The Academy’s Hard-Headed Swordmaster

The hunt for the magically experimental subject.

There was a reason why Kyle Meyer was assigned this mission.

Hunting trolls wasn’t a difficult task for an Expert-level knight, let alone a Master-level one.

This was true even without using Aura Blade.

Hadn’t Kyle effortlessly hunted a troll without it just moments ago?

By the same logic, hunting an Ogre or a Cyclops wouldn’t be too difficult either.

Gawain, who assigned the mission, believed that facing all three simultaneously wouldn’t pose much of a challenge either.

Gawain figured that having the abilities of these three monsters combined into one didn’t mean fighting a monster three times as strong, but rather just a slightly stronger single monster.

The second reason was to expose the Magicians’ deceit.

Magicians were notorious for exaggerating their achievements to secure more research funding.

It was commonplace for a minor anti-aging spell to be reported as an elixir of immortality.

With this common knowledge in mind, Gawain didn’t fully believe the report sent by the Academy Magicians who created the experimental subject.

A monster dangerous even to a Master?

Could combining three known monster types truly create such a powerful being?

Thus, the mission was passed down, and down, treated as a chore—until it finally reached Kyle, a Master.

“These damn trolls.”

‘Swoosh—!’

Kyle, tasked with the mission, swung his sword, effortlessly decapitating the trolls.

Ruby, nervously gripping her sword behind him, watched Kyle slaughter the trolls with such ease.

She wondered if these monsters were actually this easy to kill.

She knew their hides were tough, resistant to ordinary blades, and even Aura-enhanced blades could break if not swung properly.

Yet, Kyle had been flawlessly executing perfect sword strokes since the beginning.

Thinking that perhaps troll hunting was genuinely easy, Ruby charged towards a troll on her own, only to nearly get herself killed.

If Kyle hadn’t saved her, Ruby would have lost her life right there.

“Th, Thank you…”

“Don’t mention it.”

Kyle nonchalantly wiped the blood off his sword and continued towards the mountain summit.

The higher he climbed, the more he felt a chilling killing intent.

‘It’s up there.’

The chimera created by the Academy Magicians.

Deemed not particularly dangerous, it had been left unchecked, eventually growing and wreaking havoc on the Academy.

Fortunately, the monster was still growing.

This meant that Kyle could kill it alone, a feat impossible if it were in its complete form.

—’Wooong.’

“There you are.”

Far away, Kyle locked eyes with the giant one-eyed monster and grinned.

The monster, noticing Kyle, immediately raised its massive bone club.

The two monsters charged fiercely towards each other.

And in the next moment, they clashed.

* * *

With the first and third-year students gone, a brief silence fell upon the Academy grounds.

The problem was, it wasn’t a peaceful silence, but the calm before the storm.

As the Instructors and Professors remained tense, ready to spring into action at any moment, Gawain met with the Principal to brief him on the mission.

“So—you’re saying Student Kyle went to Troll Mountain?”

“Yes, well. He’s a Master. He should be able to hunt trolls easily enough.”

“Hmm… I doubt it’s just a simple troll hunt.”

The Principal said as he began to skim through the report written by the Magicians.

An Ogre’s strength, a Troll’s regenerative abilities, and a Cyclops’s magic resistance.

Combined with the traits of several other monsters.

At first glance, it seemed impressive, but at the same time, it felt insignificant.

Regenerative abilities or not, it would still die if its head was cut off.

An Ogre’s strength was considerable, but not as much as an Aura Blade, and a Cyclops’s magic resistance wouldn’t be enough to block an Aura Blade.

“Well, I don’t expect any trouble.”

From a Master’s perspective, such a monster was nothing more than something they could hunt whenever they felt like it.

The Principal thought the same and casually closed the report.

Then, he cautiously suggested to Gawain,

“I have some excellent tea that just arrived. Would you care for a cup?”

“Oh, that sounds lovely. My old bones could use some warming…”

“Haha, no one’s going to take care of your health for you. You have to do it yourself.”

The two men began to enjoy their leisurely tea time, like old men.

Their worries about Kyle, whom they had sent to Troll Mountain, had long since vanished.

* * *

‘Kwaaaang—!’

A giant bone, its origin unknown, slammed into the ground.

It caused an explosion as if a missile had struck, and was swiftly retrieved, swung menacingly at Kyle once more.

Kyle lightly leaped back, watching the bone hurtling towards him.

He was out of its reach, but Hecatoncheir’s monstrous strength generated a tremendous wind pressure.

Shuddering at the intense pressure that threatened to blow his head off, Kyle gazed at Hecatoncheir.

‘Manageable.’

In the game, Hecatoncheir possessed hide impervious to even Aura Blades and regenerative abilities that allowed it to recover from injuries in an instant.

