Chapter 195 : Chapter 195
Chapter 195
Zelta's provocation was powerful.
The Spear God threw his spear onto the ground on the spot.
The Spear God's spear was closer to a pike than an ordinary spear.
Its approximate length was about three meters.
The shaft was not just a simple pole but was forged from a solid single piece of steel.
CRASH!
The heavy spear fell to the ground with a thunderous sound.
It was loud enough to startle the students who had come to fight him.
Zelta, who had been standing closest, gulped and swallowed hard.
The provocation had worked nicely — that was good — but considering the consequences, perhaps this had been reckless bravado.
"I heard that Cassian, that wretch, dragged this master into some bizarre little game! A test? A boss? Fine. I will play along. Eh? Young people these days have no manners! None, I say!"
Every time the Spear God's fingers moved, a cracking sound of grinding bone rang out.
"Pan, Cassian, Rozalin — the young ones at this Academy, eh? Do not know the first thing about respecting the elderly. Just who do you think is responsible for all your eating and fighting well!"
Listening to him, Zelta took a step backward.
"But, I mean, that is our Teacher and seniors' fault, not ours......"
"Look at this one! Again! Pushing his own blame onto others! 'Chicken'? Chiiiiicken? You are the absolute worst!"
The Spear God bellowed in rage.
No — now that his spear was gone, it was just the Bare-Hand God bellowing in rage.
Zelta quickly ducked behind his nine teammates.
He was strictly the brains.
Fighting was the other nine's job.
"Hah, I did not want to fight this way, but......"
Knights and students alike drew their weapons.
What they held were wooden practice swords for sparring, though a faint Aura was rising from a few of the students' practice swords.
"The one who wanted this least is clearly me, no?"
"Do not hold a grudge. This is merely part of the midterm."
"Fine, very well. Since it is part of a test, I will at least refrain from killing you."
And so the two sides collided.
The first to attack was a knight of the Crownhardt Ducal House.
Exploiting the fact that his opponent was a hunchback, the knight strode swiftly to a spot beyond the old man's reach and drove his blade in.
From one angle it was a cowardly strike, but since soldiers had to win at all costs, it was a natural piece of battlefield swordsmanship.
But the opponent was the wrong one.
"What is this? A toothpick?"
The Hand God caught the sword barehanded.
Well — calling it "barehanded" was generous.
Aura was rippling across his hands.
He was the one who had once advised Cassian to do more bare-body training and build up his physique.
He was certainly an old man, and he certainly had a hunchback's body.
But the sleeping muscles within that body were larger and more massive than anyone else's at Akarind Academy.
"Huh?"
The God lifted his opponent, sword and all, off the ground and slammed him into the floor.
It happened before the knight could even think to release his sword.
"Heave!"
When the Hand God lightly kicked off the ground, his body literally shot skyward.
At a glance, it looked like he had cleared well over three meters.
While airborne, the God performed some peculiar body movement and curled himself tight.
CRASH!
In that instant, his body seemed to grow dozens of times heavier as he suddenly accelerated downward.
The impact was so heavy that his feet sank into the earth.
"Khehehe — where do you think you are running?"
He had landed right in front of Zelta.
"Oh dear."
"Little one, ought you not pay the price for running your mouth?"
He flicked Zelta's forehead with a finger.
It was merely a finger.
Yet with a sharp THWACK, Zelta went flying into one of his teammates and crumpled in a heap.
A red lump swelled on his forehead, giving off a faint wisp of steam.
"I-is he dead?"
"Boy! Do you think this master is a murderer! This is a test, a test!"
If he killed a student at the Academy, that teacher would go absolutely berserk.
Sparring with Cassian was fine, but dying a pointless death was another matter entirely.
The Attempted-Murder God bared his teeth and began rampaging again.
"AHHH!"
About two minutes passed.
The God picked up his spear and became the Spear God once more.
"Tsk tsk. Cannot even beat this master barehanded, and yet they came at me. I cannot fathom why."
Ten people lay unconscious on the ground.
The Spear God clucked his tongue at the sight and walked away.
Being provoked had been somewhat absurd, but moving his body to his heart's content was not bad at all.
Would more fearless fools like these emerge?
His heart thumped with a strange anticipation.
***
Duke Crownhardt — or rather, the former Duke — was deep in thought.
Coming to Akarind Academy out of respect for the abilities of the man called Cassian had been a good decision.
The Academy City's facilities were the finest he had ever seen in his entire life.
Apparently they had been built by a 6th-circle alchemist — it was only natural they were impressive.
The level of instruction exceeded imagination as well.
The education from Cassian, which he had experienced firsthand, was worthy of its reputation.
The Aura he had been using until now had been nothing more than a wild beast thrashing about, unable to tell sky from earth.
But now, his Aura obeyed his command like a well-trained beast.
Yes — it felt like owning one of those Griffons the Holy Kingdom's Inquisitors were said to ride.
The administrative processes were more systematic than expected, too.
For some reason, Charlotte, the rightful heir to the Belmein Kingdom, had abandoned her castle and enrolled here as a graduate student.
