Land Navigation (1)
He returned to the Ruby main hall.
Thanks to his housemates and the first-year dorm mates who had thrown themselves into helping him haul his luggage, he managed to dodge a week of solitary confinement.
Ethan's body hung halfway across the dorm room doorframe. From outside, only the left half of him was visible — the exact posture he used to take during barracks roll call back in his military days.
Roll call at this age.
He had always conducted roll call from the officer's side of things. Receiving it as a soldier for the first time felt strangely novel.
The dormitory was shaped like a cylinder of donuts stacked one atop another, hollow down the center so that every floor below was visible at a glance. The Ruby dorm supervisor, hanging upside down from the ceiling, rode a strand of spider silk floor by floor to check the headcount.
"Lights out and bed, all of you! Anyone doing night training, report to the duty building."
A few cadets leapt down or slid along the railings. Most simply slipped quietly into their rooms.
Crash! Bang!
Before long, the sounds of splintering wood and tumbling stone erupted from every direction.
Crack!
Aaaargh!
…Was that a bone just now?
Even in the dead of night, it was a living hellscape.
Carson laughed with boisterous delight.
"Yeah! This is what a Thief Academy should feel like! Hahaha!"
"It's Thief School, Carson."
"Same difference! I'm joining in!"
Carson dove headfirst into a clay pipe near the washbasin. From the neighboring room came a thunderous racket.
Who the hell are you!
You don't recognize Carson Valerius himself?! First night in the dorm — time to make sure you country bumpkins know exactly who I am!
Hey— hey, kid, don't step there, that's a trap— aaargh!
Bang!
Clatter, clatter.
Ethan lay on his bed and thought, Yeah… this is fucking loud.
Crash!
Something pale shot through one wall of his vision and vanished through the opposite one. Ethan simply blinked up at the ceiling.
…Something pale just flew past.
He pulled the rough cloth blanket up over his head and made a quiet vow.
I am finding that Club Building.
In the end, Ethan did not sleep a wink.
The next day, Ethan arrived alone for Land Navigation class.
It was neither required nor popular, so the attendance was sparse.
No one I know.
Two stripes on every training uniform shoulder told him that, aside from himself, the entire room was advanced students. At Thief School, outstanding cadets sometimes sat in on senior classes, so the arrangement itself was nothing unusual. What was unusual was a freshman with Ethan's particular motive.
Taking extra classes just to find one Club Building. At this rate I'll end up a Thief Master.
Cadets sat clustered on the floor of a narrow classroom that looked more like a detective's office. A cork board on the wall bristled with pins and maps, red thread weaving a spiderweb among hundreds of them.
"Raymond. Land Navigation and reconnaissance."
The professor wore a balaclava that left only his eyes, nose, and mouth exposed — a middle-aged man dressed like a bank robber. Three crossbows hung stacked at his waist, and at the frayed end of a battered belt, several mysterious vials glowed faintly.
"What you'll learn from me this semester is simple. How to find your way."
Professor Raymond flung a stiff stack of parchment toward the cadets. Each sheet slipped cleanly into a waiting hand.
"What you're holding is not some scrap of parchment circulating around the Empire. It's a magic tool. You can pour qi or mana into it."
He yawned so wide his mouth nearly split, then shoved his hands into his pockets.
"You've all already learned qi manipulation from Professor Mophy, right?"
The advanced cadets nodded. They weren't freshmen, so conversation stayed sparse.
"Good. Then self-study with those maps starting now."
Raymond leaned fully back into a rocking chair weighted down with stones. Moments later, the steady rhythm of breathing rose from inside the mask he had pulled up over his head.
"…"
Silence settled.
A hand rose soundlessly among the cadets. No presence registered at all — yet Professor Raymond spoke without opening his eyes.
"What."
"Professor, aren't you going to teach us Land Navigation?"
He mashed the mask further down over his face and rolled over, thoroughly annoyed.
"What would you do with it."
He finished the thought through another yawn.
"…Anyway, getting your ass kicked by a sniper in the field teaches it a thousand times faster. Theory always loses to practice. That's all."
The regular breathing returned.
Murmurs of figures and that's why everyone just self-studies Land Navigation from the manuals leaked among the cadets.
This won't work. I need to learn Land Navigation.
Ethan grew impatient and raised his hand — but the professor simply rolled a compass between his fingers with his eyes still shut.
Right. Keep forgetting I have a stealth passive.
Ethan spoke aloud.
"Professor."
In an instant the advanced cadets scattered away from him.
"Whoa! You scared the hell out of me!"
"Huh?! When did you get here?"
"What— is this an ambush?!"
A few even dropped their hands to the wooden throwing knives at their belts.
"A— a freshman?"
"How long have you been sitting there?"
"Wait — you look familiar somehow."
Raymond, who had spent the entire class with his head buried at an angle, straightened for the first time.
"…"
He stared silently into the eyes of the student he had only just noticed. A faint spark of life returned to the dark-circled gaze of Professor Raymond.
"…What's your name?"
Ethan rose politely and bowed.
"Ethan Cass."
The room immediately grew noisy.
"Ethan? The top freshman?"
"Wow, the rumors were true. He's ridiculously handsome…"
"That's the lunatic who supposedly copied Professor Yuzuha's secret technique after seeing it once."
"What are you talking about? A freshman already using Rank 4 luck arts? The professor must have done it."
"But why is he in Land Navigation? Freshmen have no use for this."
Whispers everywhere.
Ethan was quietly grateful that the female seniors who used to visit his annex — Muria included — were nowhere in this room.
I feel this every time, but I still can't get used to this atmosphere.
