Chapter 41
『Translator: RainTL』
༺ Group Assignment (1) ༻
The professors of the Knight Department gathered every month for a conference to share their evaluations of students and things to note.
Even aside from that, this conference was a fairly important social event for all the knight professors for them to keep in touch with others.
It was back in late April when the interim exam had just taken place. There were plenty of agendas for the monthly conference, such as the unfair treatment of the Magic Department receiving more budget and the equity issues of the payment for knights on the Mission Board but the hot potato this month was a Grade 5 Knight.
Korin Lork.
The topic was on how wrong it was to keep him as a Grade 5 Knight.
“There’s a need to increase Korin Lork’s grade.”
The proposer of the agenda was the old-timer of the Knight Department, Old Man Haman who had 30 years of service at the Academy under his belt.
It was rare for this stubborn old man to proactively support a student so his words gathered the attention of a lot of other veteran professors.
“Korin Lork. He’s a freshman if I recall correctly, yes?”
“Grade 5? The data seems horrendous. Why would you consider raising a student like him?”
The professors of senior students asked in confusion. They hadn’t attended the freshmen interim exam which had taken place 2 weeks ago.
“If he’s just a Grade 5 Knight, then there’s no need to…”
“That Grade 5 Knight fought on equal grounds with Sword Master Lunia Arden. Only for 3 minutes though.”
“...!!”
“What kind of joke…”
The explanation of Professor Fermack, who was in charge of the freshmen students, caused voices of doubt to spread between the senior year professors of the Knight Department.
Lunia Arden? Wasn’t she the prime successor candidate of the renowned Arden family? Her unprecedented evaluation of being a semi-Unique Grade knight despite her young age and her performance were all proof that she was one of the representative heroes of this era.
One flick of her hand should be enough to demolish dozens of Grade 5 Knights let alone a single one, so how could one possibly last 3 minutes?
“She must have been holding back.”
Professor Royd, in charge of 3rd year students, raised a skeptical opinion but was immediately rebutted by Old Man Haman.
“Are there any professors among the ones that were present back then including myself who think Lunia Arden was holding back against Korin Lork?”
“...”
“...”
The ensuing silence made the senior student professors even more flustered.
“But even so, raising the grade just because of an interim exam is a bit…”
Old Man Haman did not mention Marie Dunareff’s incident here. Unlike himself, a Grade 1 Knight and a central figure of the Knight Department, most of the professors here only knew about the publicly announced pieces of information.
In order to make sure, Professor Royd asked Professor Fermack.
“Professor Fermack. Is there no room for doubt on the abilities of this student called Korin?”
“There’s none. His skill with the spear is as exceptional as that of a demon. Frankly speaking, there’s probably no-one among the Grade 2 students who can fight against him.”
“Is he that strong?”
“Don’t we have another successor candidate of the Arden family in the 1st year?”
“She was beaten up by him during the hunting grounds practical lesson. She stood no chance.”
“Hmm…!”
Indeed, that meant there was no doubt on his ability. That meant it was certain that he was as strong as a Grade 1, but…
“Even if that’s true, we cannot increase his grade without any achievement. Since that is our rule.”
All the participants here agreed with the fact that his Grade couldn’t go up immediately. Interim exams did not count as an achievement and were therefore not enough.
Old Man Haman, who had been at the Academy longer than anyone else among these professors here, shared a different perspective as if he had been waiting for that statement.
“Let’s entrust that to the Alliance’s official grading test. There is a limit to how much we could increase his grade by, but it should be okay if we let him take a reassessment for an ‘official’ guardian license.”
“Hmm…”
“But if we do that, the student would need to be accompanied by a professor…”
“Professor Haman… or should I say Instructor Haman. Since you were the one who proposed this, how about you take charge?”
“I would be glad to.”
Instructor Haman volunteered for the reassessment as the Knight Department came to a conclusion.
Firstly, they would have to prepare a test to reassess Korin Lork’s grade. If he passed it, then his grade would officially be raised up.
