WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B

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Chapter 49: 10. Stalker vs Stalker (4)

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The sword came down, scattering moonlight. Its force was fierce, its form flawless.

Excellent.

Ivan nodded, deflected the blade with the axe, and caught it.

-Clang!

Caught on the axe's edge, the sword went wildly off course before clattering away. Ivan picked up the blade embedded in the ground and inspected it.

"How is it?"

"This will do."

"Hehe. What did I tell you? I'm a quick learner when it comes to this stuff."

"I see."

Ivan nodded and tossed the sword.

Isabelle snatched the spinning sword neatly out of the air, then grinned.

"How good am I, in your opinion? Compared to my father at my age, I mean."

"Compared to Maximilian, no one on the continent would measure up."

Ivan snorted at Isabelle's bold question.

He walked over to the pouting girl, draped a towel around her sweat-soaked neck, and pressed down on her head.

"Do not bury yourself in the shadows of those who walked before you."

"Oh, that sounds cool! Did you come up with it, Mister?"

"No. Enrika said it to me."

She had said it to the "little" Ivan, who had buried himself in the shadow of the late king.

It was natural to admire someone. The world was vast, and there were many exceptional people in it.

But trying to imitate each of them only led to a clumsy imitation.

Enrika had told Ivan those words, and Ivan now told them to Isabelle.

Do not bury yourself in the shadows of those who walked before you. Step forward on your own path.

"Mmm. It is a good saying, but it doesn't really fit Professor Enrika's image!"

"Enrika was a serious person back then."

"What about you? Did you only say things like, 'Mm,' 'I see,' 'No,' and 'I'm busy,' even back then?"

"Mm...."

Back then.

Ivan stroked his chin for a moment.

"I was not much different."

"How boring! Good grief. Did your emotions die along with everything else in the war? What even lives inside your heart? Let me guess. Axes? Healing potions?"

"Don't be ridiculous."

Ivan snorted, ruffled Isabelle's hair once, and stood.

Since the terrorism incident during practical training, Ivan had been holding training sessions with Isabelle every night.

Though he should have considered the order of events more carefully. Strictly speaking, Isabelle had grabbed Ivan and asked him to train her.

It was special training to reach the realm of the superhuman.

"All right, let's do the next step. Hurry up."

"Very well."

Isabelle sat cross-legged on the grass. She slowly exhaled, then quietly closed her eyes.

"Put your hand on me already!"

"You no longer need that."

"Come on, I'm still not used to it."

The realm of the superhuman began with reinforcing the nervous system by circulating mana.

To help her develop the sensation of infusing mana into the neural networks throughout her body, Ivan had initially placed a hand on her back and helped guide her mana.

He poured his own mana into her to open the path, guiding it so she could grasp the feeling more easily.

Of course, that was only the most basic foundation. Even after getting a feel for it, operating it independently was another matter. And even if one succeeded in reinforcing the body, moving in step with that speed was yet another matter.

"Hngh...."

"Close your mouth and focus on the sensation."

"But... hngh, it's warm...."

As Ivan fed mana into her, Isabelle went limp and let out a sigh.

"Yuri's been busy lately, and Esi's busy too.... Even when I wanted to rest, I had no friends to hang out with...."

"This is not rest time."

"It is too. This is rest time."

Isabelle narrowed her eyes as she looked up at Ivan.

She gave him a teasing look and smiled mischievously.

"So, are you working with me right now?"

"I am teaching you."

"I'm just going to call it resting. It's time to play with you, Mister."

"I may need to reconsider the intensity of your training."

Ivan was somewhat shocked. He had excellent self-awareness, so he could confidently say that his training regimen remained strict, ruthless, and demanding.

This counted as playing?

Was this what it meant to be Maximilian's daughter?

Ivan nodded briefly.

Watching him, Isabelle wore the expression of someone looking at something profoundly pathetic, then sighed. She stretched and rose to her feet.

"That's enough. Ngh, I learned a lot today too."

"Mm."

"Oh, right. Mister, you're still working as a secret agent, right? I heard something strange recently."

"Something strange?"

"Yeah! I was going to tell you. You know, Dian apparently saw some weird guy in front of our house a few days ago."

"A weird guy?"

"Yeah! He was standing in the corner by the wall, staring at our house for a while. Dian wondered what he was doing and chased after him, but lost him."

Ivan frowned.

Dian was the bodyguard knight Tilles had assigned to her.

For a bodyguard like Dian to lose sight of someone directly in front of them.... This was no student or civilian.

"They weren't your colleagues, were they?"

"No."

The Counterintelligence Command did not work that way.

"I will look into it. Do not concern yourself with it."

"Um... if someone's watching the house I live in, it's not like I can help being concerned?"

"That is for me to concern myself with. Students should focus on their studies."

"Uh...."

He really slipped those in sometimes.

