novelraw Chapter 20
Chapter 20
Chapter 20
As Feyr stepped out of the Head Instructor's Office, Jen was waiting outside.
"Did the report go without issue?"
"Yes."
"Then I'll give you a quick tour of the Crescent Moon Training Ground from here. Follow me."
"Understood."
Jen said as much and quickened his pace again.
Feyr followed behind him, thinking to himself.
‘The scale alone is clearly different from the Lunar Eclipse Training Ground.’
The Crescent Moon Training Ground here was a proper training ground for cultivating knights, so it was in a different league from the Lunar Eclipse Training Ground.
The facilities inside were the same.
While the Lunar Eclipse Training Ground had been poor in its facilities from the ground up, this place was far better off.
As Feyr walked, sweeping his gaze over the surroundings, Jen said, "I'll show you the lodgings first, so don't lose track and keep up."
"Understood."
After saying so, Jen began introducing the Crescent Moon Training Ground's facilities to Feyr one by one.
Feyr quietly followed in Jen's wake, grasping the layout of the Crescent Moon Training Ground piece by piece.
The 2 then made their way to the indoor training hall, and along the way Jen said to Feyr, "At this hour they'll probably be in the thick of training. You'll be joining from tomorrow, so take note while you can."
"Understood."
Keeping up the exchange, the 2 stepped into the indoor training hall.
And it was at that very moment.
Thwack!
Accompanied by a sharp impact, a person came flying toward them.
At the same time, every gaze inside turned toward the 2 of them.
The one who had come flying had drawn eyes—but the one who appeared without warning drew even more.
"Jen? What brings you here?"
From among the trainees, someone who appeared to be a senior instructor called out to Jen.
Jen responded to the instructor's question with a respectful manner.
A messenger, after all, ranked below an instructor.
"I was showing a new transfer around the Crescent Moon Training Ground."
"Is this the one?"
"Yes."
At the 2's exchange, the trainees who had been listening quietly began chattering in clusters.
"That's him?"
"The slave who got to Skip Exam?"
"Looks weak......."
The reaction from most of them toward Feyr was, as expected, on the negative side.
That was especially true when it came to his ability.
They hadn't yet seen Feyr's ability with their own eyes.
As the mood grew increasingly restless, Jen asked the instructor, "What training is going on at the moment?"
"Ah, right now? We're running live combat drills against me."
"......Live combat drills, you say?"
"Well, just land a clean hit, that's all."
It was a simple drill on the surface—but the reality was anything but.
To land a clean hit on a senior instructor, no less.
It was like throwing an egg at a boulder.
‘Still, I mean—without using Mana, it should be manageable, no?’
That was how Feyr saw it.
Of course, in terms of physical ability, the disadvantage was overwhelming.
But if one made use of the advantages that came from a smaller frame, it wouldn't be impossible either.
Just as Feyr was in the middle of that thought—
"Anyway, since you've come this far, stay and watch for a bit. You'll be joining training from tomorrow, after all."
The senior instructor said so while looking at Feyr.
Feyr gave an easy nod and stepped back a short distance together with Jen.
The senior instructor then called out the next trainee.
"Let's see, next is...... Leticia?"
"......What?"
‘Leticia?’
Feyr let the word slip out before he could help it.
And no wonder.
Leticia.
That name was not one that should be appearing in a place like this.
‘......The Mad Blade.’
A lunatic who, consumed by madness, would throw herself into any battlefield without distinction.
Because of her nature—once her eyes had turned, she would start cutting down friend and foe alike without telling them apart—she had earned the epithet of Mad Blade.
To say nothing of the fact that she was the disciple of the infamous Mad Demon.
‘The Mad Demon—the most eccentric of the Family's elders by reputation. And this is his disciple.’
That alone already set her apart from everyone else.
The Mad Demon was that kind of existence.
‘Ugh...... I don't even want to think about it.’
Just as Feyr shook his head to rid himself of thoughts about the Mad Demon—
Above the sparring floor, the Mad Blade of the past—no, the present—appeared with her pure white hair billowing behind her, wooden training sword in hand.
That uniquely untamed, fierce pressure.
The moment he felt that pressure firsthand, he knew in an instant.
That girl was the madwoman from his past life—the Mad Blade, Leticia.
"I just need to land 1 hit?"
Such a question suddenly came from Leticia's lips.
The senior instructor blinked at Leticia's question, then burst into a roar of laughter and answered.
"Puahaha! That's right, as many as you can land!"
Leticia gave a nod with her characteristic blank face.
And immediately after, she began to move.
Leticia closed the distance to the instructor in an instant, sweeping the wooden training sword she held low in an upward slash.
But the instructor deflected it lightly and brought his own wooden training sword down toward Leticia's head in return.
Leticia evaded the descending strike with a light footwork and simultaneously recovered her deflected sword, swinging it diagonally.
"Done."
"Isn't it a little early to be wrapping it up?"
The instructor said so, pulling back and meeting Leticia's sword strike head-on.
As the exchange of moves repeated, the trainees all began chattering together.
"This is what 1st place looks like?"
"How is she keeping up with the senior instructor......."
"It just doesn't make sense......."
Current Beginner Class ranking, 1st place.
In short, the top of the current Beginner Class appeared to be her.
He didn't know what the rewards for top rank here were, but at the very least, they would be no worse than—if not better than—those at the Lunar Eclipse Training Ground.
Feyr paid less attention to that fight than he did to the matter of the top rank.
‘That said.’
Could it be that the Mad Blade hadn't yet entered the Mad Demon's tutelage?
