episode_0016

After Professor Alexander’s unconventional lecture, Gilbert concentrated solely on life at the academy. This was because it was still too early to reveal his knowledge of the game.

Tactical Combat was a console game. Therefore, there was a main story that became the main plot of the game, and other than that, it was just an additional element to enjoy the game.

For example, the sub-quests and mini-games that are included in the main story, and the academy life itself in general borrow from the training game system to increase play time and provide other enjoyable devices.

In that sense, if academy classes were not related to the main story or sub-story, they were often skipped, basically replaced with the phrase, “I took the class.”

But even if Gilbert could use the game system, that didn’t mean this place wasn’t real. I was living in reality with the awareness of this ability, which is just a game system that hurts when I get hurt and gets tiring when I overdo it.

This meant that he could not skip lectures for his convenience or take time off to accept side quests. In the game, it seemed like day and night changed and time passed, but there was no change in time unless you progressed through the main story or side quests.

This means that just because the game has been played for over a week, the in-game time has not lasted more than a week. Therefore, he was not pressed for time, and was able to accept and play all the sub-quests and main quests he wanted to do.

However, now that it is not a game but a reality, it is impossible to proceed with all the sub-quests. He was a cadet at the academy, and as an academy cadet, he had a schedule to fulfill.

Because he couldn’t neglect training in preparation for the main quest, which he didn’t know when would happen, his life was progressing like a squirrel’s wheel with a tight schedule.

‘Whew. Has the horsepower level increased a bit?’

Gilbert let out a long breath in the private room of the training room and slowly began to relax his stiff body. After attending a full-scale magic lecture and learning the training method accurately, he was increasing his magic power using basic mana exercises.

It was only a few days ago that I was angry at the fact that I couldn’t proceed with the side story as I wanted, but it was encouraging to know that I could raise my magic level by attending the lectures properly.

In fact, if he had not been talented in mana training, the situation would have been different, but since his physical talent was comparable to that of anyone on the continent, the idea that he might not have talent was just unfounded.

No, to be honest, I breathed a sigh of relief. If what was needed to move the giant soldier like a body was the manipulative ability, the magic ability served as an intermediate bridge connecting it.

The basic mechanism of the Giant God Soldier was to make a contract with an artificial spirit using magic power and have that spirit act as the brain to make the Giant God Soldier move according to the knight’s will.

In other words, if the control ability was motor nerve ability, the magic ability was the same as sensory nerve ability. The horsepower battery was like the motor nervous system.

If the magical power is insufficient, the artificial spirit that acts as AI will not be able to properly control the system called the Giant God Soldier, and no matter how excellent the piloting ability is, it may not even be able to walk properly and collapses.

Usually, when expressing the mobility limit of a giant god soldier, it appears in two ways. The first refers to the magic power battery of the god soldier itself, and the second refers to the knight’s mana core that must pour magic power into the artificial spirit. For example, it falls into a situation where the hardware is working but the software is not running.

In order to prevent such a situation, the magic power level had to be raised somehow, and that was why knights were so passionate about mana training. Of course, focusing only on mana training was a common shortcut to becoming a failure, but this did not apply to Gilbert.

Gilbert felt the mana core sleeping calmly, and felt that he had to carry out the work he had been putting off since entering school.

It wasn’t that the mana practice passed down from the Hart family was bad. Even when measured by the game’s level, the Mana Practice, which was Grade A, was a secret to the family and a secret that should not be leaked out.

However, sleeping in his head was a way to obtain the best mana practice in the world.

While playing the game, there was never a time when he didn’t get the mana technique, except when he was trying to beat the crappy achievement of clearing it with the basic mana technique.

If he were to obtain something that boasts the highest efficiency, no one would be able to follow him, not even the Giant God Soldier. If I had to be specific, there was Ian as the main character, but since I didn’t plan on touching the giant god soldier that he was going to get, there was a high chance that the weight would be similar.

Although he said he wanted to raise the main character’s party, he needed a way to protect his own life. One of them was the Mana Practice. I had no intention of monopolizing it, but I also had no intention of giving everything to the main character.

The reason was simple.

