The Trashy Professor (2)
"I see I'm in the presence of someone far above my station."
Despite the words, Kallen, who was craning his neck to look up at the man, let out an utterly perfunctory gasp of admiration.
Captain of the Caliburn Guard was among the highest posts in the territory, one that even came with the qualification to attend Elysion's faculty meetings.
Apart from the headmistress of Elysion, who governed the surrounding lands as a direct imperial domain, there was hardly anyone who could claim a higher position.
Yet the rough-looking man before him simply shook his head with a modest smile.
"Just one gatekeeper among many. I was lucky enough to land the post through Lady Talisa's help."
"Hmm..."
Kallen fell briefly into thought, his gaze drifting out across the surroundings.
Here and there throughout Caliburn's busy streets, guards in the same imposing black armor as Fabian patrolled in pairs at sparse intervals.
"...Hick."
"Hahhk..."
Ordinary townsfolk paid them no mind, but on the other hand, a fair number of passersby flinched in fright as they brushed past and only exhaled in relief once they were clear.
"For ordinary gatekeepers, they're awfully hard to miss, no? I can see it in the way those snooty mages are wilting."
Kallen chuckled as he took in the unmistakable contrast.
"The Faithful, hm..."
Only then did Kallen begin to vaguely grasp the disqualifying condition the headmistress had mentioned regarding Fabian.
To ordinary mages, the Caliburn Guard were dreaded natural predators.
No matter how they might draw upon the mana of the Illusion Realm as kindling to work miracles, they could not hope to affect beings who had, from birth, stood entirely outside those laws.
Demonic humans and demons who delighted in dark magic, likewise, usually fled screaming the moment they crossed paths with the Caliburn Guard.
It was why Caliburn and the surrounding territories had remained peaceful and untouched even amid the ravages of war.
"It's not always so cut-and-dried."
But Captain Fabian merely laughed off Kallen's remark with hearty good humor, as ever.
"All we can really keep in line are drifting mages and the fresh-faced first-years of Elysion. Against opponents with real presence, we tend to get utterly devoured instead. Hmm, say... someone like..."
After a moment's thought, Fabian cast a sly glance at Kallen.
"You?"
"Puh-huh."
Even faced with such blatant probing, Kallen only let out a deflated sound, like a scarecrow with all its stuffing gone.
"That's far too generous a compliment for a mere drunkard."
Shrugging his shoulders with practiced indifference, Kallen brushed the comment aside and quickly steered the conversation back.
"Anyway, that thing over there really is a fortress?"
"It was once a fortress of the old Elven Empire. From what I hear, the first headmaster of Elysion was an elf as well..."
"Hoho..."
It was news to him, but considering Elysion's long and storied history, it sounded entirely plausible.
"...I don't understand why they abandoned perfectly good places like this and crawled off into the forests."
The elves, who had once ruled the world, had left behind only scattered relics and enigmatic ancient facilities before withdrawing to the mountains and deep woods to live out their pastoral lives.
Kallen could not understand them in the slightest.
"But can education really happen in that speck of a place? It looks a good deal smaller than this whole territory."
"That's something you say only because you don't know."
Fabian shook his head at once.
"Greater on the inside than the outside. That's the foundation of ancient elven magic. Step inside and you'll understand exactly what I mean."
"Hmm..."
"Well then, congratulations on the appointment. I knew from the start you were no ordinary fellow. One of these days I'd like a proper spar with you."
Even at Fabian's friendly clap on the shoulder, Kallen offered only a lazy, languid smile.
"Like I said—too generous for a mere drunkard."
Grinning, Kallen unscrewed his flask as naturally as drawing breath and took a long swig.
And at the sight of him letting out a satisfied kuh—, Fabian asked with an expression of dawning disbelief.
"H-hey. Don't tell me that's booze?"
"Rude. This is my Life Water. I couldn't survive a single day without it."
"A textbook drunkard's excuse if I ever heard one..."
Pressing a hand to his forehead in exasperation, Fabian sighed and pressed on.
"You're a professor now, so for the love of all that's holy, mind your conduct. When I think of the discourtesy you showed Lady Talisa last time... good grief..."
"Last time?"
"The night of Kroghol, I mean. My heart nearly leapt out of my chest that night. If you'd crossed her even slightly, every back alley in town would've been reduced to ash by sundown."
Even as Kallen nonchalantly picked at his ear, Fabian continued his desperate persuasion.
