episode_0006

‘Are they coming from front and back…?’

Instead of a staff, I was tapping a thin rapier against the ground, assessing my surroundings.

Fortunately, they seemed to be targeting me, not Aris, and some of them had rampant magical energy.

‘Did them getting angry because I blocked the arrow really piss them off… Still, two people might be a bit tricky… Even if I have a cheating skill like Mind Sword, this sword doesn’t teleport to attack… If I were at least Lv.2 and could handle two swords, I wouldn’t have to worry about this…’

I waited calmly for their agonizingly slow attacks, uselessly overestimating these extras.

‘Wait… and if the Mind Sword goes a little too deep, they’ll die… Should I be a bit more careful…?’

Despite such worries, their attacks still hadn’t reached me.

[Just Before]

“Hmm… Looking at that, there’s a blind person and some… wimp of a girl who looks like she can’t fight? Regis?”

One of our enemies, mine and Aris’s, was already watching us from afar, hood pulled over his head, making a circle with his fingers to peer through.

“A blind person? No, how did a blind person pass the first test?”

Beside him was another applicant, Regis, his hooded partner, holding a bow and arrow, ready for a fight.

“Well, they must’ve passed by luck. Otherwise, there’s no way a bastard like that would’ve passed. The second test will be easy for them too.”

The hooded person seemed to be confirming our position one last time, then lowered their hand and spoke to the person beside them.

“Right, so where are they? Sebastian?”

Sebastian, with his bow and arrow ready, drew the bowstring and asked him.

“Over there, they were over there.”

The hooded person who had seen our location pointed to where we were, and magical energy began to condense around the bowstring he had drawn.

The magical energy continuously swirled like a storm around the bow and its arrow, and under its force, his bow began to violently shake, as if struggling to withstand it.

“[Magic Arrow]”

The name of his skill left his lips, and the arrow began to fly with fierce momentum.

After he fired the arrow, Sebastian, who was about to ask the hooded person looking in that direction if anyone had been hit, realized something was wrong when he saw the hooded person.

“He… blocked it… Not dodged, but caught an arrow imbued with magic with his hand… What kind of magic did he use to break the arrow’s force mid-flight…?”

Sebastian stammered, as if still unable to believe the scene he had witnessed.

“What…? My arrow was blocked…? By some blind person…?”

Upon hearing those words, Regis gritted his teeth, nocked another arrow to his bow, and spoke to the hooded person.

“I’ll approach from behind, you go from the front.”

Sebastian then drew the knife hanging at his waist and nodded.

And so, they began to run towards the blind person.

‘What, he’s not even reacting to the attack?’

Both of them had the same thought.

Indeed, the blind person stood still in that spot, seemingly lost in thought.

“You can’t even react to attacks like this, why don’t you just surrender? If you surrender, I’ll send you off with all your limbs intact.”

The two of them, moving at what they believed was a very fast speed, blocked the blind person’s front and back and slowly approached him.

Regis kept his bowstring aimed at the blind person, and Sebastian approached him with a smile born of relief at their impending victory.

“Silence will be taken as refusal. Die.”

Regis shot his arrow towards him, and just before it could embed itself in the blind person’s back, it bounced off and grazed Regis’s cheek.

Regis stood dazed for a moment, then touched his cheek.

Blood began to stain his hand.

“You bastard!!!! Don’t get cocky, you blind freak!”

Regis, in a voice devoid of reason, drew the Long Sword from his waist and tried to strike the blind person’s neck. Sebastian, taking that as a signal, also charged at the blind person.

Slice.

“Ah, you’re finally here. You came so late, I almost died.”

‘This bastard…!’

Regis charged straight in, intending to cut off his neck.

‘Huh…?’

However, his body didn’t move according to his will.

He was kneeling before the blind person, and the color of the grass he was kneeling on began to turn red.

And only then did an immense pain begin to register from his back.

“Sebastian…! Why aren’t you killing him already…?”

