I Possessed a Character in an Academy Without a Protagonist – Chapter 18

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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: FusionX
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Swish!

Schlus’ figure shot forward like an arrow.

In response, the training golem threw a punch.

Its speed did not fall behind Schlus’ charging speed at all.

Kwang!

A diagonal slash from above.

As Schlus swung down the iron pipe, the golem’s fist shattered into pieces.

“What, what was that just now?”

“I don’t know. I couldn’t see anything……”

Even as rock fragments scattered everywhere and a thunderous roar echoed, the students couldn’t even comprehend what was happening.

Both the golem’s movements and Schlus’ movements had already far surpassed their perception.

“Phew……”

The golem quickly prepared to throw a left punch, but Schlus didn’t give it a chance and dug in even further.

Next was the leg.

With a smoothly connected motion, Schlus delivered a horizontal slash.

The golem’s leg broke helplessly, and its posture tilted.

Schlus took a step back and waited for its body to lean.

The moment the golem fell forward……

He slashed upwards from below, shattering the golem’s head.

Thud……

The golem collapsed lifelessly and never rose again.

Its core had been destroyed.

Silence fell over the lecture hall.

Beyond the thick cloud of dust, Schlus stood still, catching his rough breath.

Even though the golem had already been neutralized, no one dared to speak up first.

“I’ll return this. Sorry for breaking it.”

“Oh, no. It’s just an iron pipe, so……”

Sergey took the iron pipe and smiled awkwardly.

The pipe was already bent and twisted here and there, completely deviating from its original shape.

“I expected you to deal with it using magic, but I never thought you’d just crush it with your body, haha.”

The golem had been created for magic training in the first place.

It had a mana resistance enchantment, making it nearly impossible to break with magic, but it was extremely vulnerable to physical force.

Of course, even its vulnerability was only in comparison to magic; the strength to crush rocks was by no means ordinary.

Could it be that he had a quite well-conditioned internal circuit?

Perhaps Schlus had more talent as a knight than a magician, Sergey thought.

‘What…… What on earth……’

Trie’s pupils trembled.

Schlus’ movements could not be called perfect, but they were enough to be described as well-refined.

The orthodox swordsmanship adapted to his own physique and characteristics, and the clean connection of movements.

It was a realm that was impossible without not only learning swordsmanship but also deep contemplation, exploration, and truly blood-sweating efforts.

It was to the extent that it could be believed to be the movements of a lower-ranked knight about to take the higher-ranked knight exam.

“Wow. But this is…… I don’t know what to do.”

Sergey scratched his head and chuckled.

There was only one training golem prepared.

He took a look to see if it could be repaired, but the core formula was destroyed, so it was difficult for Sergey, who didn’t know the design, to restore it.

“Hohoho! It seems like you could use my help, Professor Sergey!”

“Chairwoman?”

At that moment, the lecture hall door opened, and Alexia appeared with her hands on her waist.

“I’ll repair it for you!”

“Do you know the structure, Chairwoman?”

“No! I don’t know!”

“What? Then how……”

Alexia walked over confidently and placed her hand on the golem.

The formula engraved inside was even more severely damaged than the broken arms, legs, and head.

But Alexia was confident she could fix it.

“You just have to go back in time!”

“Go back in time? What do you mean……”

“I never forget something I’ve seen once! Of course, I remember the entire process of the golem being destroyed! There’s a specific mana wave emitted as the formula is destroyed! By analyzing that, I can figure out where and how it was damaged!”

“……?”

Sergey, who listened but couldn’t fully understand, tilted his head.

It wasn’t like she had looked through the golem and examined the formula.

She was going to restore the original by analyzing the wave that came out during the destruction process?

It wasn’t theoretically impossible.

It was like predicting how a carriage was destroyed just by listening to the sound from the accident scene.

“Hmm……”

Alexia began repairing the formula.

The erased formula was re-engraved, and the scattered rocks gathered again to form the golem’s arms and legs.

By the time Alexia took her hand off, the golem was standing tall in its original form as when it was first seen.

The students all stared at it without taking their eyes off, their mouths agape.

They were overwhelmed by the prestige of the highest rank, an Elste-level magician.

“I think this should do it! I even repaired the external damage!”

“Hahaha! As expected of the Chairwoman! It’s been restored to its original state!”

“Hoho! You can praise me some more!”

“But when you said you saw the entire process of the golem being destroyed…… Were you observing the class? Where on earth-”

“Ah! I just remembered something! I have to go now!”

“……”

Alexia avoided Sergey’s gaze and hurriedly ran away.

