The camp commandant's meeting room.
"......"
"......"
The three gathered in the meeting room had nothing to say.
It wasn't that the three of them were strange.
Sword, spear, whatever — anyone who had ever taken up an edged weapon and swung it meaning to become a knight would be the same.
That was how preposterous the sight had been.
A brat of a mere thirteen laying out seventeen grown men.
"Mana... if he had mana, would it not be possible?"
The senior instructor asked with difficulty.
He was the very man who had held Delam up as a genius, but even so, this was a strength that departed from the standard far too lightly.
He seemed unable to believe the reality of it.
At any rate, the senior instructor's question was reasonable.
If Delam had gathered as much mana as a low-grade knight, it would be possible.
But the camp commandant and Obern shook their heads.
"If he had used mana there is no way I, a knight, would have failed to sense it. Not unless his attainment is higher than mine. Sir Obern, did you perhaps?"
"I sensed nothing either. Above all, the trainee's skill was not the product of mana. Spearmanship and close-quarters striking... you would not believe it even having seen it, but both were skill that has attained its level."
"Good heavens."
The senior instructor asked again.
"Then is he the descendant of some great house......? He was said to be of fallen nobility, so even if the mana formula was lost, the spearmanship might have remained."
"What the trainee used was confined strictly to the Imperial Spear, Twelve Forms. No trace of any other spear art was visible."
"And his hand-to-hand?"
"His hand-to-hand... had nothing about it that deserved the word [art]."
"Sir Obern is correct. He simply moved fast and struck their jaws. Maintaining his distance well......"
The senior instructor threw out many more questions after that.
But the commandant and Obern only denied them all.
In the end there was one conclusion.
The trainee Delam was [the genuine article]!
"Astonishing. Is it not exactly like seeing some hero of legend in his boyhood?"
"Which makes it all the more regrettable. He is thirteen and has not yet so much as entered upon a mana formula."
"Because a mana formula only takes effect if trained from childhood. However fine his technique, with so little mana......"
"A pity. Had he been born to a renowned knightly house, his fame might by now have resounded across the whole continent."
"But it is not too late even now."
The last remark was Obern's, who had been silent.
At Obern's weighty words the commandant looked over, startled.
Every knight had a few rights.
The right to serve his lord, the right to restore sullied honor—
And last, the right to take a squire!
A squire was a knight's disciple.
But it was by no means an easy position either.
Because a squire was one who stayed at the knight's side twenty-four hours a day and absorbed everything from his swordsmanship to his mana formula.
The same held on the side of honor.
A squire's fault was his master's fault.
And a squire's achievement was likewise his master's achievement.
Naturally, knights chose their squires with real care.
How fatal would a betrayal be.
Or the squire might snatch only the teaching and run off with it.
Which was why squires were usually picked from the sons of great houses.
"Surely you do not mean to take him as your squire?"
"Regrettably, my swordsmanship has already been passed to my son. So I have no wish to take a separate disciple."
"Then?"
"The academy. I intend to send him to the knight academy and make of him a fine knight in His Majesty's service. As it happens, I hold a right of recommendation."
"Of course! There was such a method."
The camp commandant agreed as though it were a fine idea.
A commoner in the knight academy!
The senior instructor, for whom it was a place he had dreamed of so badly in his own boyhood, felt unsettled and yet rejoiced as though it were his own affair.
"Then I shall go and fetch the trainee at once."
"Yes, this gracious news must be conveyed quickly."
The camp commandant urged him to hurry there and back.
If Delam became a renowned knight?
Then his own merit in having recognized it would be no small thing.
***
"A knight, sir? Ah... I'd rather not."
"......"
Delam said it while scratching his head.
The faces of the three seated across from him hardened stiff.
Then they looked at one another's faces.
Faces that said, did I just hear that correctly?
The camp commandant's face in particular had gone crimson.
That a mere commoner should dare refuse a proposal like this!
"Why would you not! Do you not know what manner of being a knight is? You could command a battlefield as your ancestor did!"
"I know it, of course. It's a thing my father said until my ears wore through. But you see, sir......"
Delam met Obern's eyes and asked.
"Then who protects my comrades?"
"Hm?"
"In the East, they say, people who eat together are called 'the mouths of one house' — family, that is. In which case the men I've eaten and slept beside for over a week are my family. And there are the people of my home village as well."
"They will be protected by themselves and by their other comrades. Are they not sweating through their training in order to do exactly that?"
"It isn't enough. If I were to hear news of their deaths in battle while I was taking lessons at a knight academy... I don't think I would ever be able to stand straight before my own sword again."
"Mmmmm!"
This time it was Obern's face that reddened.
But not, as with the commandant, because his blood was up.
It was because a true knight stood before him!
The post of knight, with wealth and honor guaranteed.
The road wouldn't be easy, granted, but did the boy not have talent enough?
And he was going to give it up for his comrades!
Obern was a man who had been driven out for digging into his order's commander embezzling.
Which was as good as having his entire life as a knight denied.
And now, once again, it was being wholly affirmed.
By a mere trainee, no less!
But this might all be a performance.
Obern asked one last thing.
"There is something you must know. I will hear your answer again after you have heard all of it."
"I will listen closely, sir."
"Training is properly six weeks. But the situation on the northern front is not at all good, and you are all scheduled to be committed two days from now."
"That sounds dangerous."
"It is! It is a cliff on which death is more visible than any chance of living. However outstanding you are, on a battlefield you are one soldier. Whereas if you enter the academy, the training will be harsh but you will not die. Even so, will you go to the battlefield with your comrades?"
"Of course."
Obern shuddered as though a thrill had run through him.