Viscount Murray, the lord of Akarind Academy City, was apparently also Cassian's graduate student.
And Gwen was also serving at the Academy in the graduate school — no, as Chairman.
Most matters could be handled one-stop right here.
Everything was top-notch, nothing to fault.
And yet.
"Why is it that only our knights seem pathetic?"
At Crownhardt's worry, Latrine gave a small cough and looked away.
"A few days ago, ten knights were miserably beaten by the newest knight, Chamson. And Chamson quit being a knight, was it?"
"......To be precise, he was assigned to the Akarind Academy security team."
Since they had defected, the structure of the "Crownhardt Ducal House" could not be maintained.
Instead, they would become a military unit under Akarind Academy, and unlike when they had been house knights, they could now freely keep or resign their knight positions.
And yet a high-value talent — capable of flattening ten knights including a senior knight — had quit the military to join a low-level unit like the security team......
"This is just like the Empire's intelligence bureaus."
The Emperor had split intelligence operations into three units to prevent too much power from concentrating in one.
He had made the units check each other, and as a result, the Empire had fractured along the lines of whichever crown candidate each intelligence unit supported.
Was this place not the same — the military and the security team checking each other?
No, calling it "checking" was generous.
"Who does the security team report to?"
"Lady Rozalin Vürhelm, Captain Hati of the Firestorm Mercenary Guild, former Lionheart Knight Sordian, and the entirety of the Firestorm Mercenary Guild are all members."
However much they had been stationed at the Empire's frontier, their eyes and ears had not been dulled.
On the contrary, given the nature of the military, the quality of intelligence they handled was exceptionally high.
In the short time and busy work since their arrival, Latrine had been steadily learning the inner workings of Akarind Academy.
"......We will lose every time."
That process was also, day by day, discovering just how absurd a place this Academy was.
At Duke Crownhardt's words, Latrine said nothing and only bowed her head.
It had been only a few days since they had prided themselves as the world's strongest military.
"Asking for help is the right move."
"Do you intend to go to Teacher Cassian?"
"He is a thorough and calculating man. The moment we arrived, he changed the format of his class. Has he conducted a group project on this scale before?"
"He has not."
In fact, he had never run a class of this scale before, period.
"Then it is safe to assume this change was made with us in mind."
Because they had arrived, the class had grown by five hundred.
When student numbers increase, lecture difficulty rises exponentially.
So dividing students into groups and conducting lectures more comfortably was a kind of practical trick.
"I agree."
Whether students or members of the Crownhardt Ducal House — their assessment of Cassian bordered on the kind of fanaticism that rendered them immune to reason.
"If Cassian is not trying to crush our morale and win the power struggle, then he must have prepared something. Let us go see him."
Duke Crownhardt and Latrine immediately visited Cassian's dormitory.
Cassian, receiving their visit, blinked.
"......Me?"
Seeing his reaction, Duke Crownhardt thought to himself.
'Was he really trying to establish dominance over us all along? Was Cassian's character more petty than I thought?'
The Duke's expression was exceedingly stiff and rigid, but Cassian could surmise his inner thoughts from the most minute shift of expression.
He had the feeling that if things continued like this, something troublesome would happen.
"Of course I have something prepared. Your Grace is sharp indeed — to be expected from a man who spent so long at the front."
"Mm."
"Over the past few days, the knights of the Crownhardt Ducal House have repeated more battles, more bravely, than anyone. Thanks to that, I was able to understand the path your house has walked and the path it should take."
"Mmm."
Why was it?
Cassian's words were certainly pleasant to hear, and yet something felt oddly off.
A sense of incongruity, as though he were making up his words as excuses on the fly......
"The swordsmanship of the Crownhardt Ducal House builds a very sturdy skeleton, does it not? I believe the core of that skeleton is adaptability."
It must have been his imagination.
What Cassian had just described was indeed the essence of the Crownhardt Ducal House's combat swordsmanship.
Cassian quickly adopted a serious expression and discussed swordsmanship at length.
Though the catalyst was a bit odd, Cassian himself had been meaning to overhaul the Crownhardt House's swordsmanship.
Though for a slightly different reason.
"The knights and soldiers of the Crownhardt Ducal House will gradually weaken."
He could see the decline of the Crownhardt knights before his eyes.
He had to prevent that.
"Why do you think so?"
"Because this is an academy. The very process of building one's style by pushing past bodily limits on the boundary of life and death through repeated real combat will be impossible here."
"Do you have a solution?"
Solutions were plentiful.
Since the Belmein Kingdom's knights had collapsed, the knights from Crownhardt could take over monster extermination across Belmein territory.
Alternatively, he could create battles here intense enough to make them genuinely fear for their lives.
For instance, throwing them in front of slightly unhinged people like Rozalin or the Spear God.
But those were only stopgap measures.
"Please gather the knights the day after tomorrow, after class. I happen to have a swordsmanship prepared."
They could not leave the knights wearing the title of "former Crownhardt Ducal House knights" forever.
Starting the day after tomorrow, they would be reborn as proper Akarind Academy soldiers, trained in Akarind Academy military swordsmanship.