Hunting Monsters (1)
"Is what you just said true?"
"That's what I'm telling you."
In the conference room of Etrun Knight Academy, two upper-rank knights were exchanging words in hushed tones.
"Not only did a Normal Class cadet defeat a Royal Class cadet, but he also single-handedly subdued those suspicious thugs?"
"I thought it was a lie myself."
One of them shook his head in disbelief.
If it had been a Royal Class cadet, perhaps. But how on earth had a mere Normal Class student pulled off such a feat?
"It's the cadet named Lee Tae-hyun from the East. The only noteworthy thing about him is that he'd specialized in the sword until suddenly taking up the spear?"
"You're saying all of that happened the moment he abandoned the sword and grabbed a spear?"
"Thanks to him, plenty of others are rushing to switch their main weapon to the spear as well. Not that they're having any success."
Among the Normal Class, the spear was already all the rage. When a classmate who'd been floundering with a sword became a prodigious lancer overnight, how could anyone not be drawn to it?
Of course, most of them would come to the crushing realization that they had no talent for the spear either, and quietly drift back to their swords.
"How intriguing. To think he managed to hide talent like that for so long."
"And as it happens, a fine opportunity has just presented itself."
"You mean the princes' knight orders coming to visit?"
"Precisely."
One of the knights gazed out the window. The majestic landscape of the mountain range stretched out before his eyes.
"The Grand Coronation is drawing near. This is exactly the time when we can't afford to let a single talented individual slip away."
"Hah... I'm envious. If things go well, a cadet might get scouted by a knight order before even graduating from Etrun."
"It won't be that easy."
His expression turned bitter.
"There's a saying — 'If you are resolved to become a knight, aim for the sun and the moon.' That's how difficult it is to join those two knight orders."
"They're that exclusive?"
"Haha. Speaking roughly, for a mere cadet to be scouted, he'd need to solo-hunt an intermediate-upper grade monster."
"...Which is to say, practically impossible."
An intermediate-upper grade monster. Even upper-rank knights like themselves could only take one down single-handedly if the matchup favored them. Put the other way, it meant an upper-rank knight could lose his life to one if luck turned against him.
"And a monster of that caliber might well exist in this mountain range."
"Intermediate-grade monsters appear all the time here... so intermediate-upper ones are entirely plausible."
Etrun Knight Academy had been deliberately built in a mountain range thick with natural mana. Because of that, monsters sprung up with regularity, making it the perfect place to accumulate real combat experience or study their traits.
"An upper-grade specimen, though... that would be a stretch, no matter what."
An upper-grade monster. The kind that required a Sword Master-class swordsman or a mage of the 8th Circle to defeat alone. A walking nightmare and calamity that could kill upper-rank knights with ease. If such creatures ran rampant, this world would have long since marched to its ruin — fortunately, an upper-grade monster appeared only once every few years.
"Kwahahat! An upper-grade monster! That's quite a grim joke!"
A knight burst out laughing and steered the conversation elsewhere.
There was no way such a thing lurked in this mountain range. And if it did, they should have noticed long ago. When a monster of that caliber moved, the surrounding environment warped and the terrain and ecosystem suffered tremendous upheaval. There would be no time for idle chit-chat like this.
"If a cadet ever appeared who could take one of those down alone..."
Knowing the very hypothesis was absurd, the knight's lips curled into a sly smile.
"Both knight orders would fight tooth and nail to recruit that cadet, I imagine."
Partly because they wanted capable talent — and partly to keep such a cadet out of the rival order's hands.
"If I were part of a knight order..."
To draw in a cadet like that, he seemed to think they'd go as far as...
"I'd bet they'd even offer the role of escorting the Namekeeper."
* * *
After that day, I kept myself busy, cycling between training and gathering information.
'Somehow, that Rex or Lux or whatever his name is doesn't pick fights with me anymore.'
Neither the Royal Class nor his crowd made any move against the Normal Class either. 'It's embarrassing enough that one of their own got thrown around without lifting a finger, and with their instructor not stepping in to lord it over me, they can hardly make the first move.'
I didn't particularly care, but the other Normal Class cadets had begun turning me into a hero of legend, and that was getting on my nerves.
'You're a hero!'
'They say when Tae-hyun-nim swung his spear, a hundred Royal Class cadets dropped like flies!'
'Word is he single-handedly crushed the villains who tried to attack the school!'
By the middle of it all, I was too tired to bother correcting them, and the stories only ballooned further. 'Whatever. Not worth the energy.'
What mattered was the information I'd gathered so far.
"I can't be certain this world is still the Graveyard of Knights."
The C-rank gate I had personally brought to its end. A place where everything was already over, where all that remained were the moving armors and a nameless king.
If this place was that gate's past, then the fall of this world is already destined. I couldn't know the reason, but there was no doubt it would become a land of the dead before long.
The question was what I could do about it in the meantime.
"If one of those two princes turns out to be Grempel..."
Grempel had warned me before dying — do not trust the Monarchs. Which meant he knew something about them. 'I asked around and searched the books just in case, but not a single soul knew anything about the Monarchs.'
At the very least, to hear anything about them, I would need to get close to the two princes.
'Let's assume I can manage that somehow.'
The real problem was this:
"I have no idea which one of them is Grempel."
Theo and Leo. I didn't know which of the two princes had become the Grempel of that day.
