Chapter 15: Morning Star (5)
The tutorial is too hard.
The instant that thought surfaced, the Kim Seon-woo within flinched. But Ivan ignored Kim Seon-woo’s reaction and continued the thought.
This is too hard. Objectively so, even recalling his Kim Seon-woo days and imagining how the game would play.
Ivan leaned against a tree trunk to rest and sighed.
Just one man. Even one man of Dmitri’s caliber on his team and he wouldn’t have had to fight this way.
Kill 2 or 3 soldiers at the eastern end, plant a trap, sprint at full speed to the western end and deliberately produce a report.
Repeating that sort of thing for over 30 minutes was leaving even Ivan somewhat spent.
He’d had to let exactly one report ring out per engagement, which doubled the difficulty. Thanks to that he’d taken a long sword cut across his forearm.
Ivan drew out his last remaining healing potion and moved to pour it, then stopped.
Mm…… it’s bearable, so let’s not use this.
Taking a moment to recover his breath, Ivan sat beneath the tree and organized his thoughts. Let’s assume this situation is the tutorial immediately after selecting the character “Isabelle.”
I’ve just passed the character-select screen. Now the loading screen scrolls through worldbuilding lore of the what the hell is this, weeb variety, and the loading bar reaches its end.
If it were a AAA game, a cut scene would come here. And conveniently there’s a suitable one.
The train attack. An academy cliché.
Right. The train attack occurs and she opens her eyes in a mound of earth. Before her, an NPC has taken injuries in her stead.
If we say play begins from here, there’s a problem.
How would she have gotten out?
Escaping a carriage buried in soil is a problem in itself. Let’s suppose there’s some puzzle inside that lets you escape once solved.
And after that, unidentified elite troops come swarming in?
Without a single explanation of the combat system? And on top of that, the tutorial boss……
He had Line-of-Fire Detection.
Considering Esidis’s case, it’s stranger still. That one’s tutorial was simple enough to clear one-handed.
So was this not a combat event but an escape event?
Or perhaps a defeat event. It might be an event where you’re defeated, captured, and then escape. There are plenty of games like that.
No. These fellows were trying to kill Isabelle.
The troops’ armament wasn’t configured with capture in mind. It was plainly configured for killing.
Which meant she must not be captured. Ordinarily, in a defeat event, one is rescued by a helper immediately after losing the fight.
Rescued……?
A helper……?
Me……?
Ivan’s expression went cold. His chest dropped. I was the helper?
In other words, I was the NPC?
Ivan forcibly suppressed his pounding heart. Wrestling seething emotion under control was familiar work. He calmly counted things off one by one.
Was there a character called “Ivan Petrovich” in the original game?
His serving in the military, grinding away like a dog for 18 years, having to fight Seven Dragon Generals as an ordinary man, retiring and even founding an orphanage—all of it.
Was all of it already “set”? Regardless of his own will. Had it all been predetermined?
In that case, what ending does the original’s “Ivan Petrovich” meet? Does he survive to the end? Will his face even appear in the ending scene?
Forcibly cutting off the negative thoughts chaining one to the next, Ivan tucked the healing potion into his coat.
There was only one way to check.
Why this event’s difficulty had become such a mess, and whether it was truly a situation where death was certain without a helper.
He swiftly climbed a tree and set off toward the train.
***
Clang! Skreee!!
Blades meshed and sparks flew. She was overpowered in strength, and it was hard to gain the upper hand in technique either.
Isabelle clenched her teeth and twisted her blade.
A beautiful deflection, as though transcribed straight from a swordsmanship manual. Its trajectory flowed smoothly without a hair’s error, turning aside the enemy’s sword.
For Isabelle, it was her best. She had no confidence she could land a more beautiful attack than that.
“Now and then there are ones like you.”
Aiphelos knocked Isabelle’s sword aside and laughed.
