Ch.96[Chapter 96] Bancense

[Mount Tutorial has been completed.]

[Always remember that when riding a mount, there are invisible stats such as size, breakthrough power, and changes in attack and defense types.]

“My goodness! This is amazing!”

Alice caressed her flushed cheeks with an enraptured expression.

The tutorial only covered basic controls, terrain adaptation, and the differences in operation with and without durability, but Sir Dominic felt a happiness blooming within him that he had never experienced before.

“So this is why knights ride horses.”

“Has Sir Dominic never ridden a horse before?”

Sir Dominic nodded at Alice’s question.

In the barren Ferralant, horses were extremely rare, and mostly purchased for show by knights from noble families.

For a knight who had been a conscripted serf, horses were extremely expensive and difficult to maintain.

Well. Perhaps at some point, feelings of inferiority and envy regarding mounts had been welling up in Sir Dominic’s heart.

However, the emotion he felt while driving the spider tank was surely a new sensation that knights riding horses could never experience.

At least in this moment, I’m happier than any noble. Sir Dominic grinned.

“Looks like you’ve finished practicing.”

As Sir Dominic came to a stop, an employee on a floating ferry approached, leading a duck.

Since there was quite a height difference between the spider tank’s driver’s seat and the ferry, the duck that had been tethered to the ferry flew up to match eye level.

“This alone was quite satisfying.”

Sir Dominic smiled broadly at the employee visible beyond the safety railing of the driver’s seat, showing his gums.

“Seems like this is your first time riding a mount. People like you usually have that expression here. But you know, right? You haven’t gotten your license yet. I’m saying this because sometimes people try to run off and ride mounts in this state.”

That’s also why licenses were created in the first place. The employee said while scratching the side of his head with a pen.

“So, would you like to practice with another mount next, or move on to the practical test with this one?”

Sir Dominic thought carefully before finally making his decision.

New things were good, but right now, he wanted to continue with this sensation.

“I’ll take the test.”

“Good.”

The employee picked up a folder that had been in his hand for some time and scribbled something.

After writing down a few items, the employee looked up and smiled at Sir Dominic.

“As it happens, there’s a test in 5 minutes. Shall I put you in right away?”

“Please do.”

The employee’s ferry moved away after hearing Sir Dominic’s words.

Then, after manipulating something in the air, a portal large enough for dragons or mythical beasts to pass through appeared.

“The test site is through this portal. You might start the test immediately after you go through, so be prepared—”

“Let’s go right now, Master!”

Alice urged Sir Dominic, jumping up and down as if she couldn’t wait any longer.

Sir Dominic felt the same way, so he grabbed the controls and moved the spider tank forward.

The roar of the engine sounded like a beautiful orchestra.

“Where is…?”

Sir Dominic arrived in a new space as soon as he went through the portal.

Interestingly, unlike the practice area where the track had been relatively intact, what first caught his eye here were broken and damaged tracks everywhere, chaotic ground conditions, and treacherous terrain.

“The atmosphere is different here.”

Alice shuddered as she looked at this gloomy apocalyptic track.

“What’s this, a newbie?”

Sir Dominic turned his head at the voice from beside him.

There stood a thug wearing leather clothes with a mohawk hairstyle.

Riding a pteranodon, no less.

“Looks like your first test. Right?”

The thug grinned while trimming his mohawk with an axe held in his left hand.

The pteranodon he was riding cawed, as if backing up the thug’s words.

“What amazing hair…”

Alice stared blankly at the mohawk that was almost as tall as the thug himself.

Sir Dominic decided to try to get some information from this person who seemed like a veteran of the license test.

“That’s right. Since you’re asking if it’s my first time, I take it you’ve taken this test multiple times?”

“That’s right.”

The thug was about to put his tongue on the axe blade he’d been trimming his hair with, but suddenly realizing the blade was dull, he took out a whetstone from his leather jacket pocket and began sharpening it.

“I’ve tried all sorts of things for speed. Had tests canceled, got new types of mounts, and now I’m on my 30th test.”

