Raising Paladins

Episode 29. There are always exceptions (1)

Silence flows in the exam hall.

It was all because of Carl’s last cry.

-Let’s fight with me!

Applicants looked blank as if they had been stabbed in the back of the head.

The examiners were so dumbfounded that their mouths were wide open.

‘That’s a real madman!’

‘It’s stupid!’

No, which test taker would challenge the examiner’s representative to a fight?

If you don’t want to be beaten to death, this is something you should never do.

Even more so when it came to ‘seasoned Greg’.

But this time, Carl was thinking about something completely different from everyone else.

‘That rule was still alive!’

A rule that if you win a match against one representative of the examiner, you will be appointed immediately without any preliminary procedures!

It was an exception made by Carlos himself 200 years ago.

‘Because geniuses beyond imagination sometimes appear in the world.’

In normal cases, it is impossible for the candidate to beat the examiner’s representative.

However, there are always exceptions.

Carl often saw such cases in the many battle fuse exams he observed in his previous life.

And it saddened me every time I saw it.

‘I have to take those guys to the front right away!’

The era of the war with the Lich King.

If you were a talented priest, you had to put it into battle quickly.

A healing priest who is born with divine power response or a battle priest who has a natural ability to fight!

They did enough for ten, no, a hundred other priests on the battlefield.

So, the exception rule Carl developed was ‘confrontation with one representative of the examiner’.

A decision to immediately discover ridiculous geniuses and put them on the battlefield!

Indeed, after Carl distributed the regulation.

Although rare, there were those who passed the regulations.

One of the ‘four knights’ who was able to entrust Carl’s back until right before he died was like that.

‘This will be easier than I thought.’

Of course, it wouldn’t be easy to defeat the veteran priest Greg in his current physical condition.

But it was worth a try.

Why?

‘Because I’m the only user of divine power in this world!’

All priests can handle divine power.

But now, only Carl alone uses the divine power.

So it is worth trying with the body of a homeless person who is still less trained.

Before coming here, I experimented with the boss scavenger.

Of course, it was still true that Carl had to beat three other test takers before he could face Greg.

“… … Courage is imaginary. However, in order to play against me, you must first win a match against another candidate. Let’s talk again after that.”

“So be it.”

The voice of Carl, who dismissed the confrontation with the test taker as saying it was no big deal.

At Carl’s reply, Greg frowned again.

‘Something… … It makes me strangely angry.’

Strangely, the more I talk to that test taker, the worse I feel.

Why?

I want to think about what the problem is, but I can’t afford it right now.

Greg tried to calm himself down.

“There are interesting candidates for this exam. But I want everyone to keep in mind that there is a difference between courage and conceit, and let the test begin.”

***

“Test taker 4, Meisa, wins!”

“Test taker 13, Maximus, wins!”

“Walden, the 21st candidate, wins!”

A battle fuse test site where a confrontation takes place in three locations at the same time.

Declarations of victory erupted everywhere.

The first to subdue the three and pass the practical test was Meisa, a blonde woman from the aristocratic group.

Following that, Maximus and Walden, also from the aristocratic group, won and qualified for the written test.

“All that remains is the rite of passage. Good work, Maysa.”

“Walden you too.”

People who passed the practical skills first laughed and chatted.

When they said ‘rite of passage’, they meant the final exam, the writing.

In the battle fuse exam, only questions at the basic level of education are asked for writing.

It meant that if he passed the actual test, he was actually appointed as scheduled.

“i envy you… … .”

“Tch, if I had been born into an aristocratic family… … !”

“If you eat meat soup and use a quality steel longsword, of course you win, like a dog!”

Conversely, the other two groups of dropouts who were defeated by the aristocrats swallowed their resentments.

Carl, who watched them silently.

He stood up at the sound of a voice coming from the makeshift arena in the middle of the exam hall.

“Applicant number 33, Dawn School applicant Carlos!”

jerk, jerk.

Carl moves with a calm face.

Then the eyes of the people around him poured.

“Crazy, is that a wooden sword?”

“Keuk… … A wooden sword for challenging Examiner Greg?”

“It must be a delusion.”

Criticism and ridicule pour in.

But Carl didn’t mind.

It was because the sword was too sublime to listen to the stories of such idiots.

Carl’s only thoughts are rebuilding the Dawn Bridge and the upcoming battle with the Lich King.

I’d be too busy doing just those two things, so why bother with kids like that?

Carl climbed into the temporary arena and pulled out a wooden sword from his waist.

“Carlos, the 33rd candidate, will fight against the 26th candidate Satford.”

Charreung-!

Just hearing it makes you shudder!

A well-forged blade comes out showing off a bleak light.

The opponent of the knife that pushed it forward was a guy named ‘Satford’.

It was the same sycophant who taunted Carl by prodding him with his fingers when he first entered the exam hall.

“Did I tell you to wait and see? You gardener bastard.”

Boom- Boom-!

Satford approaches while spinning a steel longsword in the air.

He smirked as he looked up and down the wooden sword and the bare sword.

“If you lose one of your limbs, don’t blame me. Because this is a legal confrontation.”

“… … .”

“I won’t kill you though. No matter how insignificant you are, it’s too bad to die. is not it?”

“… … .”

“It is an honor to face a high-ranking aristocrat like me… … Hey, can’t you hear me?”

“… … .”

Carl’s eyes without any emotion or agitation.

