Chapter 20
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 20
After Rickert set the pecking order straight, some things at Beringen Academy changed, while others remained the same.
The biggest change was the disappearance of the so-called ‘tribute money.’ In other words, the culture of exploitation practiced by the higher-ranked students was no more.
What hadn't changed was that new students still had to endure an initiation, lower-ranked students still had to be the first to step aside in the hallways, and Volka was still the students’ de facto boss.
With the exploitation gone, the students could finally stand on their own two feet. Regardless of rank, everyone could now earn money through their own sweat, attend classes, and work toward their futures.
According to their own traditions and rules, the students of Beringen Academy lived on—even if the place was little better than a chicken coop.
Whenever asked, Rickert taught the other students generously. He never discriminated, regardless of whether their rank was high or low; to him, they all looked more or less the same.
Volka worked the hardest of all. Busy shuttling back and forth between the dorms and the city, he trained even more intensely than before. All he had needed was a single sliver of hope—the hope that he could build a better life through hard work.
Be that as it may, as much as Rickert hated people making excuses about talent, talent itself was undeniably real.
And apparently, there were some things that even Rickert couldn't force.
“Why can’t you get this?! Why?!”
At the training grounds behind the chicken-coop-like dorm, Rickert shouted, his eyes wide with irritation as he slashed his sword through the air.
Beside him, Boribori awkwardly held a practice sword, his face sullen.
Even Rickert, whose composure rarely cracked, had finally snapped while trying to teach Boribori.
No matter how long Rickert spent teaching him, nothing changed. Boribori’s form was wrong from head to toe, and when Rickert corrected one flaw, another would appear. When he fixed that one, the first problem would return.
Boribori simply wasn't making any progress. It had already been three days. At this point, it was a testament to Rickert’s incredible patience that he had lasted this long.
The funny thing was, the other kids who watched Rickert teach Boribori learned faster just by observing from the sidelines.
While others saw Rickert as an insurmountable wall, Rickert himself was now facing a low, yet impassable, wall named Boribori.
“Ugh… Please, Bori. You’re killing me.”
Rickert pinched the bridge of his nose, screwing his eyes shut.
“S-Sorry. I’ll try harder.”
“Trying is important, but you have to try to do it well. You’re trying so you can get good at it, right? Didn’t you say you wanted to become an adventurer?”
“…I want to do well, but it just doesn’t work…”
Seeing Boribori look so crestfallen made Rickert feel a pang of guilt. The boy wasn’t failing on purpose, nor was he trying to mess with him.
“…Sorry for losing my temper.”
“N-No. It’s because I’m lacking…”
Rickert looked at Boribori with a troubled expression. As he did, a thought crossed his mind.
When others called him a genius, he had never believed it. He thought he was only better than others because of his past life’s experience, not because he was particularly talented.
But that wasn’t true. He really was a genius. He had been a genius in his previous life, too.
In his past life, Ricky could grasp the core of any concept at a glance, gaining insight with astonishing speed. He knew how to refine existing techniques, and his creativity allowed him to invent superior skills and master them in no time.
Funnily enough, Ricky never had the chance to realize he was talented back then. He’d never had a formal training process; he was thrown into life-or-death battles from the very beginning, spending his entire life fighting one bloody war after another.
Die or survive. Caught on the precipice of life and death, there was no time to ponder whether one possessed talent.
Only now, watching Boribori, did Rickert realize that those very qualities were what defined a genius.
In any case, what was someone without talent supposed to do? Pondering the question didn't yield any special answers.
“Let’s take it slow. There’s no rush.”
“Okay…”
“Let’s take a break.”
“Okay. But I have to go cut the grass.”
Instead of heading to the dorms, Boribori walked toward the edge of the training grounds. Beyond them lay a heavily overgrown area behind the main keep, the academy’s central building.
Beringen Academy was situated on a flat plateau atop a rocky cliff. It covered a surprisingly large area, but over half of it was covered in thick brush that resembled a forest.
Since it was spring, weeds and brush were growing rampant, requiring frequent cutting. By summer, it would become an almost daily chore.
