The Academy’s Hard-Headed Swordmaster

According to Lanchester’s laws, when forces of equal capability fight each other, the side with the greater numbers will always win.

Both Kyle and Victor knew this very well.

Victor assumed that for Kyle to have any chance of victory, he would have to resort to a surprise attack from hiding or a stealthy assault on the main camp.

Kyle did none of these things.

He charged head-on with twenty soldiers armed with swords.

At that moment, the feeling Victor experienced was akin to the bewilderment one feels upon encountering someone utterly foolish.

‘What is he doing…?

Doesn’t he know that with this kind of difference in numbers, even with a knight present, victory is impossible…?’

While Victor was baffled, Kyle, at the forefront of his soldiers, felt constricted by his own body.

He felt the weight of the armor he wore and the sword he carried, and his weakened physique was already panting from a mere few dozen meters of running.

Neither the Aura that granted him transcendent vitality nor the body he had trained for over a decade remained.

The only thing left was the swordsmanship he had honed his entire life.

That was enough.

“Block him!”

At Victor’s command, the soldiers who had been waiting launched their spears simultaneously.

Their movements were so precise and synchronized, like clockwork, that even ferocious beasts like tigers or lions would seem to have difficulty overcoming them.

But Kyle was different. Kyle thrust his sword into the gap exposed between the spears, disrupting their balance.

A path, just wide enough for one, opened up.

Slipping through this gap, Kyle cleanly beheaded a soldier.

‘Swish!’

As a fountain of blood splattered across the fifty soldiers, Kyle grinned and looked at Victor, who was giving orders from afar.

“─Just you wait.”

He swung his sword. One soldier fell.

He swung his sword again. Three soldiers crumpled to the ground.

In the past, before things like Aura existed, it was said that someone who could single-handedly take on three armed soldiers was called a Sword Master.

Then what should Kyle be called now─ as he carved a path through dozens of soldiers with a single sword?

Witnessing this unbelievable sight, Victor realized a shocking truth.

Every time the sword flashed, a soldier lost their life.

The blade flashed once a second, so it would take less than a minute for his entire force to be annihilated.

“N-No way!”

Wondering if perhaps his soldiers’ combat strength was exceptionally low, Victor quickly grabbed a spear and thrust it towards the enemy soldiers.

However, the enemy soldier who effortlessly parried his thrust countered with his own spear, and Victor, his hand injured, let out a faint cry of pain, dropped his spear, and retreated.

Since it was an illusion, he felt no pain, but the fact that his hand wouldn’t move at all, even without pain, was paradoxically more terrifying.

“What are you doing?”

“Uh, uhk—!”

Having slaughtered all thirty of Victor’s soldiers while he was momentarily distracted, Kyle wiped the blood from his sword and looked down at Victor.

Seeing him trembling in fear, Kyle felt no desire to torment him further.

He swiftly swung his sword, beheading him.

Thirty-one. The time it took to cut down all the enemy soldiers: 1 minute and 38 seconds.

Victor, whose entire force had been annihilated in less than 100 seconds, was nicknamed the “Instant Noodle Student” and the “Premature Student.”

* * *

The Academy is a training facility for gifted individuals established by the Empire, and this facility is filled with not only commoners but also numerous renowned nobles.

Thanks to this, the Academy boasts top-of-the-line facilities that surpass anywhere else in the Empire, and the dining hall is so exceptional that the First Prince declared it “better than the Imperial Palace” during his time at the Academy.

Today was my first meal in that very dining hall. I steadied my excited heart and waited in line for my food.

“Kyle.”

As I stood in line, Yuri, from afar, jumped the entire queue and came up right behind me.

She stood next to me as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

Unable to condone such blatant line-cutting, even from a noble and my fiancée, I spoke firmly.

“Yuri, even nobles shouldn’t cut in line─.”

“Hey, I’ll buy your spot. How much?”

“Uh, yes? …Thank you!”

Before I could even finish my sentence about cutting in line, Yuri had already handed money to the student behind her and switched places.

The student who received the money grinned and went to the back of the line, and Yuri shrugged as if to say there was no problem now.

“What?”

“…Just curious, how much did you give him?”

“100,000 Cash.”

“For that money, you could’ve…”

Roughly converted, that meant she had paid 100,000 won for this spot.

With that money, she could have bought two spots at the very front of the line─ Not that it was my place to say, but she was quite foolish.

However, whether it was the composure befitting a Duke’s daughter or simply a lack of financial sense, Yuri remained nonchalant as she clung to me.

“Kyle, who was that girl earlier?”

“That girl earlier? Who?”

“The blonde girl you were with.”

Yuri’s words made me recall the entrance ceremony.

Aria, whom I had befriended at the entrance ceremony.

Yuri must have seen me close to her, strangely without any sense of distance between us.

