WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 20: The Status Window Opened on My First Day of School (4)
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* * *
“After narrowing them down and down, there were three...”
It had taken three days to narrow the list this far. Ivan rose, pressing hard against his gritty eyes.
The criteria had been as follows.
People who had suddenly distinguished themselves, people whose personalities or tendencies had changed drastically, and people who displayed strange behavior.
Without support from the Counterintelligence Command, obtaining that information would have been impossible. He had needed to investigate the House of Nobles directly.
“The problem is... these brats.”
One was an orphan who had enrolled through the practical skills scholarship program.
The other two were from the House of Nobles. In other words, they belonged to the Crown Prince faction.
They would be difficult to touch. Ivan might be working undercover, but if someone followed the trail back to its roots, it would inevitably connect to personnel from the Counterintelligence Command.
And the Counterintelligence Command was Elizaveta’s right hand. If he provoked the House of Nobles carelessly and got caught, it would damage Elizaveta’s political influence.
“Would it be a problem if I kidnapped all three...?”
Ivan tapped the table as he said something that would have made Dmitry foam at the mouth, along with Elizaveta.
One was a promising new student who had entered on a full scholarship. That student was an orphan, but already a talent drawing attention from institutions in every field. Stirring things up carelessly would not end well.
The remaining two noble children both came from Upper House families. Naturally, he could not simply kidnap them.
If they really were transmigrators, he could act more boldly. For now, though, he only had suspicions. He had not found any solid evidence.
Therefore.
“Let’s keep watch on the three of them for now.”
He could kill them whenever he wanted.
Even kidnapping them would not be difficult.
Still, he would need preparation if he wanted to handle this as cleanly as possible, without any consequences afterward.
So, after three days, Ivan decided to report to work at the academy.
From that day onward, a rumor began to spread through Saint Yansk University that a strange man had started appearing on campus.
* * *
Aesidis had been trapped in the label of an outcast by some incomprehensible, malicious twist of fate. Her options were running out.
Fortunately, the semester had only just begun. First impressions might last, but there had to be plenty of ways to turn things around.
For example, she could seek out someone even her uncle would hesitate to mess with.
‘My dad’s friend’s daughter...!’
Whether it was an arrangement between their parents or a remarkable coincidence, the children of the Hero Party had gathered together in the same year.
No matter how thoughtless her uncle was, he would not dare approach a Hero’s child carelessly.
That was how this lunch gathering had come to be.
“It’s nice to meet you, Miss Einarsdottir...? Is that how I should address you?”
“Oh, that just means Einar’s daughter. Please call me Aesidis. We can be casual with each other.”
“Um... even so, you’re a princess, aren’t you?”
“Ahahaha, a princess. I’ve never been treated like this before. I’m practically tearing up...”
Eyes glistening with tears, Aesidis vigorously shook the pretty girl’s hands.
“Ah, was I rude...? I knew Isabelle already... You’re a freshman in the Knight Department, right? May I ask your name?”
“I’m Yuri Frank, Aesidis. Please call me Yuri.”
“Esi, quit fawning over her and back off. She’s somebody very important, you know?”
“I’m sorry! I don’t know the names of the Krasilov court nobles...!”
“What are you talking about...? No! A noble? Don’t say something so dangerous!”
Isabelle snickered and gave Aesidis a light tap. What bloodline could possibly be more precious than royalty?
Aesidis hesitated for a moment, unable to understand the situation. Yuri’s face reddened as she spoke.
“I’m just an orphan. Frank isn’t even my real father’s surname, honestly.”
“Besides, Yuri is a boy’s name.”
“It’s hard to survive on the streets with a girl’s name.”
Yuri answered with an easy grin. Isabelle smirked, then turned to Aesidis.
“She’s the full scholarship student in our department. She’s really good with a sword.”
“Better than you, Isabelle?”
“Better than me, of course. She was even better than Oscar. Honestly, I was surprised. Where did someone like her come from?”
“You’re flattering me. I was just lucky.”
“If you beat us through luck, that’s skill.”
Aesidis felt her heart warm.
Yes, this was it. This was how things were supposed to be.
A lively spring day, warm sunlight, eating together while praising each other’s abilities and engaging in friendly competition. This was the dream...
Without realizing it, she sniffled and forced herself to erase the image of her uncle, who was probably fooling around with the Knight Department students right now.
* * *
It was Isabelle, Aesidis, and a freshman.
Ivan sat in a tree, looking down at the chatting girls as he flipped through his notes.
He had not approached closely enough to hear their voices. Still, he possessed extremely accurate lip-reading skills.
Their conversation was ordinary. The girl’s name was Yuri or Yuli.
Both names were on the freshman roster, but if she was one of the names on his suspect list, Yuri was more likely.
That created a problem. A suspect was in contact with the Hero Party. On top of that, her name was Yuri.
Naturally, in the Krasilov cultural sphere, that was a male name.
In Korea, though... and more broadly, in Northeast Asian cultures, it was used as a female name.
If a woman was using the name Yuri, there was a high chance she was a transmigrator.
He drew a red underline beneath her name on the suspect list.
* * *
“What’s that bastard doing?”
Enrika stood blankly behind her wide-brimmed hat, watching her disciple.
Normally, Ivan was so sensitive that it was difficult to get this close. Yet he was so focused that he had not even noticed her approach.
She looked in the direction Ivan was watching. Several freshmen were talking on a bench in the distance.
It was an ordinary sight.
“Hmm... Is that Isabelle? That looks like Aesidis... Those two were always close... I don’t know who the other one is.”
