087

There was none of the excruciating pain I usually felt when I swung my sword.

The reason was obvious.

I hadn't swung my sword at all.

All I had done was look at my opponent's stance, predict his swordsmanship, and then push my sword into a space he hadn't anticipated.

I hadn't used any particular force, nor had I thrust quickly.

I hadn't paid attention to my wrist or grip, nor had I worried about his counterattack.

'So this is it.'

I thought that even after taking the elixir, there was no particular increase in my abilities, but I was wrong.

My eyes had gotten better.

It wasn't just that I could see my opponent's stance well; it felt like I was seeing the future, how they would attack.

“……*gasp*.”

The man quickly got back on his feet, but the shock seemed to be quite significant.

His pupils were constantly shaking, and his breathing was much more ragged.

“Wh-what… is this kind of swordsmanship? I can't believe it! Wh-what the hell!”

“It's not swordsmanship.”

I told him honestly.

To call such a crude technique swordsmanship was an insult to my pride as someone who refines the art of the sword.

“Magic, are you a mage! To mock the army of the Empire with such a bizarre and outlandish magic, cough?”

But before he could finish his sentence, a hand appeared from behind him and wrapped around his neck.

“Kuhk?!”

A thick forearm squeezed his windpipe.

The man's face turned red as if it would burst at any moment.

He wanted to swing his sword, but two more people had already approached and taken his sword away.

“Keck, keck!”

“Hey, hey, breathe! You'll die if you don't breathe. Breathe!”

The man who had grabbed him from behind was a giant of a man over 2 meters tall.

He had short green hair, almost a buzz cut, and long bar piercings in both ears.

His bare upper body was three times larger and thicker than that of an ordinary person.

His sharp, wolf-like eyes and pointed canines made him feel more like a beast than a human.

Most of all, that expression, that smiling expression as if it were all a joke while he was choking the man as if to really kill him.

That expression made him feel even less human.

“He's really going to die. It'll be a pain if we kill an envoy from the Imperial army.”

The woman who had taken the man's sword tapped the green-haired man as if to calm him down.

The green-haired man spat, ptooey, as if he were bored, and relaxed his arm.

With a slither, the man from the army slumped to the ground like a piece of paper.

“Hey, hey, are you the teacher who's supposed to teach us the sword? You were doing something interesting earlier. Thwack! Thwack! Huh? Hmm? Thwack! Uh-huh?”

The giant man, having lost all interest in the envoy from the army, strode over to me and shoved his face in mine.

His chin was pointed and his cheekbones protruded, giving him a thuggish feel.

“Avril sent you.”

“Hehe, can I learn that? Huh? The thing where you go swish and then ugh? The thing where you go swish and push the other guy. But do you need that? Huh?”

Instead of answering, I took a step back and looked at his entire body.

This man seemed to fight only with his body.

The thickly piled muscles were not just muscles, but no different from armor itself.

Most of all, his hands.

The muscles in his upper body and arms were impressive, but his huge hands and fingers, which looked twice as big as an ordinary person's, were covered in muscle.

'He doesn't have a sword, so he can use his whole body freely.'

Dozens of times more trajectories than the previous messenger complexly constricted me from all sides.

Moreover, many of those trajectories were not ones that could be simply dodged.

If I did, I had a gut feeling that those destructive hands would squeeze my shoulders, arms, and legs.

I had to cut him.

So I cut him.

Thwack.

I made a knife hand and drew a line from his left clavicle to his right side.

A hard sensation, as if I had touched stone, was felt at my fingertips, but.

“Huh?”

The opponent blinked his eyes, looking flustered.

“Tea? Cher? What did you just do? Huh? How did you touch my body? But what's this? It hurts? Huh? You just touched me. But huh? Am I dead now?”

They were, after all, personnel selected by Avril to take over Goldline.

Each one of them must have been exceptionally skilled.

Perhaps that's why they were quick to grasp the meaning of what I had just done.

Just as the green-haired man's demeanor was about to change.

“That's enough.”

The various people who had filled the passage restrained the man.

The soldier who had been pressuring us until just a moment ago was gone without a trace, and nearly twenty people were staring at me.

“Teacher Cassian.”

In the center of them stood a man who looked like he would be a drunkard in a bar.

He was wearing a raincoat that had been carelessly thrown on, and it was hard to guess when it had last been properly washed and ironed. His untrimmed beard ran messily from his chin to his sideburns.

He was chewing on an unlit cigarette in his mouth, which had turned a brownish color from being chewed for a long time.

His overall impression was hazy, but.

'There are the most of them.'

The sword paths flowing from that middle-aged man were so vast that they numbered nearly a thousand, and no matter how I looked, I couldn't see any openings.

Even Rozalin had never been a case where it was difficult to find an opening.

“Avril told us you were to teach us.”

“……Are you Avril's, Goldline's escort unit?”

“Well, some are, some aren't. I'm Raipen. I look forward to working with you.”

His words were clearly a greeting, but his attitude was not at all.

Raipen didn't nod or extend his hand, but simply conveyed his name and the situation as if he were making a report.

It was closer to a report than a greeting.

And after he had finished saying his piece, he turned around and started walking back out into the hallway.

'Why are Avril and the guys under him all like this?'

I didn't like the look of it.

