Chapter 3 – Class Assignment Test (1)

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Translated by Jinmu

Read only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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Hoakin Academy’s training grounds.

Some groups had already gotten friendly and were giggling together, while others stood there with blazing eyes, openly showing hostility toward one another.

Of course, I belonged to neither of those factions. I was part of a third faction entirely.

Special advancement students.

The current academy head, “Media Poison,” had created them in the name of educational fairness. Her aim had been to overturn an academic culture twisted into a social club for upper-class brats, but in reality it had become a class for commoners only. And even then, all we really were was a target for their discrimination and contempt.

Even that had only been limited to a mere two hundred because the vested-interest crowd called “nobles” had thrown a collective fit.

At any other school, two hundred special advancement students might sound like a lot.

But once you expanded the recruitment pool to the entire world, the gate became narrower than the eye of a needle. For reference, the total student body was 2,200. Naturally, that was without counting those who had failed out. If you included them too, there were probably at least five or six thousand.

Even so, plenty of commoner applicants couldn’t turn down the poisoned chalice that was the title of being admitted to the finest academy of all.

This year alone, the competition rate for the special advancement class had apparently been 20,000 to 1.

It seemed most people had chosen to be the tail of a dragon rather than the head of a snake…

Lowborn blood.

That was the disgusting label special advancement students had to live with all throughout school life.

Lowborn, huh…

With “demon” stamped right into my name, I couldn’t exactly think of anything to say. What a miserable life. Fuck.

After finishing that brief thought, I turned my head and looked over the people around me.

Heads of every color imaginable stood packed together like a field of bean sprouts.

Yellow hair, red hair, white hair. I even saw rainbow-colored hair.

My black hair stood out enough to be noticeable. Perhaps because it was right before the exam, the cadets quietly watched one another’s eyes with tense expressions.

Then, in the distance, my gaze fixed on a long blue-haired figure surrounded by men. The emerald-colored hair stood out distinctly, and her skin was so pale it looked as if frost had settled on it. Her low, graceful golden eyes were impossible to miss.

The granddaughter of the Sword Emperor, said to be the strongest hero of this century.

Abel von Nibelung.

She was the main heroine of Miracle’s Blessing M, and the reason I had spent money on the game. Seeing her in person left me speechless. Honestly, because of what 2D art lets you get away with, I had expected some kind of giant-eyed monster, but she was just absurdly beautiful.

Watching the men forming a barricade around Abel made a snort escape me automatically. It looked like they were doing it just to get a chance to talk to her.

I’d played enough of the game to know. Abel von Nibelung ends up with the player of Miracle’s Blessing M, in other words the protagonist. Beautiful women really did all have someone.

Besides, if you wanted to so much as speak to a woman like that, you’d probably need to be in the same league. If a special advancement student like me tried to say a word to her, I’d probably had to spend the rest of my life watching my back at night.

I shook my head and thought to myself.

Ordinary. Uneventful. Safe.

The three guiding principles I had set for myself.

Make it through the curriculum without incident.

Get an ordinary job afterward.

And live a safe life.

A hero? Give me a break.

My body was already shaking just from drawing a sashimi knife. How was I supposed to save the world? It felt like more than twenty minutes had passed already, yet that tingling still tormented my eyes.

I’d rather get cut by the blade once and be done with it. That agony was not something a human being could endure.

Let’s avoid drawing the knife whenever possible.

That was what I decided. I’d already spent nearly twenty years living by the blade, and had sliced more than enough things to last a lifetime.

I rubbed my chest, then silently waited for the test.

If I remembered correctly, the new students would be split into 150 groups of ten and thrown into a subspace that the Hero of Origin, Balor Hoakin, supposedly created at the very same time he founded the academy, where they would have to bite and tear at one another.

It was, in the most literal sense, a situation of Now go kill each other. Since outside interference was completely blocked within the subspace and nobody could actually die, any kind of behavior was tolerated.

Even murder, of all things.

They were saying group assignments were random, but… really?

There was no restriction on the rarity of weapons, either. In other words, it was just the people who had everything getting to take everything. Weapons handed down through the generations, even national-treasure-class gear, were allowed without complaint. Their absurd reason was that weapons were also part of one’s strength.

It was absurdly unfair.

The insane school and its insane first exam were giving me a migraine.

From the way it was described in-game, it seemed the trauma experienced in the subspace tended to linger for quite a while…

[The rules for Hoakin Academy’s 783rd Class Assignment Test will now be explained.]

I basically know the gist of this already.

The subspace itself was the system that graded each cadet. Put simply, it was like an AI scoring descriptive answers.

Out of the ten people in a group, first place went to the highest-ranked Star Class.

Second and third went to the next level down, Dragon Class.

