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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Wjin
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A few days later, during the mock battle, I was positioned on the high ground in the rear of the battlefield, as usual.
‘It’s a boring position.’
Perhaps because I had recently used my swordsmanship to its limit after a long time, I felt twice as stiff.
I felt like picking up my sword and clashing with the cadets right away.
But that would only ruin things.
‘Let’s be patient at least until this match is over.’
Of course, I didn’t mean I would pick up a sword.
But even considering that I was using a bow, I tended to be quite passive in combat.
That was also part of the plan.
‘I need to lower my evaluation as much as possible.’
It wasn’t just me.
‘She’s doing well.’
I had clearly told Yuseora how to utilize her full power.
But Yuseora wasn’t using it at all.
She was using the same swordsmanship as before, and naturally, there was a limit to that.
‘Her evaluation was bound to drop naturally anyway.’
The opposing teams had already finished analyzing Yuseora through her duel with Elsie.
They knew that she could exchange a maximum of ten strikes.
Thanks to that, her opponents focused on exchanging ten strikes with her without panicking.
‘It might be considered throwing the match.’
Yuseora was clearly not doing her best right now.
I didn’t feel good about it towards my teammates.
But if you asked me if the cause of this situation was entirely my fault, it wasn’t.
‘Setia, that damn woman, must have calculated this too.’
The mid-term trade event was coming up soon.
She was planning to discard Yuseora in that trade event.
She was going to use her just enough and then throw her away.
‘It’s a good decision for me, though.’
I advised Yuseora to be expelled from the team according to Setia’s intentions.
One thing was certain: she had to get away from Setia.
Then, wouldn’t it be better to raise her evaluation?
Well, even if she raised it, where would she go?
Sigrit, a textbook swordsman, wouldn’t prefer Yuseora.
I didn’t want to go to Professor Huff’s side, and he wouldn’t accept me and Yuseora, who weren’t from prestigious families.
In the end, there was only one option left.
‘Come to think of it, I should contact that person soon.’
I had been putting it off because it wasn’t urgent, but with the trade event just around the corner, I couldn’t delay it any longer.
It wasn’t the decisive reason, but that person was also part of the reason I entered the academy.
Coincidentally, I had a point of contact with that person soon.
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‘She figured it out faster than I expected.’
Setia, the instructor of swordsmanship class 2, bit her lip.
Next to her, the opposing instructor of swordsmanship class 3, Huff, along with other professors of various subjects such as archery, spear, magic, and tactics, were watching the mock battle.
“Ten strikes is her limit, after all.”
“It was only usable in a mock battle, it was never a practical ability in the first place.”
For a while, Yuseora had attracted attention with her excellent swordsmanship and strong enhancement ability.
She had performed even better than Setia had expected.
Of course, thanks to that, they won against Setia’s rival, team B of swordsmanship class 1, but Yuseora’s analysis was also quickly completed.
‘Especially that match last time was decisive.’
She had intentionally tried to prevent Yuseora from using up all ten strikes.
But in the battle against that cadet named Elsie, Yuseora’s limit was clearly revealed.
That concluded all the analysis.
‘It will be difficult for her to perform as well as before.’
Her plan to release Yuseora when she was at her peak, before her ability was fully analyzed, had gone awry.
But considering that Yuseora had performed better than she had thought, it wasn’t a huge loss.
The league was already more than halfway through, and the performance of the two teams she was leading was very good so far.
Especially in the case of team B, the performance of the archery cadet Wilhelm stood out.
‘Let’s focus on the trade plan.’
Of course, in principle, the cadet’s will should be prioritized during the trade.
If a cadet wanted to go to a certain instructor’s class, they should be allowed to go there.
But Setia had no intention of allowing that so easily.
‘I’ll try to persuade them first.’
But if that didn’t work… there were many other methods.
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The multipurpose training ground, created for elective classes.
It was filled with the sound of wooden swords clashing.
The mid-term of the first semester had passed, and the swordsmanship elective class had finally begun.
I was exchanging sword strikes with Wilhelm, who was assigned as my partner.
Wilhelm quickly parried my sword and thrust his own.
I didn’t block that attack… I couldn’t block it.
