Ch.119114 – The Perspective of Talent

[Part 1: Remnant Academy Invasion Operation END]

[Part 2: The Eternal One-Blade, Night Sonata’s Strange Tale]

Despite defeating the boss, the situation didn’t exactly proceed optimistically.

Since combat mode was forcibly disabled, Alperion and Ciciella were barely able to survive by escaping the damage-over-time effect, but the Gestalt branch director, being hunted by the Empire, had no choice but to flee the holy city before Adella regained consciousness.

Why didn’t the Abyss help? It was obvious they’d abandon us when convenient.

The only good thing was that since the building was completely destroyed, we could at least sleep in better accommodations than before.

Though it didn’t really matter since sleeping automatically skips forward anyway.

As expected, an unfamiliar ceiling greeted me.

[Veixel: Ah, can you hear me clearly?]

“Yes, it would be better if you could speak a bit louder.”

[Veixel: Ah, ah. Yes, I’ve turned it up a bit.]

[SaveMeFromGradSchool: The Act 2 boss isn’t much, but the story is so long that you need to know exactly which parts to skip.]

[LG Chaos: For the story parts, the manager will guide you, and during combat, Veixel and I will join the briefing.]

“Great. I’ll be counting on you all.”

[SaveMeFromGradSchool: Sure! But where is this? I’ve played hundreds of times and never seen this respawn location.]

“…”

[SaveMeFromGradSchool: I’m serious, I’ve never seen this in-game before!]

Ignoring him who had already lost my trust, I examined the room.

As I was slowly trying to get up, I suddenly felt strong pressure on my legs. The tingling sensation felt like my blood circulation was cut off.

When I lifted the blanket, I found a girl sleeping soundly using my leg as a pillow.

“Grrrr…”

A new morning had dawned—actually, the sun was already high in the sky.

I understood the fatigue, but with little time left, I quickly shook Adella awake.

“Want to get up?”

“Hmm…? Oh, sis! Did you sleep well-nya?”

“Yes. How about you?”

“Yaaawn. I’m still feeling sleepy because I was so tired. I couldn’t sleep at all nyaaawn…!”

Adella stretched her arms out wide.

Her slender white arms extended in all directions.

-omg

-wow

-Teacher Adella, thank goodness you’re alive!

-those armpits are insane lol

-lick lick lick lick lick

-wowowowow

“What do you mean you couldn’t sleep? It’s already 2 PM.”

“And whose fault is that?! This was my first time experiencing such a rough night…! I was a little scared, but it felt good, so I’ll let it slide this time.”

“…What?”

-?

-?

-?

-huh?

-??????

-Night experience?

-What?

I also wondered if I had misheard her and asked again.

“You mean… sleep talking?”

“Sleep talking? Was that sleep talking…? Ah, yes, it must have been sleep talking, haha…? It seems like it… but also not…”

-What exactly happened at night…?

-bad thoughts bad thoughts bad thoughts bad thoughts

-Adella, you fiend! What did you do to our NoName!

-lololololol first time seeing this situation

-Is this actually scripted?

-No way, it feels more authentic because it’s not scripted

-So that’s why Adella is set as an 18-year-old adult?

└ I’m very interested in teacher’s preferences

Either way, I didn’t have time to listen to more nonsense.

Ten minutes had already passed just with the game loading and this conversation.

“Let’s just pack the essentials and leave quickly.”

“Leave? Where to? Weren’t we going to the Abyss branch?”

“I’ll explain the details as we go. First, I’d like you to get dressed.”

When we stepped outside, I could really appreciate how nice our inn was.

Alongside it stretched rows of luxury homes and nobles strolling the streets in elegant casual attire.

“To think I’d sleep in a District 3 inn…! I should have slept longer, what a waste!”

The lodging voucher Gestalt had given us was surprisingly for a place in the middle of the capital.

The guards were searching slum areas thoroughly to recover the laurel, so they deliberately booked us a room here, where it would be darkest under the lamp.

[SaveMeFromGradSchool: District 3 of all places? We’re doomed. We need to go to District 15 in the southwest. There you’ll meet a retired knight commander who can help you escape through the city walls without trouble.]

Occasionally, the sound of military boots made my heart race, but walking casually alongside Adella helped us pass by unnoticed.

