Chapter 24

The Saintess and the Woodcutter (2)

Ivan slowly stepped toward the ring.

Step.

Step.

They were perfectly ordinary footsteps, yet there was something about their quietness that drew everyone's attention.

The students' initial impression was simple.

So he's an older guy who knows how to look intimidating.

Even when Ivan pulled an axe from his waist, they thought little of it.

After all, this was the Department of Knighthood.

Most students were trapped by the formula:

The king of all weapons = the sword.

In most cases, it was not entirely wrong.

A sword was easy to carry, highly versatile, and well suited to delicate techniques.

An axe, however, was simple.

Its center of gravity was concentrated in the axe head.

Therefore, every axe strike inevitably traveled in a single direction.

In other words, its trajectory was easy to read and interrupt.

That was why most of the students looked down on axes.

"Enrique."

Ivan stood still in the ring and spoke.

His voice was heavy.

"Mm?"

"How far am I allowed to go?"

"Just don't kill anyone. We have a Saintess here, after all."

Patricia, the Saintess of the Hero's Party, was currently serving as the head of the university's Faculty of Theology.

In other words, they effectively had a trauma specialist superior to any healing potion permanently on standby.

Good.

Ivan nodded.

"Erikson."

"As I thought, seeing you from this close makes it certain. You still have the same face you did back then."

"If I win, you'll do volunteer work."

"...What?"

This man was an intelligence operative from the Kingdom of Droan.

On the surface, he was a freshman in the Department of Knighthood.

Externally, he served as Eshidis's personal bodyguard.

But in essence, he was someone planted by High King Einar who could act as a spy.

In other words, he could take the position of an unofficial diplomat at any time and ally himself with either the Princess's faction or the Crown Prince's faction.

He was a variable.

Therefore, until Eshidis's course of action was confirmed, Ivan needed to keep him occupied.

The easiest method was to keep him close.

Every moment after class, excluding the time he had to spend guarding Eshidis.

"I'll have you do laundry at the orphanage."

Volunteer work was good for building character.

That was an undeniable truth.

Taking care of orphans greatly helped cultivate one's personality.

Therefore, this was also an opportunity to teach civilization to this Droan berserker huscarl.

"Bullshit."

"Come."

Ivan raised his axe.

The two warriors—whose average age was somewhere in their forties, despite this being a first-year university practical class—no longer needed words.

When the two first collided, the freshmen were somewhat confused.

What?

Why are they actually good?

BOOOOM!

Then, when the two axes struck each other and sent sparks flying, the freshmen were stunned.

What the hell?

How did they move like that from there?

Did anyone see what just happened?

CLAAAAANG!

CRRRRUNCH!

At last, when the strongest freshman—a man in his forties—fell to one knee and began panting, the students were finally able to properly look at the man still standing upright.

Two eyes glowing brilliant blue.

An expressionless face.

And breathing so calm that there was not even the slightest tremor, despite the ferocity of his movements.

"Huff... Petrovich... So it really is... Little Ivan. Huff...! What the hell are you plotting here...?"

"Safety management."

Ivan walked past Mord, who had been reduced to a rag.

Safety...?

Management...?

A huge question mark once again appeared in the students' minds.

Then what exactly was everything I've understood as safety until now...?

"Next."

"Um... Professor, isn't the test range a little too broad? This is our first class...?"

A young man who had flinched at Ivan's words raised his hand.

It was the noble student who had mocked Ivan earlier.

Enrique grinned and nodded.

"Looks like we've decided who's next. Come on, we don't have time. Move it."

"Uh... Uh..."

Since no one wanted to enter the ring, the young man was dragged up with the kind assistance of his classmates.

Sweating heavily, he took a hesitant step backward.

"Come."

Ivan raised his axe.

"Now, if you can stab our assistant just once, I'll give you an A+ on the spot. How about it? Hm? Or... Fine, I'm feeling generous! I'll even throw in a private lesson with a beautiful active member of the Hero's Party!"

Ivan chose not to point out the error in Enrique's final sentence.

He was a reasonable man.

Instead, he raised his axe.

He was also a man deeply committed to training recruits.

"Next."

After clearing away five corpses—

They were not corpses.

—no one was willing to enter the ring anymore.

"Hey! If all of you give up like this, you'll fail as a group! How about this? You can all get F's and retake the class next year, and I'll start the lesson exactly the same way! Better to take your beating sooner rather than later, right?"

The students ground their teeth as they stared at Enrique's radiant smile.

Fine.

They could not be certain, but at least they probably would not die.

And if they succeeded in landing even one attack, a high grade was guaranteed.

This was a three-credit compulsory major course.

It would obviously have a considerable effect on their average grades.

Besides, students in the Department of Knighthood were naturally competitive.

They were all fledglings who had grown up being called martial prodigies and swordsmanship geniuses in their hometowns.

Just once.

They only needed to succeed once.

