Proof of Worth
Proof of Worth
Dozens of gleaming blue blades surrounded my throat.
The cold metallic scent stabbed at the tip of my nose.
"Get away from that handmaiden this instant, and put both hands above your head!"
"I'll count to three. If you resist, we'll execute you on the spot!"
The Academy guards and the private knights of the House of Bordeaux surrounded the lecture hall.
In their eyes, a fierce bloodlust blazed—the resolve to punish a commoner's insolence.
"One!"
The knight captain shouted.
I slowly removed my hands that had been covering both of Ines's ears.
As the noise flooded back in, she flinched, but I forced apart her small hands that were clutching my chest and stood up.
"Two!"
The tips of the swords came up to under my chin.
The blade cut my flesh, and a single drop of blood trickled down.
The situation was clear.
A commoner had beaten a high-ranking noble into a bloody pulp.
If I obediently knelt and was taken away like this, I would end my life as nothing more than "an insignificant orphan brat who didn't know his place and went on a rampage."
But what if I overwhelmingly crushed all these armed knights instead?
In this hopeless world.
Humanity has their flesh torn off every day by the demonic beasts and devils beyond the barrier, and suffers from chronic power shortages.
In such a world, if a monster appeared who could single-handedly trample dozens of elite knights...
The high command and nobles wouldn't be able to kill me easily.
No, rather, they'd be desperate to grab hold of my leash to use this blade called me.
An "ultimate combat power" that's hard to control, but absolutely necessary.
The more my value skyrocketed, the more perfectly the safety of me and Ines would be guaranteed.
"Three! Strike!"
The knight captain's order fell.
Three knights surrounding me simultaneously raised their swords and charged at my shoulders and knees.
Pretending to surrender obediently, I extended both hands, which I had half-raised above my head, out like a beast.
The wrist of the first knight who reached me was caught in my grip.
And then,
Woodeuk-!
"Kuaaaak!"
I crushed his entire wrist bone.
I lightly snatched the hilt of the longsword that fell helplessly from the knight's hand out of midair.
Seogeok-!
As my vision flashed, a fountain of red blood sprayed from the second knight's thigh.
A mechanical and brutal swordsmanship carved into my very bones.
"Th-this crazy bastard!"
Four flustered knights charged at me simultaneously.
Downward slash, thrust, and horizontal slashes from both sides.
A standard combined technique of the knight order that blocks all escape routes.
I couldn't block it with strength.
Because my bones and muscles were still those of an undeveloped teenager. The moment the swords clashed, the recoil would break my wrist first.
I slid my shoe through the blood scattered on the floor and bent my upper body backward abnormally.
A cold blade of wind grazed the tip of my nose.
At that moment when four swords crossed uselessly in midair,
I used the momentum of my bent upper body to push off the floor and spin.
My low-sweeping blade twirled like a top and swept at the knights' lower sections.
Puuk-! Seogeok! Kwajik!
The blind spots of the joints that steel greaves couldn't cover.
I precisely targeted and severed the backs of their knees and their Achilles tendons.
"Aaaahk! My, my legs!"
"Kuaaak!"
Four knights writhed on the floor, screaming horribly.
A huge hole was torn in the formation.
When I beat up the young count, I only used my fists so that low-grade potions could heal him.
But there was no need to hold back my strikes for disposable escorts like these.
"Surround him! Don't give him an opening!"
The knight captain shouted in shock.
The remaining knights suppressed their fear, raised their shields, and tightened the encirclement.
I flicked the blood off my sword and swept my gaze over them with lowered eyes.
The angle of their arms holding shields, their trembling knees, their stiff shoulders.
It was suffocatingly sloppy and full of holes.
To me, who had engaged in brutal combat with the vanguard of the Demon King's army—whose bodies were as big as houses—these knights raised in the hothouse of the Academy were no different from scarecrows made of straw.
I pushed off the ground again.
Chaeng-!
A heavy downward strike from the leading knight fell.
I didn't dodge. Instead, I tilted the flat of my sword diagonally and lightly deflected the falling blade.
Instead of meeting force with force, I merely redirected the trajectory.
The knight's upper body leaned forward, unable to control his own momentum.
Into his exposed nape, I unhesitatingly drove the pommel of my sword.
Peoeok-!
"Kkeok...."
The vital point of the cervical spine that armor couldn't cover.
The knight's eyes rolled back, showing the whites, and he fell like a great tree.
I stepped on the falling knight's back like a vaulting horse and leaped up.
The light airborne moment of an underdeveloped boy.
For an instant, the knights' gazes shot up toward the air.
"Ab-above!"
A guard holding a spear urgently raised the tip, but it was too late.