He was so moved that he gripped Delam's hand tightly and cried out.
"Splendid! That you volunteered, and that you have chosen to be with your comrades. So it is you, precisely, who deserves to wear this!"
And with that Obern took off his cloak.
When he unfastened the chain mail over it as well, what was revealed was a breastplate.
Seeing it, Delam nearly cried out in shock.
'Insane! That's made of mithril alloy, isn't it?'
That distinctive swirling pattern.
It was unmistakably high-purity steel with mithril melted into it.
That one piece would buy, if not a castle, then certainly a manor.
And it was worth that much.
Because it could stop even a knight's aura.
In effect it amounted to gaining one spare life.
And he was giving that to a mere trainee?
'No, I only scratched his back a few times with answers that sounded impressive, because he seemed like the rigid sort......'
Obern unfastened the breastplate and handed it to Delam.
"This will protect you. Become a fine asset to the kingdom and let us meet again later. Can you promise me that?"
"Of course, sir!"
Delam put the breastplate on right there, deeply moved.
A treasure goblin out of legend had appeared!
***
'Damn, that was a close one.'
The mood in the barracks had been poor for a while.
Because Delam hadn't trained with them and had been off on his own.
In fact he'd been training separately to revive his old instincts, but to the trainees it must have looked like he was out playing until late at night.
Under a senior instructor's protection, at that.
Thanks to which, right up until he fell asleep, and while he slept as well.
He'd felt gazes fixed on him from every direction.
Of course, they were mere trainee riffraff.
There was nothing to fear, but inside he had been seething.
Not from a shortage of mental discipline — it was an [occupational disease].
Do you know what is most frightening on a battlefield?
It was not a knight of high attainment, nor a mage of great destruction.
It was precisely the traitor's blade coming in from behind.
Which was why Delam loathed traitors to an extreme degree.
He hated an ally quietly sharpening a knife.
Exactly like these bastards.
'So I'd been itching to teach them a lesson.'
And then what do you know?
The camp commandant had kindly stepped up and arranged the board for him.
And the volunteers were, to a man, the ones he'd had his eye on.
Delam took it as a gift from heaven and cleaned them out in earnest.
No — he admitted it.
There were emotional reasons like that, but there was something else too.
His body had moved far too freely and well.
'It really was like riding the wind.'
The second day at the camp.
Delam had felt the [wind] in a thrust.
And had succeeded in reproducing it.
And had even come to hear a strange [voice].
From that point on his body's senses had begun to change.
Strangely freer, and smoother.
And at other moments they turned boundlessly violent.
Isn't that just like the wind.
As a soft breeze is, and a chill breeze, and a typhoon.
The sensation applied to his flesh intact as well.
His body advanced as he thought and stopped as he thought.
On that foundation he swung the spear and moved his feet.
And when he'd rampaged happily like that and came back to himself.
All seventeen were laid out on the ground.
If he hadn't had this power?
He'd have had to fight a fairly hard fight.
Because even for Delam, a thirteen-year-old body had clear limits.
'Still, maybe I should have rampaged in moderation.'
Delam smacked his lips.
He'd assumed they'd just call it impressive and give him an early promotion or something.
He'd never imagined they'd urge him to enroll in a knight academy.
'I really am grateful, but......'
On this continent a knight wasn't simply a strong person.
It was a synonym for noble.
Which is to say, becoming a knight meant becoming a noble.
But the world's resources were finite, and if every man and his dog became a noble, the pie held by the existing vested class could only shrink.
Which was why the means of becoming a knight or a mage.
[Mana formulas]
[Circle magic]
The nobles controlled these two things strictly.
The knight academy was, inside that controlled society.
One of the few opportunities for a commoner to master a mana formula.
'But the ceiling on it is far too clear.'
As said, a knight was a noble.
Which also meant it was a political body.
Therefore skill wasn't everything.
Climbing past a certain point without a backer was extremely difficult.
And if Delam went to the academy?
His backer would naturally be that knight fellow.
But look at the man being demoted to conscription duty.
His skill was serviceable, but his political ability was nothing doing.
Besides, Delam had spent his whole life on battlefields.
So the thing he did best was war.
Going somewhere else and putting in effort would be wasted motion.
'And for climbing fast, there's nothing to match a war.'
From of old, every founding hero of a dynasty is born in wartime.
Meaning it is a place overflowing with that much opportunity.
Bloodline and whatever else aside, a place that speaks purely of skill and results.
If a man could only survive, it was the fastest career track there was.
'Though surviving is the hardest part......'
Even so, Delam was confident.
How many years' worth of army rations had he eaten out on a battlefield!
Of course, there is no 100% in this world.
He might well die from sheer rotten luck.
If a stray arrow suddenly plants itself in you, you die and that's that.
But even so, he intended to thrash about and do his utmost.
Because that was the atonement for his own past days—
Which had unintentionally contributed to humanity's extinction.
'And if that isn't enough, then so be it.'
In which case, blame whoever it was that regressed him.
It wasn't as if he'd wanted the regression in the first place.
Having shrugged all of it off, Delam returned to the barracks.
But the mood there was somehow unsettled.
An older boy from his home village urgently sat him down and said,
"Delam, the instructor's coming soon! Hurry up and sort out your clothes and shoes."
"Ideological instruction's over already, so why— ahh."
"You know something?"
"Mm... he'll tell you right away, so listen and you'll see."
Delam said it with a sidelong glance at the barracks entrance.
Right on cue, the instructor was coming in.
'They said the training would be terminated early, didn't they?'
Looking at that unusually hardened face today, it was certain.
The time had come to return to a battlefield once more.
The place where the fate of humanity hung—
Where the smell of blood was so very familiar.