On My First Day Undercover, the Organization Collapsed - Chapter 383

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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First Day of Infiltration, The Organization Was Destroyed — Episode 383
Preliminary Duel (1)
As time slipped away relentlessly, at last the contingent from Telvir Academy entered the Capital.
It was quite the procession.
The number of students participating in the inter-academy exchange reached a staggering hundred or more, and the faculty alone—from the Dean down through the professors and their teaching assistants—numbered nearly twenty.
Add to that the administrative staff and delegations from each noble house, and the total reached some three hundred souls!
The Capital’s citizens were already buzzing with anticipation over the news of this historic first exchange between the two academies.
‘Larger than a swordsmanship tournament,’ Sigmund Valentin thought.
Sigmund Valentin.
The Dean of Telvir regarded his students with measured eyes.
All of them bore the lean, hardened look of warriors stripped to their essence.
Yet their eyes burned with fierce brilliance.
The will to win at any cost.
Victory was necessary—without it, they would have no face to show the southern nobles and regional aristocrats who had entrusted their sons and daughters to Telvir, especially those from the Southern Region.
And victory would secure enrollment of new students for the next semester.
Telvir was in crisis.
‘Crisis is opportunity,’ Sigmund reminded himself.
He gazed upon his lean, battle-hardened students, his resolve burning like flame.
“My goodness, I’ve heard the South is prosperous, yet…”
“Even the young nobles are skin and bones like that…”
“Is the South in such dire straits? Why do they all look so gaunt…?”
The Capital’s citizens, unaware of the month-long hellish training those students had endured, clucked their tongues in sympathy.
Thus they arrived at the Academy.
This massive contingent would be housed in the old Student Dormitory—recently repurposed for just this occasion!
“This is the old wing…?”
“As expected of the Capital.”
After the exchange was confirmed, the old dormitory had undergone a complete renovation, and the Telvir Academy students couldn’t help but marvel at the sight with envy.
Telvir lacked for nothing, but everything here seemed grander simply because it was in the Capital—and that rankled.
‘If we could just win this exchange tournament…’
Then they could secure more donations from the noble families and build an even more magnificent dormitory of their own.
“Everyone, unpack your things and assemble!”
At the professors’ command, the students moved with practiced speed.
The residue of hellish training!
These students would now throw themselves into fire if a professor so much as asked it.
Such was the caliber of warriors they had become.
Once reassembled after unpacking, the students’ eyes remained as sharp and keen as ever.
“Training begins now! We’ll run through sessions one through ten! Understood?”
“Yes!”
Hellish training commenced anew.
Here, within Edelwein Academy itself.
And there were those watching this spectacle unfold.
“Hold steady. Keep your form.”
“I can make it to four! Keep going!”
Five students had come to scout Telvir Academy.
Yurio, Karen, Delev, Celia.
And Quantus, lying prone beneath them, serving as their platform.
“Good support performance. No wobbling at all.”
At Delev’s praise, Quantus laughed heartily.
“Khhgh! Only I can do something like this!”
“We know, we know.”
His laughter sounded more like a strangled cry, but such was the state of things.
“Why are they training so hard anyway?” Karen asked.
“Wanting to win, I guess,” Yurio replied.
“But it’s not as intense as what we do,” Delev observed.
The four of them conducted their reconnaissance with surprisingly keen eyes.
“They can’t all be second-years,” Celia said.
“They said they brought students from each grade level. Look there—isn’t that Celia’s brother?” Karen pointed.
Joshuah Rihart.
Naturally, he was among those selected for this journey to the Capital.
Of course, Celia showed none of the fear she once might have.
“Hmph. Now I’m going to win.”
But watching her older brother covered in dust and sweat, she felt a pang in her chest even as laughter bubbled up.
The laughter won out, though.
“Is that flag-capture training?”
“Seems like it. One person defending, the rest charging in…”
Crash!
A massive explosion echoed across the field.
They were practicing destruction battles too, it seemed—after the territorial occupation drills.
A destruction battle was a type of contest where victory went to whichever side destroyed a specific object placed at the far end of the opposing camp!
“That looks like a territorial occupation battle.”
“We did that at the ruins. It looked fun. I bet they haven’t tried it before?”
“One thing, though—if we do that, Quantus can’t be the leader.”
“Me? You called me?”
Yurio tilted his head in confusion.
“But Quantus helped a lot, didn’t he?”
“Idiot—are you turning into Quantus too? He helped your team. He was a disaster for ours.”
“Oh, right. I was just teasing.”
“You…”
In the midst of this—
“What are you all doing?”
“Aahhh!”
“Erk!”
“Argh!”
“Gasp!”
The sudden voice sent all four students sprawling to the ground in panic.
Quantus scrambled to his feet first.
“You’ve arrived, Teacher Ziel!”
“Mm. Quantus Hopel. Have you put on more muscle? All four of you together must have weighed considerably, yet you threw them all off me so easily.”
“Oh! How did you know that?”
“The circumference of your arm muscle has grown an average of one centimeter. Visibly measurable.”
“Hm! I’ve been training hard!”
The other students scrambled up, eyes wide.
“Uh, when did you get here?”
“Just now.”
“You could at least give us a warning!”
“I did.”
Ziel tilted his head.
“So, what were you doing?”
“Well, um… we were just curious about the Telbier Academy students? Ha, haha. Celia’s brother is here too!”
At Yurio’s words, Celia bristled.
“You were the one who suggested it first!”
“I—I only brought it up because Karen mentioned it…”
“You treacherous fool!”
Ziel watched the four bicker back and forth, then nodded.
“In other words, espionage.”
