Turning Chapter 1338

Kishiar pushed the curtain aside and strode to the bedside. His face was as beautiful as ever, yet the three still couldn’t shake off their shock.

The Cavalry Commander, Kishiar la Orr, is someone who stands out wherever he is.

And yet none of the three noticed the slightest sign of him until he opened his mouth. It wasn’t as if he’d been deliberately suppressing his presence—he’d simply been standing outside the curtain, and they still hadn’t known. It was, anew, shocking.

But while he was startled, Fay also felt that somehow this sensation was familiar.

‘...It feels like I’ve gone through something like this before....... When was it?’

Perhaps thanks to having learned the truth of the dream in which he had thought everyone angels. Fay’s head soon found the answer.

‘Ah....... Right. When I made a voluntary attempt before Matten.......’

His memory was a bit hazy because it had been such a confusing time, but Fay had certainly seen Kishiar then. Before Debran and Glowe appeared, Kishiar had already been in that restroom!

His voice had come from above, suddenly, exactly like now.

Just when had the Cavalry Commander been there from?

While Fay blankly retraced his memory and felt a renewed astonishment, Glowe and Elpokin were also quickly working their heads for their comrade’s sake.

“Commander. We don’t know how much of our talk you heard just now, but F—Fay is, beyond any doubt, a definite Awakener!”

“That’s right. Fay is a little unpolished at the moment, but he’s someone who’s ready to do anything for the Cavalry! It’s true!”

They were desperate, fearing that because of what they’d just discussed, Kishiar might judge Fay unfit for the Cavalry. Kishiar looked gently at the two and nodded as if to tell them to be at ease.

“Don’t worry. I know that as well.”

“Ah.......”

“I came here because the Medical Unit informed me that Fay had awakened. I only came to check his condition and exchange a few words, but I ended up hearing a somewhat more interesting conversation than expected.”

All three pairs of eyes trembled hard at once. Wearing an unreadable smile, Kishiar opened his mouth.

“Fay.”

“Y—Yes.”

“Because of this matter, I looked up every record related to you as well. Even if individual ability training hasn’t begun yet, you have not once used your ability in front of others. So officially, there’s exactly one record remaining: the evaluation from when you took the entrance test at the Northern branch.”

“.......”

“The Northern branch members wrote that at the time you not only created a duplicate of Ishias Keltara, but even used that member’s ability.”

Glowe and Elpokin’s eyes widened for an instant. Kishiar tilted his head and asked,

“If you can create a duplicate capable of using an Awakener’s ability, then isn’t it a bit off to say you possess a useless power?”

“T—That...... In truth... it’s just that......”

Fay, mouthing his lips, lowered his head. A faint voice of apology leaked out.

“I’m not trying to press you for lying. I merely want to know. If the Northern branch members judged so, there must have been grounds for it; and if despite that you have continually judged your own ability to be useless, there must be grounds there as well, no? I have a rough guess, but I’m simply curious because I didn’t see the situation myself. If you remember that time, I’d like you to tell me in a bit more detail.”

The Commander’s words were smooth yet logical. They didn’t feel overly coercive, but there was a peculiar force that didn’t allow one to evade and run away, and Fay was completely overwhelmed before it.

Bowing his head, Fay covered his face and drew a deep breath. Then he confessed one more truth he’d wanted to hide to the very end.

“...I said I received advice from Matten when going to take the Cavalry test, but in fact there is one other thing I received from them.”

“What is it?”

“A medicine... said to ease tension and help calm the mind.”

The Cavalry test has two rounds in total. Passing the document screening is only the preliminaries; the main round is the practical interview that follows.

When Fay, having passed the document screening, was seized by extreme nervousness before the interview, the merchants gave him a small pill, saying it would help him. Sedatives were a medicine he’d procured several times for his ailing mother, so they were fairly familiar to him. Fay accepted it without suspicion and took it just before entering the interview.

“After taking that pill, I was able to face the test much more calmly. Whether thanks to my mind settling, I didn’t fail in using my ability... no, it even felt as if it worked much better than I expected.”

