Episode 19 The wind is not blowing well (4)
Looking at the Knox guy, it seemed like his heart had really broken since yesterday’s sparring. There was a small spark in his eyes, but it was only a match-sized hostility.
When I stopped by the hospital room, I packed a bag of sashimi in the inside pocket of my coat just in case. I was planning to cut it up as soon as I saw any sign of it.
Still, I was planning to end it with a friendly conversation if possible. His family is the only assassin group in this world. No matter how much I am, I can’t deal with all of them.
So, in order to prevent this possibility, I said something and left. If you try to interfere, I will destroy Auditore.
Of course, Gao was quite a threat. Since the limit for using the protection was 30 seconds, it was impossible to deal with all the members of the family.
Well, I guess I could kill ten people in 30 seconds, but that’s the worst case scenario, and I always want to avoid killing. I don’t want to get used to the feeling of cutting people up anymore.
Judging by the guy’s pale face, those words seemed to have had a real effect. It was a face I had seen a few times in my past life. The appearance of a broken person whose heart could never recover.
It wasn’t pleasant. I was the one who broke the will of a boy who had been admired as a genius his entire life.
I scratched my head and left the hospital, shaking the smell of medicine off my clothes.
The hazy purple of the dazzling sunset was disappearing beyond the horizon.
I stared blankly at the sunset for a moment. I was definitely impressed by the view a few days ago, but now I feel no emotion at all.
‘Are you familiar with it?’
I clicked my tongue briefly and brushed away my heavy heart. Today was a particularly tiring day. I decided to have some ramen for dinner and headed toward the school mart.
* * *
When I opened my eyes, the sun was at its zenith.
I just turned my head and checked the time on my phone. Then I tossed and turned under the blanket for a while and got out of bed. The beginning of a lazy routine of getting up and doing things slowly.
‘The weekend is nice.’
I opened my eyes half-asleep and yawned. My body, which had been like a wet cotton ball, felt lighter, as if my fatigue had been relieved by a good night’s sleep.
When was the last time I slept this soundly? I scratched the back of my neck and picked up the bottle of water on the nightstand.
I drank it down in one gulp and wiped the moisture from my mouth. I wiped the moisture from my mouth with an old-fashioned exclamation, saying, “I feel like I can live now.”
Even though he hadn’t even been drinking, he looked like a modern person suffering from a hangover.
‘I want to drink beer.’
I remembered a glass of 500cc that made my head tingle. In my previous life, I often drank draft beer from the machine while cleaning up after work at the store.
Starting with the beer foam caressing your tongue, the tangy bubbles hit your throat refreshingly.
Drool flowed out of my mouth. I wiped it away with my sleeve. My arms look really strange.
Until last year, I was living an ordinary life, even drinking beer, but before I knew it, I was standing in the eye of an extraordinary typhoon.
Just yesterday, two beautiful girls were fighting in front of me with swords. Now that I think about it, I had actually threatened to annihilate the person I had killed. A dry laugh escaped my lips.
‘I wonder what’s wrong with my head.’
He ran his hand through his hair to shake off his thoughts. The more he dwelled on such trivial matters, the more he would unintentionally get involved. Knox could now ignore them as long as nothing happened, but the problem was Rachel…
Her personality, which relies on the protection of a miracle, is YOLO itself. The expression “a character that is impossible to grasp” is the perfect fit.
Even during the game, he was the one who approached the main character, Leon, first, but ended up falling later than the main heroine, Abel.
I feel like I’ve gotten involved with someone I really don’t want to get involved with. I don’t want to avoid them like a fool, but I can’t think of a proper way to deal with it.
‘I’ll think about it later.’
There’s a lot to do ahead. The first midterm exam is coming up this week, so my priority is to prepare. Since the reward is the B-class weapon ‘Murasame’, I plan to take it seriously.
Even though it is a longsword of the sword series, it is practically no different from being unarmed, so it is a great help to me. Also, if it is outside the standards of the protection, it is a merit. Well, if it doesn’t fit my hand later, I can just leave it to the blacksmith.
The content of the test is to form a group of five people regardless of class and subdue a group of demons. Most of the practical training and tests conducted at the academy were focused on cooperation.
Although individual skills are important, trust between comrades is more important to survive on the battlefield.
Well, thanks to that, if you meet a good crew member, you can take the bus and get a free reward, so it might be beneficial.
For reference, the demon you will be subduing in the midterm exam is a D-class demon called ‘Merman’, with the upper body of a fish and the lower body of a human. To put it simply, you can think of it as Ingxking walking on two legs.
‘Fuck.’
Even when I saw it in the game, it was a really unpleasant looking demon, but the thought of seeing it in real life made my teeth chatter. I’ve been catching fish my whole life, but the thought of encountering a fish with legs made me want to curse.
It would have been nice if it had been a ‘mermaid’, at least for the eyes.
‘But they were demons.’
The ‘Mines’ are the main force of the Demon Tribe. Compared to them, the Demon Beasts are practically like guard dogs.
700 years ago, they signed a truce with humanity and have been quiet ever since.
As the saying goes, there is no history without war in human history, and there have been many conflicts, big and small.
A typical example is the Demon King’s 6th Army Commander, Basmon, who crossed the ceasefire line on his own half a century ago.
He came alone under the ridiculous pretext of resurrecting the 1st Legion Commander, Lycan, who was sealed in the hands of the hero of the time, Balor Joaquin.
