A Knight Gets the Autumn Blues (4)
The students were feeling strangely sentimental.
"The second semester's already ending."
"I still can't believe we're actually attending the Academy."
"Same."
Nearly a year had passed since the first-years entered the Pendragon Royal Academy. Over those months, students who could not endure the Academy's grueling schedule had withdrawn, or else fallen behind and been expelled, in numbers too great to count. Half the commoners were already gone, and even among the nobles, some three in ten had left.
A thousand might enter, but if even a hundred remained at graduation, the place was a remarkable cradle of talent. Instruction was part of it, of course, but the Academy's true role was to sift out the finest through competition and ordeal, and thus far it had performed that role well. In truth, the raw ore that had survived the sieve was all that remained, so the first-years still here had nothing left to do but rise to the second year.
And when so many had gone, someone had to fill the empty seats again, hadn't they?
"Huh? Who are those kids?"
"Outsiders?"
"How did they—oh! Now that I think about it, it's already that time!"
Clear autumn lay over the grounds, and beautifully sculpted clouds drifted through it. The examination to receive the Academy's new students was about to begin.
"Haaahm."
Lee Han covered his mouth and yawned. The boredom was thrashing so hard that the yawn forced its way out of him.
"This process of selecting new students is not merely the arrival of new students. It is an important process for choosing the pillars who will lead the kingdom. I therefore earnestly ask that every one of you undertake it with firm resolve! Furthermore!"
A speech already past its tenth repetition. The same repertoire, over and over. Anyone who wasn't bored would have been the strange one.
In the conference room, some were nodding off and some were shuddering with boredom, but no one had fallen fully asleep. No one could say what would become of them if they dared sleep soundly before the Dean—no, the former chancellor. Staying tense, and staying focused, was only natural.
Well. Lee Han was simply otherwise occupied.
"...Look over there. Isn't Sir Turtle holding horse stance right now?"
"Oh, come on. No way."
"He looks like he's floating in the air..."
"You're imagining it. More than anything, how could a person hold horse stance for three hours and still look that comfortable?"
"Y-you think so?"
He was turning even this tedious stretch into training time, and that was the only reason the boredom had eased at all. There were quite a few sharp eyes in the room. He had been holding a horse stance—the so-called riding posture—so that no one would notice, and they had noticed anyway.
'Even if they noticed, it's not like I've got anything to flinch about.'
He hadn't harmed anyone. He hadn't offended them with the smell of sweat. And he hadn't failed to listen to the Dean, either.
'...New students. This is going to get more complicated than I thought.'
Lee Han felt a prick of unease at the part about selecting new students. And no wonder. This was a perilous season, with those power-mad bastards from the temple aiming at his disciples. And at a time like this, they were opening the Academy to take in new students?
What was this.
'Might as well hang out a sign saying anyone's free to come and snatch them...'
Shouldn't he speak to the Dean right now and put a stop to the selection?
'...It won't work, will it?'
Lee Han could not have cared less about Academy events, but he prided himself on understanding how the world turned. He knew, therefore, that he must not block the Academy affair known as the Entrance Examination. It was one of the most important occasions even in the Royal Capital.
Just as the recent midterm evaluation had opened the Academy's interior to outsiders, this entrance examination, too, would be held with the grounds thrown open. Everyone, lowborn and noble alike, would come to the Academy and enjoy the spectacle. In a medieval age starved for amusement, trying to cancel an event of this size was the sort of thing that got you stoned, and no one would think it odd.
For the Dean, if only to protect his own neck, the entrance examination had to be held. Word had gone around that they ought to be careful after the monster attack during the midterm evaluation, but to people desperate to play, that terror was already ancient history. From what he'd heard, the royal house and the noble families would send their knight orders on the day itself, so some measure of security had at least been arranged.
"...People who are dead serious about playing are the same in every world, I guess."
Lee Han was almost impressed by how sincerely they threw themselves into amusement, even mobilizing knight orders to do it.
Then—
"Ah, and Instructor Lee Han."
"?"
At the sudden summons, Lee Han looked up in surprise.
"You called for me?"
"Ah, it's nothing much. You were on leave and couldn't attend the meeting, so I never had the chance to tell you, but you are one of the examiners in charge of the entrance examination."
"...Me?"
"Indeed. You may refuse, but I would very much prefer that you take it."
"......"
"There will be a bonus."
"Hm."
"Raised by fifteen percent. No—thirty."
"...Oh."
"Heh heh. I'll take that as a positive answer."
The Dean smiled kindly.
"Kindly, my ass! That was exactly the sly grin of a raccoon, so why did you have to fall for that and go looking for suffering!"
The slave assistant—no, Damian Paulet—clutched the back of his neck as if he were about to lose his mind.