“……”
None of them could find a response, and that’s when Ziel added:
“Excellent work. Knowing your enemy is the first step to victory.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Though you failed at it.”
Before anyone could respond, another figure appeared.
It was Sigmund Valentin.
“Teacher Ziel, it’s been quite some time.”
“Dean Sigmund Valentin.”
“Were you bringing the children along to do some spying?”
“No. The students did the spying—I simply passed by and happened to notice them.”
Ziel’s unexpected and swift deflection left the students bewildered.
Valentin seemed taken aback as well, but he recovered quickly.
“Ah, I see. In any case, you won’t learn much from spying. We’ve prepared thoroughly.”
“That may be true. But victory will still be impossible for you.”
“Why are you so certain, sir?”
Before Sigmund could even fully furrow his brow, Ziel answered him.
“Because we’ll win.”
“……That arrogance will bring calamity upon you.”
“Arrogance means not knowing one’s place, showing off, and looking down on others. I know my place well, and stating an anticipated fact is not showing off.”
Valentin felt it then.
That Ziel was somehow a different person entirely.
And a strong premonition struck him—that if he said another word, he’d lose even what he’d already broken even on.
Meanwhile, the students nodded as if it were obvious.
“Then I’ll take my leave. Oh, and……I’m not sure if you’ve given proper thought to the Preliminary Duel I proposed.”
At those words, four students’ eyes—no, five students’ eyes gleamed.
‘A Preliminary Duel?’
‘Are we going to have a match before things officially begin?!’
“Yes, we did consider it. It was intriguing.”
“I see. Since I haven’t met with the Dean yet, shall we count that as acceptance……”
“We declined it.”
“Pardon?”
“The letter should be arriving shortly.”
And right on cue came the Academy messenger.
“Ah, here you are. You are Dean Sigmund Valentin, correct? This is a letter sent by the Edelwein Academy Sword School.”
The sender and recipient in the same place—what a bizarre situation!
Valentin stared blankly and took the letter, opening it.
It read:
That they were too busy.
“…….”
“Our students are occupied with preparations for the Festa. Especially during the Eve Festival, it’s a time for all students to relax and enjoy themselves before the main event. We cannot take that time from them.”
A thoroughly Ziel-like response!
For reference, a Preliminary Duel was a kind of event where three representatives from each side, selected at the Eve Festival, would compete against each other.
But the students themselves were disappointed.
‘We could do the Preliminary Duel……It would be fun to fight him……’
‘To think he’d refuse that!’
However, the letter didn’t end with the rejection.
“So I made a different proposal instead.”
“A different proposal……”
Valentin flinched as he finished reading the letter’s contents.
“A duel between professors……”
A sigh escaped him.
It was a proposal he’d never considered.
“Since the students of Telvir Academy also deserve to enjoy themselves, I thought it might be worth trying that way instead.”
A sparring match between professors.
The professors of Telvir had undergone training no less rigorous than their students.
It was therefore a proposal with considerable appeal.
‘Not a bad idea, actually.’
But there was one thing he was curious about.
“……Will you be competing as well, sir?”
“I accepted Department Head Berhal Abue’s view that if I participated, no one else would step forward.”
A curious sense of relief settled over him.
That meant Sigmund couldn’t very well refuse on grounds of propriety either.
“I understand. Let me discuss this with our professors. Are the Sword School professors already informed?”
“No.”
Ziel shook his head.
“They’ll know about it by now.”
* * *
An emergency hung over the Sword School.
At the hastily convened meeting, Berhal dropped a bombshell of an announcement.
“……For this reason, we’ll need three of you professors to step up.”
“Us, us, us? Not the students?”
“We’re doing it? Really? Why?!”
Idel and Professor Merhen jumped to their feet at once.
And understandably so.
The two of them were the most at a loss.
Berhal sighed as he watched them both.
‘Well, I wasn’t going to let them go anyway.’
Three people needed to participate.
The two weakest were to be excluded.
“Professor Elcanto, Professor Allix, and Professor Isabella. I’ll need you three to take on this task.”
……
The other three were equally taken aback.
This was happening in front of all the students.
What if they lost……
“Understood. This should be interesting.”
Isabella, however, recovered from her shock quickly and agreed immediately.
With that, Elcanto and Allix had no choice but to accept as well.
Of course, neither of them was weak like Merhen or Idel.
Allix was an Execution Knight of the Imperial Knights.
And Elcanto, influenced by Ziel, had trained diligently—shedding excess weight and now reclaiming the swordsmanship of his prime.
“It should be perfect for raising morale. Assuming we win, of course.”
“I don’t know much about the skill level of the Telvir Academy professors, but it does sound intriguing.”
Isabella, who showed the most interest, was also a person whose ability was certain—she’d simply failed to advance due to her family circumstances.
She had obtained the Great Knight title before Elcanto, and had she not been caught up in her family’s power struggles with other houses, she wouldn’t be here now.
“Then, I’ll count you as having agreed.”
That was when Elcanto raised his hand.
“Um, but isn’t Teacher Ziel participating?”
“I discouraged him from it. Everyone in the world already knows his skill now, and if he participated, the tension would drop, and the interest would fade.”
“Ah……”
It was very disappointing news.
If Ziel participated, he could single-handedly defeat all three of them and still have strength left over.
Though, come to think of it, the tension would indeed drop.
The other side wouldn’t even have the will to fight.
Wouldn’t they?
He had defeated Amil Renfield, the Northern Council Chairman, in a single strike.
“Instead, Teacher Ziel will handle something else.”
“Something else?”
Even more shocking news reached the three professors, who had been waiting with some anticipation.
“He will oversee the training of the three of you.”
……
It seemed something terrible had happened.
Something very, very terrible indeed.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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