Chapter 39
An Academy Field Exercise Is Guaranteed to Be Attacked (3)
There is a saying:
“If you want to hide a leaf, hide it in a forest.”
It is an ancient maxim regarding concealment techniques.
(It is not.)
Therefore, members of the Annihilation Unit infiltrating a forest became masters at setting traps using leaves.
The exact method differed depending on the season, but since Krasilov essentially had only summer and winter, things were considerably simpler.
Ting—
The instant Isabel heard the sharp sound of a wire snapping, she covered her head and rolled across the ground.
A moment later—
Boom!
An all-too-familiar explosion erupted where she had been standing.
“Seriously! That could actually kill someone!”
“Were you not the one who asked me to train you as though this were a real battle?”
“There’s supposed to be! A limit! To that!”
Isabel sprang to her feet and immediately swung her sword toward the direction of his voice.
Clang!
“Suppress your emotions.”
“You’re making me want to suppress you permanently!”
Her total record was seventeen matches, zero victories, and seventeen defeats.
Isabel ground her teeth and continued swinging her sword.
Clang, clang!
Sparks flew, and an axe blade flashed through the shadows.
By this point, it had become a kind of routine.
Immediately after a gunshot, a booby trap awaited her along her escape route.
If she avoided the trap, Ivan launched a surprise attack from the direction she had dodged.
Ivan’s pattern was vicious beyond belief.
His skill was so precise that even the direction in which she fled led seamlessly into another trap.
Every one of them was dangerous enough to guarantee death or serious injury the moment she made a mistake.
After five days of this, Isabel had reached the point where she could determine the timing of an attack even with her eyes closed.
“Excellent.”
Ivan smirked, withdrew his axe, and stepped back.
A cool breeze from the forest tickled Isabel’s bangs.
“As expected, the more you beat a person, the tougher they become.”
“I think your definition of ‘person’ is slightly different from everyone else’s.”
“At the very least, you are no longer an ordinary one. You followed along well.”
Ivan was not stingy with praise.
He was someone who had personally encountered the Hero’s Party.
Naturally, that meant his standards had become absurdly high.
Ironically, because of that, his standards when dealing with “trainees” were extremely low.
No matter how hard they trained, they could never move like the Hero.
Except for the truly powerful, everyone else was more or less the same.
If someone was even slightly better than the rest, that was sufficient.
After all, Ivan was far more accustomed to teaching soldiers than teaching heroes.
A soldier only needed to display average performance.
As long as they were capable enough not to interfere with an operation, that was enough.
But not anymore.
Ivan raised his axe and assumed a stance.
He had taught her all the fundamental techniques necessary for responding to an ambush.
From this point onward, it was a matter of instinct and mastery.
Therefore, for the time they had left—
“Raise your sword.”
He would teach her the realm of superhumans.
Ivan’s eyes deepened.
Mana surged around him, causing his beard to flutter gently.
The truly strong—those who had stepped onto the battlefield of superhumans—possessed a fundamentally different “rank of existence.”
He would teach her about the place Isabel would someday have to reach.
Even if he had to beat the knowledge directly into her head.
‘Academies are dangerous.’
One might wonder how dangerous a university could possibly be.
But this was no ordinary university.
It was an academy.
An academy was practically no different from the front lines.
That was simply “common sense.”
“Extend your sword.”
“What? Ah, yes.”
Isabel held her sword straight out.
Her posture was flawless.
From the way she held the sword to her leading foot, abdominal pressure, shoulders, and the balance extending all the way to her wrists, everything was nearly perfect.
She truly was the Hero’s daughter.
Her talent for using her body had already reached completion on an instinctive level.
Therefore, the only things she required were education and experience.
“Endure it.”
“…What?”
She was about to joke, “That is an incredibly reassuring thing to hear,” while smiling.
Kiiing—!
Ivan’s arm seemed to blur.
In the next instant, her blade split in two.
Even though he had chopped through the sword with his axe, no shock had reached her hand.
The axe had sliced through the blade as easily as cutting tofu.
“What in the world…?”
Isabel laughed hollowly.
She stared blankly at her half-length sword and let out a disbelieving chuckle.
“This was really expensive… No, seriously, how…?”
“Did you see it?”
“See what? My sword transforming into something that used to be a sword?”
“The Shedding of Time.”
Ivan spun his axe and raised it into position.
“The human auditory nerve requires roughly 0.1 seconds to react. The tactile nerves require approximately 0.25 seconds. These are domains with clear limits to how far training can improve them.”
Those were limitations imposed by the structure of the human body.
Nerve reactions were electrical signals transmitted from sensory organs through receptors and into the brain.
They were inevitably constrained by physical speed.
Anatomical science had not yet developed to that degree in this premodern fantasy world.
However, astonishingly, this world possessed something known as mana.
This universal resource, which could be interpreted however one wished depending on the situation, could interfere directly with the human nervous system and accelerate the transmission speed to its absolute limit.
To explain it simply, this was called the Shedding of Time.
“When you reinforce your nerves with mana, an entirely different world unfolds before you, Isabel. There is a realm you reach when seeing, feeling, and moving all surpass their limits.”
That was the battlefield of superhumans.
Very few people were capable of reaching it.