“What? The Abyss branch was destroyed? Then what about Gestalt!”

“Gestalt is safe. Being a vampire, he could easily escape the capital. What’s important now is how we get out of here.”

The capital of the Bahamut Empire is closed off.

The four walls are thoroughly guarded by battalion-sized units of soldiers, with dozens patrolling the top of the walls even during daytime.

Therefore, our main goal was to escape the capital without triggering any quests and clear Part 2.

Avoiding the knights patrolling the capital, we arrived at District 15, where we found an armored man sleeping on a cold stone floor where no sunlight reached.

Judging by the smell of alcohol, this man was completely drunk in broad daylight.

“That face looks familiar.”

“Do you know him-nya?”

I never forgot a face I’d seen before.

I always made a point to memorize names and faces, since such forgetfulness could cost lives later.

[Retired Knight Commander – Alphonse Schupott]

The knight commander that Lora easily defeated in the prologue when determining the “Infamous Difficulty.”

I thought with such poor skills, the empire had no future if he was entrusted with the position of knight commander, and sure enough, it seems he was dismissed afterward.

“You…!”

As we continued to stand beside him, the man woke up, widened his eyes, and pointed at us accusingly.

“Y-you…! Because of you, I…!”

He grabbed a broken glass bottle and walked toward us with determined steps.

With rage in his eyes, he looked like someone who might do anything.

[SaveMeFromGradSchool: Just subdue him lightly here. Whatever you do, don’t kill him!]

Following SaveMeFromGradSchool’s instructions, I took his charging weight and slammed him to the ground.

“Ugh!”

“Yes, I know him. We fought once before in the capital.”

“He doesn’t look very impressive.”

Adella whistled as she observed the situation.

Back then, Lora had fought and won, but it seems that when switching from duo to solo mode, the game recognizes it as if I had done it.

“What nonsense! I am the knight commander of the Bahamut Empire…!”

He tried to draw a sword from his waist, but unfortunately, there was nothing in his hand.

“Knight commander… I was a knight commander…”

For someone claiming to be a knight commander, his appearance was too shabby and pathetic, enough to make him a laughingstock.

* * *

How did Alphonse Schupott rise to the position of knight commander?

Those unfamiliar with his circumstances simply thought he secured his position through his father’s influence as a Sword Master.

The reason Alphonse could join the knights in the first place was indeed due to his father’s strong pressure, so this wasn’t entirely wrong.

The problem arose when the Bahamut Empire competed with other great powers for colonial expansion.

The empire, rich in resources but lacking internal stability, showed particular weakness in military matters.

However, with the imperial leadership’s tendency to cover up allied casualties by deploying more troops and acquiring more colonies, the knight commanders always operating on the front lines soon became sacrificial lambs to the natives defending their homelands.

In such a situation, no knight would volunteer to become a knight commander.

Knight commanders were only selected from the central knights, but once appointed, they were destined to return to the front lines whenever war broke out.

Meanwhile, knights who could live comfortably in the capital didn’t want to give up their positions.

Eventually, Alphonse, with the highest seniority but narrowest standing, being pushed into the position of knight commander was a foregone conclusion.

“Here, I found the sword you asked for.”

However, rumors that a knight commander had lost a one-on-one duel to a young child in the capital spread instantly, and before this fact reached the emperor’s ears and incurred his wrath, the knights had to strip him of his position under pressure from the imperial court to resolve the matter themselves.

So they needed to find a new sacrificial lamb.

And the knights, who viewed Alphonse’s actions as a ploy to abandon his position as knight commander, vented their anger by expelling him from the knights altogether.

Taking away his beloved sword was just an added insult.

“Thank you, kids… Thank you so much for finding it…”

[SaveMeFromGradSchool: Now that he has the Ashtyle Greatsword back, Alphonse will show you the way out of the holy city. Just follow him.]

“What kind of knight commander begs his juniors like that-nya? And your father was a Sword Master?”

Adella asked with a tone of incomprehension.

“I was originally a commoner. When I was at the academy, Lord Schupott adopted me as his son.”

“A commoner? But to join the central knights, you must have had quite a talent for swordsmanship, right?”

“No, I had no talent at all. I barely avoided expulsion from the academy, and normally I couldn’t have even dreamed of joining the knights.”

“That doesn’t make sense. You can’t join the central knights without recognized skill.”