“Ah, I lost again.”
This should be natural enough.
I wasn’t holding back that much.
I was just trying to use only the three basic forms we learned in the first class.
‘His stats are ridiculously good.’
It was commonly thought that archers were agility-focused characters, but that wasn’t the case in Hundred Braves.
Of course, agility wasn’t unimportant, but ultimately, strength was the most important.
Even in terms of agility, I was actually inferior to him without using the power of the wind.
‘But it’s not like I didn’t hold back at all.’
If I had been serious, I could have won with just the three basic forms we learned today.
But there was nothing to gain from that, so I intentionally created openings from time to time.
That was possible because there was a considerable difference between Wilhelm’s and my swordsmanship.
‘By the way…’
Except for Wilhelm, who was always diligent, the other archery students didn’t seem very enthusiastic about swordsmanship practice.
And Freya, the instructor of swordsmanship class 4, was just watching us.
Her long, dull gray hair seemed to show that she wasn’t managing us at all, and her expression was consistently bored.
‘Is she not paying attention?’
After teaching us three basic forms, she just watched our sparring.
No, judging by her attitude, it was hard to say that she was even watching us.
Her gaze kept moving distractedly, looking at the sky, the ground.
In the end, I couldn’t tell what she was looking at.
‘That’s the scary part, though.’
It was almost time for her class to end.
Finally, she stood up and said,
Her tone was like she was talking to herself, but her voice was definitely not quiet.
“A swordsman I knew once told me.”
The archery students’ attention turned to her.
She continued speaking without any sign of being conscious of their gaze.
“A sword is just a tool.”
What was she talking about all of a sudden?
As we stood there blankly, wondering what she meant, she asked us,
“Do you understand what this means?”
A sword is just a tool.
It was such an obvious statement at first glance.
That’s why no cadet stepped forward to answer.
‘Of course, it sounds like something I’ve heard somewhere before.’
Freya’s eyes, which had been scanning the silent cadets, stopped on me.
But I didn’t answer.
Then she smiled as if it couldn’t be helped and said,
“Well, I didn’t expect much. What I wanted to say was that if you don’t need swordsmanship, there’s no need to learn it.”
There was no need to learn swordsmanship.
It wasn’t something a swordsmanship instructor should say.
But her words weren’t wrong either.
There were probably many who couldn’t reach a usable level even if they learned swordsmanship.
“If you don’t want to learn swordsmanship, do whatever you want, wherever you want. I don’t care. I’m too busy focusing on those who need swordsmanship.”
It was a more hands-off teaching method than I expected.
‘Of course, that doesn’t mean she’s not skilled.’
If Sigrit, the instructor of swordsmanship class 1, produced the current rank 1 Saint-tier hero, then it was she who produced the rank 2 hero.
Nevertheless, if there was a problem with her being an instructor… it was just one thing.
‘Can such a person really be at the Hero Academy?’
After all the other students had left the training ground.
As if by appointment, I and she, who remained there until the end, faced each other.
Then she raised the corners of her mouth as if a little surprised and said,
“I didn’t expect you to come to me first.”
“Strictly speaking, you came to me first.”
“‘A sword is just a tool.’ Are you talking about that?”
I nodded.
From the moment she said that line, her identity could only be one.
Seeing my response, she gave a bitter smile.
“Hmm, I thought you already knew about me even before that. And you seem to know more than you could have guessed from just that.”
She hit the nail on the head.
But…
“If you knew about me, it wouldn’t be strange for me to know about you, would it?”
The fact that I entered the Hero Academy under a hidden identity.
There were essentially only three people who knew that for sure.
The Pope, Gwen, and…
‘This woman.’
A spy planted by the Demon King’s side in the Church.
And a spy planted by the Church’s side in the Demon King’s side.
I never intended to hide my identity from this woman in the first place.
Because she was a person with such abilities.
That’s why I came to meet her first.
“Do you have something to say?”
But the next words she spoke were something even I hadn’t expected.
“Then instead of an apology, I’ll tell you first.”
She smiled brightly, a smile I had never seen during class, and said,
“I’m a huge fan of yours.”
“Excuse me?”
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