However, with sufficient talent and accumulated experience, it was the destination one might someday attain.
It was the first step in the struggles of those who possessed “rank.”
Anyone who failed to reach it would remain nothing more than an ordinary soldier for the rest of their life.
But Isabel was not a supporting character.
She was clearly one of the central figures of this world.
Therefore, she had to be prepared.
The sooner one reached this realm, the greater the advantage.
If Ivan could not protect her forever, then the best thing he could do was push her forward.
“You can’t just suddenly tell me to do something like that…”
“You will do it.”
“Yes, well… If you teach me, I’ll obviously do my best.”
“You merely need to experience it until you succeed.”
Ivan raised his axe and held it in reverse.
He turned the blunt back of the axe toward her rather than the blade, as though to demonstrate that it was not threatening in the slightest.
His expression appeared completely harmless.
“The survival instinct provides nourishment for growth.”
“You say completely insane things so naturally…”
Isabel cursed her past self for asking this lunatic to train her and raised her broken sword.
That was the final sight she saw.
Boom!
“Bella? Bella? Bella!”
“Huh?! Yes?”
Isabel jolted and raised her head.
Essidis was staring at her with a worried expression.
They were sitting on the warm spring campus, spending lunchtime together while eating packed lunches.
Ah, thank goodness.
It had only been a dream.
(It had not.)
Isabel rubbed her arms as goosebumps rose across her skin, then looked up.
“You’ve been acting strange lately. Did something happen?”
“Something…? Ahaha. I’ve just been preparing for my exam.”
“What kind of studying leaves you like that…? Hmm… Maybe it’s because you’re in the Department of Knighthood? It looks like you’ve gotten a lot more bruises lately.”
As the Hero’s daughter, Isabel enjoyed all manner of privileges.
For example, the Thales royal family had assigned a personal priest exclusively to her.
That was why she could return every night nearly shattered to pieces and still attend classes looking perfectly fine the next day.
However, the human body was not built to endure such treatment.
Unfortunately, injuries and exhaustion accumulated over time.
The dark circles beneath Isabel’s eyes were proof of that.
“And you’ve been acting suspicious lately. Are you seeing someone?”
“Seeing someone? Who would I be seeing?!”
Because she came from the Thales royal court, Isabel’s clothes and accessories were naturally all of the finest quality.
Even so…
She appeared to have put more effort into her appearance than usual.
Essidis wondered whether there were any decent men in the Department of Knighthood.
Then she remembered her uncle and grimaced.
The Department of Knighthood was a horrifying place.
“Miss Yuri, do you know anything? Is there some boy Bella has been spending time with?”
“Miss Isabel is kind to everyone. Hmm… Recently, I’m not sure. Everyone has been busy preparing for exams. If I had to choose someone, perhaps Mr. Oskar?”
“My goodness! Oskar?!”
Essidis grinned mischievously and poked Isabel in the side.
“You and Oskar have something going on?”
“Essi, there are some things people should joke about and some things they shouldn’t. Honestly, Oskar is too… How should I put it? He’s a little too greasy.”
“Why? He’s popular.”
“I like someone more dependable and quiet… Hmm. Someone a bit like a bear, perhaps? That sort of reliable person. Oskar is too delicate.”
Delicate…?
Had Oskar been like that?
Essidis tilted her head.
She had never paid him much attention, but he had trained as a knight from childhood.
Leaving the confused Essidis behind, Isabel stood and stretched.
“I’m going to train some more!”
“Are you trying to steal my scholarship too?”
“As if I’d let you remain at the top of the class forever!”
Isabel chuckled and walked away with light steps.
***
“Mister!”
“Mm.”
“Ahaha… When will you finally say ‘hello’ to me?”
Holding a pair of pruning shears, Ivan turned toward Isabel as she came running toward him from afar.
“We’re going to train again today, right? The exam is tomorrow!”
“No.”
Ivan looked Isabel up and down.
The exhaustion left behind by six days of training was clearly visible.
She appeared to have received considerable treatment, but she was certainly not in peak condition.
“Rest today. You need to prepare for tomorrow.”
“Hmm… Then… well…”
Isabel nervously played with the ends of her hair, visibly conflicted.
Her eyes shifted slightly as she bit her lip.
“Have you eaten yet…? Or… if you have some free time today…”
“I am busy.”
Ivan was an efficient man and did not repeat himself.
He gave the stunned Isabel a brief glance and walked away with heavy steps.
Tomorrow was the field exercise.
More importantly, it was an exam being conducted outside the university grounds.
Naturally, unknown enemies were scheduled to launch an attack.
Therefore, Ivan also had many preparations to make in advance.
It was common sense that an academy field exercise would be attacked.
Ivan was a reasonable man.
If he anticipated an enemy attack, then Annihilation Unit common sense dictated that he should prepare accordingly and eliminate the target before the ambush began.
“I think I’m actually going to lose my mind…”
Isabel lowered her head and muttered as she watched Ivan’s retreating back.
“Unbelievable.”
Yuri and Essidis, who had witnessed the scene from a distance, slowly spilled their coffee.
“The man… is a gardener…?”
“The man… is the crazy axe-bearded guy…?”
“Who is that?”
“There is… someone like that.”