WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: HidingTurtle
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ How the Child of Prophecy Survives ◈
Chapter 15: A Fierce Squirrel Crouching in the Grass
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The Imperial Army cadets under Wilfried’s command were in high spirits after defeating most of the Allied Forces cadets, including Ferdinand.
“Ernst Krieger is in the woods. There’s no telling what he’ll do, or when and where he’ll do it. Stay alert.”
Wilfried warned the cadets about how dangerous Ernst was again and again. But it did little good. Having already tasted sweet victory, the Imperial Army cadets could not imagine losing to a mere three or four enemies.
Wilfried realized that further warnings would be pointless.
‘I suppose this is normal. To them, it’s just a game of soldiers...’
A faint, bitter smile crossed his face. For cadets from powerful families, the academy was nothing more than a stepping stone to higher places. But for Wilfried, the Duke of Rabid’s fourth son, it was a battlefield where he quite literally had to risk his life.
Among the Imperial Army cadets, Wilfried alone was desperate enough to take the training seriously.
‘...Perhaps losing once here wouldn’t be so bad.’
Wilfried seriously considered defeat.
After beating most of the enemy in the field, they had marched into the woods full of themselves. If Ernst defeated them before they could do a thing and stole their flag, the painful experience would make them grit their teeth and take training seriously next time.
Whether he liked it or not, Wilfried would have to work with the cadets who followed him until graduation, and even afterward.
He would use his position as a duke’s son to gather people around him, place himself at the center of those relationships, and gain influence. That was the path he had chosen to survive. He could no longer simply do as he pleased like Ernst.
“Let’s change formation.”
Wilfried arranged the cadets into a column of twos. As both commander and standard-bearer, he walked slowly in the middle. Naturally, the center was the safest place. When they faced the enemy head-on in the field, it had not mattered if Wilfried fell. But if he fell now, the others would become a disorganized mob in an instant. Ernst would toy with them until they lost.
Wilfried was considering defeat, but he wanted the outcome to be his own choice. He did not want Ernst to snatch victory from him against his will.
“Don’t neglect the rear.”
“Got it.”
Wilfried kept a careful watch behind them. They could not let their guard down just because they had already passed through an area. An enemy hiding among the bushes or trees might deliberately let the front ranks pass, then attack the center or rear. This was as basic as it got.
“...It’s too quiet.”
“Did they run away?”
“I doubt it. Maybe they’re near the flag?”
“Quiet. I told you to stay alert.”
Despite having gone fairly deep into the woods, they had seen no response from the enemy. The cadets began to relax and chatter. Wilfried clenched his teeth, forced down his anger, and warned them in a calm voice.
Tap.
“Huh?”
At that moment, the cadet at the very rear touched their helmet and looked around.
“What is it?”
“Nothing. Did something fall on me?”
Another cadet questioned the one looking around. The cadet touching their helmet shrugged.
“You’re dead.”
The answer came from Ernst, who had already sprinted through the trees and was far away.
“...What?!”
“You’re dead! I hit you in the head!”
When the startled cadet shouted, Ernst called back loudly from somewhere in the distance. Only a few seconds had passed, yet they could not even tell how far he had gone.
“That’s ridiculous!”
“...I told you not to neglect the rear.”
Holding back a sigh, Wilfried spoke quietly to the cadet killed in Ernst’s surprise attack.
But his voice lacked confidence. He truly had been keeping a close watch without letting his guard down. Yet he had walked right past Ernst’s hiding place without noticing him at all.
Now down to twelve, the Imperial Army advanced slowly, watching their surroundings with far more tension than before. Wilfried wanted to put down the flag and take up his crossbow. But someone else would have to carry the flag anyway. It was better for him to keep it.
Clatter.
“Ah!”
At the sound from their left, the cadets moving between the trees quickly aimed their crossbows in that direction.
Tap.
“You’re dead.”
Ernst suddenly appeared on the opposite side and hit another cadet in the head. He kindly informed them of their death, in case they had failed to notice, then vanished in an instant.
“My God.”
“I know I’m dead! Are you making fun of us?!”
Among the stunned cadets, the latest casualty shouted in anger. Once again, Ernst’s answer came from somewhere far away.
“Think of it as a gunshot!”
“...”