Fourth through seventh went to Wolf Class.

And the rest were placed in Ordinary Class.

My goal was obviously Ordinary. There was no point in earning high marks. Ordinary was more than enough.

[The Hoakin Academy 783rd Class Assignment Test will now begin.]

A dry, yet somehow holy and intellectual voice filled the training grounds.

The mouths that had been noisily chattering all fell silent.

Then the exam content and rules were listed one after another.

A few cadets smiled in satisfaction, as if they had already known them.

[The exam begins at this time.]

[May the Hero’s Blessing be with you.]

One or two at a time, people vanished with shwk, shwk sounds.

Just when I was thinking, When’s my turn…? I was swallowed by the subspace before I could even properly register it.

* * *

Thirty minutes after the start of the test.

Roughly two-thirds of the groups, more than a hundred of them, had already finished.

The subspace spat the cadets back out.

[Judging for Group 24 has been completed. First place, Aaron. Second place…]

[Judging for Group 47 has been completed. First place, Sharpshooter. Second place…]

The voice announcing the end of each exam rang out every time cadets were thrown back into the training grounds.

Some students vomited up their breakfast, while others looked calm. There was all kinds.

But most of them were left so weak in the legs that they had to brace themselves against the ground.

“Now that I think about it… if this year’s class has a lot of outstanding kids, that just means the results were practically decided in advance, doesn’t it? Maybe I picked the wrong kind of test. Maybe I should’ve gone with team play.”

Watching it all, Media rested her chin on one hand and yawned. Every time she moved, her full breasts swayed.

“Can you really call this a fair exam when they’re taking it without any restriction on weapons?”

The Sword Emperor, who had been standing with his arms crossed, frowned. Media shrugged and crossed her legs, openly exposing her smooth thighs.

“You wouldn’t understand because you’re so stiff, but when you’re the academy head, there are all kinds of things you have to worry about. Do you have any idea how hard I had to fight just to make group assignments random? Huh? I was this close to getting wrinkles at the corners of my eyes. A shut-in who does nothing but stay at home doesn’t know a damn thing about academy politics. It would’ve been nice if you helped out a little, you fossil!”

“You already have wrinkles. You should’ve suffered a little more.”

“Honestly, what conversation could I possibly have with you…”

Making a face, Media crossed her legs the other way.

“That aside, impressive really is impressive. Abel von Nibelung cut through all of them in seven minutes and fourteen seconds. Wow. At this rate, she’s practically guaranteed to take top marks… though in the end, sadly, she still couldn’t break the record you set. Even so, with that performance, she probably ranks in the top ten in academy history.”

“If she carries Nibelung blood, that result is only natural.”

Despite his tone, one corner of Siegfried’s mouth lifted. Smiling broadly, Media summoned a translucent window into the air. It was a list of the new students’ weapons and results.

“Taking the test with a C-rank weapon really does make her just like you, Zeke.”

“Abel wanted a fair evaluation of her own skill.”

“She’s already a complete old man at her age.”

Even as Media and the Sword Emperor talked, the subspace continued to spit out the remaining cadets, until only a single group remained.

“It looks like it’s about over, so I should be going.”

“There’s still one group left. You’re leaving?”

“It’s bound to be one of those trash’s offspring anyway.”

The Sword Emperor glared sidelong at the group chattering behind fans held over their mouths. Media let out a quiet laugh and nodded.

“See you next time.”

“Yes. The next time I see you will be after one of us is dead, fossil.”

The moment the Sword Emperor rose to his feet, answering her sendoff with a raised middle finger.

Saaaaa-

The people filling the training grounds all broke out in goosebumps at once, as though by prior arrangement. The Sword Emperor and Media both looked at each other at the same time, then turned their heads and fixed their eyes on the grounds.

“You felt it too, didn’t you?”

“…”

At Media’s question, the Sword Emperor narrowed his eyes and craned his head toward the training grounds. Sweat that had formed bead by bead on the brows of the crowd slid down their temples.

The Sword Emperor looked across the grounds. His eyes moved rapidly from place to place, sweeping over the cadets.

That incomprehensible sensation from a moment ago was gone.

“Th-that’s impossible!”

Media’s finger pointed up at the sky.

The Sword Emperor tilted his head back.

Scrrrk-

A sound coming from the clear sky.

Scrrrk-

Cracks began to spread across the heavens.

The sky split open with a tearing sound, then shattered like glass.

From the gap in that broken sky, every cadet from the final group fell out unconscious.

* * *

The result had been decided from the start anyway.

But somehow, of all things, I had gotten incredibly unlucky.

I think I’d been placed in the group of death.

Mao Jin and Mao Shun, the twin sons of one of the famous heroic families in the neighboring country, House Iron King. It was already cheating for the twins to be in the same group, but…

The Vicious Twins.

