The Knight Has Acquired an Assistant Instructor (1)
Crack. Crack.
Common sense held that climbing a cliff meant searching out a foothold and bracing yourself with hands and feet. Simply hauling your body up through the cracks was already more than most people could honestly manage, so it was less a point of common sense than a plain necessity.
The way he climbed was nothing like anyone else's.
It was a method cut loose from common sense altogether.
Thud.
"Huff—! Hoo—!"
He drove his hands and feet in by force.
The cliff was no dune of sand, and yet with every ascent he kicked footholds into the stone without a moment's hesitation and chopped the edge of his bare hand into the rock until it gave him something to grip. Barefoot, and barehanded. He had no gear at all and simply bullied his way upward, but to watch him was to reach for the word dogged rather than stupid. He stared only at the top, stubborn as stone, and when at last he had climbed the whole of it—
"Hah…! Haaah!"
He collapsed spread-eagle, dragging in ragged breaths. Sweat soaked him from head to heel, and his feet, his hands, and the skin along his body were scored with scrapes. The marks were proof of how many times he had nearly slipped on the way up, and of just how ruinously dangerous the climb had been.
People, most likely, would never know the rest. That he had made the ascent more than five times. That once, he had fallen all the way down.
That he was still alive was a wonder in itself. What gathered him back together must have been the man's uncanny recovery, and a body he had spent every single day hardening without a rest. Lee Han had burned through every scrap of stamina he possessed, and he had not the faintest wish to move.
Cliff-climbing, he was realizing all over again, was a harsher drill than it looked. Every ascent worked the muscles of his whole body, of course, and it chewed through stamina and will at a ridiculous rate besides. A single lapse invited disaster. There would have been nothing strange in getting hurt. People did not haul a mountain of equipment up a cliff for nothing.
So what Lee Han was doing was pure recklessness. To anyone watching, it was no different from thrashing around in a bid to die.
Even so, he believed that when he pushed past what he took for his limit, the body grew a little more. The results were hardly showing yet. If he repeated the thing until it was mastered, the payoff would come eventually. That was what effort was.
"…Next."
He could have slept like the dead. Instead of sleep, Lee Han chose to move. He put away a light bit of food, and then, at once—
Thwack! Thwaaack!
He set to drilling his techniques.
Simple ones, picked up in the knight order by roughly watching other people. Joint locks, for the most part, in the manner of submissions. He had hardly practiced them before, but in this moment Lee Han threw himself into the work. His partner was a human-shaped dummy stuffed full of sand. A living person would have been the better tool, but he didn't have one, so this would have to do. In the same spirit he drilled locks and tackles, and, as if it were judo, tied a rope around an old tree and practiced throwing a man over his shoulder.
Judo, learned in his previous life during his days as a noncommissioned officer. He had scarcely used it since, but if he forged it properly, there would be a use for it somewhere. There was more he still had to drill: the sword, the spear, the axe, and throwing the dagger. He could not handle more than ten weapons with the freedom of other knights, but whatever he could do, he meant to practice until it stuck.
Twenty-four hours in a day isn't nearly enough. Seriously.
Lee Han grumbled that the day was too short, and still he worked through everything he could do, one piece after another, without another word. It was no grand awakening, but the night before had been more than enough to set a fire in the man's chest, and Lee Han nursed a venomous resolve there. Baltar, that old geezer, was not the only one he had to beat. The fine gentlemen still waiting to be put down had only multiplied.
Whoosh!
From his body, the sound of ripping air only grew thicker, heavy with that resolve.
……And then Lee Han was late.
It was the first day of class.
"Did you hear? Late on the very first day, and they say the dean hauled him in again."
"He was like that at the entrance ceremony too, but honestly, the man's historic. In more ways than one."
"His skill looked incredible, though."
"Skill or not, his conduct is rotten, and there's no sign he ever learned manners. He isn't a knight. He's nothing but a mercenary."
"…That may be why he was demoted. Easy to see how he would displease his betters."
"True enough."
The Academy was vast. It was also, at the same time, small. The students were lively in every sense of the word, and they tended to move in packs of their own, which meant rumors traveled easily and secrets did not exist. Even something that had happened this very morning would be everywhere inside of ten minutes, with time to spare.
"…That instructor will be all right, won't he?"
"Who knows."
The students of the sword faculty let out sighs, worry plain on their faces. The instructor meant to teach them from this year on inspired nothing like confidence. In the training yard where some eighty of them had gathered, a noisy unease hung in the air.
There were second- and third-years among them, but most of those never came to class. From the second year onward, the majority preferred to settle everything through private training with their houses rather than bother attending the sword faculty. Only when a sword tournament was set did they slip quietly back into view. Which was to say that these roughly eighty were almost all first-years.