In a real battle, Ernst would have been holding a gunpowder gun. The shot would have torn through the forest’s silence, and thick smoke would have spread, exposing his position.
Normally, someone would have launched a silent surprise attack without bothering to account for that.
‘He’s terrifying.’
Wilfried could not help shuddering as he tried to judge how fast Ernst was moving.
After the first surprise attack, Ernst had run far away. Then he had raced silently through the woods again, overtaking the Imperial Army cadets to lie in ambush.
The truly frightening part was that Ernst seemed to know exactly where they would go and how they would get there. How could he possibly know that in a forest without paths?
“...Check where that sound came from.”
At Wilfried’s order, four cadets carefully moved forward.
Tap.
“Ah!”
A wooden round struck the chest of the cadet in front. Startled, they stared blankly toward the shot’s origin. Ernst had run away in the opposite direction. Had he already come back?
“...”
Then their eyes met those of a nonhereditary noble cadet lying hidden behind a tree root under Ernst’s orders.
“You!”
The cadet who was already dead raised their crossbow in surprise and pulled the trigger. The nonhereditary noble cadet sprang up and fled without looking back. A round struck their back, but a dead person had fired it, so they could ignore it.
Incidentally, the most startled person there was none other than the cadet fleeing after successfully ambushing the enemy. They knew that something had gone off right in front of them to lure the Imperial Army cadets over. The chilling part was that they had no idea when or how Ernst had set it up.
“...This made the noise?”
Leaving the dead behind, the cadets searched the source of the sound. They stared at the few branches and stones lying there and muttered in dismay.
“We stepped on a trap.”
While examining the branches, Wilfried found a thread tied to them. He followed it and found the other end tied to a tree root on the opposite side of the route they had taken.
“Where did he get thread?”
“He could’ve pulled it from his cadet uniform or his gear. Or brought it in secretly.”
“...My God.”
At Wilfried’s cool reply, the cadets finally understood their situation.
If this had been a real battle, if Ernst had been given enough time and had seriously set out to build traps, they might already have been wiped out!
“We’ll pick up speed and break through. There are five enemies at most. We can overwhelm them with numbers and firepower.”
Estimating how many enemies they had defeated in the field, Wilfried quickly made his decision. It was about the best tactic these clueless, inexperienced cadets could manage. That included Wilfried, who was one of those inexperienced cadets himself.
Tap!
“You’re dead.”
Just as they began to run, a crossbow poked out from beside them and claimed another life.
“Fire!”
“Damn it!”
Tat-tat-tat!
The cadets fired back, but Ernst had already taken cover behind the trees. In the few seconds they needed to reload, he leaped into the bushes and disappeared completely from sight.
“Run! From now on, only return the bare minimum of fire when the enemy attacks! Don’t stop!”
Wilfried ran while shouting orders, shuddering with horror.
“Hah! Hah! Hah!”
Somewhere along the way, this game of soldiers had filled the Imperial Army cadets with terrible fear.
Only their ragged breathing and heavy, dragging footsteps echoed through the quiet woods. They strained to spot Ernst, who had to be running ahead of them somewhere, but they heard nothing. They caught only fleeting visions of him in the shadows of branches and bushes swaying in the wind.
Tat-tat.
“Fire!”
Once again, wooden rounds flew from the bushes. But none of them hit anyone. At Wilfried’s command, eight cadets fired into the undergrowth.
“Ugh!”
“Damn it, I could’ve hit them.”
Two cadets rose from the bushes, grumbling. Leaving the stunned Imperial Army cadets behind, they calmly walked toward the edge of the forest. One was the cadet who had killed an enemy and fled earlier.
“...So how many are left?”
Tap.
“Who knows?”
“Ernst!”
Overwhelmed by Ernst’s presence, the Imperial Army cadets had forgotten that other enemies even existed. They had not yet reloaded. Ernst approached without a sound and killed another cadet.
But this time, something was different. His voice had come from far too close.
“Ugh!”
Thud!
The cadets spun around in alarm and found Ernst charging right up to them. In one hand, he held the wooden bayonet they had been given to attach to their crossbows.
It all happened in an instant. Ernst plunged straight into the formation. In the blink of an eye, he struck the inside of one cadet’s thigh with the wooden bayonet while driving his left forearm against another’s throat and shoving them hard.