A monster that could uproot mountains with a single hand and hurl boulders weighing hundreds of tons.

It didn’t seem like that now.

This monster, seemingly newly created, was terrifyingly strong, but it hadn’t yet attained the power to overwhelm a Master.

A Master could still be killed if they were careless, but that was the extent of it.

‘The problem is…’

Kyle glanced at Ruby, who was hiding far behind him.

He couldn’t use Aura Blade because of her.

Taking down this monster without Aura Blade seemed quite difficult.

He currently had no way to block even the bone club the monster wielded.

After a moment of contemplation, Kyle decided to just use it.

The Principal and the Duke had told him to hide it, but Ruby was the only one here, wasn’t she?

No matter how much she blabbed, the fact that he was a Master wouldn’t spread.

“Ah, a sudden epiphany.”

However, he needed to put on a show, so Kyle muttered something vaguely profound and drew his Aura Blade.

A supernatural streak of light, capable of severing anything, erupted.

The bone club, which had remained intact despite pulverizing the earth, was sliced clean through.

The moment Hecatoncheir saw the Aura Blade, it tried to twist the bone in its hand to minimize the damage, but Kyle’s sword was much faster, cleaving the bone in two.

‘Koo-ooong—!’

The bone crashed to the ground, creating a cloud of dust that obscured the view.

Emerging from the dust cloud, Kyle swiftly severed Hecatoncheir’s achilles tendon.

—’Kuoooo—!’

The severed achilles tendon began to slowly regenerate, but the monster couldn’t help but stumble, losing its balance.

Hecatoncheir regained its footing by placing its hand on the ground and roared ferociously at the streak of light flying towards it.

The monster’s unique infrasonic wave, characteristic of giant monsters, slammed into Kyle, but he continued to carve up Hecatoncheir unfazed.

‘Slice—’ Flesh and blood soaked the ground.

When the immortal monster sensed its impending death from the excessive damage—Kyle raised his sword and perfectly bisected its face.

—’Kku, Uoooo—!’

“Shut up, you bastard.”

Cutting through the split jaw, Kyle swiftly severed the exposed neck.

Turning his back on Hecatoncheir’s rolling head, he proceeded to sever its limbs.

He pierced its heart, severed its arms and legs, and mangled its internal organs.

After thoroughly confirming the kill, ensuring that the monster couldn’t regenerate no matter how resilient it was, Kyle flicked the blood off his blade.

“Y, Y, You…”

From afar, Ruby, who had been hiding behind a tree and watching the battle between Kyle and Hecatoncheir, stared at him with disbelief.

She pointed at Kyle, as if questioning the reality of what she had just witnessed.

“J, J, Just now—A, A, Aura. Aura Blade…”

“Ah, this?”

‘Wheeing—’

As Aura surged from his blade, Ruby began to shake her head vigorously. Kyle shrugged and replied,

“I had an awakening during the fight.”

“D, Does that even make sense!? Awakening from something like that!? Does that make any sense!?”

“What doesn’t make sense?”

Kyle looked at Ruby as if asking what she would do about it.

Seeing his expression, Ruby gradually regained her composure and realized that Kyle’s words were, in fact, true.

Indeed, what could she do if she denied it?

Kyle was the one who awakened, and he himself claimed that was how it happened.

Left speechless, Ruby stared at Kyle as if he were some incredibly gifted prodigy.

Kyle deliberately ignored her gaze and collected Hecatoncheir’s head.

Since it was excessively large, he simply cut off the ears and left the rest.

“Let’s go.”

“…Uh, Uh. Kyle—That, Secret Swordsmanship. Want me to teach you?”

“No need.”

“Aw, come on—”

* * *

Hecatoncheir’s corpse twitched.

Although Kyle had inflicted wounds that seemed impossible to recover from, he should have been more cautious.

A hatchling, carefully curled up inside the corpse’s belly, emerged, devouring its mother’s remains.

The hatchling, having escaped from the remains, immediately began to grow, consuming its mother’s body.

This was how the Hecatoncheir chimera grew.

Reproductive cannibalism.

—’Kku-euk.’

Having devoured its mother’s entire body and absorbed her experiences and memories, the hatchling recalled the reason for its mother’s death and contemplated countermeasures.

The blade of light that killed its mother.

To counter that all-severing light, it had no choice but to wield the same blade of light.

—’O, Reooo….’

Having found a clue in Ruby’s words about what it was, the hatchling began to move away from the corpse.

And it would strive to understand the blade of light.

It didn’t matter if it failed. If it failed, its offspring would try, and if its offspring failed, then its offspring’s offspring would.

As long as they continued to grow, they would eventually reach it someday.