Some among them had learned the Fighting Art to the level of a trainee knight. Others would have been embarrassed to be called swordsmen at all. The common-born were especially so—people who had picked up a rough sketch of the basics at some neighborhood sword hall. And even calling that the basics felt generous.
Those, ironically, were the respectable ones. Plenty of others had set swordsmanship and knighthood aside entirely and come for no better reason than to curry acquaintance with anyone who might one day become a knight.
"Even so, I didn't think he would turn up for class."
"That's what I'm saying. He'd be better off pouring the time into his own training."
This year, though, was something of a bumper crop. However large the numbers, most years were chaff. This year had a few true heavyweights mixed in.
First among the new students, and standing alone: Young Lord Roen. One of the leading candidates to be the next grand duke, a man said not to lose even when he fought a formally commissioned knight. Nor was he the only formidable name. There was the disciple of that great mercenary, the head of the Mercenary Confederation, whom people also called the Mercenary King. There was the eldest son of Offen, that famous house of the sword. There were descendants of the barbarians—the mystery-race said to dwell in desert, grassland, and jungle, whom people also called savage warriors.
And last of all, those who, once they established a spell-world, wielded mana, that wondrous power.
……Mages, for instance.
"…Why is she here?"
"Most of the magic faculty's classes are left to the students, so perhaps she came this way. To fill out her credits. Or to make acquaintances, like the others."
"I-is that it?"
"An odd path, for a mage."
"Agreed."
A genius sorceress, beautiful as a fairy. People turned curious eyes on Irene Windler. A mage sitting in on a sword-faculty class was a rare sight.
"…Ngh."
And she, Irene Windler, hunched in on herself, plainly unused to that kind of attention. She, too, found the place deeply uncomfortable.
D-did I sign up for this for nothing?
Even Irene had wondered, after putting her own name down, whether this was right. It couldn't be helped. This time it wasn't the ghost chattering in her head. This time the fault was entirely hers, a mistake made during course registration.
I had no idea there'd be so few classes left…
Shut up! If we're keeping score, I was short on time because I was out looking for a place to live!
You think I'll just take that because you said it?!
She was quarreling again today with the ghost she fought several times a day, and yet inwardly she thought it was just as well. At least she would be taking a class from an instructor she knew.
M-maybe he'll even look out for me.
They were neighbors, and they had eaten together, hadn't they? Quietly, Irene nursed the hope that things would work out.
Then—
"Ah. So you were all here."
He finally showed himself on the training ground, and the instant Irene heard his voice she turned a glad face to meet him.
"…Huh?"
She had meant to welcome him. Instead Irene, and every other student with her, only blinked in confusion. They had reason.
"Chair."
"Yes, sir!"
"Turn your voice down. You're loud."
"Ah—understood."
"Stop shaking. Anyone watching will think I'm about to eat you."
"…Yes, sir."
"That's more like it. Hm? Why is this chair so low?!"
"Eek! I-I'm sorry!"
"Does being sorry end your life at the Academy?"
"……."
"I'm joking."
"……."
…Since when had a count's young master changed careers and become a servant?
Damian Paulet. The thoughtless young master who had started the incident at yesterday's entrance ceremony was waiting on him hand and foot. His face was swollen like overboiled ravioli, which did nothing for the view.
The students blinked.
Once again, through no intention of his own, Lee Han was on his way back from a scolding by the Academy Dean. He had been late to the morning meeting, so there was nothing strange about the lecture.
…How many times is that, just lately.
In his previous life he had never once set foot in a principal's office, and yet in this life he kept coming and going from the dean's. He had brought it on himself, so he had no right to feel wronged, but something like guilt stirred at the thought that he might be this much of a slacker. These days, the dean's face made him sorry before anything else.
But.
"Ah, good morning, sir…."
"……."
Not sorry in the least.
The moment that overboiled dumpling—no, that ravioli—presumed to greet him, Lee Han felt the morning curdle. This little shit dares show his face in front of me!
"Come back because you want another taste of the glove, have you?"
Lee Han half-lidded his eyes and flexed a hand that wore no glove at all. This time, he was of a mind to throw a copper coin.
And then—
Thump!
"P-please take me as your retainer, sir! I-I'll become your squire!"
"……What?"
Out of nowhere the man dropped to his knees and started spouting madness about being accepted as a squire.
Squire. Far as I know, that's a squire in name only…
Wasn't that a signed surrender of his own body? An offer to become a slave?
Lee Han eased a step back, quiet as he could, meaning to get clear of him—along with a contempt that said the man's tastes were absolute garbage.