Chapter 17 : It Hasn’t Even Started Yet (1)
In just two days, the hellish Snow Mountain training came to an end.
The knights, who had climbed the Snow Mountain to the point of death and then climbed it again, were collapsed on the ground, unable to move.
Especially Deni’s peers were so exhausted that they ended up using Aura.
The moment they were caught using Aura, they were excluded from training and were kneeling in a corner of the training grounds with their heads lowered.
Acacia approached the panting knights without sparing even a glance for those who had been excluded.
“After taking one hour of rest, you will climb the Snow Mountain again.”
“Pardon? No…… the training has just ended.”
However, Acacia had no intention of giving them any real respite.
He knew how much stamina climbing a mountain consumed, but they were knights.
The North was a place composed mostly of mountainous terrain.
Naturally, in order to fight monsters, they had to learn how to traverse mountains with ease.
‘Above all, to retake the Iron Mine, guerrilla warfare will be essential.’
Acacia, who had been watching the horrified knights with his arms crossed, suddenly widened his eyes.
“Anyone who wants to talk back to what this instructor just said, step forward.”
Up until now, the respect he had shown the knights was merely to give them time to adapt.
Now that the training was entering its real phase, there was no longer any reason to respect them.
Acacia stared coldly at the knight standing in front of him.
“You seem to have a lot of complaints.”
“No matter how intense the training is, we’ve been moving nonstop for three days. How can you only give us one hour of rest—!”
Thud!
Before the knight could even finish speaking, Acacia spread his palm wide and struck the man squarely in the solar plexus.
There was no Aura infused in the blow, yet the knight was sent flying and collapsed.
“If you disobey this instructor’s orders from now on, this is what will happen. Watch carefully.”
Acacia stiffened his neck and warned the other knights.
He had needed a demonstration rat anyway.
Making sure that no one voiced dissatisfaction with his training was also part of an instructor’s talent.
‘You can have complaints. However, if you show them…….’
He intended to make it absolutely clear that disaster would follow.
But the knight who had been struck by Acacia could not easily accept his treatment.
Moreover, being treated like this when he was a knight ranked within the top twenty of the Ragnar Knight Order was something his pride could not allow.
Rising to his feet, he spotted a wooden sword lying on the ground and grabbed it.
As the knight infused Aura into the wooden sword, Acacia bared his white teeth in a grin.
“Oh? So that’s how you want to do this?”
Acacia instantly slipped inside the knight’s guard as he tried to swing the wooden sword.
Pababak!
In an instant, he struck the knight’s body three times and even followed up with a kick.
The knight, whose face was hit by Acacia’s foot, toppled over and slammed his head into the ground.
“Ghk!”
“To swing a weapon at an instructor—your head must be scrambled.”
Even after pushing himself back up, the knight could not say a word and only stared at the wooden sword that had fallen to the ground.
“With skills this pathetic, what do you think you can protect? If it weren’t for your lord, you wouldn’t even be standing here. Instead of training with gratitude, you dare show dissatisfaction toward me?”
“……I’m sorry. I lost my reason for a moment.”
“I’ll accept your apology. But the price for talking back to this instructor has to be paid properly. Don’t you agree?”
Acacia turned his gaze to Akun and extended his hand.
“Wooden sword.”
At Acacia’s gesture, Akun handed over the wooden sword he was holding.
“From now on, you are not knights. Abandon the idea of training like human beings.”
Whir—!
Gripping the wooden sword, Acacia spun it once with a snap of his wrist and swung it toward the knight who was bowing his head.
Thud!
After easily knocking the knight unconscious, Acacia tossed the wooden sword onto the ground.
“I’ll explain why you have to endure this training.”
Giving the knights a driving force to become stronger was not a bad approach.
Having already received Kyle’s permission, Acacia spoke without restraint.
“The elders who were executed for treason sold the Territory’s people to the Slave Merchant Guild. Because you’re this useless, you failed to protect the Territory’s people.”
At Acacia’s icy gaze and voice, the knights’ eyes widened endlessly.
They could not believe that a Slave Merchant Guild had been running rampant within the Territory they served.
Seeing the shaken knights, Pan stepped in to support Acacia.
“It’s true. Large-scale Breeding Pens were discovered in the elders’ mansions. Fortunately, the Territory’s people who were sold as slaves have been rescued and are returning to Ragnar, but it’s only a matter of time before this spreads throughout the entire Territory.”
When Pan, who had long been respected by the knights, spoke, they tightly shut their eyes.
They were men who had devoted their entire lives to protecting Ragnar and would have to continue doing so.
