I Became The Academy’s Blind Swordsman

I don’t hear anything.
Only the occasional drop of water could be heard in the distance.

There don’t seem to be any monsters nearby.

The appearance of the Labyrinth still gave off the same feeling of a cursed cave.

The cavern was huge, with wide passageways and there was plenty of room to swing a sword, with the occasional green torch lit.

Despite Sierra’s words, I didn’t feel spooked.

It was a familiar sight, one I’d encountered countless times in the game.

Although I didn’t feel any signs of human presence, I couldn’t talk to Sierra so I left her to her own devices and continued on my way, knowing that the first floor was a common place to encounter spawned cadets.

As I walked through the cave, my memories of the Labyrinth came flooding back.

‘I even looked up the walkthrough for the Hidden Piece location…’

I still don’t have the entire map of this vast labyrinth memorized but all that matters now is that as I wander through the Labyrinth, there is an occasional staircase that takes me downstairs.

There are no hidden puzzles on the first floor since it’s used to get used to the Labyrinth and head down as soon as you see a staircase.

Where’s the lycanthrope?

I hope it won’t appear until at least the fourth floor.

‘I wonder how the others will manage…?’

Aizel’s a regressor, so she’ll go get her own Hidden Piece.

Yuri doesn’t like mazes, so she might get lost and wander around.

‘Kaen…’

Kaen will play along and pace herself.

‘Maybe I shouldn’t have accepted her request for a duel…’

I don’t know the details, but I’m uneasy that she’s firmly mistaken about something about me.

“Hmm…”

It was not the time to worry about others as I sense a monster up ahead.

[Ack… Kerrrrr…]

Their breathing echoed off the walls and reached here.

‘It must be kobolds on the first floor.’

They didn’t seem to have noticed my presence yet as there were no traps along the way.

The first floor was easy enough and I could easily avoid them by watching the floor and walls.

‘I’m finally facing a monster.’

Maybe it was just a normal enemy, my first since coming to this world.

I kept my hand on the Spectral Sword Sierra at my waist and infused my legs with mana then sprinted to where I sensed the kobolds.

‘Only two.’

Within moments, I was right under their noses, and the kobolds’ arms shot up in surprise.

“Kerrrrrrr?!”

I couldn’t help but chuckle a bit at the fact that their movements were exactly the same as the ones I’d seen in the game.

I didn’t need to use Reverse Heaven on kobolds so I pulled out the sword I was holding in reverse grip and slashed at one of the kobolds.

Weakness detection was working well on the monsters and before it could utter a single scream I snapped it in half.

“Keruk!!!”

The remaining kobold screams as its companion falls and rushes toward me.

The kobold wasn’t very big, only slightly larger than Ram, who was nine years old.

The crude dagger he holds is aimed at me but his attack doesn’t reach me.

Long before the kobold’s dagger could reach me, my sword was within striking distance, and I decapitated him.

As if to signal the end of the battle, the kobolds’ bodies crumble to dust and disappear as a small black stone drops with a clatter where they fell.

It was a gemstone that all monsters have in their bodies.

The more powerful the monster, the larger the gemstone, or the better its quality.

Originally, the gems in monsters’ bodies had to be extracted by rummaging through their corpses.
However, these monsters were created by the Labyrinth.
Therefore, the bodies disappear, leaving only the gems.

You can sell them for money, as they have a variety of uses.

Lycanthrope, the boss at the beginning of the Labyrinth, doesn’t disappear because he was not a creature of the Labyrinth.

He’s not a monster, so he doesn’t have a gem in his body, but there are rewards to be had from his corpse.

He was an anomaly so I should probably cut off its head and show it to your instructors.
That’s how it worked in the game.

[Wielding a sword in reverse grip will be a challenge…but you’ll get used to it as soon as you can in this Labyrinth.]

As I pick up the gems that have fallen to the ground, Sierra tells me her observations of my battle.

Holding the sword in reverse grip is still an unfamiliar sensation, to be honest.

I’m sure I’ve somehow mastered the power of the status window, but I can’t seem to get used to wielding a sword in reverse grip.

I pushed myself to my feet and began to move once more.

The kobold I had just defeated must have been around level 7 but I had already reached level 18.

Adding to that the fact that I have the Weakness Detection skill, and it seems like I can just slash at their weak spots and cut them down in an instant since the kobolds were poorly armored.

The first floor was no help, either in terms of leveling or practical experience.

‘Let’s get down to the second floor quickly.’

There was no Lycanthrope on the first floor anyway, and there was a Hidden Piece to retrieve on the second floor.

The Labyrinth sends the cadets out when the time is up s because the time-slowing magic of the entire Labyrinth was affecting their bodies.

Ten hours a day was the maximum.  If you counted the time in the Labyrinth, you would have about 30 hours.

‘The Sage is so kind…’

It seems like he put a lot of effort into the Labyrinth, calculating every detail.

For the sake of the Academy’s cadets’ education…It’s a strange amount of work, but whatever.

With no chance to talk to the Sage, and with Edward as my instructor, leveling was a pain.

‘If only I could get good items and level up,’ I thought.

I might have to scour the second floor, but there was still plenty of time.