Chapter 97

Chapter 97. Practical Combat Lesson (2)

One week before the practical combat lesson.

The academy made an unexpected announcement.

“During this practical combat lesson, some students will conduct ruin exploration instead of monster clearing. The royal knight order and nobles will be accompanying you, so please learn a great deal from them.”

At the sudden announcement, the students looked bewildered, then burst into cheers.

From the students’ perspective, ruin exploration was bound to be preferable to fighting monsters.

It was far safer, less exhausting, and far more exciting.

Treasure chests, relics, and stories to tell afterward. Ruin exploration carried romance with it.

On top of that, the fact that the royal knight order would be accompanying them meant this exploration was being organized by the royal family. If things went well, they might even catch the royal family’s eye.

I was pleased when I heard this announcement too.

Of course, I did not know whether I would be among the few students participating in the ruin exploration.

It was because, just as I had been staring at the map while sucking my fingers in frustration, I wanted to comfort myself by seeing another ruin at least.

At the time, I had no idea that this was a plan arranged by the princes, or that the ruin to be explored was the very ruin marked on the map I possessed.

The class atmosphere, already chaotic because of preparations for the practical combat lesson, became even more of a mess, and the professors had no choice but to give up on managing the students.

The Administration Department students were extremely disappointed when they heard it was a ruin, but they could not participate.

And the students wondered how the students who would participate in the ruin exploration would be chosen.

There were rumors that it would be done by drawing lots, that it would be focused on upperclassmen, and even that it would be decided through lobbying by houses.

Due to the nature of the sealed grounds, where monsters gathered even more when people moved in large groups, they would not choose too many people, but it still seemed certain that at least dozens would be chosen.

A fairly large number of people were necessary to explore a ruin.

Moreover, even more people were needed for the exploration party to pass through the sealed grounds and reach the ruin site.

I was worried about how many members of the royal knight order or nobles would participate, but at the very least, since there was the pretext of a practical combat lesson, it would be difficult for them to make a show of it with only a few participants.

Fortunately, I ended up participating in the ruin exploration.

The princess, who was royalty, naturally ended up participating in the ruin exploration, and since the princess participated, those above worked things out here and there so that I would also participate.

---

Time passed, and on the morning of the practical combat lesson.

We came to the sealed grounds once again.

This time, they did not scatter people by group as they had during the ‘field training.’

Dozens of people had been transported at once to a broad riverside.

Since I had only come to the sealed grounds once, this place where we had spatially teleported was somewhere I was seeing for the first time in my life.

There were forty-eight students who had spatially teleported. Twenty-four students from the Knight Department and twenty-four from the Inherited Ability Department.

It was about one-fifth of all the students in the Knight Department and Inherited Ability Department, and the practical combat lesson for the remaining students had been postponed by two weeks.

The students who had missed the chance to explore the ruin were probably still at the academy, consoling their disappointment.

Aside from the students, there were four professors, including Professor Katrine, and one headmaster. In total, fifty-three people had come from the academy.

The remaining people were those sent by the royal family for the ruin exploration.

First, around twenty members of the royal knight order had come.

The knight order, wearing gleaming armor and shields and carrying expensive-looking swords, mostly appeared to be nobles.

Most knights were not awakened nobles, but ordinary people who could handle mana.

However, most members of the royal knight order were nobles who had graduated from the Royal Academy.

They were seniors of our academy’s Knight Department, and for Knight Department students who were not heirs of their houses, joining the royal knight order was also their dream.

And I could see around ten officers belonging to the kingdom army.

Our kingdom had a standing army always stationed in the capital, aside from soldiers conscripted by territory during wartime.

More than half of its officers possessed inherited abilities, and they were nobles without territories.

It was a place where landless nobles with combat inherited abilities went, and together with the royal knight order, it was a central military force of the kingdom and a source of the royal family’s power.

Even if the royal knight order was one thing, we had not expected kingdom army noble officers to come too, so their appearance surprised us greatly.

The students were more numerous, but it was immediately obvious which side was at the center.

And aside from them, there was one more person.

A middle-aged noble was conversing with a senior knight of the royal knight order and a noble who looked like a general.

The moment I heard that noble’s name from another student, I was greatly startled.

Count Chaifri.

The head of House Chaifri and the father of the dead Ride had participated in the ruin exploration.

‘Good heavens, did ruin exploration mean that ruin?’

I placed a hand on my chest. I could feel the pouch tucked inside my clothes.

‘Did he give up right away?’

No matter how I thought about it, he had given up too quickly. Though his son had died, it was not as though the heir had died, yet he had handed it over to the royal family immediately.

No matter how I looked at it, that was not something a noble covered in greed would do.

On top of that, although the count had personally participated, the royal knight order and kingdom army officers had also come, so it did not seem likely that the House Chaifri would gain much from this.

If they were searching for the ruin from the map I possessed, then I had to find some method as well.

If I just stood there blankly, the treasures of a ruin for which I even had the map might be stolen from me wholesale.

However, before I could think of anything, we began moving.

Everyone except the headmaster crossed the forest of the sealed grounds under Count Chaifri’s guidance.

Strangely, the group heading to explore the ruin had almost no luggage visible.

The students had only brought light travel rations in their backpacks, and the knights and officers had no backpacks, nor did they have squires following them.

