Episode 13 – The Fair Instructor (4)
The students went wild at the sight of the frail noble young lady, Levi Fault, succeeding at Gyeong. Astonishment that an art so absurd could be performed by someone who was not even the instructor; admiration that a girl who had barely begun her training had managed it; and the expectation that they, too, might be able to. They overflowed with the hunger to learn it.
But.
"Urghhh…!"
"H-Grandma…? What are you doing there?"
"Snap out of it, you idiot! Your grandmother's perfectly spry! She's going to outlive you!"
……As for right now, it was hard to say.
The students had collapsed, each of them clutching their stomach. Those who had charged to the very front when the instructor offered to let them experience Gyeong were rolling across the dirt and crying out in pain, and some had gone so hazy in the mind that they seemed to be living through a near-death experience. What was this familiar sight? One more extreme they had already endured several times since climbing Vulcan. They had only wanted to be taught, and they simply could not understand how things had ended up like this.
"All right. Next. Get out here, and make it quick."
"……."
"What's the matter? Don't feel like learning?"
"…Instructor, why are we being treated like this when Levi Fault wasn't?"
"Treated like this?"
"I'm asking why you hit us without so much as a word."
When he had said he would let them experience Gyeong, they had pictured nothing more than what he had done for Levi Fault — a kind hand laid gently on the back. Instead the instructor, with no question and no answer, drove a straight punch into the dead center of the gut. After that the students were left rolling on the ground, and a dizzy, distant terror rose in them.
What?
Did we do something wrong?
He didn't find that diary where I wrote all that crap about him, did he?
Unwilling to end up like a log split in half, they wondered whether they ought to drop to their knees and apologize on the spot, racking their brains for anything that might have soured his mood. A survival instinct of unmatched swiftness — the servility they had learned by rolling around on Vulcan.
"You're talking shit."
He snorted.
"In Levi Fault's case, her physical durability is markedly poor, so this instructor only guided the force a little more kindly. You lot are a different matter. Your conditioning is different, and your whole-body athleticism has improved quite a bit in a short time. That's why this instructor is letting you experience Gyeong by the most efficient means there is."
"D-do we really have to get hit?"
"Because I have to beat Gyeong into your bodies. That's how you'll feel it properly and enter what you'd call an awakened state. Be grateful. This is a technique nobody but me can do yet. It takes a delicate touch."
The Weighted Strike Method. Having been on the receiving end of Baltar's method had helped enormously, and out of it he had even developed a convenient means like this.
"W-we won't die, will we?"
"Don't worry about that. You'll feel a pain like your insides are tearing apart, but nobody dies. I guarantee it."
A fact he had confirmed by experimenting on — that is, by receiving the help of — Jake, his only friend in the knight order. There was a side effect, mind you: more than two hours of the pain of one's balls being wrung until they felt fit to burst…. Surely that was more bearable than being water-tortured all day by some spell-slinger?
"…From where Kunta stands, it looks like a very barbaric method."
A barbaric remark, from one of the race they called barbarian warriors. The others were of no different mind. Lee Han, however, was firm.
"Experience it first. This is the fastest way."
"Th-this is discrimination between men and women!"
"No it isn't. It's fair. How am I supposed to treat beginners and veterans the same? I believe in your guts."
"…Then please treat us a little unfairly instead."
They meant every word.
But.
"Quit the nonsense and get over here. Sun's going down."
"……."
Not that they had any other choice.
Thud.
"I-I think I'm dying…."
"Urghhh!"
"……."
Some collapsed and thrashed where they fell. Others fainted outright. It felt as though they were burning through a lifetime's quota of blackouts on Vulcan. And yet, even as they cried out in pain, they felt a burning heat spreading outward from the center of the belly — rougher than the pulse Levi Fault had felt, but unmistakably there. A fierce energy that had been with them since the day they were born, and that they had never known.
Once they felt it, they understood. The true nature of Gyeong was none other than—
"Handling mass…. I can't believe it."
Fighting Art was a method of amplifying, in a single instant, something inside the body that might be called vitality, or vigor. Master it, and it guaranteed roughly ten to twenty times one's abilities according to the practitioner's skill — so tremendous a technique that the mouth grew tired just explaining it. Gyeong, which they had newly awakened, was the opposite: a technique closer to enlightenment. Rather than amplifying physical ability, it was a way of handling the mass that every human being possessed.
Arno marveled at so novel an approach and gave a deep, slow nod.
So that was it. That was how an art that absurd was possible.
Splitting a log? It had certainly been astonishing only a moment ago, but once he approached it in theory, he could see it was not wholly impossible. Take Levi Fault. Now that she had awakened Gyeong, even that young lady ought to be capable of it. Assume the girl's weight at thirty-nine kilograms, and it became roughly possible.
One might ask how such a thing could be done with so frail a body, but the key lay in how the mass was used. Gyeong was the art of freely sending the mass of the whole body to any part of it. An object of thirty-nine kilograms was not light, and yet applied to a person it was a truly slight weight, because the body's mass was never gathered wholly in one place. The mass that made up a human was finely divided, and so it could not help but feel light.
But what if one could load all of that scattered mass onto a foot, a fist, or a leg? To be struck by a thirty-nine-kilogram iron ball would already be no different from taking a lethal weapon. And if one took average grip strength, multiplied it by thirty-nine kilograms of mass, and multiplied that again by the acceleration of the fist — converted into force, what would that become?
A thirty-nine-kilogram slingshot…. Power enough to punch through a castle wall.
Even Goliath had died on the spot to a stone from a sling. If this were ever realized, there would be no technique so frightening.
"Theoretically, that means even Levi Fault could split a tree. But a technique like this would put an enormous strain on the body. Enough that you might destroy yourself if you used it wrong."
