Chapter 09

“Reni? Reni? Selena!”

No matter how many times her brother called her name through the communication device…

Selena could only roll her eyes around in panic, completely at a loss.

What do I do? What do I do?! What am I supposed to do…?

Three and a half years ago—right after she had entered the academy.

From the very first freshman welcome party, Selena had been flooded with confessions from upperclassmen.

At first, she turned them down with a smile.

She always looked genuinely apologetic.

But one became two.

Two became four.

Eventually, she grew exhausted.

Her patience wore thin, and her responses gradually became colder, until she began rejecting people without mercy.

A month later, when Kal confessed to her…

He had simply approached at the worst possible time.

She had been so overwhelmed by the endless confessions that she was angry.

It wasn’t Kal’s fault.

Yet she had acted as though he were the reason for her frustration.

She ended up treating him far more harshly than she ever should have.

“I-I see? Haha… Okay. Sorry. But… we can still be friends, right?”

That was what Kal had said.

After that day, she never saw him at the academy again.

Worried, she asked around and learned that he had taken a leave of absence.

After that, she never heard another thing about him.

Even after Kal disappeared, the confessions from male students never stopped.

Among them were Schlieffen, Wilhelm, Alexander, and Joachim, all from her own class.

Naturally, she rejected every one of them.

But she was no longer as harsh as before.

She had gotten used to it.

Confessions no longer bothered her.

And…

She also felt guilty about how cruelly she had treated Kal.

Then, during the second semester of her senior year, when graduation preparations had everyone running around…

“Selena. That guy came back.”

“Huh?”

“Kal. He re-enrolled.”

It was unexpected news from Etvin.

Kal, who had vanished for over three years, had returned.

She met him.

It really was Kal.

He seemed to have changed a great deal, but there was no mistaking him.

And then she heard something shocking.

“You enlisted… as an ordinary soldier?”

No matter how much he denied it…

The timing fit far too perfectly.

She had rejected his confession with unnecessary cruelty.

Soon afterward, he had taken a leave of absence.

Despite being a noble, he enlisted as an ordinary soldier.

He fought in a war.

No matter how she looked at it…

She couldn’t deny that she had played some part in what he went through.

But that wasn’t all.

During that war…

He had even saved her brother.

Whether he’d known whose brother it was or not…

It didn’t matter.

The guilt she had carried all this time came flooding out.

“Selena. Are you even listening to your brother—”

Selena suddenly leaped to her feet and immediately began searching for Kal.

So it was really you?

You were the nameless hero who saved my brother?

Then why…

Why didn’t you tell me that story was about you?

Were you worried I’d feel guilty?

Or that I’d feel burdened?

Was that why?!

“Idiot. You idiot! You complete idiot!!”

She hadn’t known.

She hadn’t realized he was such a genuinely good person.

She had taken out all the frustration she’d accumulated because of other people…

…on him.

She had to tell him.

She had to apologize.

She had to thank him.

She absolutely had to.

But even after searching for an entire day…

Selena never managed to find Kal.

“He’s avoiding me. He thinks I’ll feel uncomfortable. That’s why he’s hiding. It has to be…”

Clenching her fists, she repeatedly bonked herself on the head in self-reproach.

Meanwhile…

“Whew… No one will find me here.”

Kal had hidden himself somewhere inside the academy to avoid the crowds of students.

After spending years as an enlisted soldier and reaching the rank of senior sergeant before discharge…

His stealth skills had reached an absurd level.

Naturally, Selena had no chance of finding him.

No one can find me.

I am a wall.

I am an object.

I survived life as a senior sergeant.

That’s right.

I am the Dark Knight.

Adun Toridas…!

Three days had passed since it was officially decided that I would receive the Medal of Honor.

For those three days…

Aside from attending classes, I’d spent every moment hiding.

Anyone watching would probably think I was some escaped convict.

Did I really need to go this far when I wasn’t even on a battlefield anymore?

Well, what choice did I have?

The moment I tried walking around normally…

“Look! It’s the Elf Slayer!”

People would swarm me.

It didn’t matter how loudly I tried to explain.

Nobody listened.

Everyone’s brains had been hijacked by the words Medal of Honor.

The weird part was…

I, the person actually receiving it, couldn’t have cared less.

Sure, I knew it was an incredible award.

But everyone was taking things way too far.

You’d think I’d saved the Crown Princess or the Crown Prince or something!

At this rate, won’t those pointy-eared elves hear the rumors and send an assassin after me?

Damn.

If that actually happened, it’d be the most unfair thing ever.

I guarantee you…

The number of elves who actually died from my rifle could be counted on both hands.

