The Max Level Hero Has Returned!

The strike wasn’t extraordinary in power, though neither was it carelessly executed.

It was a soft yet firm slash—something only those with a certain level of skill could recognize.

And so, Koshia’s followers mocked him.

"What an idiot. Who could you possibly kill with such a weak swing?"

Their assessment was meaningless, of course.

The level Tadia’s body had achieved through her unique physical traits, insights, and relentless effort was not something shallow swordplay enthusiasts could appreciate.

"..."

In fact, Professor Viche Broker made a subtly complicated face as he began to mark her performance.

Finally, he muttered, "Not bad."

"But you’re still lacking in a lot of parts. You’ve focused too much on fluidity and thereby sacrificed strength. You’ve let aesthetics dictate your movements—swordsmanship isn’t some shallow artform! And above all..."

He gazed at Davey.

"Your blade trajectory is far from clean!"

"Shouldn’t you explain in more detail, professor?"

"And now you’re trying to teach me how to do my job?!" Viche barked.

"..."

"Ungrateful brat. Prince Davey created this academy to give commoners like you a chance to learn! Let alone your ungratefulness, you even dare to question me?!"

"What’s so wrong about pointing out something that's wrong?”

"Wh-What did you say to me?!"

"I’m simply asking for an explanation I can understand."

Despite Viche’s rage, Davey couldn’t help but smirk internally.

"Fine! I’ll mark all your remaining tests as zero!"

"As far as I know, there’s no rule allowing such a punishment..."

Boom!

Before he could finish, Viche swung his sword, splitting the air next to Davey.

"Do not test my patience, Tadia. I’m aware of the talent you possess, but it is only so much to become a Swordmaster. With your arrogance, you’ll never achieve true mastery and awaken mana!"

Turning abruptly, Viche barked, "Next!"

As expected, his favoritism was blatant.

"This is ridiculous... How is this level of abject bias even allowed?"

"He’s especially harsh on Tadia..." whispered some students, though a glare from Viche quickly shut them up.

"Does anyone have a problem?" Viche demanded coldly.

"No, sir…" they replied, subdued.

Davey tossed the wooden sword aside and left without a word.

Analyzing from an objective standpoint, Tadia’s performance may not have been perfect, but her skills certainly didn’t deserve such harsh treatment. This was beyond any possible labels of “tough love” or constructive criticism meant to push her to her limits. On the other hand, students like Koshia—who relied entirely on superficial, flashy techniques—were given exceptionally high scores.

Although it seemed on paper like Viche was fairly grading nobles and commoners alike, that was far from the truth. Some students were clearly receiving preferential treatment.

Davey continued the exams, taking her place in the medical skills test led by Professor Chonchi.

The test posed its own set of problems.

‘What is this?’

The difficulty of the questions was absurd—far beyond what any teenager in an academy should be able to handle. The practical training, experience, and additional knowledge were too challenging and advanced.

While one could attribute it to the high educational standards of Heins Academy, the difficulty was akin to testing children who were just learning to crawl on how to earn the gold medal in an Olympic triathlon.

Looking around, Davey noticed struggling expressions of frustration and despair on most of the students’ faces.

Meanwhile, Koshia and a few others appeared relaxed, breezing through their papers as if they already knew the answers.

Ignoring the clear implications of what was happening, Davey just filled the test with passable answers and left the exam hall. He then returned to his own body and hugged Aeria who greeted him.

"Hehe," Aeria giggled, her ears twitching slightly.

"How did it go?"

"It’s just as I feared.”

‘The discrimination against commoner students is far worse than I imagined.’

“I’ve put some bait in the exam. I’m hoping they’ll bite.”

"You must be tired. Should I massage your shoulders for you?" Aeria asked, unusually eager.

Davey raised an eyebrow, staring at her intently before narrowing his eyes.

"You want something from me, don’t you?"

"Ah—uh... Well..." Aeria stammered, lowering her head shyly.

"Only twice today…"

Her flustered tone made it clear what she wanted. Unlike the bold Illyna or playful Perserque, Aeria often held back her desires because she feared burdening Davey. Either Perserque or Davey would usually take the lead to include her, but with the whole Tadia situation, he hadn't been very considerate of her.

"Ah, I see," Davey said with a chuckle.

Wrapping his arm around her waist, he pulled her close and softly kissed her. Her tail stiffened as her ears perked straight up under her shimmering teal hair.

"Davey..."

"Hm?"

"Would you make the same choices if you could live your life again?"

