Chapter 54: The Knight Hates the Exam (1)

Swipe-! Swipe-!

“It’s all clean now!”

The innocent maid—who had tied her brown hair into a single braid—let out a refreshing smile as she looked over the now-cleaned house. Seeing how she had cleaned the house so thoroughly to the point that everything made squeaky sounds, she felt completely refreshed.

While yes, she stumbled often, and made mistakes even more often, when it came to sincerity, Leila Winter, the maid, was second to none. Although, that didn’t change the fact that the way she often failed to understand what was being told and ended up turning things upside down was quite a big flaw to have.

Insults or swear words wouldn’t hurt her though. There was a reason why people called her someone who had flowerbed instead of brain in her head. She tended to interpret everything in positive ways—she wouldn’t even be aware if someone were to hurl swear words at her.

In that sense, one could say that she had a stronger mental strength than most mercenaries and knights.

“Maid.”

“Miss Irene, you are here!”

“I-I told you already, j-just call me Irene!”

“Hehehe, but this is easier for me! Please wait a minute, I’ll have our lunch ready soon!”

“Ah, alright…”

Though today was her rare day off from class, Irene Windler still went to visit the knight’s cabin early in the morning. If anything, the girl’s visit had pretty much become her daily routine by now.

Originally, she came here to learn the royal etiquette—including curtsy—from Leila, but every single time, she ended up staying for a meal with the knight and the maid. At some point, she just accepted it as something normal.

It feels so comfy~

[Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, Arin? You impose on them for breakfast and dinner every day without paying! I didn’t raise you to be like this!]

W-What do you mean by that?! You didn’t raise me! Also, I didn’t eat for free! I gave them gifts sometimes! That should cover for everything!

[Yes, gifts that were sent by the duke for you.]

…

[Treating others’ gifts as your own is just unethical, you know?]

…Begone, you evil ghost!

Hitting someone with cold facts was an evil deed indeed.

However, regardless of what Irene Windler thought about this matter, the owners of the cabin—including Leila—weren’t the kind of people who’d use her conscience to guilt trip her. Besides, considering that the gifts she occasionally brought were all luxurious items that only royalties would normally be able to get, they wouldn’t lose anything even if they were to treat her to a bunch of meals in exchange.

Although, neither of them were the type of people who’d try to take advantage of such a thing.

“By the way, is the instructor—”

Bang-!

“Ah, there he is.”

The moment she tried to find her instructor, she immediately sensed his presence. She could hear a crackling sound coming from one side of the backyard.

Tap-!

She then went out from the cabin’s back door to see the knight training himself rigorously, as usual.

Bang-!

“…It seems he’s practicing something new again today.”

[Is that telekinesis? It isn’t, right?]

“Of course it isn’t. It’s a strange technique, though. Maybe that’s the Hundred Steps Divine Fist?”

[You know, I always think about it, but the skill name sounds a little unusual.]

“Right? It gave me this Chinese vibe…”

Even though she was a transmigrator, she had never read a single martial arts novel in her life, let alone comic or movie. After all, back in the previous world, she was just a senior high school student who was fighting for her life to pass her college entrance exam. That was why she could only admire the knight’s skills, and nothing else.

And so, she never noticed that her neighbor was a fellow countryman of hers.

Thirty wood logs were lined up like dominoes, with 20 cm space separated each of the logs.

Standing at one end of the line of the logs, Lee Han…

“Number 7.”

Bang-!

“Number 11.”

Bang-!

“Number 9.”

Squeak-!

“…Done.”

Lee Han let out a happy smile.

He had been doing this exercise from seven in the morning. It was already twelve in the afternoon, and this was the first time he had succeeded. However, this one time success was the only thing that mattered to him.

Hitting a Cow Across the Mountain.

This technique aimed to strike an opponent while bypassing the constraints of distance and space. It possessed a similarity with the Hundred Steps Divine Fist that he showed to the cadets the other day. What he had been trying to do was to further develop the technique so that he could use it with his sword.

And today, he finally succeeded in doing that. He managed to incorporate Sword Power into Hitting a Cow Across the Mountain Technique instead of Fist Power. The clear sword gash on the ninth log was the evidence of this.

While the other pieces of wood looked as if they had only been struck at best, the ninth log looked like it had been cut by an invisible sword.

If he were able to recall this feeling, it would be enough to boost his strength by a mile.

Because the important thing here is that I succeeded.

This was the way he had always learned his new techniques; keep on trying until he finally succeeded. Since he had no set deadlines, he just did it as many times as he could a day. Of course, doing it this way didn’t give him a big chance of success—it was less than 10% at best—but it was those rare successes that made him who he was today.

