WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 39: 9. Academy Field Trips Always Get Attacked (3)
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There was a saying: If you wanted to hide a leaf, hide it in a forest. It was an ancient proverb about concealment techniques. (It was not.)
Therefore, members of the Annihilation Unit infiltrating a forest became masters at setting traps with leaves. The methods varied by season, but Krasilov basically only had summer and winter, which made things much easier.
-Twang!
“Eek!”
The instant Isabelle heard the sharp snap of a severed thread, she covered her head and rolled away.
Boom!
An explosion went off where she had been standing.
“Seriously! That could kill someone!”
“Weren’t you the one who asked to be trained like it was real combat?”
“There are limits! To that!”
Isabelle sprang to her feet and swung her sword toward the sound.
-Clang!
“Control your emotions.”
“You’re making me want to kill you, mister!”
Her overall record was seventeen fights, zero wins, seventeen losses. Gritting her teeth, Isabelle swung again.
Clang, clang. Sparks flew, and an axe blade flashed from the shadows. By now, it had become a routine.
After firing a shot, he placed a booby trap along her evasive path. If she avoided that trap, he ambushed her from the direction she had dodged toward.
Ivan’s patterns were thoroughly vicious. He expertly led even her escape routes into a chain of traps.
Every one of them was dangerous enough to kill or grievously wound her if she made a single mistake.
After five days, Isabelle had reached the point where she could catch the timing of an attack with her eyes closed.
“Excellent.”
Ivan grinned and lowered his axe. A cool forest breeze brushed Isabelle’s bangs.
“People do grow tougher the more you beat them.”
“I think your definition of people is a little different from mine.”
“At least you’re not one of them. You kept up well.”
Ivan was not stingy with praise. He had faced the Hero Party himself. Naturally, that meant his standards had risen absurdly high, but because of that, his standards for handling trainees were extremely low.
Moving like the Hero was impossible no matter what. Aside from truly powerful people, everyone was more or less the same.
It was enough if someone stood out even a little. In the first place, Ivan was more accustomed to training soldiers than heroes.
A soldier only needed to perform at an average level. As long as they could carry out an operation without causing problems, that was enough.
But not anymore.
Ivan raised his axe and took a stance.
He had taught Isabelle every basic technique required for Ambush Response. From here on, it was a matter of senses and practice.
Which meant that with the time remaining...
“Raise your sword.”
He would teach her the realm of the superhuman.
Ivan’s eyes deepened. Mana whirled around him, making his beard flutter.
The truly strong, those who set foot on the battlefield of superhumans, were of a different class.
He would teach her, even if he had to hammer it into her head, about the place Isabelle would one day have to reach.
The academy was dangerous.
A university did not seem like the sort of place that could be all that dangerous, but an academy was different. An academy was, quite literally, no different from the front lines.
That was common sense.
“Extend your sword.”
“I beg your pardon? Ah, yes.”
Isabelle extended her sword straight ahead. Her form was flawless. From her grip to her footing, the tension in her core, and the balance from her shoulders to her wrists, everything was nearly perfect.
She truly was the Hero’s daughter. Her talent for physical combat had been honed on an instinctive level.
So all she needed now was learning and experience.
“Endure it.”
“...Pardon?”
“That’s very reassuring,” she was about to joke with a smile, when...
-Kiiing!
Ivan’s arm blurred, and in an instant, her blade split in two.
Though he had cleaved through the sword with his axe, she had not even felt the impact. The axe had cut through the blade as easily as tofu.
“What was that supposed to be...?”
Isabelle let out a hollow laugh. She stared blankly at the broken sword in her hands and snickered.
“This was really expensive... No, what the hell...?”
“Did you see it?”
“See what? My sword becoming something that used to be a sword...?”
“Time Separation.”
Ivan spun his axe and settled into his stance.
“Human auditory nerves react in 0.1 seconds, tactile nerves in 0.25 seconds. It is an area with clear limits to how much one can train.”
Those were limits imposed by the structure of the human body. Neural response speed depended on electrical signals passing from sensory receptors to the brain, so there were unavoidable physical limits.
This premodern fantasy world had not developed anatomy to that extent, but remarkably, it did have mana.
This all-purpose resource, which could become anything depending on how one used it, could directly interfere with the human nervous system and push transmission speeds to their limit.
Put simply, that was Time Separation.
“There is a world that opens up when mana strengthens your nerves, Isabelle. There is a realm you reach when what you see, feel, and do surpasses their limits.”
That was the battlefield of superhumans.
Very few people could reach it, but it was the final destination one would eventually arrive at with enough talent and experience.
It was the first step toward the battles of those who stood in a different class. Anyone who failed to reach it could never rise above being an ordinary soldier.
