Chương 95: Chapter 94 – Henry's Notes (Which Saved This Series from Turning into a School-life Rom-Com)

Over the next few days, Rushia and I began appearing together more frequently. We didn't do anything major, only meeting a few times before or after class and sitting together for lunch once. But that was more than enough; the rumors began to spread like wildfire. Within a week, the news that Rushia Matthew and Asher Griffin were dating had permeated the entire academy. During a swordsmanship class, I even received a challenge from a male student in Class B.

He claimed he had secretly loved and pursued Rushia for three years, and that if I lost the duel, I would have to stay away from her. I found his logic rather absurd, but I accepted the challenge anyway. I needed to test my actual swordsmanship capabilities in a real fight, especially after practicing how to activate mana flow while wielding a sword. Despite trying everything, I hadn't been able to activate mana flow even once during training.

I wanted to see if I could uncover some kind of hint in the heat of combat. Meanwhile, my opponent's Swordsmanship skill was at level 18. I had expected this to be a relatively straightforward match, but it dragged on much longer than anticipated. The boy fought with a highly versatile style, unfettered by the popular schools of swordsmanship. His moves were intensely practical and aimed strictly at vital points.

At the same time, managing mana flow during active combat proved far more difficult than I had imagined. If I focused on the mana, I couldn't focus on my opponent, and vice versa. Then, to my utter surprise, my opponent—who was actually only at level 18—managed to activate his mana flow during a sudden change of direction. His mana flow was incredibly brief and rather fragile, but it was undeniably a mana flow.

Thanks to the Halunar's Eye and my improved reflexes, I managed to evade the strike and counter by sweeping his supporting leg. But I was genuinely stunned. This was the first time I had ever seen someone activate mana flow before their skill level reached 20.

"Hey, where did you learn swordsmanship?" I extended my hand, intending to pull my defeated opponent up from the ground, but he only glared back at me with a look of pure hatred. Retracting my hand, I wiped it against my trousers and turned to ask someone standing nearby who looked like the boy's friend.

"Hey, where did your friend learn his swordsmanship?" The friend, surprisingly easygoing, laughed and replied: "Corbin and I both train at the McCaley family dojo. Pretty impressive, right?"

"Shut up, Josh!" The boy named Corbin scrambled to his feet, angrily dragging his friend away. After walking a short distance, he turned back around, his eyes shot with blood.

"If you ever dare to make Lady Rushia sad, I will beat you to death!" What an endearing, honest kid. But his swordsmanship truly was quite impressive. It carried a similar flavor to Kale Derick's fighting style, likely because they had both learned from the McCaley family. I really wanted to take a day off to visit the McCaley dojo, but Imperia provided far too few rest days. In Averula, there was no concept of months; instead, time was measured in seasons and lunar weeks.

Each lunar week lasted ten days, and each season comprised ten lunar weeks. Imperia students were only granted a single day off at the end of each lunar week, alongside a long vacation at the beginning of the snow season. This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. Not only were days off scarce, but requesting an absence was also quite difficult without a legitimate reason and family consent.

If a student accumulated more than five unexcused absences in a single year, they would be expelled. At the end of this lunar week, I had accepted an invitation to have lunch at the main estate of the Matthew family, and traveling back and forth would likely consume the entire day. I wondered if the swordsmanship school offered night classes? While I was pondering this dilemma, a letter arrived from Henry McCaley.

Inside was a stack of papers detailing everything he could recall about what transpired in Yathen across his one hundred loops, just as he had promised. I slowly read through the pages one by one, cross-referencing them with my own memories. During my first isekai run, by the time the candidates were teleported to Yathen, the ghouls had already been assaulting the city for nearly a day.

That deployment had also marked the largest gathering of Hero candidates sent out since the initial mission in Marbour: a total of 16 combat-capable individuals and 3 healers. The ensuing battle had been grueling and chaotic because Yathen's first line of defense had been breached completely out of nowhere. We had to simultaneously search for and evacuate trapped citizens while repelling ferocious waves of ghouls. It took us roughly three days to fully evacuate everyone trapped inside the inner city to safety.

Jullius's combat prowess had garnered massive renown during that battle. Back then, my primary duty had been rescue operations, whereas he fought in areas heavily dense with ghouls, so we rarely crossed paths. In the end, he was even the one who slew the individual believed to be the leader of the cultists. What Henry knew about this battle significantly eclipsed my own knowledge.

According to him, throughout all the loops he had experienced, this battle would invariably occur, regardless of what changes he attempted to introduce. In a few loops, Henry had tried his best to win this battle with the absolute minimum number of casualties. He had investigated the locations where the cultists released the ghouls, as well as the gathering spots of their leadership, subsequently coordinating the Knights, the Holy Knights, and the Hero candidates to launch a preemptive ambush.

Yet the bizarre thing was, no matter how fast he moved, the person who delivered the killing blow to the leader of the cultists was always Jullius Griffin. On one occasion, Henry had successfully protected the city of Yathen perfectly. The city was never breached, and not a single civilian lost their life. Yet even this outcome failed to alter the final result of the conquest. The Hero party still failed, and the loop triggered once more, erasing all of his hard work.

In the subsequent loops, Henry gradually stopped paying attention to Yathen altogether. He also noted down that there were two loops in which he had died by assassination following the battle at Yathen. The first time, he wasn't certain of the perpetrator's identity, but by the second time, he had confirmed that the assassins were tied to the Griffin family. Following those two instances, Henry developed a much higher sense of self-preservation, so the incident never reoccurred.

The Griffin family's assassination attempts afterwards occurred somewhat randomly between loops; he had tried to look into it but could never identify a common thread. The Griffin family wanted to kill Henry McCaley? During my first isekai run, I had never paid any attention to such a thing. Jullius's attitude toward Henry had always been rather courteous yet guarded. More accurately, that was how everyone in the old Hero party behaved around Henry.

I hadn't found it unusual at the time, given that the knight's personality was as stiff as a log. He was also the sole adult among a pack of teenagers who were still in their rebellious phase, so there was naturally a bit of a generational gap. The Griffin family and the McCaley family had never been ancestral enemies. Could Henry have inadvertently stepped on the Griffin family's toes regarding some hidden interest? I circled this point in my private journal for a deeper investigation down the line.

For now, I needed to decide what course of action to take regarding the upcoming attack on Yathen. Henry stated that he had once successfully defended the city flawlessly, proving that it was entirely possible. Furthermore, I had just recently disrupted the cultist's plans in Grasiva, meaning their offensive power would undoubtedly be heavily weakened. The question was whether my actions would be enough to prevent the attack from happening entirely.

To answer this, I needed to ascertain the cultist's true objective in striking Yathen. Did they merely intend to flaunt their power to spread the infamy of their cult, did they seriously desire to overthrow the Church in the capital, or was there an even deeper underlying motive? If it were either of the first two goals, the cultist might refrain from attacking Yathen this time around. After all, they required a massive ghoul horde to generate the kind of impact they desired.

But if they still chose to launch an attack despite their severely depleted forces, then it was highly probable that they harbored an entirely different objective altogether.

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