Chapter 55 – Deserted Island Survival Training (2)

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Translated by Jinmu

Read only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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The academy’s training ground was packed with cadets heading for Avalon Island, kicking up clouds of dry dust.

“Haaam.”

I yawned wide enough to tear my mouth apart and stood there leaning my back against whatever wall was nearby.

‘…I’m tired.’

Because I had been stopping by the library after school for the last two days and flipping through mythology, legends, and introductory texts, Wednesday had arrived in no time.

Contrary to my vow not to get impatient, my body had moved in a hurry. When the body got busy, the insides naturally start to churn.

While I blankly stared up at the sky for a while like that, the instructors were gathering together the cadets of the classes they had each been assigned.

Just as I pushed myself off the wall to head over, an aged voice stopped me.

“Cadet Kang Geom-ma.”

“Oh, Sword Emperor.”

The Sword Emperor was wearing a green athletic tracksuit, and unlike his serious-looking face, all kinds of fishing rods were peeking out from his backpack. Was fishing his hobby?

“You haven’t been neglecting your training lately.”

“Ah, yes, well…”

I scratched my cheek awkwardly as I answered. Every now and then, when I was exercising alone, the Sword Emperor would watch me from afar.

As an educator, it was only right for him to keep an eye on the cadets, but the extent of it felt rather burdensome. And then there was how his eyes glittered with interest whenever I did anything at all.

The Sword Emperor stared at me fixedly, then soon broke into a bright smile.

“When exceptional talent accumulates effort, the result does not become simple addition but multiplication. Even so, only a body that gets enough rest can endure, so during this training, make sure to enjoy yourself thoroughly.”

“…Thank you. I hope you catch a big one too, Sword Emperor.”

“Ah, this, you mean. Thank you. In any case, I’ll be off now. Ahem.”

Perhaps embarrassed, the Sword Emperor coughed awkwardly and quickly made his escape. Meanwhile, I could feel a prickling gaze boring into the back of my head.

When I slowly turned my head, Abel was glaring at me with a sullen expression.

Apparently, she did not like how openly her grandfather was showing interest in me.

When our eyes met, she turned her head sharply away with a prim expression as though nothing was wrong. I let out a soft snort and muttered.

“Don’t worry. You’ll have a boyfriend soon enough.”

Smiling faintly, I surveyed the crowd.

Cadets were lined up in formation by class. Some looked excited to the limit, while others clearly seemed displeased at the prospect of outdoor activity.

Training weapons hung at their waists, and backpacks filled with personal supplies were strapped to their backs.

Although Avalon Island was not an area where magical beasts appeared, the headmistress had instructed everyone to bring at least training weapons so that complacency would not set in.

I had respectfully left Murasame enshrined in the dormitory, but I had brought a handful of Daiso sashimi knives in preparation for unforeseen situations, so I was able to shake off my regret.

Last night, I had received messages from Media asking, Did you pack your medicine? Your clothes? You need to bring at least three pairs of underwear. Make sure they’re black so dirt won’t show easily!

The way she carefully prepared for every possibility was just like a mother seeing her child off before a trip.

Ah, come to think of it, Headmistress Media was much older than my mother. Her appearance, like a woman in her twenties, often made me forget her age.

‘…But was there really any need to specify the color of my underwear?’

I shook my head lightly and turned my gaze forward. Among the swarming crowd, the instructors were checking faces one by one against the rosters in their hands.

Because of that, I began looking over the instructors themselves instead.

It was not an everyday thing for all the instructors assigned to each class to gather in one place, so I was planning to use the opportunity to look for that female instructor whose appearance the checkpoint employee had described.

I did not know what she intended, but if she was targeting me, this deserted island survival training would be the perfect chance.

If she used the island’s mysterious terrain, which changed constantly, disposal afterward would be convenient too.

Of course, the same applied in reverse from my side. If the other party kindly showed herself, it would make it easier for me to deal with her and dispose of the corpse.

Using a blade on a person still felt unpleasant, but in a situation where my own neck was on the line, I had no room to worry about that too.

‘A tall woman with purple hair. Good figure.’

By Earth standards, it would be hard to find that sort of appearance even at Gangnam Station, but there were already five or six women with purple hair alone, and I had no idea what they had all eaten to grow so well because every single female instructor had an outstanding body.