Tap.
He then feinted toward a fallen cadet, only to change direction sharply and lightly touch another cadet’s throat with his bayonet.
“Whoa!”
Ernst ducked under the cadet whose throat he had just cut, drove his shoulder into their waist, grabbed behind their knees, and hoisted them into the air. Though fairly tall, Ernst had a slender build. No one had imagined he could produce such tremendous strength.
How could they have known that, since he was eleven, his father, Hires, had beaten and thrown him around in martial arts training that was like real combat? Even including Ferdinand, fewer than five cadets in his year could beat Ernst at wrestling.
Thud!
“Aaagh!”
Ernst hurled the cadet he had lifted with all his strength, knocking down two others. Still off balance, he planted a hand on the ground and scrambled forward like an animal, a chilling sight. He grabbed another cadet’s leg, pulled them down, and gave the inside of their groin a quick jab with his wooden bayonet.
Tap.
Then, as Ernst pushed off the ground, sprang up, and ran to kill another cadet, he stopped dead.
“...”
His face deathly pale, Wilfried still had the crossbow he had just fired aimed at Ernst. It was as if lowering it would let Ernst rampage again and trample them all.
“You and you died instantly. You were hit in the chest and throat.”
But Ernst calmly tucked the bayonet into his belt and gestured toward the dead cadets.
“You two didn’t die instantly, but you were stabbed deep in the inner thigh and groin. You’ll bleed to death soon. The other three were only knocked down, so you’re still alive.”
“...”
In less than ten seconds, Ernst had killed four cadets and knocked down three others, taking them out of action. Apart from Wilfried, only one cadet was still standing.
Pale-faced, Wilfried looked back at the dark blue flag lying on the ground. In that moment of crisis, he had thrown it aside without hesitation. Then he had swung the crossbow off his back, aimed it forward, loaded a wooden round with trembling hands, and immediately shot Ernst.
What if he had missed?
...No, what if he had not already cocked the crossbow before slinging it onto his back? What might have happened in the brief time he needed to draw the string?
“Sorry, I was in a bit of a hurry.”
“...You...”
Ernst held out a hand to the cadet he had knocked down by shoving his forearm against their throat. The terrified cadet looked at his hand with a conflicted expression and started to say something. Then they pressed their lips together, took it, and staggered to their feet.
They could not help being startled by Ernst’s rough hand and his tremendous strength, so at odds with his lean appearance.
“...Ernst.”
Wilfried called quietly to Ernst as he helped the remaining fallen cadets up. When Ernst turned with his black eyes gleaming, Wilfried’s long eyelashes trembled.
“...Why didn’t you target me first?”
Wilfried could not understand it. The commander had been carrying the flag himself. Surely that made him the highest-priority target?
He found the moment deeply insulting. But the instant he heard Ernst’s answer, he realized it had not been an insult.
“You weren’t holding a gun. Why bother?”
“...”
“Oh, I mean, well, you couldn’t join the fight while holding the flag with both hands.”
“Stop. That’s enough. I understand, so you don’t have to say any more.”
Afraid Wilfried might misunderstand, Ernst waved his hands and earnestly explained. Wilfried answered weakly, then hesitated before lowering the crossbow and slinging it onto his back again. He picked up the fallen flag.
Ernst had simply acted according to how dangerous each person was. If Wilfried had been holding a crossbow, Ernst would naturally have targeted him.
“So we’ve won now, right?”
Wilfried let out a long sigh as he spoke to Ernst.
“Huh? Why?”
Ernst’s eyes widened in surprise at the question.
“...Your side’s been wiped out.”
“No, we haven’t.”
“...Wait. How many of you are left?”
“Uh... I can’t tell you that. How many did you kill in the woods?”
Hearing Ernst speak of death made Wilfried shudder. The word carried a distinctly different weight when it came from Ernst’s mouth rather than another cadet’s. He felt as though it might crush him.
“...Three, including you.”
Wilfried spoke in a strained voice. Ernst gave a slightly sheepish smile.
“Then it’s not over yet.”
“...Goddamn it.”
No one was surprised to hear such vulgar words from the mouth of a duke’s son. They all felt the same way.
