A Knight Hates Spell-Slingers (2)
Only after the dean had at last filled out all one hundred and twenty minutes, and brought his grand oration to an end, did the faculty break into heartfelt applause—the sincere kind that comes of finally being allowed to escape a hall that had called itself a meeting.
They dispersed with the dean's privately satisfied face behind them. A few clusters, however, drew together and fell into talk. Faces from other faculties were not easily met, and people were plainly using the chance to learn one another's names.
Lee Han had been privately certain that a life as the resident outcast was already sealed. By a stroke of luck, though, Hans—whom he had happened to get on familiar terms with—turned out to be a decent man. Decent enough, even, to introduce a sharp-edged stranger to his own circle.
"This is Dorothy. She's a lecturer in the art faculty, and she specializes in religious painting."
"Call me Kam. I'm nothing but a fallen noble, a lecturer in the statistics faculty."
"Den, of the architecture faculty. They've seen fit to make me a professor, far beyond my deserts. Heh heh."
"Allen de Wagner. A fusty old professor of the history faculty. Call me Allen, if you like."
Every one of them was an acquaintance of Hans. They spoke of themselves as if they were nothing special, but he knew they were giants.
Lee Han kept his distance from newspapers, yet the one friend he had in the knight order sometimes told him how the world was turning, and these names came up as regularly as tavern regulars.
"It's an honor to meet a rising painter. Dorothy, even a failed canvas would do—let me buy a piece from you someday."
"Oh my."
The most promising of the young women painters. The one whose future everyone was watching.
"I don't think we can simply wave off as a fallen noble a man who turned down even a summons from the royal house, Kam."
"Hoh."
A young, capable scholar the royal house itself coveted.
"I've heard a great deal about the master who took full command when the Royal Capital was rebuilt, Den. And only a madman would sneer at a legendary archaeologist as fusty, when that man risked his life going to excavate the relics of Britannia. Professor Allen."
"Heh heh. Now this is embarrassing."
"Sharper eye than the face would suggest."
Giants who had made their names before he was even born. The sort even an ordinary noble could not easily cultivate. To make a name in one's field was to stand that high, and that aloof. They would be important persons the guild kept under standing protection.
"I'm glad. It was worth making the introductions."
And Hans himself, the master-class craftsman who had introduced every one of them.
Birds of a feather, they say...
He was freshly reminded that the old sayings were never wrong. It was a dream team to make a man click his tongue.
"A soldier who knows nothing but swinging a sword is a poor match for giants like all of you. This is too much."
"Haha! And who's calling whom modest? Anyone who calls a knight of the Silver Lion Knight Order a mere civil servant would have to be mad, wouldn't they?"
"Fair enough."
"As you said, I'll give you a painting. As a token of goodwill."
Even to people like them, a knight was no small giant. More precisely, belonging to the Silver Lion made him look larger still. He had been demoted to instructor, yes, but no one dismissed him for that. They had already seen it: the skill that had overwhelmed the vice-commander of the Follett Knight Order, famous for its swordsmanship.
Setting that aside, they themselves were decent people, generous of heart. They had not chased fame or power. They had simply worked at their fields until, at some moment, they became famous. So the mere fact that their acquaintance Hans had introduced him was enough for them to show him more goodwill than he deserved. So long as Lee Han did not strike them from behind first, they would not look at him through tinted glass.
...I've taken on a large debt.
More than the fact that they were giants, the fact that they were diligent, decent people made him like them, and he felt he owed Hans a great deal for the introduction. Goods could be bought if you had the money. Another person's familiarity, and their goodwill, could not.
Someday I'll have to pay it back.
Toward things worse than beasts he could play the moral wreck to his heart's content, but toward people of character, ought he not approach as a decent man himself?
And so Lee Han and the faculty agreed to keep the introductions short and stop by a cafe for a little tea. For the record, no cafe in the kingdom sold iced coffee. Espresso, or else herb tea or black tea. You could ask them to put ice in the coffee, but looks of pure contempt would pour in from every side, so he endured.
Just as he was privately feeling the lack—
"—Might I intrude for a moment?"
"Oh. Lord Odwal."
"I'll take that as permission."
"Uh..."
A ruffian had appeared, pressing and already certain of the answer, and the gentle mood stiffened in a strange way. His face was eccentric from the start, and there was a cranky stiffness about him that suggested he would never hear another person's opinion. The faculty could not hide the look of people who had stepped on something they should not have, but he did not so much as glance at the change in their expressions. A human shape with not a shred of consideration in it.
And he turned on Lee Han.
"Irene Windler. Do not waste your foolishness on that pure genius. This is neither a request nor advice. It is a warning. If you add even the slightest impurity to her talent... I cannot say what I will do then."
He delivered a courteous threat, and he did not hide the murderous hostility, as if even speaking with a knight disgusted him.
And to a man like that—
"Hm. Hey. You old spell-slinger."
"—?!"
"I couldn't make out what dogshit you were barking, so mind saying it again? You chop off the front and the back and just spit the middle—how am I supposed to follow that? You went and settled the conclusion all by yourself and then flopped over."
He spat the abuse without hiding a contempt to match the hostility the mage was showing.
"And stand back when you talk. How long has it been since you brushed your teeth? Filthy. Honestly."
"—!!"
"What? You want to try me?"
Lee Han provoked him again, and inwardly he hoped for it. For this bastard to draw his staff. If only he did that—
Been a while since I got to feel it in my hands.
