Chapter 15

This tutorial is way too difficult.

The moment that thought crossed his mind, the Kim Sun-woo inside him flinched.

Ivan ignored the reaction and continued thinking.

No, this really is too difficult.

Even objectively, imagining how the game would have progressed back when he had been Kim Sun-woo, the balance made no sense.

Leaning against the trunk of a tree, Ivan let out a long sigh.

If he had even one squadmate—hell, even someone on Dmitri's level—he would never have had to fight like this.

Kill a couple of soldiers on the eastern edge.

Plant a trap.

Sprint at full speed all the way to the western edge and deliberately fire another shot.

After repeating that routine for more than thirty minutes, even Ivan was beginning to feel tired.

The difficulty was doubled by the fact that each engagement could only involve a single gunshot.

That alone had earned him a long sword wound across his forearm.

Ivan pulled out the last remaining bottle of healing potion.

Just as he was about to pour it over the wound, he stopped.

...Hm.

I can still bear it. Better save this.

Taking a moment to recover his breathing, Ivan sat beneath the tree and organized his thoughts.

Let's assume this was the tutorial immediately after selecting the character Isabel.

I've just finished the character selection screen.

Now the loading screen would be scrolling through pages of world-building lore that most players would dismiss with, "What is this, you nerd?" while the loading bar slowly filled.

If this were a AAA game, a cutscene would play here.

As luck would have it, there was a perfect one.

A terrorist attack on a train.

A classic academy-story cliché.

The train is attacked.

You wake beneath a mound of earth.

An NPC lies before you, wounded in your place.

Suppose the player starts controlling the character from there.

There's a problem.

How was she supposed to get out?

Escaping a train car buried beneath a landslide was already difficult enough.

Fine.

Let's assume there was some sort of puzzle inside the carriage that let you escape.

Then what?

A swarm of unidentified elite soldiers comes charging in?

Without even teaching the player the combat system?

And the tutorial boss...

...had Line-of-Fire Detection.

Thinking back to Eshidis only made it seem even stranger.

His tutorial had been so easy it could practically be cleared with one hand.

Then maybe this wasn't a combat event.

Maybe it was a fleeing event.

Or perhaps...

A defeat event.

The kind where you lose the battle, get captured, and escape afterward.

There were plenty of games like that.

No.

These people were trying to kill Isabel.

Their equipment was not meant for capturing prisoners.

It was clearly intended for execution.

Which meant she absolutely could not allow herself to be captured.

Normally, in a scripted defeat event, an ally would rescue the player immediately after losing.

A rescue...

An ally...

...Me?

The color drained from Ivan's face.

His heart skipped a beat.

Was I the supporting character?

In other words...

Was I an NPC?

He forcibly suppressed his pounding heart.

Reining in emotions boiling inside him was something he had long since grown accustomed to.

Calmly, he began counting through the possibilities one by one.

Had there ever been a character named Ivan Petrovich in the original game?

His military service.

Eighteen years spent fighting like a dog.

A mere ordinary man forced to battle the Seven Dragon Generals.

Retiring.

Building an orphanage.

Had every one of those events...

...already been predetermined?

Had all of it been nothing more than background settings, regardless of his own will?

If so...

What ending awaited the original Ivan Petrovich?

Would he survive until the very end?

Would his face appear in the ending scene, even for a moment?

Forcefully cutting off the chain of dark thoughts, Ivan slipped the healing potion back into his coat.

There was only one way to confirm it.

To find out why this event's difficulty had become such a complete disaster...

And whether death had truly been inevitable without a supporting character.

He swiftly climbed the tree and headed back toward the train.

***

Clang!

Craaang!

The blades collided, scattering sparks.

She was losing in strength.

She could not gain the upper hand in technique either.

Grinding her teeth, Isabel twisted her blade.

A flawless deflection, beautiful enough to have been lifted directly from a fencing manual.

Its trajectory flowed without the slightest error, smoothly guiding the enemy's sword aside.

For Isabel, it was the very best she could do.

She could not imagine landing a more beautiful strike than that.

"You occasionally see people like you."

As he knocked her sword aside, Eiphelos smiled.

