Four Split Personalities

Batty: "..."

All Students: "..."

"Ahem!"

Feeling the eyes focused on him, Hopkins snorted a little irritably and said angrily: "What are you all looking at! If you all had the strength like little Snow, you’d get paid too! If not, don’t look at me, it won’t help, if you’re not happy, hold it in!"

"Mentor, be honest with us."

With meticulous thought, Batty suddenly turned to Hopkins and seriously asked: "About deducting my scholarship, didn’t you have a plan from the start? Otherwise, based on the budget you could control at the time, it simply wouldn’t..."

"If you dare to talk nonsense again, next year’s scholarship will be gone too."

"I’m graduating next year, Mentor."

"Do you think I can’t make you repeat a grade?"

"Well, Mentor, actually my family has two business associations in Anka, so we don’t place much importance on the scholarship."

"Your family has two business associations?!"

"Hmm, two."

"Then why did you apply for the poverty aid from the first year onwards?!"

"You see, Mentor, my family has a strict upbringing, so I have very little pocket money, which makes me quite poor."

"Your family has two business associations."

"But I’m personally very poor, Mentor."

"You just said you don’t really care about the scholarship!"

"Because I don’t want to repeat a grade, Mentor."

"..."

Hopkins took a deep breath, calmed down a bit, and then turned his head away from looking at his naive and innocent apprentice. He said to Snow Bathing Sword: "Let’s not talk about whether it will affect your performance, I have some leftover Caselown White Medicine from my younger days, want some?"

"No need, this wound is a bit strange, even applying the Golden Fertilizer won’t be effective, I’m going to eat something first."

Snow Bathing Sword shook his head, then turned around and continued walking towards the rest area.

...

After the girl left

"So, let’s put the matter of Miss Snow and the scholarship aside and talk about this afternoon’s match."

Because of his smart mind, excellent grades, and friendly nature, Batty Arthur, who has always been popular and influential in the academy, lightly coughed, flicked the fluffy fox tail behind him, turned around, and looked over the younger students around him, saying softly: "First of all, I must explain one thing, although Batty Arthur’s personality may seem okay to everyone, from my personal perspective, I’m actually a very self-interested person."

"Like the poverty aid?"

In the crowd, a blonde half-beast girl with pointed rabbit ears smiled mischievously and made a joke.

"Yeah, like the poverty aid... uh, wasn’t the plan to not talk about that right now?"

Batty scratched his nose awkwardly and spread his hands: "Let me put it this way, although the mentor handed the most significant team event to me, letting someone like me, who surpasses our Dean in tactical level, handle it freely, I still failed that trust by not choosing the best solution among all possibilities."

Everyone widened their eyes in surprise. However, the person ’whose trust was failed,’ Dean Hopkins himself, kept a calm smile throughout, except for casting a glance at Batty during the "surpasses" remark.

"Let me say this, dear students."

Batty shrugged and spread his hands, saying: "In my view, having Miss Snow as the center and relying on some defensive battle arrays to play a war of attrition is the best strategy. Though it may look unpleasing, if we do it this way, even if Diesel’s friends have the level of Lady Liya Delin, we would still have a ninety percent chance of winning."

A tall orc knight who was taken down in one move by Snow Bathing Sword earlier, forcefully pulled out a nose hair, and grunted while spinning the hair between his fingers: "That’s not the same plan Batty senior told us before."

"If you were listening carefully just now, you’d find that I already said that I didn’t choose the best solution among all possibilities."

Batty looked helplessly at this third-year junior who was good everywhere, except his brain wasn’t too bright, and continued: "I also mentioned the reason, it’s because of my self-interest. Specifically..."

"Specifically what?"

A rabbit tribe female knight who had always secretly liked the senior pressed curiously.

"First, everyone knows I like researching tactics, and my only expertise is in that area. If it comes to personal strength, any one of you could probably beat me to the ground in two minutes."