Several questions suddenly arose in Feyr's mind.
So he asked the one standing right beside him.
"Sir Messenger."
"What is it?"
"Who is that white-haired child over there?"
"Leticia? Same as you—slave-born. She's also the sole disciple of Elder Mad Demon, one of the Family's elders. At first I wondered why Elder would take a slave like that as a disciple, but looking at her ability now, it makes sense. Rumour has it she might reach the 3rd Star before long."
Feyr gave a slow nod at Jen's account.
Putting everything together, the conclusion was that she hadn't yet reached the 3rd Star.
But her true worth didn't lie in her cultivation level.
How much she had grasped of her master's teachings.
In the end, that was where it lay.
Of course, one's Mana cultivation level also mattered.
But what had made her shine in his past life was, however you looked at it, her master's teachings.
‘Looking at this fight, though—it doesn't seem like she's grasped anything in particular.....’
At least, there didn't seem to be anything there.
Perhaps it was because this wasn't a life-or-death fight.
The Mad Demon's fighting style was one that shone in real combat above all else.
In a situation with not even a sliver of genuine tension, there was no way its true worth could reveal itself.
And so the dull fight dragged on—
Until at last, the result came.
Crack!
"......Ah."
In the end, the wooden training sword, having reached the end of its life, snapped first—and so, unfortunately, she failed to produce a result.
Watching the sparring match between Leticia and the instructor, Feyr had come away with 1 feeling.
‘Still, her innate talent is something else.’
No—more precisely, it was prodigious.
Monstrous reflexes and movement that was concise and clean.
What made it even more absurd was that all of it came from instinct.
‘At a glance, it's harder than moving with deliberate thought.’
Even so, it was still a shame.
Her limits were far beyond this.
But this was nothing more than training.
There would be plenty of opportunities to confirm her ability going forward.
Feyr thought as much and gave a nod.
The senior instructor looked at the snapped training sword and let out a small, rueful noise.
"As expected—ability befitting that master's disciple."
The senior instructor said so as though in acknowledgment, but Leticia's reaction was indifferent.
Her reaction was as if she wasn't satisfied with the result.
Understandable.
In the end, she had failed to land the clean hit that had been the original goal.
Leticia quietly stepped down from the sparring floor.
Even if she wasn't satisfied with the result, she had accepted it for now.
The senior instructor then looked at the remaining trainees and said, "Next."
But even as the senior instructor called for the next one, no one stepped forward.
The senior instructor made a flat expression and opened his mouth. "What, was Leticia the last?"
"Yes."
A trainee answered the senior instructor's murmur.
The senior instructor clicked his tongue, looking around with an unsatisfied air.
It seemed he wasn't ready to end things just yet.
Perhaps that was why the sparks flew this way.
"Ah, there's still 1 left."
The senior instructor looked at Feyr standing at a distance and grinned.
He tilted his head toward the wooden training swords as if to say pick one up, and asked, "You at least know how to handle a sword?"
At the senior instructor's words, Feyr reached into the wooden barrel, drew out a training sword, and stepped up onto the sparring floor.
The instructor on the sparring floor likewise received a training sword from a trainee, and the 2 stood facing each other, swords in hand.
"Think of it as an easy ability check."
"Understood."
As the 2 stood on the sparring floor, the crowd below had grown quite rowdy.
"Let's see how long this slave lasts."
"Come on, obviously 1 hit."
"You never know. Could hold out for a while."
Opinions had split sharply.
Overwhelmingly in the direction of Feyr's crushing defeat.
Even so, the debate over whether he'd last a little while or get knocked out in a single blow kept going back and forth among them.
Feyr swept a glance over those trainees.
At that, the senior instructor smiled faintly and spoke.
"What? Does it bother you?"
"No."
"Then why are you looking over there?"
"Isn't it noisy."
Even as Feyr said so, he charged at the instructor.
At the same time he swung the sword, and the instructor—caught off guard by the sudden ambush—hastily raised his sword and blocked the strike.
But.
"Huh?"
Crack.
The instructor's sword that had blocked the strike split with a crack and snapped clean through.
The snapped sword could no longer block the incoming Feyr's sword.
And the result.
Tap.
"Does this count as my win?"
Feyr's sword lightly tapped the instructor's chest.
In an instant, everything froze.
Even the senior instructor was staring at Feyr with a dumbfounded look, so Feyr asked again.
"Ah—does an ambush not count?"
At that, the senior instructor came to his senses, cleared his throat, and began to speak.
"An, an ambush you say? Ah, of course it counts! Must've learned that at the Lunar Eclipse Training Ground! Splendid ambush, that was."
"Thank you."
At the senior instructor's effusive praise, Feyr gave a deferential bow.
As Feyr stepped down from the sparring floor, the trainees watched him and were still dumbstruck, buzzing with murmurs.
"The instructor lost?"
"That can't be...... he's 5th Star."
"Well...... I mean, yeah, it was an ambush."
Winning by resorting to a dirty trick like an ambush.
That was the most common sentiment among them.
But this was precisely what Feyr had intended.
Skilled—but not someone he wanted standing out right now.
That was what Feyr wanted.
‘A nail that sticks out can't be hidden.’
No matter how much you tried to conceal it, it would all come to light in the end.
Everything had its time, and all he had to do was wait for that moment.
Just as Feyr was about to return to his original spot—
Whoosh!
"Huh?"
Someone suddenly seized Feyr by the collar and yanked him.
And that someone was—
"Wow."
Leticia.