The Department Exchange Match
The excitement of a new semester lifts the spirits of more than just the freshmen. Just as new students flow into the academy, new faculty members arrive as well.
Becoming an academy professor demands a process incomparably more grueling than anything a student endures. You must earn recognition within academia, pass a notoriously difficult examination personally crafted by the existing faculty, clear interviews with the department head and the academy headmaster, and only then receive your appointment. The joy of that appointment, earned through such suffering, is beyond what any student could feel upon enrollment. It is only natural that one's chest would swell like a balloon stuffed with helium.
Zenia Sibelov, who had finally been appointed as an academy professor this year, was no exception.
"Mommm! I finally became a professor!"
Born a commoner, she had graduated from the academy with outstanding grades, accumulated field achievements, and prepared for the appointment examination. The academy's professor exam was one that even brilliant prodigies from wealthy families—backed by years of generous familial support—would drink the cup of defeat. Zenia, too, had been repeatedly crushed against that towering wall.
But she had never given up. She had been knocking on the academy's door for five years now.
They say dreams eventually come true.
On her sixth attempt, Zenia finally passed the academy professor appointment exam she had long dreamed of.
"I did it! I actually did it!"
And so she became an assistant professor at the academy's Spear Arts Department. The Spear Arts Department was the third-largest department after the Swordsmanship and Mage Departments. Naturally, the competition was fierce, and the threshold for appointment was as narrow as the eye of a needle. Zenia had leapt over that wall entirely on her own strength, without any familial assistance.
Her first-year assignment was a first-year practical course—teaching the fresh-faced novices who had just entered the academy.
"Alright. We're still in department selection week, but starting today, we'll begin proper classes. Practical training. Everyone, assemble at the training ground."
Today's lesson was a basic practical session to check the students' stances. Zenia, who had prepared extensively for her momentous first class, led twenty students to the training ground.
What greeted Zenia's eyes upon arrival were senior students already using the training ground. This was clearly the Spear Arts Department's training ground, yet the people training there didn't seem to belong to the Spear Arts Department at all.
'Now that I think about it, what did the department head say during the morning department meeting?'
Something about the Thievery Department borrowing the training ground temporarily. Looking more closely, the person at the center of the training ground was Professor Izumi.
Izumi Reina.
She was a well-known figure among the academy's faculty. On the negative side.
An outsider brought in under the headmaster's personal protection.
A freeloader who had done nothing for three years while collecting a salary.
A foreigner of unknown origin and background.
Some said she was a slave who had killed her master and fled. Others claimed she was a bastard child born from a great noble's illicit affair with a servant. Every unpleasant rumor that could attach itself to a person of uncertain origins had latched onto Professor Izumi.
Personally, Zenia had no acquaintance with Professor Izumi whatsoever. In other words, she was someone who had nothing to do with her.
Yet the moment Zenia saw Professor Izumi's face, she felt her insides boiling over. It was jealousy and resentment. And the cause of those emotions was not hard to identify.
'Professor Izumi. The headmaster parachuted her straight in—she didn't even take the appointment exam to become an academy professor.'
Fairness.
That was surely the academy's most noble value. Yet the value that applied so well to students strangely failed to apply among the faculty.
Originally, becoming an academy professor required passing all manner of difficult examinations, just as Zenia had experienced. But Professor Izumi had bypassed all of that, her appointment decided solely by the headmaster's word—under the banner of establishing a brand-new department, the Thievery Department.
That was one of the great reasons the academy's faculty despised Professor Izumi. She was already the professor of a department burdened with prejudice against thieves, and she had created enormous controversy during her appointment process. At this point, it would be more strange if she got along well with the other professors.
She seemed to have some rapport with a few professors like Flora and Kur, but fundamentally, Professor Izumi was an outcast within the academy.
'Someone like that is an academy professor?'
As Zenia looked at Professor Izumi with a condescending gaze, she spotted a student among them. A boy so handsome that merely looking at him made the corners of her mouth twitch.
He was Yohan—the academy's top-ranked freshman, a topic of conversation among both students and professors alike.
'Student Yohan. He nearly defeated Zaborgh in the enrollment sparring match, didn't he?'
The enrollment sparring match was a topic that came up frequently among professors.
This year's freshmen are no joke.
The top-ranked one especially stands out.
By graduation, he might even surpass Sara Leoris.
Zenia herself had watched that sparring match at the enrollment ceremony. Students of lower caliber hadn't noticed, but the true victor of that match had clearly been Yohan. That was a fact all the other professors acknowledged as well.
Thus, which department the top-ranked freshman Yohan would choose was a topic that came up daily on professors' lips. Most students decided their department before enrollment.
If they were from a noble family, there was already enough information to judge which student would enter which department. The problem was with commoners—there was no information at all.
"Student Yohan. I heard he chose the Thievery Department?"
