Chapter 45

“It’s no use, just no use… My grades are a constant battle for rock bottom, and my swordsmanship is the absolute worst. The other day, I saw some classmates whispering, and when I strained my ears to hear what they were saying, do you know what they said?”

“What did they say?”

“They said, ‘Amal is such a failure, how much longer is she planning to keep coming to school?’… When I reflexively looked over, they kept right on talking, knowing perfectly well I was listening. My heart is just… shattered.”

“I know how it is. Especially with the privileged classes—they love doing that. Since commoners are the minority, the sarcasms and harrassments fly at every opportunity.”

“Did you experience that too, Senior?”

“When you’re from a commoner background, yeah. That kind of talk is bound to happen.”

Sitting on a bench at the training ground with the junior who had finally stopped crying, I listened to her grievances. It was a classic “Military Academy struggle.” A relatable topic, though not exactly a cheerful one.

Her name was Amalthea. An officer candidate from a commoner background who went by Amal for short.

Her somewhat unruly, very short hair was apparently the result of cutting it all off to devote herself to swordsmanship, but perhaps because she looked so dejected, she didn’t give off a lively impression at all. It seemed she had quickly received her baptism into this society that favored the privileged.

To make matters worse, cutting her hair hadn’t made her swordsmanship any stronger, and her boyfriend had dumped her, saying, “But I liked your long hair.” In a half-desperate fit, she had hurled her wooden sword, only to be met with my murderous aura. She was truly having a run of miserable luck.

“It’s all over… At the military academy, you can graduate as long as you complete the curriculum regardless of grades, but if someone like me, ranked 20th in overall grades, joins a Knight Order, I’ll just be a stain on the bottom rank…”

“Don’t worry. Forget grades—the Royal Foreign Hazardous Species Countermeasures Knights has plenty of people whose behavior was so bad they dragged the Order’s name through the mud.”

“…In a way, I really didn’t want to hear that.”

Amal-chan looked at me with a flat, disillusioned expression. I understood how she felt, but it was the truth. My generation, where a classmate had even dabbled in corruption, was probably the worst, but scandals within the Knight Orders happen from time to time.

For instance, Senior Rock once realized a friend he’d known for ten years was actually a spy for the Holy Boot Knights and had to report him. Even for the usually breezy, drunken Senior Rock, it was a bitter memory he didn’t like to recall; after telling the story, he’d muttered with a straight face, “I’ve sobered right up.”

However, it was true that at this rate, she might not last long even after joining an Order.

Orc subjugation is grueling, and those who don’t participate in the hunts handle paperwork at headquarters, so a certain level of intellect is required. If you can’t do either, you won’t get promoted even within the Order, and like my former classmate, you might grow to hate the workplace and quit.

…If she didn’t give up, she would be a future junior of mine, which meant her troubles weren’t entirely unrelated to me. Besides, sometimes it’s the people on the verge of frustration who show an explosive late-game surge.

It’s a hard path, and quitting is an option… but let’s see if this girl is really hopeless.

Feeling a bit self-deprecating for getting involved in work-related matters even on my day off, I stood up, pulled two wooden swords from the rack, and offered one to Amal-chan.

“Um… what’s this?”

“Consider it fate that we met here. I think practicing with two people is more productive than one. What do you say?”

“Y-You’ll practice with me?! S-Senioooor…!! For someone like me, who’s been abandoned by classmates and friends alike… are you really sure!?”

“It’s fine, it’s fine. They say even a chance encounter is decreed by destiny.”

“…What does that mean?”

“…It means meeting here is a kind of fate.”

“Wow… Senior, you know such difficult words.”

Amal-chan seemed genuinely impressed, but I wasn’t using particularly difficult language.

Speaking of which, she mentioned her grades were near the bottom; to get into a Knight Order, you’re usually dropped if your academic ability isn’t above a certain level, even if your practical skills are good. I wondered how on earth someone who found this level of speech “difficult” had passed the academy entrance exam. I felt like I’d cry if I heard the answer, so I decided not to ask.

“Oh, right! If it’s you, Senior, do you know the scope of the winter exams?! Please, Senior, give me a hint! I’m great at cramming and multiple-choice questions!”

“You’re the type that retains the least knowledge!?”

“I’m also good at guessing which topics will show up! Though even when I’m right, my overall academic ability can’t keep up and everyone passes me anyway…”

“You really are a total mess, aren’t you!?”

Perhaps she was a more carefree person with sharper emotional swings than I imagined. Sedona is quite easygoing, but this girl was more… airheaded. I immediately started to worry if our upcoming training would actually be fruitful.

There is a saying that a great player does not necessarily make a great coach—but that doesn’t mean a great player cannot be a great coach, just that it isn’t guaranteed. In other words, it depends on the case. And since I had the track record of drilling Sedona in swordsmanship until she mastered a secret art, I had a fair amount of confidence in my teaching.

After watching her swordsmanship, I reached a single conclusion.

“How is it, Senior?! My sword handling!!”

“Yeah. Um… you should give up on swinging the sword.”

“Uwaaaaaaaaah!! To have even Senior tell me it’s that bad!! Hieeeeeee!!”

“Wait, sorry, sorry! I phrased that badly! I found a way for you to get strong, so don’t cry!!”

It took a few minutes to comfort Amal-chan again as she crouched down sobbing. Once she finally calmed down, I explained what I actually meant.

“Amal-chan, I think you’re fundamentally incompatible with Kingdom Offensive Draw-Sword Style.”

“Incompatible…?”

