Chapter 71

Chapter 71. False Master (1)

I raised my hand to object.

“Wait, wait a moment……. Agh!”

THWACK!

I raised my hand, but Katrine’s sword did not stop, and I was struck hard with the flat of her blade before tumbling across the ground.

“Ah, sorry. I was so focused that I did not see you raise your hand.”

Katrine apologized with a regretful expression.

As if someone of her ability failed to sense my movement?

The corners of your mouth are clearly turned up right now!

However, this was a sparring match everyone was watching. I could not lose my temper at her.

As I staggered to my feet, she asked me,

“Why did you stop? It did seem about time to stop, though.”

“No, no matter how I think about it, this does not seem like a proper spar. We are not even using mana, so fighting based on sword aura makes no sense, does it?”

“Ah, that is true. It does not make sense.”

At my words, she nodded. It seemed she had realized it too.

“But, well, it was enough to check your ability.”

However, at her following words, I had no choice but to sigh.

In the end, it seemed I had to treat it not as a proper spar, but as a round of exercise.

On top of that, when I ended the spar and looked around, it seemed several misunderstandings had formed.

Ugh. I had intended to show enough skill so that they would not look down on me, but surely this would not turn into one of those clichés from novels in my previous life.

“Now you all know your own ability, do you not? It would be better to take pride in being awakened nobles only after your ability rises high enough to match the value of your noble names!”

Katrine climbed back onto the platform and thundered at the students.

“We nobles are not a privileged class merely because we possess inherited abilities. We are acknowledged by the people because we have used those abilities to stop monsters and foreign enemies, and because we still continue to stop them. Those who look down on knights or others without possessing proper ability will be personally trained by me through sparring until they gain that ability, so prepare yourselves firmly.”

The sight of Katrine standing on the platform, resting one hand on her sword as she shouted, was so impressive and admirable that I almost wanted to clap like a seal.

The problem was that there was no way those nobles and noble-like creatures sprawled across the ground would understand those words.

The Great War, and then the founding of the kingdom, had happened hundreds of years ago.

Duty was becoming a mere formality, and rights had already solidified into privileges.

Since rank was determined based on practical ability, there was no chance of a revolution breaking out either.

In the end, this place, too, could only continue to rot beneath a rigid hierarchy.

But, well, that had little to do with me. I had enough problems of my own to worry about such grand matters.

And so the afternoon class also ended.

The first day of class.

Zero friends. Zero conversation partners.

It seemed my status as an outcast had more or less been confirmed.

Carrying that sigh-inducing result with me, I returned to my dormitory room.

My roommate had not returned yet.

In the end, it seemed I would have to eat dinner alone too. No, even if my roommate had been there, I might still have eaten alone.

I threw that gloomy prediction out of my head and quickly finished my meal.

Then I roughly did my homework, and soon it was time to sleep.

In other words, it was time for the dormitory curfew.

However, Piar had still not returned. Was he already staying out without permission?

Staying out without even telling me? Then there was no reason to cover for him.

I immediately went to the dormitory office on the first floor of the building.

“My roommate has not returned yet.”

“Ah, Student Piar has a visitor, so he has been granted a one-day overnight leave.”

“Ah, is that so?”

No, they should have told me in advance. Or was Piar the one who should have told me? In any case, it had been a wasted trip.

I shook my head and was about to go back upstairs when something flashed through my mind.

I turned around and asked the dormitory staff member again.

“Is only Piar staying out? He also has a cousin, Mirisa.”

“Ah, Mirisa is also staying out……. Oh dear, I am not supposed to talk about the female students’ side. I would appreciate it if you pretended you did not hear that.”

Leaving behind the staff member, who spoke with an awkward expression, I went back up to my room.

They had a visitor, and both of them were staying out.

Their territory was not close to the capital, and if it was family, then it should be the family of a village chief from the countryside. Their family had come to the capital and taken both of them out overnight?

It seemed I would be able to finish this matter sooner than expected.

I returned to my room, hurriedly changed clothes, and opened my bag.

Then I took out the dagger I had hidden deep inside.

I had the greatsword standing against the wall, but for a nighttime outing, the dagger Katrine had given me was the most suitable.

When I gripped the dagger after so long, it felt as though electricity ran across my palm.

After speaking to me for the first time, this dagger had never spoken again.

Hoping that one day it would speak to me once more, I tucked the dagger at my waist.

Finally, I draped over myself the cloak that had proven useful at the marquess’s house.

After turning off the light in the room and arranging the pillow and blanket to make it look as though someone was sleeping, I opened the window.

I raised my mana.

WOOONG. WOOONG. WOOONG.

A pleasant energy wrapped around my entire body.

In the distance, I sensed the energy I had planted.

The reason I had gone to the trouble of becoming Piar’s roommate was also to plant my energy on him.

It took some time to locate the energy, but fortunately, I could tell the direction he was in.

As expected, it was an unexpected direction.

I slipped out the window, closed it, and launched myself forward.

Beneath a night filled with clouds.

A young ability user dressed in black crossed through the academy.

---

Mana allowed inherited abilities to be used, and it allowed knights to wield swords through mana training arts.

