.｡.:✧ Chapter 10 ✧:.｡.

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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: FusionX
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“The exam ends here.”

The one who intervened between us was Iris.

Just as Lizé had said she would have perfect control over her strength, the daggers in Lizé’s hands were stopped at a precarious distance just before touching Iris.

On the other hand, the Blood-Stained Sword in my hand was trembling, held by Iris at the blade. Realizing that, I released the strength from my hand, and the vibration of the blade abruptly stopped.

Iris, who had intervened between Lizé and me at an imperceptible speed to halt the duel, only released the sword after confirming that both of us had let go of our strength.

The tip of the blade drooped powerlessly towards the ground.

“The last technique you said you would use was Frost Storm Assault?”

“Of course. I said I would use just one. Then I had to go with the most intense one. What else could it be?”

Ah, is it weird to use the word “intense” while using ice? An additional remark followed.

“I distinctly remember saying this was just an entrance exam. This time, you held back appropriately, so it ended without any injuries, but—”

“I didn’t hold back though?”

Lizé smiled brightly and met my eyes. Her smile seemed to say she had a lot to say. I avoided her gaze slightly.

“What do you mean by that, Lizé?”

“Exactly what I said. I was completely serious from start to finish, without holding back at all. And the newbie deflected all of it with his own abilities. Isn’t that right, newbie?”

At that bombshell-like statement, not only Iris but even Erica looked at me. With three pairs of eyes of various colors directed at me, I felt a burdensome sensation as if holes would be bored into my face.

“But if you didn’t control your strength, that’s a problem in itself. Did you forget?”

“I could have stopped at any time if I thought he couldn’t block it. I reacted and stopped when you suddenly intervened, Iris. Do you think I couldn’t distinguish whether the newbie could block it or not?”

Lizé, who had easily dismissed Iris’s concern, approached me with that usual bright smile. Then she casually draped her arm over my shoulder and pulled me down with force.

There was quite a height difference between us, so even on tiptoes, I had to bend my waist slightly for our eyes to meet. Lizé raised her other hand’s finger and poked my cheek repeatedly.

“Wow, I was really surprised, newbie. I never imagined you would attempt a counterattack in that situation. It wasn’t an empty threat when you said you would block everything before the match, huh?”

“What about your dignity and reputation as a knight commander?”

“It’s not that important anymore. Now that it’s confirmed our newbie is such a gem with so much potential, why would losing a single duel matter?”

Our bodies pressed even closer. Due to our posture, her breasts, almost the size of her head, rubbed against my arm intensely. The person pushing herself against me seemed to have no awareness of her own posture.

“And one more thing. There’s one very, very important matter that our newbie absolutely needs to know. You have to hear this no matter what.”

Lizé’s voice suddenly lowered, and her expression turned serious. That made me become serious as well. Just how important was it that she was putting so much weight on it?

“You, speak casually to me.”

“…Pardon?”

For a moment, I thought I had misheard.

Her voice and expression suddenly turned serious, so I wondered what important thing she was going to say, but asking me to speak casually was a truly unexpected suggestion.

“I’m saying you don’t need to use formal language with me. It’s uncomfortable for you to use it and uncomfortable for me to hear it, so just forget about formalities and speak comfortably. It’s a special service I’m offering because I really like our newbie. What do you think? Do you like it?”

“Uh…”

I wasn’t sure how to react to this either. The difference in personality compared to the original NPC from the game was too drastic. I pleaded with my eyes to Iris and Erica for help.

As if reading the intention in my gaze, Erica spoke in a tone that seemed to have accepted it.

“Just accept it. Even if you refuse now, she’ll cling to you until you say okay. Despite how she looks, Sister can be quite stubborn.”

“Despite how I look? Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?”

“What else could it mean, Sister? You know it better than anyone.”

Lizé growled at Erica for a moment, then lowered her voice again and met my eyes subtly.

“Ignore her. Anyway, you heard it, newbie? You can speak casually to me now, and you can speak casually to Erica too. You already talk normally with Iris, right? It’s the same thing. Since she and Iris are the same age, there’s no problem. Come on, quickly say Lizé. Okay?”

She was the oldest one here. It didn’t seem like it at all.

Unable to withstand the pressuring gaze filled with sparkling eyes directed at me, I carefully opened my mouth.