“Huu… Korin Lork, huh.”
Professor Fermack, who was also in agreement with the reassessment, thought about the person in question.
Korin Lork.
Grade 5 Knight.
Both his Aura Rank and Mana Rank were at Low, and he didn’t have much aura either.
However, his fight against Lunia Arden implied that there was something wrong with that evaluation.
His weapon proficiency was one thing, but his stats were incomparably different to the one he had before the grading test. Fermack quickly came to a conclusion… that he was hiding something.
The reason he could quickly come up with a hypothesis was because he had an idea about the power Korin Lork was using - the secret technique of the ancient warriors of the Shadow Paradise: the high-risk and high-reward ability - Precept.
‘Besides, that spear… it’s that person’s spearmanship no matter how I see it.’
Fermack’s master and benefactor who taught him how to use runes - that person was a great spear wielder. Although Fermack didn’t have any profound knowledge on spearmanship, he could still say with certainty that Korin’s spear was the same as the one he had seen several times from his master.
‘Don’t tell me… Is he also his disciple just like me?’
It was still just an assumption but there were a lot of clues. If Korin was that person’s disciple just like him…
“I’ll have to test him out a little.”
While hiding his sharp gaze behind the sunglasses, Fermack returned to the usual frivolous young professor.
****
It had been a rather noisy start to the semester but it was already May.
After spending an eventful early semester, Alicia hopped up the stairs with more expectation than usual.
Alicia was like every other student. She found lessons boring and wanted to skip them whenever possible but today’s lesson was different, because it was one she shared with a specific student.
Pushing open the door of Lecture Room 4012 on the 4th floor of the Knight Department’s Liberty Hall, Alicia greeted everyone.
“Hello~!”
“Hi Alicia.”
Since she was one of the few Grade 2 Knights among the freshmen students, everyone knew who she was.
Besides, she was the successor candidate of the Arden family which was known for their incredible swordsmanship. It was impossible for the students to not know her considering the newspapers and the rumors around the campus.
Alicia was a fairly sociable person so she showed a friendly smile to all her peers that were greeting her as she hopped across the room.
“Mr. Korin~”
The place she settled in was the seat next to Korin.
“...”
Jaeger, who just returned from the bathroom and realized that his seat had been taken, squinted his eyes. With a sharp gaze that couldn’t be hidden despite his narrowed eyes, he glared at Korin.
These days, there was always someone amazing by his side.
Whenever there was a joint lesson with the seniors, the Number 1 celebrity of the Academy, potato senior, would be sitting next to him and when it was a freshmen Knight Department lesson, it would either be the frightening demon girl or that granddaughter of the Sword Emperor.
There was only one thing Jaeger could say as Korin’s friend (?).
‘I’m so jealous!!’
Since when did my friend have such an impressive set of female friends? What about my youth? Why is there no-one by my side!
He groaned like that until the start of the lesson.
“Yo~. Hello freshmen buddies, are y’all ready?”
Walking into the room with a loud greeting was a funkish man whose afro-hair and sunglasses were very impressive. He was Professor Fermack Daman of the Knight Department.
“As I mentioned last lesson, we will be starting a group assignment from today.”
“Ahh…”
There were laments from everywhere but Professor Fermack Daman ignored their complaints with ease.
“Now now. I know you might be thinking this is annoying, but this is very important and it’s going to help out in the future.”
Professor Fermack planted expectation into the minds of the students like a veteran professor. People might think of a group assignment as something tedious at a glance but as an education facility of guardians, the Merkarva Academy was very practical even when it came to group assignments.
“Let me first describe what you’ll be doing before we start the lesson. We are the Knight Department so unlike the geeks of the Magic Department, we are not going to tell you to solve some difficult Math equations or tell you to plant mysterious plants.”
- Hahaha!
Knight Department and the Magic Department. Although the conflict between the two wasn’t serious by any means, it was natural for some level of competitiveness to exist, which Professor Fermack made good use of.
- Click!