The world into which I had reincarnated was built upon mana.

Before the Great War, even the Old Empire had been led by Mages and knights who used mana.

Because of the Great War, knights had lowered their status and magic had declined, but the inherited abilities that emerged during the Great War were also based on this very mana.

Inherited abilities overwhelmed the mana of knights with their tremendous power, but unfortunately, inherited abilities were difficult to use in diverse ways like magic or a knight’s sword.

If knights and Mages were ordinary infantry, then each inherited ability was like a specialized, high-firepower weapon such as a cannon or a fighter plane.

I had read in books that during the Old Empire era, some Mages had also unleashed magic with terrifying power comparable to inherited abilities.

However, since that transmission had been severed around the time of the Great War, it was a meaningless story now.

For that reason, since I possessed both a body-enhancement-type inherited ability and a knight’s mana, I could use two abilities at the same time.

On top of that, if I added my mana detection ability, which surpassed that of others, I could plant my energy on someone else like this and track them even from afar.

Still, I could not track them if they were too far away. Fortunately, the target was not very far from the academy.

After running for quite some time and leaping over a wall topped with protruding iron bars, I saw the target right in front of me.

The place where I sensed the target was a commercial district not far from the academy’s main gate.

It was a street where shops aimed at academy visitors and academy students were gathered.

There were various restaurants, gift shops, and even lodging facilities.

It reminded me of the shopping streets in front of universities or the garrison-town commercial districts near military bases that I had seen in my previous life.

Perhaps because of that, just like the shopping streets of my previous life, most of the lights in the district were off at this time of night.

However, perhaps because it was in front of the academy, a few streetlamps were lit, so it was not dark enough to make walking impossible.

‘It is not an inn?’

Avoiding the streetlamps, I carefully followed the scent of mana, but the destination I arrived at, contrary to my expectations, was an ordinary shop.

Because the door was closed, I could not know for certain, but it seemed to be a shop that sold souvenirs.

“It is not an inn, and yet suspicious energy is leaking out all over the place.”

It was a fairly large shop building, with the first floor used as a store and the second floor apparently used as living quarters.

The scent of mana I had planted was flowing from the second floor of the building, where the lights had not yet gone out.

“What should I do now?”

I stared at the window on the second floor and sank into thought.

---

In the lit room on the second floor, three people were talking.

“……And so, everyone was startled.”

“Oh?”

“Still, they did not look down on us as much as I thought they would. No, I suppose it would be more accurate to say they did not pay attention to us at all.”

The girl excitedly recounted everything that had happened, and the man nodded along.

“Who would pay attention to people like us? There is the son of a duke, the heir of a count’s house, and even a princess there.”

“Ah, I did hear that Princess Aisha had enrolled.”

“Exactly. As long as we do not pointlessly step forward, commoners like us receive no attention at all.”

At the boy’s words, the man agreed.

“Thanks to you, Master, we were able to avoid making mistakes. We did not know anything about noble etiquette. If we had come without hearing it from you first, we would have caused trouble several times.”

“Sister is right.”

The boy Piar and his cousin looked happily at the master who had led them all the way here.

They had been startled when they heard that someone had come to visit late in the afternoon, but to think it was their master.

Piar and Mirisa had rushed out to the visiting room at the main gate in surprise.

There, the two of them met the person attending their master and came to a shop that had supposedly been prepared as temporary lodging. They had been talking there until now.

The two cousins’ master, who had the common name Louis, was a thin man who looked as though he was moving from youth into middle age.

He gave off a somewhat cold impression, but to Piar and Mirisa, he had always been a warm person.

He was the master they had parted from in their village long before coming to the capital, so the two of them were extremely glad that he had appeared so suddenly.

And their master comforted the two children.

“I am glad you have been enduring well.”

“You gave us our abilities and sent us all the way here, Master. This much is nothing.”

Their master also asked worriedly,

“No one has said anything strange because both of you have inherited abilities, have they?”

“There seem to be some people who find it curious, but they only think it is curious.”

“Ah, right. The boy in my room did ask about it too…….”

“Who?”

At Piar’s words, Mirisa quickly realized who he meant.

“Ah, you mean that illegitimate son of Duke Gresia? People were whispering about him.”

“Well, he is not that strange. Or maybe he is not an ordinary boy either…….”

At Piar’s words, the master’s expression stiffened slightly.

“The duke’s illegitimate son……. What did he ask?”

However, Piar shrugged and answered casually.

“It was nothing much. He asked where I came from, what ability I had, things like that. It was just the sort of thing one might ask a student sharing the same room.”

“That is true.”

“A child of a ducal house asked a commoner…….”

“That was what made it a little unusual. Maybe because he is an illegitimate son…….”

“Ah, an illegitimate son…….”

At Piar’s words, Mirisa and their master both nodded.

It was quite unusual for the son of a great noble to pay attention to a commoner, but if he was an illegitimate son, the matter was different.

“Still, they say he is acknowledged in his own way…….”

“Pardon?”

Mirisa asked at the master’s murmur, but he shook his head.

“More importantly, can you tell me more? How was the entrance ceremony?”

“Well, on that day…….”

After listening to them for quite some time, he rose from his seat.