“Li…zé?”

“Yes, yes. Good job. From now on, don’t use formal language and just call me comfortably. Whether it’s Knight Commander Lizé, Commander Lizé, Sister Lizé, or Sis Lizé, none of that is necessary. Just Lizé alone is enough. Got it?”

Lizé smiled brightly and clung to me, looking so delighted for some reason.

It was difficult to adapt to the discrepancy arising from the fact that the person who looked the coldest on the outside, as if not a single drop of blood would come out even if pricked with a needle, had the most lively and friendly personality.

“So, did I pass the entrance exam… did I pass?”

I was about to use formal language without much thought, but when Lizé, who was clinging to me, glared at me while tightening the arm around my neck, I quickly changed the way I addressed her. Lizé smiled contentedly again and clung to me.

“Of course you passed! If I fail our newbie here, what would happen to my reputation? Erica, what about you? No, you’ll say he passed anyway, right? Then it doesn’t matter? Welcome to the Silver Dawn Knights, newbie!”

“…I don’t like how Sister assumes my thoughts arbitrarily, but since it’s true this time, I can’t deny it. I have the same opinion as Sister Lizé. Welcome to the Silver Dawn Knights, Mr. Newbie.”

As both Lizé and Erica announced my passing, Iris nodded her head with an expression that seemed to say she expected it. She appeared to have quite deep trust, perhaps due to what I had shown so far.

“Welcome to the order, newbie. We’ll think about your placement later, but for now, get plenty of rest. We’ll have a formal introduction after Claudia returns.”

Since there was no reason to feel fatigue unless my stamina was depleted, it didn’t matter whether I rested or not, but there was no need to refuse such consideration, so I obediently nodded.

“Erica, please guide the newbie to his quarters. As for the location… the floor right below the knight commanders’ quarters should suffice. I’ll leave it to your discretion which room to assign him to.”

“Understood, Iris. Then, shall we go, Mr. Newbie? I’ll guide you to your quarters.”

Once the newbie and Erica had completely disappeared into the castle, Lizé exclaimed in a voice filled with amazement.

“Iris, where did you find such an incredible kid? You saw it too, right? How he deflected all my attacks? It was a skill that was hard to believe he was a newbie?”

“I don’t know either.”

“Aw, don’t lie. Was he a kid you hid somewhere to raise and devour later—Wait, wait! I can’t even joke?!”

Seeing Iris clench her fist with cold eyes, Lizé hastily retracted her words, saying it was just a joke. Iris clicked her tongue and released the strength from her fist.

“If I knew, I would have told you already. I really don’t know. When I went to inspect the prison under that bastard’s orders, almost everyone there had already been killed by a monster, and only that newbie was left alive. Moreover, the survivor himself is under the Witch’s Curse, with no memories or anything. What could I possibly know?”

“A single monster did all that? Shouldn’t it have been exterminated?”

“There’s no need for that. That guy killed it.”

“Killed it? That newbie? The monster?”

“Yes.”

“…How?”

Iris briefly explained what had happened in the prison.

The fact that she had found the newbie fighting the monster alone near the main gate while patrolling the entire prison to confirm there were no survivors. The fact that the newbie had succeeded in the extermination alone.

As if he knew exactly how the monster would attack, he had effortlessly deflected all its attacks with a crude steel sword. She even added a personal anecdote about how she had initially intended to help but ended up just watching, feeling like she shouldn’t intervene, and ended up losing her armor to the final attack.

Lizé, who had listened to Iris’s explanation from beginning to end with her mouth tightly shut, spoke with a slightly stiffened expression.

“The newbie, he said he was the Forsaken, right?”

“He said it himself. It’s probably true. If you really can’t believe it, you can use an ability confirmation orb.”

“No, it’s not that I don’t believe the newbie. It’s not that I don’t believe him, but… He said he was cursed. And not just any curse, but the Witch’s Curse. That means his physical abilities are no different from an ordinary person, he can’t use magic, and he can’t handle mana. But how the hell is that possible?”

Lizé recalled how the newbie had accurately discerned and deflected all her attacks during the entrance exam. It wasn’t mere luck, but a result of his truly outstanding skills.

Although he seemed to be overpowered in terms of strength, there was no sign of him being inferior in technique. No matter how many combos she unleashed or how quickly she attacked, it felt more like he had anticipated and read them in advance.