Regis endured the pain in his back and roared at his partner.

“Ugh… n-ngh…!”

Poor Sebastian, hood pulled over his head, being used by his partner, charged directly at the blind person.

Then the blind person pointed at Regis, then pointed at Sebastian with that same hand, drawing a line in the air.

“Aaaargh!!!!”

Sebastian then collapsed to the ground, creating an even redder patch than Regis.

“How dare you… how dare you… Do you even know who I am…!”

As the blind person approached, using his rapier as a cane, Regis slowly backed away, pressing down on his wounded area to staunch the bleeding.

“Oh, please don’t get excited. What exactly is getting you so agitated? There’s a world of difference between your skill and mine, you know.”

Regis slowly raised his head and stared intently at the blind person looking down at him.

His eyes were clearly closed, and there wasn’t much height difference between them, but the sight of him moving his fingers here and there and wearing that pure white smile was…

…more than enough to make him an overwhelming and terrifying presence to Regis.

As he moved his fingers, Sebastian’s unconscious body twitched, and the blind person simply turned his finger towards Regis, just as he had done to Sebastian.

‘I… I can’t die like this…!’

His eyes were half-crazed, and he frantically looked around as if searching for someone.

***

‘Is Ray… alright…?’

Aris, who had hidden behind a large rock, was simply cowering there.

‘Even so, taking on two people… might be too much…?’

She had this worry, but then remembered him splitting a bear in half just yesterday, and dismissed the thought.

After hiding there for a while, she heard a scream.

The sound of a sturdy man screaming in agony reminded her of something.

‘War…?’

She had lost everything to war.

Her biological father, and even her respected teacher.

Her friends, her village, and even her neighbors, all were taken by the war.

And that sound was precisely what she heard every day on the battlefield.

Of course, this was an academy test, but for her, who had only recently lost her mentor, that sound was enough to bring back memories of war.

‘No… This isn’t… war…’

She clasped her trembling hands together, trying to calm herself.

But the screaming continued, and now it began to overlap with the sound of someone shouting.

Ultimately, she turned ashen, and had no choice but to bring her trembling hands to cover her ears.

The trauma of that war still hadn’t faded, and she felt as if the horrors of war would appear if she closed her eyes, so she kept them open, trying to stop her trembling hands.

“Found… you…”

As she covered her ears, she didn’t see someone find her from behind the rock and draw a knife.

“Right… this bitch was here… the one Sebastian mentioned…”

She hadn’t heard his slightly deranged voice, but she became aware of his presence because of the blood dripping onto the rock.

“Aaaaaargh!!!!”

Aris, utterly startled, recoiled, and Regis, grinning like a madman, raised his knife above her head.

“Gasp…!”

Aris raised her trembling hands to try and block the knife, but no attack came.

Furthermore, no words were heard.

Only the sound of grass rustling in the wind.

“Are you alright, Aris? It was my mistake. To let such a rookie slip by.”

At that moment,

The anxiety from her war trauma, the added fear from Regis’s sudden appearance and his war-reminiscent demeanor, the relief when all of that vanished with Longinus’s arrival, and finally, the favor she felt for him from yesterday’s events—all of it combined.

Aris gave a tight hug to Longinus, who was slowly approaching her.

“Ray… thank you…”

“It was nothing. It was simply what I had to do.”

[Second Test Concluded]

This message appeared in the sky, and with it, the surrounding forest and the expansion magic disappeared.

The medical staff, suffering yet again because of Longinus, rushed over with pale expressions, levitating them with magic and transporting them somewhere.

“Ray, it’s thanks to you.”

Aris gave Longinus a bright smile, and he, whether he recognized it or not, responded with a bright smile of his own.

Thus, in front of Longinus, after the second test concluded, this message appeared.

[System activated.]

[Third-party sub-quest access confirmed.]

[Sub-quest cleared.]

[Error occurred.]

[System appoints you as player.]