“For someone who says they look forward to working with me, you've been watching for quite a long time. Are you sure you're going to cooperate properly?”

I had known they were nearby since I came out of Avril's room.

It was thanks to my heightened senses after my Mana Roads were established.

They had been leaning against the outside of the passage since the moment I entered Avril's room.

The reason the messenger from the army, whom Avril was supposed to have dealt with, was able to find us was also related to them.

Normally, they should have 'dealt' with him so he wouldn't have reached us.

But whether it was Avril's order or Raipen's whim, they had not stopped the soldier and had simply sent him to us.

“Did you want to test me? To see if I was capable of teaching.”

The man continued to walk without responding to my words.

The people next to him also glanced at me and followed behind Raipen.

They seemed to be completely ignoring my words.

Except for one person.

The green-haired man tilted his head with a curious expression and looked at me.

When our eyes met, he stuck out his long, lizard-like tongue and smiled.

His eyes were like those of someone who had marked their prey.

And so they disappeared beyond the hallway, leaving behind only a strange storm.

'……It won't be easy.'

Even if they were uncooperative, I had no choice but to teach them.

Because this guy, Qantaii, was being held hostage.

Perhaps that performance earlier was an order from Avril.

To imprint on me that there were many soldiers who would come for Qantaii with a grudge at any moment.

I turned my head and looked at Qantaii.

“Hoo, hoowa. Ah.”

He, having relaxed, had slumped to the floor and was panting.

He was so startled that his breathing was shallow and shaky.

But his breathing was returning, and the color was slowly returning to his face, which had turned pale with shock.

I waited until Qantaii had calmed down a bit more.

When it seemed he had finally calmed down completely.

“I think we have more to talk about.”

Qantaii nodded with a firm expression and we moved to another location.

The place we went to was Qantaii's office.

Even after locking the door, Qantaii hesitated for a long time before placing his hand on his mustache.

With a pop, the firmly attached mustache came off.

A reddish mark was left on his upper lip.

That was not the end.

Qantaii took a cream from his desk drawer, smeared it on both hands, and then spread it wide and rubbed his face.

Then, the skin that had been attached to his face peeled off like dead skin.

And what was revealed was the face of a typical woman in her 20s.

'Well, it was a little strange from the beginning.'

From his face to his body, Qantaii's entire frame was straight and delicate, with almost no muscle.

He was so slender that he was skinny, and his large clothes barely covered his body.

After removing the skin that had been attached to his face, his current physique and lines suited him well.

“Were you a noble?”

The person who came from the army had called Qantaii by the name Isadora Silvarena.

I had heard the name Silvarena once before.

“Not of the Empire.”

“I was from a viscount family in the Kingdom of Piome to the north.”

To the northwest of the Empire was the Great Forest, the home of the barbarians led by the Wolf King, and to the northeast was the glacier region full of monsters.

The Kingdom of Piome existed on the border between the glacier region and the Empire.

The Kingdom of Piome, like the Kingdom of Belmein, was a vassal state of the Empire, and served as a forward base to prevent the monsters of the northern glacier region from crossing over into the Empire.

'That's why many people from the Kingdom of Piome enlist in the Imperial army.'

If they were going to serve in the army anyway, it was better to serve in a higher-ranking unit, leave the Kingdom of Piome, and succeed in the Empire.

Qantaii, or Isadora, was also a person who had been commissioned in that way.

“While subjugating the monsters of the glacier region, I saw the slash-and-burn farmers living in the Great Forest.”

“Those who went into the Great Forest must be those who fled from the clutches of the Empire.”

“From the looks of it, they had been starving for at least a month. Especially the children……”

Isadora stopped there and shut her mouth.

“Your superior ordered you to kill them?”

“It was said to be the initiation ceremony for the new recruits who had just been commissioned. That's when I realized. The unit had not accidentally encountered them while subjugating monsters, but had been monitoring them for a long time.”

Just listening to the explanation, I could picture the scene at that time.

The fact that Isadora had mentioned the children and then shut her mouth must have meant that there was an impressive child among the group.

And if the prisoners were starving as if they hadn't eaten for a month, the condition of the children would have been the worst.

“To kill them… to torture and abuse prisoners who could have been just fed and persuaded……”

Isadora's voice trembled as if she couldn't control her emotions.

A faint wetness could be felt.

But Isadora cleared her throat, hmph, and took a deep breath, composing herself.

“It seemed that my superiors, and their superiors, everyone who had gone through this unit had had a similar commissioning ceremony. So I killed them. I got the five of them drunk, locked them in a tent, and set it on fire.”

I had no intention of reprimanding her for her actions.

“I understand.”

“……I apologize. It seems I have caused you unnecessary trouble.”

“No.”

I probably would have done something similar if I had been there.

No matter if it was wartime, I didn't want to consider guys who had given up their humanity in that way as my superiors.

“But you'll have to help me with something.”

“What is it?”

“Avril said there were 100 of them.”

“Can the two of us teach all 100 of them?”

Isadora said with a lack of confidence.

“No.”

I shook my head.

“It's not just the two of us who will be teaching.”

Since things have come to this, I'm going to make a little show of force myself.

I just got a good graduate student recently, after all.

Isadora blinked her eyes, not understanding what I meant.