WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 99: 15. Real Combat Is Standard for Academy Summer Vacation Events (4)
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“Should we head down first?”
Aesidis cautiously offered her opinion. It was the first thing anyone said after they checked the two days' worth of rations they had been given and found nothing but “Uncle Bricks.”
The bricks Elphihara insisted were dog food were sticky and slimy, yet somehow strangely dry, with a strong fishy smell.
“Does anyone know the name of this mountain... or at least the geography around here?”
“....”
Everyone fell silent at Oscar's question. None of them were from Krasilov, so there was no reason they would know the terrain of some remote mountain in the countryside.
Oscar narrowed his eyes.
“Then we shouldn't head down without a plan. Getting lost on a mountain at night would be a serious problem. We need to move while the sun is up, so we can keep our bearings.”
“Are humans not only blind in the dark, but a little dull in their senses too?”
“Pardon?”
“We were dropped off on the way up the mountain, so can't we just go back down the way we came?”
“A mountain isn't a ladder. What are you talking about...?”
“Elves are children of the forest by nature. You humans should prepare to watch in awe.”
Elphihara gave a small snort and stood confidently. After dusting off her clothes, she looked down at the seated students.
Then Isabelle frowned.
“Wait a second, Miss Elphihara. Doesn't something feel off to everyone?”
“Hm?”
“Does anyone remember what that man said when I told him, ‘I'll just go back to the station’? He said, ‘That could be one way to do it.’”
“He did, didn't he?”
“Didn't it sound like, ‘Try it if you can’? Is it just me?”
Isabelle glared into the dark forest.
“Look. He deliberately erased the trail and took the horses away. It's obvious he doesn't intend to let us leave, yet he says, ‘Try it if you can’? Isn't this a trap?”
“Isn't that a bit of a stretch? What would he gain by setting a trap?”
“Up until now, I've never successfully guessed what anything he does means.”
At Isabelle's words, Aesidis and Elphihara found themselves nodding.
That was true.
“So heading down without thinking could also be part of some ridiculous ‘training’ he planned.”
“Training?”
“There isn't much else that man would do after bringing us into the middle of a forest and leaving us there.”
Aside from Elphihara, who looked dissatisfied for some reason, everyone seemed more or less convinced.
“Let's say he suddenly started some training nobody asked for. What kind of training would it even be...?”
“Knowing his style, this is definitely an ambush.”
“An ambush...?”
“Yeah. The training he usually puts me through is somewhat similar. If we try to find our way down the mountain, he'll probably jump out from somewhere and attack us.”
Isabelle took the lead in the conversation, drawing the hesitant students' attention.
Oscar quietly nodded as he thought.
Just looking at her now, she was still that bold little girl from the palace.
“Did we even need this kind of lesson in the first place?”
“Apparently he thought we did. Hmm... He said he was a friend of the Hero Party, so maybe we looked a little lacking to him...”
“That is strange.”
Oscar cut Isabelle off and raised his head.
“When the Hero Party was around our age, when our parents were young, wasn't that during the war? Is there any reason we need to possess that level of fighting strength?”
Unless the Demon King was resurrected, perhaps.
And if the Demon King did return, wouldn't the Hero Party members, who were still active, gather once more?
Leaving aside whether the Demon King could be resurrected at all, the military strength of the current era was abnormally high compared to each nation's power.
The Hero Party, along with all the heroes of the war, were still active. Every country possessed the strongest armies and generals in its history.
That alone acted as a deterrent against war. If war broke out now, mutual assured destruction would inevitably follow.
As a result, the Allied Kingdoms was enjoying the most peaceful era in all of human history. Nobody wanted war.
Therefore, if the Demon King had any sense, even if he returned in this age, he would not try to act in this age. He could be annihilated the moment he rose up.
There was no reason for the children of the Hero Party to possess great martial strength.
‘Does Krasilov truly want war?’
Unlike these foolish university students, Oscar was an intelligence agent Tilles had sent to Krasilov. His face stiffened as he stared toward the edge of the forest.
If the children of the Hero Party were killed or injured, it would inevitably cause a diplomatic catastrophe. A declaration of war might not follow immediately, but turmoil of a similar scale could easily be expected.
So, if Krasilov was preparing for war with someone...