“Lord Schupott forced my entry into the knights. Honestly, I still don’t understand what he saw in me to value me so highly.”

Alphonse hung his head with a gloomy expression.

The one who knew his limitations best was Alphonse himself.

After Lord Schupott passed away in the religious war, Alphonse found himself thrown onto a thorny path.

The “Ashtyle Greatsword” inherited from his father. He had asked Lord Schupott countless times.

What exactly did he see in him to value him so highly? But the answer was always the same.

[Persevere.]

In the end, after 20 years of wielding the sword and refining his technique with bone-breaking effort, all he had to show for it was the shameful result of forced retirement.

“I should have tried harder to join the magic department instead of the knight department when I applied to the academy…”

Catching this comment that could have been easily missed, I suddenly asked him a question.

“So you know some magic?”

“Magic… I liked magic when I was young. Isabella, was it? Even the name is hazy now. Bella, my childhood friend, would always chirp like a nightingale about magic she taught herself from the library. It was thanks to her that I decided to come to the capital.”

“Then why did you apply to the knight department-nya?”

“But Bella liked men who wielded swords and wore armor. So without knowing any better, I trained only in swordsmanship to become a proper knight. Haha, strange reason, isn’t it? In the end, it didn’t suit me at all.”

Alphonse sighed deeply, lamenting his fate.

He thought something would change if he persevered for 10 or 20 years, but his skills were worse than even the new teenage recruits who had just joined the knights.

It was just a conversation to pass the time until we exited the winding forest path, but the subject wasn’t pleasant.

By the time we reached a hill overlooking the capital’s walls in the distance, he thrust his sword firmly into the ground.

Bending one knee and bringing his other arm horizontally across his chest, Alphonse bowed his head slightly and expressed his gratitude with the utmost sincerity.

“The Ashtyle Greatsword was the only keepsake Lord Schupott left me. I truly can’t thank you enough for finding it…”

Adella, uncomfortable with the somewhat awkward situation, scratched her head.

“So where do you plan to go now-nya?”

“Since I have no reason to stay in the capital anymore, I’ll go back to my hometown. Back to where I belong.”

“I see…? Hmm… Well, good luck.”

As Alphonse was about to turn away, I grabbed his sleeve and turned him back.

“Is there something else you need?”

[SaveMeFromGradSchool: NoName? There’s no need to learn Alphonse’s sword technique here. It doesn’t even match well with Adella’s style.]

According to what I saw on TriWiki, if you ask Alphonse for a reward at parting, he offers to teach his sword technique instead of money.

“You know magic swordsmanship, don’t you?”

I focused on Alphonse’s arms. Typically, greatsword users develop muscles equally in both arms.

However, Alphonse’s right arm was noticeably thinner than his left. This was a common side effect of improperly using magic during swordsmanship.

“Magic swordsmanship… It’s just a technique created by a talentless knight desperate to survive.”

“Would you mind showing me briefly?”

“If you insist…”

Alphonse drew the Ashtyle Greatsword.

With a deep breath and focused concentration, he chanted a spell.

Two thin rings of light appeared around the greatsword, rotating in opposite directions.

“It’s a technique I naturally learned after using a sword for so long. It helps me hit a little harder.”

Alphonse brought the greatsword down on the ground with a shout.

Thud-!

The stone floor cracked slightly. But that was it.

His body was excessively tense, making the trajectory of his strike inconsistent. It even landed slightly away from where he had aimed.

“Ah, I missed again… Well, that’s it, right? I hope you recover the laurel.”

Alphonse couldn’t hide his disappointment as he sheathed his sword.

As expected, his attack was at the level of a failing grade for a swordsman.

“I’ve never seen someone with less talent than me. If this is the standard, I should have applied to the knights instead of the academy-nya.”

After Alphonse left, Adella spoke as if thoroughly unimpressed.

“Innate magic…?”

However, I couldn’t believe what I’d seen, and continued to watch his retreating figure long after he had gone.

‘Someone who struggles to control even his own body properly created an innate magic related to swordsmanship?’

Judging by the shallow cut in the ground, it wasn’t particularly impressive, but

About 30 paces away from where Alphonse had struck, there was a crack in the ground.

“What a waste of talent. It would have been good if he had persevered a little more.”

Talent—this is truly what talent means.