Yet the fact that they had been unaware of such an outrageous incident occurring within the Territory filled them with shame.
Pan looked sharply at those knights and spoke in a low voice.
“Helping the Grand General and setting Ragnar straight. Never forget that this is your duty.”
While the knights could not lift their heads, Pan turned his body and approached Acacia.
“Sir Acacia, I’ll be on my way to attend to my duties now.”
“Thank you for your hard work these past two days, Elder.”
As Pan left the training grounds without looking back, Acacia checked the time.
“Forty minutes of rest remaining.”
The moment Acacia finished speaking, Deni strode toward Zero with frightening momentum.
Perhaps dissatisfied with the outcome of their earlier sparring, Deni’s face was flushed red.
“Shall we go one more round during the remaining forty minutes? Se. ni. or!”
Zero let out a crooked grin as he watched Deni emphasize the word “senior” by sharply breaking it apart.
Despite not winning a single time in the countless sparring matches during the Snow Mountain climb, he was trying to challenge him again.
He was persistent to an almost irritating degree.
“Fine. Let’s see how long that persistence of yours lasts.”
At Deni’s provocation, Zero loosened his wrists and rose from his seat as well.
Seeing the two glaring at each other like raging flames, Acacia let out a small chuckle.
“You’d better rest. The next training won’t be as lax as this one.”
“…….”
“…….”
At Acacia’s warning, the two looked at each other and then sat back down.
Even while seated, however, Deni did not stop glaring at Zero.
‘Damn it, next time I’ll definitely win.’
Sensing the murderous intent in Deni’s eyes, Zero laughed inwardly.
‘Heh, looks like I won’t be bored for a while.’
---
Forty minutes passed like lightning.
The moment the promised time arrived, Acacia looked at the knights and said just one thing.
“Only one person.”
When he spoke while pointing at the Snow Mountain, the knights were horrified.
They were worried that the same training would be repeated again.
Akun, who had been the very first to dash out during the initial training, did not move.
“Do not come out of the Snow Mountain. The training will continue until only a single person remains in the Snow Mountain.”
At Acacia’s incomprehensible words, Zero raised his hand.
“……I have a question, Instructor.”
“Permission granted.”
“Will no rations be issued?”
At Zero’s words, Acacia grinned and pointed at a container filled with one hundred pouches.
“Each contains four strips of jerky. If you feel like you’re going to starve to death, you may come down. However, your knight ranking will change accordingly.”
In that moment, the training abruptly shifted from a first-come race into a survival contest.
At Acacia’s declaration, Deni’s eyes flared with blazing fire.
‘An opportunity for a common knight to rapidly rise to an upper-ranked knight.’
Conversely, an upper-ranked knight could fall all the way down to a common knight.
It was training that could become an opportunity for some, and despair for others.
At Acacia’s declaration, Akun slowly raised his hand.
“Does this also mean there could be changes to the Commander position?”
“Well, if the results fail to meet expectations, shouldn’t even the Commander be replaced?”
“……Understood.”
He had not even been Commander for long, yet he might have to step down right here…….
While swallowing his dry saliva, Akun also steeled his resolve not to yield his position no matter what.
In the meantime, Acacia briefly explained this training.
“In exactly ten minutes, we move to the Snow Mountain. Each of you, take a pouch with you.”
No sooner had Acacia finished speaking than the knights rushed toward the box and each took a pouch.
Ten minutes later, Acacia announced the start of the training.
“We move to the Snow Mountain. From the moment you enter the Snow Mountain, this instructor will not intervene under any circumstances.”
Upon arriving at the Snow Mountain entrance, the knights looked at one another with eyes filled with tension.
Before entering the entrance, Acacia spoke.
“Those who used Aura during the warm-up training, step forward.”
More than thirty knights had used Aura during the first-come training.
As they stepped forward, Acacia extended his hand.
“As the price for using Aura, take out two strips of jerky from your pouch and return them.”
At Acacia’s sudden words, the knights casually took two strips of jerky out of their pouches.
Then a knight who had endured the training without using Aura raised his hand.
“You said that if we were caught using Aura, hell would unfold, Instructor. Is the punishment really just giving up two strips of jerky?”
“Just…….”
Of course, from another person’s perspective, it might not have seemed like much.
However, Akun shook his head at the knight’s words, and Zero let out a hollow laugh as well.
Unlike the two of them, the knight still failed to notice and continued his complaint.
“If all it took was giving up two strips of jerky, I would have used Aura too.”
“This instructor clearly stated it. That rankings would be decided by this training.”
“What does that mean—.”
Acacia cut off the oblivious knight’s words and continued.
