Chapter 64: Man-Eater vs Man-Eater(?) (2)

H-How did it turn out this way…?

A certain boy thought so in his heart as his whole body trembled. It was currently the last day of the exam period. Somehow, he was picked as the first one to go on stage. Since the die had already been cast, there was nothing he could do but follow it through.

I can do this… I can do this…

He clenched his teeth as he repeatedly utter these words, as if giving himself a self-suggestion.

After that, he touched the two silver coins he had kept in his chest pocket. These coins were given to him as a favor by someone he respected. Recently, he had been treating it as talismans of sorts.

Bear Number 11, or rather, Barry Cobbs. The moment he felt the presence of the silver coins, the first-year cadet of the Swordsmanship Department shook off the fear in his heart and swung his spear.

Whoosh-!

Bang-!

[GRR?]

“Heup!”

Unfortunately for him, his attack wasn’t really effective when pitted against the rock monster. He had to roll to the side to dodge the incoming counter attack from it.

Back in Vulcan, he had learned that evasion maneuvers were important if he wanted to deal with something bigger than himself.

I-I have caught a bunch of wild boars in Vulcan! I can do this!

…W-Wait, actually, I didn’t actually catch that many on my own…

Most of the aforementioned wild boars were actually hunted by him while being together with group or by the instructor.

As he remembered that neat truth, Barry told himself to not be complacent.

[GRRR!!]

At some point, the rock monster became irritated and rushed towards him.

“Heupppp!”

He focused his ‘Martial Power’ on his legs and kicked the ground, although it wasn’t to attack the monster in front of him, but to dodge its blow.

But, why did he dodge it when he could just attack at that moment instead?

Baaaaang-!

“Keuk!?”

Because the rock monster—or rather, the Rock Troll, would blow away everything that it hit. It was the result of its heavy body and its reckless charge that completely disregarded its own well-being. If Barry were to try to confront its attacks, he’d be turned into a twisted piece of jerky in an instant.

“Phew…”

However, this didn’t drive him to despair. If it was him in the past, this monster would make him unable to do anything but tremble in place. After all, even though it wasn’t a real troll, the Rock Troll was still a monster that no ordinary humans would dare to fight.

But now…

As long as I can dodge its attacks, I can fight it!

He was able to keep up with it, much to his joy.

That was why he didn’t despair. Instead, he took another stance and prepared himself to dodge its blow again.

…Even so…

Trolls really are just too much…

Crack-! Crack-!

[GRRR!!]

The moment he watched the thing regenerate its body, he couldn’t help but feel surprised.

He had driven the Rock Troll to crash into the wall when it tried to charge at him, but its broken body had already coming together again. As expected from an artificial monster made from sprinkling troll blood into a lump of rocks, its regenerative power was on a different level than what he used to.

My head hurts…

Can anyone even pass this test…? I swear the Academy just doesn’t have any conscience whatsoever!

The ridiculous difficulty of the test left him dumbstruck.

“Barry! Do your best!”

“Go for it! Do your absolute damndest best!”

“Barry, show that thing your guts!”

“You weak motherfucker! The instructor should send you back to Vulcan after this!”

“…Dude, I think you’d better curse his parents instead of saying that…”

“…My bad, that was too much, huh…?”

Throughout his fight, he could hear the cheers of his seventeen comrades. Well, there were curses and mocking mixed in there, but since they were comrades, those were also counted as cheers.

“Elder brother, do your best!”

…Even the Goddess of Victory, the Beacon of Light of the Bears, cheered him on.

I will win, no matter what-!

To answer his friends’ cheers, he rushed towards the Rock Troll again.

This time, his rush was filled with bravery.

Seeing the bravery that Barry Cobbs showed, three people gave their honest evaluation of him.

“Lost.”

“Indeed.”

“He ain’t winning.”

They were the Trio of the Swordsmanship Department—they were called that at some point. Their judgment instantly fell the moment they saw Barry Cobbs rushing towards the Rock Troll.

“B-Brother is going to lose?”

Hearing their prediction, Levy Fault threw such a question. Arno nodded his head, as if it was a foregone conclusion.

“In that situation, it would have been better if he opted to wait for the perfect opportunity to throw the ‘Spear Power’ and gamble on that one attack to finish the monster. Fighting in that way will only get him to lose even more stamina. Such a shame, but Comrade Barry is being a little hot-headed right now; he just rushed in without any strategy whatsoever. If he had just widened his vision a little, he’d be able to show us a good fight.”

In the first place, the bears’ weren’t skillful enough to defeat the Rock Troll. Even if factoring in the fact that they had a highly-destructive technique like the Spear Power, against an opponent with notable regenerative power like that, it wouldn’t be that effective.

