episode_0025

The next day we woke up early and had breakfast.

With her eyes red as if she hadn’t slept all night, Olysia watched Knightley’s every move.

There seems to be something he really doesn’t like about Knightley.

“Then we’ll go, so you get some sleep. Your eyes are like rabbit eyes.”

As I put on my cape and headed out the door, Olysia pulled my cape on me.

“Dian. Wait a minute.”

After sending Knightley away first, I came back in and Ollysia was on tiptoe and whispering in my ear.

“I’m talking about that noble lady. From now on, you need to keep your distance and be careful.”

“Why? What don’t you like?”

“Whether you like it or not, it is a private lesson. I think the intentions are quite impure.”

Then Olivia told me that Knightley had tried to go up to my bedroom on this floor last night.

“So you slept on the stairs to protect yourself from going up?”

“That noble lady is probably one of the students who admires Dian. He must have come under the pretext of a meeting and wanted to do something bad that night. If you’re not careful, you’ll end up getting caught.”

“Hmm, yes.”

“You’re not going to react leisurely like that, Dian!”

Olivia pointed a firm finger at my attitude.

“Dian is not just a professor, he is a senior professor. You have to be careful about even the smallest words and actions. Especially relationships with women, and secret private lessons with a female student who is not yet an adult… .”

“Professor! What are you doing? Come quickly!”

At that time, Knightley shouted irritably outside, and I released Olicia’s hand from holding my ear.

“I knew exactly what you were talking about. I’ll be careful.”

“Be careful, be careful!”

“Yes, yes. A different professor accompanied me during the last private lesson, and he will be there again this time, so don’t worry too much. I’m coming.”

Olisia, who followed her to the front door, crossed her arms and glared at Knightley with a dissatisfied expression, and Knightley also did not give up and returned her gaze.

“Professor. As I said last time, you need to take good care of the lower part.”

Knightley opened his mouth as they walked side by side to the lecture hall.

“Look at that little boy, he was acting as if he were the hostess.”

“The hostess. What kind of bullshit are you talking about again?”

“The professor treated me comfortably, so I climbed up without knowing I was scared.”

Knightley glanced back at Olysia, who was still watching us walk away.

“If you leave it alone, it will end up playing on the professor’s head someday, and when that happens, it will become very difficult to correct it. I’ve seen those maids a few times now. You may not know that the professor is not a nobleman, but that girl is the only maid… .”

“Oh my, it’s noisy.”

He interrupted Knightley by pretending to dig his ears with his fingers.

“They are my family. She’s like a younger sister. Education and all that is important, so you, precious princess, will do a lot more when you return home.”

“My family is not returning.”

“Then she won’t even be the duke’s daughter. If you get married, you are outside the monastic order. If you are not married, but do not return home and cut off ties, you are still outside the monastic order. You know that much, right?”

Knightley’s face hardened, as if he was aware of that fact.

“You. As a senior in life, I tell you, if at all possible, do not cut ties with your family. Only you have a hard time.”

“Be interested in other people’s lives.”

“Ah, that’s right. Now that I think about it, when you first asked me to give you private lessons, didn’t you say something because I’m your father and family member?”

Knightley, who was hit repeatedly, could not say anything and only bit his lip.

“Chief Professor!”

When I arrived at the lecture hall amid Knightley’s one-sided silence, the two professors standing in front greeted me.

“Good morning, Head Professor!”

“Hello… .”

They were Orendi, a magic response professor with a youthful appearance and full of freckles, and Anna, a combat riding professor with dark black hair and hunched shoulders.

“Oh, Knightley came too. It looks like we met each other on the way, right?”

“That’s not it. I’m going to take Knightley with me.”

Orendi tilted his head at those words.

“Are you taking a student? This is not a class, but a business trip to secure teaching materials, right?”

“It’s not a teaching material… .”

“Ahaha, sorry.”

When Anna timidly pointed out, Orendi smiled cheerfully and corrected her mistake.

“Anyway, so, you’re taking Knightley with you?”

“Okay. It’s a kind of deep learning. As you know, Knightley is the senior. Normal classes are not suitable.”

