This Knight Finds the Instructor's Work Rewarding (3)
The spar ended in a hollow letdown, nothing like what anyone had expected.
For Ihan there was nothing in it but disappointment. The ones who had watched, however, came away feeling something else entirely.
…A gulp.
What had changed most was the way they looked at him.
There had been a fair measure of disgust in those eyes before. Now the disgust was gone, and here and there the looks had filled instead with admiration, even something close to longing. Most of them were common-born. The noble-born ones, for their part, were mostly sizing him up.
They had probably decided it wouldn't hurt to make his acquaintance.
Nobles. A breed you simply could not warm to.
Not warming to them was one thing. The work was another. Ihan finally began with a proper introduction.
"I introduced myself before the spar, but I'll do it again. Ihan Turtle. For the record, it's Ihan, not Rihan. Remember it."
"……."
"At least answer me, you oblivious little shits."
"Yes, sir!"
"Good. You can answer."
These damned hatchling problem-children. When were they ever going to turn into actual people.
"…I'm from the Silver Lion Knight Order, and as you know, I'm common-born. Anyone who was going to know that already does. Oh, and if any of you don't want to be taught by a commoner, you don't have to show up, same as the second- and third-years. Whether you stop coming later or stop coming now, it comes out about the same."
"What about demerits…"
"No demerits. It's easier for me if I only teach the ones worth teaching. Just show up during exams. You'll want the credits, won't you? And if you don't even want those, take some other class. The add-drop period is over, but I'll go find the other instructors and lecturers and put in a word for you."
From Ihan's point of view, this was him being generous.
Losing sparring toys was a shame, but he was not irresponsible enough to ignore the ones who genuinely wanted to learn just so he could play. If anything, he welcomed anyone willing to put in the work. There was such a thing as a training partner, and training together produced a decent effect.
"Oh, and anyone who wants to come at me can come whenever. I welcome spars."
"Kunta steps forward!"
"You go get that waist treated first. What were you doing while everyone else was sparring?"
"…Mmm."
Kunta wilted.
But the remark was not meant for Kunta alone.
"Same goes for the rest of you. Anyone who skipped treatment to watch the spar, go get treated right now. We're already drowning in patients."
"Wasn't all of that your doing, Instructor?"
"And what do you want me to do about it?"
"…Just saying."
Garand's comment was dismissed, and everyone who had rolled across the dirt today vanished in a hurry. They were headed for the recovery room, where the healing priests stood waiting.
The Academy, as expected. Their support is insane.
A healing priest's yearly pay ran at roughly the level of a senior manager in a major firm, and the Academy was shouldering that. Nor was that all. Hire a healing priest, and you automatically owed the temple a donation every month on top. With money like that you could put up a new building every week and still have change left over.
I'll have to milk this often from now on.
He was turning the healing priests over in his mind, savoring a peculiar satisfaction, when a question came from people he had not been paying much attention to.
"I-Instructor, then… what will we be learning?"
"Name?"
"L-Levi Fault, Instructor."
"Hm. A noble?"
"O-only a humble house, sir."
"Hm. Do you want to learn the sword, student?"
"…Even so, since I've already enrolled, if I can learn it, I… I want to!"
"That so…?"
A reasonably sharp kid. One look told him she was a noble girl who had never learned swordsmanship in her life—a frail girl for whom preparing a social Debutante clearly came before the sword. A girl who did not belong in the sword faculty.
Nothing strange about that, though. Aside from her, roughly half the class was the same.
Honestly, the reason girls who had probably never washed a dish in their lives had shown up to his lecture was, for the most part…
They're here to scout a fiancé, or to find a Debutante partner.
Just as American movies and dramas loved to crown a prom queen and king, a splendid partner mattered at a Debutante. It was common enough in noble society to attend one alongside someone who might become a knight someday and walk away betrothed. These girls had probably come with exactly that in mind.