“Yeah. You have explosive speed, but you aren’t utilizing the weight of the sword. It might be a simple matter of physical strength, but I think you’re suited for defense rather than offense.”

The Kingdom Offensive Draw-Sword Style looks balanced at first glance, but because its concept is to defeat all enemies with a single sword while doing away with shields, it places a heavy emphasis on offensive moves.

For example, the Eighth Form: White Crane is an upward diagonal slash, but its main purpose is to forcibly deflect the opponent’s equipment to move into their guard. By incorporating defense into the attack itself, it eliminates the need for extra equipment to the extreme.

That meant what suited Amal-chan was a defensive style of swordsmanship that utilized mobility and allowed someone without much muscle to fight—more specifically, a thrust-centric style where reflexes and accuracy mattered more than raw strength. Only one style in my memory fit the bill.

“I think the Royal Palace Guardian Style would suit you, but you can’t learn that at the military academy…”

“Royal Palace Guardian Style. Just from the name, it sounds like a style only knights serving in the palace are allowed to use…!”

“Well, yeah. Royal Knights are the elite of the elite even among the Holy Knights, and otherwise, the style is only taught to those with royal blood. You probably couldn’t learn it even if you begged.”

“Then it’s no good, is it…?”

If she was fine with a cheap imitation of Astraea’s moves, I could have managed a bit, but the swordsmanship used for the military academy exams was strictly set as the Kingdom Offensive Draw-Sword Style. Astraea used to cheat and use his own style occasionally, but the instructors could hardly call out a member of the royal family, so he usually escaped point deductions. That guy really could be petty with his royal status sometimes.

As I was thinking this, Amal-chan shook her head with a look of total resignation and spiraled back into self-deprecation mode. She really didn’t need to be that negative.

“I guess it really is impossible for me… I haven’t even mastered the First Form yet. If I can’t even learn the simplest one, the First Form, then the Second and Third are completely out of the question…”

“Hmm… wait, what? You think the First Form is the simplest?”

“Eh? Is it not?”

“Definitely not. Who told you that tall tale?”

“Well, I just figured since it’s called the ‘First’ Form, that’s how it worked… Oh no, was I even wrong about that from the start!?”

I was so surprised that she could say something so fundamentally incorrect with such a straight face that my reaction was delayed by a second.

In the Kingdom Offensive Draw-Sword Style—excluding the final secret art—the difficulty of the various forms varied wildly depending on the person. Based on their aptitude, some people learned the “difficult” forms first, while others struggled for ages with the “easy” ones. The First Form was actually lower-middle in terms of difficulty; it was hardly the easiest.

Suddenly, a flash of insight struck my mind.

“Amal-chan, by any chance, have you barely practiced any forms other than the First?”

“I thought about it, but no one will help me train, the teachers have given up on me, and I’m just such a mess…”

“Which means you might actually have an aptitude for a different form… Alright, let’s test it! Grab your sword!!”

“Fueeee?! I-It’s impossible to do something so sudden today!!”

“No arguments! You’re young, so crave strength even if it means being a little reckless!!”

Strike while the iron is hot. I didn’t know how long my leave would last, so I had to confirm this as quickly as possible. Besides, seeing her be this much of a “failure” made me want to dig out every hidden talent she might have.

A few minutes later.

“I see… You do have an aptitude for certain forms!!”

“Really!?”

“…Exactly two of them!!”

“Uwaaaaaaaaah!! To think there are only twooooooo!!”

“It’s not something to be so pessimistic about. After all, if you have these two forms that you can actually use, it’s more than enough to leave a mark on your grades.”

“~~~~Eh?! With just two!?”

Amal-chan collapsed at her own desperate clumsiness, but the issue wasn’t the quantity.

In my opinion, if she mastered these two secret arts she had an affinity for, she could become quite strong.

Hearing that, Amal-chan snapped her head up… but her expression was incredibly skeptical.

“Senior, isn’t that just a bit too much of an exaggeration…?”

“How rude. Are you saying you don’t trust the theory of your great senior?! Fine, if you’re going to say that, then proof is better than argument! I’ll prove just how far you can go with the forms you’re suited for—the Second Form: Water Sweep, and the Sixth Form: Red Sparrow! Alright, let’s go catch an instructor or whoever’s at the school and put this into practice!! Follow behind me!!”

“Y-Yes, sir!!”

Pressed by my momentum—which was mostly just me getting caught up in the mood—Amal-chan folded easily.

…Which was fine, but.

“Amal-chan, what are you doing?”

“Eh? Well, you told me to follow ‘behind’ you… so I thought you meant a piggyback ride and hugged you from behind.”

Amal-chan was dangling from my neck, her arms wrapped around me. I’m sure we looked extremely surreal to anyone watching. Also, Amal-chan was incredibly light. Was she eating enough? Once she joined the Knight Order, Tamae-san would probably serve her mountain-sized portions every day.

However, at this rate, I worried her academics might be in even worse shape than her practical skills. She had a certain charm typical of airheads, but the world generally isn’t kind enough to let you off just for being cute. I really hoped someone would help raise her cultural level a bit.

“You have a bit of a tendency to take things a little too literally…”

“Fueee?! Senior, do you dislike me!?”

“No, that’s not what I meant by ‘tendency’!”

Whether I liked it or not, it seemed I had picked up an incredibly troublesome junior.

Well, I’ll just resign myself to it and consider it an investment in the future—or perhaps Sedona Version 2.0. Though, I have a feeling if Sedona heard that, she’d say with teary eyes, “Stop talking about me like I’m some kind of troublesome woman!!”