Chapter 25
Rodwell Dandelion had always believed that he had better intuition than anyone else.
Everyone had assumed this incident would end easily.
He judged that it would not be solved so simply.
He gathered hunters worth using.
He found a location that could serve as a base and eventually built a proper faction around it.
Just when everything was beginning to settle into place, the world turned into hell.
From that moment, people changed.
Humans who had fallen into the abyss stopped caring if they had to step on the heads of their own kind to survive.
Trust disappeared.
Rules collapsed.
The changed world demanded a new way of thinking, and those demands constantly tested the species known as humanity.
While everyone was drenched in the filth of muddy chaos, the ability most needed for survival was the insight to see through a person’s inner thoughts.
Rodwell had honed that skill, and that was why he survived the early stages of THE Survival.
That same instinct was advising him now.
The boy standing beside Lucille carried an intense will.
And even more impressive was the aura of magical power that swirled around him.
“This is Joshua Pallarion, you must have heard of him at least once, right? He is famous in our academy.”
“…Joshua.”
Lucille introduced the boy standing at her side.
The name Joshua was familiar to anyone attending the academy.
A rascal, a slacker, a fallen noble.
Surely everyone had heard at least one of the many nicknames attached to him.
Rodwell had known of him as well.
He had even met him once in the past.
But the person standing before him now felt like a stranger.
He could not find a single trace of the Joshua Pallarion he knew.
He showed no fear at the solemn atmosphere inside the room.
His eyes were calm, almost as if all of this was completely ordinary to him.
Rodwell remembered Joshua as a Novice.
Novices belonged to the lowest category out of the nine classifications, barely above ordinary people.
‘It had been years since I last saw him, so there is a chance Joshua had grown stronger.’
But if he had truly awakened and transformed, Rodwell would have heard rumors.
Yet all the rumors about Joshua had remained consistently negative.
Rodwell tilted his head.
There was more he could not understand.
“Fine, but what I want to ask is something else. Why did you bring the student you rescued all the way into the conference room where the leadership gathers?”
He knew Lucille’s personality well.
Impatient, hot-blooded, with a great deal of pride in her family, a dignified woman with strong authority.
When judging others, she valued bloodline and background above all.
By her standards, Joshua Pallarion had nothing she would like.
No territory.
No retainers.
Barely surviving by clinging to magic his ancestors had left behind.
But past glory meant nothing to Lucille.
Even if she behaved roughly, she was an heiress of a prestigious noble family who had been raised to distinguish gain from loss.
She should have been able to judge with cold objectivity.
So how had this boy captured her interest?
Rodwell could not understand it until he heard her explanation.
“I owe this kid. He saved my life, and he saved my little sister Tania too. He is pretty sharp, so I wanted to introduce him to you.”
Rodwell was shocked.
Lucille rarely praised even the comrades who had fought at her side for years.
But now she treated a boy she had known for only a short time with respect.
The other officers seated in the room were equally startled.
It was that shocking.
This difficult knight had brought someone specifically to acknowledge his achievement.
And he was a student.
A Novice with nothing but bad rumors at that.
There was no way a bit of help with trivial tasks could have changed her attitude like this.
“You wanted to introduce him… But you always talked about your little sister, no?”
“Ahaha, well, Tania still has a long way to go compared to him.”
“You are telling me that Tania Rainwood, the prodigy, falls short compared to this boy?”
“…Yep.”
Lucille hesitated, then admitted it.
Rodwell wondered what this boy had done to snatch Lucille’s attention, but he postponed that question for later.
“I understand. For now, let us get to the report. Why did you come instead of Austin?”
“Austin disappeared during the mission. Zenit died, and Parrot ran off with the food we managed to secure.”
“…So that is what happened.”
Rodwell felt heat boil up inside him.
If this had happened only in Austin’s unit, he would have held Lucille responsible.
But every squad returning to the base looked like this.
Someone had died.
Someone had deserted.
In the worst cases, entire squads never returned at all.
When holes opened in multiple places, the blame naturally fell on the one who gave the orders.
“Good work out there.”
“Here, this is the food we brought back. It is not much, but hand it out to the people.”
“Alright.”
Rodwell finally looked toward the boy who had kept silent this entire time.
There was an air of someone who had seen everything before.
No nervousness.
No anxiety.
Just a quiet presence that felt strangely weighty.
He was different from other students.
Most students summoned to a place like this would show some childish reaction, whether excitement or fear.
Joshua did neither. He simply existed, and that alone left an impression.
“Is this our first time meeting?”
“No. We met once in the past, though we barely exchanged words.”
“I see. I faintly remember. You looked very different back then.”
That was the end of the conversation.
Even with Lucille backing him, he showed no arrogance.
But he was not humble either.
It was as if his purpose had been to simply leave an impression, nothing more.
He made no demands. He did not flatter.