Batty laughed self-deprecatingly, shook his finger, and said softly: "And the method I mentioned just now, although highly likely to succeed, isn’t capable of showcasing my expertise at all. In other words, there is no way to gain any limelight. If there’s anything that might leave an impression, it’s probably only ’the weakest one in Holy Spear Knight Academy.’ I’m not content with this."

Everyone laughed unanimously without taking it seriously, since they all knew Batty’s little flaw—when he talks about something, he always starts with the least important point.

In other words, his so-called discontent probably doesn’t weigh much, if at all.

"Then there’s the second point."

Batty didn’t realize that nobody took his previous statement seriously; he just gave an apologetic smile and said softly: "It’s that personally, I actually like... uh, or rather admire Miss Snow Bathing Sword, so I didn’t want her to be too exhausted, especially now that she’s injured, and I don’t want her to bear too much responsibility. In the tactic with the highest chance of winning, she would have to continually deal with Diesel’s knights’ strongest attack points, and even if she can withstand it, it definitely wouldn’t be easy."

"Ah!!!!!"

The rabbit tribe female knight suddenly let out a sharp scream and then squatted down pretending to wipe tears, crying: "I’m heartbroken, wuwuwu."

Batty: "..."

Everyone: "..."

Half a minute later

"Ahem, then there’s the final point."

Batty embarrassedly looked away, stayed silent for a long while, and then said in a low voice: "You all know the atmosphere in our academy, it’s even to the extent that the group with the most say, those who have gritted their teeth and persisted all the way here, it’s really not easy, extremely not easy. You’ve made more efforts than anyone else, your inner gloom is deeper than anyone else, yet no one sees it, everyone just habitually criticizes our academy, then casually adds a sentence ’the students inside are really miserable, really not easy’."

Everyone fell silent.

"And I, as someone who has come all this way like you, don’t want to become a foil on this stage, nor do I want you to become foils. I admit, Miss Snow is from a completely different world than us, capable of achieving countless things we can’t, and deserves far more cheers and applause than us."

Batty turned to look at the direction of the rest area, then gathered his smile and said solemnly: "But despite this, despite being unwise, I still choose to have her highlight us in the upcoming final, to stand alongside you at the center of this stage, to showcase everything we can, to collect some applause for all these years we’ve endured."

"That does not belong to us, it should belong to Miss Snow.

But I can’t care anymore."

I gave up the simplest and direct victory to take the stage for us, took it for you.

I want everyone to see my excellence, I want everyone to see your excellence.

Therefore—

The original ninety percent win rate has diminished.

I’m not a god, nor a famous general, so I don’t know exactly how much it’s diminished.

But it doesn’t matter.

The responsibility falls on my mentor, Dean Hopkins.

Glory, we fight for it ourselves.

I don’t wish to make any victory proclamations, because if we lose, it would be embarrassing.

So...

Students.

Promise me, don’t leave yourself with any regrets!"

In the end, Batty Arthur, with teary eyes, couldn’t help but roar.

And responding to him were forty-eight pairs of similarly reddened eyes and a roar filled with endless battle will, though neither neat nor loud, and its content was barely discernible.

...

[Holy Calendar Year 9571, Red Moon, Prayer Day 2, Fifteen Twenty.

The Comprehensive Knight Skill Competition Advanced Division, Team Competition Finals officially begin.

Holy Spear Knight Academy sends forth, with a total of forty-nine enrolled students.

Chief Commander: Commander of Great United Army’s Seventh, Eighth, Sixteenth Mixed Corps, Deputy Chief of Staff - [Cunning Fox] Batty Arthur.

Top Combat Power: One of the four deputies of Great United Army’s Secret Section, Commander of First Guerrilla Battle Regiment, Sweet Snack Reaper, Former Spade A - [Wu Shuang] Snow Bathing Sword.

Excerpt from "Violet Empire Compulsory Education Curriculum Standards Experimental Textbook · History IV" Third Lesson]

Chapter 1106: End