30 Years Have Passed Since the Prologue Chapter 41

Chapter 41: On an Academy Field Practicum, an Attack Always Occurs (5)

“Miss Isabelle, are you really going alone?”

“Yes! Don’t worry. There’s something I have to prove. Hoho.”

“Prove……?”

“You’d best steel yourself. Even you could take a failing mark in a moment’s slip, Miss Yuri……!”

Isabelle ran off beyond the forest wearing a fearsome smile. In effect she’d cut the first line.

In a situation where most students were still eyeing one another in the clearing, Isabelle’s action seized everyone’s gaze.

She ran into the forest alone the instant the test began?

That’s impossible unless one has something to rely on. Given the unknown assaulters waiting in the forest, and given that moving alone means having to guard against fellow undergraduates as well.

The undergraduates eyed one another and then soon gathered in twos and threes and slowly moved toward the forest’s depths.

And Ivan, who had been looking down at that spectacle, also moved slowly.

“Ivan, where are you going?”

“There’s something I want to see for myself.”

“Mmm……? Very suspicious? Who is it. What layabout has caught our ‘little’ Ivan’s interest?”

Enrique snorted and shrugged. As Ivan moved to turn his back and depart without answering, Enrique opened her mouth.

“Don’t intervene in the children’s test. Not that they won’t manage. It’s just that your armament state is a bit excessive.”

“I’m preparing for contingencies.”

“When you say you’re preparing for contingencies in Prichenkaya it feels like a coup is bound to break out. Ease your shoulders, disciple. That’s paranoia.”

“Who’s to say?”

Ivan had no intention of going to the trouble of persuading this pre-modern pigheaded elder.

If one names the 3 events at an academy most liable to be assaulted, they are as follows.

Entrance ceremony, field practicum, festival.

The reason they’re this carefree despite having drawn up an exam curriculum that all but begs to be terrorized is that these people lack common sense.

Ivan being an exceedingly realistic man, he attempts only what is possible. And within his range of the possible, teaching common sense to an elder past a century was not included.

Ivan sprang up into the trees without further word and vanished beyond the forest.

“Something about him lately has gotten…… kind of infuriating……?”

Enrique chewed over the expression Ivan had worn and felt her temper rise.

***

“What kind of person is Mister, really?”

Isabelle muttered as she ran through the forest.

Everything she had learned in Ivan’s lessons was reflecting vividly before her eyes.

There are no straight lines in nature. At the angle daylight enters, anything that glints in a straight line is a trap.

Truly so. Isabelle was already dismantling her 6th booby trap and running on unhindered.

And one more thing.

If a well-trained agent is given sufficient time, one trap never exists independently. So, suppose. Where you’ll evade to when you’ve avoided a trap.

The induction of traps. On the cleanest movement line permitting evasion of an ambush-type trap, there certainly exists a second trap.

That lesson too was apt. These agents called Enrique’s disciples seemed to be sufficiently trained even by Ivan’s standard.

Because after dismantling a trap and mentally drawing an evasion route, a second trap was certainly there.

After running a good while like that, a rustling sound reached Isabelle’s ears.

“Is someone there?”

A student. Isabelle crouched into the brush and quietly gripped her hilt.

Soon, along with a rustle, rustle, one student appeared. What was his name? Alain? Presumably a new student of Tiless origin like her.

And that fellow’s connections were fairly solid.

And he appeared alone? No chance.

Isabelle smiled coldly and surveyed her surroundings. Indeed, swaying shadows were visible some distance behind Alain. They seemed to be hiding behind trees, but concealment that clumsy is worse than none.

Because it only raises wariness further.

Isabelle ended up snorting. Seeing sights like that makes her realize anew what a formidable man Mister is. This is why you can’t date children.

She thought that without meaning to and flinched in surprise. No, date what.

Just gratitude, exactly that much!

At the least, a confession is something you receive, not make. However much the world has improved, as long history proves.

By Tiless court etiquette, there is only one case in which the woman confesses first. When the woman’s father approaches in order to advance a political marriage.

But regrettably Isabelle has no father. Because Maximilien has already been missing for 4 years now.

Therefore Isabelle has no choice but to follow Tiless’s history and tradition. If Ivan confesses first she’d consider it, and she has ample intent to review it rather positively, but.

Confess first? That’s not quite on, you know. However much of a mister he is, I’m far too good for him. Hero’s daughter, noble, pretty, young.

Ordinarily Esidis or Yuri would have appropriately intercepted Isabelle when she carried on like this, but regrettably no one was beside her now……

“Hey, seems nobody’s here?”

“Strange, I definitely heard a sound.”

When Alain grumbled, a group of students hiding behind trees appeared. Familiar faces, Alain’s group.

Five. A number difficult to handle head-on without damage.

But Isabelle gripped her hilt and quietly climbed a tree.

Ambush response training, put the other way around, may as well be regarded as ambush training. Because to respond to an ambush one must first be versed in the method of ambushing.

Which is to say, Isabelle, who had received direct live training from Krasilov’s finest field agent, might now be said to possess a level a university freshman cannot respond to.

First, one.