The thug cackled and licked the now properly sharpened blade with his tongue.

Must taste like metal. That’s what Sir Dominic thought.

“Then you must know this test well. Care to give some advice to a beginner?”

“Ha. Newbies should always be respected.”

The mohawked thug smiled wickedly.

“First, be careful not to get disqualified. If your durability runs out or you fall off your mount, you’re immediately disqualified. It’s good to drive aggressively and offensively. After all, this test assumes you’ll be moving on a battlefield.”

The mohawked thug laughed wickedly from atop his pteranodon, then continued maliciously:

“You pass the test as soon as you reach the finish line, but remember this. In the last test, only 2 people passed.”

Ah. It’s about to start. Good luck. With those final words, the thug on the pteranodon flew toward the starting point.

“What… a strange person, Master.”

“Indeed.”

Alice tilted her head as she watched the mohawked thug who had helped them in a way that seemed both kind and malicious.

Sir Dominic remembered having experienced something like this before, but he didn’t mention it to Alice.

I suppose there are many citizens like that. That’s what he thought.

[1 minute until the driving license test. Everyone please gather at the starting point.]

The system displayed a message announcing the imminent start.

Sir Dominic moved the spider tank toward the starting point.

Dozens of people riding various mounts were showing off at the starting point, pretending not to care while secretly glancing at each other’s mounts.

Sir Dominic also looked at the mounts around him.

Someone riding a raptor, someone on a cyberpunk-style hover bike, someone on a bipedal robot, someone riding on their brother’s back…

There were all kinds of people, but Sir Dominic noticed that his spider tank was the largest ground mount in the test area.

“It’s so big. Is he going for slow but steady?”

“My bike has weak durability, so I should avoid direct attacks…”

Others had also noticed this fact and were showing caution toward Sir Dominic’s spider tank.

However, these wary glances didn’t last long.

Soon the system sent a notification.

[The driving license test will now begin. The finish line is marked. Please obtain your license ‘safely’.]

With those words, the traffic light at the starting point changed from red to yellow to green, emitting a starting signal.

With that signal, all the mounts moved forward.

“Master! Let’s move quickly too!”

Alice urged, stomping her feet on the floor of the spider tank.

The practice driving had been so much fun, so how much more fun would it be on such treacherous terrain!

With childlike innocent happiness, Alice didn’t even think about the dangers.

“Yes. Let’s go—”

Sir Dominic increased the engine’s RPM and took a step forward.

And suddenly, he realized that the test site had darkened.

Cutting off his words abruptly and assessing the situation as the test site grew unusually dark, Sir Dominic realized he had experienced something like this before.

Sir Dominic looked up.

There, a squadron of various dragons and a fleet of space battleships were moving.

…

“Ugh. I really don’t understand why you want to get a large vehicle license.”

Dick Stacy was drinking sweet cocoa aboard the space battleship her father had given her as a gift.

‘I hear single promotions might be abolished in this tier evaluation. It’s not bad to try different things.’

That’s what he had said when buying this space battleship, the ‘Apocalyptic Apocrypha MK.III,’ which was a fairly new model, so Dick Stacy had no complaints about that aspect. However, her actual complaint lay elsewhere.

This space battleship, which was equipped with massive speakers that could broadcast across entire regions, reflecting her characteristics, had a fatal flaw…

“Why! Did it have to have a pink ribbon!”

Yes. While it looked fine from below, when viewed from above, this space battleship had a bright pink ribbon attached to it, clearly revealing it as a gift for a young girl.

As Dick Tracy, an officer of the battlefield, this decoration was absolutely not to her liking.

But she was reluctant to remove the decoration because it was a gift from her father.

If she modified a gift received with good intentions, she couldn’t even imagine how much her father would milk that situation.

“Sigh… Let’s focus on the test for now. I’ll deal with this later. First officer, depart.”

Dick Tracy pressed her temples firmly as she ordered the battleship to move forward.

The nuclear fusion propulsion system heated up, and her space battleship slowly began to fly toward the finish line.

Below, Sir Dominic was looking up from his spider tank.