"Do you truly not know who she is? The former Grand General of the Empire—the woman who crushed the pagans and beastfolk vermin underfoot and established the Empire's borders as they stand today. Those who resisted to the very end were all impaled alive on stakes, and..."
"Agh, enough. Spare me the lecture."
Kallen scowled and thrust his palm out at the lengthening sermon.
"I know perfectly well who the Vampire of Helkar is."
If anything, she was the one who had disturbed his peace, and he had not the slightest intention of sucking up to the old hag now.
"And yet you act like that... good grief..."
Shaking his head with a rueful smile, Fabian spoke again.
"Well, somehow I have a feeling you'll do just fine. I've served her for ten years, and I've never once seen her laugh so heartily as she did with you. What on earth could she see in you... your face, perhaps?"
"Spare me the horrifying suggestions. I just had the misfortune of getting caught up in an old woman's mischief."
And at Kallen's look of utter disgust, Fabian's mouth curled into a wide grin.
"Just joking. In any case, whatever else Lady Talisa may be, her eye for people is dead accurate. I trust she wasn't wrong about you this time, either."
"I'm only here for the money. I'll pretend to teach for a while, and when the contract's up, I'm gone without a backward glance."
"Puh-huh... Well, I suppose I've said everything I can say."
Laughing heartily at Kallen's glum face, Fabian made a show of checking the time and nodded.
"I should be off. My regular patrol is due. This district's security isn't what it used to be lately—refugees pouring in, and spies of every stripe slipping in among them..."
Letting out a quiet sigh, Fabian spoke again as if recalling something he'd forgotten.
"Oh, right—you haven't found lodging yet, have you? There's a decent inn in Caliburn's northern district called the Dusk Moon. Keep it in mind. It wouldn't be a bad place to stay until you're assigned faculty housing."
"Much obliged. Message received, so now stop bothering me and get going, will you?"
"Playing the cold one, are we? Well then, I'm truly off. If you ever need help, come find me anytime. Take care."
Even at Kallen's sharp parting words, Fabian simply waved with easy grace and melted away.
"..."
Kallen clicked his tongue and pulled a sour expression, somehow dissatisfied.
Then he let out a sigh, and weaving his way through the crowds, shuffled off on his unsteady feet.
Say what he would, the place where Kallen finally unpacked his things turned out to be the very inn Fabian had recommended—the Dusk Moon.
He had no particular destination in mind, and frankly, he couldn't be bothered to comparison-shop his way across the district.
Only later did he learn that the inn's proprietress was none other than Fabian's wife.
He could hardly believe his eyes when Fabian sauntered in after his shift, acting as if nothing were amiss and greeting him like an old friend.
Still, there was no denying it was a reasonably clean and respectable establishment, so Kallen ultimately forgave Fabian—in exchange for a rather expensive round of drinks.
What followed was a stretch of days that simply drifted by in languid idleness.
He had arrived in Caliburn with plenty of time to spare, so he might have toured Elysion and its surroundings in advance—but the entirety of his activity consisted of holing up in his inn room, eating, drinking, and sleeping.
And even so, time slipped swiftly onward.
Before he knew it, his first class was bearing down on him.
"...Damn it all."
Kallen muttered blearily as he stared up at the ceiling.
The day had come, at long last.
He cursed and scowled his scowl of ten thousand grievances, but nothing could be undone now.
Wiping the drool from the corner of his mouth, Kallen gathered his things with deliberate slowness and dragged his heavy feet toward the stairs.
The proprietress, bustling about with her morning preparations, greeted him warmly the moment she spotted him.
"Oh my, Professor! Is today your first day on the job?"
"...Yes, well. It is."
Kallen answered awkwardly, scratching the back of his head.
The title of professor still fit him about as comfortably as an ill-tailored coat.
"Won't you have breakfast before you go?"
"I never eat in the mornings. Thank you for everything, madam."
"Think nothing of it. Do keep using us, hoho."
As he exchanged farewells with the proprietress and turned to leave, something hanging on the inn's wall caught Kallen's eye.
A portrait: the fearsome Fabian, his wife the innkeeper, and their young daughter, painted together in warm, affectionate poses.
Fabian had presumably hung it somewhere prominent as a warning of sorts, yet somehow, every time Kallen passed it, he found himself unable to look away.
With an unreadable expression, Kallen gazed at that picture of domestic happiness for a long while.
