Chapter 1 - This is the Beginning of the Story
When you thought of a knight, you imagined an impressive warrior clad in heavy armor, with an elegant cape fluttering in the wind, proudly wearing their prized longsword. They ventured into distant caves to slay dragons, then returned triumphantly with the clattering of horse hooves, and they were kind to their people, earning the respect and admiration of everyone around them.
…So to sum it up, it was the number one dream job for boys.
And so, being an idiot, I entered the military academy as a hot-blooded boy who had foolishly and seriously aimed to become a knight since I was a child. Of course, it wasn’t easy. Since birds of a feather flock together, there were a lot of idiots from all over the country with similar ideas gathered there, so it was only natural.
If my parents were rich or had been knights, I could have entered as a scholarship student through an easy entrance exam, but as a commoner, I had no such connections or money. It was an extremely difficult task to squeeze myself into the position that was narrowed down to five people after pushing aside the thousands of applicants who applied to the military academy every year and narrowing it down to three selection processes: academics, practical skills, and an interview.
That was probably where I used up all my passion at the time. Idiots had no sense of planning.
Incidentally, the military academy directly filled the national knight corps, but out of twenty slots each year, fifteen were filled with special scholarship students, creating a wonderful unequal sociality. The rich and privileged must perish.
—I had digressed, but anyway, it was around that time that I started to feel that “They’re not the kind of knight I want to be.” Of the people who entered the military academy on the same day, eleven of them constantly boasted about their family backgrounds, five of them followed me around obnoxiously, two tried to drag me down a path of corruption, and four ignored me as if I were beneath them, and I only managed to make two friends; it was a miserable school life.
By the way, those two friends were the King’s second son and the most beautiful daughter of a wealthy man at the academy.
Thanks to that, I received a lot of jealousy from those around me. You all kept saying things like I was making connections or aiming to get a rich marriage, but it was because you all refused to befriend me and kept pushing me away. Moreover, both of them were so naive that they didn’t even realize that it was their fault I was being looked down upon. This was why I couldn’t stand spoiled brats. But I would let it slide.
So, after all that, I graduated, and after all that, my best friends and I made a strange promise that “We’ll lead the future of the Knight Order!”, but the reality was that there was a huge disparity in the Knight Orders at the time of enrollment. There was no way I, a commoner, would be on the fast track to success.
The second prince joined the Holy Fleet Knights, responsible for the external defense of the island kingdom.
The wealthy young lady joined the Holy Shield Knights, who protect the royal capital.
And I went to a place that wasn’t particularly holy.
“Varna! There’s a big one over there!!”
“Yes. Knight Varna, dispatch…”
In the forest, where the humidity was so oppressive that it made me want to take off my clothes, my senior’s voice echoed. Covered in mud and dead leaves, I had been forced to wait, but I pulled out my beloved sword—the only thing that could be said to be knight-like—from the ground and sprinted off. There were many reasons and circumstances for why I was dressed in an un-knight-like manner and gave my senior a half-hearted reply, but let’s leave that aside.
Bam, bang! The ground shook as the shadow of a deformed monster charged forward came into my field of vision.
“Pugyaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!”
Before my eyes was a huge green body like a small mountain, even bigger than the big man.
Its skin was covered in bumps like warts, it had almost no hair, and its face looked like it had been smashed by a rock or something, with its nose and chin distorted and enraged. Its large club, which matched its gigantic body, was soaked in a dark red liquid, revealing a mottled pattern that sent chills down my spine.
Disgusting. Its body odor surprisingly wasn’t bad, which infuriated me even more.
If it had a stronger body odor, it would have been discovered sooner, so why was it so obsessed with keeping things clean in such pointless places?
Well, a strong body odor was pretty unpleasant in itself.
Its name was Orc.
Currently, it was the most ferocious, crude, brutal, and primitive demi-human creature in the kingdom.
An invasive monster, it was more than an animal but less than a human, harboring an exquisite level of trouble.
Its appearance was filthy, as if a pig-like humanoid had been modified to be as ugly as possible. If left unchecked, they would kill people and horses, steal crops, murder, and abduct women, and they had an unnecessarily high reproductive rate, making them truly useless beings. They were essentially self-replicating, fully automatic harassment machines.
Such a nuisance couldn’t be left alone, so the orcs were currently being hunted down with great acclaim.
Coming towards me was the leader of a pack that was on the run after its comrades were killed. Perhaps it was quite overwhelmed by the sudden human ambush, as its crumpled face lacked the usual fighting spirit.
In this world, if you didn’t have the will to fight, it was your loss. So, I was the one who would win.
With the cherished sword bestowed upon me by His Majesty the King held firmly at my waist, I let my blade gleam like an arrow in flight, maintaining my sprint without losing momentum.
“The Kingdom’s Offensive Sword Drawing Technique, Third Form – Hien!!”
“Bah… Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!?!?!”
In an instant, the orc’s stomach was cut open in a horizontal line, and an ear-piercing scream echoed throughout the forest.
Using the force of my acceleration, I instantly stepped into my opponent’s range, slicing them sideways as I passed them, not allowing them to counterattack. The third form, Hien, was the most versatile special move in the Kingdom’s Offensive Sword Drawing Technique.