There were no separate porters either. Instead, I saw a knight behind the knight order carrying an old bag on his back.

“Is that bag on his back the relic bag the royal family is so proud of?”

“Yes. It is the Old Empire relic bag from the treasury. It seems my eldest brother took it out of the treasury.”

The princess, who had come beside me at some point, answered my mutter.

Not only the princess, but Bria and the first-year Knight Department students had all gathered nearby.

They had clearly mixed the years and made groups before we departed, but after moving for a while, we had gathered again by year.

The royal knight order was leading the way, and the second- and third-year students were sticking close to them to make themselves look good, so the remaining first-years had no choice but to be pushed back like this.

“That is the relic bag? I heard it can hold an enormous amount.”

The other first-year students looked surprised as they saw the bag I had mentioned.

“It should be about the size of a small warehouse.”

“Then all the equipment and food for this exploration must be inside.”

Bria and the other students seemed to finally understand why no luggage was visible.

However, I found it a little strange.

“But would it not be dangerous to put everything in one bag?”

The princess immediately answered my question.

“Among the officers on the kingdom army’s side, there should be a subspace ability user. There is no way my second brother would entrust all the food and equipment to the royal knight order.”

“Ah, so everything has been prepared.”

At the princess’s words, the students nodded, but I was able to gain several important pieces of information from what she said.

The royal knight order belonged to the First Prince’s line, the kingdom army officers belonged to the Second Prince’s line, and this ruin exploration was being carried out through cooperation between the First Prince and the Second Prince.

It was a more complicated situation than I had expected.

Count Chaifri had participated, and the First Prince and Second Prince had jointly arranged the ruin exploration.

They had included Royal Academy students in order to move to the sealed grounds, and on top of that, they had even made the princess participate.

I placed a mana barrier around the princess and myself so that no one outside could hear, then asked quietly into the princess’s ear.

“Did you personally apply for this ruin exploration, Princess?”

At my question, the princess shook her head. She also placed a hand over her mouth and spoke quietly.

“No. I was scolded during the field training, so this time, I stayed still. Katrine also said we should avoid anything that looked dangerous.”

However, regardless of her own will, the princess had ended up participating in the ruin exploration.

I did not know about the upperclassmen, but the first-years walking around me were all the most skilled students in the Knight Department.

The princess’s ability was not bad either, but she had awakened only recently, and because she was hiding one of her two abilities, she could not show off her ability freely during class.

The fact that she had still ended up participating here meant there might be another reason.

It was not certain yet, but there had to be a reason they had even included the princess.

I sank into thought.

At that moment, while the first-years were leisurely walking through the forest because monsters had not yet gathered, someone approached.

It was one of the seniors walking ahead.

“It is troublesome if you all keep moving around separately like this. Everyone is pretending not to see it because they are conscious of the princess, but if you keep going like this, we seniors may not stay quiet later.”

He thoroughly frightened the first-year students.

However, because he said it in a joking manner with a smiling face, no one was frightened.

The seniors walking ahead let out sighs.

It seemed they had assigned this senior to scold the first-years.

“So hurry up, go apologize, and mix in with the seniors. Of course, this is not your fault, but if you keep moving separately like this, it will be hard to earn points with the royal knight order too. And by points, I mean our grades. For you, it is still far away, but for us, it is right in front of our eyes!”

However, with the person speaking saying it like this, there was no way he would appear dignified.

Still, the students understood well enough, so it was not a bad method.

Seeing him act like a senior after only entering two years earlier made it feel somewhat laughable, but when I thought of the military from my previous life, this much was merely cute.

Still, the new students should have been meeting the seniors for the first time, yet many of the students acted as though they knew one another.

Since the Royal Academy was similar to a military academy, there were no clubs or student council.

Were they students whose houses were connected to one another?

“I heard that houses and individuals hold many parties and gatherings. Though almost no invitations come to someone like me, the child of a rural backwater noble.”

My question was answered by Bria, who was standing beside me and drifting on the outskirts like me.

“Even so, after the last field training, did quite a few invitations not come to you?”

Since I often sparred with her, I had personally seen her receive invitations.

“That only happened briefly. Even when I went to those parties, I only hovered on the edges.”

As she said, she was the child of a noble who possessed a small rural territory. Still, she was the child of a proper noble.

If even she hovered on the edges at invited parties, it made sense that no invitation had ever come to me, an illegitimate son.

The princess was now surrounded by seniors as well.

At that level, it seemed I did not need to guard her separately.

“Why are you two moving separately like this? Are you not both famous?”

The senior who had first come to us and spoken as though joking addressed Bria and me.

When he spoke to her, Bria hurriedly placed a hand on her chest.

“N-No. I am Bria. Senior Javier!”

Bria’s eyes sparkled as she answered.

Surprised by Bria’s reaction, I examined the approaching senior.

Oh, he was hiding it in his own way, but the mana flowing from him was impressive.

He was the strongest student I had seen. Stronger than most knights.

As it turned out, he was extremely famous within the academy.

He was the top third-year student in the Knight Department, and a senior considered highly likely to become the next royal knight commander.

Seeing him speak to an illegitimate son like me, his personality also seemed good.

Unfortunately, he was the first to die at the hands of the swarming monsters.