“The ones who saw something somewhere and shut themselves in a back room swinging a stick alone. Model students who memorize the manual cover to cover, claiming they’ll produce faster attacks, more supple attacks. Hm?”
“Shut…… up!”
“You are wrong. Knight of Tiless.”
Clang! Clang!
Her attacks were blocked. Meanwhile, every time she tried to defend, she was losing ground by more than an inch.
There were no conspicuous injuries yet, but Isabelle could feel it. She was being steadily pressed onto the defensive.
Her distribution of attack and defense was a shambles. Unable to advance even one more step, she was only edging backward and backward.
And behind her back were civilians. Ones she had to answer for.
She could retreat no further. It was checkmate; it was a back-to-the-water stand. Isabelle ground her teeth and swung her sword.
Clang!
“Isn’t a sword stroke only meaningful if it reaches the opponent? Swordsmanship is, in the end, nothing but a methodology for burying your point in an opponent’s body!”
Clang!
“That the Hero’s daughter should be reduced to this, never having experienced real combat at her age! The Alliance’s indolence sickens me.”
“Shut uuup!”
Clang! Clang! Clang!
A blade filled with rage can no longer guarantee refinement of technique.
It is merely swung wildly, with the intent of venting.
Aiphelos had far too much experience to be caught by such crude attacks.
Krak, clang!
He tangled the blades and snapped his wrist to fling it away. The sword, torn from Isabelle’s hands, bounced and rolled across the ground.
In truth, he could have finished it rather more quickly had he wanted to. But the phrase “the Hero’s blood relative” had raised his wariness considerably.
Because that Hero fellow, Maximilien, had always pulled off something miraculous at the final moment.
But now it was over. Aiphelos snorted. Lost good soldiers for nothing.
“You protected no one. Maximilien’s daughter, Isabelle. Any last words?”
Isabelle looked at the fallen sword and bit her lip. Being composed before death is praiseworthy, but right now you ought to be watching your opponent. Naive thing. Aiphelos sneered at Isabelle and raised his sword.
***
Ivan was looking down at that scene from atop a tree.
He had no intention of saving her. Because he had to confirm it.
If Isabelle died here, it meant his prediction was wrong.
Of course there are games where you’re defeated by the tutorial boss and get a game over. But not in this case. Wasn’t the opponent far too strong to beat with those specs?
And if he charged in now and saved Isabelle, well.
Then it would truly be undeniable. It would be as good as confirming that the character “Ivan Petrovich” is merely an NPC in this game.
So even if Isabelle died, he intended not to intervene.
After all, there were still 5 more player characters left. If sacrificing one could tell him this, it was a bargain.
Ivan looked down at the distant Isabelle and sank into thought.
***
“You protected no one. Maximilien’s daughter, Isabelle. Any last words?”
Isabelle’s time flowed slowly. As though her life were flashing before her at the approach of death.
The blade flowing like a wave, the demonfolk’s face brimming with rage and derision, the warped moonlight, the sound of her own roughened breath.
Her sword fallen at her feet. The proof of her own effort and time, now discarded like refuse.
—Take up the sword.
Such a voice was heard. The very old knight order investiture Sir Dian August had murmured while unconscious.
Her consciousness sank a little further. A vague image surfaced.
Amid countless people arrayed in ranks, one person kneels.
Stand in the position of the weak and look upon those like us with the eyes of the weak.
The reason we take up the sword is not our valor, nor our strength, nor our superiority—
—but simply that it is right. Because it is just, for the great cause we ought duly to protect.
A solemn declaration is heard. The knights ranged through the hall raise their swords in unison.
The old man standing foremost lifts his sword, lays the blade flat, and lowers it slowly.
Carefully, as though performing a baptism. With a tap, laying the blade atop the kneeling one’s head.
Take up the sword because it is a matter of course.
Take up the sword not for your strength, but for your goodness.
Again a tap, tap, striking both shoulders.
Now your name is knight.
Look upon those like us with the eyes of the weak.
Isabelle came to herself in the silence, her very breath stopped.