He clicked his fingers and created a pop of air which opened the documents that were installed on the board.
“Wow~. He added Condensed Aura into his fingers right? Did you see that, Mr. Korin?”
“I did.”
Professor Fermack was popular among the students for showing such attention-grabbing tricks.
“Now. Have a look at this paper.”
The papers he prepared had large drawings of human figures and appeared like they were explaining certain moves one by one. They were diagrams that you would find from martial art books related to knights and weaponry.
“Mhmm?”
“Mr. Korin?”
“Nothing.”
The movements on the papers were showing a set of spear moves.
Several elementary spearmanship postures ranging from middle guard to high guard, advancing, walking, strafes and lunges were expressed in detail. Considering how I had immersed myself into basic spearmanship like crazy before learning Six Ways of the Spear, they were a set of moves that I knew off by heart.
‘But why? Wasn’t it boxing in the last iteration?’
Fermack Daman was someone who fought with bare fists. He was a boxer known for controlling the gap, his dashes as well as his unique use of shadows. He was a famous Grade 1 Knight from the Berkut Academy of the North with Rune Magic installed in his gauntlets.
He was also known for changing the bare-handed fight curriculum of the army, which was why he picked boxing in the last iteration but…
‘Is it because of me?’
Did he notice something from the spearmanship I showed against Lunia Arden during the interim exam? In a way, I guess you could say Fermack Daman and I were the nephew and an uncle of a martial family.
It was normal for him to be in doubt after seeing my spearmanship - not that it mattered though.
“Why is it spear out of everything? No offense but don’t we have more students that are learning the sword?”
Fermack replied to the question raised by one of the students.
“There are a bunch of other people that learn swords.”
“...”
“Weapons each have their own profound secrets. If you don’t know the secrets of these other weapons, you’re bound to lose in an interpersonal battle.”
‘Sword wrestling’ was a prime example. This was something that was easily misunderstood, but the victor of a close combat fight with swords pushing against one another was not decided by pure strength.
In fact, it was commonplace for those that overly trusted in their strength to allow a strike to their vitals instead.
As one of the prime examples, in a sword wrestle, the victor could be decided in less than 0.5 seconds with one of them losing their heads.
The only way to combat these techniques was to practice without an end.
“You’ll have plenty of chances to see swords in the future but as for the weapons that are less mainstream like spears and fists, you will have less chances of seeing their skills. For example… Student Korin?”
“...Yes.”
In this lecture room of about 40 students, there were only six spear-users including myself. And out of those 6 people, it was natural for me to be chosen as someone who was rising in fame despite being a Grade 5 Knight.
After all, my stock price was breaking through the ceiling after the even fight against Sword Master Lunia Arden.
“What do you think are the advantages of a spear?”
“I would say it’s the ability to pressure the opponent from a distance, as well as the destructiveness of a long weapon.”
“That is correct. Why is that the case?”
“Because it is usually held with two hands, and it is easy to add weight and leverage into the spear.”
“Correct. It’s something you can also see by comparing weapons like greatswords and one-handed swords, but weapons always become more powerful the longer and heavier they are.” After saying that, Fermack pointed at one of the students who had their hand up. “Student Ranan. Do you have a question?”
Ranan replied, “Sir! Isn’t the sword still the strongest!? There are a lot of people learning it as well!”
His comment brought about a fierce retaliation.
“You’re saying that again! Long weapons are the best, okay?”
“Nope! Have you never heard of swords being the king of weapons? The sword’s definitely going to win in a close distance!”
“How about you try closing in the distance then~?”
Ahh. There was never a conclusion to this long debate. Which weapon was the real king of them all?
It was an important issue to young students. Actually, it was very important to adults as well.
“Haha. Then as someone who showed a wonderful fight against Sword Master Lunia Arden, how about you tell us, Student Korin?”
Why was he calling me again? The sharp gaze behind Professor Fermack’s sunglasses headed towards me.
“What do you think is the strongest weapon?”
