The Instructor's Flex (1)
The main gate of Pendragon Royal Academy stood open once again.
The heat pouring off sacred Mount Bulkan was still fierce, the air still heavy with it, but that swelter would not last. The season of winter and ice fairies was not far off. When they came, the heat would break, and before long the green leaves would blush red.
Second semester. The Academy's second term was about to begin.
Water crashed down in a white roar.
"Mother, this is the Royal Academy's famous central fountain. Huge, isn't it?"
"A-amazing... B-but am I really allowed in a place like this?"
"Oppa, there are so many fancy people...!"
"Big bwother?"
"...Could you ask one at a time?"
Barry Cops—Bear No. 11, as they called him—watched his family buckle under the Academy's grandeur and glitter. He understood exactly how they felt.
I was the same.
The first time he crossed that threshold, how his heart had hammered, how small he had felt. To a boy who had known nothing but the countryside, the Academy—no, the Royal Capital itself—had looked like another world. So he could hardly blame his mother, who had farmed her whole life; his little sister, grown up too soon from sewing to keep the family fed; or his baby brother, only just finding his words. They would shrink for a while and glance around for permission that no one was going to give. Even so, Barry wanted them to see it. He wanted them to know that the place where he studied, where he was being taught, was somewhere like this.
I wanted Father to see it too.
Someone had to stay home with the twins, who were still babbling, and Father had volunteered. He claimed he had gawked at the Royal Capital often enough in his youth to be sick of it. Barry knew better. He had folded away his own wish to come, so his wife and children could go with their hopes intact.
Next time I'll bring him. Even as a second-year, I'll still be here!
On the first day after summer break, the Academy made a special exception and opened its grounds to students' families. What had they called it—observation classes, a chance to show parents that the Academy was looking after their children properly?
Whatever the reason, I'm just glad I could bring them.
His family still could not tear their eyes from the soaring buildings, and Barry did not bother hiding how pleased he was.
Then—
"Barry, where is this sword-faculty instructor of yours?"
"Wha—!? O-out of nowhere?"
His mother's sudden question threw him. Mrs. Cops was not deterred.
"Out of nowhere, nothing. He didn't merely take you in. He raised you. From what I hear, the only reason you're still at the Academy is that he taught you without holding anything back. Even an ignorant woman like me knows how precious a teaching that is, and how great an opportunity. So he isn't only your benefactor. He's the Cops family's, isn't he?"
"W-well, that's..."
"I've been wanting to pay my respects in person. This seems as good a chance as any. Come on. We're going to meet the instructor."
"Uh, um..."
Sweat broke out on Barry, but his mother's will was iron, and he knew better than to test it. No one had ever bent that stubbornness. His feet turned, unwilling, toward the sword faculty.
This is... awkward.
He dreaded the meeting. Not because he lacked respect. He respected the instructor more than anyone—second only to his father, or perhaps level with him. The man was strong, he kept every word he spoke, and he had taught Barry and the other commoner students an art that stood shoulder to shoulder with Fighting Art. As far as Barry knew, he was the closest thing alive to an ideal knight.
And yet.
I respect him. I just don't want other people to see him.
Even the memory made his flesh crawl and his knees go weak: that crushing presence, that pressure. Someone who had never learned the sword might well drop dead of heart failure at the sight of him. The instructor's face was that severe.
Please let Mother's heart be strong.
Barry was not reassured.
"Oppa? Why are you sweating so much?"
"Big bwother?"
"I-it's nothing..."
He was still trying to swallow his nerves when familiar faces came into view, all of them heading the same way.
"Mother, do you truly have to go?"
"Dad, I told you, it's fine!"
"G-Grandmother? Do you really have to?"
He was not the only one dragging family toward the sword faculty. Somehow, on the very first day of term, the young master, the chicks, and the entire bear series were all converging at once. Their eyes met. Rank forgotten, they shared a single miserable sympathy. Parents, it seemed, thought alike no matter the blood.
Not long after—
Boom. Boom.
They reached the Sword Faculty Training Ground to the sound of something splitting the air, and they saw him.
"Whoa, big bwother! That's bigger than a bull!"
"It is."
The little one was still innocent enough to say exactly what he saw. The students and their families could only stand with their mouths open before a sight that made no sense. Bull-sized—no. Bigger than bulls. Hundreds of sandbags, and one man hauling them alone. He was not even sweating.
"Hm? What are you lot doing here?"
He asked it as calmly as if he were discussing the weather. They wanted to ask him something in return.
...Why do you look less like a human being every time we see you?
"I was in the middle of some work, so you caught me at a bad moment. So. You would be No. 11's—pardon me, Barry Cops's mother?"
"Y-yes..."
"Welcome. At last I meet the fine mother who raised such a sturdy son."
"...Oh my."
"Mom?"
The instructor handled parents with practiced ease.
"He's settling in well. You needn't worry."
For all his looks, he was kind, and he reassured them without a moment's hesitation. The first impression had been a shock. Everything after it seemed perfectly reasonable.
However.
"W-will our child really be able to become a knight?"
