33. Darkly and Secretly
33. Darkly and Secretly
The battle was one-sided.
Charles had not won command of a battalion in the Shadow Knights' First Brigade in a dice game.
In the Shadow Knight Order, a battalion commander held the highest combat power the order could deploy immediately to the field, so it was surprising that Charles had even been injured by such riffraff.
In less than ten minutes, all the criminals in the bar were subdued.
"Ugh...."
Some of them were groaning with broken bones from the process, but I considered that better than the ones who'd ended up with ventilation holes in their heads.
I stepped over the criminals sprawled across the hall and headed for the front bar.
Behind the counter, the bartender was crouched on the floor.
"I'll interrogate this one. You take a rest."
Charles picked a suitable chair as I'd suggested, closed his eyes, and began meditating.
Looking closely, his hands were trembling like someone who had just killed a person for the first time.
Unfortunately, this was because Charles was not a Hero.
In a world where life could feel infinitely cheap because of the Sanctuaries, distinguishing between reality and the Sanctuary was crucial.
The moment someone started treating reality like a Sanctuary, that person turned into either a mass murderer or a suicide commando.
That was why the Sanctuaries had created the credentials of Hero and Hero Party Member, granting access only to those with the mental fortitude to distinguish between the two.
Heroes who could use the Sanctuary without restriction, and Hero Party Members who were permitted to stay in the Sanctuary only up to a certain period.
This was why my father, unable to become a Hero, had remained in a supporting role, while my uncle had become a Hero and led Wrestle Kingdom.
For this reason, meditation was essential.
Especially for those who had not become Heroes, it was even more vital in order to distinguish reality and maintain their mental state.
Only after I saw that Charles had fully immersed himself in meditation did I drag the trembling bartender into the warehouse.
"I'll have a lot of questions."
"Please spare me! I'll talk, please!"
His pleas were in vain as the warehouse door closed.
- Now then, Magic Conch Ballpen. Where can I find the cultists?
- Aaaaargh!!!!!
Boom.
By the time I emerged from the warehouse alone, Charles's meditation had just ended as well.
*
Shing. Bang.
A warehouse situated in a secluded corner of the Hetairo Island docks.
The door was flung open and Charles and I entered.
The moment we took a step inside, an unpleasant fishy stench and humid air greeted us.
Moss showed in the corners, and the warehouse had so few lights that the atmosphere was gloomy.
Because the sound of the entrance opening had echoed through the warehouse on the night air, sinisterly dressed thugs began to reveal themselves one by one from the inner room.
The moment the thugs saw us, they drew weapons, so becoming friends was clearly out of the question.
Anyway, they looked exactly like the kind of scum they were.
But something I wondered every time—why did sinister types like gloomy places?
They'd been like this in my previous life, and seeing them do it in this world too, there seemed to be a reason....
I was curious whether they'd become sinister because this place had turned gloomy, or whether this place had become gloomy because sinister types stayed here, but I couldn't exactly ask Charles that while wearing John's face.
I shoved my somewhat philosophical concerns deep into my heart and entered the inner warehouse with Charles.
"Shall I do it?"
"I'll do it."
Charles nodded and locked the entrance we'd come through.
In contrast to him, I approached the thugs.
"I doubt you’ll answer, but I’ll ask anyway. The bartender said this place helps cultists sneak onto the island. Are you believers, or mercenaries?"
Instead of an answer, an axe came flying at my head.
I snatched it just before it struck my nose and swung it behind me.
Squelch.
Along with the sound of flesh being crushed, a person who had suddenly appeared behind me spilled his entrails and collapsed.
"The evil god of illusion and deception, then."
So they were believers, not mercenaries.
I swept my gaze over the group of cultists.
Just then, the clouds cleared and moonlight streaming through the warehouse window faintly illuminated the interior.
In the midst of the group, a bishop's pendant glinted.
"Jackpot."
A bishop ranked high enough that, once we foiled the attack, we'd have more than enough authority to trace the conspiracy all the way back to the mainland.
The bishop seemed to know that too, because he put some distance between himself and me while giving orders to the believers.
"Brothers. I beseech you."
That day, the academy was flooded with complaints about screams coming from the docks.
*
"Grrrk... grrrgle...."
The believers, frothing blood at their mouths, lay strewn across the warehouse.
They'd seemed endless, pouring from the basement, the inner rooms, and the ceiling no matter how many I dealt with, but even they eventually ran out.
Atop the mountain of half-corpses, I was looking down at the bishop, whose arms had been torn off.
"Demon... just kill me."
"..."
No one had died yet in this warehouse.
The only ones with all limbs intact were Charles and myself, plus one believer who was on the verge of death in real time.
Holding back to this degree was honestly a fair bit of work.
I looked down at the bishop, whose tongue was still intact, and loaded bullets into my pistol.
"Yes! Just kill me! Even if I die, I will not sell out my brothers!"
Did bishops all gather somewhere in a secluded room and learn dedicated lines together?
Every single line they spouted was the same.
But unfortunately, this bullet wasn't meant for him.
I holstered the loaded pistol at my waist, picked out one of the sacks they'd been using to store corpses, and crammed the bishop inside.
"What are you—!"
Wham.
Since he kept thrashing, I made him quiet down a little, then tossed the sack containing him to Charles.
Even though I hadn't said anything in particular, he asked the question I wanted.
"Where shall I go?"
"24 Lilytos Street. There should be a temporary Sanctuary inside."
"I'll head there first."
Charles left the warehouse carrying the bishop.
I looked down at the remaining believers and aimed the loaded pistol at one of them.
"If you're willing to provide useful information before the bishop does, nod your head."
That believer's answer was a gob of phlegm.
