Chapter 50
The day after Ian held me and teased me.
As soon as we got to the academy, we heard some shocking news.
“So… the two of us are supposed to defend the base?”
“That’s right. You’re asymmetric forces, after all.”
“Hmm…”
In other words, Ian and I would be a team defending the bases, while every other student would be on the attacking team.
“…Isn’t that still completely unbalanced?”
“Of course, I’ll impose several other handicaps on you, too.”
“Well, I guess we can handle that…”
Honestly, I’d expected there to be some handicaps.
I just hadn’t expected them to be this extreme.
“But… even so, can the other students beat us? I hate to say it, but even back when I was El, Ian was the only one who could beat me.”
“Of course they can’t. They won’t have the slightest chance.”
“?”
Then why were we even doing this exercise?
“But that’s in a normal battle. It’s a different story if this is a siege.”
“No matter how many people there are, we can’t defend one base…”
“It’s a siege with three bases.”
…?
“What?”
“Just as I said. You have to defend a whopping three bases. And they’re all far apart.”
“So, in the end…”
-You’ll have to run yourselves to death.
…You bastard.
…
“So… the two of us have to defend three bases at the far ends of the training grounds? Just you and me?”
“Yeah.”
“What the hell is this…”
I thought so too.
Honestly, when it came to first-year academy students, I was confident I could defend three bases even if hundreds of them came at us.
But what if the bases were that far apart?
Capturing a base was as simple as going in and changing the flag, so all the attacking team had to do was target whichever base we weren’t guarding.
To stop that, we’d have to keep running between all three bases.
“…Aren’t those pretty far apart?”
“About a minute at full speed.”
“…So normally, that’s a distance that would take hours to cover.”
That… was true.
The bases were roughly 50 to 60 kilometers apart.
A distance that would take an adult man five hours to cover.
I was certainly amazing for being able to cover it in just a minute, but a minute was still enough time for a base to fall if we weren’t careful.
You could ask, “What kind of academy training ground is this huge?!” but…
This was another world.
It was a fantasy world with things like space-expansion magic, so this was allowed.
The fact that the academy’s own training grounds were a forest said it all.
More than that, what bothered me was that losing even one base meant defeat.
“Flight is prohibited. Aura Blades are prohibited. We’ll be using wooden swords, too. That part doesn’t really matter, but…”
“Losing even one of the three bases means defeat. And we can’t communicate with each other, either…”
This is ridiculously tough.
For the record, we were now in the center of the training grounds.
The other students should be gathered around the southern base on the outskirts of the training grounds.
It’d be nice if we could just capture the southern base and call it a win, but…
Naturally, that option was blocked right away.
-Absolutely! Do not attack the southern base! If you do, you’re disqualified!
The fact they’d forbidden us from even attacking it, not just capturing it, meant we couldn’t just rush over at the start and wipe them all out.
“Haa…”
“Ahaha… Let’s just do our best for now, Plia. If we lose this, Arin’s going to tease us for days!”
“Come on. Surely…”
It was scary because Arin really seemed like she would.
-Aww! You’re a Swordmaster, and you lost to a bunch of first-years? You’re so pathetic!
A bratty Arin…
-Shiver---
Ugh. I got chills.
“…We really are going to have to run around like crazy.”
“Yeah…”
So we wouldn’t get bullied by bratty Arin.
…
“Today, you’re going to have to beat two Swordmasters.”
When I first heard those words, I thought our teacher had finally lost his mind.
‘If there are two Swordmasters, they must mean Plia and Ian.’
We had to beat those two?
That was a completely insane thing to ask.
That was what I thought at first.
Yes. At first.
But once I heard about the restrictions placed on the two of them, I began to see a glimmer of hope.
‘We win by capturing just one of the three bases. Each base is incredibly far apart, and capturing a base is easy.’
That meant Plia and Ian would have to run themselves ragged to win, too.
If they stayed at one base for too long, the others would already be captured.
On top of that, Ian and Plia weren’t allowed to attack us first.
They were giving us so many advantages that they practically wanted us to win.
Of course, even with all those restrictions, there was still a high chance the attacking team would lose.
They could travel between bases in one or two minutes, and they had overwhelming strength.
Those two things alone made the attackers’ chances of winning vanishingly small.
An unfair gap in talent.