Understanding what she was worried about, Davey nodded firmly.

"I’m happy with my life as it is now—Perserque, Illyna, you... all of it."

They said time nurtured affection.

In the two years that had passed, Illyna and Aeria had become precious and irreplaceable people in his life.

* * *

After the exams concluded, Davey called a meeting of all the professors at Heins Academy.

"Thank you all for attending. I’ve called this meeting because there’s been some controversy that needs to be addressed," Davey said calmly.

The professors’ reactions were a mixed bag. Those who had been personally trained by Davey looked visibly tense, while the others made curious faces.

"Controversy, Your Highness? Could you elaborate?" Baron Gorneo asked, his expression complicated.

Archbishop Alice, who had been sipping her tea calmly nearby, made a deep frown.

"It seems this is no ordinary controversy," she remarked.

"You are correct," Davey confirmed. "This matter concerns allegations of grade manipulation and discriminatory treatment."

At those words, her face twisted in anger.

"What? Someone here at Heins Academy is guilty of such corruption?"

"Yes," he said. "Given the gravity of the situation, I had to personally investigate and verify the claim’s authenticity before speaking up. I cannot ignore an incident that blatantly disregards Heins Academy’s core principle of providing equal education for all."

"Who would do such things…” Professor Chonchi said with his arms crossed, a defensive look on his face.

"Indeed, who would dare commit such a thing?" Viche Broker chimed in, sounding equally displeased.

"And what is your intention in bringing this up now, Your Highness? Am I mistaken, or have you already finished your investigation and identified the culprits?"

As expected of Archbishop Alice, whose political prowess had secured her an unshakable position in the Holy Empire, she had immediately discerned the implications of Davey’s words.

"I have great respect for each of you and your teaching methods," Davey began. "Even if your approaches are strict, I will respect them as long as they are not excessively so. Every one of you here deserves that kind of respect. However..."

His tone grew cold.

"Under no circumstances will I tolerate anyone discriminating against our students or making unethical decisions for personal gain."

Davey placed two exam sheets on the table in front of him and picked up a wooden sword from nearby.

"Your Highness?" Viche Broker asked, voice tinged with unease.

"Professor Viche, you are known for your exceptional swordsmanship, are you not?"

"...Yes. Thank you for the compliment."

"I wonder if you might evaluate my swordsmanship.”

At his request, Viche visibly flinched. "Haha… Your Highness, how could my untrained eyes possibly judge the swordsmanship of someone that even Swordmasters revere?"

"Don’t worry, professor. I trust your judgment," Davey said, his tone calm yet firm.

Then, taking the exact same stance he had used when posing as Tadia during the exam, Davey performed a series of deliberate strikes.

Swish! Swish!

The other professors had no idea what was going on, making confused faces. The movements were neither extraordinary nor sloppy—perfectly average in every way.

"Please, evaluate this objectively.”

Viche gulped nervously. "Uh… It’s a very standard technique. There’s nothing particularly flawed about it."

As Viche spoke with caution, Davey raised the sword again.

"How about this then?"

"Excuse me? What is the point of—"

"Just watch.”

He nodded in response before Davey flawlessly reproduced Koshia’s flashy swordsmanship. A few professors from the Swordsmanship Department frowned.

"What do you think?" Davey asked.

"Abyssmal. Are you doing this on purpose?" asked Olman, a younger professor holding a potato in his hand. He was one of the original Heins Academy faculty members, and one of the few whom Davey had trained personally.

"It’s painful to watch," Olman added bluntly.

"Do you agree, Professor Viche?" Davey asked, turning to him.

Viche hesitated, glancing nervously before nodding reluctantly. "Yes... It’s a dreadful display of flashy swordsmanship.”

"The answer seems quite obvious, doesn’t it?" Davey agreed calmly as he tossed the wooden sword.

Thunk!

The wooden sword spun through the air before piercing and sticking into the wall of the faculty meeting room.

"Hmph!"

"Unbelievable..."

Most of the professors stared in stunned silence, realizing that the swordsmanship required to achieve such a feat was beyond what even a Swordmaster could easily replicate.

"Your observations are accurate. Neither of the two techniques I just demonstrated are anything impressive in my eyes. So, let me ask you this—"

The air in the room grew icy.

"Why did you make biased judgments?"

"Urgh...!"

"Professor Viche Broker.”

“...”

"Did the two techniques I just demonstrated not seem familiar to you?" Davey asked, retrieving a video stone from his coat.

Thud!