Then, for some reason, he wearily turned away and hastened his steps back out of the inn.
To get from Caliburn to Elysion, one simply took the scheduled coach from the northern edge of the territory.
Recalling Fabian's advice, Kallen made his slow way across the city.
There was no particular sign of Elysion's students in the streets.
They had spent the past weeks clamoring through the shop district buying weapons and potions and disturbing his naps, but with the semester mere days away, they seemed to have already completed their move into the assigned dormitories.
Kallen intended to skip the entrance ceremony entirely and saunter into the lecture hall fashionably late.
He had already sat the entrance examination, after all—what was a mere orientation ceremony to him?
So it was that, savoring Caliburn at his most leisurely pace, he began to notice faces of the busy district he'd never seen while cooped up in his room.
A clean, sprawling plaza and its fountains; charming little alleys lined with trading houses and taverns; the bright ring of hammers in the smithies; even a clear, gentle river winding lazily through the heart of the city.
It was scenery befitting one of the Empire's most celebrated places to live—and yet, at some point, the sight of it left Kallen's mood inexplicably sour.
"...Damn it. Wasted on nothing but the scenery."
Knitting his brows for no good reason, Kallen found himself regretting his choice of route, and only belatedly quickened his pace.
"...!"
"—!"
At a burst of commotion from somewhere across the shop district, his gaze was drawn there despite himself.
"...Some kind of trouble?"
Drawing a little closer, Kallen poked just his head out from behind a wall.
Before long, he could make out the source of the ruckus.
"It won't take long, yeah?"
"All we're asking is a little of your time in exchange for helping you out."
"A country bumpkin if I ever saw one... putting on airs like she's something special..."
A handful of thugs had someone cornered against a wall, snarling and posturing in menacing displays.
Their bodies blocked her face from view, but judging by the long fall of pale green hair and the slender lines beneath, it was most likely some passing woman they were toying with.
So Caliburn isn't quite the peaceful haven they make it out to be either.
Kallen thought to himself.
Then again, if a truly crimeless place existed anywhere in the world, it would be somewhere in the court of the goddess Aten deep within the Illusion Realm—and nowhere else.
Besides, he'd heard it from Fabian himself: with refugees flooding in day after day, the local peace had grown thin as never before.
"..."
The last thing Kallen wanted was to get tangled up in a nuisance of a situation before he'd even reported for duty.
Telling himself exactly that, he began to slip quietly away from the scene—but he managed barely a few steps before letting out a deep, deflating sigh.
"Damn it. Now I feel filthy."
He ruffled a hand through his hair, muttering in irritation.
"Can't just leave it if it's a woman in trouble... agh, seriously..."
His mind made up, he turned on his heel and marched straight toward the pack harassing the woman.
"Look how stiff you've gone. Cute."
"We're really not scary people, so... huh?"
Mid-taunt, one of the thugs felt a hand settle on his shoulder and turned around—
"Who the hell are y—urk!"
CRACK!
In a single explosive instant, a fist shot up under his jaw.
The man who'd been caught by Kallen's ambush crumpled to the ground without so much as a chance to fight back.
"What the hell is this bastard's—ghk...!"
"Do you have any idea who we—gah!"
His companions, lunging in a panicked fury, met precisely the same fate, one after another.
The last thug, abruptly left standing alone, went deathly pale, his eyes darting between his fallen comrades and Kallen as he sucked in a breath.
"H-hiiik...!"
His fighting spirit shattered in an instant, he abandoned even his companions and bolted into the back alleys, vanishing in a flash.
Surveying the sprawl of unconscious thugs with their eyes rolled back, Kallen clicked his tongue.
"...Tch."
He considered handing them over to Fabian, but unfortunately he'd already burned far too much time as it was.
"Hey, you all right? Next time, steer clear of back alleys like this—stick to the main road, and..."
Intending to leave it at a few parting words of advice, Kallen at last reached out his hand to the woman still pressed against the wall.
"Hey. What do you think you're doing?"
Slap—
Her hand smacked his away, and a razor-edged voice lanced into Kallen's ear.
Kallen froze mid-sentence, blinking in sheer bewilderment.
The cornered woman was glaring up at him with eyes narrowed to blades, staring at him as if she meant to devour him whole.
Then, in a voice steeped in unmistakable displeasure, she opened her mouth.
"Just what kind of sleazy move is this supposed to be?"