The Knight Holds Interviews (2)
A fortnight had already slipped past since the terror that went by the name of the Monster Subjugation.
The Academy Dean and the royal auditors were still locked in their war of nerves. Problems remained, and plenty of them, but by now the whole affair was nothing more than politics drawn out past its proper end. It was not for the people below to meddle in.
Classes in the other faculties, and the mood around them, had long since returned to normal, and little by little the aftertaste of the attack was being forgotten as well. People were animals of forgetting, or so the saying went, and it was hard to imagine a truer verdict.
There was reason enough to savor the peace. Once the midterm evaluations ended, summer recess would begin in all but name—two months of rest handed over to them—and neither students nor faculty could help going slack.
Recess.
What a sweet sound that was.
Even a person with a goal in sight was not the sort to dislike rest. A good number were already giddy, and here and there someone had drawn up a systematic plan for how the days off would be spent.
The sword faculty was no different from the students of the other faculties, a loosened air drifting through them, when—
"Once class ends today, we'll be holding interviews."
"...??"
Their master had, without warning, hauled the tension straight back up.
H-hold on...
"We're not sparring or anything, so take it exactly as it is. Still, I'm the one teaching you, so I ought to do something like a consultation before the break. What a nuisance..."
"...Whew."
Thank goodness. Their master was not, after all, a man entirely without flexibility.
For a moment they had thought they might have to spend the whole recess admitted to the temple.
"You little—! Listen to you, and anyone would think I put people in the infirmary every time we spar!"
"..."
Did the man have no conscience at all?
"Still glaring, are you?"
"Ahem."
They lowered their eyes without a fight.
What's this? Did they all get their stories straight before they came in?
The interviews were conducted one-on-one, and Lee Han was half convinced the lot of them really had rehearsed.
How else to explain it?
"I intend to return to my territory and train alongside the knight order. Personally, however, I would like to request your instruction, Instructor. If... if we were to invite you, might you come to the territory?"
That was the young masters.
"I'm thinking of taking some work from the guild. Light scouting, odd jobs, that sort of thing. Earn a bit of coin and stack up some real combat practice. A-and, if it's all right, may I come find you privately, Instructor? I want to keep training..."
The bears.
"The debutante season starts with the autumn term, doesn't it? I'll practically be living at the salon I belong to, getting ready for fall. ...Which is why I mention it, Instructor. About a partner— ...Ah, it's nothing!! I misspoke. Ahem."
Even the chicks.
He had split them into three teams purely so he could tell them apart, and what came out of their mouths was mostly the same. The young masters would go back to their territories and train. The bears would take commissions from the guild and keep themselves fed. The chicks would occupy themselves with the sorts of things expected of noble young ladies.
They could not possibly have coordinated, and yet each of the three teams offered nothing but the same answers as its own members. To Lee Han, the children were so earnest that it circled all the way back around to awkward.
And then came this.
"Even granting that it's a recess, how many students do you imagine will truly rest? Not being expelled from the Academy this year is no guarantee we'll survive the next. Building our ability as far as we can is the sane choice. If there is anyone out there playing around, I would rather like to see his face. I'm curious just how much guts it takes to slack off."
That was the answer from slave number one—no, Assistant Instructor number one.
A student's hardships were best understood by another student, and the explanation was tidy enough. Lee Han found himself thinking, once again, that the assistant was perfect in every respect except his personality.
"You're not going back to your territory?"
"...Are you rubbing salt in the wound? I have been struck from the family register."
"Ah. Right. You were."
"..."
He had picked at the sore spot out of habit. He knew it was a bad habit, and it still was not easy to quit.
The impact feels good.
Lee Han nodded to himself, deciding this was better for letting off steam than a sandbag, while Damian Paulet could only wear a pitiful look.
Anyway!
Setting that special case aside, most of them were striving for their own improvement, and he felt anew how differently the work fell out according to station and sex.
"So that's what they say. What about you?"
With most of the student interviews finished and only a few people left, Lee Han put the question to the trio he had called in together. He was curious what they meant to do over the break.
"Why did you call all of Kunta at once?"
"Was this not meant to be a private interview?"
"Instructor, sir, we do have private lives..."
Summoned all at once, the three made their displeasure known. Why were they the only ones not granted a private interview? Why call them in together?
Lee Han did not listen to the complaints. Calling them as a set was fine anyway.
They aired their grievances once, found that not a grain of it took, and promptly dropped the matter to answer.
"Arno invited Kunta."
"I heard the road back to his homeland was long. We have arranged for him to study with the house. He is a fine sparring partner, and he will be a considerable stimulus for the family's disciples."
"I got an invitation too, but unfortunately I'm off to see our old man for a bit. Haah. Just thinking about meeting that gentleman already wears me out."
It was a schedule that suited them, and Lee Han accepted it.
Then:
"Hmm. Before the break, want a serious spar? I'll take all three of you."
As if to make up for the recess itself, he offered them a special consideration, his eyes saying he was confident he could tune them up to peak condition.
And the trio—
"K-Kunta does not wish to return to the embrace of Great Nature yet. I-Instructor is scary right now..."
"The presence coming off you is considerably more violent than before. It seems you have grown... Clash with you carelessly, and one of us is liable to be crippled."
"What did you do to get even better? Teach me the secret too."
They went white as sheets and refused with fierce intensity.
Unlike the other students, the three had the uncommon talent to grasp that Lee Han's growth had been exponential, and before they could be caught in his encirclement they resolved to bolt, spinning on their heels at once.