"The ones who lock themselves away in a room, endlessly swinging sticks by themselves after watching someone else. Honor students who memorize every page of the manual because they think it'll make their attacks faster or more graceful. Hmm?"

"Shut... up!"

"You're mistaken, Knight of Thales."

Clang!

Clang!

Every attack she launched was blocked.

Meanwhile, every time she tried to defend herself, she inevitably suffered a small loss.

She had not yet sustained any serious wounds.

But Isabel could feel it.

Little by little...

She was being driven onto the defensive.

Her balance between offense and defense was falling apart.

She could no longer take even a single step forward.

She kept retreating.

Step after step.

Behind her stood the civilians.

People she had to protect.

She could retreat no farther.

This was a dead end.

A last stand.

Biting down hard enough to hurt her teeth, Isabel swung again.

Clang!

"Doesn't swordsmanship only have meaning if your blade actually reaches your opponent? In the end, swordsmanship is nothing more than the methodology of driving your sword into the enemy's body!"

Clang!

"So the Hero's daughter reaches this age without experiencing a single real battle? The Alliance's complacency disgusts me."

"Shut up!!"

Clang!

Clang!

Clang!

A sword driven by anger could no longer maintain technical precision.

She was simply swinging wildly, venting her frustration.

Eiphelos had far too much experience to fall for such crude attacks.

Clack!

Clang!

Their blades locked.

With a sharp snap of his wrist, he flicked her sword away.

The weapon flew from Isabel's grasp, struck the ground, and rolled across the dirt.

Truthfully, he could have ended the fight much sooner.

But the title the Hero's blood had made him far more cautious than necessary.

The Hero—

Maximilien—

Always accomplished miracles at the very last moment.

But now...

It was over.

Eiphelos smiled faintly.

I lost good soldiers for nothing.

"You protected no one."

"Isabel."

"Daughter of Maximilien."

"Do you have any last words?"

Isabel bit her lip as she stared at her fallen sword.

Facing death calmly was admirable.

But at a time like this, she should have kept her eyes on her opponent.

Such an amateur.

Mocking her inwardly, Eiphelos slowly raised his sword.

From atop the tree, Ivan watched the entire scene unfold.

He had no intention of intervening.

Not yet.

He had to confirm something.

If Isabel died here...

Then his hypothesis was wrong.

Of course, there were games where losing to the tutorial boss simply resulted in a game over.

But not this one.

No matter how he looked at it...

That opponent was simply too powerful for someone with her current abilities to defeat.

But if he rushed in now and saved Isabel, then—

Well.

There would be no denying it anymore.

It would practically confirm that the character known as Ivan Petrovich was nothing more than an NPC in this game.

So even if Isabel died, he had no intention of intervening.

After all, there were still five player characters left.

If sacrificing one allowed him to discover the truth, it would still be a profitable exchange.

Ivan looked down at Isabel in the distance, lost in thought.

“You failed to protect anyone, Isabel, daughter of Maximilien. Do you have any final words?”

Time slowed for Isabel.

Like the panorama of one’s life flashing past at the moment of death.

The rippling blade descending toward her.

The demon’s face, filled with anger and mockery.

The distorted moonlight.

The harsh sound of her own breathing.

Her sword lying at her feet.

The proof of all her effort and time, discarded like a piece of trash.

—Take up your sword.

She heard a voice.

The words Sir Dian August had murmured while unconscious.

The words of an ancient—truly ancient—knighting ceremony.

Her consciousness sank deeper.

A vague vision arose in her mind.

One person knelt amid countless people standing in orderly lines.

Stand in the place of the weak, and look upon those like us through the eyes of the weak.

We take up the sword not because of our courage, our strength, or our superiority.

We do so simply because it is right.

Because it is just.

For the cause that must be protected.

A solemn declaration echoed through the hall.

The knights standing in formation raised their swords in unison.

The old man at the very front lifted his blade, laid it flat, and slowly lowered it.

Carefully, as though administering a baptism.

With a soft tap, he rested the blade atop the kneeling person’s head.

Take up your sword because it is only natural.

Take up your sword not for your strength, but for your goodness.

Another tap.

Then another, across both shoulders.

From this moment onward, your name is knight.

Look upon those like us through the eyes of the weak.