“It means losing enough food to survive for two days. I told you, didn’t I? That this training would continue without stopping until the last person remained. Those two days could make your ranking plummet all the way to the bottom.”
Acacia shook his head and went on speaking.
“Foolish fellow. Just because you’re a knight doesn’t mean your head should be filled only with muscles. You’ve just proven yourself that you lack the qualities of a commander.”
A knight would eventually become a commander.
It was a position that bore the immense responsibility of commanding troops and increasing their survival rate.
If one failed to understand even this much and needed an explanation, it was no different from being unqualified as a knight.
The knight who had thought it was nothing swallowed his words, and those who had their jerky taken turned pale in an instant.
Among them were common knights, mid-ranked knights, and upper-ranked knights.
For common knights, dropping out early in this training wouldn’t change much, but mid- and upper-ranked knights were not in the same situation.
Acacia began distributing the collected jerky to several knights.
“Take it.”
At that sight, the expressions of the knights who had lost their jerky turned sour as if they had bitten into excrement, and the group that had been eliminated in the first-come training hoped they might receive some as well.
However, Acacia distributed the jerky only to those who had passed the training.
“I will not take jerky from those who were eliminated. However, the jerky being issued now will not go to you. Remember this. Every training has meaning, and it has a significant impact on the next training.”
The eliminated knights showed their regret, but Acacia ignored them and returned to his original spot.
“From now on, the survival training begins. From the moment you step into the Snow Mountain entrance, the training starts!”
Acacia emphasized something that only needed to be said once, deliberately repeating it twice.
Most of the knights brushed off Acacia’s words without much thought.
Only three.
Akun, Zero, and Deni alone grasped the meaning.
‘I wonder if it’s really okay to take it, considering I’m the Commander.’
With a wry smile, Akun started moving, and Zero and Deni hurried after him.
Even as he moved, Zero kept his eyes on one knight who showed no intention of moving.
‘I’ll make that guy my first target.’
The mid-ranked knight who had called him unlucky during the Snow Mountain training became his first objective.
And Deni, too, looked toward the senior knights who had tormented him all this time.
‘Seniors, I’ll make sure your rankings end up beneath mine.’
---
On the road to Chaplin Castle.
Aron, moving with soldiers while carrying provisions, recalled what Kyle had said.
— Look over the situation at the front lines, and based on your judgment, decide whether I should deploy or not and inform me.
Kyle had not moved only because he was observing the Ragnar Knight Order’s training; depending on Aron’s request, he could move at any time.
‘It would be best if my lord didn’t have to move.’
While Aron worried, he soon arrived in front of Chaplin Castle, his final destination.
Creeeak
The firmly closed gate opened, and an old man with graying white hair appeared.
“Did you come from the Lord’s Castle? I don’t recognize your face.”
“I greet the Castellan. I am Aron, a military strategist under Grand General Kyle.”
At the mention of Kyle’s name, the Castellan of Chaplin Castle showed an intrigued expression.
Having already received word from Pramo about everything that had happened at the Lord’s Castle, it was not difficult to understand.
“Supplies?”
“Yes. These are food and daily necessities purchased this time after opening trade with the Rapid Merchant Guild. But how is the state of the battle unfolding?”
“……It’s not good.”
“For the Grand General to move in time, you’ll need to explain the situation in detail.”
At Aron’s words, the Castellan nodded.
“A monster legion of about five thousand advanced southward from the entrance of the Monster Mountain Range and then stopped. We haven’t yet identified the reason they stopped.”
“Hmm…….”
“We can’t determine whether they’ll reorganize and come down, or remain where they are without moving.”
At the Castellan’s words, Aron nodded.
It might be faster for him to see and judge for himself.
“May I conduct reconnaissance?”
“Then I’ll assign some knights to you.”
The Castellan summoned several knights who had been standing by behind him.
“Go and conduct reconnaissance together with the military strategist.”
Thanks to the Castellan’s consideration, Aron set out with the knights to scout the entrance of the Monster Mountain Range.
When they reached the entrance, they could see monsters gathered in pitch-black masses.
‘Something is strange. They look instinctively uneasy, as if being chased by something.’
After surveying the overall atmosphere of the monsters, Aron stroked his chin.
They didn’t seem like they would move immediately, but the feeling of a calm before the storm was strong.
“Shall we go further inside?”
“No. This is enough. Let’s return to the castle.”
Aron declined the knight’s suggestion.
The moment he saw the monsters’ atmosphere, he was certain.
‘This is something my lord must handle. We need to send urgent dispatches before it’s too late.’