If she wanted to observe, she could have done it openly. She was the chairwoman, after all.

Sergey couldn’t understand Alexia’s intentions at all.

“Well then, let’s resume the test!”

Leaving behind the commotion, Sergey clapped his hands.

***

“This damn-”

Blood flowed from my nose.

I quickly wiped it off with a handkerchief I had brought in case of this.

My whole body felt heavy and tired…… It seemed I was quite seriously addicted to mana energy.

Exactly 1. Mana 1.

Perhaps because my mana attunement stat was low, the ratio of mana energy converted to mana was less than 10 percent.

With that, I could exert superhuman strength for only about 3 seconds, but that was more than enough.

The training golem had already collapsed to the ground in just 2 seconds.

I had no intention of destroying the head, where the formula was located, but perhaps because I was too excited, my hand moved without realizing it.

Perhaps due to peeking into Schlus’ memories, I had developed a compulsion to make sure to sever the enemy’s lifeline.

Thanks to that, I completed the quest, so I had no particular complaints.

By the way, looking at this guy’s memories, he doesn’t seem to be an ordinary fellow.

What kind of commoner would face a huge monster alone on a snowy mountain?

Considering I’m here now, it means he survived that time, but could it be that he defeated it alone?

No way. Someone must have come to help him.

It was a bit disappointing that I couldn’t look through the memory until the end because I was dealing with the golem.

“Hmm……”

By the way, Trie keeps glancing over here.

She seems to think she hasn’t been noticed, but it’s so obvious.

Is this how Trie’s clumsy side, which was mentioned in the setting, manifests?

It’s more than enough that I’ve caught Trie’s attention even a little.

After all, that’s what I went through all that fuss with the iron pipe for in the first place.

“Next. Edengard Trie von dem Schulzenburg.”

“Yes!”

At Sergey’s call, Trie sprang up.

Is it finally Trie’s turn?

The other students all tried to deal with it using magic.

But Trie, who was stimulated by my example, would use a sword.

The short sword she always carried at her waist.

“Huh?”

But Trie was unfastening her belt and placing the sword, still in its sheath, on her seat.

I blankly watched Trie approach the training golem empty-handed.

And the stance she took wasn’t for hand-to-hand combat either.

“Then I’ll begin.”

It was a very ordinary posture for comfortably breathing to cast magic.

I was utterly disappointed.

Throughout the test, Trie tried casting fire magic, wind magic, and so on…… but she failed to deal any significant damage to the golem.

To begin with, I was the only one who had broken the golem.

Still, if she had wielded her sword, she could have finished it off even faster than me.

Honestly, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed.

“It’s over. Go back now.”

“Yes.”

Trie bowed her head and returned to her seat.

There was a very slight darkness in her expression as she exhaled heavily.

‘I’ll have to move the plan forward a bit.’

It’s a change of strategy.

I think I need to accelerate the process of converting Trie into a knight a little more.

Seeing her waste her top-tier talent by trying to become a magician was more frustrating to watch than I had imagined.

How on earth did the protagonist just watch this for over a year……

I’ll persuade Trie as quickly as possible and make her a sword that fights for me.

That’s my goal for Trie for now.

“Next. Aintz von Wiegenstein.”

“Hehe. Watch closely, Schlus. I’ll crush the golem too.”

“Ah. Yeah. Sure.”

Aintz walked out confidently, but honestly, I answered a bit absentmindedly.

Somehow, I wasn’t very interested in the flashy magic he was going to shoot out.

I was too busy paying attention to Trie, who had her head bowed with a serious expression.

***

“The test is over. The results will be reflected in future classes. You’re dismissed!”

Class was dismissed, and the students poured out.

Even as they gathered in groups and chatted, they couldn’t help but be conscious of one person.

And that was Schlus Hainkel.

He was the only one who had damaged the training golem during the test.

Just being admitted to the Imperial Academy meant the students were already half-finished magicians.

But their magic couldn’t even scratch the training golem.

Among them, only Aintz managed to raise the golem’s level to 9, but that was it.

Looking at the golem that remained intact even after an explosion that shook the lecture hall, Aintz had no choice but to smile helplessly.

This made Aintz certain now.

Following Schlus would never be boring.

“Sir, Aintz. We’re going to play tennis-”

“You guys go ahead. I have something else to do.”

“What? Sir, Aintz?”

Of course, Aintz knew his friends wouldn’t be happy about it.

For them, who had deep-rooted fundamental discrimination against commoners, it would be impossible to get along with Schlus.

Aintz wasn’t entirely free from discrimination either, but the concept of being flexible based on ability was completely absent in his friends.