Bang!
The three vanished at a zero-to-sixty a cheetah would have envied, and Lee Han clicked his tongue.
"Tch. Sharp-eyed brats."
A shame. They would have been perfect for adjusting to the changed condition of his body.
He chewed on the regret for only a moment.
"Ah. You're here. Prospective Assistant Instructor number three."
"...Just call me Geomdung."
The man whose expression was spoiling—a rare sight—Surveillance Target number one, the regressor, furrowed his brow, and Lee Han tilted his head. He could not understand why every last one of them looked sick the moment he offered them the post.
"What's so bad about being an assistant that everyone hates it?"
"We have all seen how you handle Damian Paulet. Do you imagine anyone would want the job?"
"...What's the problem?"
"...The fact that you are asking is what is terrifying."
"??"
Lee Han could not understand it at all.
And for good reason.
Compared to when I was an NCO, I'm treating him like an actual human being...
Next to what he himself had suffered, what Assistant Instructor number one endured was nothing but a scratch, and it stung that no one would acknowledge it.
"We are still identifying the ones who summoned the Ghost King the other day. From what I hear, His Grace the Archduke—that oh-so-great man—has already caught their trail."
"That... it's not really my place to say, but are you on bad terms with your father?"
Somehow the consultation was drifting toward noir. He had not wanted to feel the darkness of someone else's household this way. Lee Han tried, with some effort, to turn the mood playful, but his hopes were betrayed.
"How could there be good terms or bad? A mere bastard, daring to speak of it."
"Yeah. I can tell the father-and-son relationship is the worst there is."
Lee Han grew solemn.
The man seemed perfectly fine when I saw him the other day... Does he treat only his own people well, and score a zero as a father?
There were men like that now and then. Fine out in the world, neglectful as the head of a house. Judging by how rarely Geomdung showed this much antipathy, his guess was probably right.
"...I heard you met His Grace the Archduke."
"Well. It just sort of happened."
"Be careful. His Grace does as he pleases. And for all that, he has no great cause. You are better off not getting tangled with a man like him."
"...Could you stop airing your family's darkness in front of me?"
Lee Han had never had a child of his own, but he thought it would wound him if his child showed him the contempt one shows a stranger.
Not that a block of wood like that man was likely to suffer a wound to the heart.
His sympathy for a father's hardships lasted only a moment. A chill gathered in Lee Han's eyes.
"So. You said he found the trail..."
The trail of the vermin who had summoned the monsters. Remembering that day, Lee Han felt his blood run cold, and his voice dropped with it.
"I do not believe the information is uncertain."
Setting his personal grudge aside, Roen showed his confidence in the intelligence the Archduke had uncovered. Heartless the man might be as a father, but he was not incompetent. Eight or nine times out of ten, he would be holding something important.
"You will have to hear the details yourself, but if you wish, Instructor, I will share the information with you separately."
"...There are a lot of rats around me lately. Slipping it to me in secret won't be easy."
"Fortunately, I have a subordinate better than I deserve."
"..."
Only then did Lee Han grasp the source of the audacity that let this one speak such important information openly inside the Academy.
Jack. The fellow who clung to him like a right arm. A man whose talent suited an assassin better than a knight. He must have been sweeping up anything suspicious in the area even now.
"So the plain one had a knack for handling rats, too?"
"It should be quiet for a while."
"Thanks. I'll repay him myself later."
"He will be pleased."
Lee Han and Roen wore similar smiles and nodded.
Two men whose looks, upbringing, and backgrounds ought to have been worlds apart, and yet both had lived desperate lives. Facing each other, they gave off a strangely similar air, and there was no awkwardness in it. A curious sort of trust, if ever there was one.
"I will take my leave. I believe I have said what I came to say."
"This was supposed to be a consultation, and somehow it's turned into a back room for secret talk."
"Neither you nor I are the sort meant to live quietly, are we?"
"...I really would like to decline. I want to retire. Please."
"It will not be easy. The world is not soft enough to let a capable man rest."
"...Damn it."
"Haha."
Roen laughed lightly and made to turn away, as if his business were finished.
He stopped.
What had been on his mind? Even he could not catch the thread of his own heart, and yet somehow, now—
I thought meddling and I had nothing to do with each other...
Had he learned even this nosiness from the first man he had acknowledged as a master? Once, he would have called it trifling, an emotion without a great cause, and been narrow about it.
...I don't want to live that way.
If he lived exactly as he had before, would the ending not be exactly the same?
Roen, the man who had gone against the flow of time, resolved to try a slightly different road, and opened his mouth.
"..."
"I know it is needless meddling, but I thought I should say it, just in case."
"Nosiness doesn't suit you."
"I thought so myself, the moment I said it."
Roen inclined his head and turned his back. No more words were needed. His eyes alone had already shown that he would not sit still.
...There wasn't even any need to push him.
Roen could only smile bitterly, concluding once again that a man should not do what he was not accustomed to doing.
"..."
Lee Han watched the door Roen had gone out through for a moment, then opened the drawer of his desk.
"Mm. The Dean's going to scold me, isn't he?"
By the academy rules, the proper thing would have been to process it today.
"Something like this ought to be handed over face to face, don't you think?"
Riiip.
Lee Han tore the envelope marked Withdrawal Form in half and stood.
To catch the delinquent Bear-Girl, absent without leave for five days, who had not even come for her interview.
Truly.
The diligent ones are the ones who cause an accident now and then.
Lee Han felt, all over again, the weariness and the bittersweet ache of being a master.