They had prodigious talent, but were infamous for the vicious violence that came with it. The wicked rumors about the two of them crossed national borders.

The two of them alone had retired six people from our group. And the way they did it was so cruel that it was hard to watch with open eyes.

Grinning with their teeth bared, they turned the other six cadets into mangled pulp. Those cadets had fought back as best they could.

But instead of simply striking them once and retiring them, the twins deliberately dragged things out, savoring the writhing of the fallen students for thirty whole minutes.

Crack-

“Hyung, how’s that side?”

Crunch-

“More or less cleaned up?”

In the end, the twins snapped their necks with smiles on their faces. Then they tossed them onto the floor as casually as if they were throwing away gum wrappers. Mao Shun, the younger twin, bent his fingers one by one as he counted what had once been cadets. It seemed the only reason they had left me alone was because I looked too weak to matter enough for their attention.

“Ah, shit. Hyung, what the hell? Why’d you kill one more? That’s pissing me off.”

“Sorry, sorry. I’ll let you have that one instead.”

“Oh, in that case, accepted.”

The twins’ gaze turned toward a red-haired girl who was trembling so badly it was painful to watch.

Maybe I could shrug it off since I’d been through all kinds of hell in my previous life, but that fragile-looking girl was so obviously going to end up living with PTSD for the rest of her life because of this horrifying scene.

Then the younger brother, Mao Shun, casually walked toward her, making sharp cracking sounds with his finger joints. It looked like he intended to snap that girl’s neck too.

With every step he took closer, the girl’s body shook harder and harder. For some reason, though, she didn’t seem to have any would to resist.

At that rate, she’d be turned into mush by one blow from Mao Shun. The thought made my hand clench into a fist on its own.

“You filthy motherfuckers!”

The curse burst out of my mouth before I knew it. I knew that the slaughter unfolding in front of me was only an illusion inside the subspace, but flesh was splitting and bones were shattering.

They called this hero education, but looking at those twins smiling brightly while dismantling their classmates, it felt more like a villain training camp. No matter how much this academy claimed to value practical, real-combat training, there had to be some limit.

No matter how I thought about it, there had to be corruption involved somewhere behind the academy accepting those psychopath trash bastards.

The Mao twins took their eyes off the girl. Two bloodshot stared fixed on me. At the same time, the two of them curved their mouths into creepy, grinning smiles.

“What’s this, there was one more left? Didn’t even know he was there.”

“Look at that bastard’s name tag. Special advancement student? Filthy lowborn piece of shit.”

After making noise for a moment, the twins exchanged nods.

Mao Shun flexed the iron gauntlet on his left hand. With thick killing intent pouring from both eyes, he slowly began walking toward me.

“Hyung, I’ll rip that bastard’s head off real quick.”

Behind him, Mao Jin looked on with a crooked grin.

“Oh, right. That bastard cursed at us just now, so rip his tongue out too while you’re at it.”

“Okey.”

Mao Shun scratched the back of his neck as he answered. When he shook his iron gauntlet, drops of red blood pattered onto the ground.

Should I use the Blessing of Painlessness?

That thought crossed my mind for a moment. But I shook my head and dismissed it right away.

The Blessing of Painlessness only lasted thirty seconds.

To those lunatics, I wasn’t an enemy. I was just a toy. There was no way that tiny amount of time would satisfy them.

All at once, I felt a cold dizziness climbing up through my throat. My gaze dropped of its own accord to the bag lying at my feet.

The song of the sword.

Its sharp voice was calling to me like a sob.

If I could just do something to those rotten pieces of shit with that damned blessing.

Ordinary, uneventful, safe.

It hadn’t even been half a day since I resolved myself. Fuck.

Mao Shun’s approaching footsteps grew faster and faster. I unzipped the bag and pulled out a sashimi knife.

“Pfft, what a pathetic dumbass.”

A mocking laugh.

“This is why lowborn trash are all the same.”

With an expression that said he’d already lost interest, Mao Shun lightly pushed off the ground and leaped.

The iron fist slick with sticky blood aimed for my legs.

I shifted back one small step and activated the Blessing of Painlessness.

Let’s endure for just thirty seconds. Then maybe something would happen.

A cold sensation coiled around my hand.

The blade was still wrapped in its sheath, and nothing unusual happened yet.

Holding myself in a clumsy stance, I waved the knife vaguely through the air.

The sheath slid off the sashimi knife with a hiss, exposing the blue gleam of the blade beneath.

And then.

[The Blessing of the Sword God activates.]

The sword stopped its song.

++++++++++++++++++++++

Might the blessing of God be with you.

++++++++++++++++++++++

And burst into indescribably delighted laughter.