novelraw Chapter 111 : Chapter 111
Chapter 111 : Chapter 111
111
The knights, having finished the one-sided hunt, headed back to their positions.
There was no pride in having properly displayed their skills, nor any sign of fluster at the students' ambiguous reactions.
It simply felt as if they had done their job in a businesslike manner.
“The students' reaction is better than expected!”
Jessie, who was gathering the surrounding students, approached with a happy expression.
“It seems they think it was amazing after seeing the knights' performance.”
“That is natural. For their mounted spearmanship reaches the heavens.”
Sordian replied with a complex expression.
It was an expression where various thoughts seemed to intersect, as if he liked it yet disliked it.
“However, it seems they only consider the performance shown as knights to be amazing, but they haven't received a huge shock. Damn it, when I was that age, I would have been completely captivated seeing something like that.”
“So are you saying it's a pity? Do you want the students to leave?”
“It is just because I can clearly feel that the world has changed. Damn Aura.”
Damn, indeed.
Perhaps that word of Sordian was the most accurate description of this situation.
I encouraged the other instructors to soothe Sordian's mind.
“That is, after all, only the skill of Senior Knights and Full Knights. If you think about it, they awakened as Runners with just that basic manual and so on. And at the axis of it would be Captain Perdius.”
“The Captain is…… truly a monster.”
Sordian opened his mouth with difficulty.
Seeing that Rozalin or Hati didn't add any words, it seemed they hadn't seen Perdius's skills at all either.
Did they say he never participated in the final war of humanity later?
“Senior Knights are Senior Knights, but as you go up to Chief Knights, the Vice Captain, and the Captain, it is full of monsters. That is precisely the power of The Empire.”
“Well, let's not be too scared just because of that.”
With a clapping sound, Rozalin clapped her hands and gathered people's attention.
“The people we have to fight aren't those knights, right? The Academic Exchange Conference is, after all, for brats. If the Lionheart Knights are like that, wouldn't there be not a single talented kid in the Imperial Royal Academy either?”
“That has a point. With that kind of pride, they wouldn't trust the Imperial Royal Academy's classes either.”
“Then it's an easy win. Since it means there are plenty of kids worse than Pan, we can go easily even in the final sparring match!”
That cheerful confidence spread into people's hearts.
Rozalin looked at me and smiled brightly as if asking if she did well.
I also smiled back at her and headed to the carriage.
“Let's go. Two days left. I will also organize my thoughts a bit more.”
* * *
After getting back into the carriage, I closed my eyes and focused solely on the response to swordsmanship and spearmanship.
Like Rozalin said, there wouldn't be any need for us to fight the Imperial Knights directly, but analyzing martial arts once I saw them was a kind of habit.
Besides, I had a strange intuition.
‘What I requested from the Imperial Academy was someone who knows well about Mana Road.’
If the request is accepted in a standard way and a scholar studying Mana Road comes out, that would be best.
However, since the Imperial Knights can use Aura, a member of the knights might come out and try to obtain information from our side instead.
To prepare for such a situation, I needed to understand how the opponent's Aura works and their Sword Intent to prepare for it.
‘It was a spear that efficiently whittled down the opponent.’
It felt more like an axe than a spear, more like a knife than an axe, and more like a carving knife than a simple knife.
Cutting away the crude surplus parts to create the desired form.
And when that form is completed, it cuts in a single breath.
A perverted act of pursuing artistic perfection and finally achieving the goal by destroying it.
That was Perdius's swordsmanship.
‘Did that old man use that kind of swordsmanship?’
Come to think of it, Perdius always emphasized basic sword and movements.
Since that old man created most of the perception I currently have about the sword.
Only the direction was different.
That person assumed an ideal sword and tried to pursue the ultimate sword, better than the ideal.
The method that the ultimate will come if you keep smashing all the perfection in the world.
However, I.
‘The ideal sword exists. It is about slowly refining the path to get there and eventually arriving.’
The difference between the inductive method and the deductive method.
Perhaps that might be a difference caused because I learned that old man's swordsmanship for just one month.
The difference widened there.
‘Whose ideal is at a higher place.’
That is why there was a corner where their Aura and Sword Intent were strangely misaligned.
Instead of fitting the swordsmanship to the body, they fitted the body to the swordsmanship.
People who couldn't properly handle swordsmanship and spearmanship couldn't enter the knights in the first place.
I had to aim for that gap.
‘Clearly, their swordsmanship is strong.’
However, to be precise, that was the strength of the swordsmanship and strategy created by Captain Perdius, not their strength.
Since they only understood their sword momentum and Sword Intent.
‘Breaking expectations and using irregularity.’
Bridget's figure came to mind in the darkness.
The opponent is a Full Knight of the Lionheart Knights.
Several sparring sessions follow.
Defeat, defeat, defeat, defeat, defeat, draw, defeat, draw, draw.
And victory.
I recall Eleveth's figure again.
Defeat, defeat, draw, defeat, draw, defeat, defeat, victory.
And I recall Pan's figure.
Defeat, draw, defeat, draw, draw, victory.
Like that, I was absorbed in drawing the victory of each student and each instructor around me.
Just then.
Tap tap.
I opened my eyes at the touch tapping me.
My eyes stung at the pure white light coming into the carriage as if I had opened my eyes after a long time.
“We've arrived.”
The Imperial Capital welcomed us.
I looked outside through the carriage window.
The scenery I used to see every day more than ten years ago was spread out.
A wide road maintained well enough for five carriages to pass side by side.