"Do you have any idea how much work an examiner has? Escorting the applicants is bad enough, but you have to score them yourself. And later, once the exam is over and the scores go public, the parents will come charging with their complaints—ugh! Just thinking about it is horrifying, I mean it! Instructor, refuse, even now!"
Damian advised him fervently to turn the post down, and the argument sounded plausible enough. Certainly, by that account, there looked to be no shortage of annoying tasks.
However.
"But is it really worth getting that hot about? It looks like more work, sure, but it doesn't look all that difficult."
Hard work, yes. Asked whether it was unreasonable, though, it didn't seem so. The boy wasn't the sort to miss something that simple. So why was he carrying on like this?
To that question—
"It isn't unreasonable. But you're going to dump all of it on me!!"
"Obviously."
"...Could you hesitate for even one second before you answer? Don't just fire it off like that..."
"I'm bad at lying."
"Shit!"
The reason the assistant was heating up was, of course, not the admirable one of worrying over his instructor. He was only afraid his own workload would multiply.
"I'm already dying with all those intern brats gone! Why are you doing this to me!"
"I told you, it couldn't be helped. And relax. The ones who are coming back will all come back later."
"That's not the problem, you damned old man!!"
"...Still, one of them stayed, didn't they?"
His hand slid out.
Where Lee Han pointed, a woman stood.
"......"
Judia Pierre. The sole survivor (?) among the interns.
But the sight of her only stoked Damian Paulet's fury.
"You kept the most useless one of all! That one is absolutely filthy at paperwork!"
A defective laborer was a defective laborer. However pretty the hide, to an assistant she was nothing but a creature that brought on rage-sickness. In that respect, Judia Pierre was indistinguishable from a cause of it.
"...Well. If you just try a little harder, won't that solve it?"
"!!?"
Damian locked up as if he had just heard, with his own ears, the infamous suggestion that those without bread might simply eat cake. A moment later his face flushed red, and then—
"Die, you damned monster!"
The assistant drew a hammer from his coat and rose against his superior.
Not a knife cherished against the heart, but a hammer.
"Creative."
Thud!
"Aaaagh!"
Lee Han stopped the charge with ease. He looked like a man indulging a child's antics, but Damian Paulet's movement was nothing of a child's. It was swift and full of variation, enough to call a seasoned knight to mind.
"Just one! Just one clean hit...!"
Why carry a hammer in his coat instead of a sword? He had changed weapons for the sake of landing even a single real blow on that monster. A sword was useless against that monster anyway.
Whoosh!
He had not neglected his training even amid the paperwork, and so long as he had a goal, the hammer could only grow fiercer and faster. A true master of the claw hammer. Give him a little longer, and it would not have been strange for him to start resonating with the thing.
Thock.
"Still clumsy. The habits of the sword are still thick on you."
"!!?"
Landing one hit with hammer-work barely two months old was a distant hope, and Damian Paulet—
"This is bullshit. Goddamn it..."
Whoosh!
He laughed, hollow, as he registered the palm meeting the back of his own head.
......A goddamn life.
"This one's skill has improved, so why does he keep getting crazier?"
Lee Han shrugged at the boy who had passed out. The hammer work was clumsy, granted, but the power, at least, was excellent. Even the trio might get caught if they let their guard down.
"This is why a person needs a goal. He wants to hit the back of my head, so this is how he gets strong."
"......"
"Admirable, isn't it?"
"...By my common sense, I cannot understand it."
"That's because your feelings have all dried up."
"I do not think that is the case."
Answering, Pierre could only conclude that the relationship between those two was truly abnormal. Where did people that strange even come from?
He did feel sorry, though. For the young student named Damian Paulet, stuck with a man like that.
However.
He himself was in no position roomy enough to pity anyone else.
'I should learn the paperwork properly.'
It seemed the time had come to take seriously the paperwork he had only picked up in passing.
The reason Lee Han had not handed over the dual-personality inquisitor was not sympathy, and it was not Raphael. It was, quite literally, that this one was at least cooperative. If the others were all potential traitors, this one knew how to hesitate, if only from watching Cardinal Raphael's mood.
In other words, he had been kept alive because he was useful. And once that usefulness ran out...
'Should I sell him to the dark one for a fat price?'
The man would probably pay well for the body. By Lee Han's estimate, the dark one was someone who would want to tear that split personality to shreds no matter what it cost.
'If I need quick money, I'll hand him over.'
He decided to let the matter age for now, retirement fund included. Just as a lump of gold was better for sitting a long time, leave that one sitting, and the value would climb a little too.
While such idle thoughts were still running—
"Instructor..."
"?"
"I, um, have something I'd like to consult you about..."
"I'll hear you out, but... why are you coming out of there?"
"Hehe. This spot is good for filming. It's quite cozy."
"......"
...That was not the point.
Watching a mage chick surface from the pond like a ninja out of a comic, Lee Han lost whatever he had been about to say.
......True to a spell-slinger, this one wasn't normal either.