Chapter 24 - The Saint and the Woodsman (2)

Ivan slowly walked toward the ring, one steady step after another. There was nothing unusual about his footsteps, yet their quietness somehow drew the eye.

The students' initial impression was simple. This old guy knew how to make an entrance.

Even when Ivan drew an axe from his waist, the students thought little of it. They were in the Knight Department, after all.

Most students subscribed to the formula that the sword was the king of all weapons. And most of the time, they were right. It was easy to carry, versatile, and well suited to delicate techniques.

Axes, however, were simple. Their center of gravity was concentrated in the head, so an axe's attack necessarily traveled in a single direction. In other words, its trajectory was easy to read and intercept. That was why most students thought little of axes.

"Enrique."

Standing still in the ring, Ivan spoke in a deep, weighty voice.

"Hmm?"

"How far can I go?"

"Just don't kill anyone. We have the Saint here, after all."

Patricia, the Saint of the Hero's Party, currently headed the university's Theology Department. In other words, a trauma specialist more effective than healing potions was permanently on call.

Good. Ivan nodded.

"Erickson."

"I knew it. Seeing you this close settles it. You still have the same face."

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

"... What?"

This man was an intelligence agent for the Kingdom of Droan. Officially, he was a Knight Department freshman, and outwardly, Esidisi's personal bodyguard. At his core, however, he was someone who could serve as a spy planted by Great King Einar.

In other words, he could join hands with either the Princess's Faction or the Crown Prince's Faction at any time in the capacity of an "unofficial diplomat." He was a variable.

Until Esidisi's course was settled, Ivan needed to keep him occupied. The easiest way was to keep him close—during every spare hour after classes, except when he had to remain at Esidisi's side.

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

Volunteer work built character. That was an undeniable truth. Caring for orphans did wonders for personal growth. This was therefore an opportunity to teach this Droan Berserker Huscarl some "civilization."

"What bullshit."

"Come."

Ivan raised his axe. The two warriors—average age: forties; setting: a freshman university practical—had no further need for words.

* * *

When the two first clashed, the freshmen were somewhat bewildered. Huh? Why was he so good?

BOOOM!!

Then, as sparks flew between the two axes, the freshmen were stunned. What? How did he move like that from there? Did anyone see that? Nobody?

CLAAANG! CRUNCH!!

Only when the strongest freshman—in his forties—finally fell to his knees, panting, did the students get a proper look at the man standing tall before him.

Brilliant blue eyes. An expressionless face.

Breathing utterly calm, without the slightest tremor despite all that violent movement.

"Hah... Petrovich... You really are... Little Ivan. Hah...! What the hell are you plotting here...?"

"Safety management."

Ivan walked past the battered wreck that was Morde.

Safety...? Management...? Another enormous question mark formed in the students' minds. Then what was this thing I'd always known as safety...?

"Next."

"Uh... Professor, isn't this a little too much material for a test? It's our first class..."

A young man who had flinched at Ivan's call raised his hand. He was the young noble who had mocked Ivan earlier. Enrique nodded with a sly grin.

"Looks like we have our next volunteer. Come on, we don't have all day. Let's move."

"Uh... Uhhh..."

Since no one wanted to enter the ring, his kindly classmates helped drag him up. Breaking into a cold sweat, the young man faltered back.

"Come."

Ivan raised his axe.

* * *

"Come on, just stick a blade into our teaching assistant once and I'll give you an A+ on the spot. How about it? Hmm? Or, let's see... I'm feeling generous! I'll even throw in private lessons with a beautiful instructor fresh from the Hero's Party!"

Ivan did not bother pointing out the error in Enrique's last sentence. He was a sensible man. Instead, he raised his axe. He was a man who took training recruits seriously.

"Next."

After five corpses—not actually—had been cleared away, people stopped coming up into the ring.

"Oh, come on! If you all give up now, you all fail! Hmm? How about this? Get an F and retake the course, and next year's class will start exactly the same way. Better to get your beating over with now, right?"

Watching Enrique beam at them, the students clenched their teeth.

Fine. They couldn't be certain, but... at least they wouldn't die. And landing just one attack guaranteed a high grade.

This was a three-credit required major course. It would obviously have a huge impact on their GPA, and Knight Department students were competitive by nature. These fledglings had all grown up hailed as martial prodigies and swordsmanship geniuses back home.

One hit.

Just one hit!