The Counterintelligence Command had begged her to check on him, so she had come by for a moment. Instead, she found him tailing freshmen as if he were a field agent.
“He doesn’t seem to have lost it. Were they just overreacting?”
That emotionless gaze, the near-perfect concealment even when he had let his guard down. It was the usual Ivan, who was paranoid about every movement he made.
Enrika shrugged and concealed herself in the shadows.
* * *
“Yevgeny! Let’s go together! What are you taking this afternoon? I, I’m going to the Biblical Hermeneutics orientation!”
“I have Reading Gospel Texts in the Original Language. Sorry.”
“O-oh, no! See you... see you later! Have a good class!”
After smiling and seeing off the student whose name he could not even remember, the young man called Yevgeny hardened his expression and walked through the lecture hall corridor.
It was annoying. More than that, it was confusing.
If he had known there would be so much to learn, he would never have chosen the Theology Department... but it had been the best option at the time.
‘I can’t do work that requires using my body.’
It was the obvious conclusion. He had never even held a kitchen knife in his life, so how could he start fighting monsters and demonfolk with a sword now?
Choosing a path completely removed from combat would be just as problematic. At the very least, he needed a profession that went out into the field.
That was why he had chosen theology. After completing the priesthood course, he could learn all kinds of buffs and healing skills, as well as spells in the Holy Smite family.
‘And this body is skilled with a sword.’
The protagonist of [The Northern Grand Duke’s Wastrel Is a Swordsmanship Genius], Eugene, was a genius of the sword. The system had made that abundantly clear.
While all the freshmen around him were showing poor growth, hovering between levels eight and ten with nothing but insignificant combat abilities, this body had achieved the remarkable feat of possessing [Sword Mastery Lv. 5] from the first day he had entered it.
That was about one step below a first-year instructor in the Knight Department at Saint Yansk University. In other words, he had already surpassed the freshman level.
The problem was that learning swordsmanship technically and using it to butcher people were entirely different matters.
That was too difficult for a modern Korean who had never even wrung a chicken’s neck...
“Being a priest is the best, though...”
A rear-line role that did not need to stand at the front. All he had to do was throw out healing spells, and if he could also swing a sword better than most, he would be a picture-perfect overpowered protagonist.
People said that what you were truly good at should be your side job. Wasn’t it only natural for an idol with real acting skill to be more popular than a serious actor?
There were only two problems.
First, the Theology Department curriculum at Saint Yansk University was brutally demanding, enough to rival modern Korea.
Second, a crazy-eyed catapult Santa Claus was following him.
‘What the hell is that...!’
There had been no event like this in the original novel. In fact, this world was completely different from the novel. The original had not been this vaguely communist empire, and it had not included a Demon King or a Hero Party.
It had simply been an ordinary noble-family story about fighting an evil mage family over roughly one thousand chapters...!
The only things this world had in common with that novel were the familiar skill tree, the familiar Status Window, and the familiar situation within his family.
The Northern Grand Duke...? This entire country of Krasilov was in the north. How could there be a Northern Grand Duke?
‘And why can’t I see that thing’s level...!’
He knew that when the level gap exceeded a certain threshold, the displayed rank changed to “???”.
Still, there were limits. Why was the academy gardener’s level like that? The head of this body’s household was only level 59.
At the edge of his vision, as he desperately looked away, a bearded monstrosity with wide eyes glared down at him from a tree.
Nobody else seemed to notice it, so he had tried to ignore it. Yet it remained within the distance where he could vaguely make it out through [Expanded Instinct Lv. 3].
* * *
“He’s tailing three people in total.”
Enrika was certain now. At first, she thought he had received orders to protect the Hero Party’s children and let it pass. Something had felt off, though, so she followed him and found this.
The problem was that the three had nothing in common.
One was in the Theology Department, one in the Knight Department, and the other in the Magic Department.
Even their backgrounds did not match. A duke’s son, an orphan, and the youngest daughter of a viscount. There was no connection at all.
And that killing intent.
He stared at them with the low growl of a tiger crouched in the bushes, as though they were his mortal enemies...
“Shouldn’t he leave them alone?”
The orphan had practically broken down the scholarship program’s doors to get in and seemed to be receiving offers from everywhere.
The two noble children were from the House of Nobles. They clearly belonged to the Crown Prince faction. There was nothing to gain from touching them, and they happened to be in the Magic Department and the Theology Department. The one thing both departments had in common was that their heads were not from Krasilov.
The Theology Department was naturally headed by the Saintess, while the Magic Department was overseen by the elves of Kallion. In other words, attacking students from either department would cause a serious problem.
“No way. No way. Surely he wouldn’t go that far?”
Enrika snorted, though part of her thought that if anyone could do something like that for some bizarre reason, it would be that madman.
The Hero Party’s thief, the vampire who had ruled Pritchenkaya’s back alleys for a century, prepared to intervene in an emergency as she stalked the student-stalker.
* * *
‘He saw my eyes.’
Ivan had been tailing him from quite a distance away from the Theology Department’s main building, but the brat had noticed him.
With dry eyes, Ivan stared at the young man on his suspect list.
Yevgeny Novikov Karamzin.
Yevgeny was an ordinary name. Nothing special.
Yet in Asian cultures, Yevgeny could also be rendered as Eugene. Naturally, it carried a different meaning from the Catholic saint Eugenius.
In other words, it was a personal name that worked in both Asia and Europe.
Therefore, the brat on the list was also highly likely to be a transmigrator.
Ivan drew two red underlines. He had detected stealth, his movements were suspicious, and his name was suspicious.
* * *
Footnotes:
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