To go down from a single kick.
"Pathetic."
I clicked my tongue and muttered.
[You have upheld chivalry.]
[A reward for the Oath of Chivalry will be granted.]
It seemed the knightly powers were satisfied with my performance as well.
First, I took his staff away.
Rest assured, I was merely relocating it temporarily in order to gather evidence.
[Mana Storage Staff]
◈ Rank: Common
◈ Activates the inscribed magic circle and supplies it with stored mana.
Just an ordinary staff with no particular explanation.
Since it said it used an inscribed magic circle, the magic circles that had transformed those bastards were surely embedded inside their bodies.
Which meant leaving them alone was out of the question.
First, I tore up his clothes, bound his hands and feet, and gagged him so he could not cast magic.
With half his clothes torn away, he lay sprawled on the ground in nothing but his underwear, a gag in his mouth. It was a profoundly miserable sight, but compared to what he had done so far, this was nothing. I felt no guilt.
Then...
I checked the fanatics as well, who had stopped moving the instant he collapsed. They were stiff, their eyes rolled back as drool streamed from their mouths.
Would these bastards move again?
【Heinz】
◈ Level: 24
◈ Danger Level: C
◈ Deceased.
"They’re dead."
"D-dead?"
I thought I understood why they had been treated as undead.
They must have met their end when that magic circle turned them into monsters.
And since the conduit supplying mana from the staff had been knocked unconscious, they could no longer move.
According to what I saw with Insight Eye, they were registered as dead. Even if I supplied the staff with mana again, they probably would not start moving.
Next was my status window.
【Ian de Logres】
◈ Level: 15
◈ Title: None
◈ Traits: [Dragon Strength], [Insight Eye], [Oath of Chivalry]
◈ Stats
◈ Body: 142 | Mana: 60
◈ Luck: 10 | Mental Strength: 30
(SP Available: 25)
▶ [Skills]
Combining the extra levels I had gained from clearing Dreamland last time with the levels I had shot up this time, I was now level 15.
The minimum requirement for using sword aura was 30, so I still had half the distance left to go.
I still have a long way to go...
Looking at the translucent window floating before me, I sighed and dumped all 25 SP into mana.
My mana rose to 85, while my body stat had reached 167 thanks to Orlando’s Muscle Cultivation Method.
Judging by the body stat alone, I was equivalent to level 31.
If I added everything else together, it would be fair to say I had gained around 45 levels’ worth of power.
And yet I still had a long way to go.
I could hold out with my stats to some extent, but if I wanted to properly survive at the academy, I needed sword aura.
Just then, green-glowing wind entered through the open window.
The wind whirled and took the shape of a creature before transforming into a horse.
It was Rocinante, who had gone outside earlier.
I would have to check my Oath of Chivalry reward later.
Petting Rocinante, Dolnesia spoke.
"Rocinante’s side is finished too."
"That was surprisingly fast. I thought it would take longer since they were farther away."
"Apparently, one of the passengers in the first carriage was a mage, so it went smoothly thanks to them."
It was not unusual for nobles to include mages among their number, so it was not especially surprising.
Still, since there was no mention of anyone being transformed, it seemed the mana had not reached as far as the first carriage.
But...
"What are you doing?"
I looked at Iris.
She had her eyes closed and her hands clasped in prayer.
"I was just... praying for their souls."
"For the terrorists...?"
Iris nodded.
Then she closed her eyes again, offered a brief silent bow, and stood up.
It was just like someone with the qualities of a saint.
Praying for the souls of people who had tried to kill her.
The problem was that these men were vile enough not to deserve even that much.
Did she know?
Did she know what kind of lunatics these people were?
That was what the Abyssal Mother Cult was.
A cult that mercilessly offered people up as human sacrifices.
A deranged religious group that ground other people up for the sake of their own comfortable lives.
So I could not exactly look kindly on what she was doing...
But I did not say it out loud.
After all, I was the only one who knew that they belonged to the Abyssal Mother Cult.
And explaining it all would have been a tremendous hassle.
She would find out eventually anyway.
There was no need to soil a pure white capybara already.
Everything afterward went smoothly.
The Empire dispatched an order of knights, who took away the fanatics’ bodies and even the staff I had swiped as evidence.
They verified our identities because they had matters to investigate, but that did not concern me. We had no identities that could be used against us in the first place.
