Chapter 40 – Then the Fun…

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Translated by Seoulbound

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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“I heard you won the training simulation this time as well.”

“Yes.”

“They said not a single member of your team was eliminated, and you eliminated all members of the opponent team.”

The commander wore a satisfied smile on his lips.

“I like your creed. The fact that you try to inflict the most damage with the least loss every time. I heard you said you would use a high-efficiency strategy in the subjugation battle too?”

Meursault has already conveyed the subjugation battle operation details as well.

When I nodded, the commander asked in succession.

“What kind of operation was this training?”

‘He’s asking me directly this time.’

I knew that previously, instead of asking me directly, he had Meursault ask the cadets.

Since he planned to appoint me as the operations officer in this subjugation battle, was he trying to find out my operational style in advance?

Well, if that was the case, there was no reason I couldn’t tell him.

“It’s simple. I created the situation those cadets were expecting.”

“Created the situation they were expecting?”

“Because anyone is bound to let their guard down when things flow exactly as they expect.”

“Oh.”

As the commander began to listen intently to my story as if telling me to continue, I spoke in succession.

“The opponent is a ten-year-old child. And a team composed of cadets who lost to that ten-year-old. I met their expectation that a team made like that wouldn’t function well. Excluding Plato, the most outstanding cadet, from the team was the same. Because they must have thought they could win easily without Plato.”

“I received a report that things went sour between you and Plato. Was that also already part of the plan?”

What? He knows that too?

Just how many spies did he plant.

But well, since I did order Plato to openly badmouth me anyway…….

I nodded and spoke.

“Because a plan is something that must already be completed before entering the battlefield.”

“You’re right.”

The commander showed a smile.

“Then the condition that even one person dying is a defeat must have also been one of the schemes.”

“Yes. The moment they hear that even one person dying is a defeat, they overlook the numbers. If the opponent team has eight people, it won’t look like the enemy’s count, but the count of ‘chances to win’.”

“Oh.”

“So as soon as the training started, I ordered my team to bind me and abandon me at the opponent’s camp.”

“……Hmm?”

“Since they had seven remaining chances, I thought there was no way they would go out of their way to take the most unappealing chance.”

Actually, that was close to a gamble.

But even if those fellows had readily accepted that chance, it wouldn’t have mattered.

Because winning by shooting a bound child yields no honor whatsoever.

“After that, it was easy. While B Team, who pitied me, took me back to their camp, A Team followed B Team and ambushed the surroundings. After first eliminating the personnel remaining to guard me, when my team members lay flat on their stomachs behind the flag covered in blankets with the eliminated ones, I covered them with snow.”

“So your team members had never left B Team’s camp in the first place.”

“Yes. After disguising my team members as snowpiles and smearing paint on my body to make it look like traces of resisting A Team to protect the flag, I fired the flare and waited for B Team to return. From then on, it was a repetition.”

“Since it was just a matter of eliminating whoever remained. Once you had the advantage in numbers, victory must have been guaranteed.”

“Yes. Killing Lucas, who was left alone, was easy enough to make me yawn. After killing Lucas to spark internal strife, I also hid myself, but what happened after that was beyond my expectations. I thought they would split at least two-on-three. Perhaps because they weren’t that stupid, only one guy left. Still, it was eight-on-four. Since we already had the numerical advantage, we launched a surprise attack immediately, disguised ourselves as snowpiles right away, and shot Bones who came running in a hurry, ending the training. That is all.”

“You thoroughly toyed with them using the situation and psychology.”

The commander seemed overall satisfied, but spoke as if one thing bothered him.

“However. Both last time and now… your strategy is too heavily focused on a ‘child.’ It’s not general. Because on the actual battlefield, I have no intention of putting you in such danger.”

Meaning he was worried that it couldn’t actually be applied to operations.

Was he saying that since I was now the operations officer, I should have shown a strategy that could actually be utilized?

But there was something the commander did not know.

This strategy was particularly effective in future battlefields.

It was also the reason why I had continuously toyed with the cadets using my child’s body.

“I’m not trying to use myself as bait on the battlefield.”