'Not that I assume whatever one knows, the other won't. But human nature being what it is, I'd rather bet on the surer horse.'
A prince's position was hardly one where anyone could walk up and strike up a conversation. Above all, belonging to the Normal Class was itself proof that I had no backing whatsoever, which exponentially shrank my chances of meeting anyone of standing.
'So this is the only card worth playing, huh?'
The two knight orders scheduled to visit this place soon. The White Sun Knights and the Black Moon Knights — each led by one of the two princes as its captain, organizations that might as well be the princes' personal forces.
I had to catch their eyes on this visit, no matter what.
Fortunately, the method was dead simple. All I had to do was the thing I did best.
'Break everything to pieces.'
Not a single thing about it was hard.
* * *
Clank! Clank!
Heavy footsteps shattered the silence of the mountain range. An advancing column of knights stretched long — white armor and black armor, side by side.
At the vanguard, the knights charged with this "dispatch to Etrun" displayed their overflowing, breathtaking presence.
Captain of the White Sun Knights' 3rd Division, Chadwick. Captain of the Black Moon Knights' 2nd Division, Lunan.
Close enough to reach out and touch, yet the two divisions exchanged nothing but thorough, deliberate indifference — as if they occupied different worlds entirely.
'Frivolous woman.'
'That insufferable jackass.'
The relations between the two orders were poor enough, and the two captains despised each other doubly so. The reason was simple: they had risen to captain at nearly the same time, and their skills were dead even. All that remained was a war of deeds and results.
That was precisely why the two of them were bound for Etrun. 'I swear I'll pick a better cadet than the one he chooses!'
Few achievements shone brighter than scouting promising talent in advance and reinforcing one's forces. Especially now, with the Grand Coronation approaching and the need for capable knights growing more desperate by the day. Bring back battle-ready cadets at a moment like this, and you could leap ahead in a single bound.
The silent march carried on until, before they knew it, the gates of Etrun stood before them.
"All present, attention! Salute the great knight orders!"
The cadets saluted in perfect unison. Rows and columns aligned to perfection — the kingdom's formal salute. Anyone who lived in this country memorized the posture with their body alone; waking from deep sleep and asked on the spot, they were expected to render it flawlessly.
"Ah— aakh."
One cadet alone excepted.
"...That student?"
Watching him wobble through a salute that creaked and crooked, Chadwick's face twisted.
"F-forgive him. He's from the East, in the Normal Class — the kingdom's laws and customs seem unfamiliar to him."
Lobden, headmaster of Etrun, sweated through his strained excuses.
"Is it not Etrun's very purpose to mold even such a student into a true knight of the kingdom?"
"W-well, yes, but—"
"You must manage your substandard cadets properly if the dignity of the nation is to be maintained..."
"Isn't that a bit harsh, Sir Chadwick?"
"...I beg your pardon?"
Lunan cut into their conversation. For someone who hadn't traded a single word the whole march, her tone was remarkably light.
"That boy is a subject of the kingdom and a knight-in-training too. You'd call him substandard over one botched salute?"
"See one thing, and know a hundred. A person who can't even salute properly needs no further examination."
"That's exactly the sort of narrow-mindedness that fails to recognize a flower about to bloom — and snaps it before its time."
Lunan smiled thinly.
Whether that cadet actually had talent didn't matter. What mattered was that he'd landed a blow on that pompous Chadwick's pride.
"How can a knight of a knight order behave so pettily?"
A decisive strike! Chadwick's hand was visibly trembling.
"So that is how Sir Lunan sees things."
"Yes, I believe all subjects of the kingdom are equal, and—"
"Then prove it yourself."
"Pardon?"
That was when Chadwick began to trudge forward. Heavy footfalls carrying him toward the lined-up cadets.
'Gasp!'
'Is he— is he coming toward me?!'
'Captain of the 3rd Division, Sir Chadwick!'
The cadets swallowed whole mouthfuls of wishful thinking. But his stride passed straight by the Royal Class without a pause.
'Uh... huh?'
'Why isn't he stopping?'
At last, he came to a halt. In front of a single Normal Class cadet. Directly before the rude one who had fumbled his salute just moments ago.
"Your name?"
"Lee Tae-hyun."
"Right. Cadet Lee Tae-hyun."
Chadwick extended his hand.
"If you're willing, I'd like to see your skill for myself."
In that instant, a storm of thoughts tore through the crowd.
'He's taking interest in a Normal Class?!'
'Why that one, all of a sudden...?'
'Why of all people would Sir Chadwick care about a guy like that...'
The White Sun Knights. To draw the interest of a division captain among them was an honor beyond measure. A being so exalted that, normally, a Normal Class cadet couldn't even trade glances with him — let alone speak. Such was the dignity of an uppermost-rank knight.
"......"
For an ordinary person, simply standing before him would be enough to wilt under that crushing presence, struck speechless. Surely even that cadet, that Lee Tae-hyun, was struggling to part his lips—
"Sure."
Shattering everyone's expectations, Lee Tae-hyun answered with a perfectly easy expression.
"What would you like me to show you?"
Hunting monsters? Hunting humans?
Whatever it was, I was ready to do it flawlessly.
"W-well, that is..."
"Hurry up and tell me, would you? I'm about to fall asleep here."
A trickle of sweat — a rare sight indeed — ran down Chadwick's forehead.