The more she thought about it, the more mysterious it became.

“……”

As the conversation briefly paused with both of them lost in thought, Iris stared at the palm of her hand that had blocked the newbie’s sword. There was a wound on her palm.

It was a very faint scar that was embarrassing to even call a wound, but the fact that such a trace had appeared was the problem.

Considering the gap in strength and skill between the two, such a wound shouldn’t have occurred. She should have simply grabbed the sword, and that should have been the end of it.

But she couldn’t do that.

“That was… the newbie’s doing, right?”

The sentence was cut off at the beginning and end, but the meaning was sufficiently conveyed. Iris nodded in affirmation.

At the very last moment, the newbie had instantaneously reacted to Lizé’s counter parry, which was her trump card, and twisted the trajectory of his attack. That was the reason why the palm of her hand had been slightly cut.

Lizé, who had prepared the counter parry upon seeing the newbie’s attack stance falter in that brief moment of less than a second when the attack was coming.

The newbie, who had deflected all of Lizé’s attacks and was about to counterattack, but reacted to the incoming counter parry and twisted the trajectory of his sword.

Iris, who had intervened between them and changed her stance as soon as she confirmed that the trajectory of the sword had been twisted. The skills of all three could be said to be roughly equal.

Yes, the problem was that the skills of all three were roughly equal.

Two of them were veteran knight commanders who had been wielding swords for over 10 years, and the other was a person cursed by a witch. It was only natural that their skills shouldn’t be equal.

“Until then, I was just amazed, but that last part really surprised me. You must have intervened thinking the newbie wouldn’t be able to react, right?”

“…I won’t deny it.”

If it were me in that situation, could I have taken the same actions as the newbie? Iris asked herself.

No matter how many times she thought about it, the answer was “no.”

Deflecting all those insane combos, finding an opening to attempt an attack even in the midst of that, reading the enemy’s counterattack stance that unexpectedly came just before the attack landed, and changing the trajectory.

Above all, accomplishing all of that with a body whose physical abilities had been greatly reduced due to the Witch’s Curse, and doing it during the first encounter with Lizé.

It was something that should be impossible by common sense, yet the newbie had done it as if it were nothing. It was a story that wouldn’t be believed even if told as a tavern tale.

She had no idea what kind of person he originally was or the extent of the talent inherent within him.

“Iris.”

“What is it?”

“You don’t have any special relationship with the newbie or anything like that, right?”

“If by special relationship, you mean a romantic attraction, then no. We just happened to meet in the prison. Is there a reason you’re asking that?”

“A reason? There is. If you haven’t claimed him first, I’m going to make him mine.”

Lizé licked her lips.

She really liked that newbie in many ways. His appearance was quite decent, his body was good, and above all, he met the conditions that perfectly aligned with Lizé’s sexual preferences.

Discovering a man with outstanding skills and talent in his budding stage, nurturing him to grow and flourish, and then eventually being dominated by him in return. That was Lizé’s sexual preference.

She was well aware that her own sexual fetish was not something she could proudly display, and she thought it was nearly impossible to realize in reality, so she had always kept it as an ideal in her mind.

But now, a man who seemed to have been plucked straight out of her ideal was standing right in front of her eyes. She absolutely could not miss this opportunity, no matter what.

Moreover, the fact that the newbie was a strapping adult male was also a plus. What Lizé wanted was a reliable and talented man who hadn’t yet blossomed, not a tiny kid or a brat.

“Do as you please. I won’t interfere.”

“Really? No taking back your words later? You won’t suddenly appear after I’ve devoured him and try to claim a stake, saying you were the first one to meet him or something like that?”

“What do you take me for? I won’t do such a thing.”

Lizé, having obtained something akin to permission from Iris, was about to rush out excitedly when a blunt voice stopped her.

“Ah, I do have one question.”

“Huh? What is it?”

Iris initiating a personal question? This was a very rare situation. Lizé’s legs stopped on their own. She perked up her ears.

“You’ve never even held hands with a man before, so do you know how to seduce one?”

“What the hell, girl?”

Lizé looked at Iris with a dumbfounded expression. She was saying that to her, even though she herself was also included in the “never even held hands with a man” category?

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