I could probably give the reply of a model student but I didn’t feel the need to do so. Fermack was probably trying to see through me but… there was no need to bother hiding it from this bastard.
“Of course, the spear is the best and I am the strongest.”
“Boooo!!”
“He’s picking a fight with us!”
Haha. The jeers and irritated gazes of young and energetic students were all on me.
What are you going to do huh? Fight me?
“...”
I could also sense Hua Ran’s gaze in the mix. Umm… she’s not going to say something about this later is she?
Uhh… not you, of course.
***
Professor Fermack announced at the end of the lesson that the group assignment will be about explaining a basic spearmanship posture.
“In this assignment, you will form groups to freely choose a spearmanship style, research into it and demonstrate one skill.”
“Sir. Wouldn’t that make it way too good for the ones that already use a spear?”
“I will take that into account for the evaluation, by either extra marks or increasing their evaluation threshold. Each group will have 4 people and we will decide the groups by drawing lots.”
Fermack placed on the desk a box with numbered papers inside, and made the students take them out one by one.
There were 40 freshmen students of the Knight Department inside the lecture room. It was four in one group so that would make about 10 groups, and Korin and the other spear-users had already been divided into separate groups.
“I’m in Group 3. What’s yours, Korin?”
“Group 3.”
“Ohh, nice~.”
“...Mr. Korin is Group 3.”
After listening to the conversation between Jaeger and Korin, Alicia walked towards the box of lots. There was a 10% chance, and she hoped that the goddess of fate would be standing on her side.
Going up to the front desk, she lined up behind Hua Ran in her chained nun clothes who had just finished picking a number.
“Student Hua Ran. What group are you in?” asked Professor Fermack.
“Group 3.”
“Okay. Korin Lork, Hua Ran and Jaeger Hinzpeter in Group 3.”
‘T, there’s only one left now!’
Wouldn’t that lower the chance significantly? Alicia nervously threw her hand into the box of lots.
‘Group 3! Group 3! Group 3…!’
She immediately took a paper out which read…
“Alicia Arden. Group 8.”
“...Ah.”
The goddess of fate wasn’t standing on her side. And immediately after that…
“Dorron Warsky, Group 3.”
“Ah…”
Her lament reached the ears of Dorron who had just pulled his lot. He looked back and forth between his paper and Alicia before giving her a seemingly gentle suggestion.
“Do you want to swap?”
“C, can we please?!”
“Well, it will be a slight loss for me, but it’s not like I can’t.”
“Mr. Dorron… You were a nice person!”
Alicia walked up to Dorron’s paper with sparkling eyes but Dorron retrieved it in the blink of an eye.
“???”
“20 silver coins.”
“A, are you charging money for that?!”
“There’s nothing free in this world, Lady Arden.”
“That’s too expensive!”
“Well… if you think about the opportunity cost, I’d say I’m making a loss.”
“What do you mean?”
“What I mean, is that you don’t have to buy it if you don’t want to.”
He cold-heartedly turned around so Alicia rapidly grabbed on the end of his clothes. She was so fast that even the veteran mercenary Dorron could not react in time.
“I, I will give you the money.”
The purse of the poor girl opened with a shiver.
｢Group Assignment, Group 3｣
Hua Ran
Korin Lork
Alicia Arden
Jaeger Hinzpeter
There was a bit of corruption and a secret negotiation but the members of the Group Assignment were thus decided.
“The assignment will be due 2 weeks later during this lesson. On the weekdays, you can study by borrowing some books from the library and you can practice at the training rooms or the festival hall.”
With that, the lesson ended ahead of time for the groups to each discuss their plans.
“First off. Who should we choose for our group leader?”
“...”
“...”
“...”
Korin’s words were like an own goal because the three of them all turned to him at the same time as if they had promised on it beforehand.
It was going just like every other group assignment of modern Earth.
Translator’s Note:
Group assignments in Korea are infamous for having uncooperative members (it’s used like a meme at this point), and the group leader usually shoulders the blame if something goes wrong.