episode_0056

LII.

When I evaluate myself, I often say that I am a person with no talent. And in fact, that remains the same even now that I became a Grand Sword Master.

I was a talentless guy.

However, 99% of the reason I am able to wear the honor of being the Vice-Dean of Evergreen Academy, which is renowned on the continent, and stand at the highest level of Grand Master, is 99% thanks to my friend and benefactor, Juan.

It would not be an exaggeration at all to say that Nara, who possessed the talent he lacked, was able to elevate him to the level of grand master by pulling him by the collar and hair.

Actually, I wasn’t that special since I was a child. My father was a vassal of the earl’s family and a knight, but he was an ordinary knight who did not even become a master.

Oh, there was a part where my father was recognized by the count. That flirtatious, bitter loyalty.

My father is a man who would have given up my mother without hesitation if the count had asked him to give up his wife.

Learning the sword was fun at first, but only up to a point. As time passed, it became boring and dissipated instead of fun because it was sluggish.

No, it was ‘almost’ debaucherous. If he hadn’t shown up.

My first impression was that he was a really ugly guy.

Aside from his skinny body, he looked so fragile that he would break if you hit him hard, his height was short at the time, and his knowing smile was weak enough to remind me of a patient.

That’s what that guy did when he saw me sitting on one side of the training ground and avoiding the sun.

“A knight cannot defeat a wizard.”

Called.

Since I had been acquainted with bad guys for a while, I wasn’t the type to put up with their provocations and do anything about it. He lunged at me with a real sword, not a wooden sword, and was hit really hard.

I’ve never cried that much while taking a real driver’s training class, but that day I cried so much that the guy I was arguing with later consoled me and said he was sorry.

When I think back, I might have hoped that someone would beat me up at that time. okay. Maybe I was hoping that someone would come forward and scold me harshly and tell me that I shouldn’t have done that. I was young. I was immature.

After that, the purpose of my training became to give him a beating.

From the beginning, I knew then and now that I had no talent, so I didn’t have the spirit to fall into an inferiority complex and resort to despicable tricks. He was a guy who didn’t have the brains to do that. I am a human being.

However, what I desperately wanted at the time was to hit the guy once on the head with a wooden sword. It’s so refreshing and painful that that obnoxious smile disappears.

And one summer day when I was 14 and he was 18.

Sigh!

My wooden sword shattered his shield and hit him directly on the top of his head.

In the first place, breaking a shield with a wooden sword meant that you had to have good physical power control to be able to inject Force into wood, which also meant that you had to reach the ‘minimum’ expert level.

That’s how I became an expert. It was the same after that.

Juan was sometimes my advisor, often my sparring partner, and sometimes I took him with me to the Killite Mountains to go on adventures with him.

There was a time when he said he wanted to work as a mercenary and used the Circle 5 spell on the mercenary guild test, destroying the mercenary branch and being chased.

Juan’s life was so eventful that even if written in a book, there would be dozens of volumes.

The only thing that remained constant between Juan and me in this ever-changing life was that he was always ahead of me.

It felt like he was always reaching a higher level than me and saying this to me, who had no talent.

-Just follow my back!

I always walked while looking at his back, and whenever I was a little slow and a little tired, he never showed any displeasure.

Each time, I grew and grew again.

It was the same when I became Sword Master, and it was the same when I became Grand Sword Master.

That guy started to worry me from then on. From the day I saw, for the first time in my life, the friend I respected and relied on the most in the world, despaired.

That day, a winter day when I had just become a Grand Master. Marlene is dead.

You may have been a loving daughter to Juan, but you were also a ‘uncle!’ to me. He was a lovely nephew who called me ‘uncle’ and gave me a warm light in my hectic life like the light that announces the morning. Because I was his godfather.

And when I heard Juan’s investigation that the two empires were involved in that guy’s death, I took out my beloved sword that Juan had made for me, threw away the sheath, and ran out.