He had spent his life on an estate and in a manor, never once stepping into high society. Even his own parents had trouble finding him; he had lived in near-total quiet. Becoming a superstar the moment he arrived at Thief School meant adapting to this kind of attention was going to take considerably longer.
Raymond stood for the first time.
"So you're the one who single-handedly wrecked the entrance exam."
"I wouldn't go as far as 'wrecked.'"
"Excessive humility is rude."
The professor drew a rune-etched pebble from his waist.
"We're changing locations."
"Huh?"
The stone struck the floor with a sharp clack. A soft poof — and Ethan's vision shifted.
Ethan found himself standing inside a thoroughly dilapidated temple.
"Huh."
Professor Raymond stood atop a collapsed pillar and tilted his head.
"Hey, freshman."
"Yes?"
He asked a question he would never normally put to a cadet.
"Why did you come to this class."
He pulled out a pipe, lit it, and drew a long drag before continuing.
"I hate the ones who walk into this school just to mindlessly snatch a thief nameplate."
Ethan wondered if that was why the man had abandoned the entire class and run off alone with a freshman like some kind of elopement.
"You."
Raymond drew deeply on the pipe.
"Phew… There's no fire in your eyes."
"…"
"Those are the eyes that belong on an undead in the northern graveyard. Completely empty."
Ethan had no idea what this old man was talking about — but he had heard that professors sometimes tested cadets this way.
Plus it looks like he ditched class specifically to pull me out for one-on-one instruction.
Miss this moment, and learning Land Navigation would be finished. Finding the Club Building would become a distant dream.
I need that building secured before Hand Techniques class, no matter what.
A place quiet enough to concentrate — the place Ethan needed if he was going to leave sword marks at the level of a Thief Master.
"There's something I absolutely have to find…"
Raymond spoke around the pipe stem.
"I hate those meaningful lines."
"…"
"Just say it. I'm not the headmaster. I won't tell anyone."
Ethan hesitated a moment, then drew the Club Building key from his pocket.
Jingle.
Raymond's mouth fell open. He stayed frozen for a beat.
"How do you have that?"
"You know what this is?"
"Isn't that the Club Building key?"
Professor Raymond slid down the pillar as if gliding. Ethan set the key in his hand.
"I got lucky."
"…Is there a single student at this school who isn't lucky?"
Ethan considered how to answer without revealing his ability, then tossed out something rough.
"I got very lucky."
"Yeah. That's how you put it."
"?"
Raymond drew deeply on his pipe whether Ethan's brow furrowed or not.
What.
Why does that actually convince him.
Smoke drifted out in a long exhale.
"I'd heard there was an unused Club Building somewhere on campus."
"Is that true?"
"It'll be hard to find."
Raymond crossed his arms, pipe still in one hand.
"It's hidden, you see."
He drew on the tobacco again.
"You never know. If some talented upperclassman who masters Land Navigation and astrology shows up… they might manage it."
"Hmm…"
Raymond glanced at Ethan's eyes and smirked.
"Wake up. Technique combinations are one thing — combinations of luck arts are a domain even upperclassmen struggle with. You freshmen don't even need to use qi yet, so thoroughly master the basics of Land Navigation first."
Watching Raymond put on a professor act that suited him so poorly, Ethan was starting to feel stifled.
Time to end this argument.
As if he had been waiting for exactly this, he pulled a map from his coat and held it out.
Flutter.
"What's this?"
"My map."
Raymond took it in both hands and frowned.
"Looks like you paid a fortune for a map some high-rank adventurer already fully charted."
"I charted it."
"You? This?"
Raymond's mouth twitched into a smirk.
"Not funny for a joke."
"It's real."
"Then why didn't you reveal every path?"
He pointed to a route where the faint engraved traces simply stopped.
"You need to be able to light up even these fine details before you can properly use a map."
That was a lie.
Professor Raymond occasionally handed out deliberately impossible assignments to torment cadets whose enthusiasm had driven them into overstatement. Land Navigation was easy to learn and extraordinarily hard to master. It demanded not only qi control but encyclopedic knowledge of Imperial geography — and for a thief to use it properly, the ability to handle risky luck arts as well. For a freshman, "revealing every fine detail of a map" was an absolutely impossible task.
"Let's see how good the top student really is."
And once a situation like this played out, the cadet in question would inevitably spend weeks or months hunched over the map, groaning, before finally giving up and bringing it back to Raymond. Only then would the professor snicker and deliver the punchline: Even a ten-year veteran explorer can't chart every side path! — plunging the student into pure shock.
"Being able to handle the fine paths is the bare minimum for being called 'somewhat talented' at Land Navigation."
"So if I do it, that's enough?"
"Yeah, yeah. Go ahead."
Raymond turned away, yawned, and muttered,
"Don't take forever lighting up the paths."
"…"
"You've got talent, so I figure you can bring it back in about three days. Roughly—"
Ethan cut him off.
"I'm done."
"What?"
"I said I'm done."
As Raymond took the map, his eyes grew wider and wider.
"What…"
Not only the paths already engraved in bright color — every hidden passage and side route now blazed with light. Paths that had been completely invisible on the map mere moments before.
This guy… what the hell is he?
Raymond drew deeply on his pipe, exhaled, and said,
"…Do it again."
"Pardon?"
"I said do it again."
Ethan did exactly what he had done before. Particles gathered from his fingertips, settled onto the map, and lit every side path.
"…"
Professor Raymond drew a long pull on his pipe — then swallowed the smoke whole.
He stared blankly at the brilliantly illuminated map for a long time, and said nothing at all.