Chapter 84 - Joint Grade Mock Battle (1)

Archenia Academy had such a system. A system of inviting an active knight to serve as a proctor when conducting an important exam.

From an in-world perspective, this was intended to let the students, who were future knights, get acquainted with current knights, and to have knights active on the front lines provide practical evaluations.

From an external perspective… hmm, there would also be the intention of making knights active outside the academy appear in the early stages of the game.

You could call it adult circumstances. The fact that many star-like prospects were concentrated in the first year was probably in a similar context.

Anyway, one of the main characters of , the ‘Pilgrim of the Lowest Place’ Pleta Templeton, was a character who first appeared at this point if she was not chosen as the protagonist character.

‘However, since she was a character who appeared in the protagonist character's exam, I didn't think at all that she would be my exam proctor.’

If it had been according to the original story, she should have appeared as the exam proctor in the examination halls of Serene, Khan, Elwin, Arien, and Yuna… hmm.

‘What a coincidence.’

Well, it was a good thing. In fact, it might even be a very good thing.

Basically, Pleta's disposition was classified as one of the most ideal good people among all the characters in , along with Elwin and Yuna.

With Pleta present, I could fully expect an objective evaluation.

If I imagined another professor steeped in noblesse oblige had come… ugh.

Just imagining it made my head throb. What kind of nitpicking I would have been subjected to, and how my score would have been cut.

Well, anyway, that was that. Since Pleta was also one of the main characters of , it was good to get acquainted with her in advance.

Also, her combat style was the most similar to mine among all the main characters, so if I gained her friendship, it would be helpful in that regard as well.

Of course, at the present moment, Pleta was already a skilled person positioned between a Senior Knight and a Master Knight, so our skill difference was incomparable. That was that.

Hmm, but for now, I didn't see any opportunity to strike up a friendship, so I decided to focus on leaving a good impression for now.

“Wow…”

As Pleta entered the waiting room, murmuring sounds could be heard from a few people.

“Tsk.”

Others intentionally clicked their tongues or pretended not to know her.

The reason for such divided reactions was obvious.

‘It’s because she’s a commoner.’

Pleta was a commoner by birth, but she had established distinguished military service and was granted a surname by the emperor, thus elevating her status to that of a noble… a typical example of a self-made person.

If you only considered her military service and skills, she could have aimed for Master Knight or even higher long ago, but according to the setting, what was it again? She was checked or something.

Due to this background, she was an object of aspiration for commoner students, and for noble students, she seemed to be viewed as a somewhat unpleasant existence.

Well. Anyway.

“Ahem, then, everyone is gathered. To all the students.”

As time passed and everyone arrived, the professor with a balding head and impressive mustache who had arrived last—Hugo—opened his mouth to speak.

It was to explain the rules of the exam before it officially began. I already knew all the contents.

Rustle.

And from the pocket of his clothes, which was stretched tight due to his body's volume, he took out a piece of paper and…….

“A knight, as a rule, does not always fight only against monsters, but sometimes has to unavoidably fight against fellow humans. You can think of this mock battle as assuming such a combat situation….”

He began to read from it.

Was it a script?

“The event is capture the flag. If this event seems somewhat childish or trivial, then you have studied wrongly. As you work as a knight, you will have to carry out various special missions, and what represents such special missions is this capture the flag….”

Well, I’ll be.

As he was reading what was written verbatim, he said a lot of things… but it was hard to explain what each of those words was.

‘My ears are going to bleed.’

All sorts of miscellaneous nonsense was mixed in.

So I'll just… summarize it appropriately.

Adding the information I had seen in the game.

First. The joint grade mock battle is conducted in a 6 vs. 6 format. The objective is to capture the flag located at each team's base.

The method of capturing was simple. Just get close to the flag and touch it for 1 minute to capture the flag.

A point to note was that victory was not achieved simply by capturing the flag… the objective for victory was to capture the flag and bring it to your own team's base.

Second. The exam takes place on a mountain in the Otherworld, and there are two main paths leading between the bases.

One is a rugged but straight canyon, and the other is a flat but winding mountain path.

Third. In this exam, victory or defeat is important, but there was also talk that the content of the battle would be looked at more closely.

There were several factors for deduction, with discord with team members and refusal to communicate being representative examples.

…Well, compared to how long Hugo babbled on, this was all the important information.

“Ahem. Anyway. Before we officially start the exam, we will have a 20-minute strategy session. The members of each team should formulate a strategy under the leadership of their team leader.”

“Juniors, everyone do your best. I'll be watching.”

