EP.69 – A Knight Cheers the Youth On (2)
While the first-year rookies were still being rolled across the ground by a wicked assistant instructor, the students newly promoted to the second year had arrived somewhere else entirely.
"Whoa. This place has changed, hasn't it?"
"It feels wider. Sturdier, too."
"Wasn't it completely empty before...?"
They stood in the tunnel their instructor had dug. It began at the Academy and ran more than a few dozen kilometers, all the way to the hill behind his house.
It had been astonishing enough last year, but the space was far larger now. Put to proper use, it could serve as more than a tunnel. It could shelter something like a thousand people. That only made it more startling: a passage this vast had been built by one man alone.
"Startling? Give yourselves a little time and chip away at it whenever you can, and any of you could manage this much. Put in the effort, and there's nothing a person can't do."
"N-no, this isn't the sort of thing effort gets you..."
"Save the flattery."
"It isn't flattery..."
Lee Han looked the students over as if seeing them for the first time.
They all came?
He had heard, of course, that every one of them had passed last year's promotion exam. Even so, he had honestly expected a few not to show up for class. In the other faculties, he was told, most of the noble students who had advanced to the second year sent word that they would not be attending. And yet here...
"Why did you lot come?"
Attendance: one hundred percent. Lee Han could only tilt his head, wondering why the kids in his own faculty were this diligent.
"If you're nobles, shouldn't you act like nobles? Boycott class, gamble at the casino, throw parties, set a few fires for fun...?"
"I-Instructor, you seem to think you're muttering, but we can hear every word."
"Hm. Are your houses in trouble?"
"Our houses are all perfectly fine. And Instructor, that was noble-bashing."
"Then why are you showing up to class so diligently?"
"...We came seeking diligent instruction, and you scold us for being diligent. I doubt there is another educator in the world who would do that."
The noble students wore a collective look of pure disbelief. Lee Han shrugged.
"Whatever. If you're going to stop coming later, tell me ahead of time. Don't just vanish without a word. I might get worried and storm your houses."
"...We will be certain to say so. I have no wish to watch my house fall in my generation."
"The exaggeration. This is why you nobles—"
"...Please stop hating nobles. I'm begging you."
Teasing the disciples he had not seen in a while, he marked the heartwarming start of their reunion. Then he said it.
"—Except I don't really have anything left to teach you."
"???"
Out of nowhere, he declared that class was cancelled.
Needless to say, Lee Han had not said it because he was feeling lazy. He meant it literally.
"I've already taught you everything there is to teach."
There was nothing worth teaching for now, and that was why he said it.
Lee Han had taught the students the fundamentals of Gyeong: a method of training and bodily reinforcement that was his alone, distinct from Fighting Art. Those who had taken it seriously amounted to the commoner students and a handful of others. Even so, the rest had received stamina work and strength work tailored to each of them, and then...
"You can unfold Diamond Body now, can't you?"
"Y-yes. Compared to the bears we're less sturdy, but..."
"To some degree?"
"Well, only partial reinforcement is possible. Full-body reinforcement like yours is simply beyond us."
His question had the air of a man checking whether an assignment was coming along. They nodded, and at the same time looked uneasy.
Diamond Body. Among Lee Han's techniques, it was the one you had to learn if you had learned Gyeong. It seemed as though those trained in Fighting Art would find it difficult to use, and yet he had taught it to Jake, his peer in the knight order, and to Jord, his junior, and both put it to ready use. So long as one had the knack, employing it was not hard.
Jake, though, had said this.
"You won't be able to reproduce every last one of my techniques, will you?"
"Not a chance. One or two at the very most. That seemed to be the limit of what Fighting Art can recreate. Try to imitate anything beyond that and Fighting Art's advantages die, and you risk throwing the body's balance off entirely."
In the end, the method called Fighting Art was a demonic art. Translated into terms Lee Han found easy to grasp, Jake's words meant this: force Shaolin martial arts out through a demonic art, and you might well court qi deviation.
The only secret to keeping the strengths of both would be to learn Gyeong and Fighting Art together and raise them to a similar level. But as far as Lee Han knew, no more than five people possessed the talent to pull off such a trick, and unfortunately his disciples were not among them.
Even so.
"Learn it well. Master even that much and it's decent enough."
Being able to learn even one or two was already something. It was a generous remark, coming from him, and the students let out hollow laughs.
"Decent hardly covers it, does it?"
He called it the most basic technique, but those who had learned it knew better. Easy to pick up, and hell itself to master. Learning it was simple enough, yet the concentration required to unfold it was so severe that a first attempt alone demanded some fifteen minutes of preparation, and the moment that focus scattered, the technique came undone. Worse, it burned stamina in real time. Hold it for three minutes and the fatigue piled up as if you had sprinted ten laps of the training ground at full speed. Push it on a bad day, and the next morning your whole body ached so badly you could barely walk.
This technique is insane.