“Well, that’s right. great. Knightley, you’ve never been through a portal, have you?”

Knightley, who had been frantically following the conversation between me and Orendi without receiving any information, shook his head at the word ‘dimensional gate.’

“Never before. however… Where are you going now?”

In response to Knightley’s question, Orendi looked at me.

“Didn’t you tell Knightley, Head Professor?”

“First of all, we don’t have time, so let’s go quickly. I have to come back before sunset.”

“Okay. Let’s get moving right away. Before that, let me check the coordinates one last time.”

Orendi and I opened the map, cross-checked our destinations, and calculated coordinates several times.

The terrain where we are going is somewhat rough, so if the portal exit opens incorrectly, a catastrophe could occur.

Perhaps it was his first time seeing the calculations used to obtain the coordinates of the portal, but Knightley opened his mouth half-open and focused on the conversation between me and the professors.

“Then I will open the portal.”

Blue magic glowed in Orendi’s hands, and a small vortex appeared in the air in front of us.

The slowly spinning vortex of magic suddenly sped up and expanded into an oval-shaped portal in an instant.

“Wow?!”

Knightley took a small breath as if seeing the portal for the first time.

“Relax… . I’m not going to any strange places… .”

Professor Anna spoke to Knightley in a dark tone.

“I come first. Next, in that order, Anna, Knightley, and Orendy.”

“Yes, head professor!”

We passed through the portal one after another.

Fortunately, the portal’s exit was not through a cliff or swamp, but through flat ground.

“This can’t be right… .”

Knightley, who came out of the portal and stepped onto the ground, gaped with a dumb expression on his face.

“Here… how… .”

Knightley could not continue speaking and just looked at the scenery unfolding before his eyes.

“Wow, my heart is bursting open.”

Orendi took a deep breath with a cheerful smile.

“Ugh, the wind is cold… .”

Anna became depressed and crouched down.

The place we are standing now is the Bronn Plateau in the northeastern part of the continent.

The Brunn Plateau, the most expansive plateau on the continent, boasts a unique topography that combines wide, flat grasslands and rugged rocky mountains.

The dark forest at the border of the plateau leads to green mountain ranges, and the mountains lined up like folding screens are just like a painting.

Especially on a spring day like today, the wildflowers in full bloom and the gently waving grass under the clear sky are truly spectacular.

“The Brunn Plateau?”

Knightley was surprised when he heard my explanation.

“Then it means that you almost crossed the continent… . What on earth did you come here for?”

“I came to catch the horse. Because I need it for combat horseback riding classes.”

Our combat department has a combat riding course that Anna is in charge of.

As the title suggests, this is a subject to learn how to ride a horse, which is the basic means of transportation in this world.

In addition to simply riding a horse, you learn how to seize a horse from a stable, how to ride a horse without a harness, and how to fight while riding a horse.

In addition, it is a subject that teaches everything related to horses, such as how to drive a carriage, how to sharpen worn-out horseshoes, and even how to raise horses and how to slaughter horses and procure food in extreme situations.

In today’s world, it is the same as teaching new recruits to the National Intelligence Service how to drive a car, how to start the car without a key, and emergency maintenance.

But the problem is that there are not many proper words in our academy right now.

When I went to the stable managed by Professor Anna and the teaching assistants, I found that there were not many war horses and most of them were short ponies.

War horses are large and rough-tempered, so the risk of accidents is high, and maintenance costs are unimaginable, so Principal Kirrin scaled down the size of the horses.

According to the combat department reorganization plan made after my arrival, about 30 horses are needed for combat riding, but the number is not enough to handle it.

In response, Kirin suggested buying old horses that were no longer in active service in the imperial army at a low price, but that didn’t seem to be a good idea.

The Imperial Army’s war horses received so much training that their retirement meant that they could not run at their own speed. You can’t practice with those words.

This is not a driver’s license school, but a spy school, and there is no time to take a horse on site.

So it’s better to master it thoroughly from the beginning.

And when I checked, fortunately, everyone had learned basic horseback riding skills.

