Chapter 37 - Academy Field Trips Always Come Under Attack (1)

“May is greeeen, and we are growiiing...”

“Kids these days don't know that song, you know?”

“Look at you pretending you're a kid these days. Ivan's the youngest of us, you know? He was the youngest when he became a Possessor.”

“...?!”

Pain and sorrow drifted through the heavy air of this bizarre Possessor club's still-unnamed clubroom. The three Possessors lay slumped among their respective piles of books, their faces vacant.

“I'm in the Knight Department. Why the hell do I have written exams...?”

“I have a Status window, but no memo function...”

“I despise magic...”

In this premodern fantasy world, May was not Family Month. But if Earth and this other world had one thing in common, it was that universities had exams.

“I'm jealous of Ivan. He's an adult with plenty of money and no assignments or exams.”

“Say that to Boss and they might find your corpse tomorrow, Yuri.”

“A perfect chance to join my parents.”

“Wow. You're making dead-parent jokes about yourself now. How am I supposed to argue with that?”

“No, I meant going back to Earth.”

Sadly, Jansk University was prestigious. Prestigious enough to shatter the perfectly reasonable assumption that freshmen spent their first college midterms drinking.

Faced with a murderous amount of material to study and horrific piles of assignments, the Possessors were growing exhausted.

While all the university's Possessors shuddered at the cruelty of premodern society, Ivan was currently...

“Aaaaaaaargh!!”

“Shh. Quiet.”

Pouring a healing potion over a student's wounds.

“S-spare me...! Aaargh!!”

“I don't believe that's what you should be saying.”

“I-I'm... from a viscount's...!”

“Shh. Choose your next words carefully.”

He sat beside the sobbing student, who was foaming at the mouth, and spoke calmly.

“Say it.”

“I'll never... never throw cigarette butts... on the ground again...!”

“And?”

“I won't... damage the roadside trees...!”

“Excellent.”

Throwing a cigarette butt beneath a roadside tree in front of a gardener was a heinous crime punishable by death under international law.

Taking their youth into consideration, Ivan was providing a free smoking-cessation clinic for a total of thirteen students.

* * *

“Oh! Mister!!”

This was after Ivan had destroyed the thirteen destroyers of the environment.

With peace restored to campus, he was putting the cap back on his healing potion. Turning toward the voice, he saw Isabelle running over from the distance, waving.

“Mm.”

“Greetings usually involve words like hello, good morning, have you eaten, or how have you been!”

Isabelle approached with a bright smile and looked around. After a glance at a shrub caked with blood and healing potion, her expression turned uneasy.

“Uh... did demons attack?”

“Something like that.”

“You've had a rough time! Someone was screaming during exam season, so I came to see if you'd killed someone again!”

“Your impression of me is rather concerning.”

Laughing an awkward “Ahaha,” Isabelle turned her head slightly away. That was answer enough.

“Oh, right. Help me out! There's something I could use your help with...”

“Help?”

“Well, there's this practical exam, and it's so hard. Honestly, should they even be allowed to give us something like this for our first-semester midterms?”

“Mm.”

Ivan considered what help he could offer with a Knight Department midterm. Surely they weren't teaching prisoner interrogation, information concealment, or sabotage.

Ah, perhaps military strategy? Fortunately, he had experience commanding in the field, so he could probably offer a few pointers there.

As he pondered, Isabelle said with a smile, “Countering sneak attacks!”

“... Mm.”

A somewhat... unusual subject to teach college freshmen.

Ivan once again questioned this university's usefulness. Did a school like this really need to exist?

At any rate, it was something he could help with. Both surprise attacks and countering them fell within his military specialty.

“Enrique's class, I presume?”

“Yes. Good grief, what does she expect us to use that for?”

“I wonder the same thing.”

Ivan readily nodded and led the way.

* * *

Prizhenkaya ranked among the most developed major cities in the United Kingdoms. And in this uncivilized premodern era, a major city was a term encompassing a vast surrounding area on which its inhabitants depended.

In other words, it needed ample resources for daily life nearby: farmland, plains, forests, and rivers. Prizhenkaya was no exception.

A forest stretched eastward beyond Prizhenkaya's outer walls. Ivan arrived at its edge with Isabelle and did a few warm-up stretches.

“Being here brings back memories. Wow, I really thought I was going to die that day.”

“Mm.”

The little triangle of conscience in Ivan's heart scraped faintly against something. He had, in fact, used Isabelle for an experiment.

The sort that asked whether a protagonist could die during the tutorial...

Strictly speaking, it had been necessary, but as an honest man, Ivan felt a pang of conscience.

“You've got a really obnoxious look on your face right now, mister.”

“I have a naturally cheerful face.”

“I really want to hit you.”

Isabelle grumbled, narrowing her eyes.

“Hmm. They haven't actually announced the exam site yet, though. Where it'll be, what we'll do... Why did you bring me here specifically?”