My marksmanship was so bad that even the nicest senior soldier would turn into a demon watching me shoot.

Ten shots.

Three hits.

That was my miraculous accuracy.

I’d even gotten stomped on a few times for “wasting the Empire’s tax money.”

But what was I supposed to do?

The rifle I used back then and the rifles here were completely different.

Back home…

My rifle spat out seven hundred Avada Kedavras per minute.

These things?

I couldn’t tell whether they were meant for shooting…

…or just there to encourage people to get better at bayonet fighting.

Now I understood why war was such a driving force behind technological progress.

Eventually somebody must’ve looked at this garbage and thought—

“Forget fighting with this piece of junk. Let’s just invent something better.”

“Kal, um… maybe we should postpone our group project meeting.”

“…Yeah… now’s probably not the best time.”

“…I’m seriously going to lose my mind.”

Our project groups had already been assigned.

We should’ve at least met to introduce ourselves.

Instead…

“Seeeenioooor!”

That was all anyone wanted to say.

Nothing could get done.

Meanwhile, the female students were staring at their male classmates like they were pathetic.

If these guys had at least been fellow enlisted soldiers…

Maybe I could understand.

But nope.

Every last one of them had never served.

Actually…

Since they didn’t even have mandatory military service, calling them “non-veterans” wasn’t quite right.

Either way…

I had absolutely no intention of telling military stories to a bunch of baby chicks.

Military stories were only fun with people who’d actually served.

Didn’t matter whether someone had worked at the PX, in the boiler room, or as a barber.

Veterans just understood each other.

To everyone else…

Even the funniest stories only earned confused looks.

Tap tap tap!

Hmm.

Had my pursuers finally tracked me down?

Guess it was time to abandon this hideout.

Farewell, quiet corner of the building…

We had a good run…

“Kal!”

W-What?!

They found me that quickly?

Even my company commander couldn’t do that.

Only the battalion warrant officer had tracking skills on that level.

But there was no way he was here.

Priority number one.

Run.

If they caught me, they’d start asking how many elf ears I’d cut off again.

“Kal! Wait! Just… just wait!”

“…Selena?”

Turning around…

The one displaying warrant-officer-level tracking abilities…

…was Selena.

“Stop right there. Freeze. Hands up. If you move, I’m running.”

“It was you?!”

“I said if you move, I’m—… huh?”

“The one who saved my brother. That nameless hero… Kal… it was you?”

The moment those words left Selena’s mouth…

I suddenly felt unbelievably embarrassed.

I didn’t know why.

It was like a secret I’d wanted to keep had just been exposed.

I hadn’t done anything wrong.

If anything, I’d done something good.

And yet…

Why did it feel like this?

“Haa… haa…”

Breathing heavily after running everywhere to find me…

Selena looked straight into my eyes.

“Tell me honestly.”

“Huh?”

“Tell me the truth, Kal.”

“…It really wasn’t because of me?”

“What… You mean me enlisting as a soldier?”

“Yeah. That. You were a noble, but instead of becoming an officer, you chose to live as an ordinary soldier. Then you got sent to war and suffered through all that… all of it.”

I couldn’t answer immediately.

Because…

What she said wasn’t entirely wrong.

Why had I done something so insane?

To forget the pain and humiliation of being rejected.

In that sense…

Selena had indeed been part of the reason.

I couldn’t honestly claim there was no connection whatsoever.

I’d be lying.

Yeah…

It hurt.

And honestly?

Couldn’t you have rejected me a little more gently?

I heard everyone else at least got a smile.

So why was I the only one who got the ice-cold expression?!

I can accept everything else…

But being the only one who got the death stare still stings, Selena!!

“I told you before, Selena.”

“It’s not your fault.”

Once again…

I gave her the same answer.

No.

You weren’t the reason.

My unhappiness wasn’t your fault.

It wasn’t empty pride.

If I admitted that everything had happened because of her…

Then every hardship I’d endured…

Every memory I’d made…

Would be reduced to nothing more than the consequence of being rejected.

In the end…

Those had been my own choices.

And I believed I was the one who should bear responsibility for them.

“Really…?”

“Really… it wasn’t because of me?”

“I told you. I may be a little weird, but I’m not some lunatic who joins the army just because a girl rejected him. I did it because I wanted to. It was my decision. My actions. That’s all.”

Until the very end.

Right until the very end…

Kal never blamed her.

She would have accepted it if he had.

He could have told her the truth.

But instead…

He protected her once again.

Just like before.

He smiled at her.

Watching him…

A small smile unconsciously spread across Selena’s face.

Now she finally understood.