"What!?"
That was why the news of Yohan choosing the Thievery Department had sent shockwaves through the academy.
'If it were the Swordsmanship or Mage Department, I could understand. But the Thievery Department! With talent like that, going to the Thievery Department!?'
Zenia's pupils sparkled like a burning torch. Her gaze locked onto Professor Izumi.
Jealousy over privileges she had never received.
Deep-rooted prejudice against thieves.
A sense of victimhood at having a brilliant student stolen away.
And the heightened sense of pride from having just become a professor.
All these emotions swirled together, shaking Zenia's heart.
Zenia blew out a sharp breath through her nose and made her decision. She would cause trouble for that Professor Izumi Reina.
'To get something so easily that I had to struggle so hard to achieve… Does that even make sense?'
She ran through a simulation in her head. If she provoked the other side just enough, they'd get riled up and respond in kind.
Then she could challenge them to a fair duel.
'Wait a minute! If Yohan sees me in a duel, he might change his mind and transfer to the Spear Arts Department!'
It was still department selection period. That meant students could freely switch departments.
She would show Professor Izumi her place and transfer the academy's top-ranked freshman into the Spear Arts Department.
It would be killing two birds with one stone—killing the crow and getting the egg, or digging a ditch and catching a crayfish.
If Professor Zenia hadn't been a hot-blooded rookie professor, she never would have acted on such a reckless idea.
But she was still under thirty, and her experience as a professor was extremely shallow. She lacked the wisdom to measure the foolishness of her own actions.
"Oh my. Who do we have here? Isn't that the Thievery Department?"
She deliberately raised her volume so the other side could hear.
"What business does the Thievery Department have in our Spear Arts Department's training ground?"
At Zenia's voice, Professor Izumi shrank her shoulders like a young lady encountering a thug and opened her mouth.
"Uuuh…! I, I got permission from the Spear Arts Department head, yesss…!"
A voice that lacked any professorial bearing.
Does that person really have the qualifications to be a professor?
It was entirely reasonable for Zenia, who had never seen Professor Izumi's abilities firsthand, to harbor such doubts.
"Hmm… Really? I don't think I've heard anything like that."
She had heard it during the morning faculty meeting, but Zenia avoided definitive phrasing and spoke indirectly.
"Uuuh…! I clearly told the department head, yesss…."
"Right now is our usage time. So please, move aside."
"Wha…!? Ah, class hasn't ended yet, yesss…! Once the students finish their review sparring…"
"I·said·move·aside! Right now is our Spear Arts Department's usage time. Who's the owner of this training ground, anyway?"
"Th-the Spear Arts Department, yesss…! But, the training ground is so wide…… Can't we just use a corner, yesss…?"
When the other party backed down so meekly and compliantly, Zenia felt an inexplicable surge of confidence. She spread her shoulders wide and spoke.
"No. You're trying to secretly spy on our department's lessons, aren't you? As expected, a shady idea worthy of a stealthy thief."
"I, I don't have any such thoughts, yesss…."
"Then move aside. I have no desire to bicker further. Or, if you really want to use the training ground… How about a duel with me? A duel for the right to use the training ground, that is."
Zenia subtly steered the situation toward a duel.
But surprisingly, Professor Izumi didn't fall for it.
"The headmaster said dueling between professors is forbidden, yesss…!"
"Hmph…! Such a rule…."
"Professor Zenia… You just came this year, right, yesss…? It seems you haven't yet familiarized yourself with the academy's regulations…"
"D-don't act like you're my senior! You've been loafing around for three years!"
"Eeek…! I'm sorry for loafing around, yesss…! I'm reflecting on it, yesss…."
Professor Izumi quickly tucked her tail between her legs the moment Zenia flared up.
Elly watched the spectacle with a restless expression.
"Yohan! Sierra! Something's about to get really interesting, don't you think!?"
"Heh. This is unexpectedly entertaining."
Yohan smiled as he looked at Professor Zenia.
Zenia Sibelov.
Her emergence as a rare hot-blooded character among the faculty piqued Yohan's interest.
'Professor Zenia is just an immature troublemaker. But…'
Yohan's gaze shifted past Professor Zenia, toward one of the Spear Arts Department students behind her.
'I didn't expect to face that guy so soon.'
A boy with a face as pale as if all the blood had been drained from it.
That student, catching Yohan's gaze, stepped forward and spoke.
"Professors. If professors cannot duel, what about a duel between students?"
His voice was as weak as his bloodless face suggested—as if the wind had been sucked right out of it.
The owner of that voice, Gio Strandal, glanced sharply at Yohan and continued.
"A 3-on-3 Department Exchange Match. Staking the training ground's usage rights and the department's honor."
The encounter with Chapter 2's boss, Gio Strandal.
It was far sooner than Yohan had anticipated.