But…
‘I already know that!’
I’d watched the two of them more closely than anyone else.
I may have envied their talent, but I never let it get me down.
“All right, everyone! Gather over here! I’ll explain the plan!”
The students turned to look at me.
Thankfully, no one gave me a look that said, Who do you think you are?
Of course not. Everyone knew I was closest to those two!
“A plan… What do you mean?”
Gen, who’d once been on the same team as me, asked.
What did I mean? Why, obviously—
“We charge head-on!”
“Charge head-on?”
“Shut up and charge!”
…
As soon as the exercise began, we split up and ran toward the western and eastern bases.
I was in charge of the east. Ian was headed west.
My strategy was simple.
First, we’d ignore the northern base, the one farthest from the southern base, and secure the western and eastern bases.
Then we’d take down anyone who came our way, before running north to secure that base, too.
Since the northern base was the farthest away, they’d reach it last.
That was the plan, but…
“…Why aren’t they coming?”
It had already been two hours since I arrived in the east.
Even though the distance would take hours for an ordinary person, these were academy students, even if they were first-years. They should be reaching the northern base about now…
“Ah.”
Did they seriously just run straight north?!
…
We ignored the eastern and western bases and started running north.
“Hey… Are you sure this is going to work?”
“Yes! Definitely!”
Plia would surely be with Ian at one of the eastern or western bases.
Then she’d quickly take down the attacking team that went that way and run north.
She’d think that was the most efficient approach.
But what if all twenty-seven of us ran north from the start?
We might be able to capture the base right away.
The only problem was…
“Why is it so far?!”
Right. The distance.
The northern base, the farthest one from the south, was about forty percent farther away than the other bases.
Forty percent might not sound like much, but it was already ridiculously far, so adding another forty percent made a huge difference.
This is exhausting…
No, setting aside how exhausting it was, if it took this long, Plia or Ian might notice.
No, they’d definitely notice.
They were airheads when it came to romance, but annoyingly sharp about everything else.
Phew… We have to hurry.
“Everyone! Hang in there a little longer! The base is right ahead!”
After running for about two hours, the base was finally right in front of us.
Now all we had to do was go in and switch the flag…
-KWA-BOOM!
“Sorry, but I can’t let you do that.”
“…Plia.”
Damn it. She’d figured it out already.
It was also unexpected that Plia had come first.
I hadn’t thought she’d realize it before Ian…
It’d be nice if she were an airhead sometimes, too.
Plia came down dramatically from the air, pointing a wooden sword at us.
She definitely fell like that just to get attention, right? She was starved for attention, after all.
“I can’t believe you’d abandon the other bases and run north… If you’d been just a little faster, I would’ve lost in a ridiculous way.”
“Tch. I’m the one who can’t believe Plia noticed so quickly. You’re usually such an airhead.”
“A-an airhead…?”
Plia had tried to look cool, but her confidence immediately crumpled.
Hmph! You should’ve done better in the first place.
“Everyone! Ignore Plia and keep running! We only need one person to get inside!”
Taking advantage of Plia’s dejection, I shouted to the other students.
Fortunately, Ian still wasn’t here.
We’d definitely lose if we fought Plia, but if we avoided her and just captured the base, maybe we could!
-Let’s go!
-Screw it!
-Uwooooh!!
As soon as I said that, the other students started running toward the base.
Heh heh! Try and stop us, Plia!
We’re not going to fight you!
…
That scared me.
As soon as I realized they were targeting the north, I ran north at full speed.
The first thing I saw when I arrived was Arin and the other students, just about to reach the base.
I couldn’t believe they’d really run straight north…
-KWA-BOOM!
“Sorry, but I can’t let you do that.”
I dropped into a perfect hero landing.
Heh. Everyone’s looking at me. Wasn’t that cool?
That hero landing was insanely cool.
“I can’t believe you’d abandon the other bases and run north… If you’d been just a little faster, I would’ve lost in a ridiculous way.”
I even tried the standard line you always use in a moment like this.
Usually it was just a bluff, but… for me, it wasn’t really a bluff.
I could take people like them out in no time…
“Tch. I’m the one who can’t believe Plia noticed so quickly. You’re usually such an airhead.”
Eh?
“A-an airhead…?”
Was that… really how people saw me?