak in such a gentle, whispering voice while standing before a half-dead cadet.
‘Our little one should get some sleep for a bit.’
No sooner had she spoken than I was overcome with drowsiness.
And just like that, I passed out again.
…
…
Hah.
***
“You just don't know how to value your own body. All swordsmen are like that, but you’re especially bad.”
I had no idea how many hours had passed.
“If you keep treating your body so recklessly, it'll come back to haunt you when you're older. There's a common misconception among squires, you see. They think everything's solved once they take the Oath. That's absolutely not true.”
I had been listening to her endless nagging for so long, I thought my ears were going to bleed.
“A Blessing works best for those who are healthy. If your body is broken, you can't even use the Blessing you have properly.”
Professor Yuria’s lecture, which had begun the moment I opened my eyes, showed no signs of ending.
“You need to value your body. Do you think your body is yours alone?”
“?”
“Anyway, if you want to become a half-baked knight who can't even use their Blessing properly because of chronic ailments, then be my guest.”
But nothing in this world lasts forever, and her nagging, which had seemed eternal, finally came to an end.
“…The Cradle was in an uproar while you were unconscious.”
Professor Yuria began to explain the situation to me.
Apparently, our Team 3 wasn't the only one suddenly attacked by monsters.
Team 1 was attacked by a pack of dire wolves.
Team 2, by trolls.
In every case, a battle with monsters had broken out right after their descent.
“Considering the effort the Cradle puts into the cadets’ descents, this should never have happened. For this descent alone, the professors and instructors scouted the area several times before the cadets even arrived.”
So, to sum it up.
“Are you saying someone intentionally sabotaged this practical exercise?”
This incident was no accident.
She said the Cradle was currently investigating who, why, and how someone had orchestrated this.
“For now, the suspect that Professor Navian subdued is the most likely culprit. Of course, I doubt they acted alone.”
I suddenly remembered the figures I saw while being carried by Professor Navian.
I thought I had seen them wrong, but it turned out they were one of the suspects behind this incident.
I was curious how the Sky Knights knew where to find and capture the suspect, but Professor Yuria didn't seem inclined to reveal those details.
“She said it was marked. So it was really visible even from the sky.”
I couldn't even begin to guess what that mark was.
But I didn't press her for details.
She probably did something ridiculous again, anyway.
Professor Navian was not someone who could be judged by common sense.
“Alright, that’s all for now. I’ve already told you too much. The other cadets will be briefed separately later, so keep your mouth shut until then.”
In short, she was telling me to keep quiet about what I'd heard from her.
Seeing me nod, Professor Yuria stood up from her seat.
“You did well. Good job.”
Still not used to praise, I just gave a slight shrug.
“And, congratulations.”
She stared at me for a moment before offering an unexpected congratulations.
“You won’t be getting cursed at anymore.”
“?”
The rumor has already spread.
She smiled once more.
But that smile was somehow mischievous.
A sense of foreboding washed over me.
I grabbed Professor Yuria as she was about to leave and asked.
What exactly was the rumor?
“You can ask the subject of the rumor yourself. As it happens, she’s been waiting for you to wake up.”
She opened the door.
Someone who had been pacing outside the tent flinched back in surprise.
“Ah, to be young.”
Professor Yuria, chuckling with an uncharacteristically impish expression, left the tent.
After a moment's hesitation, the visitor stepped inside.
The visitor, Selma, spoke with a resolute expression.