With the Imperial knights escorting us as well, we were able to reach Aether even sooner.
When we set foot in Aether...
"Thank you so much for today."
Iris bowed her head in thanks.
Perhaps because she had witnessed something horrific, her spirits were much lower than before.
Still, it was better than nothing.
I had grown rather numb to such things after entering Ian’s body, but if this had happened to me in my previous life, I would have developed selective mutism.
"It was nothing."
She nodded at my response.
Then she said nothing else.
By this point, she normally would have smiled and tried to lighten the mood.
Apparently, what she had seen today had shocked her more than I thought.
As the silence continued...
"S-so then, which department are all of you enrolling in?"
It was her close friend Haede who changed the subject.
Lumea Academy, the heart of Dawnstar Academia, was divided into four departments.
The first was the Swordsmanship Department, where students learned swordsmanship and tactics.
The second was the Magic Department, where they learned elemental magic, spirit studies, alchemy, and the like.
The third was the Magitech Department, popular with engineering types.
The fourth was the Administration Department, the route for becoming an Imperial civil servant.
There might have been four departments, but the only ones the academy’s protagonists attended were the Swordsmanship Department and the Magic Department.
The other two were usually brushed over with little more than, “Those settings exist.”
That was why episodes related to the other departments hardly appeared in the game either.
In the game, Dolnesia and Isabella were in the Magic Department, while Angelica was in the Swordsmanship Department, right?
But this one was a little different.
Iris, however, was an unusual case.
Because she could enter either the Magic Department or the Swordsmanship Department.
Remarkably, she could even double-major.
While the other protagonists were crazy specialists devoted to a single aptitude, this girl possessed a perfectly balanced set of talents.
With the qualities of a saint, she could summon spirits even without Spirit Affinity, perhaps due to her blessing.
She was talented in magic of every elemental attribute.
And she had talent with the sword as well.
Was that all?
Thanks to the perks of being a saint, even in alchemy she could produce good results without doing much of anything.
Of course, when it came to the depth of each individual talent, she could not surpass protagonists specialized in those fields. But Iris’s true calling was not being an all-rounder—it was being a saint.
With the talents of an all-rounder and the unique advantage of sainthood, if you asked who the most overpowered protagonist was, it had to be Iris.
She could not surpass Angelica in sheer strength, of course.
That girl was genuinely insane.
Anyway, she was an incredible girl with aptitudes in both swordsmanship and magic, capable of eventually graduating with a double major.
The problem was that Haede tended to follow Iris’s major.
Unlike Iris, Haede was not a genius. The fact that she was not an all-rounder like Iris was significant.
If you compared Haede’s aptitudes, her talent for magic was somewhat higher than her talent for swordsmanship, so the Magic Department would benefit her more.
Not that the difference was all that large.
Still, if possible, I really hoped it would be the Magic Department.
Not because I thought it would be an absolute pain otherwise.
"I’m entering the Swordsmanship Department, and Dolnesia is entering the Magic Department."
"That’s wonderful!"
Perhaps her spirits had already recovered, because Iris clapped her hands and joined the conversation.
But what exactly was wonderful?
Was it that she would be taking classes with Dolnesia...?
"Haede and I are going to the Swordsmanship Department too!"
...
Why!
Why the hell!
Why would she give up the Magic Department, where she could learn spirit arts and magic alike?
Whenever one of these binary choices came up, it always went the way I did not want.
No, a saint in the Swordsmanship Department? Did that make any sense?
It was like Jesus picking up a Nazareth monkey wrench.
#
The day after parting ways with Iris’s group.
I passed beneath an enormous marble arched gate.
And after climbing the long marble stairs, I finally saw it.
How should I describe it?
A palace? A castle?
The splendid campus I had seen in the game, made of ones and zeros, unfolded before my very eyes. It was a deeply moving sight.
Lumea Academy.
The setting of Dawnstar Academia’s main story.
To think I was standing in that very place.
A hollow laugh escaped me, but I was nervous too, in my own way.
Following the guidebook we had received at the entrance, Dolnesia and I found the grand auditorium where the entrance ceremony would be held.
Following the tide of people who appeared to be new students, we soon arrived before the auditorium doors.
But then...
"That’s him, right?"
"The one from the Logres family..."
I did not know why so many eyes were fixed on me today.
At first, I thought they were looking at Dolnesia, who had entered second in the admissions rankings. But from the academy’s front gates to this place, I had already encountered dozens of people who met my gaze and quickly turned away.