“Then?”

“It is to respond to external enemies who will approach by presenting themselves as ‘bait’.”

“External enemies……?”

“Because the most dangerous thing in future battlefields is children of my age.”

The commander’s eyebrows furrowed subtly.

“What does that mean?”

“I say this as a regressor.”

“……!”

“In the near future, other zones will use children as bait. We must prepare.”

Well, it wasn’t a lie.

Since most players were ten-year-old children like me.

Now, when the probability that the barriers between zones had disappeared was high.

We had to prepare in advance for the approach of players from other zones.

Having harassed them to this extent, they wouldn’t be fooled even if a player from another zone approached pretending to be a child.

“If you say so… we must prepare.”

Fortunately, because the commander trusted me implicitly, he promised to distribute my training materials as reference data to other soldiers as well.

“By the way… there is one thing I’m curious about.”

“What is it?”

“When you first launched the surprise attack. Instead of pretending to protect it, wouldn’t you have won easily if you just pulled the flag? Why didn’t you pull the flag?”

No… is he asking because he really doesn’t know?

I replied with an expression as if I couldn’t understand the question.

“Then it won’t be fun.”

“…….”

“…….”

* * *

After the training simulation ended with A Team’s victory.

The A Team cadets who regained their honor were overjoyed.

Since this training had also brought the result of eliminating all members of the opponent team.

Now, no one would dare mock or ignore Haydam.

Or themselves, who had lost to Haydam.

Although there seemed to be a time in the past when they held bad feelings toward Haydam.

Now, only limitless respect toward Haydam and fear of never wanting to meet him as an enemy remained.

In any case, joy was joy.

Since there was a task they absolutely had to do.

“I think I heard an auditory hallucination before training.”

“What hallucination?”

“An auditory hallucination of someone saying they would annihilate our team.”

“That really is a hallucination. Because the team that got annihilated is another!”

“Gel-gel-gel-gel!”

That was none other than mocking the B Team cadets.

“Those dog-like bastards……”

Although B Team crouched to one side and trembled with tightly clenched fists, because they also had a past of throwing all kinds of contempt and ridicule simply because A Team cadets had lost to Haydam, they couldn’t bring themselves to step forward either.

However, Bones, who had the worst personality among B Team, ended up falling for the A Team cadets’ provocation in the end.

“Fuck, winning by putting forward a child……!”

Having reacted out of a sudden burst of anger, Bones wanted to avoid the spot realizing his mistake, but the A Team cadets who seized the opportunity began to bite at Bones like a pack of piranhas.

“Hey, did you hear? When we lost, they called us idiots who lose even to a kid, but now that they lost, they say we won by putting forward a child.”

“Double standard.”

“Even Lucas is staying quiet, what is his deal.”

“Leave him alone, it seems Bones thinks they lost because the other team members dragged him down.”

Unable to hold back his boiling anger, Bones shouted.

“Fuck! Fight again! Let’s fight again! This time, fairly—”

“Stop it already!”

“Stop it!”

The ones who stood up simultaneously were Lucas and Plato.

Lucas and Plato hesitated briefly as they looked at each other, then soon turned their heads and looked in different directions.

The first to speak was Lucas.

“Bones. I know you suspected Lord Haydam throughout the training, and thus felt the defeat was unfair. But this is a team training, not individual training. Are you going to act like this every time you lose in team training?”

“…….”

Bones still had a sulky face, but since he wasn’t such an idiot as to not know what Lucas was trying to say, he quietly shut his mouth.

Lucas turned his gaze toward Plato and spoke.

“I apologize.”

“For what?”

“For my team member causing a commotion. And… for mocking your defeat.”

Hearing that, the A Team cadets widened their eyes.

‘To think that Lucas apologized directly?’

“Having suffered from Lord Haydam in person, I guess you understand our feelings now?”

One A Team cadet asked in a sarcastic tone, but Lucas nodded as if readily admitting it.

“You must have been taken in by a similar method too. I withdraw the statement calling you idiots. But.”

While the A Team cadets were about to frown at the word ‘but,’ their expressions turned subtle at the following words.