Isabel came to her senses in perfect stillness, without even drawing breath.

The demon’s blade was falling toward her head.

Slowly.

Yet her own body felt even heavier and slower.

Behind her came groans, screams, and cries filled with terror and shock.

Stand in the place of the weak, and look through the eyes of the weak.

Take up your sword not for your strength, but for your goodness.

The voice continued to echo.

Yes.

I shall do so.

As though entranced, Isabel reached for the sword lying on the ground.

Her hand closed around the hilt.

Her body felt light.

Lighter than it had ever felt in her entire life.

Every muscle in her body bent with fluid grace before gathering together with tremendous strength.

By the time Eiphelos’s blade descended directly above her head, Isabel had already assumed her stance.

Thrust—!

Silence fell.

From everyone around them.

Even from the wind.

Not even the breeze that had been rustling through the forest could disturb Isabel’s hearing at that moment.

The clouds parted, and the moonlight shone brightly once more.

The survivors behind her forgot even to breathe as they stared at the sight before them.

The blade had stopped directly above Isabel’s crouched head.

And from the broad back of the massive demon, a sword blade protruded like a branch.

“How…?”

Eiphelos could not understand what had happened.

With vacant eyes, he glared down at Isabel standing beneath him.

He could not see her expression because her head was lowered.

Yet in that instant, he understood with perfect clarity.

This child—

No.

This knight had just taken her first step forward.

Eiphelos laughed hollowly.

First the Hero, and now the Hero’s daughter had pierced his body as well.

He coughed up a mouthful of blood and staggered backward.

Clatter.

His sword slipped from his hand.

He stumbled back several steps before collapsing onto one knee.

“Haa…”

Isabel also planted her sword into the ground and knelt on one knee, releasing a deep breath.

She was exhausted.

Completely spent.

But she had protected them.

She had saved them.

Everyone standing behind her.

In the end, she had saved every survivor.

“Excellent.”

At the sound of a low voice, she abruptly raised her head.

A man was walking toward them from the distance with heavy steps.

His thick beard concealed his expression, but his vivid blue eyes shone clearly even in the darkness.

That man was smiling.

Blood dripped steadily from his arm, and his coat had been torn to pieces by branches.

One glance was enough to tell what kind of battle he had fought before returning.

She could never have done what he had.

She had nearly been killed by a single opponent.

Was that why he had said she would only get in the way?

Isabel chuckled and shook her head.

“What about the other enemies…?”

“This one was the last.”

“That’s incredible. Truly…”

“Who knows?”

The man smiled gently, looking down at her as though she were a niece who had grown up well.

The thought was so strangely accurate that Isabel ended up laughing.

It really did seem as though this man regarded her as no more than a niece.

“Hm? What are you doing?”

“Treating him.”

He tore the cap off the abhorrent truth serum and walked toward the fallen demon.

***

Phew. What a relief.

Kim Sun-woo let out a sigh.

A relief indeed.

Ivan also gave a brief laugh.

It had only been an ordinary early-game awakening event.

The sort included in a tutorial.

Isabel had probably been meant to kill every enemy in this forest.

Of course, in the process, everyone else—including the survivors—would likely have been slaughtered, leaving her as the sole person alive.

Because Ivan had intervened, every survivor had lived.

That was fortunate.

It seemed that the only true variable in this world was Ivan himself.

Ivan smiled in relief.

Good.

Discovering that he was not an NPC was already more than enough of a result.

Now only one task remained.

“What are you… doing?”

“Treating you.”

“Why… me…?”

“Because I have many questions.”

If the difference between Eshidis’s and Isabel’s tutorial difficulties was normal, then what level of difficulty had been assigned to the other children of the Hero’s party?

Should Ivan intervene?

Or would it be safe to simply observe?

This situation was perfect for finding out.

Unlike with Eshidis, the people behind the terrorist attack had personally revealed themselves this time.

How demons had been able to move so openly near Pritchenkaya.

How many more had infiltrated the academy.

Where they were plotting their schemes.

And what kind of bastard sat at the head of their organization.

There was much to discover.

And the Extermination Unit possessed both an abundance of curiosity—

And many methods for satisfying it.