The rule of thumb of fighting against such foes was to keep chipping away at it, not to confront them with a single big attack.

Since the bears could utilize the latter to fight, it was only natural that they’d be defeated.

And as expected…

Kwaaang-!

“Keeuk!?!”

Barry Cobbs unleashed his full power to pierce the Rock Troll’s shoulder, but the monster disregarded the damage and just rushed towards him.

He tried to unleash another attack—this time with his sword—but he had spent his stamina already. The Rock Troll didn’t miss the opportunity.

[GRR!!]

It slammed itself into Barry, producing a loud ‘Bang!’.

With that, the fight was over.

Everyone shook their heads as they stared at Barry, whose face had turned considerably pale. The opponent overwhelmed him from the beginning to end, there couldn’t be any more disappointing result than this.

“That dumbass, if he didn’t study for the debates and spent more time swinging his sword, at least he won’t be beaten this badly.”

“Dude, his scores on the debates are good. He won’t get expelled because of this.”

“…Wait, you’re right.”

His peers judged his defeat harshly, but at the same time they also felt bitter about it.

They knew how much effort Barry had put in his training, and since they put pretty much the same amount of effort as him, they could roughly tell how their individual fights would go.

Such a thought got them to worry about what would happen next if they lost so poorly like him.

…However, they were the only ones who gave such harsh evaluations to Barry.

“Wow, he just ran towards such a monster like that!”

“What a brave young man! As expected of the Swordsmanship Department! The aspiring knights!”

“I heard that guy is a commoner.”

“…What? A commoner wounded a Rock Troll? You sure that troll isn’t faulty…?”

One could see it from their eyes.

The rest of the audience actually admired him.

While in the eyes of his peers, this was nothing but a miserable defeat for Barry, in the eyes of the audience, he was an incredibly brave warrior. What he did was the equivalent of a human charging at a giant with only a club in his hand; a courageous feat that shouldn’t be dismissed in any way.

Not only that, even though he had such a miserable defeat, his performance was actually quite satisfactory.

The general public gave him a round of applause for his skills and passions. In their eyes, he had been dodging the Rock Troll’s fierce attacks like a matador before charging in at a perfect time, and even got to wound it, making it a closer match than they expected.

Pendragon was the Kingdom of Knights. Its people worshiped battle and courageous acts. After seeing his fighting spirit, none of them would be stingy in their evaluation of him.

“So they think that the duel itself is more important than the result? There are still parts of the kingdom’s culture that I can’t understand…”

“That’s how it is. The former king created that culture. He believed that warriors who had fought great battles needed to be treated with equally great respect.”

“…The previous king’s quite the romantic gentleman.”

While everyone in the Colosseum was clapping amidst the flying flower petals, Levy Fault…

“E-Excuse me! I-Isn’t there anyone worried about him?”

-Ah.

Pointed out that they should pay attention to Barry’s life—he had just been blown away by the Rock Troll, after all. Only then did his classmates rush to take care of him.

…Indeed, camaraderie was such a fickle thing.

Thankfully, Barry Cobbs didn’t end up dying.

“Fuck…it hurts…”

“Oh, shut it, stop overreacting.”

“I broke an arm and a leg and you think I’m exaggerating?”

Although, instead of dying, he was seriously injured. But, for some reason, he only felt pain, and there didn’t seem to be any major problems happening in his body.

Though his injuries could give him a concussion easily, fortunately in this Colosseum…

“You won’t die anyway.”

“Long live the Divine Technique!”

Divine Technique

A mystical ability that only priests with divine powers who follow the one and only, [Light of Brilliance], could perform. That same mystical ability spread throughout the Colosseum, and thanks to that, those who were seriously injured would not die.

Since Barry Cobb’s injury was caused by something that occurred within the realm of the Divine Technique, it wouldn’t be long before he fully recovered.

In other words, the Colosseum was a safe battlefield where no one would die or get hurt, thanks to the miracle that pretty much proved the existence of God.

Such a miracle greatly impressed a certain warrior that hailed from a mystical race.

“Kunta wants Divine Technique! If we have that, no one in our tribe will get hurt!”

The eyes of the warrior of the Barbarian Tribe—the tribe that was always harmed by monsters—sparkled the moment he saw the mystical power. He looked like a child who had just found a toy that he really wanted.

However, Arno could not help but crush that pure anticipation of his.

“I don’t really recommend it.”

“Why is that?”

“It doesn’t work against real monsters.”

“…Huh?”