Bang.
The pistol spat fire.
The part a film would censor with a mosaic blur—the perineum—turned red.
"The bullet's lodged in a rather unfortunate place."
"?"
The believers were slow to grasp the situation.
Some people think castration is some grand procedure, but all you have to do is stick a foreign object in there, and it's done.
Then he physically couldn't get it up.
Infection and aftereffects weren't my problem.
"This means this fellow will never be able to father children."
"..."
Tch.
At a time like this, the response should've been, 'Now see here, Sir Hero.'
But I couldn't exactly crack that kind of joke with John Armstrong's face, so I shrugged and aimed at the next believer.
"I don't ask twice."
*
After the night when the male population of Hetairo Academy significantly decreased, yet strangely the total population only decreased by two.
Cross-verifying the information given by the believers and the bishop revealed their objective.
In conclusion, their targets were Leon and Pia.
The cultists' greatest mortal enemy at present was the Empire.
They ground their teeth at the mere mention of the Parma Imperial Household.
But since they could not so easily strike at the heart of a hegemonic power, they could not target the imperial family as long as they remained in the imperial capital.
So the cultists aimed for the period each year when imperial family members enrolled in the academy.
As it happened, this time there were two imperial family members entering, giving the cultists ample grounds to gamble on sending a bishop in person.
They would have had their reasons.
After all, they had sent a bishop carefully selected to withstand any torture without divulging information.
But what they had failed to calculate was that the cultist interrogation specialist, John Armstrong, was on this island.
The Magic Conch Ballpen had forced countless bishops to talk, making its wielder the cultists' highest-priority person to avoid.
Even this bishop eventually talked.
Of all the men I'd put through this, he'd held out longer than most, but there wasn't a mouth that stayed closed forever.
When I sent the intelligence home, a letter carrying His Majesty's praise and a bonus arrived.
A letter of thanks from my friend's father came as a bonus.
Now that the work I could do on Hetairo Island was finished, it was time to return to being a student.
But something was nagging at me....
'Ah, final exams.'
Damn cultists, anyway.
No help whatsoever in my life.
================
Final exams were theory tests.
Nikolai said that academy exams were always practicals, but that was for second-years and up.
You needed theory before you could move on to practical work.
Making new hatchlings who hadn't even been at the academy half a year do that kind of thing would be negligence of duty on the professor's part.
I entered the exam hall empty-handed.
On the desk assigned to me, writing instruments and the exam paper were kindly laid out.
Just like at the entrance ceremony.
After that, following the proctor's instructions, I began solving the problems.
At this point, one might wonder.
Why theory for Heroes who fight with their bodies?
But the occupations of Hero and knight were more highly-educated professions than one might think.
Contrary to what people believed, combat was not conducted by physical ability alone.
In that fraction of a second, it was a battle of wits over the cards my opponent and I could play.
In my previous life, the weapons were guns, swords, fists.
That was it.
The doctrine was simple.
The sequence moved from lines of fire, to knives, and finally bare-handed grappling.
Even in that world, there had been psychological warfare between guns and psychological warfare between blades.
But this world was not that simple.
The ultimate utility tool—magic.
The ultimate ranged weapon—the magic crossbow.
The ultimate destructive weapon—the oversized weapon.
And beyond these, swords, spears, daggers, etc.
The weapons alone were diverse, and unlike the previous world, the magic crossbow wasn't even tier one.
Even just the troop types were this varied, and the races were diverse too, and on top of that, the martial schools were diverse as well.
So even if I threw a tantrum about not wanting to know, it was a world where you died if you didn't.
The questions were like this too.
================
(Roughly animated illustration)
A from the Glory of the Beastfolk School and B from the Indomitable Spear School were facing off.
1. At this time, select a technique A can use to subdue B without suffering significant damage.
2. If B's spear is endowed with a poison Enchant, select possible countermeasures for A.
3. Select a method of response if Ninja C intrudes during the battle.
===============
Of course, if you were confident in your physical abilities, you didn't need to know this.
You just had to know that reality wasn't a Sanctuary, and your opponent wasn't a moron.
Even I, who belonged to the talent-freak category in this world, studied like this—so anyone who'd gotten cocky about their mediocre talent and confidence in their physical abilities was probably already putting on a comedy show in front of Armun by now.
With such idle thoughts, I wrote my way down the exam paper.
Though I was a hand-to-hand combatant, since not all opponents I encountered were hand-to-hand combatants either, various troop types appeared as questions.
Swords, spears, oversized weapons, and even magic crossbows.
After completing all the so-called major weapon subjects, the final subject remained.
Special Weapons Troop Type.
This was the biggest problem.
In this world, there were so many insane bastards that occasionally some of them used things as weapons that made you think, This is a weapon?
Things like thread, scissors, telephone poles, books (thick ones), and so on.
Some students disparaged the subject, saying, 'Will I ever run into a lunatic like that in my life?' and claiming it was created just so the professors could earn a living.
And the majority of those who said such things lost contact after graduating from Hetairo Academy.
It's not like you're going to work as a Hero for a week and then retire.
It's a lifelong career spanning decades—think you'll never run into lunatics like that even once?
That was why this subject existed.
Speaking of this subject's notoriety, there was no defined exam scope, no hints, and no so-called past exam compilations, either.
You had to solve it purely with sense, experience, and improvisation.
If you were lucky enough to have a classmate who used such a special weapon, it was somewhat easier to solve.
Because seeing something even once helps you understand it faster than seeing it for the first time.
With those thoughts, I continued solving the exam paper.
What kind of weapon would come out today? My heart was pounding.
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- Ballpoint pen
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Shit.
Damn professor.