Schlus, who was sure to shake the empire, no, the continent. And the noble brats who were nothing special.

It was clear which one to discard and which one to choose.

Aintz spotted the back of Schlus’ head and approached him, waving his hand, but-

“Hey! Schlus! You were amazing in today’s test. Could you tell me how you’re so strong-”

“Sorry. I’m a bit busy today. Let’s talk later.”

“……”

Schlus brushed him off with a few words and coldly left the scene.

Aintz froze in place, his mouth agape, dazed.

*

“……”

On the way home.

Trie’s graceful steps came to a halt.

The path was usually deserted, with not a single person around.

For some reason, there was someone sitting on the bench up ahead.

Moreover, that person was……

‘Schlus Hainkel.’

The commoner top student who was the talk of the town.

Of course, Schlus had hurriedly taken a shortcut to deliberately run into Trie, but Trie had no way of knowing that.

‘Should I talk to him? Or not?’

Trie soon began to worry, moving her lips.

The swordsmanship he had shown during the test was definitely longsword swordsmanship.

And it wasn’t just an imitation, but swordsmanship that seemed to have been honed quite a bit.

Commoners rarely had the opportunity to hold a longsword, let alone learn it.

So Trie became curious about the circumstances that led Schlus to learn swordsmanship.

And Trie had a personality that couldn’t hold back when she became curious.

“Schlus Hainkel.”

“Ah. Isn’t it Lady Edengard Trie von dem Schulzenburg?”

“…… Just call me Trie.”

“Got it, Trie.”

“Huh?”

“What’s the problem? Didn’t you tell me to speak comfortably first?”

Trie was quite taken aback.

She never dreamed he would speak informally……

She wanted to tell him to correct his way of speaking, but Trie decided to endure it.

The Schulzenburg family didn’t place much importance on manners or formalities.

Show your prestige with skill and power.

Then the other person will naturally give you the treatment befitting it.

It was the teaching of her father, Gawayn von Schulzenburg, who was a mighty warrior remembered in history.

“Do you have a problem with it?”

“Ah, no. I was just surprised……”

His way of speaking seemed to be getting more and more disrespectful, but she decided to let that slide as well.

After all, Trie was the one who initiated the conversation because she was curious.

“You did well on the test. It seemed like you had experience with a sword?”

“A little, in the past.”

Schlus clenched and unclenched his hands.

His palms were covered in calluses.

“Can I know who you learned it from?”

“My father. He was a guard in the northern region. Probably.”

A guard? A mere guard learned longsword swordsmanship, not spearmanship?

It was a bit strange, but she decided to accept it for now.

It wasn’t entirely unheard of for commoner soldiers to rise from privates to skilled knights.

“Is that all you were curious about?”

“Yeah. That’s enough.”

“Then can I ask you one thing too?”

“What is it?”

“You also learned swordsmanship, right?”

“……!”

Trie’s pupils dilated.

Schlus’ lifeless eyes seemed to penetrate her entire being.

“No. You’re mistaken.”

“What mistake? Your stance. Breathing technique. And just looking at the calluses on your hands, I can tell. You’ve reached a considerable level, haven’t you?”

“No, no.”

“Is there a need to hide it?”

“Haah…… Yes. You’re right.”

Trie had no choice but to admit it with a sigh.

The more she denied it, the more Schlus seemed to mock her with a tone of certainty.

“But it’s really a misunderstanding to say I’ve reached a considerable level. I’m far behind real knights.”

“You’re definitely stronger than me, aren’t you?”

“I only saw your swordsmanship briefly. I can’t judge with just that.”

“You can be honest. You think you’re stronger than me, don’t you? Am I wrong?”

“……”

Trie’s mouth closed.

How was it that every word this man said was so assertive and filled with conviction?

The annoying part was that it was all true.

Schlus’ swordsmanship was indeed excellent.

It was not inferior even when compared to current lower-ranked knights.

But it still had some rough edges, so she thought it would be difficult for him to match her.

“Yes. But why are you asking that?”

“I’d like you to teach me.”

“What?”

“I’m asking you to teach me swordsmanship.”

Schlus said, looking Trie in the eye with his lifeless gaze.

His way of speaking was still disrespectful, but the hint of a smile that had been on his face until just now was completely gone.

He was clearly speaking seriously.

Teach him swordsmanship.

Trie felt her heart beating at the request she was receiving for the first time in her life.

Her heart, which had stopped beating since she abandoned knighthood and became a magician, began to beat again.

After a brief deliberation, Trie slowly parted her lips.

“No.”

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