“It works well against artificial monsters that you can control like that Rock Troll, but if you use it on a real monster, and it just runs wild on you, the law will be easily torn apart by it. This place is a safe space that’s being managed in real time, so it’s completely safe to use it here, but outside of this place…”

“Also, you’d need to sacrifice a lot of things for the Divine Technique. Think of it like this. If your tribe wants to use it, then you guys would need to eat only gruels for the rest of your lives.”

“…Kunta hates the Divine Technique.”

Needless to say, the revelation left Kunta disappointed.

He genuinely thought that he had finally found a good method to prevent his tribesmen from getting hurt, but it turned out that he was wrong.

As he was holding his head down like that…

“Don’t be disappointed and raise your head. Look at that, our department’s most promising prospect is about to go all out.”

“…Wow!”

The barbarian raised his head as if he had never been disappointed in the first place, and looked at the fighting ground with shining eyes.

Although the Divine Technique disappointed him…

“Roen Drimit de Lionel! Kunta beg the dragon, the lion, and the fairy that he will show a fight that will not be disappointing!”

That guy would not disappoint him.

Sreung-!

At that moment, the young lion drew his sword.

At a certain place, one could see a never-ending line of carriages. Not just any other carriages, but luxurious ones.

Those were the carriages of the nobles and wealthy merchants. Although some of them were less luxurious than the others, those carriages usually bore the insignia of their respective guilds—as such, they couldn’t be just dismissed as irrelevant.

Though back during the War Game, there were a lot of people who gathered to show their asses to the princess, those rabbles were incomparable to the owner of those carriages.

The owner of those carriages were those whose butts were heavier than lead.

After the exam, the Academy cadets would have a week off, so all these guys came here to personally pick up their children. No matter how lazy those high-ranking nobles or owners of the large-scale business were, at the end of the day, they were still parents to their children.

Although, picking up their children wasn’t the sole reason why they came all the way here.

“Count Jeremy! It’s been a while!”

“Aisol… Your child is also attending the Academy?”

“Haha, yes! He just enrolled this year.”

“You should’ve told me in advance.”

“How can I bother someone who’s busy with work over such a trivial matter?”

“Speak for yourself, you’re even busier than I do.”

“No, I’m not that important of a man!”

“Ahahaha!”

Picking up their children served as a good excuse.

Because the other reason why they came all the way here was to meet up with big names who were either hard to meet normally, or big names that they had awkward relationships with. They could pass this off as a ‘coincidence’ and roll with it.

Regardless of what they were planning, all these carriages gradually gathered at the main gate of the Academy. From there, a large crowd was flocking to the Colosseum, which was the final stage of the semester’s exam.

Each of the owners of these carriages had their own goals, sinister intentions, and secret plots.

And there was someone who was looking at them with a gaze that was filled with contempt.

“I can only see dirty pigs gathering in this place.”

Among the crowd, a man donned in priestly attire frowned and spat out his merciless contempt. Probably because frowning had become his habit, the wrinkles between his eyebrows were particularly deep.

At the end of his contemptuous gaze were those who could be called as people with authority. Just by seeing them, he already had the urge to do unspeakable things to them.

“If you say it like that, doesn’t that mean we are pigs too?”

“…I won’t deny it, but don’t make me think about it on purpose.”

“Hehe, my bad, Captain.”

“You troublemaker.”

Hearing the words of his colleague who was standing next to him, the man calmed down a little.

Right… It’s not the time yet…

The man quietly muttered to himself while his colleague playfully raised the corners of his mouth.

“Well, even if you don’t get yourself involved, these people will be slaughtered anyway. We’ve prepared ourselves thoroughly enough.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“If the Aura Users, or at least, the skilled people are here, I wouldn’t be so sure, but that’s not the case, is it not? From the list, there aren’t any skilled people here.”

“That’s true.”

“Mhm, that’s why we should just watch! This festival is going to be fun!”

“No, this isn’t a festival, but the exam period. Use the proper terms for it. Can’t you see those cadets are working hard while risking their lives?”

“Hah! Now that’s quite the strange thing to say!”

His colleague shrugged as he said that. It was because he truly found the man’s words to be extremely strange.

After all…

“How could someone who’s trying to kill all those hard-working cadets say something like that?”

He had no intention to let anyone who had gathered here live.

However, the man replied to such words with confidence.

“Kill? Don’t put it that way.”

Pop-!

“What I’m going to bestow them isn’t death, but a blessing. A glorious blessing. Where else can they find such an honor? They will surely be satisfied by this.”

Holding a cross in his hands, the man made a cross sign.

“Even I myself am jealous of them…”

The man then expressed his sincere jealousy towards the lambs that were going to be sacrificed soon.