The children of the Hero Party needed enough strength to protect themselves in a crisis. It would serve as a kind of safeguard Krasilov could prepare.
After all, the easiest way for the “hypothetical enemy nation” targeted by Krasilov's military to establish a multifront war against Krasilov would be to assassinate them.
‘The peaceful world has not even lasted four years.’
Oscar closed his eyes with a grim expression. It had only been four years since the Demon King died and the demonfolk were driven out. Rather than saying peace had returned, it was more accurate to say everyone had staked their lives on rebuilding.
Yet in that short time, his homeland had already needed to plant spies in neighboring nations. Every human country was still pouring its engines of growth into the military.
The current Allied Kingdoms was like a parched field. It had forgotten the abundance of the past and dried into something miserable, ready to burn entirely if even the smallest spark landed on it.
Then he would see what was being prepared.
Whether Krasilov truly was preparing for war, or whether that mysterious man named Ivan Petrovich Yermof had some other motive.
Training.
Fine. He had spent his entire life training as the eldest son of the Defender Duke and a knight of the Order of the Sacred Oath. Traditional knightly training in Tilles was closer to this than to the gentle environment of a university.
He could play along with this much.
Oscar raised his head and stood with a determined expression.
* * *
“Aaaahhh!!”
They had split up to gather branches for firewood less than five minutes ago.
At the scream that rang through the forest, Oscar reflexively sprang up, grabbed his sword, and ran.
“Somebody help meee!!”
“Miss Aesidis...?”
Aesidis was hanging upside down from a tree at the source of the sound. She pressed both hands tightly against her fluttering skirt as she struggled, and Oscar let out a deep sigh before heading toward the nearby trunk.
A rope trap was tied around it. Oscar cut the trap and caught Aesidis as she fell.
“Thank you! Thank you!!”
“What happened?”
“There was a pile of branches that looked perfect for firewood, so I picked one up, and then suddenly...”
After setting Aesidis down and turning his gaze, he saw it just as she said. A large pile of branches that looked perfect for firewood.
There were even signs that fallen leaves had been swept aside nearby.
A trap prepared in anticipation of someone going out to gather firewood. Oscar gave a hollow laugh and looked away.
A small note was attached to the trunk where the trap had been tied.
-There are no straight lines in nature.
What was that supposed to mean...?
Oscar tore off the note and examined it, then took one step forward.
With a twang as a thread snapped, a rope instantly wound around his ankle.
“Aaaargh!!”
“Oscar!!”
* * *
Oscar, you read the field survival rules and still got caught in a trap. One point deducted.
Aesidis. If the thing you need most suddenly appears before you without any sign, you should be suspicious. One point deducted.
Elphihara. You suggested making camp, then went back to the carriage to rest. Lack of teamwork, three points deducted.
And...
* * *
Can I eat this?
She was hungry, but she absolutely did not want to eat uncle's dog chew. First, she needed to secure some ingredients.
She could not exactly start hunting in the middle of a forest at night, so gathering food was the only option.
The problem was that Isabelle had never gathered food even once in her life. The children of the Hero Party were all descendants of prestigious families.
Isabelle in particular had never even left the Tilles royal palace.
The ingredients she knew were familiar things that arrived neatly prepared. She had always been confident in her cooking, but that did not mean she knew how to obtain ingredients at their place of origin and prepare them herself.
So, first...
“It looks... like a button mushroom.”
She would start by gathering something familiar.
It was too dark to see any fruit, and she had no way to distinguish edible wild greens.
Wasn't it common sense to start with mushrooms that looked edible?
They even smelled somewhat similar, and if there was anything bad in them, most of it would be fine once they were cooked.
Smiling, Isabelle picked a large number of big mushrooms and gathered them up.
* * *
-Bang!
Ivan glanced over to confirm the hit, then lowered his gun. He tucked the barrel, still steaming, into his belt and took out a notebook.
Isabelle attempted to consume wild mushrooms. Lacking common sense. One point deducted.
“Mister, I told you I was really going to kill you, didn't I?! I mean it!!”
From far away, Isabelle's voice rang out as she hugged the mushroom the bullet had shattered.
The first night was passing.
They had probably learned the basics of the survival Tutorial by now, so he planned to begin line-of-fire detection training next.
* * *
Footnotes:
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