There was also the joy that he felt after being able to perform a skill that was originally only possible in his imagination.

My next goal should be the Cloud Dragon Great Eight Styles…

He imagined that if he could change his direction eight times mid-air, he would be able to defeat anyone he encountered—even Baltar.

At that moment…

Step-!

“…You’re practicing another bizarre skill, huh?”

“What’s up?”

A sudden visitor called out to him, but he wasn’t surprised. After all, he had sensed his presence for a while now, and this person was also someone he saw often.

The visitor opened his mouth again.

“Have you eaten lunch yet? I baked some pies.”

“Oh.”

He was none other than Jake Farman.

The only acquaintance and comrade that he had in the Knight Order.

Crunch-!

The sweet and savory apple pie gave out a crunchy and chewy sensation in Lee Han’s mouth. While the pie itself was flaky overall, the taste balanced it out. In short, it was excellent.

Not only that, the apple filling also had a surprisingly good texture. It wasn’t just mushy and sweet like jam, but it also had a fresh taste, with the subtle scent of cinnamon and ginger being the icing on the cake.

Lee Han thought that the pie could even be considered as a work of art. It was so delicious that he could imagine the rave reviews it would have if it was exposed to the modern world’s social media.

In fact, even though he had finished the meal that Leila had prepared for him, and at this point, he had gulped through five meat pies and seven apple pies, he kept gobbling even more pies, as if he hadn’t eaten for thirty days straight. Of course, he didn’t forget to praise them.

“Dude, you should just quit your job and open a pie shop. You’re wasting your talent.”

“Are you seriously saying such a thing to a knight…?”

“If you don’t want me to say that, then you should be more terrible at cooking. Why the hell is your cooking so good? You’re a noble for fuck’s sake…”

“…You know that I’m just a fallen noble, right?”

“If every fallen noble is good at cooking, all chefs in this world would be one.”

“…Look, I just somehow became good at it because I wanted to feed my younger siblings with good food…”

“…You even have that kind of backstory, huh?”

Lee Han shook his head.

The meat pies and apple pies. These tasty pies were surprisingly made by the knight in front of him, Jake Farman. Since he was from a fallen noble family, he grew up without any servants. Because of that, he had to cook for himself so that his family could eat good food. This was the reason why his cooking skills were excellent.

The food had a taste that was hard to find even at a restaurant. Even Lee Han—who had eaten pies made by the royal chef—thought that his pies were the best pies he had ever eaten. In other words, his pies were even tastier than the ones that the royal chef made.

Unfortunately(?), his aptitude and talent for cooking had to be buried deep in the ground because he was also a talented knight.

It really was a shame.

“Seriously though, if you opened up a restaurant instead of becoming a knight, your restaurant would’ve grown into a high level establishment by now.”

“Stop talking nonsense. Doing business isn’t that easy. Also, how can a single restaurant grow into a high level establishment? Don’t be ridiculous.”

“But it isn’t impossible.”

If he were to start a [franchise], I could see that happening. But, I guess that concept is still unfamiliar to this world.

In the end, Lee Han held back his urge to give his friend advice on how to become a successful chef, and instead just ate his apple pie silently. After all, he knew the reason why his friend wanted to be a knight, and that he wouldn’t give it up no matter what.

Before he realized it, he had gulped down twelve pies in total.

“So, why did you carry all these pies here?”

“…You are asking that now?”

“I mean, I filled my stomach already, what else should I do?”

“Such a shameless guy…”

“Next time, bring me some quiche, okay?”

“…Why do I even bother?”

Jake clicked his tongue in dismay. Though they were friends and all, this friend of his was just too shameless. However, he couldn’t hide his delight at the fact that the man had eaten all the food he made, and even said that it was delicious.

He hadn’t realized it, but he actually thought that the satisfaction he got from cooking was more rewarding than his job as a knight.

“Ahem, first of all, I came here for two reasons. The first one is the illegal mages you killed this time.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t play dumb, we found the two corpses, and your traces were all over it. At least, that was what the commander said.”

“…”

Lee Han furrowed his eyebrows when he heard that.

Is this how that punk made up his alibi?

Lee Han surmised that the regressor had intentionally left the five dead pests in a place where the knights could easily notice. Not only that, he left off his own trace so that Lee Han could get the credits for subduing these guys.

As if he was telling him to take all the rewards.

However, the rewards and the credits weren’t something that he wanted. In the first place, he had zero intention of looking for fame.

