First Day of Classes (3)
First Day of Classes (3)
As expected, I ended up eating lunch alone.
Fortunately, since it was the first day, I wasn't the only one eating by myself. But judging by how things were going, if I wasn't careful, I'd end up eating alone the whole time.
That would be a bit troublesome, so I figured I should try to hit it off with a few people later.
Fortunately, the meal was magnificent. The food was on par with what I ate back home. Long live the Royal Academy!
Then came the afternoon class after lunch.
Unlike the morning session, the afternoon class was divided by faculty.
Mine was for the Knight Faculty.
We changed into the leather armor issued by the academy, buckled on our swords, and headed out to the drill ground.
It was just one of several drill grounds at the academy, but even this one was enormously vast compared to the number of people gathered there.
"Fall in, double time! Did you all leave your brains at home?!"
A voice rang out across the drill ground.
As I fell into line at that voice, I couldn't help but chuckle inwardly.
It was because of that sharp, ringing voice.
It hadn't been that long since I'd last heard it, yet somehow it felt like listening to a voice from a fond memory.
The voice I was hearing now was the one I used to hear back at the marquisate and in the underground dungeon.
Katrin's voice from her mercenary days. Not her refined tone as royalty or an instructor, but her raw, uninhibited voice from when she was a mercenary.
"I am Katrin de Rattenhamar, in charge of the first-year Knight Faculty. I hold no knighthood title, but I am more than qualified to train you lot, so don't worry!"
Standing on the platform in leather armor just like ours, Katrin looked different from how she had during her mercenary days.
It was probably because of her noble rank and tidy appearance.
Regardless, no one was foolish enough to look down on her just because she lacked a knighthood.
After all, there was no one who didn't know what the Rattenhamar Count Family was famous for.
Besides, once everyone learned that she was taking charge of the Knight Faculty, they all realized who she was.
The Queen's younger sister and the heir to the Rattenhamar Count Family.
Well, though I was likely the only one who actually knew her true strength.
Knights clad in full armor stood beside her on the platform.
She scanned us as we stood in formation, then spoke.
"Since this is our first meeting, I should gauge your skills first, shouldn't I?"
At her words, a student blurted out:
"You don't mean for us to face those knights, do you?"
Who is it? Who's the one uttering such pathetic words?
I glanced over at the freshman who had asked that absurd question.
He was a student with a physique far larger than the rest. Standing nearly two meters tall, his body was packed with dense muscle.
He was a textbook Physical Enhancement Type ability user.
Huh. Yet, surprisingly, not many students were looking at him like he was an idiot.
If anything, far more students seemed to agree with him.
Don't tell me... is everyone stronger than me?
No way. Except for a select few, everyone looked like complete amateurs.
"Sigh, I knew this would happen."
Looking at the students, Katrin let out a sigh.
"Today, I'm going to knock some proper sense into your heads. We'll give you all a thorough demonstration of just how strong a real knight is."
She turned to the knights and ordered:
"Give them a proper beating."
"Understood."
The knights stepped forward.
They took their positions in front of each line.
Ooh, sparring against Royal Knights, huh? How much of my skill should I reveal? I actually want to fight them for real.
My heart throbbed with excitement at the prospect of sparring with a Royal Knight.
But Katrin walked straight toward me.
"You're sparring with me."
"Huh?"
"Knowing your skills, do you really think I'd match you against those knights? I don't want the lesson ruined because of a brat like you, so step over here."
I let out a deep sigh at her words.
"There will be plenty of sparring matches in the future. You'll get to fight all you want, so face me today."
She was no longer the quiet woman from a while ago. The rough, fierce Katrin from her mercenary days stood before me.
Honestly, I was curious too. How had her skills grown after inheriting her ancestor's legacy, compared to how much my own skills had grown over time?
I stepped out of line and walked toward her.
The other students' surprised gazes followed me.
Now then, how much skill should I show off?
I stood before her and raised my sword.
Clang!
Swords flew through the air, and students tumbled across the ground.
Screams echoed from every corner.
"I yield! I surrender!"
"Are—Are you trying to kill us?! Are you actually swinging with full force?!"
Terrified voices shrieked nonstop.
Should I call them assistant instructors? In the spars against the Royal Knights, the students were smashed to pieces one after another.
Most of the male students, along with a few female students, bit the dust in succession.
Students who had never engaged in a proper match before were terrified by these near-combat, dead-serious spars.
They yelled at the knights, but most of the students gathered here were neither children of high nobility nor heirs to their houses.
Having awakened meant they would hold higher standing than regular knights in the future, but the Royal Knights could afford to disregard that to some extent.
And as for the few students who couldn't be ignored, the knights didn't treat them recklessly, either.
Clang!
"Ugh!"
"Well blocked."
Iker, the second son of Count Piruna, barely managed to block the knight's sword, but smiled at the praise that followed.
He had already seen the student before him and those around him get blown away, and he was still watching it happen.
Though the knight pushed him back slightly, Iker had only awakened five years ago. For a fifteen-year-old boy who had yet to receive proper training to parry the strike of a seasoned knight was an impressive feat in itself.
Unlike low-ranking nobles who had never faced a real knight, he had sparred with the knights of his family's domain, allowing him to judge his own abilities and those of the knights objectively.
Admittedly, the knight before him seemed stronger than the domain knights back home, but performing like this wouldn't bring disgrace to his house.