However, purchasing 30 war horses at once is like purchasing 30 medium-sized cars at once in this life, so your budget will skyrocket.

So one way I came up with was to capture wild horses.

Here in the Brunn Plateau, wild horses live in groups of dozens centered around a leader. If you catch them whole, you can solve the budget problem and students can practice with horses in good condition, so you kill two birds with one stone.

Moreover, wild horses have no owners. What a great idea. So I immediately set up a wild horse capture party.

Here, Knightley came to me in the middle of the night and complained why I didn’t give him private lessons more often, so he was added as a sidebar.

“But I can’t see the words.”

As Knightley said, there were no traces of wild horses anywhere in the meadow.

“We suddenly appeared and everyone hid. I won’t show up until I think it’s safe.”

“Then where should we hide and wait? How is it over there?”

Orendi pointed to a corner of the meadow.

There were structures scattered about, tilted diagonally and half buried in the ground.

The long logs are connected to each other in a rectangular shape, tilted and covered in weeds and vines, making them perfect for hiding inside and waiting for wild horses.

“What is this?”

“Probably… It’s the Demon King’s chariot… .”

When Orendi sat inside the structure and asked, Anna answered darkly.

“The wild horses here in the Brunn Plateau… Compared to other war horses, it is larger and stronger… The Demon King’s Army was very coveted… . This is probably the cart that was brought here to capture the wild horses… .”

“Ho, I see. But there are a lot of these in the back too, yikes! What is this?!”

Orendi, who was sitting on the floor, got scared and jumped up.

After doing some research, I noticed that there was a white bone sticking out of the dirt floor where Orendi had been sitting.

“Ugh?!” “Aya!!”

Seeing this, Knightley and Anna stood up at the same time and hit their heads hard against the pillar of the cart.

“Everyone, we have to get out of here right now… ! This is above the grave… !”

He laughed while holding on to Anna’s cloak as she tried to run outside in fear.

“Everyone, calm down. This is the bone of a demon.”

When the protruding skull was pulled up, two horns twisted like a mountain goat were revealed.

“So stop sitting. They say that if you make a lot of noise, the wild horses run away further.”

“Oh, it wasn’t human. I was surprised.”

Orendi, who confirmed that it was a demon’s bone, sat down on the floor with a sigh of relief, and Anna also came inside the cart, muttering something.

“But I have a question.”

Knightley asked as he looked at the demon skull that he had thrown into the corner.

“Like here, there are dozens of abandoned carts visible in the back… So does this mean that in the end, many of these demons failed to capture wild horses and died here?”

“Isn’t that what it is? Do you know anything about this, Professor Anna?”

“I don’t know exactly, but… I’ve heard it through rumors… .”

In response to Orendi’s question, Anna opened her mouth in a gloomy whisper.

“The Demon King’s army needed a good war horse… We sent troops here several times… No one came back… .”

“Why?”

“Look at the surrounding terrain… . A rocky mountain where something huge can hide… . Flat land where it is easy to fly… . Something doesn’t look very livable… ?”

Orendi burst out laughing at those words.

“Are you really trying to say dragon? Nonsense. Then wild horses wouldn’t be able to survive either. I would have already become food.”

“Then what on earth can annihilate so many demon lords here other than dragons…? ?”

“Hmm, I guess so… . Well, that also makes sense. Considering that there are only traces of demons, it certainly does not seem to be a battle with the Human Coalition.”

“That’s right… . If you want to unilaterally slaughter the Demon King’s army, there’s no explanation other than dragons… .”

# # # # #

While Orendi and Professor Anna were having a serious conversation, Knightley was looking somewhere intently.

It was the corner of the remains of the cart where they were hiding, waiting for the wild horses.

This is because I caught a glimpse of something foreign between the vines wrapped around the thick log.

When I reached out and tore off the vines and weeds, some letters appeared.

The letters were all carved into the surface of the log with a sharp knife. The contents… .

‘The strongest special rental is here!’

‘Commemorating the creation of the Horned Cemetery’

‘Linus♡Celine, please get married’

‘Our friendship will be together forever!’

What the heck… what… ?