And this was something that Jake already knew.

“But, I know what you’re trying to do. You don’t want to reveal yourself and…you don’t want the other illegal mages to target you because of such a trivial thing. That’s why I decided to keep the fact that you are the one who killed them a secret.”

“You know me so well.”

Man, it feels good to have a competent coworker like this. He could take care of things in advance so that I won’t get into much trouble in the future.

“But, you’ll still have to receive the reward for it. If you want to, they could even give you a medal.”

“Nah, screw that, get them to give me money.”

“…”

“What?”

“Nothing… It’s just…you never changed, huh…?”

“People don’t change easily.”

“You got a point.”

Jake nodded, agreeing with his words. Then, he drank the tea that Leila had served him.

“Well, since you never changed and all, I assume that you’re going to donate the money again.”

“…Again? What are you talking about?”

After responding a beat later, Lee Han shrugged his shoulders, as if he didn’t know what Jake was talking about.

But that was a useless thing to do, because Jake knew…

The money he’d get wouldn’t go into his own pocket.

…He always gave the money he got from capturing those illegal mages and the slave traders to their victims.

Only a few people knew the truth about this secret mission of his, and Jake was one of those few people.

All this time, Lee Han had used the Knight Order’s information network to eliminate large-scale slave traders and illegal mages. This was something that Jake was aware of due to him hanging around with the guy often, as they would occasionally share information with each other. Furthermore, Jake also knew where he used up all the assets he had taken from those criminals.

What a dishonest guy.

He never wanted those money, so he just gave them all away to the people who got kidnapped by the slave traders, or the people who had become test subjects of the illegal mages.

This is why he’s never been able to build his reputation.

In the first place, the law of the kingdom stated that all properties taken from illegal mages and slave traders had to be returned to the kingdom. By giving all those assets to the victims and their families, he had blatantly broken that law.

But, could I do something like that?

The amount of money those criminals had should be beyond anything that Jake could have imagined. If Lee Han had reported this to the Knight Order, he would have been promoted a few times already, but he didn’t.

He didn’t take the money because he felt uncomfortable holding on to it, while he didn’t take the merit because he didn’t need it. Instead, he gave them all away to help the victims. Or at least that was what he said.

But Jake knew that was further from the truth. That man was just acting according to his conscience. He lived his life as if he didn’t need anything else but time and food. That was why he lived in such a rundown cabin without any complaints.

This guy truly is…

Someone who doesn’t care about chivalry…

Because he has been practicing the ‘true’ chivalry all this time…

Feeling that it was ironic, Jake let out a snicker.

“You know, I don’t think the commander will ever let you go until the very end.”

“Stop saying that kind of horrible thing, you’ll jinx me.”

“Well…”

Jake himself wouldn’t let go of such an exemplary knight, let alone the knight’s commander.

A warm, and at the same time, lukewarm atmosphere, hang around the two for a moment. But, what good was such an atmosphere for two men hanging out together?

Before long, they returned to normal and continued their conversation.

“The other thing I want to tell you is this. Archduke Lionel has entered the capital.”

“I know that. Is he still in the capital?”

Since Lee Han hadn’t heard any rumors about him, he thought that the archduke had returned to his territory. Never did he expect that he was still here.

“He probably has to take care of some business, but he’ll definitely go back soon. The archduke isn’t the type to wander around outside the north for too long.”

“But why are you telling me this?”

“Your disciple is the one who’s the most likely to succeed him. There’s a big chance that he’ll approach you.”

“Fuck.”

There was nothing that he wanted more than avoiding the attention of those in power. Too bad for him, nothing in this world went according to his plan.

“If he really wants to approach you, he will do so within this month. There’s no better time for him to make his move than now.”

“…No better time?”

What is he on about?

Lee Han blinked, making an expression that suggested he didn’t understand what Jake was talking about. Meanwhile, the latter was stupefied by his reaction.

From his expression, it seemed as if he was saying, ‘Shouldn’t you know about this?’.

“…The semester’s exam.”

“Ah…”

“I’m not gonna say anything about that reaction.”

Though he said that, that served as a reprimand for Lee Han. Meanwhile, the latter scratched the back of his head in embarrassment.

Indeed, he had completely forgotten about it. All this time, he had dumped all of his work to the assistant instead of doing it all by himself.

It’s that time of the year already?

What they were talking about was the Royal Academy’s notorious exam.

Why was it notorious, you asked?

…How many cadets will remain this time I wonder?

Because this was the period when 60% of the first years ended up getting expelled.