"I believe this is enough to verify your skills."
After exchanging blows a few more times, the knight stepped back.
Iker exchanged bows with the knight, catching his breath.
His mana was almost depleted, putting his inherited ability on the verge of cutting out, so it was a huge relief.
He looked around.
Very few people were still standing.
Most of the students were sprawled on the ground; the only ones standing were the knights and a single female student who was still sparring.
Surprised by the unexpected sight, he checked to see who the female student was.
She was a slender student with brown hair.
Not a familiar face. She wasn't the child of a high noble, nor was her face exceptionally pretty, so he hadn't bothered to remember her.
Since this was the Knight Faculty, he might have paid some attention to her if she at least had a sturdy build.
She was someone he hadn't paid the slightest attention to, yet right now she was fighting on equal footing with a knight.
'Is he holding back because she's a girl?'
That thought briefly crossed his mind, but judging by the way they fought, the sword speed of the two combatants seemed faster than his own.
'Is she a speed-enhancement type?'
Judging by her build, she didn't look like a power type, so it seemed she had received a better inherited ability than expected despite not being high nobility.
But with a speed-focused ability, it would be tough to deal with monsters... Well, dealing with monsters wasn't a knight's only job anyway.
'Wait... it couldn't be that the knight on my side was holding back, could it?'
After glancing briefly at the knight who had sparred with him, he shook his head.
There was no way the gap in skill between a Royal Knight and a Count's domain knight was that massive—unless the knights in his domain had been holding back on him all along.
Anyway, thinking it was a relief that there was at least one female student who seemed equal to a knight, he turned toward the opposite side and furrowed his brows.
Swish! Shuk!
Besides the knights, himself, and the female student engaged in combat, two more people were still standing.
Professor Katrin and the illegitimate son of the Gracia Dukedom.
They had clearly started at the same time as the first group of students, yet they were still carrying on with their spar.
The Duke's illegitimate son held a sword, while Professor Katrin peculiarly wielded both a sword and a shield.
"What are those two doing?"
"Are they dancing?"
"There's a rumor that the illegitimate son is connected to the Princess. Could they be messing around just to inflate his reputation?"
"No way, would they really go that far?"
"Then what is that supposed to be?"
"Still, his movements are pretty good. Looks like he actually received proper training."
The students resting on the ground with minor injuries whispered among themselves as they watched Professor Katrin and the Duke's illegitimate son spar.
And for good reason: the two didn't clash swords or shields at all. Instead, they subtly dodged back and forth, thrusting their blades into empty air and slipping past each other.
It looked so synchronized that it almost resembled a rehearsed play showcasing staged swordplay.
Though they didn't whisper like the students, the knights were also tilting their heads in confusion as they watched the pair spar.
Iker was also baffled as he watched the match, but soon a certain memory flashed through his mind.
'No way... right?'
He had seen a fight similar to that spar before. A battle where swords never physically touched each other. Yet it was a far more high-level and terrifying fight than one where blades clashed.
He had witnessed battles between ability users where, despite the blades never touching, light shot forth from the swords and cleaved the opponent apart.
'There's no way.'
Even if one had learned a proper Mana Breathing Technique, there was no way a student could already project mana beyond their blade.
Besides, that illegitimate son clearly possessed a physical enhancement-type inherited ability.
'If he had inherited the ducal family's Mana Breathing Technique, there's no way he would have come to this faculty.'
Even the heir of the ducal family had gone to the Inherited Ability Faculty, not the Knight Faculty.
Well, if he had inherited the Mana Breathing Technique, he wouldn't even have been able to come to the capital like this in the first place.
If an illegitimate son inherited the family's prized inherited ability, there was no way the ducal family would just leave him alone.
They would have hidden him away for future contingencies or ruined him completely.
'Aargh! Go easy on me!'
I screamed inwardly as I ducked out of the way.
Even if I didn't dodge, her physical sword wouldn't touch my body, but the imagined mana extending from her blade stretched out and sliced right through where I stood.
If I hadn't sidestepped, I would have been sliced in half.
I swung my sword in return, but Katrin effortlessly parried my attacks with subtle movements of her shield alone.
The shield she had brought was the very one found in the ruins, which expanded through mana. Even though her shield didn't physically touch my sword, the domain its mana expanded still forced my blade to deflect.
'Damn it! Since she's even using that shield, the gap in skill makes this completely unplayable!'
Thanks to my big mouth suggesting we spar properly, I was suffering for no good reason.
Sparring properly implied using our weapons to their full extent.
But we couldn't actually project mana into the open air. Unlike the others, who couldn't project mana anyway, if the two of us channeled real mana into our sword and shield, there was a high chance we'd cause collateral damage to our surroundings.
Instead, before we started, we had entered an unspoken agreement: to picture the extended length of the mana blade in our minds and, likewise, picture the shield's expansion. Since we'd both seen each other's full capabilities before, picturing it was easy enough.
But since we weren't infusing actual mana to augment ourselves, our physical movements were bound to be sluggish by comparison.
Thanks to all my training up until now, I could manage knight-level movement to some extent, but without utilizing mana, I had no choice but to fling my raw body around like crazy.
'Wait, hold on. We can't use mana, so we're moving our bare, unaugmented bodies, yet we're supposed to mentally picture the length of our sword aura based on our signature weapons?!'
Wait a second... something about this is completely messed up.
This makes absolutely no sense at all!