The Shameless Professor (3)
"Huh?"
The breath escaped Kallen's lips before he could stop it.
Through the stinging haze across his knuckles, the woman was still glaring at him with a hostility he couldn't begin to fathom.
"Quit your damn yapping and get lost. Who exactly are you calling a fool right now? Huh?"
At the words that followed, Kallen's jaw simply dropped.
"Ha, what a dog-shit luck day this is turning out to be… how the hell did I get tangled up with lunatics like this, one after another…"
The woman before him was spewing out merciless abuse that suited her delicate features not at all.
Marooned in this absurd situation, Kallen could manage only one possible explanation.
She's insane.
As a rule, the smartest move was to steer clear of people whose minds had wandered off entirely.
Not that he was inclined to take any credit for what he'd done, but neither did he have a hobby of helping someone out only to be repaid with curses.
Kallen quietly lowered the hand still throbbing with the imprint of her slap, turned without a word, and walked away from the woman.
Even as he rounded the corner and vanished from view, her murderous stare never left his back.
"Honestly, you see every kind of scum there is."
Only after the man had disappeared completely did Lucia let her aggression ebb, exhaling a hollow laugh.
Her sharp eyes swept once more over the vagrants sprawled across the ground around her.
"Nngh…"
Just as one of them was stirring with a groan, she kicked his jaw hard without so much as a glance. He couldn't even manage a scream before going limp.
Watching him flop like a puppet with cut strings, Lucia scrunched her face in distaste.
"And here I thought, since I was at it anyway, I'd loosen up my muscles a little for the first time in ages…"
Casting a contemptuous sidelong glance at the fallen vagrants, she murmured quietly to herself.
"…Caliburn must be all reputation and nothing behind it. Seeing this kind of trash strutting around in broad daylight and all."
Snorting, Lucia soon let out a heavy sigh and sagged at the shoulders.
"Haa… seriously, what even is this…"
Weariness bled clearly through her voice.
With barely a year left before a full year had passed and still no progress, even she was beginning to run up against her limits.
So long as it rests in the hand of its rightful master, the sacred flame shall burn for all eternity.
An old decree, recited to her by the high priests of the Aten Church's main order on her last visit.
Sadly, it had proven utterly useless.
We humbly beg your pardon, but we know precious little beyond that ourselves.
It may simply be a temporary phenomenon tied to the fluctuations of your emotions, so…
Remembering how the old codgers had done nothing but watch her face instead of offering a solution, Lucia furrowed her brow deeply and muttered.
"…So what, you're telling me I'm not the master?"
Strictly speaking, it wasn't exactly wrong, which was why Lucia had no choice but to clamp her mouth shut.
It had been about a year ago when cracks first began to spread through her flawless world.
At first she'd dismissed it as another passing phase, but with the flame dimming a little more each day, her own insides were now burning black with anxiety.
Impatient, Lucia had suspended even the mission entrusted to her and thrown herself into an endless circuit across the vast empire in search of an answer.
And having found none whatsoever, the final place her feet had carried her was here—the Caliburn Fief, where Elysion Academy stood.
"And the moment I arrive, it's this whole circus… haa…"
The beasts who'd tried to toy with her without even knowing what she was. And then the sleazy man who'd been lurking nearby, waiting for his chance.
Feeling like an actress conscripted into a third-rate farce stuffed to the brim with nothing but unpleasantness, Lucia launched into another round of grumbling.
"As if anyone would fall for that flimsy little act…"
What truly rankled, though, was that sluggish man who'd shown up last.
Lucia had sensed his presence loitering behind the wall from the very start.
His personal strength was far from ordinary—yet he'd been artfully calibrating his moment of intervention, delaying until the very last instant before the very instant before disaster. That was what had grated on her nerves.
His attempt to stage himself as some savior of justice now looked to her like nothing more than the performance of a ridiculous clown.
"…Wait. Wasn't that bastard in on it from the start? Figuring with his lackeys to… you know, make a dramatic entrance and all…"
No other hypothesis came to mind.
Hardened by long years at the very bottom of society, Lucia trusted the species called 'man' not at all.
They were nothing but a pack of wolves who would swarm and greedily covet a woman the moment they scented an opening.
"…Then again, surely not even he would go that far."
But Lucia quickly turned her attention elsewhere.
There was something more important on her plate at the moment.
"Do I really have to meet that woman after all…"
With even renowned master smiths, the continent's finest alchemist, the Magic Tower, and the very leadership of the Aten Church failing to find an answer, only one path remained.
To seek counsel from Talisa—Headmistress of Elysion, famed as the sage of the age.
Yet even standing here already inside Caliburn, Lucia kept hesitating, somehow unable to bring herself to face her.
"They say that woman can read the fates of men through and through… if I slip up even once and she sees through me…"
She was wearing the ancient elven artifact, true—but before the reputation of a Grand Sorcerer, that offered thin comfort.