The demonfolk’s blade was falling toward her head. Slowly—yet her body felt heavier and slower still.
And from behind her back came groans of terror and shock, screams, wailing.
Stand in the position of the weak and look with the eyes of the weak.
Take up the sword not for your strength, but for your goodness.
The voice was still resounding.
Yes, I shall do so. As though entranced, Isabelle stretched her hand toward the fallen sword. She gripped the hilt.
Her body was light. As though it had never once been so in her whole life.
The muscles of her entire body flexed supply, then gathered with strength.
By the time Aiphelos’s sword fell just above her head, Isabelle had already set her stance.
Shunk—!
Silence rose. From everyone around. From even the wind.
Not even the forest wind that had been shivering with a rustle could disturb Isabelle’s ears in that moment.
The clouds parted, and the moonlight shone brightly again.
The survivors behind her watched the scene before them, forgetting even to breathe.
Just above the crouching Isabelle’s head, the blade had come to a stop.
And from the broad back of the large demonfolk, a sword blade jutted out like a tree branch.
“How…… did you?”
Aiphelos could not comprehend the situation. He glared with vacant eyes at Isabelle standing below him.
Her expression wasn’t visible. Because her head was bowed. But in that moment he could perceive it clearly. This kid—no.
This knight had only just now taken her first step.
Aiphelos laughed hollowly. After the Hero, now I’ve been run through by his daughter too.
He coughed up a mouthful of blood and staggered backward.
Clatter, the sword slipped from his hand. He tottered back and then dropped to his knees.
“Hoo…….”
Isabelle too drove her sword into the ground and, on one knee, let out a deep breath. She was exhausted. Utterly.
But she had saved them. Kept them alive. Everyone standing at her back.
She had, in the end, kept every survivor alive.
“Admirable.”
At the low voice she snapped her head up. Far off, a man was walking over with heavy steps.
His expression was unreadable behind the shaggy beard, but his deep blue eyes shone clearly even in the darkness. That man was smiling.
Seeing the arm dripping blood and the coat wrecked by scraping branches, one could tell what sort of fighting that man had returned from.
She couldn’t have done that. Hadn’t she nearly died to a single opponent?
So this was why he’d said she’d be no help. Isabelle snorted and shook her head.
“The other enemies……?”
“This one was the last.”
“That’s impressive. Truly…….”
“Who’s to say?”
With a gaze somehow like that of one looking down at a well-grown niece, the man smiled gently.
Isabelle laughed at herself, because the phrase she’d thought up seemed far too accurate. Honestly, this man seemed to regard her as something like a niece.
“Hm? What are you doing?”
“Treatment.”
He was tearing the cap off the loathsome truth serum and walking toward the fallen demonfolk.
***
Whew, thank goodness. Kim Seon-woo let out a sigh.
Fortunate. Ivan too laughed briefly.
An ordinary early awakening event. The sort included in a tutorial.
Isabelle had probably killed every enemy in this forest. Of course, in the process everyone including the survivors would have been slaughtered and she alone would have lived.
Through his intervention, every survivor had lived. Fortunate. It seemed the variable in this world was, after all, Ivan himself alone.
Ivan smiled in relief. Then this was fine. Learning that he was not an NPC was, on its own, sufficient yield.
Now only one task remained.
“What are you……?”
“Treatment.”
“Why…… me……?”
“I have many questions.”
If the difference in tutorial difficulty between Esidis and Isabelle was normal, then what sort of difficulty distribution would the Hero’s Party’s other children have?
Should he intervene, or was observation acceptable?
The timing was just right. Unlike with Esidis, this time the party behind the attack had revealed themselves in person.
How demonfolk could stride so boldly around the vicinity of Prichenkaya, how many more had infiltrated the academy, where and what they were plotting, and just who was sitting at their head.
There was a great deal to find out.
And the Annihilation Corps tends to have plenty of curiosity, and plenty of means for resolving it.
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