Anyway, Hugo and Pleta moved to the supervisors' room, and we entered the rooms assigned to each team to have our strategy session.

‘The problem starts now.’

Judging from the document Regina sent me this morning, the skills of my teammates… honestly, I couldn't say they were outstanding even with nice words.

Well, it wasn't like the skill gap between me and Serene. That is, it wasn't an insurmountable skill gap.

According to one of the things Hugo was rambling about, to structurally prevent the balance from completely collapsing, one person was assigned from each seed, from A, B, C, D, E, F, from high to low according to their grades.

The level of the opposing Team B would probably be about the same.

‘The problem is that there are also disadvantages that cannot be converted into grades.’

As I was lost in thought. There was a guy who opened his mouth after confirming that all of Team A had entered the room.

“Well then, shall we start talking?”

The guy who drew everyone's attention with a somewhat cocky tone was… Dejan Lopez.

The person designated as the team leader of my Team A.

‘I wonder if it’ll be okay.’

His skills themselves were… not bad. According to the information Regina provided, I was the A-seed, and that guy was the B-seed.

However, if there was one thing that bothered me, it was Regina's note that the guy had a fairly close relationship with Milo.

‘No way.’

…For now, it was unsettling, but branding him wasn't good. I decided to think that way for the time being.

“As the team leader, I have a tactic in mind. To talk about it…”

Dejan spread out a map and began to talk about the tactics, pointing at the map with his index finger.

Let’s hear him out.

That's what I thought, but…….

***

There was a problem.

What Dejan was saying seemed to have no problem at first glance, but when dissected from a practical perspective, it was utterly clumsy.

“We will not attack first, but wait for the enemy to come, then one person will lure them deeper to launch a surprise attack.”

Hearing that, I tilted my head, but Dejan continued his story with considerable fluency.

“As for the personnel distribution… everyone except that person over there will wait on the gently sloped mountain path. If the enemy comes from one side, we’ll send a signal and join up.”

The ‘that person over there’ he was talking about was me. How petty, not even calling me by my name properly, and pointing with his finger.

It wasn't a very important issue, actually. It wasn't the first or second time I had been treated poorly by noble-born students during my academy life.

The real important issue was this tactic.

“……”

Immediately after reaching that conclusion, I observed the mood of our team.

‘One or two look like they think it might be right, and the rest don’t seem to have much thought.’

It might be because Dejan was speaking in a way that made him look cool.

Or it could be that they couldn't properly point out the problems because they hadn't experienced actual combat.

“Any objections?”

Dejan asked with a rather refreshed expression.

And, thinking that this couldn't go on, I slowly opened my mouth.

“……Our side has a relatively larger number from the Combat Department than the enemy. Does that mean you intend to throw away the advantage of mobility by sticking to defense?”

Right before the exam started, each team was provided with some information about the enemy. It was because they needed that basic information to form a strategy.

Of course, unlike the information Regina gave me, it was limited information, such as which department the enemy was enrolled in.

And if we compared the personnel composition of the enemy and us through that information, the enemy had three from the Combat Department and three from the Magic Department. And we had four from the Combat Department and two from the Magic Department.

According to the academy's tactical manual, the mobility of combat positions that perform close-quarters combat is considered two to three times greater than that of mages.

Of course, since mages do not train their bodies, there was bound to be a difference in mobility.

On the other hand, the mages showed strength in their ability to halt advances, in sieges, and in defense compared to the combat positions… so it was a tactic that effectively maximized our weaknesses and let our strengths rot.

“Since we have more people from the Combat Department, it would be right to use the difference in mobility to fight with numerical superiority.”

I conveyed my thoughts, pressing them down firmly, but Dejan rather scoffed.

“That’s a very short-sighted thought. You may not know this, but such advantages are very trivial when you consider the advantage of defending, and the situation of luring and ambushing.”

And he blabbered on, puffing himself up.

This bastard. Is he in his right mind?

From my experience built up through countless battles, my 『Combat Sense』, and my studies that made me bleed from my nose, I could declare with certainty.

It was a really trashy strategy.

“……There are many ways to ambush while utilizing mobility.”

“But this is the most certain way.”

The debate continued after that, but the conversation kept running on parallel lines. Even if I suggested alternatives, Dejan would reject them, saying his suggestion was the best.

“……I also think what Rain said isn’t wrong.”

Shasha, who had been somewhat skeptical of this strategy from the beginning, also joined in. But what came out after hearing that was even more ridiculous.

“Isn’t leading the strategy the team leader’s authority? If you keep this up, it won’t be good for your evaluation…”

Ah.

My head hurts.

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