Even after thirty more corpses—

Again, they were not corpses.

—were carried away, the freshmen still refused to give up.

"Next."

At last, it was Yuri's turn.

Yuri held her sword with trembling hands.

Never before, in all the time she had wielded a blade, had it felt this heavy.

She stepped into the ring, where thick killing intent swirled through the air.

A bleak wind blew across the bloodstains slickening the floor.

She gathered her courage and took one step forward.

But the moment she looked at the man before her, she shrank back again.

Every time she saw those loose work clothes and the old towel draped around his neck, something came to mind.

"Yuri Frank."

"Yesh! Yes! Yep?!"

Ivan silently stared into Yuri's eyes.

His sharp gaze seemed to dig through her mind and pierce directly into her vision.

Yuri's pupils shook violently from side to side.

Her head spun, and the strength kept draining from her hands.

"Top freshman in the Department of Knighthood."

"Yes!"

"Lee Yuri?"

"...Hic?!"

"Kim Yuri? Park Yuri? Choi Yuri?"

"W-What? What are you talking about? I don't really understand..."

"Yuri is a male name in Krasilov."

"Th-That's because I have circumstances..."

"I see..."

"Come."

Ivan raised his axe.

"We can hear about those circumstances slowly afterward."

"No, no, no! I'd like to forfeit! Is that allowed? I'll fail! I'll just take the failing grade! Aaaaah!"

Before Yuri could drop her sword, Ivan lunged.

She reflexively raised her blade and deflected the edge of his axe, desperately swallowing the scream that burst from her throat.

It's wrapping around me.

Like a snake...!

The axe blade climbed along her sword as though it intended to bite into her neck at any moment.

Clang!

She had already watched this attack method repeatedly while the earlier students were being reduced to tatters.

Even so, it was impossible to get used to.

Ivan's axe seemed to have reached some kind of transcendent level.

Each individual strike was not especially heavy.

Mord Erikson's blows had been far more powerful.

But it was fast.

The slightest lapse in attention, and the axe was already entangled with her sword strike.

He had mastered every possible method of using an axe.

He did not merely swing it.

He struck the blade, used centrifugal force to cling to it again, brought the axe down, then immediately drove in from a diagonal angle.

CRRRRUNCH!

Using the curve of the axe head, he hooked her sword and pulled.

Then he twisted the handle and tore the blade from her grip.

If she lost the sword from that impact, it was over.

Ivan looked down at Yuri, who had fallen to her knees, then nodded.

"You fight well."

"Thank... you..."

"I'll be watching you. Next."

Yuri staggered down from the ring on trembling legs.

By some miraculous result, she had not suffered a single wound.

But that only made her feel that the monster had deliberately gone easy on her.

She looked at Ivan with a terrified expression before squeezing her eyes shut.

What the hell was that about Kim, Lee, Park, and Choi?!

Korean?

He's Korean...?

Lee Yuri had been an illustrator.

The last project she had worked on was an outsourced commission for a humiliating academy adult game.

A game called Heejak 3.

It was the kind of game where students had to flee from a gardener who discovered their weaknesses and used them to do...

Improper...

Extremely, extremely outrageous things.

That gardener had been a middle-aged man wearing old work clothes with a towel draped around his neck.

And now she had been dropped directly into that damned world.

Right after staying up all night and submitting the first rough draft of her outsourced illustrations.

A world where a bearded gardener carrying an axe glared greedily at female students.

That was a misunderstanding.

If he finds out...

He'll do something extremely... extremely terrible to me...!

She trembled as she remembered what had happened to the students whose weaknesses had been discovered.

The gardener was watching her.

If he even learned that she was from the same homeland and was also a transmigrator, the genre might shift into blackmail through some unknown means.

She...

She was the protagonist.

Of course she was.

She was an orphan, a full-scholarship student, and a swordsmanship genius.

How could an illustrator who had spent her entire life drawing possibly possess abilities like that?

She had obviously become the protagonist.

She wanted to go home.

***

Isabel lasted three moves.

Oskar lasted two exchanges.

In terms of ranking, it seemed to be Mord, Yuri, Isabel, and Oskar.

Mord had never truly been a student to begin with, so that could be set aside.

The results fell almost exactly within the range Ivan had expected.

My eye hasn't dulled yet.

Thinking that, Ivan nodded in satisfaction.

"Are you smiling right now?"

"That's a misunderstanding."

"It looked like you smiled."

"My face naturally looks cheerful."

"Pfft...! You lunatic...!"

At the voice coming from directly in front of him, Ivan was forced to control his expression again.

Enrique stood beside him with both hands raised.

She was hiccupping as she desperately tried to suppress her laughter.

Ivan was a reasonable man, so he did not react to his elderly master's undignified behavior.

At the same time Yuri had been trembling in terror, Ivan and Enrique were being scolded by the Saintess.

It was the price they had to pay for cramming fifty patients into the office of the head of the Faculty of Theology.