The Academy’s Hard-Headed Swordmaster

After the Cultural Festival rampage incident caused by Aria, people complained of an inexplicable sense of déjà vu.

“What is it? I feel like something happened at the Cultural Festival…”

“Isn’t it just your imagination?”

“Is it? Maybe.”

Kyle realized the sheer power of Aria’s ability, considering even Sera, presumed to be a Player character, had lost her memories.

The fact that it was possible to erase the memories of someone organically connected to Earth meant Sera had essentially already experienced a game over.

Moreover, while Aria couldn’t use her ability on those above Master level currently, in just two years, she would become a broken character capable of manipulating even Master-level Aura Users.

‘It’s a relief she went berserk now.’

Breathing a sigh of relief, Kyle focused on his classes as usual.

Since they had rested during the Cultural Festival, the Knight Department instructor began to push the students harder.

As the students, who had just started to get used to the training, were panting and sticking out their tongues due to the training that had become at least 10% more intense than usual, Arthur cautiously approached.

“Um, Kyle…”

“Yeah, what’s up?”

“I have something to ask…”

She glanced around, conscious of the surrounding gazes, then carefully leaned in and whispered in his ear.

“—Do you remember what happened during the Cultural Festival?”

Kyle stared blankly at her after hearing her words. How on earth did she know that?

At the time, everyone in the Academy was under Aria’s control. Everyone except Masters was under her sway, and thus, their memories were erased.

There might have been some traces left, like torn clothes or a bit of blood, but since no one died or was seriously injured, it was something they could have quietly swept under the rug…

“Arthur.”

“Hmm?”

“Let’s talk later. The instructor is looking.”

“Ah…”

Hearing Kyle’s words and realizing he also retained some memories, Arthur smiled in relief and moved away to prepare for the next training session.

Watching Arthur’s retreating figure, Kyle sniffed the air, catching the lingering scent she left behind.

* * *

After school, I met with Arthur alone at a cafe and started by listening to her story.

Although she mentioned the Cultural Festival incident, there was a chance it could be a different incident from the one I knew.

“So? What happened at the Cultural Festival?”

“Um… I don’t know if you’ll believe me, but—people suddenly started attacking each other…”

“Okay, stop there.”

After two confirmations, realizing that the Cultural Festival incident Arthur knew was the one I knew, or rather, the one we hid, I pondered how she knew about it.

Had Arthur already reached the Master level? Impossible.

She hadn’t even reached the Expert level yet. That meant she couldn’t even imbue an object other than her own body with Aura.

‘Ah, I see.’

However, I realized why she could escape Aria’s mental control: she possessed the heart of a dragon.

Countless amounts of energy were being produced every second in her heart, and as an Aura User, she was converting that energy into Aura.

Thus, she could use an unimaginable amount of Aura for a typical Aura User, an amount comparable to my own as a Master.

“First, how much do you know?”

“Huh?”

“I’ll explain, but it’s a pain to explain twice. What do you know?”

“Just that on the last day of the Cultural Festival, people suddenly went berserk… and that no one remembers it after that day?”

When I asked her, she said that she didn’t find out that others didn’t remember by directly asking them.

She realized something was off with people’s reactions through the intuition unique to a half-dragon who had received a dragon heart transplant, and thus deduced that their memories had been erased.

“Your deduction is correct.”

“Then…!”

“We decided to cover up the incident for certain reasons. Arthur, understand? We covered it up.”

Arthur flinched at my words and cautiously looked at me. I continued to meet her gaze without saying a word.

“No, it can’t be…? Kyle…”

“But I didn’t expect your ability to be immune. Well, it can’t be helped.”

“W-Wait a minute. There are a lot of people here—”

“Arthur, you—”

Arthur squeezed her eyes shut and cowered as if bracing for something. I tilted my head at her, wondering what she was doing.

‘Tap, tap’

I nudged her, and a cute shriek, one I’d never heard from her when she was in her male form, escaped her lips.