As soon as I confirmed that the hien landed, I turned around and spun my body like a spinning top to land another blow to make sure that I killed it before it died of stomach bleeding. Just die already.
“Seventh Form – Arataka!!”
“Gah…!?”
The horizontal slash drew a beautiful semicircle and was absorbed into the orc’s neck, sending it flying soundlessly into the air.
With its head gone and unable to speak, the orc died completely, blood splattering everywhere.
Orcs had a lot of vitality, so surprisingly they didn’t die just from having their stomachs cut open; I couldn’t relax until I cut off their heads.
The middle-aged senior who had called out to me earlier to make sure I was done with my job, staggered over to me.
It was not that he was injured, he was still drunk from the alcohol from yesterday.
What an unscrupulous knight. I wish someone would comfort me for having to work as a team with someone like this.
“Hey, Varna! The ground in this forest is like a sponge, it’s so interesting!”
“That’s why I told you to drink in moderation last night… You’re going to get attacked from behind by an orc and die during the mission, aren’t you, Rock-senpai?”
“Whew♪ As expected of the future leader of the Pig-Hunting Knights! Your swordsmanship and wit are both excellent. This oniisan gets teary-eyed at the sight of such a reliable junior!”
When I thought of having someone like this as my senior, my eyes teared up, too, in a bad way.
However, we had already defeated all the targets this time, and this should be the last one. This meant I wouldn’t have to see the hateful orc’s face for a while. It looked like I could make a triumphant return to the royal capital for the first time in three weeks.
Although, orc hunting was often underestimated as an accomplishment considering how difficult it was.
[Pig-Hunting Knights]. That was the derogatory name for the Royal Knights of Invasive Dangerous Species Countermeasure which I belonged to.
“The Pig Hunting Knights… A hundred years ago, some of the monsters that were rampant on the continent washed up on the kingdom and went wild. When we tried to exterminate them, the knights of noble rank refused, saying, ‘We can’t do such lowly work!’ In desperation, the kingdom opened the door to knights wider than normal, and formed this order of knights of commoner origin… It’s true that even if you get promoted, it’s not really something to brag about, but Varna-kun, we really have high hopes for you, you know?”
“How do you expect me to take that seriously…”
“You’re being promoted to vice-captain next year.”
“What? Eh… Are you serious?”
“Dead serious. Becoming vice-captain in the second year of joining, that’s the fastest in the history of our group. It’s thanks to the leader’s push, you know.”
When I asked him about this information, which came as a complete surprise to me, Rock-senpai’s face suddenly became serious.
This man had a convenient constitution that allowed him to switch between drunk and serious mode at will.
Thanks to that, even though I covered for him when he was drunk, it always looked like I was the one causing a commotion.
Thinking back on it made me even more angry. I would definitely get revenge someday.
Anyway, back to the main topic.
The Pig Hunting Knights were fairly well-loved by the people, but within the Royal Knights, they were recognized as the newest and lowest-ranking, often looked down upon as crude and low-class. To lead such a knightly order, you had to be more than just thick-skinned, and the second leader of the order, Commander Luger, had an extremely shady personality and an incredibly long beard.
The fact that someone like that suddenly said he was going to make me vice-commander meant that he was definitely up to something nefarious.
“What is that bearded old man up to? Has he gotten senile?”
“He’s probably thinking about retiring because he’s getting senile~♪”
“…That sounds plausible. I’m sure that old man has a plan in his head of what he needs to do before he retires, down to the days months, and years.”
This was Commander Luger we were talking about. He was definitely capable of that.
He usually had the face of a pleasant old man, but in reality, he was a man of words who excelled at distinguishing between what he said and what was actually happening, and he steadily incorporated others into his plans. There was no doubt that he had a grandiose plan behind his decisions this time as well.
“Right? But even if you’re in the Pig Hunting Knights, promotion is still a good thing. You can feed your father and mother delicious food, and more than anything, a commoner knight who has been promoted is popular with beautiful women. It’s easier to get your hands on them than if you were an aristocrat!”
“Well, I agree that it makes my family feel good, but…”
“So, when we get back to the royal capital, let’s go and woo some women together! I’ll show you my pick-up techniques! Learn them well and use them as a reference for how to win women over, okay?”
What was this old man who was still unpopular and had a string of failed romantic encounters saying?
While thinking about such things absentmindedly, I thrust the yellow flag that I had lying on the ground into the dirt.
This was a flag that the Knights’ corpse cleanup team would use as a landmark later. Orc blood was basically poisonous, so when you killed an orc, you had to carry the body along with the soil from the place where you killed it to the Purification Site. Even after death, orcs were still troublesome.
And the ones who do this tedious but necessary job were us, the [Pig Hunting Knights].
“I’d rather chop off a lot of orc heads than seduce women.”
“Oh boy, this junior is scary…”
Now I’m an orc killer.
If an orc comes into sight, kill it.
If it doesn’t, seek it out and kill it.
If you can’t kill it, kill it until you die.
Today, as always, I annihilated the enemies of my country for a low salary.