With only five left, including Wilfried, the Imperial Army cadets continued forward in a state of high tension. Horribly, they set off every trap Ernst had prepared. Noises came from all around, nearly driving them out of their minds.
However, Ernst had listened carefully to Thomas’s warning. He had no intention of crippling or killing another cadet, so all his traps did was make noise.
“I’m telling you, we can’t let Ernst have even a nail-trimming knife. Even if we have to take turns trimming his nails for him, we have to take that damned knife away.”
Wilfried muttered, caught up in an emotion that might have been anger or fear. Of course, he did not actually intend to confiscate Ernst’s nail-trimming knife and trim his nails one by one. He was merely saying whatever came to mind, unable to contain the overwhelming emotion.
Tap.
“Woo-hoo, that’s one...”
Tat-tat-tat! ...Tat-tat-tat!
“Wait! Stop! Stop! I’m already dead! Stop shooting! Stop! You bunch of freaks! I’m a corpse! Hey! You’re a corpse too! I just killed you! Stop shooting! This is assault!”
Robert, who had been lying in wait in front of the red flag, killed one cadet. In the merciless return fire that followed, he achieved the remarkable feat of taking fourteen rounds all by himself.
Wilfried threw down the flag too and fired wildly at Robert. Even the cadet Robert had killed gritted their teeth and kept shooting him without pause.
“You evil bastards! Have you no honor?! You freaks, grinning while you shoot a corpse!”
When the shooting finally stopped, Robert showered the Imperial Army cadets with heated insults. Ignoring him, Wilfried picked up the flag again, breathing hard. He went straight to the Allied Forces’ red flag and kicked it with all his strength.
The red flag fell. Wilfried drove the Imperial Army’s dark blue flag down over it with all his might, as though pouring out his pent-up anger.
Thump!
“...I only did what Ernst told me to. So, you know what I mean, right?”
Realizing that only four Imperial Army cadets had survived, Robert raised both hands and gave an awkward smile.
Fortunately, there was no incident in which the Imperial Army cadets took out their anger by beating up the innocent Robert.
“...We’re leaving the woods. Follow me.”
The training assistant, who had appeared from the bushes at some point, gave the order with a strange expression. The cadets followed the assistant out of the forest and assembled in front of the transport vehicle again.
“...”
Senior Instructor Captain Thomas Koller stood with his hands behind his back and looked over the cadets. He slowly nodded and spoke in a calm voice.
“I’m changing the rules.”
Every cadet knew why Thomas had suddenly changed the rules before the next mock battle began.
“Moving the flag is forbidden.”
First, Thomas banned moving the flag. Some cadets thought this was a result of Wilfried’s tactics. In truth, however, it was to keep Ernst from dominating the battle.
If Ernst seriously tried to hide the flag, no one would ever find it.
“Next, I will confiscate everything you obtained during the previous mock battle.”
“...”
“Ernst Krieger.”
Thomas singled out Ernst, who was putting on a thoroughly innocent expression.
“Take it out. All of it.”
“Yes, sir.”
In the end, Ernst stepped forward and opened his field pack. He emptied out all the coiled vines, bark, and branches cut to uniform lengths that he had stored inside.
The cadets’ faces twisted at the sight.
He had set up all those traps in the forest and fought in the battle himself. When on earth had he found time to cut and collect so many things so neatly?
“Sir, there are more traps Krieger made and things he hid still left in the woods.”
That was not even the end of it. At the upperclassman training assistant’s tattling, Ernst glanced back at them with a faint look of regret. The other cadets did not want to train alongside this lunatic.
“Krieger. I will not take that small but useful tool away from you. But I cannot allow you to use materials gathered in a previous mock battle.”
Thomas said he would not confiscate the nail-trimming knife Ernst had secretly brought along. To Ferdinand and the military faction cadets, who would have to face the Allied Forces under Ernst’s direct command in the very next battle, it was a bolt from the blue.
“Yes, sir.”
Ernst answered the order calmly. But the cadets knew how much this small yet experienced hunter could do in a short time. They could not feel reassured.
In truth, no matter how skilled Ernst was, using only a finger-sized dagger to build a trap that could subdue or kill an enemy took considerable time. A reliably powerful trap needed sufficient size and precise calculations. Hiding it required even more care. If he made lethal traps, he would finish only two in the time available.
Of course, being able to build as many as two man-killing traps in that short time already put him far beyond an ordinary boy.
“Next...”
Thomas paused for an unusually long moment before speaking firmly again.
“I’m shortening the preparation time.”
The awkward problem was that, to keep Ernst from dominating, he could not give the Allied Forces time. But for the Allied Forces, who were supposed to meet the enemy in the forest, being unable to prepare properly already fell outside the planned scenario.
Thomas had needed to think this decision over more carefully than usual. Even so, he had no choice if he wanted to prevent Ernst from making it impossible to conduct a normal mock battle at all.
Having made his decision, Thomas could therefore state the next rule without hesitation.
“Finally, this rule applies only to today’s training.”
Thomas spoke calmly, then introduced a highly unusual rule unlike anything he had imposed before.
“Krieger. You may not attack the enemy yourself in today’s two remaining mock battles.”
“...”
“Answer.”
“Yes, sir.”
Ernst hesitated over the incomprehensible rule, then answered when Thomas pressed him.
But Thomas had never originally intended to impose a restriction that applied to only one cadet.
Knowing the horrors of real war, Thomas had appointed Ernst as platoon leader in the hope that he would run wild and plunge the other cadets into confusion and despair.
The problem was that Ernst was far too skilled. Even with the Imperial Army cadets at an overwhelming advantage, they had no way to break through the thirty-seven Allied Forces cadets under his direct command and win.
They could probably have a reasonable mock battle if they cut Ernst’s forces in half or formed the Imperial Army out of sufficiently skilled upperclassmen.
In the broken terrain of forests and mountains, Ernst alone could match more than five well-trained upperclassmen who were physically superior to him.
In fact, given enough time, he could probably cover the entire forest in traps and wipe out the enemy without fighting them himself.
What kind of lunatic had turned a fourteen-year-old boy into such a killing machine? Even Thomas could not help feeling dizzy at the thought.
‘Still, it’s not bad.’
Thomas gave a small nod as he looked at the tense faces of the first-year cadets, who had come to understand the situation thanks to Ernst.
At present, Ernst was a hunter and warrior who seemed terribly out of place among cadets. But the real Allied Forces Rangers lurking in the mountains and forests were ten times more dangerous than Ernst. There was no telling how many of them there were, either. Real battle was a hundred times more terrible than training.
In that sense, this chance to safely experience the dangers of a real battlefield was extraordinarily valuable.
‘This boy would be nearly perfect as a training assistant. No, perhaps I could bring him in as an instructor after graduation...’
Thomas smacked his lips as he looked Ernst up and down. Having someone like this under him would be very nice indeed. Thomas was confident he could make very thorough use of Ernst.
The upperclassmen enduring harsh schedules as training assistants under Thomas looked at Ernst with deep pity as he received their instructor’s eager attention.
Senior Instructor Captain Thomas Koller, secretly known among the cadets as “that crazy son of a bitch,” had set his sights on Ernst Krieger. The moment Ernst entered his third year, he would be selected as a training assistant. He had no choice in the matter. Whatever Ernst said, Thomas would make him a training assistant anyway.
There was a reason the noble boys at the prestigious Imperial Military Academy honored Thomas with the title “crazy son of a bitch.”
“The next mock battle will take place after the meal. Recover your strength until then.”
For some reason, Thomas gave the order in a slightly brighter, more energetic voice than usual. Then he abruptly left with a slightly lighter step than usual.
Ernst could understand the strange heat in his classmates’ gazes. But he could not understand the lukewarm looks of sympathy from the upperclassman training assistants serving lunch.
“Hang in there.”
“Pardon? Oh, yes. Thank you.”
Ernst’s eyes widened as he answered the warm encouragement from an upperclassman who had suffered before him. Carrying his food away, he looked back at them in puzzlement.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk... We were like that once...”
“To think we sold half our academy lives for a few damned merit points...”
The upperclassmen who had become slaves first clicked their tongues in pity as they watched their future fellow slave walk away. But none of them warned Ernst of the danger. The reason was very simple.
I’m not going to be the only one who suffers.
Without exchanging a word, the upperclassmen understood one another perfectly. United in heart and purpose, they shared warm smiles.
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