You could call it impudent, if you wanted. Ihan did not particularly care. The Academy stayed standing on the enormous patronage of nobles just like them. That was also why it could afford to employ healing priests.
What he had not accounted for was the way their eyes were sparkling, as if they were begging to be taught.
"Why are they like that?"
"Wouldn't it be because your fight with Young Master Roen was so extraordinary, Instructor? People come to long for the things they cannot do themselves."
"…You think?"
"Noble girls especially. They've spent their whole lives in a greenhouse, so a shock like this must feel like a mystery to them. Well, it won't last. Noblewomen avoid anything that makes them sweat, so once they've broken a sweat they'll all drop out. That's why they say that once a single semester passes, the women in the sword faculty stop coming to class entirely."
"You know an awful lot."
"Hehe. My elder brother is an Academy graduate, so I've heard a few things."
"A walking rumor mill. Useful."
"Thank you!"
"…Hey. Assistant Instructor."
"Yes?"
"Mind not shoving your face in? Looking at it makes me want to slap you."
"…Yes, sir."
"There. Much better. From now on, stay just like that whenever you talk to me."
"……Damn it."
"I can hear you, Assistant Instructor."
Damian's eyes—no, the Assistant Instructor's, the slave's—grew wet all over again.
Class ended for the day.
Universities let out early on the first lecture, too. He was simply showing a little flexibility. Before long every student had gone, and the training ground fell quiet. Only Ihan remained, and the dusk-dimmed sky was, at least, decent to look at.
"Hm."
A handsome sky, though, could wait. Reviewing today's spar would do him more good.
Hss. Should I have closed in faster back then?
Even a spar against people endlessly weaker than he was was not without something to learn. Why else would a great house be a great house? Their fundamentals were absolute garbage, but they knew advanced technique by the heap. Pearls hung on a pig's neck—but if someone who was not a pig could take a few of those pearls, that was a real gain.
Four people in particular stood out.
Kunta, was it? I'll have another go at that barbarian tomorrow. This time I'll take him slower. He fights a lot like me. Ought to be fun. The one with the twin swords and the one with the crescent halberd weren't bad either. …And the regressor was sneakier than I expected.
His interest was drifting toward the others more than toward the one he had privately been looking forward to. There was a great deal to learn from them. And unlike him, their potential was bottomless. The so-called geniuses. Watch them, fight them, and each time his body would store new information.
Hadn't Baltar said as much? What Ihan needed was not so much theoretical study as information accumulated through real combat. And having people around with plenty to teach him was something he could thoroughly welcome.
"…Now that I look at it, this job isn't half bad."
Work Isis had forced on him. And yet, after trying it today, it was not bad. No—it could not have been better.
"This is actually rewarding?"
The title of Academy instructor. Now that he looked, it was more rewarding than his time in the knight order. Ihan had stumbled, of all things, onto work that suited him, and he grinned, deflated and amused at once. Nothing in that order but men who dodged spars, and no reward in it at all—this, at least, did not look as if it would be boring.
……And besides.
"Hey. You. Rat."
There were a few interesting ones around, too.
"Come out. The day before yesterday, and today. Why do you keep peeking?"
A wind licked across the grass of the empty lot.
Nothing there but an empty field. What on earth did he mean? In that strange, unplaceable moment, Ihan reached into his coat for a hand axe—
A rush of air.
"…My apologies, Instructor. I didn't mean to be a nuisance."
A man appeared all at once.
Ihan knew the face. One of the faces he had seen among the students. The one with no presence at all, stuck right beside that Roen kid. The name was definitely…
"Hans, was it?"
"…It's Jack."
"Ah. Right, right."
"……Would you please put the hand axe away now?"
"Answer me first."
Tap, tap.
Ihan tapped the ground lightly with the axe and demanded an answer. The man had been watching him suspiciously. An axe flying at a time like this would not even be strange. In that ugly atmosphere Jack kept a smiling face, but cold sweat poured off him in streams.