“…Arthur? What are you doing?”

“A-Are you going to silence me by killing me…?”

“Killing you? What nonsense is that?”

We went through so much trouble to prevent anyone from dying, so would we kill someone now to cover it up?

Arthur seemed to have picked up some strange misconceptions about nobles from somewhere. I sighed deeply, looking at her.

“Do you know why we erased people’s memories?”

“W-Why?”

“Because no one died. There were some injuries, but that was something the priests could handle.”

Death.

That was something that couldn’t be solved by simply erasing memories.

When someone is born, it’s recorded, administrative procedures are carried out, and taxes are collected accordingly.

If you were to kill someone and make it so no one knew, you’d have to erase the memories of everyone involved, manipulate the documents in the deepest parts of the Empire, and even manipulate the memories of everyone who glanced at those documents.

It would be easier to just kill everyone involved—that’s how difficult it was to make a death disappear.

“Arthur, I’m telling you to be careful what you say in front of others. Don’t go around talking about unnecessary things, and act like nothing happened.”

“I-I see. Haha—I was just being paranoid.”

“Yeah, you were. Honestly, you were really scared just now.”

I chuckled, looking at Arthur, who still had a worried expression on her face. No, I’m not going to kill you!

‘By the way…’

Like Arthur, whom I hadn’t considered, there was a possibility that someone else might have nullified Aria’s Force with their own Force ability.

Information about which students in the Academy possessed the Force ability was confidential, but there was one person who knew.

Princess Hella.

A member of the Nobles Club, and the one who tried to use an unknown ability on me. She remained.

* * *

Kyle immediately relayed the matter to the principal.

He explained that there might be students among those with the Force ability who were unaffected by Aria’s power.

Of course, he omitted Arthur’s story.

So, while the principal didn’t share the list of Force ability users, he didn’t stop Kyle from visiting the Force ability users he knew.

Having received the principal’s tacit approval, Kyle headed straight to Princess Hella’s residence.

If she had been living in the dormitory, it would have been quite difficult to visit her, but fortunately, she lived in one of the mansions prepared within the Academy grounds.

“Is this it?”

Arriving at Princess Hella’s mansion, Kyle confidently rang the doorbell, summoning the servants inside.

The servants who rushed out quickly realized he was their lady’s guest upon seeing his uniform.

The maids ushered Kyle inside, seated him in the drawing-room, served him tea, and cautiously asked,

“—The Lady has no appointments today… May I ask for your name?”

“Please tell her it’s Kyle, whom she met at the party.”

“Please wait a moment.”

The maids left the drawing-room.

Left alone, Kyle sipped his tea and waited for Princess Hella to come down.

A moment later, the drawing-room door opened, and a small girl peeked her head in.

“…Why are you here?”

“To see you.”

“W-What are you going to do to me?”

“I’m not going to do anything.”

Kyle looked at Princess Hella as if wondering why she was acting this way, just as she had before.

Meeting his gaze, Princess Hella shrieked and hid behind the door.

Only after her face was hidden behind the door did Princess Hella breathe a sigh of relief and cautiously speak.

“I-I’ll talk like this.”

“As you wish. The day before yesterday—the last day of the Cultural Festival. Where were you and what were you doing?”

“…I was at home.”

“You didn’t leave the house?”

“Yeah, so what?”

Hearing Princess Hella’s words, Kyle nodded, thinking that was a possibility.

After talking to her, it seemed she had indeed been holed up at home for all three days.

Then there was no need to check whether her memories had been erased or not. She wouldn’t have witnessed anything in the first place.

‘Clink’

Kyle placed his teacup down and stood up, asking,

“Ah, this is a personal question. What is your ability?”

“D-Do I have to tell you…?”

“No, it’s a personal question. You don’t have to tell me. But I’ll be very interested in you.”

“I-If I tell you, will you never come near me again…?”

Princess Hella gulped.

“M-My ability is—I can see information about other people. I call it a status window…”

And then, a rather interesting story unfolded.