But Isabelle was not a supporting character. She was clearly one of the protagonists of this world. So she needed to prepare. The sooner one reached this realm, the better.
If Ivan could not protect her forever, then the best thing he could do was push her forward.
“You can’t just tell me to do that out of nowhere...”
“You will.”
“Yes, well, if you teach me, I’ll do my best.”
“You just have to go through it until you can.”
“Eek?”
Ivan raised his axe and gripped it in reverse. He held it by the blade’s back rather than the edge, as though it posed no threat at all. His expression was harmless.
“Survival instinct is the foundation of growth.”
“You say insane things so naturally...”
Cursing her past self for asking this madman to train her, Isabelle raised her broken sword.
That was the last thing she saw.
-Boom!
* * *
“Bella, Bella? Bella!!”
“Huh?! Yes?”
Isabelle jolted and lifted her head. Aesidis was looking at her with concern.
It was a warm spring day on campus. Aesidis and Isabelle were spending lunch together over packed meals.
Ah, thank goodness. It was a dream. (It was not.)
A chill ran down Isabelle’s spine, and she rubbed her arm before looking up.
“You’ve been acting strange lately. Is something going on?”
“Something... Haha. I’ve just been studying for exams.”
“What kind of studying makes you look like that... Hmm... Is it because you’re in the Knight Department? You seem to have a lot more bruises.”
As the Hero’s daughter, Isabelle received all sorts of special treatment. For example, Tilles’s royal court had assigned a personal priest to her.
That was why, even when she came back almost shattered every night, she could attend class looking perfectly fine the next day.
But the human body was not built that way. Unfortunately, injuries and fatigue continued to pile up. The dark circles beneath Isabelle’s eyes were proof enough.
“And you’ve been acting suspicious lately. Are you seeing someone?”
“Seeing someone? Who would I be seeing?”
Perhaps because she had once belonged to Tilles’s court nobility, Isabelle’s clothes and accessories were all of the finest quality, but still. She seemed to have put in more effort than usual...
Aesidis wondered whether there was a decent boy in the Knight Department, then remembered her uncle and frowned.
The Knight Department was a horrific place.
“Yuri, do you know anything? Like a boy Bella has been close to?”
“Miss Isabelle is kind to everyone. Hmm. Lately, I’m not sure. Everyone has been busy preparing for exams. If I had to pick someone, perhaps Oscar?”
“Oh my goodness! Oscar!?”
Aesidis grinned and poked Isabelle in the side.
“You, is something going on with Oscar?”
“Esi, there are some things people should and should not joke about. Honestly, Oscar is too... How should I put it? He’s a little too slick.”
“Why? He’s popular.”
“I like someone dependable and quiet... Hmm. Someone a little bear-like, maybe? Someone reliable. He’s too delicate, isn’t he?”
Delicate...? Was Oscar like that? Aesidis tilted her head. She had never paid much attention, but he had trained as a knight since childhood.
Leaving the confused Aesidis behind, Isabelle rose and stretched.
“I’m going to get in some more training!”
“Are you trying to take even my scholarship away from me?”
“Do you expect me to let you stay top of the class forever?”
Isabelle snickered and walked off lightly.
* * *
“Mister!”
“Mm.”
“Haha... When do you think you’ll ever greet me with a ‘hello’?”
Ivan, holding a pair of pruning shears, turned his head toward Isabelle as she ran over from a distance.
“Let’s train again today! The exam is tomorrow!”
“No.”
“Huh?”
Ivan looked Isabelle up and down. The fatigue from six days of training was plainly visible. She appeared to have received treatment, but she was far from being in perfect condition.
“Rest today. You need to prepare for tomorrow.”
“Hmm... Then... Um...”
Isabelle fidgeted with the ends of her hair, torn by indecision. Her eyes shifted slightly as she bit her lip.
“Have you eaten...? Um. Or if you have time today...”
“I’m busy.”
“Eek.”
Ivan was an efficient man, so he did not repeat himself.
He glanced at the dazed Isabelle, then strode away.
Tomorrow was the field exercise. An exam held outside the university, at that. Naturally, unknown enemies would attempt a surprise attack, so he had plenty to prepare in advance.
After all, it was common sense that an academy field exercise would be attacked.
Ivan was a sensible person. If an attack was expected, then the Annihilation Unit’s common sense was to prepare for it by eliminating the targets before they could strike.
“I think I’m really going to lose my mind...”
Isabelle lowered her head and muttered as she watched Ivan walk away.
* * *
“Unbelievable...”
From a distance, Yuri and Aesidis watched the scene while coffee trickled from their mouths.
“A man... A gardener...?”
“A man... A deranged, axe-wielding, bearded John Wick...?”
“Who is that?”
“There’s... someone like that...”
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Footnotes:
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