Lucia had seized an opportunity that would never come again in her lifetime.
Noble life, wealth, honor—she now enjoyed it all as naturally as if she'd been born to it.
But should her true identity ever be exposed, every last bit of it would vanish like foam on the tide.
And her contract still had a long stretch left to run.
Even the smallest risk was one Lucia could not afford to bear.
"…Right. Let's just go back for now."
After agonizing for a long while, she finally spoke with a heavy sigh.
"I'm exhausted anyway… and if I'm gone too long, it might start raising needless suspicions…"
The flame hadn't vanished entirely, so nothing would happen immediately. Rather than gambling on a reckless sortie and exposing herself to danger, it was wiser on every count to return home and search for a method again, step by careful step.
"Ugh… what a waste of time this whole trip was…"
Just as Lucia, having reached her conclusion, wearily turned to leave—
"Huh?"
She froze mid-stride and let out a low sound.
Her gaze had settled entirely on the crude ring on the little finger of her left hand.
And in that instant, a blaze of flame shot up like lightning across the clear gem set in its center.
"Wh-what?!"
Lucia staggered back from the ring, shrieking in astonishment.
"The flame—it's bright again…! Huh? Huh?!"
She checked and rechecked, wondering if her eyes deceived her, but every time, the flame simply burned clear and radiant.
"Ju-just now…? What on earth is this…"
It was only a modest restoration of its power—but even that, to the Lucia of this moment, was joy beyond measure.
Washed in a faint relief and a dizzying sense of unreality, she sank deep into thought.
The flame that had only ever dimmed, no matter how she struggled, was suddenly blazing again. Of course she was utterly dumbfounded.
"No matter how I think about it, nothing adds up… why would Prominence suddenly… that damn sword never once listened to me, and now…"
So there she was, groaning and chewing over the problem without any answer in sight.
"…Huh?"
Something strange accompanied the burning flame—a warmth. A warmth she somehow didn't recognize.
As she stared at it, what flashed unbidden through Lucia's mind was the touch of a hand—the hand of someone she'd so ruthlessly swatted away just moments ago.
And with a jolt of horror, she whipped around—far, far too late.
"H-hey…!! Wait…!"
Sadly, all that awaited her was the desolate view of an empty back alley.
Elysion Academy.
The Basic Swordsmanship classroom, filled with newly arrived first-years of the Swordsmanship Department, buzzed with unrest.
On the faces of the students, fresh from their entrance ceremony, hung two contradictory emotions at once: giddy excitement and a strange, nagging unease.
Professor Tyrell's fatal accident was one thing—but even now, on the very first day of term, not a single scrap of information about his successor had been released.
Even at the grand opening ceremony held just before, there had been no sign whatsoever of the new professor meant to teach them.
"So who exactly is supposed to be coming?"
"The professors didn't seem to know either…"
In this situation, only one fact was available to the students.
"I heard Headmistress Talisa brought them in herself."
"If the Headmistress personally recruited them, they must be truly remarkable…"
Talisa, Headmistress of Elysion, was the object of the first-years' admiration in its entirety.
What's more, the overwhelming majority of them—students from the Empire—went a step further, openly displaying their reverence for her.
That such a figure had personally brought in their new instructor was more than enough to set their curiosity ablaze.
"Maybe someone from the Imperial Guard Knights? The Dragonclaw Order? The Lily-and-Butterfly Knights?"
"Or a retired Supreme Master, perhaps…"
An even split of regret for their predecessor and anticipation for his successor only swelled the classroom's restlessness further.
Yet amid that atmosphere, one person sat conspicuously alone.
The platinum-blonde girl in the corner seat—Garnet Forts—had been enduring the stinging glances pouring in from around her all this time.
How dare the traitor's family set foot in a place like this…
Shameless as her father, through and through…
At the whispers that drifted over without any attempt at discretion, Garnet clenched her teeth.
Her clothes were noticeably more worn than the other students', laying her family's decline bare for all to see.
Unable to bear the condemnation any longer, she shot a sharp glare toward the direction of the murmuring.
"Eep."
The girl whose eyes met hers flinched and looked away—but the sneers around them only grew more overt.
"Did you see that? That look just now?"
"Like she was about to devour someone…"
She had endured this for years already, and still, withstanding those contemptuous gazes never got any easier.
Garnet forced herself to ignore them, taking a deep breath to steady her heart.
Cowards who won't even say it to my face.
Her acceptance letter from Elysion had been a single ray of light to the person she was now.
She couldn't bear to lose this hard-won chance.
Honing her skill until she could restore her family's honor—and her own—through sheer ability was the only path left to her. Refusing to let this moment slip was the first button of that long coat.
"But why isn't he here yet?"