He slammed the stone against the marble table. It flickered to life with mana as it was activated.

The video showed scenes from the swordsmanship exam. First Koshia and Tadia demonstrated their swordsmanship, followed by Viche’s clearly biased evaluations. The footage included Tadia’s complaint and Viche’s overreaction of disqualifying her entirely.

"..."

Olman let out a dry laugh at the displayed scene.

“That’s so fucking ridiculous," he muttered.

Well-known in public for his refined demeanor and elegance that had captivated countless noblewomen in the empire, he had clearly undergone a change during his time at the academy.

Archbishop Alice also expressed her displeasure.

Clatter!

Olman stood abruptly, glaring at Viche with a murderous gaze.

"Professor Viche. Is what I just saw true?" he demanded.

"This... This is a setup! Prince Davey, surely you don’t believe in this fabrication…!" Viche protested.

Ssss...

His voice trailed off as Davey’s form began to shift, seamlessly transforming into Tadia.

"W-What?!"

"It was the exact same stance. Yet, somehow... your evaluation was entirely different. What was it you said? ‘Sloppy blade trajectory?’ ‘Perfect swordsmanship,’ right?"

Viche turned ashen.

"Are you still going to deny what you did? I saw everything myself and even captured proof,” Davey asked in Tadia’s voice.

"I’m giving you a chance. I have records of every instance where you manipulated grades to curry favor with Koshia’s parents.

“...”

“I want you to confess.”

"Prince Davey..."

"What should I do with you?" Davey asked calmly as he walked toward him.

On his way, he slid two exam papers across the table toward Professor Chonchi.

“W-What…”

"Professor Chonchi. Did you notice that I made some adjustments to the exam questions?"

"W-What adjustments?!"

"Interestingly enough, certain students submitted flawless answers to problems that were impossible for anyone without prior knowledge to solve. Care to explain?"

Davey’s trap had been simple: he had swapped a high-level calculus question with an unsolvable, doctoral-level problem. While the calculus problem was very difficult, a person could still solve it with a lot of effort. But with the swapped problem, if the student actually read the question and knew what it was asking for they would realize it was nigh-impossible to solve and move on, leaving the answer blank.

"Such a flawless answer," Davey said, holding up the paper. "The question was designed to be beyond their ability to solve, yet they did. How do you explain that?”

“...”

"Shall I go call Koshia in here?"

"..."

He figured they had likely set up numerous traps to manipulate the grades. However, he turned those very traps against them.

"If you had conducted a fair exam, you might have been able to get away with it for a little bit longer.”

"I..." Chonchi began, but fell silent.

"I know. I made sure you couldn’t escape.”

Before setting his trap, Davey had made a public announcement that students with outstanding scores on the exam would receive significant rewards. Tempted by the promise of riches, Chonchi and Viche had taken the bait, pushing their limits of believability.

Ssss…

Davey picked up a massive swordsmanship manual and walked toward Viche, smiling faintly.

"Bribery, grade manipulation, discrimination... You've completely tarnished this academy’s reputation. Even worse, you went against my words and trampled on the children of war heroes who gave their lives to protect this land.”

Alice sighed heavily, shaking her head. "Who the hell hired these people…"

"Prince Davey!" Viche shouted desperately as Davey approached, his crimson eyes glinting ominously.

Stopping just short of him, Davey leaned in, his gaze locking onto the trembling professor’s.

"Choose. Would you prefer to be beaten to death with this manual? Or would you rather cling to life?"

"I... I..."

"Just so you know, you probably won’t be living if you go for the second option too.."

‘You’d probably wish death instead.’

"The professors and students of Heins Academy are my family—you dared toy with my family?”

His gaze shifted.

"Archbishop Alice."

"Please, call me Professor Alice, not Archbishop, Prince Davey.”

"Ah, right. Anyway, what should I do with him?”

Alice chuckled softly, her demeanor unbothered.

"Why make it complicated? Just beat him to death."

‘Wait, what? Is she really a former saint candidate...?’

Turning to another professor, Davey called out, "Professor Olman."

"Yes?" Olman replied, freezing mid-bite into his potato.

"What do you think we should do?"

"Lock him in solitary confinement and feed him nothing but potatoes. Make him eat two hundred of them," Olman said, his eyes gleaming with conviction.

‘This potato maniac…’

ChubbyCheeks & FriedNook's Thoughts

Editorb’s Thoughts

What? Did I see someone acting like eating potatoes is a punishment? WHO SAID THAT?!?!?