WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 41: 9. Academy Field Trips Always Get Attacked (5)

──────

* * *

“Miss Isabelle, are you really going alone?”

“Yes! Don’t worry. There’s something I need to prove. Hehe.”

“Prove...?”

“You’d better brace yourselves. Miss Yuri could fail in the blink of an eye, too...!”

With a frightening smile, Isabelle ran deeper into the forest. She had effectively made the first move.

Most of the students were still standing in the clearing, watching one another warily, so Isabelle’s actions drew every eye.

She had run into the forest alone as soon as the test began?

That was impossible unless she had something to rely on. Unknown attackers might be waiting in the forest, and she would have to stay alert for students from her own department as well.

After sizing each other up for a while, the students formed small groups and slowly headed deeper into the woods.

Ivan, who had been watching from above, began walking as well.

“Ivan, where are you going?”

“There’s something I need to see for myself.”

“Hmm? How suspicious. Who is it? Which rascal caught our ‘little’ Ivan’s attention?”

Enrika snickered and shrugged. Ivan turned away without answering, but as he was about to leave, Enrika spoke again.

“Don’t interfere with the kids’ test. I’m sure they’ll manage, but you’re overarmed.”

“I’m preparing for the unexpected.”

“When you say that in Pritchenkaya, it sounds like there’s about to be a coup. Relax those shoulders, disciple. That’s paranoia.”

“Maybe.”

Ivan had no intention of trying to persuade this stubborn old relic from a premodern age.

There were three academy events most likely to be attacked.

The entrance ceremony, field exercises, and festivals.

The reason they could create an exam curriculum that practically begged terrorists to attack, then remain so carefree about it, was because they lacked common sense.

Ivan was a very practical person, so he only attempted things that were possible. Teaching common sense to an old man who had lived past a century was not within his range of possibilities.

Without another word, Ivan leaped into a tree and vanished beyond the forest.

“Lately, he’s gotten kind of... irritating?”

Enrika seethed as she mulled over the expression Ivan had worn.

* * *

“What does that man actually do?”

Isabelle muttered as she ran through the woods.

Everything Ivan had taught her in class was unfolding vividly before her eyes.

-There are no straight lines in nature. Anything that glints in a straight line at the angle of daylight is a trap.

It was true. Isabelle was already dismantling her sixth booby trap as she ran without slowing down.

There was one more lesson.

-Give a well-trained agent enough time, and a trap will never exist alone. So imagine it. After you avoid a trap, where will it force you to go?

Trap guidance. Along the cleanest route for avoiding an ambush trap, there would always be a second trap.

That lesson had been right as well. These agents, Enrika’s disciples, seemed well-trained even by Ivan’s standards.

Every time she dismantled a trap and mapped out an escape route in her head, there was always a second trap waiting exactly where she expected.

How long had she been running when she heard rustling near her ear?

“Is someone there?”

A student. Isabelle crouched in the bushes and quietly gripped her sword hilt.

Soon, a student emerged with another rustle. What was the name again? Alain? He was probably a new student from Tilles, like her.

And he had a fairly solid network of acquaintances.

Yet he had appeared alone? No way.

Isabelle smiled coldly and looked around. Sure enough, shadows swayed far behind Alain. They seemed to be hiding behind trees, but such clumsy concealment was worse than not hiding at all.

It only made people more suspicious.

Isabelle almost laughed. Seeing something like that reminded her just how impressive Ivan was. This was why she couldn’t date younger guys.

The thought made her flinch.

Date? What was she talking about?

‘It’s just gratitude, that’s all!’

At the very least, confessions were supposed to be received, not made. No matter how much the world had progressed, history had proven that for ages.

According to Tilles court etiquette, there was only one case where the woman’s side confessed first. When the woman’s father made the approach to arrange a political marriage.

Unfortunately, Isabelle had no father. Maximilian had already been missing for four years.

Therefore, Isabelle had no choice but to follow Tilles history and tradition. If Ivan confessed first, she would think about it. She was even willing to consider it favorably.

‘Confess first? No, that’s not happening. Even if it’s him, I’m way too good for him. I’m the Hero’s daughter, a noble, pretty, and young.’

Normally, Aesidis or Yuri would have stopped Isabelle when she started fawning over herself, but unfortunately, no one was beside her now....

“Hey, looks like no one’s here.”

“That’s strange. I definitely heard something.”

As Alain grumbled, a group of students emerged from behind the trees. Familiar faces, Alain’s group.

Five of them. Too many to handle head-on without getting hurt.

Still gripping her sword hilt, Isabelle quietly climbed into a tree.

Ambush Response training was, in other words, ambush training. To respond to ambushes, one first had to master how to carry them out.

Which meant Isabelle, who had received hands-on combat training from Krasilov’s finest field agent, possessed skills that first-year university students could not handle.

‘One first.’