"The class bell rang ages ago…"
"Don't tell me something happened to him too…"
And just as the murmuring among the students was about to swell—
Frantic footsteps came pounding closer, and without warning the classroom's front door burst open with a tremendous clatter.
"Hah… hah…"
The figure who appeared under all those converging eyes was a young man gasping for breath.
The students couldn't help but wear puzzled expressions.
Clothes thoroughly rumpled and smeared with stains, a bird's-nest of disheveled hair, a patchy half-grown beard. The man's appearance somehow suited a back-alley tavern in the slums far better than an Elysium lectern.
"Damn it… how is one academy this big… hekk… and why are the stairs so damn tall… can't breathe… thought I was going to die…"
Having spouted a stream of entirely unbecoming complaints and finally caught his breath, the man drifted—of all places—straight to the lecture podium.
Sweeping a dazed eye around the roomful of students, he spoke up in a slightly awkward voice.
"…Pleasure to meet you. I'm Kallen. I'll be teaching you all starting today."
Thus, at long last, the first-years of the Swordsmanship Department came face to face with their new Professor of Basic Swordsmanship.
Has he been drinking…? No, come on…
The disheveled appearance, the feather-light manner of speech, the man's swaying steps, and that somehow slurred voice besides.
A moment of flustered doubt stirred in Garnet—but she soon shook her head and steeled herself.
Famous sages and mighty warriors always did carry themselves with an odd eccentricity and a peculiar way of speaking.
Look at Talisa, who had kept her youth for decades—the man before them might likewise be some weathered old blade who had devoted his entire life to the sword.
No family name given, so perhaps a commoner—but even that was hardly a serious matter at Elysion.
The only thing that mattered was the instruction he would give them.
Could he surpass the legacy of the late Sir Tyrell, who had raised countless students into renowned knights? With trembling hearts, the students waited only for his mouth to open.
"…Everything has its proper order. Only by first building the fundamentals can one hope to advance beyond them, in anything."
And so the professor who had named himself Kallen continued, in a tone that somehow carried an air of fatigue.
"But you are all absurdly lacking. At this rate, I doubt you've so much as grasped the basics—let alone the fundamentals."
"…!"
On its face, an insolent remark that could easily be taken for an insult.
Considering that the great majority of the students present were children of renowned houses, it carried more than enough potential to spark actual protest.
Yet the students, caught up for an instant in the man's presence, simply listened to his words in silence.
He paused there briefly, then swept the classroom once more.
"There is no need to worry. Today, you will receive definitive instruction on what the fundamentals truly are."
Having nodded, he then furrowed his brow slightly and opened his mouth again.
"…I see fatigue written all over your faces. Well, I quite understand. No doubt the grueling academic schedule has worn your bodies and minds thin."
At his piercing observation, several students who had been fighting back yawns stiffened guiltily upright.
And indeed, they had been feeling near their limits since the very first day of lectures.
The entrance exam conducted like live combat, the mountain of course materials to purchase in the crowded streets of Caliburn, moving into the dormitories, memorizing Elysion's dense thicket of regulations and forbidden practices.
Under several days of a schedule that descended like a storm, they had long since been wrung dry.
The noble students, marinated in every restorative elixir their houses could procure and raised on early education besides, had been nodding off at the entrance ceremony and earning themselves harsh reprimands—needless to say, the rest were worse off.
But this professor, Kallen, appeared to have no intention whatsoever of cutting them even the smallest slack for their circumstances.
Granted, having enrolled at Elysion, this too was fair—utterly fair, if anything.
At any rate, stung by his cold observation, the students were about to reflect on themselves and straighten their postures—
"Rest, you see, is the foundation and root of all endeavors. One might call it the indispensable rite of passage on the road to any step forward."
The professor's argument veered, for just a moment, in a distinctly peculiar direction.
Wondering briefly whether this was some unfunny joke, the students' heads tilted in unison.
"Your first lesson shall be a nap. Everyone is to rest to their heart's content in whatever position they please, and restore their spirits."
"…?"
"Ah, if you prefer, you're free to leave the classroom as well. On my way in, I noticed a bench by the fountain that looks like prime real estate. Warm sunlight, a nice breeze coming through…"
Apparently it was no joke at all—the professor called Kallen was already turning back toward the very door he'd just come through.
"Rest well, and find your next lecture on your own. *Yaaawn*… I'm going to catch some sleep on that bench myself, so do try not to disturb me. Well then…"
And with nothing left behind but a long, stretching yawn, the man vanished in an instant.
"…"
Only a dead silence flowed through the classroom.
On the faces of the students, frozen stiff as statues, was nothing but bewilderment.
Then—crack—the sound of something snapping broke through the stillness.
Garnet's blazing sapphire eyes were fixed on the empty podium.
Her hand, clutching the severed halves of a quill, was trembling with fury.