“How the hell am I supposed to find her?”

The more faces I looked over, the faster a riot of colors spread across my vision. Feeling dizzy as though I were trying to look at a magic-eye picture I had once vaguely seen as a child, I pulled my gaze away.

Pressing two fingers to the bridge of my nose, I massaged it lightly, then tilted my chin up and stared blankly into the air to ease the fatigue building in my eyes.

Then someone quietly approached from beside me and tried to poke my side with an index finger. Without even looking, I already knew exactly who would play that kind of prank on me.

I caught the delicate finger sneaking toward my side and flicked the person’s forehead.

Thwack.

With a crisp sound, Saki Ryozo let out a short cry of pain. Holding her forehead with both hands, she glared at me with flatfish eyes.

“Hey! You’re hitting people just because I tried to play a little joke out of boredom?!”

She muttered her complaints under her breath by herself. When I laughed lowly, she stuck her tongue out halfway and quickly moved elsewhere.

“Saki Ryozo, I really can’t figure out what kind of character she is.”

Among all the people I had met in this world, she might be the one most different from her first impression.

The image of her lazily sprawled out and always sleeping like everything in the world was a bother was gone, and now she was always hovering around me instead.

If I did not respond because I could not be bothered, she would pout her lips, disappear, and then turn up in my sight again.

Put nicely, she was lively. Put badly, she was a nuisance. Ryozo acted like a stray cat despite her neat appearance like a young lady from a noble family.

I did not know what part of me had caught her interest, but even if she was a character who faded into the background, she was still undeniably one of the main heroines, so I did not want to build more intimacy with her than necessary.

“…At least this time, I’d really like things to pass quietly if possible.”

I intended to quietly find only the blessing I was looking for on Avalon Island, and even if something happened unexpectedly, deal with it by myself.

Once the instructors finished checking the cadets.

[The subspace gate leading to Avalon Island will soon be activated.]

[Please be mindful of safety and enjoy your time.]

An intelligent mechanical voice sank into my ears, and then a violet curtain spread like a dome across the blue sky.

[May the blessings of heroes be with you.]

* * *

“Wow.”

The moment I arrived on Avalon Island, admiration burst out of my mouth.

Trees I had never seen before, carrying the lingering mood of early summer. When I turned my head, the sea I saw cast a low mist over the ground, deepening the island’s mystery.

“So this is why they call it sacred land.”

But more than anything, the enormous tree rising like a parasol from the center of the island was a breathtaking sight.

The Apple Tree of Beginning, Yggdrasil.

A giant tree said to have been planted by the gods in the Age of Myth, so old its origin could not even be guessed.

A holy tree standing firm in the same place for thousands of years, nourished by Mimir’s Lake at the island’s center.

Its glowing left shone with a vivid golden light bright enough to block out the sun. They were not colored like autumn foliage. They were emitting light like a lighthouse.

Even when I craned my neck for a long time, I could not see the top. Its height was almost enough to compare with Hoakin Academy’s main building.

It had already been well over a year since I had fallen into this world, so I had thought I had inwardly grown used to fantasy, but at this overwhelming scene that could not be compared with anything else, I could only stare with wide eyes blinking.

Just looking at it, I felt as though I might lose myself in that holiness and become enchanted. I swallowed dryly and shook my head hard several times in a row to regain my senses.

“Let’s sightsee after I do what I came to do.”

First, I took off the backpack I had been carrying and checked my luggage.

The rough map I had drawn after devouring books about Avalon Island in the library for two days over the weekend, the bundle of Daiso sashimi knives I had brought just in case, and a change of clothes.

But among all that, one item stood out the most. It was the machete I had bought yesterday at the climbing section of the campus mart.

True to the keyword survival, food during this deserted island survival training had to be obtained from the island itself.

There was also the competitive element of finding orbs, but for me that was secondary at best.

“At the end of the day, it’s all about staying alive.”

To be honest, I could wander around hungry for a day, but since I was planning to search the entire island over these two nights and three days to find the blessing, securing food mattered most.

And in a remote place like this, the most effective means of securing food was obviously hunting and gathering.

But that did not mean I could hunt barehanded or push forward through the woods without tools, so I had spent good money to buy one.

In movies and such, machetes were depicted as murder weapons, but their original use was as tools for clearing grass and chopping brush.