At the time, Yuri was waiting at the front of the auditorium to give the representative oath, so she couldn’t approach me.

After the ceremony, we each went to our respective classrooms, so there wasn’t really a time to ask.

Having never imagined that she would still be dwelling on that, I scratched my cheek and explained.

“She’s just the girl who sits next to me.”

“That close?”

“Was I?”

“…Kyle, I don’t intend to interfere with you talking to or being friendly with other girls. However─.”

Yuri’s eyes sparkled as she looked at me.

“Don’t forget that you’re the future son-in-law of the Grace Duchy. I’m your fiancée.”

“…O-Oh.”

A busty woman’s assertive demeanor makes a real man uneasy…!

Recoiling at the voice echoing in my head, I quickly turned and picked up the two trays that had appeared before us.

“Food’s here, let’s go!”

Picking up her tray and quickly moving to a table, Yuri stared intently at the back of my head before following.

After settling down at a relatively empty table and starting our meal, I realized that the rumors about the Academy dining hall were not false.

“Wow─.”

“…Mmm, hmm.”

Yuri, who had been about to say something to me, closed her mouth and buried her face in her tray.

It seemed her voracious appetite hadn’t changed since childhood.

Discreetly─ I handed her my dessert.

Seeing this, Yuri looked back and forth between me and the dessert, hesitated for a moment, and then carefully took it.

“…Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Enjoy.”

“Mm.”

As I watched Yuri happily devour her dessert after finishing her meal in a blink of an eye, I felt someone approach.

A familiar presence. A presence my body remembered but my mind couldn’t place. Turning my head slightly at this strange sensation, I saw a blonde, slick-looking pretty boy standing next to me.

After tilting my head and observing him for a moment, I finally recognized a familiar aspect in his face.

“Bellion!”

“As expected─ It is Kyle, isn’t it?”

“Hahaha! You enrolled in the Academy too?”

“Yeah. Even if the Imperial family doesn’t want to, we have to.”

“Really? Ah, come on, have a seat!”

As I offered Bellion the seat next to me, Yuri, who had been completely absorbed in her dessert, suddenly shuddered and started coughing.

Handing her a glass of water, Yuri quickly gulped it down and let out a ragged breath.

“Haa… Greetings, Your Highness.”

“What’s with the formality, Yuri? Aren’t we friends?”

“That’s… right.”

“Then why are you speaking so formally? Relax. Look at him.”

Bellion pointed at me as he observed Yuri’s awkwardness.

“He’s been casual with me since the first time we met. You should do the same.”

“…I’ll… try.”

“Okay. I look forward to it.”

After Bellion joined us, we began catching up on all the lost time since we last saw each other. We talked about what had happened since the last birthday party and what we had been up to.

“By the way, Bellion, what department are you in?”

“Me? I’m in the Arts Department.”

“Oh, really? I know someone there. Her name is Aria…”

As we chatted, Bellion naturally tried to gauge Kyle’s level.

He was still an Aura user, but the Imperial Aura breathing techniques and Magic Power refinement methods he had learned made this possible.

‘…I can’t see it?’

Five years ago, Bellion could sense the powerful Aura flowing within Kyle.

Though his body was still young, the Aura within him was no less potent than that of other Imperial Knights.

Five years had passed, and he firmly believed Kyle would have grown incomparably stronger than he was back then.

However, strangely, he couldn’t sense a single shred of Aura from Kyle. It was as if he had never learned Aura at all.

Since this was practically impossible, Bellion cautiously asked Kyle,

“Kyle, have you… been in any accidents?”

“Huh? What kind of accident?”

“Any serious injuries, or any near-death experiences?”

“Not that I remember.”

Hearing this, Bellion looked at him in disbelief.

However much he looked, Kyle couldn’t seem to recall any life-threatening incidents.

That meant there was a high probability that he hadn’t lost his Aura. More importantly—his attendant had told him that Kyle had received a perfect score on Gawain’s practical exam, something no one had ever achieved before.

It was highly likely that he still possessed that overwhelming skill.

“Come to think of it—I heard you caused some trouble during class today.”

“Huh? Me?”

“Yeah. What was it… something about cooking instant noodles?”

“Ah, that wasn’t me─.”

As Bellion listened to Kyle’s subsequent tale of valor, he became certain.

Kyle hadn’t lost his Aura.

It was Bellion who could no longer perceive it.

And there was only one possible explanation for that.

‘It can’t be.’

There was a saying that what remains after eliminating the impossible, however improbable, must be the truth. But Bellion couldn’t bring himself to believe this possibility.

‘…Master…?’

Bellion couldn’t believe that his close friend had reached the Master level.

After all,

“Hahaha!”

Looking at that innocent, foolish expression, he couldn’t believe that Kyle was hiding such immense power.

‘It can’t be true…’