He was the one who immediately cut down all the members of the royal family and stopped me when I tried to comfort Marlene’s soul.

The father who lost his daughter, with eyes shining with madness, relaxed his grip on the sword when he heard the words, ‘Don’t you think death is too easy?’

Juan was the guy who was worried about my dog’s death while my arms were shaking with anger.

However, that way I went straight into the unmanned cradle.

There, I bowed my head to the sword master and tried to learn the concepts of ‘swordsmanship’ and ‘footwork’. I pledged that when Juan’s preparations are made, I will be at the forefront and become his sword.

As a result, I quickly became stronger, but Juan’s son Josef, whom I had been protecting, was attacked.

No, no.

I didn’t protect Josef. Josef and his family warmly approached me and embraced me, calling me ‘uncle’ or ‘uncle and grandfather!’ for me, who was old and unmarried.

Juan never said it was my fault, but from then until now, I have lived with a feeling of atonement to Juan.

So it was.

The reason I found a candidate I always despised and asked him to tell me about Juan.

And after my first conversation with a guy named Gray, I was convinced that I couldn’t believe rumors.

“Hmm… … . no. I think it would be a good idea to say it there. That way, if they do something unexpected, it will be easy to kill them.”

oh my god!

No matter how much of a candidate he is, that’s what a guy who lives and sleeps at the Academy says to me, the second highest ranking person in the Academy.

This is why I have no choice but to believe the rumors.

‘what? How is your kind personality? Just? who? That? ‘There are all these crazy bastards out there!’

I tried to suppress the heat rising inside me. Because right now, Juan was worried about his friend, and just as the other professors had expected, the woman who looked like a magician had an unusual atmosphere even in his opinion.

okay. I think it might be possible at that level.

With that in mind, I calmly explained the situation. I thought this was enough for most people to think it would be enough to help, and even for myself, I didn’t think I was good at speaking like a bard.

But what?

“And what would you do if you gained some kind of enlightenment?”

This crazy guy!? What was the realization for Circle 9?

“Vice Dean, are you arbitrarily setting limits and making conclusions? A path I haven’t even been on yet?”

Normally, this would just be dismissed as absurd or nonsensical bullshit. However, the words of Juan, who was like a teacher to me, suddenly came to mind.

―Someday, at any time, if you have a chance to talk to a guy named Gray, please, please, listen to what he says, no matter how crazy it may sound. Think about it. Got it? Hey?

I also remembered that that was what I said during my last meeting with Juan, who called me out of the blue that night after the candidate competency evaluation was over.

The moment I thought about it, I could feel that the wall that was usually so high that I couldn’t even see the end was crumbling before my eyes.

“I… limit… Decide? A path I have never taken before… … ?”

◈ ◈ ◈

It’s like a process of becoming a superhuman. Even the moment a Master ascends to Grand Master, the surrounding area is almost devastated, much less the process of becoming a superhuman.

That wave alone was enough to make Evergreen shake. Not only the professors at Evergreen, but also the students are just ordinary people. Even among students in the Department of Economics, most of them are able to use their physical strength, although they are weak, through basic education.

The flow of divine power that seemed to pull in divine power from all directions, like a whirlwind that suddenly formed in the middle of the desert, literally scared everyone.

Moreover, although Gray did not know its location, the location of Dean Hu’s personal laboratory and Gray’s personal training center was a problem.

The basement of the dormitory where academy students stay. Since the basement was located in a place that required a special security level to enter, those who were resting in the dormitory had no choice but to rush out of the dormitory in a panic. One student must have woken up and ran out wearing yellow pajamas and holding a pillow.

‘Why did you come out without a pillow? Are you going to sleep outside on that?’

The inhalation of divine power caused by the awakening of the superhuman and the resulting aftereffects were incredible.

Strictly speaking, this mess is also Gray’s fault. If Vice Dean Fletcher had completely entered Dean Hu’s private study room and then closed the door, it would not have had such a serious impact on the outside world.