Then again, even sashimi knives, which were fish knives, somehow became the blades gangsters use in stabbings, so really… The problem anywhere in the world was the bastards who use blades as weapons.

“…Not counting me.”

On top of that, the biggest advantage was that thanks to the specifications outside the Blessing of the Sword God, I could swing it around without the burden of pain.

‘Let’s save the sashimi knives for emergencies only.’

The pain-free blessing activation time had now increased by ten seconds to fifty seconds. In a situation where I could not know what variable might appear, I could not use the sashimi recklessly.

“Hmm.”

Suddenly, I took out the machete, gripped the handle at a slant, and ran my fingertips over the blade.

Maybe because I had only ever used pointed sashimi knives, the flexible blade and blunt tip felt strange. True to a knife mainly used for cutting brush, it felt solid in the hand.

Rather than a knife, it was made more like a kind of hatchet. Since I would need to split firewood too, there was probably no more practical tool than this.

I rolled the machete around in my palm and swung it with my arm, and it made a heavy whooshing sound through the air.

Maybe because I was so used to sashimi knives, it felt like wearing rough new clothes. The long slicing sound of the air was unfamiliar, and instinctively it somehow did not sit right with me.

Still, I had no other real option, so I shoved all my other things back into the bag except for the machete and stood up.

“Let’s try hunting first.”

Recalling Survival Methods by Top Instructor Bear Galix, one of the books I had devoured in the library, I headed toward the dense woodland waiting to greet me.

If I got lucky, I should be able to catch some small animal within an hour.

* * *

About an hour into pushing through the undergrowth.

Rustle rustle rustle.

A clump of grass shook, and then a rabbit popped out.

But apparently it had grown by eating some kind of singularity, because it was almost as big as a wild boar.

As if curious about a human, it wandered around me with its head tilted.

It looked like a magical beast, but since it did not seem ferocious, it was probably just a rabbit that had eaten well and gotten fat. And now it was my lunch.

If I succeeded in hunting that thing, I would not have to worry about food supply for at least the duration of this training.

I could skin it and tan the hide into a blanket, and dry the leftover meat into jerky.

My food plan for the training period sorted itself out in an instant. It seemed that, for a change, things might finally go well this time.

“Hoo.”

I exhaled long and gripped the handle of the machete tightly.

I was holding a blade, but because it was not a sashimi knife, I was free from searing pain. It was a strange sensation.

The corners of my lips rose faintly, and sparks like those of a warrior resolved for battle blazed in my eyes.

When I slowly took a step forward, the rabbit tilted its head even farther to the side.

Its red eyes like pomegranate seeds reminded me of Chloe. For some reason, my grip tightened even more.

“Ppiak?”

Then, as if it had finally noticed the blue gleam of the blade, it let out a cry like a blast of noise and suddenly bolted.

“…!”

The rabbit rapidly widened the distance in front of my eyes. It was so fast that the gap between us instantly opened to around fifty meters. I threw myself forward with one large stride and urgently chased after it.

After running full speed after the bastard’s rear for about ten minutes, my heartbeat started stumbling out of rhythm.

“Haa, haa…”

I had been steadily doing stamina training, so I had confidence in my endurance, but it seemed I still fell short when it came to chasing a four-legged animal.

Even while fleeing, the bastard kept turning only its head to check my condition from time to time.

With one hand braced on my knee, I tried to steady my breathing, but soon I simply collapsed down on the spot.

“I’ve cut down demonfolk and the Cow King, yet look at me struggling against a damn rabbit…”

Without the Blessing of the Sword God, this was the sorry reality of me, getting exhausted from chasing a single rabbit.

Still, considering I had practically run without stopping for ten whole minutes, I was basically superhuman compared to my past life.

After muttering that self-mocking remark, I looked straight ahead. The rabbit was staring blankly at me with its round red eyes.

I ended up letting out a snort.

“You’re fast as hell. Fine, I’ll let you live. Go.”

The thing had been staring blankly at me, but at those words it suddenly turned around and showed me its ass.

“Ppiak, ppiak, ppiak.”

Then it started wiggling its fluffy little backside as if to flaunt it. It was an animal that could not understand words, but even so, I could tell that the meaning of that action was unmistakably mockery.

“……”

The rabbit performed its victory celebration for quite a while.

And I felt a vein throb once at my temple.