Chapter 111: Choice (1)

Choice (1)

“Brother!”

A memory from the past slightly surfaced.

In the walls of this purely white space, the unnecessarily bright hospital garden came to mind.

In it, there was a child who used to call him ‘brother’ and follow him around.

“Where are you going, brother!”

Shion Ascal.

Being close to him somehow made me feel uneasy, as if I was going to go mad, so I deliberately avoided him by moving through the trees, but that bald-headed kid always found me. He had an uncanny ability to discover where I was hiding.

“How do you fly around like that? Were you a knight? I dream of becoming a knight too!”

At first, I just brushed him off with any words that came to mind, but after about a week of him following me around, I couldn’t take it anymore.

“Hey, hey. Forget about ‘brother,’ call me ‘friend.’ It’s annoying. You’re not my brother. Why do you call me ‘brother’?”

Then he said,

“But you’re nine years older than me, aren’t you?”

“It doesn’t matter. Hey, can you climb up here?”

I looked down at him from the top of the tree and asked. He blinked his eyes, then nodded resolutely. Then he clung to the tree trunk like a cicada, struggling to climb.

After a while, he finally gave up and played his trump card.

“I have leukemia. I can’t climb.”

“What’s with the ‘friend’? Just use informal language.”

“......Then come down.”

After that, we got along quite well.

He said he didn’t have parents. I replied that I had killed my grandfather myself.

He asked what he needed to do to get into Magic High School. I told him he needed talent.

Every time, he would grumble that I wasn’t helpful, and I would poke him with a tree branch and tell him to get better first.

Oh, there was also the day when that kid met my real sister. He happened to glance at Elise walking down the corridor of the ward.

“I’ve never seen such a pretty girl before~ Hehehehe.”

Yael said that and laughed.

It was quite good back then.

It was fun.

That’s the only memory for a madman like me.

I recall those days in the ward several times a day.

I live in the past.

“Heh....... It’s fun.”

Yes, I’m mad.

I’m a lunatic.

As a child of a large family, it was hard to endure confinement and oppression. It was impossible within my framework to accept their hypocrisy and pretense.

If the nobility always has to be perfect, and if that perfect nobility oppresses the common people with power and hierarchy, how can that be called perfection?

It’s bullshit.

I killed the nobility because I was disgusted. I cut my grandfather’s throat and killed the elders.

That was an unchanging fact.

If I had left them alone, they would have tainted Elise too.

In the family where the old men disappeared, Elise seemed to be adapting well, but even so, as long as her most important father is alive, Elise will only grow into the same monster.

To prevent that......

Suddenly-

The door opened.

Yael looked at the other side.

A large man with a hefty build. A nobleman who was so overwhelmingly tall when I was young that I was even afraid to make eye contact.

Ken Petra looked down at me and spoke.

“......You survived.”

“Yes, Father. Just as you wished.”

Yael bared his teeth, looking up at him.

“My sister didn’t kill me today. Khehehehe───”

His smile was full of defiance and self-assurance.

At least my sister, Elise, won’t grow up to be like you.

The next day, Tuesday. The day of the swordsmanship school evaluation exam.

“Why did they rent a coliseum?”

I was amazed as soon as I saw the evaluation site. Yesterday, it was a noble’s fortress, but today, it was a coliseum.

The interior was incredibly spacious. About twenty stages surrounded by magic barriers were placed in the center, and on the right side of the large passage, there was a shield pattern, and on the left side, there was a sword pattern.

There were already many spectators. Most of them were scouts with cameras and laptops at their sides.

“Number 77, Shion Ascal. Please go to the sword waiting room on the left.”

“Ah, yes.”

A university association person urged me when I was standing blankly.

I moved to the waiting room at the end of the passage. On my chest, I had a badge that said ‘Number 77’.

─Hey. Who are you going to choose? Have you decided?

─You get a rough estimate. They say to choose by looking at the tier chart given by the academy.

[13. 99.......]

Elise and Kain had just gone out. Kain chose Asher, and Elise chose James.

A few more turns passed.

[...Number 77.]

Number 77. Finally, my number was called.

“Phew.”

I barely took a step forward, but the other four had already rushed out as if they had someone in mind.

“Let’s do this together.”

“Let’s.”

“I, number 9 Dram Telo, choose number 253 Baldur.”

As if they were finding friends, the chosen opponents also let out sighs of relief.

“Hey, let’s do this.”

“Phew. Let’s go.”

“Number 108 Kellick chooses number 404 David...”

It seemed that some of them actually knew each other.

The four chose their opponents in 5 seconds and disappeared into the waiting room.

Left alone unexpectedly, I walked slowly, scanning the faces of the swordsmen lined up on the other side.

At first, I was going to choose anyone. Based on Selenacio’s tier chart, someone between A~A+ grade.

──But then.

Unexpectedly, someone I hadn’t considered caught my eye.

I don’t know why.

Just, he was standing there without any expectation.

The atmosphere had been like that so far.

No one had tried to choose him, and it seemed like no one dared to. Even the scouts here seemed to disregard him.

Too strong and perfect, a talent that couldn’t be evaluated on this stage.

So, he just stood there.

Bored and dull, like a statue decorating the background.

I quietly lowered my gaze.

I looked at my hand.

The Five Basic Forms and Three Sword Forms. The sensation of swinging them, modified and edited at my discretion, was still vivid in this grip.

─Number 77. Please make your choice. You have 20 seconds left.

Urged by the pressure on my back, my body moved before my head.

Towards someone──in a straight line.

One step.

There was no room for hesitation.

Thinking about it, I always wanted to beat him.

That feeling was always the same.

He always looked down on me from a high place, and he was too different even though we were both commoners.

Two steps.

There were many tempting eyes as I moved forward.

I passed them all.

Three steps, four steps.

Walking, focusing only on one person───

Finally.

The reactions around me when I stopped were quite the spectacle.

Eyes looking at me as if I were a lunatic. There was even someone who cursed, calling me a madman.

I ignored all of it. I just looked up at him. I smiled, a smile that welled up from deep within my heart.

Perhaps, the corners of my mouth were torn too wide.

He looked down at me. His face was as cold as ever, but a slight tremor ran through his dawn-like blue eyes.

“Number 77. Shion Ascal.”

Thinking about it, there was nothing to think about.

If there was an opponent I wanted to challenge, an opponent I wanted to test what I had honed.

“Number 450.”

It would only be you in this place.

“I choose Gerkhen Kal Doon.”

Then, the coliseum slightly trembled. He himself said nothing. He was still bland, and there was no tremor in his gaze looking down at me.

I liked that about him.

He could have dismissed me, he could have been unimpressed, he could have been annoyed, but he simply acknowledged me as an opponent without showing any emotion.

Therefore, he will probably give it his all.

I, too, will pour all my strength into his sword.

Such an opportunity will not be common.

“What are you doing?”

I gestured to Gerkhen Kal Doon.

“Let’s go.”