“Because Enrique lacks imagination.”

“... Sorry?”

“If Enrique holds sneak-attack training, it'll be in one of two places. Prizhenkaya's underground waterway or this forest. If she wanted the harder of the two, she'd choose here.”

Enrique was an exceedingly rigid, opinionated lunatic. Ivan nodded, remembering her in the old days.

Like most people who had lived to a great age, she could not escape her own prejudices.

That was why Ivan was certain. If she went out of her way to set an exam on “countering sneak attacks,” her personality made it highly likely she would use the entire forest.

“Isn't understanding the examiner's intentions a basic part of taking a test?”

“Wow, were you good at school?”

“I wasn't bad.”

The students of this fantasy world could scarcely imagine it, but students in South Korea received a full twelve years of compulsory education, starting at just seven years old.

“I'm pretty good at written exams myself, you know? I'm confident I can get A's in almost all my practicals, too, but Professor Enrique's class is strangely difficult. She grades our practical work in regular classes too, and she's absolutely ruthless.”

“Enrique has always been that way.”

“Wow, you went to Jansk University too? Are you an upperclassman?”

“No. I never graduated from college.”

Kim Seonwoo had never earned a college diploma either. After finishing his military service, he had entered this other world during his junior year and spent another twenty-odd years in the military.

For a moment, the Kim Seonwoo within him coughed blood and screamed. Ivan walked on in silence.

“Anyway! Right, um... Hmm. Well, anyone who learned from Professor Enrique before me counts as a senior. Right? Mm-hmm...”

“You needn't console me.”

The nerve of this premodern native.

“Okaaay... Mister Good-at-School-with-No-Diploma. So how do we start preparing for Professor Enrique's exam?”

“Start?”

Ivan gave a faint chuckle and reached inside his coat. His hand closed around a small metal sphere. He took it out, rolled it onto the ground, and said, “We've already started.”

“What? Huh?”

BANG!

The metal sphere promptly exploded, releasing a cloud of murky mist.

Isabelle hurried back, coughing. A smoke grenade...? No, this was...!

“You crazy bastard! You're using chemical grenades on a student!!”

Without answering, Ivan crouched in the smoke. With a couple of light steps, he sprang into a tree and concealed himself among the forest's shadows. From his hiding place, he whispered softly.

“I'll match your level.”

“You're dead when I catch you. I'm shaving you.”

“... I'll train you as though this were real combat.”

An Extermination Unit officer's field training: begin!

* * *

Ivan raced through the forest, firing at Isabelle just enough to keep his distance.

There was no need to go all out. Her Line of Fire Detection was almost fully developed, so even a single warning shot was enough to make her flinch.

He therefore used live ammunition. A direct threat to one's life was the most effective way to bring Line of Fire Detection into full bloom.

“You lunatic! Are you actually insane!? You're sh-shooting at me!!”

BANG!

Every time she shouted, he aimed squarely between her eyes, fired once, and retreated.

That should have taught her a lesson: when targeted by a hidden attacker, you had to move more stealthily than your opponent.

A sneak attack was fundamentally like a hunt. Hunter and prey both needed to blend into their surroundings to avoid being seen by the other.

Which meant that Isabelle, in her needlessly floaty outfit, deserved a failing grade from the moment the exam began.

Ivan nodded as he smeared mud beneath his eyes to reduce glare.

CLICK. BANG.

Half a beat later, he fired and moved again to throw off Isabelle's gaze.

'Still, an off-campus field exercise.'

Ivan surveyed his surroundings with sharp eyes. As he had recalled once before, this forest lay close to the Prizhenkaya Capital Defense Force's camp.

In other words, it was a safe area with extremely tight security. Enrique would therefore be able to use it as an exam site without much concern.

But Ivan knew.

'It's “common sense” that enemies attack during off-campus field exercises...'

Being a man of considerable common sense, Ivan decided to train Isabelle while also searching for signs of an impending attack.

* * *

Isabelle trembled, clutching the torn hem of her skirt.

“Seriously, what... is this...!!”

Why was he taking this so seriously! Honestly, if a girl ten years younger than you suggested a little training in the woods, wasn't a picnic the normal, common-sense thing to think of first?

Not quite... a date. It wasn't love or a crush... She just wanted to thank him for saving her back then. To show a little gratitude, at least.

With that taciturn, bizarre personality, he obviously didn't have a single friend. So she had planned to be his friend, even if only for a little while.

Isabelle stared blankly at the picnic basket, ravaged by chemicals and dust. Through the open lid, she spotted the ruined sandwiches and began to shake.

“Mister.”

She tied her disheveled hair tightly back and gave a little laugh.

“I'm seriously going to kill you.”

To teach that lunatic secret agent, utterly devoid of common sense, what “common sense” meant—

The hero awakened.