Fay received a strand of Ishias’s hair, who had come to supervise the test, and succeeded in summoning a duplicate. Ishias herself was surprised that a duplicate appeared that looked exactly like a mirror image of her, and the other examinees waiting nearby were no less appalled.

Then, someone tried to flick a stone with an ability toward Fay’s duplicate to attack it. It was the spite of another examinee whose failure had just been confirmed.

The moment that person exercised his ability, Ishias and the duplicate simultaneously turned their heads precisely in that direction, and Valmore swiftly knocked aside the incoming stone. It had all happened in an instant, so Fay didn’t properly comprehend what was what. The duplicate he had made vanished immediately afterward.

Fay was then shocked to see the Cavalry members, their expressions changed, come charging in like flying and together beat the attacker half to death. Perhaps because of that fear, he couldn’t properly remember what he himself had done.

But afterward, to Fay’s good fortune, a pass was announced.

“I only learned what Senior Ishias’s ability was after I passed.......”

Ishias Keltara’s ability is “danger detection.”

The Northern branch members judged that Fay could create a duplicate capable of copying an Awakener’s ability. Fay was not sure whether he had truly done such a thing, or whether the duplicate had simply reacted automatically at the time; but he was afraid that if he said so, his pass would be canceled, so he couldn’t say anything.

After passing into the Cavalry, Fay tried once more to use his ability. Since it wasn’t easy to obtain someone’s hair as a target, what he attempted was a duplicate of himself.

“But the ability... did not manifest.”

Amid intense nervousness and fear, Fay thought of the pill his friends had given him. Wondering if taking a sedative had helped the manifestation of his ability, he procured a sedative elsewhere and took it, but it was no use. He was still nervous, and his ability still didn’t manifest properly.

Only then did he think that perhaps, unlike an ordinary sedative, the pill his friends had given him might have contained some special ingredient. If so, then had he not perhaps committed misconduct?

That fear deepened as he heard from Cavalry members about the suspicious Southern merchants, and by the moment he was finally betrayed by Matten, it had almost turned into certainty.

Would people who so casually fed poison to Fay and his peers really have given him a proper sedative that day? There’s no way to know the answer now. All the more reason it was frightening.......

“...I’m sorry. Even I couldn’t be sure whether I had manifested such an ability, and if I had truly committed misconduct, I became afraid of what would happen....... So I couldn’t speak.”

“I see.”

That was all of Kishiar’s reaction. Glowe and Elpokin also said nothing. Fay, feeling as if his throat were parched, forced himself to wait for the sentence that would fall upon him.

This time, would he truly be expelled from the Cavalry? Had his classmates been disappointed in him as well?

“-There is one thing I know for certain. You have absolutely no trust in your own ability.”

Kishiar spoke quietly.

“People say an Awakener’s power is something suddenly given without any effort. But from all I’ve seen, that’s not a complete answer. Quite considerable conditions are needed for someone to awaken, and even after awakening, to use one’s ability properly and well requires tremendous effort.”

“.......”

“To someone who shuns and fears his own power, an ability does not easily yield answers. There is an enlightenment that can only be felt after you try using the power and wholly accept it. Have you ever had that kind of experience?”

“I don’t... know.”

The very first time he used it, he had naturally thought that placing his mother’s hair on the scale would do it. But after that, he’d never felt that way again.

Kishiar smiled as if he’d expected that.

“Right. I see. You clearly need a great deal of training. Fortunately, that’s scheduled to be handled by my respected aide, so I don’t think I need say more.......”

His words, which had continued, paused for a moment. Kishiar gazed at Fay for a while with an unreadable expression.

“As a slight apology to you and as an answer to a new understanding I’ve gained, I’d like to offer a bit of advice as well.”

“......Sir?”

What could that mean? Did the Commander mean he felt apologetic toward him?

‘Why?’

And what was this new understanding? Thinking so, Fay, in his timid nature, only blinked. Kishiar’s eyes curved as if he had read all of his thoughts.

“In truth, that day, I could have rescued you sooner, before you made the voluntary attempt—but I did not.”