Isabelle covered the mouth of the student at the very back and immediately held her sword to his neck.

“Mmph... mmph?!”

“Shh. This is sharp.”

“M-Miss Isabelle...?!”

“Hey, keep quiet, or you might get hurt.”

She took the bead from the unnamed classmate’s person and struck the back of his neck.

“Urk!!”

“Oh, that’s how he knocked people unconscious.”

“Ambush...! We’re under attack!! She took my bead!!”

“Ah, that’s cheating. If you’ve been eliminated, stay quiet.”

Isabelle grumbled and raised her sword. The classmate she had struck writhed in pain, but the other four were now rushing toward her.

“Isabelle! You ran off alone, yet you struck first! Are you brave or just stupid?”

“Oh, Alain. Have you decided we can speak casually now?”

Isabelle grinned as she raised her sword. Well, four were better than five. She decided to think positively.

She had never liked how every one of them forced a bright smile whenever they looked at her, either.

More importantly...

‘What is that stance?’

Their posture as they rushed in, the momentum of their charge, even their sloppy movements that did not work together at all.

Every part of it was laughable.

Compared to the academy entrance train, where she had needed to face terrorists with her life on the line, and Ivan, who had attacked her like it was real combat for the past week, this was boring.

Isabelle smirked. Seriously. Whenever she thought about it, all she could think of was that man. This was getting bad.

“Would five beads be enough to take first place? I really want to come in first this time.”

Smiling broadly, Isabelle charged at them.

* * *

Two hours had passed since the test began.

By then, half the students had received failing grades and were being escorted out of the forest.

The number of students each of Enrika’s disciples had to oversee had fallen, and their attacks were growing fiercer.

-Rumble....

The ground began to tremble from deep underground.

“Eek?!”

Yuri lost her balance and fell while running. She immediately got back up, gripping her sword hilt as she watched her surroundings.

But nobody was there. She could sense no sign of an ambush.

“What was that?”

* * *

-Rumble...!!

The tremors grew stronger. Heavier and heavier, until the trees throughout the forest swayed and shed their leaves with a rustle.

Enrika frowned and leaped into a tree.

“...What is this?”

* * *

-Rumble...!!

The instant the ground shook, Ivan kicked off a tree and jumped. He sprang to the top of the tallest tree and scanned the area.

The entire vast forest was shaking.

“Where are you?”

The sudden earthquake did not surprise Ivan. An attack was a certainty, so he was not so fragile that he would be startled by every event that unfolded according to common sense.

What was the target?

Ivan searched his surroundings with cold eyes. The range was too broad. He already knew Isabelle and Oscar’s positions, but the direction of the quake was not limited to where they were.

The entire forest was trembling.

“Ha, this.”

Ivan soon chuckled. A familiar pattern had caught his eye.

It was dwarves after all. Just as expected.

Ivan quickly surveyed the forest. If one did not panic at a sudden earthquake, if one observed the entire battlefield from a broad perspective, certain things became visible.

An earthquake was ultimately a wave. The point closest to the epicenter would shake the most violently.

Therefore, if he inferred from that...

The shaking trees themselves became excellent markers. If he could determine the degree of each tremor, he could locate the epicenter.

As he had once reflected, a forest was ultimately like a chaotic maze. Trees that had grown at random and fully grown trees tangled together into a complex organism.

If he was not deceived by that form, if he could analyze each shaking tree as an independent object...

“A spiderweb.”

A long epicentral line extended outward in a circle, like a spiderweb.

A spiderweb-pattern ambush, the signature attack method of the Fifth Dragon General’s Webmaker Engineer Corps.

It had been a long time. Ivan felt almost nostalgic. It was a highly orthodox ambush, and it reminded him of the old Tunnel War.

The scale was far smaller than back then, but still.

-Crashhh!!

With a roar like a landslide, the entire forest collapsed.

Trees tangled together as they fell, the earth overturned, and deep burrows were revealed.

Everything above was swept down amid the earth and sand.

Dust and shattered wood burst upward with a heavy crash.

From within the clouded battlefield, Ivan heard the screams of many students.

‘Leave the student rescue to Enrika.’

Enrika would understand the situation the moment she saw it. Dwarven attacks would be familiar to her too.

Most students also carried tracking magical artifacts. That meant rescuing the students in time should be possible.

It was a field exercise, and an Ambush Response test that closely resembled real combat. Priests would be standing by. Even if there were serious injuries, they could be treated.

Ivan immediately jumped down from the tree.

‘Is Oscar closer?’

If either Isabelle or Oscar was their target, he would go to the closer one first.

Mapping out his route in his mind, Ivan threw himself into a gap in the deep burrow whose bottom could not be seen.

The battlefield was close, the target was certain, and he was sufficiently armed.

An Annihilation Unit officer needed no greater premise than that.

* * *

Footnotes:

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried