First Fight with a Monster

As the discussions in each group were nearly over, the door opened and the instructor came in to announce the start of training.

"We'll begin training now. This is to assess your abilities, so stay focused and fight with everything you've got."

"Understood!"

"You have one hour. Reach your destination within that time and deal with the monsters there. Your score will be based on how long it takes, so the faster you defeat them, the better.

Our group had been assigned to a grassland bordering the coast.

We arrived there through a warp, and, just as its name suggested, endless grasslands stretched alongside the sea.

For a moment, I was amazed that grassland and sea could meet like this.

"Training begins!"

At the instructor's signal, our group set off at once toward the target.

Cecilia raced ahead at the very front, with Dave and Farrell following behind her.

I followed slowly at the very back. There was no need to use up all my strength here, and Cecilia could kill most monsters anyway.

"We're almost there. The sea's just ahead!"

"I'll go on ahead by myself."

When we reached the shore, Cecilia surged ahead alone, moving so fast that the rest of us, me included, couldn't keep up.

By the time I reached the sea, running until my legs felt ready to break, I saw a monster that looked like a shark with legs.

"Is that a Devil Shark?"

"That's a high-mid-tier monster! Why is a monster like this showing up in our first training?!"

"This isn't the time to complain. I'll support you from behind, so attack!"

Cecilia, who'd charged ahead first, was nowhere to be seen, and the monster bared its sharp teeth and came straight for us.

Dave stepped forward to draw its attention while Farrell kept attacking with Light Bullets, and I watched from behind.

No, it wasn't as if there was anything I could do.

The only combat training I'd received had focused entirely on fighting humans.

I had no idea how to fight a monster like that.

But I couldn't just refuse to fight, either, so I needed to watch for a bit and figure out how to fight it.

And this Academy was starting training without even teaching us that?

Did they just not care if cadets got injured or even killed?

"Get out of the way!"

I barely dodged the Devil Shark charging at me, but its swinging tail caught me and sent me flying.

After rolling across the ground a few times, I got up, and the only thought filling my head was that I wanted to kill it.

Its weak point was those thin legs.

I'd watched just now and gotten a rough idea of how to fight monsters.

More than anything, this monster might look disgusting, but it had none of the oppressive presence I'd felt from Lucille and the Duke.

So, with that in mind...

"From now on, you're my punching bag."

I left Dave, who'd been hit by the monster and sent flying toward me, behind and charged forward.

"What are you trying to do?"

"Farrell! Hurry and stop them!"

"Urgh!"

Maybe my sudden charge had caught Farrell off guard, because he started firing Light Bullets in a torrent, while Dave shouted from behind, trying to stop me.

Though it didn't really matter.

"Kieeeek!!!"

I ducked beneath the monster as it charged with its teeth bared and smashed one of its legs with my axe.

As expected, its thin legs were its weak point. I broke them all, then stood in front of its head.

"Grr..."

Watching it struggle helplessly to return to the water, unable to move, brought one thought to mind.

'I wonder what shark meat tastes like?'

It was a little disgusting, but in this world people sometimes hunted and ate monsters.

Of course, some could be eaten and some couldn't, but for the most part, they were all edible once cooked.

I'd have to try it to know whether it tasted good or not.

"What just happened?"

"That was so fast I couldn't even see it."

"Let's finish that thing off first. We can't waste any more time!"

Dave rushed over from behind and smashed his fist down on the monster's head, sending its insides flying in every direction.

I wondered if he hadn't expected it to burst apart and splatter everywhere, but the others were already shielding themselves from the debris with a large piece of cloth.

But since I didn't have a cloth or cloak like that, I had no choice but to get covered in the monster's fragments, which reeked horribly.

'How unfair. They get to use cloaks like that and I don't?'

Fortunately, none of it got on my face, but my clothes were completely soaked.

It might not be so bad to go into the sea and come back out.

"By the way, where's the Sword God's disciple?"

"Lady Cecilia ran ahead of us first, didn't she?"

We looked around for Cecilia, who had arrived here before us, but no matter how much we searched, we couldn't find her.

Time kept passing, and the other two were growing pale when the sea suddenly began to turn red.

"What is that? Is it blood?"

From the sea, now dyed red, the corpses of Devil Sharks floated to the surface, and something emerged from their midst.

And the one who emerged was none other than Cecilia, her entire body soaked in seawater and blood.

"Sorry I'm late. Let's head back now."

"Ah... Yes."

"Right. Let's go back."

I already knew what had happened, so I wasn't particularly surprised, but Dave and Farrell seemed unable to grasp what had just happened.

The instructors watching this must have known, though.

Anyway, it felt like we'd taken a while. I wonder what our score will be.

It would be a problem if my score was so low that I got expelled from the Academy.

.

.

.

"This is our group's score?"

"Well... it's a really borderline score."

There were twenty groups in all, so our score put us around eleventh place.

We'd spent far more time than the other groups.

The rest of our points, in a sense, were bonus points for Cecilia killing more than five monsters.

I should be satisfied with gaining experience from this training, plain and simple.

Of course, the others didn't seem satisfied, and the other students weren't looking at me kindly, either.

Since I was in the same group as Cecilia, who had the title of the Sword God's disciple, everyone had high expectations of us,

I'd even heard people talking about betting on how quickly we'd finish.

But since our group had ended up with such a mediocre rank, everyone seemed to have decided it was all my fault.

And they were absolutely right.

We were late because of me, after all.

"Why did someone like them have to end up in the same group as Lady Cecilia?"

"I should've been in that spot."

"It would've been better if the monster had just killed them."

"Now that you mention it, I heard they used dirty tricks in the freshman sparring matches, too?"

Could you at least stop insulting me so openly?

Even I get my feelings hurt.

"Good work with the training, everyone. This must have been your first time fighting monsters, or close to it. How did it feel?"

"They were more frightening than I expected."

"That's what monsters are like. You all know what happened in the past, don't you?"

"Wasn't that a forbidden topic?"

"It's not forbidden here. It's something you need to know."

Forbidden or not, it's a very simple story.

The instructor's explanation was too long, so to sum it up...

Long ago, when the demons and humanity were locked in a fierce war, the greatest losses humanity suffered came from the monsters the demons sent out at the front.

Each one was a monster in its own right, obsessed with nothing but slaughter.

As a result, countless nations fell. Among the few humans left, those gifted with the talents of the Sword God and the Martial God emerged and eventually drove the demons back to the Demon Realm.

It seemed like everything had ended happily, but the demons had left a gift behind on this continent: the monsters and their corpses.

Back then, people didn't know what would happen to the corpses of demons and monsters, so they sometimes left them lying around. Eventually, the demonic energy that seeped out of those bodies spread across the entire continent.

That demonic energy gathered and became magic stones, and monsters were born around those stones.

With the Sage's help, people learned how to deal with them and how to use the magic stones, but it was impossible to eliminate all the monsters.

That's why the Academy was established: to prepare for the demons' return and deal with the monsters.

Nowadays, though, it feels more like a general academy that includes beastfolk and elves.

"The demons have invaded this continent many times since then. So we have a duty to fight and stop them. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir!"

"At least you're loud. Tomorrow we'll begin regular classes, including basic training, so get plenty of rest."

When the bell rang to signal the end of class, the entire hallway grew noisy.

After taking care of a few things, I headed to the main gate as Cecilia had told me, and found her holding her sword, surrounded by a crowd of students.

And most of them were girls.

Before I even had time to think about how to push my way through that crowd, Cecilia had already come right up to me, grabbed my wrist, and dragged me away.

'I didn't see that coming.'