Isabelle glared at Ivan's back as he strode away for a while, then let out a soft sigh.

It was not easy. Really.

She snorted and hugged the towel around her neck tightly.

* * *

Someone was watching Isabelle.

Naturally, it was not the Counterintelligence Command. Not only did the Counterintelligence Command not operate that way, but Isabelle and the Hero Party's children fell within Ivan's jurisdiction.

Dmitry would never do anything to provoke him.

Ivan walked through the night streets, lost in thought.

-Someone, or some group, is watching the Hero Party's children.

-One of Droan's five Jarls had attempted a bombing at the academy.

Could those two incidents be connected? The latter had clearly targeted Aesidis's life.

If Aesidis died or was injured, Great King Einar would move.

Einar and his brothers were currently Droan's strongest force. If they moved, Droan itself would be practically left undefended.

That was what one of the Jarls wanted. They likely intended to exploit Einar's absence and overthrow the kingdom.

'And Isabelle is involved in that?'

Perhaps he was overreacting. They could be two entirely separate incidents.

Still, Ivan felt something was off. His instincts had been honed through more than twenty years of war.

'As long as Mord is there, Aesidis is safe at night.'

Mord had finished volunteering at the orphanage and returned to being Aesidis's personal bodyguard knight.

As long as he was there, even if something happened, he could more than buy enough time for Ivan to arrive.

That was why Ivan had been watching the situation somewhat calmly after dark.

'I will watch Aesidis during the day, and Isabelle at night.'

Ivan organized his schedule and headed for the director's office.

He had never expected this to be easy. He needed to find a culprit the Counterintelligence Command had failed to catch for two months.

Of course, the Counterintelligence Command could not devote all its attention to this matter alone. Even so, it was no easy task for an individual to accomplish what a national agency's investigative force could not.

But as always.

Could it be done, or could it not?

That question did not matter.

For the Annihilation Unit, only one proposition was true.

Did it need to be done, or did it not?

If it needed to be done, they did not hesitate.

They simply did it.

Ivan dismantled the booby traps placed around the director's office one by one, returned to his desk, and turned on the mana lamp.

Until late at night, the sounds of reports being organized and ledgers being examined did not cease from the director's office.

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Aesidis crossed the campus toward the bench.

The bench beside the Knight Department's outdoor training hall was their hideout, where she, Isabelle, and Yuri always ate lunch together.

Today had been exhausting too. Classes were difficult, her classmates were cold, the world was harsh....

Clutching her lunch bag tightly, Aesidis approached the bench, then froze on the spot.

"Oh, Esi! You're early today!"

"Uh, wha...? What... is this...?"

"Oh, say hello! We're going to have lunch together for a while from today on. You've never met him before, right? It's Mister!"

Isabelle cheerfully grinned and patted his back several times.

"It is seriously so hard to get him to eat with us even once, but I ran into him today and asked him to join us, and he agreed right away. Honestly, what wind blew him here for him to grace us with his precious presence...."

Isabelle chattered excitedly, but Aesidis could not hear a word of it.

She stared blankly at Ivan, then turned to Yuri, who sat beside him.

-What is going on?

-I would like to know too.

Were stalkers not usually passive but malicious people who lurked at a distance, indulging their creepy desires while watching from afar?

Why was he being so bold...?

Aesidis cautiously sat on the bench and took out her lunch. Then she glared at Ivan, who silently opened his lunchbox beside Isabelle.

Bella liked him that much, and he was trying to seduce another girl?

And his method of seduction was surveillance...?

That was seriously the worst.

After enduring Aesidis's stare for some time, Ivan suddenly looked up.

Their eyes met for a moment, and just as Aesidis grew frightened and lowered her gaze, something landed on top of her lunchbox, where her precious chicken sandwich rested.

"...?"

"What's... this? What is it?"

"Vegetables."

Ivan took food from his lunchbox and served Isabelle and Yuri different meals.

"You usually eat only carbohydrates and protein... bread and meat. That kind of diet can easily become nutritionally unbalanced. Make sure to eat vegetables, fruit, and nuts as well."

Ivan was a thoughtful and considerate person, so he explained it in a way even children in this premodern society could easily understand.

He ran an orphanage. And an orphanage was, literally, a place that took in children who had lost their parents, fed them, taught them, and raised them.

Planning meals, managing schedules for rest and study, and developing each child's talents, interests, and qualities to the fullest were Ivan's actual profession.

Feeling a certain sense of satisfaction, Ivan handed lunchboxes to Yuri and Isabelle as well.

"Wow, amazing! Thank you, Mister! If I'd known, I would have prepared something too. I'm really good at cooking, you know. What do you think about girls who cook well, Mister?"

"I think they cook well."

"I seriously want to kill you...."

Unlike the lively Isabelle, Aesidis looked at Ivan with frightened eyes.

'He had been watching even what we ate every day...?'

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Footnotes:

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