However, he was unable to enter the private training hall, and he learned that everyone at Evergreen Academy was trying to become a superhuman.

Well, even if they find out, a person who has no intention of contacting the outside world and has no possibility of defecting becomes a superhuman.

Anyway, in this situation, students escaped from the dormitory like Hongdukkae in the middle of the night, and were unable to return to the dormitory.

In the end, the academy quickly arranged an inn, but the facilities were insufficient for professors, academy students, and academy staff to provide room and board and conduct classes.

When the night fell and I was stamping my feet,

“Huh… … ! It’s not that I doubted the people called God, but I never thought something like this would actually happen.”

After being with the adepts who visited Evergreen, the Dean appeared.

“Dean!!”

“Dean!”

…

…

“Everyone should stop making a fuss, and professors should lead students to the place where the candidate competency evaluation took place.”

Just his appearance solved all problems.

Professors and dormitory directors hurriedly led the students away, and most of the personnel inside the academy left.

This place was already absorbing divine power without hesitation, so most people wanted to stay away. For some reason, it feels like I’m losing steam.

“Dean. Vice Dean… … .”

Professor Sally did not join the group of professors and ran to the dean. However, before she could finish speaking, Dean Hu nodded.

“I know. You should prepare for class too, right? Are you going to make the students wait?”

Even after seeing Professor Sally’s curious face, Dean Hu did not say much about what he knew. Professor Sally was only disappointed by that, but she was determined and gave up her desire to ask more questions as she looked at the dean’s face.

After Professor Sally left and he was left alone, the Dean was looking at the dormitory with dim eyes, as if he could see the swirling vortex of divine power.

“Are you saying that God is God? … .”

After muttering to himself like that, I don’t know if the Dean was conscious of it, but he was constantly nodding his head up and down.

At the same time, Dean Hu recalled the moment when the pillar of light, God, descended on him during the candidate competency evaluation.

-Good things will happen. You will have a reliable ally.

God unilaterally said that and that was the end. The modifier ‘reliable’ before the word ‘ally’?

Now he realizes that this meant that his close friend, Fletcher, who had devoted his life to always having his back, would ascend to the ranks of superhumans.

Is there anything more joyful than this? If that man were in front of me right now, I would have bowed ten or a hundred times.

To Dean Hu, Fletcher is not just a ‘friend’.

If he had to choose the person he loved the most, he would have been torn between his wife, daughter, son, and granddaughter, but if he had to choose the person who could understand him best, he would not hesitate to choose Vice Dean Fletcher.

When he told Gray about his past, Gray said he didn’t understand.

How did you bear it when your daughter died and your son was attacked? How could you come up with such a plan in that situation?

When Dean Hu thought about it, it wasn’t because he was a patient and rational person. Instead of Dean Hu, no, it was thanks to a friend who was even more angry than Dean Hu.

Looking back, it was always like that.

When the dean should have been sad and angry, Fletcher became even more sad and angry, as if it were his fault. sincerely.

When Marlene died, it seemed like she was going to kill Emperor Alfonso at any moment. Very seriously. To put it mildly, he even threw the sheath from which the sword was taken out on the floor. It means that you are prepared to die.

When the Joseph family was attacked, all the assassin organizations in Evergreen were reduced to pieces of meat.

A wizard must always remain cool-headed. A wizard going berserk is no different from a dragon going crazy. To Dean Hu, Fletcher was someone who cared for Dean Hu and his family more than Dean Hu himself.

A friend who later guarded the dean’s son, Josef, and his family, saying that even if he became a Grand Sword Master, he would not end up like his daughter Marlene.

That guy is now rising to the ranks of superhumans. Dean Hu watched the swirling storm of divine power in silence for a while, mesmerized.

Perhaps he is reflecting on old friends and memories amidst this storm of divine power.