Isabelle covered the mouth of the man at the very back and immediately pressed a blade to his nape.

“Mmph……mmph?!”

“Shh. This thing has an edge.”

“I-Miss Isabelle……?!”

“Now now, if you don’t quiet down you might get hurt somewhere.”

She drew the sphere from her nameless classmate’s coat and struck the back of his neck.

“Guhk!!”

“Huh, Mister knocks people out doing it this way.”

“Assault……! Assault!! She took my sphere!!”

“Ah, that’s cheating. If you’re eliminated you should stay quiet.”

Isabelle grumbled and raised her sword. The classmate struck at the back of the neck writhed in pain, but thanks to him 4 were charging toward her.

“Isabelle……! Running off alone and then striking first! Are you brave or ignorant?”

“Oh, Alain. So we’re dropping formalities now?”

Isabelle grinned and raised her sword. Well, 4 is better than 5. She resolved to think positively.

She hadn’t liked the way this one and that one forced beaming smiles at her either.

And on top of that.

What is that stance.

The lunging stance, the momentum of the charge, even the sloppy movement lines that don’t coordinate with one another.

Each and every bit of it laughable beyond words.

Compared to the enrollment train where she’d had to face terrorists with her life on the line, and to Ivan attacking her like the real thing this past week, it’s tedious.

She smirked. Honestly, truly. Come to think of it, it’s all that mister. This is serious.

“With 5 spheres would I be top of class, I wonder? This time I really want 1st place.”

Isabelle grinned and ran to meet them.

***

Time passed, and around the point 2 hours had elapsed since the test began.

Around the time half the students had received failing marks and were being escorted out of the forest.

That is, when the number of students each of Enrique’s disciples had to handle had decreased and the assaults proceeded all the more fiercely.

Rrrrumble……

Deep underground, a ground tremor began.

“Kyah?!”

Yuri lost her balance mid-run and fell. She rose at once and, gripping her hilt, guarded her surroundings.

But there was no one. No sign of assault could be felt.

“What is this?”

***

Rrrrumble……!!

The ground tremor grows fiercer. Steadily heavier, the forest’s trees swayed and shed leaves with a rustle.

Enrique frowned and immediately sprang into a tree.

“……What is this?”

***

Rrrumble……!!

Simultaneously with the ground shaking, Ivan kicked off a tree and leapt. He sprang to the top of the tallest tree and swept his gaze around.

The entire vast forest was shaking.

“Where.”

Even at the sudden earthquake Ivan was not surprised. Since an assault occurring was a given, he isn’t a man delicate enough to be startled one by one at things unfolding according to common sense.

Where would the target be.

Ivan surveyed his surroundings with cold eyes. The range was far too broad. He already had Isabelle’s and Oscar’s positions grasped, but the direction of the earthquake was not confined to their locations alone.

The entire forest was trembling.

“Ha, this.”

Ivan soon snorted. Because a familiar shape had entered his eyes.

Dwarves it was. As expected.

Ivan swept the forest swiftly. If one isn’t flustered by a sudden earthquake, if one contemplates the whole battlefield with a broad field of view, there are things that become visible.

An earthquake is ultimately a wave. The place that would be called an epicenter is where the shaking is roughest.

Therefore, to reason it out.

Swaying trees become excellent markers in themselves. If one can grasp the degree of the swaying, one could examine the epicenter.

As recalled at some point, a forest is ultimately close to a tangled maze. A complex organ made of randomly grown trees and fully grown trees entwined with one another.

If one looks without being beguiled by such a form, if one can analyze each individual swaying tree independently—

“A spider’s web.”

A long epicenter extending out in a spiderweb pattern, drawing a circle, is visible.

The 5th Dragon General’s Engineer Corps, the “Web Maker’s” distinctive assault method.

It’s been a while. Ivan felt almost nostalgia. It was an exceedingly orthodox assault, and it called to mind the “tunnel war” of the past.

The scale was far smaller than in those days, but in any case—

Kraaawoooosh—!!

Along with a detonation like a landslide resounding, the entire forest sank with a lurch.

Trees tangled and toppled, earth overturned and exposed deep tunnels.

Everything that had been above was swept down amid the earth and sand—

—and dust and shattered timber sprang up, forming a great reverberation.

Amid the hazy battlefield, many students’ screams reached Ivan’s ears.

Student rescue I leave to Enrique.

Enrique should be able to grasp this situation the instant she sees it. A Dwarf assault would be familiar to her as well.

On top of that, most students carry a “location-tracking magic tool.” Which is to say, the outlook is that student rescue itself is possible within the golden hour.

It was an external practicum, and an “ambush response” test close to the real thing at that, so priests would be standing by. Even with reasonably severe injuries they can recover.

Ivan immediately leapt down from the tree.

Oscar is the nearer one.

If one supposes one of Isabelle or Oscar is those fellows’ target, then start with the nearer.

Ivan drew the movement line in his head and threw himself into a gap of a deep tunnel whose bottom was not visible.

The battlefield was near, the objective was certain, and the armament was sufficient.

An Annihilation Corps officer required no proposition beyond that.