The moment I landed, I crouched low and slipped into the blind spot of the spear shaft.
My blade shot upward, striking the guard's jaw joint, then severing the tendons in his wrist.
"Aaaahk!"
The stench of blood filled the air, and the floor became a chaotic mess of severed limbs and frothing knights.
The lecture hall instantly transformed into a one-sided slaughterhouse.
Clear incompetence.
I was proving by my own hands that they were trash who couldn't even handle a single teenage commoner orphan.
And the more ruthlessly I trampled their incompetence, the more my proficiency and value soared sky-high.
"Stop right there!"
At that moment, the lecture hall door burst open, and dozens of heavily armed troops and the Academy's high-ranking mages poured in.
At the fingertips of the professors in blue robes, magic circles swelled with terrifying magical power, aimed at me.
"If you resist any further, I'll burn you without a trace!"
The elderly professor thundered.
In their eyes, along with rage, there was a dreadful shock at my martial prowess that had half-reduced dozens of knights to bloody pulp by myself.
That was enough.
The proof was complete.
Chaenggeurang-.
I threw the bloodstained sword in my hand to the floor without regret.
And raised both hands.
Instantly, heavily armed troops rushed over, pressed down on my shoulders, and forced me to my knees.
Rough ropes bit into my wrists. Without any resistance, I silently fixed my gaze on the floor.
"G-get that girl too! She might be an accomplice!"
The guard captain's neurotic shout.
"...!"
At that moment, my apathetically sinking reason stiffened coldly.
Two soldiers approached Ines, who was cowering in the corner.
They roughly grabbed her thin arms, trying to pull her away from me.
"Let her go."
I growled lowly, still pinned down.
But my warning didn't reach the soldiers' ears.
"Hurry and drag her out!"
"Don't resist!"
The soldiers forcibly lifted Ines to her feet and shoved the ropes at her.
And then, the moment her heartbeat completely separated from mine.
"Aaah...."
A grotesque sound flowed from Ines's mouth.
A desperate wail, like the death rattle of a beast whose lifeline had been severed, with not a shred of sanity left.
"Aaah! Aaaaaah!"
Her vacant eyes rolled back in extreme terror.
She sank her teeth like a beast into the wrist of the soldier holding her.
"Aaagh! This crazy bitch!"
The soldier screamed in pain and reflexively swung his fist.
Peok-!
With a dull impact sound, Ines's small body was thrown to the floor.
"A-aaaah...."
Even with blood streaming from the corner of her mouth, Ines crawled across the floor, desperately reaching her hand toward me.
But when she couldn't reach, she immediately started tearing at her platinum-blonde hair with both hands like a madwoman.
Clumps of hair were ripped out, and her nails clawed at her own face and neck until they bled.
Horrible withdrawal symptoms. A completely broken beast's self-harm.
"I said... don't... touch her."
A grotesque sound came from my jaw joint, pressed against the floor.
I ground my molars until they felt like they would shatter.
In my dry, parched eyes, violent, bloodshot veins were about to burst.
Just as I was about to snap the ropes and tear out those soldiers' throats,
Wooong-.
A wave of dazzling light warmly enveloped the entire lecture hall.
The emotions of the people, seething with the pain of wounds and rage, subsided as if by a lie under that mass of low-grade holy power light.
"What is all this commotion."
A soft, arrogant voice.
A woman stepped over the threshold of the lecture hall.
She wore her brilliant red hair long, and was clad in a splendid pure-white formal robe that hurt the eyes.
Behind her, elite holy knights representing the Holy See stood firmly as if guarding her.
She lightly waved her hand, and a faint light dust fell from the air.
An incongruous sacred fragrance spread through the slaughterhouse that had been thick with the stench of blood.
The moment they saw that sight.
The soldiers pressing me down, the knights aiming their swords, and even the mages—all simultaneously lowered their weapons and knelt on one knee.
"We greet the Saintess-nim."
"What brings the Saintess-nim to this humble place...."
Every human in the lecture hall bowed their heads toward the red-haired woman.
Saintess.
Pinned to the floor, I turned my head and looked at Ines, covered in blood.
She was still huddled in the corner, tearing at her own flesh like a beast.
The true saintess, who had given her life, her holy power, and even her sanity to save the world, was rolling on the floor, covered in filth.
And that disgusting woman.
Stepping on the blood and sacrifice my lover had shed, she dared to act like a "Saintess" and receive people's veneration.
"......."
I bit the soft flesh inside my mouth so hard that dark red blood trickled down my lips.
Swallowing the acrid taste of blood, I stared at the nape of that hypocritical usurper with bloodshot eyes.
I will not let her live.
Someday, for certain, I will twist that arrogant red head and throw it into the most miserable gutter.