He noticed I was watching yesterday, too?
Strictly speaking, he had been watching Irene Windler, not Ihan. To think the man had caught even that.
Just as my lord said. He's no ordinary man.
A dangerous person. Not merely strong. There was something else about him besides. Which was why his lord…
…is keeping a careful distance, to a point.
Jack barely parted his dry lips.
"…My lord has words he asked me to deliver."
"You could've just said it earlier. Did it have to be like this? Nobles, I swear…"
"By any chance… do you know of the 'angel'?"
"…?"
"You don't. That's enough."
"Angel?"
It was a statement without meaning.
An angel?
…Did this bastard have a screw loose?
There were plenty of grounds for suspicion, but he would just hit him in the head later. Who knew. It might fix him. Privately exercising the kindness(?) of offering treatment, he answered with a perfectly straight face.
"I am an atheist, I'll give you that."
"Haha. How impious. But so am I, which makes me an impious bastard too."
"Hm. I don't know what this is about, but you lot came to the Academy with some very impure purpose, didn't you?"
"…I won't deny it."
Jack thought he might die in this moment. If the instructor decided to kill him, he would die easily enough.
And yet—
"How old are you?"
"Pardon?"
"How old, you punk."
"T-twenty, sir."
"…Hell of an old face on you. I thought you'd lied about your age to get in."
"That's too cruel, Instructor…"
Out of nowhere Ihan delivered a soul-crushing insult, and Jack looked ready to cry. Ihan chuckled and shook his head.
He had more or less expected this. Angel or whatever it was—in a romance fantasy, the stock villains they kept boiling down like old bone broth were usually…
Either royalty, or the temple.
A type they simmered and served, over and over. With that thought, Ihan asked, just in case.
"No one else I ought to be more wary of?"
"…You believe me?"
"Just a hunch. Doesn't even seem like something I need to be on guard about."
"…You really are a peculiar man, Instructor."
"Save the flattery. Anything else? Something fun."
"F-fun…?"
Jack wondered if saying any more would be overstepping his place. But Ihan was not threatening him. If anything, he listened the way a man listens, full of interest, to a bard's tale, and so Jack decided to overstep. He had a feeling that earning this man's favor would bring him a great deal of help someday.
"…Do you know anything about the Wastrel Second Prince?"
"Second Prince? The kingdom's still raising princes?"
After that sister of his became the kingdom's heir, Ihan understood that the breed known as prince had mostly vanished. Driven out, or else gone missing without a whisper. Not taking an interest was the correct answer. And there was still a prince left?
"A prince is not a dog, Instructor."
Blunt abuse, with no sense of rank. Shouldn't a man who called himself a knight learn to watch his mouth first?
"Whatever. The Wastrel Prince? What's with that worn-out name."
"Er… he ought to be fairly famous. Don't you know him? The rumors are everywhere—a vicious prince with a severe mental illness."
"And why him?"
Ihan was starting to wonder why the name of a prince he did not care about had come up at all, and Jack answered.
"…Word is that this time the wastrel enrolled in the Academy with his identity hidden. I don't really know the reason myself."
"Enrolled?"
"Yes. Honestly, I'm not sure he even needs to be watched, but he is a prince. Shouldn't one be careful?"
It was a reasonable point. Ihan gave a small nod and asked again whether there were any distinguishing features.
"Mm—ah! From what I've heard, the prince is mentally ill."
"Mentally ill?"
"Yes. They say he often jabs a finger at empty air and does other nonsense."
"……."
"What's the matter?"
"…Nothing. Just. Seems pretty damn crazy."
Ihan spat out another blunt line. Jack advised him to consider what would happen if someone was listening, but Ihan paid him no mind. More pressing than the abuse he had just spoken—
…What is this. There was another one?
A romance-fantasy possession. A regression. That alone was already a great deal…
This time it's a System Window?
He thought it over again. This Academy life.
"Ha."
There was not going to be a dull moment.