If he had a lot of cards to use, he should use them all. Going all-in did not suit his temperament. Moreover, I did not think that Ian was a blue chip stock that would not be shaken. The protagonist’s creation of the myth of invincibility was possible because it was a game, and because he was the one playing it.

And this was not a virtual reality game.

A cruel world where you can die if you make a mistake.

In other words, it was reality.

***

Long ago, there was a legendary knight.

Before the Giant God Soldier was revealed to the world, it was the sharpest sword on the continent, used as a single sword to run across the continent.

With a single stroke of the sword, it split the land and divided the river.

Wherever he was, there was always victory, and glory as brilliant as his golden hair.

He was a knight, but he was also a king and a great ruler.

He who rose up to unify the confused continent was a sword and shield that criticized the continent.

The magistrates did not hesitate to call him the King of Knights or the King of Conquerors.

The sun that didn’t seem like it would go out.

The golden knight king.

However, he, who was always thought to shine, went downhill, and the cause was the treason of his trusted vassals.

Hung on the edge of a cliff by his trusted vassals, he was still a knight-king at the last moment, and the sun set after the final struggle.

I hope that it will be described in future history.

He who does not bend even if broken a hundred times is a hero and is like a lion.

They called him Therodamas, the Lion King.

***

After skimming through Demeia Academy’s biography of the Lion King, Gilbert closed the book.

There were countless heroes who shone brightly throughout the continent’s long history. Gilbert, who was not very interested in this worldview, did not know much about it, but if he had to choose the only person he knew, he would choose Therodamas, the Lion King.

Even in the final struggle, he was a great hero king who is said to have made one-third of the rebels his companions on the way to the afterlife, and at the end of it, he freely gave his head to a general who had taken an arrow instead of him on the battlefield.

A king who never bowed down like a lion and lived an exciting life.

That was Therodamas, the Lion King.

The reason Gilbert knew this story even though he was not Seoldeok was because it was deeply related to the side quest he was about to proceed with. He was a person who could be called the Lion King, but there was a title that came right after it, which was none other than the title of Knight of Knights and the Greatest Sword on the Continent.

His swordsmanship, known to be able to split the land and rivers with a single sword, is said to have touched the laws of heaven, and historians have described that the mana exercises he compiled could encompass the entire world. Nowadays, it is said that it was a material left as a courtesy to the great Lion King, but Gilbert did not disagree that the statement was true.

In fact, if you play Tactical Combat, you can obtain the Lion King’s legacy through sub-quests, and representative examples include the Lion King’s swordsmanship, the Lion King’s mana practice, and the Lion King’s sword.

The sub-quest that Gilbert will be doing this time is the Lion King’s Mana Practice, one of the Lion King’s legacies. It was a quest about Lionheart.

If I had to pick the best mana training method in the world of Tactical Combat, I would pick Lionheart. This practice, also called the Lion King’s Mana Core in the community, was unrivaled in stability, mana compression ability, and speed.

It showed performance worthy of its title as the most outstanding practice method in history, and at the same time as obtaining this, it was a practice technique that matched the characteristic skills of the main character and served as a good son in standing tall as the best knight.

Gilbert had come to the library in search of a book called The Life of the Lion King, with the intention of completing a sub-quest that would give him this incredible reward.

Since it was a linked quest, it was sure to be a hassle, and unlike the game, it was doubtful whether activating the trigger would proceed properly, but he absolutely had to get the Lionheart.

Although his magical abilities were better than expected, they were on the low side compared to the academy average. Although he did not memorize all the magical power values of the characters, he knew the values of the main S-class characters.

Among the current Demeia Academy cadets, the one who reached the highest level was Princess Knight Seraphim Rector Infractus, and by this time, it was clear that that number would be 50, equivalent to a level 5 knight.

Considering that his level was 35 as a result of training hard for the past month, he was still below the lowest level, a level 6 knight.

The fact that he was able to display manipulation skills that were close to an art in the entrance mock battle was the product of his abnormally high manipulation skills and the naturally accumulated experience of being a rotten person. Even if someone other than him had achieved the theoretical limit of 100 control ability, it might not have been possible.

Gilbert rented the biography of the Lion King he was holding and visited a history professor who gave him a clue to the sub-quest.