The Royal Military Academy's Impostor Owns a Dungeon [BL] novel Chapter 1288

Chapter 1288: What Did We Miss?

Ada was actually right about the arrangement.

There definitely were far better combinations they could’ve used, especially if the Academy’s only goal was to have its students finish the exercise as quickly as possible.

In fact, with the right grouping, the instructors had a terrible suspicion that certain cadets might’ve completed CREX faster than anyone had ever recorded.

Unfortunately, that was precisely why the increasingly cornered instructors of the Royal Military Academy hadn’t been able to allow it!

Admittedly, splitting them up hurt.

There was a benchmark against cadets from other academies now, and whether anyone wanted to admit it or not, the Royal Military Academy’s reputation was very much on the line.

But what would happen if they simply gathered their strongest students into one ridiculously overpowered battalion and sent them out to crush everyone else?

Sure, they’d probably win.

They might even win spectacularly.

But if all they proved in the process was that the Academy’s current prestige rested on nine students from one brand-new guild, most of whom barely attended enough regular classes to credit the Academy for their abilities in the first place, then that victory would raise an entirely different set of questions.

Questions the Academy administration would rather not answer!

So between accepting all those petitions demanding a fair competition and trying to give the rest of their freshmen a genuine chance to pass the evaluation, the instructors had practically killed themselves balancing the battalions.

They couldn’t make everyone equally strong.

That would’ve been impossible.

But they could at least distribute their most capable cadets well enough that each battalion had someone reliable to anchor it.

Would that make CREX comfortable?

Absolutely not.

Would it produce the fastest possible victory? Assuming they were even victorious at all?

Probably not that either.

But if their first-years could hold their own against seniors from some of the Empire’s best military academies, then the instructors would already consider that a respectable outcome.

Even if they failed to hold their own against those guys.

Because in the minds of the increasingly worried instructors of the Royal Military Academy, the most dangerous competition wasn’t even standing inside the Training Hall.

They were already waiting for them on Caldris Minor-7.

__

Deep within the subterranean briefing room of Caldris Minor-7, heavy metallic clicks echoed against the reinforced steel walls.

A group of young but surprisingly adept soldiers sat scattered around a low table, their hands moving with terrifying, practiced speed as they inspected their weapons.

Chambers were racked and magazines slammed into place. Sight lines were checked almost absentmindedly, each movement so smooth that it was obvious they’d repeated the same motions thousands of times before.

One soldier casually raised his rifle and tracked an invisible target across the room.

Click, click, click.

Three mock shots in less than a second.

"Doesn’t this whole exercise feel a little... new?" he muttered, lowering the barrel. "Maybe the uptight higher-ups finally decided to shake things up after making us run the same old drills over and over."

Another soldier sitting nearby immediately looked at him strangely.

"What? Is this your second time or something? You sound awfully familiar with mock battles."

"Bah! You know what I’m talking about."

The first soldier scoffed as he flicked the safety back into place.

"We’ve been stuck here for over a year. I know they said closed-door training when we got pulled in, but shit... zero contact with the outside until last week would make anyone way too familiar with everything around here."

He gestured vaguely toward the room.

"Hell, every time they change the flavor of the nutrient solution, I can tell immediately, even if they dress up the supply drops in the same blasted packaging!"

Several people snorted.

"So how could someone suddenly showing up in person to give us a mission right when our training’s about to end not feel suspiciously special?"

He leaned back and started twirling a high-grade sidearm around one finger.

"Sure, when they recruited us, I expected hot weapons and actual life-or-death scenarios. Instead, we ended up with modified ones that can’t really kill anyone."

He glanced toward the equipment scattered around them.

"But at least this proves the Empire’s probably still standing when we finally get out of here. I mean, look at all the stuff they sent over for this whack-ass mission!"

His eyes practically lit up.

"We even got modified mechas! And from what I remember, the Empire’s been struggling with materials since forever. Where I came from, these things would fetch a ridiculous amount of money."

Thwack!

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