If I had not misheard, there had even been snickering.
Granted, I was a two-meter giant with a savage-looking, intimidating face.
It was not as though I had an appearance that would not draw attention.
But was this not a little excessive?
"It feels like a lot of people are staring today. Did something happen?"
"Oh my, Ian. Haven’t you seen today’s newspaper?"
Dolnesia looked at me and spoke, apparently having heard my muttering.
"What newspaper?"
Without a word, Dolnesia handed me the newspaper she had been holding, as if telling me to check for myself.
I decided to question where she had pulled it from later and unfolded the paper she gave me first.
There, in enormous print, were incomprehensible headlines.
[Breaking! “Vile scum, face my blade!” The truth behind the Logres Grand Duke’s second son’s ‘knight play’ aboard the train?]
[Exclusive! A sudden heretic attack on a peaceful train... and the even more bewildering appearance of the ‘second son’]
[Shocking! “Who is that?” The mysterious ‘knight cosplay’ man who appeared on the train—everyone aghast when his identity was revealed]
...?
My face was plastered across an entire page of the newspaper alongside those godawful clickbait headlines.
No, fuck.
That’s me.
#
An Imperial interrogation chamber.
A man was thrown inside, bound in chains.
He was the priest of the Abyssal Mother Cult whom Ian had kicked and who had been dragged away by the knights.
The Abyssal Mother Cult was a cult the Empire and the Holy Kingdom kept under close watch.
Naturally, the Empire had no intention of letting a priest belonging to it slip through their fingers, and the priest was immediately thrown into an underground interrogation chamber.
From the priest’s perspective, he was like a fish on the chopping block, merely waiting for the day he died.
Before long, the Empire’s merciless interrogation would begin. As if he sensed the future awaiting him, the priest trembled.
Then...
"You failed, Von Granité."
Rats gathered in one place and began to take human form, until someone appeared before the priest.
"A-Apostle..."
The priest trembled even more violently than when he had imagined his future.
Did he think the man before him more frightening than the Empire’s interrogation?
The man whom the priest called Apostle slowly approached him and spoke.
"Who defeated you? At most, there should have been one or two mages on that train, none above the third circle. There is no reason you should have failed after taking out that insurance policy as well."
Shrouded in dark shadows, the man’s face gleamed with red light as he demanded an explanation from the priest.
"F-forgive me, Apostle! I was defeated by four academy students!"
"...? Are you lying to me? There should have been only one student on that train, two at most. Four?"
His eyes narrowed, and the red glow emanating from them deepened.
"No, Apostle! I saw them clearly! There were definitely four!"
"...I will verify it."
The Apostle placed a hand on the priest’s forehead and began to draw out his memories.
The priest screamed, but the Apostle paid him no heed. Instead, he raised his mana even further.
Having seen the memories, he knew the man had not lied.
And that made it even harder for the Apostle to believe.
Because, with not a shred of falsehood in it, the situation had become all the more bizarrely warped.
They had said only one would appear.
Then why were two Star-Seers gathered there...?
What troubled him even more was the huge man who had confronted the priest alone.
The brown-haired woman was supposed to be there, so that much is understandable. But why is such a giant there?
The giant was clearly an anomaly.
There had been no trace of him anywhere in what that man had told him.
Something had gone horribly awry.
And even more astonishing was the technique the giant had performed.
"He erased your magic."
"Y-yes... Th-that bastard erased my magic..."
Cutting through magic—even low-tier third-circle magic—was not especially impressive.
One did not need to be a Sword Master. Even a Sword Expert could perform such a trick.
But that man had not used aura to erase the magic. Moreover, he had not cut it apart—he had erased it.
Among everyone the Apostle knew, there was only one person capable of such a feat.
I thought we had killed them all. Are you saying someone who inherited it still remains...?
As if two Star-Seers were not enough, the giant anomaly was even wielding that man’s unique technique.
He could not rule out the possibility that the giant had borrowed the power of a magical artifact.
But the fact that this anomaly was the one wielding that power was throwing his rational judgment into disarray.
"It seems I must revise the plan."
With those words, the Apostle transformed back into a swarm of rats and vanished into the sewer.
The priest was found dead.
The cause of death was asphyxiation.
He had suffocated to death with a rat’s corpse lodged in his throat.
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