Wouldn't he win a precious chance to beat a mage? The thought alone was pleasant, and Lee Han offered a smile of pure, unmatched brightness.
...The other man, of course, would not find it bright in the least.
...Regrettably, the mage simply left.
A little more provocation and he had looked ready to take the bait, but with newly made acquaintances around, Lee Han had no choice but to swallow his tears and hold it in.
And now.
"We shouldn't have slighted Lord Odwal like that. Mmm..."
Hans and the others wore worried looks. Ever since they had reached the cafe, worry kept being directed at Lee Han. It was not worry for their own safety. The worry was plainly for him. Normal acquaintances, sending him worried eyes for the sake of a stranger they had met today...
Stylish. Very stylish.
He did not regret buying the tea and dessert. He had bought them by way of apologizing for souring the mood, and as he drank the hot chocolate he had ordered for his own share and topped up the day's sugar, he went on as if stating a certainty.
"I'll take all the responsibility. Whether a quarrel starts with him, or the conflict grows worse. Nothing will ever spill onto any of you, so please don't worry."
"No, that isn't what we meant."
"I know. You're worried for me. But you really don't have to be. I may not look it, but I'm a sturdy one."
"...That old man is not someone you can get past merely by being sturdy. He is a frightening person."
There was probably a wide gap between the sturdiness Hans had in mind and the sturdiness Lee Han meant, but Hans, not knowing that, could only let out a heavy sigh.
"What is Lord Odwal planning to do this time..."
Odwal Bernard. The name of the mage who had come at Lee Han a moment ago as if picking a fight, and a member of the faculty every instructor found difficult to deal with.
Why difficult?
Because he was a mage.
A mage. One of those chosen by mana—a blessing said to be granted only to those born with it. Beings who formed something called a spell-world through that mana and manipulated even the laws of nature. Existences to whom common sense did not apply. And because common sense did not apply, a mage was more than enough to be called an object of fear for the mere fact of being a mage. Get tangled up with one, and there was no telling what disaster might fall.
"Well, even so, what the instructor said earlier was refreshing."
Frightening was frightening, but people who felt anything positive about mages were rare. The race of mages was, at bottom, arrogant beyond measure.
"A cranky old man."
"One shouldn't speak ill of others behind their backs, but it's hard to deny."
"Beyond cranky. He's a man of fire."
Mages looked down on those who could not use magic, and despised them. They wanted to be waited upon while constantly displaying their own specialness. They ignored even nobles and royalty, and to make matters worse they did not spare irreverent speech even for the gods. Well, most who were that far gone ended up offending the wrong person and vanishing without a sound.
Of course, even if Odwal was not the sort who ran completely wild, as those mages had, the characteristic arrogance of a mage showed plain in him. To give one famous example—
"At the entrance ceremony six years ago, he caused an incident, blasting fire and running wild. All because an ordinary student merely coughed during the order of his own introduction."
"...So he was the senior, then."
"Sir Turtle's case is a different matter. What that man did was nothing but violence."
An outrage that could not even be compared with the incident Lee Han had caused. No justification. Merciless violence, shown for no reason except that something had failed to please him. Students had been hurt in the accident, and the hall had been half burned to ash...
It would not have been too much to call him a criminal.
"I know it's not my place to say this, but why is a man like that still at the academy? From where I sit, he belongs locked up, not teaching."
"......Mm."
Here the faculty held their tongues for a moment. He had put a finger squarely on something they had been thinking themselves.
"Hoo. Mages are precious talent, you see. What you might call irreplaceable manpower. His character has sharp edges, but so long as he doesn't commit murder, the tendency is to cover for him. For now."
It was an explanation one could accept, to a point, but Lee Han shook his head.
"That would be the reason on the surface. What's the real one?"
"...By any chance, do people often tell you your eye is sharper than your face?"
"They do."
"Haha."
Hans found the knight's plain, candid remark refreshing. Was it because he was not a knight of noble birth? There were no thorns hidden in the words. He was simply direct. It felt like dealing with the craftsmen of the guild.
Good thing I opened a connection.
The man had a rough side of his own, but he seemed, at least, the sort who knew how to keep a line.
"...A great many nobles sponsor Lord Odwal. And among those who sponsor him, there are plenty who pay enormous academy support funds every year. So they cannot cast him out lightly."
"Funny old man."
He despised everyone who could not use mana, and yet he needed sponsors, did he? Funnier still were the nobles who sponsored a man like that. What on earth were they thinking.
"In any case, Sir Turtle, be careful. I know you are strong, but that man is dangerous. One way or another, there is a risk he will threaten you."
It was sincere advice, aimed at Lee Han. He wanted to tell them there was nothing to worry about, but he was not the sort of dullard who answered people offering serious counsel with a careless shrug.
"Thank you for the advice. I'll be sure to remember it. However..."
"?"
"Mmm. This is something like a hidden talent of mine, so keep it among yourselves. Truly very few people know about this talent."
"What...?"
"My hidden talent, that is."
He said it in earnest. In this particular talent, he was confident he would not lose to anyone.
"The talent of making a madman kind."
"??"
"Haha. Just remember it that way."
Did they know?
That no matter how mad a man might be, there was a knack for making him kind?
Nothing else.
Stop breathing, and they get kind.
Ah.
If the heart stopped as well, that was even better.