Simple, and yet it devoured resources in equal measure. And then there was Lee Han, who unfolded a thing like this as naturally as breathing and could keep it up all day if he felt like it. He did not look like the same kind of person.
Nor was the complaint limited to the young masters who had learned nothing but Diamond Body. The bears, drilling into Gyeong alone, were no different.
If I could just skip the potion tomorrow, I'd have no regrets left. It hurts every time I use it.
Is the instructor's body that huge because he needs it to unfold Diamond Body?
How can anyone move while using Diamond Body? I couldn't move at all...
They were still stuck on Diamond Body alone. No—it would be more accurate to say that Diamond Body was the only thing they could learn.
How in the world do you unfold Divine Bow, Elastic Shadow? No—what does it even mean, turn your whole body into an arrow and shoot yourself forward?
Hundred-Pace Divine Fist—what even is this? If I try to unfold it, won't my arm shatter first?
Where, exactly, is any of this easy?
And so the techniques Lee Han openly told them to learn demanded, every last one of them, an absurd degree of stamina, strength, and fundamentals. Without a monstrous foundation, even using them was difficult. Unfolding them was harder still.
Which was why.
"That's why I've got nothing more to teach you in this state. You haven't even digested what I already fed you—what else am I supposed to teach? You're in the mastery phase now. At the very least... hmm. Our brave barbarian, step forward."
"You mean Kunta?"
"Yeah. Put strength into your neck and your forehead."
"?"
Bang!
In an instant, Kunta's waist bent like a bow. Physically, that is.
A flick to the forehead. The lightest imaginable flick bent Kunta's body, and with that flick Lee Han had reproduced the force of a bullet.
"Ah... that hurts..."
"You've learned it well. You're the best at mastering Diamond Body. As expected."
Kunta, who had taken the blow, only pulled a tearful face. He was perfectly fine. An ordinary person would have had their skull cracked that very day by such a flick, but Kunta's forehead was clean. Not even a bruise.
"Learn it to about this level, and from then on I'll teach you the next thing."
"......"
"Why isn't anyone answering?"
"...Because the road ahead suddenly looks endless."
"?"
"Haa..."
They had not even had time to feel the thrill of becoming second-years before a pitch-black reality arrived, and before it the whole group found themselves at a loss for words.
They're laying it on thick.
Lee Han snorted, knowing perfectly well what their reaction meant. Yes, he could guess why they complained of the difficulty. To him, though, it only sounded like exaggeration, and that was because...
They're far better than before. What's the fuss.
To put it plainly, their rate of growth was fine. It felt a little slow just now, and there were differences from person to person, but he could see them growing steadily.
They're like this because their greed is excessive.
Honestly, if they wanted to grow all the way to his level, they had no conscience. From Gyeong onward, every one of his techniques had been built to fit his body. They would have to alter those techniques to suit their own bodies, or learn the knack of them, and if that were easy it would be a shameless thing indeed. In that sense their growth was on the decent side, and Lee Han resolved to run them hard again this year.
Their stamina's improved since first year, so... hmm. Shall we try the thousand-li march three times?
Had the students heard the training plan taking shape—the sort that would have dragged curses out of them—they would have fainted. But one chick, ignorant even of the bleak future about to crash down on them, quietly drew up beside Lee Han.
"Instructor..."
"What is it, Chick No. 12."
"...Um, when do we get to stop being chicks?"
"Would you prefer pheasant? Or pigeon, or ibis?"
"Th-there's swan, too, you know. Do you really have to call us only those?"
"A swa... swan?"
"...Just insult me instead. Don't make that face."
"No. I was just thinking it was impressive, you calling yourself a swan. Quite the thick skin you've got, Lirina Beauharnais."
"Which is why I said just insult me... ...Oh my? Instructor, you know my name?"
"...Shouldn't I obviously know it?"
"N-no, I mean, if you put it that way I don't really have anything to say..."
The girl called Chick No. 12—no, Lirina Beauharnais—looked at her teacher with eyes that saw him anew.
...Every time I look, he's meticulous and diligent, nothing like his face.
He seemed the sort who would never read a book, never do a lick of work, and spend the whole day training. In truth he was more diligent than anyone. Of his own accord he had surely memorized the name and house of every person here. There was no need to memorize them, and the fact that he had anyway was probably because he was never indifferent toward those he considered his own.
A fine teacher.
A noble young lady's teachers were usually etiquette instructors, or noblewomen meant to lead her into society. But for Lirina and the other chicks, at least, their teacher was this man. He did not merely teach them exercise. He taught them how to live in the world.
And so.
"As I thought, it seems it can only be you, Instructor."
"Hm?"
"Instructor, please..."
A soft rustle.
"......"
Lee Han blinked at the disciple who had suddenly held out a diamond necklace and asked him that.
He was not hesitating. He was not flustered.
What's that?
He genuinely could not understand what she meant. That was all.
Lee Han quietly entertained a timid little fancy—that it might be the name of some newly released dessert.