"I think I see why the instructor ran us so hard. You can't use this at all unless the body is solid to begin with."
"Use it wrong, and the chicks and the sprouts all burst like balloons. From where Kunta stands, caution seems needed."
"…Even so, it's efficient. Know the knack, and you can grow as strong as you please. The room left to develop is endless, too."
"……."
It was Roen, for once inserting himself into their talk, and a sound opinion besides — sound enough to leave the rest of them slack-jawed. Yes. Just as he said, the power of Gyeong would keep climbing according to how diligently a practitioner trained and built the body. Weight itself would increase on its own, so long as one ate well and trained well. Nor did Gyeong merely handle weight; it converted even the beating of the heart into energy. Master it, and one would be able to distribute, as one pleased, every bit of the mass that made up the body.
In the end—
"In that it makes use of the energy the flesh possesses, this is the same as Fighting Art. The road will be far harsher, and it will demand more effort. But if you can reach the full stop at the end of it, you might even arrive there."
"…You mean a Superhuman?"
"You already know the answer."
"Mmm!"
Fighting Art or Gyeong, both of them roads by which a human became a Superhuman. They could not bring themselves to deny it. And if that thought of theirs was right—
Ha. Are we standing face to face with the founder of a school right now?
How ironic. To think there was actually a man like this besides our old man.
A Great Warrior?
Each of them had something come to mind, and none of them could hide the shock. They looked at the instructor with eyes made entirely new.
"…Having a grand time, I see."
Lee Han, who had already heard every word, only shook his head and sighed, wearing the look of a man wondering when those idiots would ever turn into actual people. Why were they blowing everything so far out of proportion?
"Doesn't matter what you make of it. It's nothing but a lesser copy of Fighting Art. Not a technique the world would ever recognize."
"F-for the man himself to say that is a little…"
"I made it, and I'm the one judging it. What do you want from me."
"……."
The founder's verdict was harsh.
"Everything you're saying is a daydream, and nothing but theory. I'm still training this myself, and there isn't a thing I can say for certain yet. A Superhuman? Don't make me laugh. Nice imagination. Why don't you write the script while you're at it?"
"……."
"It's because of you lot that the kids are already filling their heads with hot air. If those little sprouts start strutting around and drop dead, are you going to take the blame?"
"…Mmm."
A cutting rebuke — and not entirely wrong, either. Quite a few of them, having overheard the conversation, had looked sorely tempted, eyes glittering bright. Under Lee Han's scolding those eyes were going out fast. And so he sternly dressed down every one of them who had gotten air in the head.
"Don't seriously listen to that bullshit. An Aura User is a realm that even a bastard called a genius from childhood, a bastard who awakened Fighting Art in a single day, can't reach before he dies of old age. There's a reason they say a little bird that tries to stride like a stork splits its crotch."
He was an unusually strict instructor, and one who somehow put out the fire of expectation. And yet, for some reason, every student hung on his words. Rough as they were, there was an unadorned truth in them, and even a fool could tell the scolding was meant for them alone.
"Gyeong is a technique with more faults than virtues. Why? The moment you neglect your training for a single day, you get weaker. It's a method built on physical ability, so that's something you have to live with."
"And that's not all. The power Fighting Art grants matures to some extent even as you age, and it changes to suit the body. Gyeong, though — once your physical prime has passed, it can't help but come down on the body as a heavy burden. That's the fate of any technique that depends on physical ability."
"…And the more you use it, the more often your bones will break and your muscles tear. So you always have to think about how to portion out your strength. Use it like an idiot, and you're perfectly set up to destroy yourself."
Harsh beyond words — a string of remarks that unsettled both their will to learn and their future, motivation dropping straight through the floor. Even so.
"—Still. If there is one clear virtue."
The one and only virtue he named was a virtue that canceled every one of those faults, and so their eyes lit.
"You may have no talent. But if you have the talent called effort and tenacity, then I guarantee you the results will follow."
So ended a plain and sincere speech. Sometimes words with no ornament in them struck the heart all the harder, for they had given the students faith that, at the very least, he would not lie to them.
"It doesn't shorten your life the way the Fighting Art the guilds and the mercenaries use does, does it? That's enough."
"Then we can only be thankful."
"There's a chance. Someday, I can become strong. …Just knowing that is enough for me."
"Thank you, Instructor!"
Every student bent at the waist with all their heart, bowing until their heads nearly drove into the earth. The learning had been harsh and painful, but in the end he had given them a chance to catch at least the heels of those running far ahead. That alone made them happy. That alone made them grateful.
—Truly.
"These brats…."
A ticklish warmth. Before he knew it, he was rubbing the bridge of his nose. Had getting older made him sentimental? The kids were bowing their heads and thanking him, and his chest ached.
This is why I hate getting old.
…Didn't a man start tearing up?
And so Lee Han decided to express the feeling in his own way. The best thing he could do for them was none other than—
"—Then we'd better get you used to it, yeah?"
"……?"
"For every one of the ten days we've got left, I'll spar you eighteen against one. Every single day. Until you're used to Gyeong — and I mean keep going!"
"……."
Crash.
There was no glass anywhere nearby, and yet a sound like a light bulb shattering rang in their ears — the sound of emotion not merely smashed, but of their very spirits caving in. Eyes that had nearly brimmed red vanished without a trace, and the light in them died.
What? Hadn't the mood been something else just now?
"……."
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
"…You're asking because you don't know?"
"Don't know what?"
"…You haven't a shred of empathy, have you."
"Is there any empathy more solid and efficient than making you strong?"
"……."
"Come on, move! Before we spar, let's just knock out a light hundred laps!"
"…Agh."
An instructor — a professor, if one preferred — was, as a rule, a creature that did not understand human emotion.