The buildings lined up on both sides of the road were built somewhat indiscriminately, but every single one was incredibly luxurious, giving a sense of intimidation.
Most buildings were large mansions that likely had more than ten rooms, and between buildings, they only had fences, but they were abutting boundaries like bricks in a brick house.
They were mostly 2 to 3-story mansions, and the walls of each house were enough to block the sunlight of the first floor.
Two-horse carriages or four-horse carriages roamed around the streets, and people wearing huge frilly dresses or tight pants overflowed as if a social gathering was being held.
Their gazes brushed past us and disappeared.
“They don't care at all.”
“Those people probably think like this? A school uniform they've never seen before, escorted by the Imperial Knights. Some rural academy people must have come to tour the Imperial Capital.”
Rozalin spoke in a sarcastic tone.
However, even Rozalin, who said that, was busy looking around with her chin resting on her hand.
Her eyes were sunk quite deep.
Was she recalling the appearance of the future Imperial Capital?
“Where is the Imperial Academy?”
The one who answered Jessie's question first was Isadora.
Since she was also my junior who had passed the military academy course of the Imperial Royal Academy, she was familiar with the geography here.
“It's a one-day walk from the capital entrance.”
“What? Walking just inside the capital takes a day?”
“Even a week is not enough to look around the entire capital. From the outer wall to the Imperial Palace, you have to pass through five inner walls. Right now, this is the outer wall area where the poorest people in The Empire live.”
“Poor…….”
At Isadora's words, Jessie shut her mouth as if dumbfounded.
“It's not exactly a good way. Since the way they acquired wealth was through looting in wars of aggression and smuggling.”
“Is that so?”
“Soldiers who participated in wars of aggression come up to the capital with unique spices and goods from overseas. Then the nobles buy them at very high prices. People who made money like that settle here and live in the outer wall. In reality, their lives are extremely poor, with only their houses being flashy.”
It was a story learned in the Imperial Academy's economics and history classes.
That is why even in the same Imperial Capital, residents are divided into classes by geopolitical conditions called the outer wall, middle wall, and inner wall.
Nobles living inside the inner wall mock the residents of the outer wall as ‘house poor’ who only own a house.
And they mock those living in the middle wall as the ‘Imperial Capital Middle Layer’.
In reality, the Imperial Capital Middle Layer possesses enough wealth to become influential figures in a region if they go down to other territories.
“That is…… a very unfair and unequal world.”
Jessie looked around again with eyes that seemed shocked.
Yes.
The Empire was such an unequal, irrational world, and the Imperial Capital was the place symbolizing such an Empire.
And the heart that made this Imperial Capital run was precisely the Imperial Royal Academy.
“A privileged group that is difficult to even enter. And once you come out of there, you naturally become an elite. It's a place where people who couldn't do prior learning because they didn't have money in the first place cannot enter.”
Just then, three riders on horses approached us from the opposite side we were heading.
They were wearing uniforms embroidered with gold points on black cloth.
On the pocket of the chest point, the emblem of a dragon symbolizing the Imperial Family was engraved.
It was the uniform of the Imperial Royal Academy.
“Are you the people from Akarind Academy?”
The person who spoke to us was a young man who looked about 18 years old.
A young man with short wavy dark blue hair like the night sky, a straight jawline, thick eyebrows, and broad shoulders; his appearance was handsome, no less than Pan.
Even while riding a horse, his upper body was stable, and judging by the muscles of his arms, thighs, and ankles, he seemed to be a young man who had properly trained in the sword.
“I am Sephiroth Belheim, the Student Council President of the Imperial Academy, here to escort you.”
It could seem rude that the President came instead of a teacher.
However, the Student Council President of the Imperial Academy was a position that only the elites who would lead the next generation of The Empire could occupy.
At the Imperial Royal Academy, the student council president is decided by the instructors' vote, not the students' vote.
If it's the Belheim family, it was a Marquis family famous for swordsmanship in The Empire.
Only a person with a decent family background, outstanding martial arts, and excellent wisdom could become the president.
Since even I, who graduated as the top student every time, had never held the position of president due to family background and martial arts.
“Nice to meet you. I am Cassian, leading Akarind Academy. I am a graduate of the Imperial Academy.”
“Ah, Senior, are you that rumored……!”
That rumored……?
An unbearable smile settled on the Student Council President's face, and his eyes sparkled.
It was similar not only for this president but also for the boy and girl who came with him.
The two looked to be about 15 years old, similar to Rozalin, and they also had a faint flush on their faces and trembled their lips with an expression as if they couldn't hold it back.
Why on earth?
“I, It's an honor! We will serve you to the best of our ability! A, And if it's okay later, um, just one autograph…….”
?
What is it? What kind of operation is this again?
Did the academic atmosphere of the Imperial Royal Academy change a bit without me knowing?
I looked at Isadora, who knows well about the Imperial Academy.
That guy had an even more shocked expression.
Reading the expression roughly, it seemed to be about ‘Are you saying my Imperial Academy juniors are kissing up like that?’.
“Um, I'm asking because I don't know, but what rumor is it exactly?”
At my question, the girl next to the president shouted in excitement.
“Senior, is it true that you struck the back of the administrative arts instructor's head with a liquor bottle when you were attending the academy?!”
Ah.
Um.
Ah.
It seemed my dark history was still circulating.
I smiled awkwardly and looked back.
Our academy students were all peeking their heads out to see the students attending the Imperial Royal Academy.
When their eyes met mine, the students stealthily pulled their heads back into the carriage.
Somehow, it feels like I'm screwed from the very start.