It made him all the more striking.
Rodwell could not read him.
People with clear intentions always tried to show them.
The boy seemed instead to drift along the natural flow of things.
“Welcome. The knights will protect you inside the Tower. But that alone is not enough to survive. If you want to live, you must prove your worth and become one of us.”
“I will try.”
“Do you not have anything else to say to me?”
“No, I do not.”
Rodwell’s face slowly hardened.
Joshua ended the exchange without a single hint of flattery.
The world had collapsed, and strength once again dictated order.
Everyone Rodwell met lowered their heads.
Fear of being discarded. Fear of being exiled.
Those who believed themselves weak bowed to the strong.
Students were no exception.
There were popular groups and unwanted groups among them as well.
One needed social skills to belong.
To make friends, even that required calculation. That was the academy.
Now, when lives depended on relationships, what would people do?
They would eat trash off the ground. They would lick the feet of disgusting humans if necessary.
Rodwell was Captain of the knights.
Both publicly and privately, the true power of the Tower.
Anyone meeting him hurried to bow.
There was no benefit in offending a ruler, and many wished to gain his favor.
Did the boy not know this?
“Let me add something. This kid helped us secure food from a village called Triden. He also killed several monsters along the way.”
“That is impressive.”
“I do not want to keep praising him myself, so I will stop here, but do remember that.”
Rodwell nodded.
Even without Lucille’s insistence, the boy’s face was burned into his memory.
What had caused this change?
Was it because the world had become infested with monsters?
Or had Joshua simply never shown his true power until now?
‘Whatever the reason, unless Joshua says it himself, everything else is only my speculation.’
Joshua bowed and left the room.
The calm expression he wore entering the meeting room never changed, even as he left.
“Was he always like that?”
“I don’t know. This is the first real conversation I have had with him.”
“…Anyway, rest for now. We lost too much in this mission. It was my mistake. I need to check the situation with the other groups and repair the Tower’s internal structure.”
“Good. I want to get away from this blood smell and dirt as soon as possible.”
* * *
I walked out and descended the spiral staircase I had climbed earlier.
I sat quietly during the meeting.
For now, I had no influence strong enough to alter the game’s flow through Rodwell.
Building a relationship with Lucille was not enough.
Her support would help me secure a spot inside the Tower, but not sway the decisions of its executives.
Interfering with Rodwell directly would be harmful to survival.
Rodwell, with his excellent insight, was a broken character who would never die for a long time.
He lacked managerial skills, but he was good at keeping control.
That was the advantage of the Order of the Star compared to other groups.
‘The Sun and Moon are full of bad endings and I disliked them.’
The Sun discarded those deemed unqualified because of its extreme meritocracy.
The Moon obsessed over bloodline and treated commoner students as slaves.
‘Ironically, both survived longer than the Order of the Star once placed in leadership positions.’
Extreme systems, yet surprisingly effective for survival.
I had nothing to criticize.
Depending on who I was and who I had near me, I might have joined them.
Merchant guilds, vigilantes, scholarly societies, even groups far worse.
It all depended on the start.
When my eyes met Rodwell earlier, a chill went down my spine.
If not for [Steady Nerves] and [Cool], my face would have twisted.
A General at rank four was among the strongest in THE Survival, already stepping into the realm of superhumans.
Reading that in text while playing the game had never conveyed the feeling.
Phrases like [The pressure is crushing you] or [The air grows cold] had never stirred emotion.
Now I understood.
Never touch a sleeping lion’s whiskers.
Approaching recklessly would only lead to disaster.
I had to take my time planting the image of Joshua inside Rodwell’s mind.
“It seems the discussion is over.”
Davis, the man who guided students to their rooms, approached me in the lobby.
“Yes.”
“I will take you to your room.”
“No, it’s fine. I have something to do first.”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“Can I go outside?”
“Well, it is possible, but you are not trying to take a stroll out there I imagine.”
“In any case, I am fine. Just tell Lady Lucille that I will handle things myself.”
Davis frowned.
After suffering so much to reach the Tower, I insisted on going back outside instead of resting on a warm bed.
Anyone would see me as insane.
He lectured me for several minutes, claiming that listening to adults was beneficial.
A cliché mindset, but perhaps considered truth in this world.
“…You are really stubborn. If something happens to you, I take no responsibility.”
Davis left, fuming.
I walked toward the front gate and had a similar exchange with the guards.
Unlike Davis, they opened the gate without complaint, saying they had orders.
‘I need a house near the Tower where their eyes would not easily reach.’
The area around the Tower was full of abandoned buildings.
Stepping into it and claiming any of them made them yours.
‘I can’t raise chickens inside a cramped student room after all.’
I needed a sturdy chicken coop that would someday give me the leverage of fresh eggs.
If I succeeded, in a few weeks I would have usable eggs to harvest.