“I cannot acknowledge Lord Haydam. Such a person is not a cadet.”

“What kind of sophistry is that again?”

Plato asked back with a cold face.

“Wasn’t it agreed that if you lost in the training, you would acknowledge Lord Haydam as a cadet who pulls his own weight?”

“Lord Haydam’s qualifications are certainly outstanding. I acknowledge it. His individual capability is probably something no one in this place can defeat. But.”

Lucas spoke with a hint of contempt.

“If he were a cadet who truly cared for his comrades, he should have pulled the flag. Inevitably putting comrades in danger just to annihilate the enemy is not the path of a proper officer.”

“…….”

In fact.

The A Team cadets did not think Lucas’s words were wrong either.

Just looking at how he enjoyed the thrill while going out of his way to toy with the opponent team in a training session that would have been won simply by pulling the flag.

What Haydam pursued was, how should I put it… not victory.

It seemed to be fun and stimulation itself.

For that reason, while the A Team cadets could not readily refute Lucas’s words, the anger-filled voice of Plato, veins popping on his forehead, drifted in.

“Do you guys… even know what state Lord Haydam is in right now?”

“What does that mean?”

Lucas, who was about to knit his brows thinking Plato was speaking to shield Haydam, froze completely upon hearing the following words.

“Lord Haydam’s injuries, which he sustained not long ago, are in a state of not being healed yet!”

“…What?”

Since Lucas was not the only one shaken, the A Team and B Team present there, and the other cadets who were watching A Team and B Team fight, stared at Plato in surprise.

“Injury… what do you mean? Did Lord Haydam get hurt?”

“Yes. Although he told me not to speak of it, seeing the state of you guys’ talk, I cannot bear it.”

“No… what kind of injury did someone who hasn’t even enlisted yet sustain?”

“You must not have known. Lord Haydam frequently goes out of the zone to hunt.”

At those words, the cadets began to stir.

“Hunting? Hunt what?”

“I’ve heard rumors that he caught a Hippopotamus Pig, but……”

“Wasn’t that just a rumor?”

“No, so instead of going to the tower, he goes out directly to catch monsters?”

Plato, ignoring the stirring cadets, continued speaking.

“Since they said the Furry Crocodile’s carcass was transported with almost no wounds on the day he sustained the injury, he must have been injured after a life-and-death struggle with the Furry Crocodile.”

“A Furry Crocodile?”

“A Furry Crocodile is a large-class monster.”

“Does that mean Lord Haydam is at a level where he catches large-class monsters alone?”

Of course, Haydam had not fought a life-and-death struggle with the Furry Crocodile and had simply picked up a dying one, but Plato, combining the stories he heard from his father Anton as he pleased, took it as an established fact that ‘Lord Haydam succeeded in hunting a Furry Crocodile alone.’

“Although he should be resting more as the injuries sustained then are not fully healed… he came after hearing that we were being mocked by other cadets. To restore our honor!”

“No way……”

The A Team cadets, who knew absolutely nothing of such circumstances, were greatly flustered.

‘C-come to think of it, when Lord Haydam moved his body, one of his shoulders did seem exceptionally uncomfortable…….’

‘So that was because of the injury?’

‘Yet he didn’t show a single sign of it to us?’

While the A Team cadets were in shock, Plato’s words continued.

“Far from being grateful to the person who restored your honor despite dragging his injured body, you guys used it to mock other cadets once again.”

“Th-that is……”

While the A Team cadets blushed, Plato’s gaze directed toward the B Team cadets this time.

“And also, you guys. Having failed to handle even a single injured child… now you say you can’t acknowledge Lord Haydam as a cadet? Then can you guys head out to the battlefield dragging an injured body for the recovery of a comrade’s honor, and that by using yourselves as bait?”

“…….”

“You guys… have some shame.”

Since the B Team cadets could say nothing this time, Plato clicked his tongue loudly and stormed off, leaving only that single statement behind.

And as this commotion rapidly spread among the cadets, Haydam’s status within the military academy began to grow into something no one could dare touch.