Carl just looked at Satford with nonchalant eyes.

Then he spoke to the examiner.

“It’s noisy, so let’s start quickly.”

***

Cheeky!

“S, victory! Candidate number 33 Carlos won the first round!”

burrr.

Satford, who had fallen to the floor, was shaking.

Satford drooling as if he was bitten by a poisonous snake!

In addition, the index finger of his left hand, which had been hit right by the wooden sword, was bent in the opposite direction.

The other group of nobles who were staring at him were dazed.

“… … saw?”

“… … No, it’s too fast.”

“Something hooked and the satford collapsed.”

Satford has the lowest swordsmanship among the aristocratic group.

But now the situation makes no sense.

No matter how bad your skills are, that’s something that only nobles can talk about.

It is absolutely impossible to lose to such a countryman whose identity is unclear whether he is poor or beggar.

furthermore.

“A long sword with a wooden sword… … ? Is that possible?”

What the sword is holding is obviously a wooden longsword.

In comparison, Satford used a steel broadsword.

However, the material of the two weapons had no effect on the match.

’cause I’ve never been hit

‘What kind of combat fuse would these ruthless bastards do!’

Carl glared at Satford, who was so dumbfounded that he collapsed and had a seizure.

Even if you can’t fight, you shouldn’t be able to do it moderately, it was a confrontation that just couldn’t be explained with the word ‘easy’.

After sneakily dodging the sloppy piercing sword, it was all that was struck in the back of the head with a wooden sword.

It’s a bonus that he broke the finger he cheekily poked at himself earlier.

“Greg, did you just see it? The sting was quite sharp, but I easily dodged it.”

“As if he knew where Satford’s sword was going to stab.”

“Are you quite seasoned?”

The examiners praised Carl in unison.

Other applicants did not see it, but the examiners could be seen as combat priests with their own experiences.

From their point of view, the skill Carl had just shown was clearly ‘that of a veteran’.

“Carlos, the 33rd candidate, the next opponent is No. 32 Haynes!”

Carl, who was assigned a member of the middle group this time.

A man called ‘Hains’ climbed into the arena with leather armor and a rugged steel longsword.

and.

“Are you both ready? Then the battle begins… … huh?”

Fight!

The sound of something excitingly pounding the back was heard several times in an instant.

Then Haines’ body thumped down.

It’s not as much as the Satford from before, but after all, his body trembled.

“What happened?”

“I didn’t even see it!”

This time, the sword skill that even the testers couldn’t see!

In fact, from Carl’s point of view, the opponent was slow and frustrating, but in the eyes of others, the match was decided in an instant.

What makes such a big difference is the presence or absence of actual combat experience.

‘I, who was dealing with the skeleton army, was playing house with these kids, uh… … .’

Carl crossed the line of death in many battlefields and reached the present.

Of course, he couldn’t compete with such a sword by practicing alone at home or attacking with the skills that a swordsman tutor taught him.

It is a knife that survived by enduring all kinds of variables in a real life-and-death battle.

The guys I’m dealing with right now can be said to be children compared to Carl.

‘It’s like a battle between an adult and a child!’

Greg, the representative of the examiner who sat in the seat of honor and watched the match!

His eyes were as sharp as ever.

Greg was the only person in the room, other than Carl, who had ever risked a life-and-death battle.

That’s why I was feeling the sword’s level of swordsmanship to some extent.

‘In the first confrontation, it seemed that he knew in advance that the opponent’s sword would stab him and avoided it. This time, too, he seems to have known that Haines would use the blade for an irregular attack… … . Even if a teacher and a disciple confront each other, it won’t be worse than this!’

Carl shouted to himself, the test tube representative, ‘let’s play a game’.

It occurred to me that that confidence might not be a bluff.

And then.

Carl’s last opponent stepped up to the arena.

“Carlos, the 33rd candidate, the last opponent is the 1st candidate, Terry!”

***

Serureung-

A shriek echoed from the sharp longsword pulled from Terry’s scabbard.

A steel longsword made by the best craftsmen in Tournoble.

Even a hydrangea, the symbol of the family, was elegantly engraved on the blade.

A steel sword so expensive that a commoner’s family could live for a year just by selling it!

Terry, holding it, looked at the knife and smiled.

“It looks like he won twice as luckily, but it’s not even close to me.”

Cheeky commoner boy!

I hate seeing him dressed in dirty clothes and carrying a wooden sword and babbling about becoming a priest.

‘It’s like running rampant without knowing the subject… … .’

Guys like that should live quietly farming and holding their breath.

I’ll have to come to the battle fuse test site like now and show you that if you mess around, your neck might run away.

The empire’s caste system was strict, and Terry thought he was the one who had a duty to uphold it.

That’s why it was a plan to punish the knife very well.

“You have to pay the price for making Satford like that. So no matter how the match ends, don’t blame me.”

Terry threatened Carl in a low voice.

But Carl still had his usual insensitive expression.

“Is talking a lot before a fight a characteristic of this town? If you draw a sword, you’ll just attack, so why are you teasing your tongue?”

“… … this!”

Tadat!

Terry rushed in, narrowing the width in an instant.

The sharp longsword stabbed the neck of the sword, showing off the skills he received from professional swordsmanship lessons since he was a child.

The applicants of the aristocratic group who saw that figure thought the match would end immediately.

Because that thrust was Terry’s special move.

But at that moment.

“What?”

An amazing thing happened.