To fight him, mankind dispatched the Seven Sage Heroes, comprised of only the strongest heroes, and after a week of bloody battles day and night, the Seven Sage Heroes were victorious.
However, out of the seven heroes of the Seven Stars on the victorious side, three, excluding Geomje, Hyeonja, Changseong, and Jeolgung, were killed by Basmon.
The demons avoided responsibility by attributing it to Basmon’s arbitrary actions, and humanity also swept it under the rug for fear of breaking the tenuous truce that was barely maintained even if they raised the issue further.
‘Even if the seven strongest men in the human race fought together, three of them would die because of one of the Demon King’s executives… … .’
Even Basmon was a commander who had the cliché attribute of ‘that guy was the weakest among us.’ I felt once again that Balor Joaquin, who sealed the 1st Legion Commander Lycan single-handedly, was amazing.
But the problem is that in three years, we have to wage war against all the demons, including the Demon King.
“… … .”
After washing my face dry to the point where my face felt hot from the suffocation, I slapped my face.
I had to pull myself together to survive this tough terrain. I tried to calm my mind and focus only on the midterms.
First of all, I need to sell my feet and find a decent team. Normally, the children of nobles would never put a special promotion student like me on the same team.
I’m not a famous person in the academy these days. It’s going to be hard to get through the three years quietly anyway, so I’ve adjusted my goal to be more comfortable using this as a selling point.
After thinking about it, I stared blankly at the ceiling. Then I quickly laid back down on the bed. During my growth period, I was always sleep deprived.
* * *
A week from then,
There was no cadet who would let me in as an assistant as if it were a lie.
The first test was a situation where, let alone a plan to take the bus comfortably, you could easily fail.
Why? I seriously asked myself. Was it my own intuition? After thinking about it carefully, I think the cause of the problem was that my actions during the Knox era were too harsh.
Since I’m the type of person who can’t do anything ‘in moderation’, I tended to overreact, and because of that, I became something of an object of fear among my classmates.
Not only me, but Chloe also didn’t have any invitations to join. Maybe it was because of the conflict with Rachel. After that incident, the other students in the same class had a strange aversion to her.
Well, even I wouldn’t want to have a friend by my side who would pull out a cutter knife instead of having a conversation without any questions or answers. But since I was involved in that, I felt unnecessarily nervous.
I was originally a nerd, so I’m used to this kind of situation, but Chloe had adapted well after entering the academy and maintained a smooth relationship with her friends. But now, she’s being treated as a nerd overnight.
I thought about it for a moment and then asked Chloe.
“Chloe, are there any cadets who would recommend Joe yet?”
“Oh, yes. Not yet, hehe.”
Chloe answers with a faint smile and scratches her head.
“Don’t you feel a little uncomfortable? Well, I was always shunned by the kids, but Chloe has made some friends.”
“Ah! I’m fine! As long as there’s a swordsman… … .”
She trailed off with a crawling voice. It wasn’t a lie that she was okay, there was no sign of worry on Chloe’s face. In fact, her complexion was brighter than before.
Yeah, Chloe was like that. I chuckled without realizing it.
“Then let’s be in the same group as me for this exam. I’ll have to find three more people in the future, but for now, neither of us are in a group yet. Is that okay?”
“Ah, ah, yes! Of course!”
He nodded his head vigorously in agreement, then smiled bashfully. It wasn’t just out of sympathy that he made the same offer.
Chloe is a force I can definitely acknowledge. If we were together, I wouldn’t take the initiative and draw my sword. To be honest, I can finish a one-on-one battle in 30 seconds, but the test requires killing more mermen in an hour. No matter how fast I try, I won’t be able to reach the target in 30 seconds.
While I was chatting with Chloe about the test, a familiar intruder suddenly barged in.
“Hey, Kun! I came to play!”
Rachel. After that incident, I thought it was quiet for a few days. I looked really depressed at the visit of the unwelcome guest.
“Why are you here again?”
“Huh? You just came to play?”
Chloe was glaring sharply at me from the seat next to me, as if she was about to grab me. As she reached for her pocket, I could already smell the metal.
“Just go today. I’m already busy and don’t have time to deal with you.”
“Kun, you’re too harsh!”
“… Could you please stop calling me Geumma Kun?”
Rachel responds by sticking out her tongue. I touch my temple and wave my hand, indicating that she should go away. Deafened, she instead clings close to me.
“Hey, Sword Maiden, did you get the group for this exam?”
Rachel, who hits a sore spot with exquisite precision, whether intentionally or as a joke.
“no.”
“Oh, really? Then do you want to join our group?!”
I tilted my head at the sudden suggestion.
“Why me? Even if it weren’t for me, there would be a line of people waiting to be in the same group as you.”
“They’re not fun. I feel like something fun would happen if I did it with you.”
“I already decided to be in the same group as Chloe.”
“It’s okay! There are two empty seats right now.”
It was tempting. The fact that the other person was Rachel was a bit odd, but as the old sage said, hate the sin, but not the sinner.
I stroked my chin. It was a suggestion personally given by the Academy’s 4th seat. If things continued like this, my grades would be precarious from the first test. There weren’t many options.
I asked Chloe for advice. She frowned, perhaps because of Rachel, but reluctantly nodded slightly at my request.
“Then please.”
“Okay! No more murkiness!”
Rachel seemed to like my answer, and a pleased smile appeared on her lips. She immediately texted the manager on her phone, saying she would contact him. A question suddenly crossed my mind as she saw him.
“But who is the leader?”
“Leon van Reinhardt, do you know who he is?”
What the heck.