"I nearly fainted. Jump rope, of all things—my child, suddenly jumping rope! I was so appalled my hands shook. What if my child grows some hideous muscle? Why would you make them do a thing like that?"
"Ahem. I was told they were of the Silver Lion Knight Order. However did they fall so far as this?"
Overbearing parents existed everywhere, and the students went pale. Sure enough—
"He has the makings of an excellent knight. Graduation ought to be interesting. Leave him to me, madam."
"A needless worry. Do you imagine a little jump rope is enough to grow muscle? More to the point, why don't you worry about your own body? Anyone can see it's falling apart. Back been aching lately? Tiring out faster than you used to? That's a lack of exercise. A lack of exercise! Instead of fretting over the child, how about fretting over yourself?"
"Mmm. Are you picking a fight with me right now?"
He did not hold back. Kindness for the decent, and the same lack of sense for the senseless. It very nearly ended with a corpse to clear away.
"C-compose yourself, Instructor! I'll apologize in his place!"
"Father, apologize, quickly! The whole house could come down!"
"I-I'm sorry..."
The students threw themselves between them, and disaster, mercifully, did not arrive. The instructor was the same as ever: fury and courtesy turning on a pin, his presence swinging a full half-circle. The noble who had scratched that temper felt his spine go cold under the pressure, and then his legs nearly gave out altogether.
Hasn't changed a bit.
Watching him, they felt an odd relief. However much time passed, he remained exactly himself, and only then did it truly sink in that term had begun.
Except—
"Instructor, what are those sandbags for?"
"These? Teaching materials. For your next training."
"...Pardon?"
"I'm thinking we'll carry them up a cliff. Don't worry. They're only thirty kilograms apiece."
"......"
"Oh, there are fifties and hundreds too. We'll work up to them gradually, so relax."
"I... don't think that's something we should relax about..."
On the other hand, the fact that he had not changed at all left them dizzy. This semester, too, was clearly not going to be ordinary.
The opening ceremony ended. The parents drifted off, more or less, and the sword-faculty students gathered.
Eighty in all. Proof that not one first-year had been expelled or withdrawn. In the other faculties, students were dropping in droves—failed out of exams, or quitting once they understood how far short they fell. The sword faculty had none of that. Every one of them had posted excellent marks, and every one of them was convinced they could hold their place even if they stayed. Among the nobles, expulsion was rare, but withdrawal was not; by that measure, this first-year sword class was outstanding.
The first-years themselves would have said otherwise. The achievement was not theirs. If they had survived, it was for one reason.
His skill. Nothing else.
"Why are you still here? Isn't this course-registration week? You don't have to show up for it."
The instructor who had forcibly kept all eighty of them alive scolded them in a blunt tone.
"It just sort of happened..."
"We only came to pay our respects, and somehow everyone ended up here. Haha..."
A few of them answered with shameless cheer, and the man who had dragged eighty students through survival by the scruff of their necks clicked his tongue as if the whole thing were absurd.
"Uselessly diligent, the lot of you."
Strange, how welcome even that scolding felt. They really had adapted to him.
"Well, since you're here, swing a sword before you go. If you want to cross blades with your instructor, you're welcome to try."
"No. We sincerely decline."
"......"
They had come to say hello. Fighting that dangerous man was another matter entirely. A person ought to fight a person. Fighting a monster was out of the question. A few simple greetings, and they meant to head back to the dormitories.
"Master, I finished handing them over, just as you said."
"Good. But Gomsun."
"Yes?"
"Them? That's the wrong form of address."
"W-wait, do you really call people that?"
"People? Where do you see people? I told you. Those things aren't people."
"......"
The students doubted their own eyes. Nine figures came dragging their feet, collars at their throats and iron balls chained to their ankles, and reality itself seemed suddenly unreliable. They looked exactly like slaves.
"Ah, don't misunderstand. These aren't slaves. They're outside hires. Call them assistant-instructor interns."
"......"
"Isn't that right, Intern No. 1?"
"......"
"Not going to answer?"
"Y-yes, sir—!!"
"Slow."
"I-I'll correct it!!"
"Hah. Don't get cocky in front of the kids."
"Yes, sir!"
"Tsk. Convict bastards, the lot of them. Who knows when they'll turn into people. ...Assistant."
"Yes, Instructor!"
"You're the senior, so manage them properly. Not beat them as you like. Work them within reason. Understood?"
"Leave it to me! I won't let their sleep add up to more than one hour a week!!"
"Kid knows his stuff."
"Hehe. Thank you."
Their brains could not keep up. One thing, however, was perfectly clear.
Damian, that bastard, looks genuinely happy.
He was moved. There was no mistaking it.
"Stand up straight, you lot! Didn't you hear the instructor? From today, don't even think about sleeping! Remember that your evaluation scores are in my hands! You intern bastards!"
Damian, once the lowest creature in the sword faculty, was simply delighted and deeply touched that something lower than him now existed. The irony—that the new bottom rung was made of inquisitors—and the question of whether Damian could survive the consequences, barely registered.
Fuck it. None of that matters! I'm enjoying this!
The assistant instructor dumped every future reckoning onto his future self.