And so the freshmen refused to give up, even as the corpse count—not actually—reached thirty.

"Next."

* * *

At last, Yuri's turn arrived.

She raised her sword with trembling hands. In all her time wielding a blade, it had never felt this heavy.

She mustered the courage to step into the ring, where thick killing intent swirled, a chilling breeze blew, and wet blood smeared the floor. Yet one look at the man before her made her shrink back again.

Those shabby work clothes and the old towel around his neck reminded her of something every time she saw them.

"Yuri Frank."

"Yesh! Yes! Yessir?!"

Ivan gazed steadily into her eyes. His sharp stare bored into her vision as though picking through her mind. Her eyes darted wildly from side to side. Her head swam, and her grip kept weakening.

"Top entrant in the Knight Department."

"Yes, sir!!"

"Lee Yuri?"

"... Hic?!"

"Or is it Kim Yuri? Park Yuri? Choi Yuri?"

"Wh-what? I don't really... understand what you're saying, sir...?"

"Yuri is a man's name in Krasilof."

"Yeees... Well, you see? I have my reasons, so..."

"Come."

Ivan raised his axe.

"We can discuss your reasons at length later."

"No, no, no. I-I'd like to forfeit? I-is that okay? Fail me! I'll just take the failing grade! Aaaagh!!"

Ivan lunged before Yuri could drop her sword. Reflexively raising it to deflect the axe blade, she fought down the scream bursting from her throat.

It coiled around her weapon. Like a snake...! The axe blade slithered up her sword as though it would sink its teeth into her neck at any moment!

CLANG!

She had already watched this style of attack reduce the students before her to tatters. Even so, it was an onslaught she could never get used to. Ivan's axework seemed to have reached some extraordinary level.

His individual strikes weren't heavy. Morde Erickson's had been more forceful. But they were fast. By the time she realized her mistake, she was already caught up in his blows.

He understood exactly how to use an axe. He did more than simply swing it: he struck her blade, used centrifugal force to bring his weapon back against it, chopped down, then immediately swept in diagonally.

GRRRIND!!

He hooked her sword with the curve of his axe head, pulled, then twisted the handle to wrench the blade free. If the jolt made her lose her grip on the sword, it would be over.

Ivan looked down at the kneeling Yuri and nodded.

"You fight well."

"Thank... you..."

"I'll be watching you. Next."

Yuri staggered out of the ring on legs that had lost all strength. Miraculously, she hadn't been wounded, but that only left her feeling that the monster had gone easy on her. She stared at Ivan in terror, then squeezed her eyes shut.

* * *

'What the hell? Kim, Lee, Park, Choi? What was that?! K-Korean? He's Korean...?'

Lee Yuri had been an illustrator. Her last job had been a freelance commission for an academy-themed erotic humiliation game called <Pranks 3>.

The kind where you fled from a gardener who got leverage over students and did those... unspeakable... incredibly, incredibly extreme things to them.

That gardener was a middle-aged man in old work clothes with a towel around his neck.

And now she had landed smack in that goddamn world, right after staying up all night to send in the first roughs for her commission. A world where a bearded gardener with an axe glared greedily at female students—a misunderstanding—with his eyes bulging.

'If he finds out... he'll do something incredibly... incredibly extreme to me...!'

She trembled, remembering what had become of the "students" he had gained leverage over. The "gardener" had his eye on her.

If he even found out she was from the same country, a fellow Possessor, he might find some way to turn this into a blackmail story.

She was... the protagonist... Come to think of it, an orphan on a full scholarship who was also a swordsmanship genius? How else could an illustrator who'd done nothing but draw her entire life be capable of that?

Of course she was the protagonist...

She wanted to go home.

* * *

Isabelle lasted three moves; Oscar lasted two exchanges.

That put the rankings at Morde, Yuri, Isabelle, then Oscar. Morde wasn't really a student to begin with, so setting him aside, their relative abilities had fallen exactly where Ivan had expected.

His eye hadn't dulled yet. Satisfied with the thought, Ivan nodded.

"Are you smiling right now?"

"You're mistaken."

"It looked like you smiled."

"I naturally have a smiling face."

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

The voice from in front of him forced Ivan to school his expression again. Beside him stood Enrique with both hands raised. She was hiccupping as she struggled to suppress her laughter.

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

While Yuri was trembling in terror, Ivan and Enrique were being scolded by the Saint. It was the price of dumping fifty patients in the Theology Department head's office.