Such work fell to the lower-ranked students or the so-called ‘lower class’ who didn’t even have a rank to speak of. Regrettably, Boribori belonged to that lower class.
Because it was a place where people lived, there were endless chores: cleaning, laundry, mowing, and more.
In the brushy area, a few students were already cutting grass with sickles. Those without sickles carried the cut grass away to hurl it off the cliff.
Rickert rolled up his sleeves and joined in. Even though he was now Rank 1, he didn’t shy away from dirty work.
The other students found it awkward at first, but people adapt to anything once it becomes routine. Three months had already passed since Rickert entered the academy. Having been born in April, he had just turned eleven.
A ten-year-old kid had shown up, beaten every well-known student, and claimed the top rank by defeating the former Rank 7 in a duel with live blades.
It was such a monumental debut that one wondered if anything like it had ever happened in the academy's history. From the students' perspective, however, they were simply relieved that the current Rank 1 was so easygoing and down-to-earth.
Because while someone else could act as the boss, the temperament of the Rank 1 student dictated the atmosphere of the entire academy.
Some had ruled like tyrants, while others had squeezed the students dry like cruel lords.
Though the students couldn't have articulated every single change, they felt it clearly in their bones: many things were different now.
As he worked, Rickert’s clothes became filthy with dirt and plant scraps. The same went for the other students.
Rickert brushed off his clothes, swept the cluttered ground, and sat down to rest. Boribori fidgeted over to his side and held something out.
“Hold out your hand.”
When Rickert did, Boribori pulled something from his pocket and sprinkled it onto Rickert’s palm. It was crumbs from hard bread.
It wasn’t just plain breadcrumbs; it was a sort of snack made by crushing hard bread and mixing it with salt and powdered wild herbs.
Rickert tossed the entire portion into his mouth and chewed. As the crumbs swelled, a salty, subtle herbal scent tickled his nose. It was surprisingly palatable.
Boribori also popped the snack into his mouth and chewed. As he did, he glanced somewhere and frowned.
“Can’t you go beat them up?”
Rickert followed his gaze and saw the Ice Gang talking amongst themselves in the shade.
Just as Volka had assessed, the Ice Gang couldn't care less about the academy. Whether kids died, held a festival, or Rickert became Rank 1, they simply remained on the fringe. But was that really a bad thing?
“Why, all of a sudden?”
Boribori wasn't the type to act tough just because he was friends with the strongest, but he seemed to particularly detest the Ice Gang.
“It’s not out of nowhere. They’re bad guys.”
“Based on what?”
Boribori leaned in and whispered in Rickert’s ear.
“They’re heretics. Heretics.”
“Huh?”
“I saw them by chance when I went to the city. They met up with some bad people and did this. I saw it myself.”
Boribori splayed his fingers and covered his eyes with the back of his hand. It was a gesture Rickert had seen somewhere before. Hadn't Daisy's mother done that?
“Isn’t that… the sign of the Order of Condemnation or something?”
“Yeah! That’s the heresy!”
Everyone viewed religion differently. While Boribori didn’t seem deeply pious, he appeared utterly disgusted by heresy.
“Sorry, but I’m not an inquisitor.”
“Even though they might rip out kids’ hearts or livers while we sleep? If they borrow evil powers, even you won’t be safe, Ricky!”
Rickert looked at Boribori as if he were pathetic. “You actually believe that? Where’d you pick up such stupid nonsense?”
“My mom told me.”
“…Well, caution never hurts. But picking fights for no reason isn’t right. If you hate them so much, you go fight them.”
“T-That’s…”
“So let’s focus on your training.”
“Alright…”
Boribori mumbled sullenly, his mouth still full of the snack. Rickert roughly patted the bowl-cut hair of the boy, who was two years his senior.
“First, let’s go wash up. And do some laundry.”
“Okay.”
Rickert went to the courtyard well with Boribori. Kids were already gathered around it, stripped down and washing themselves. The female students lived in another building, but that was just how it was.
The boys who had grown quickly and possessed fairly robust physiques actually enjoyed the glances from the female students watching from the windows of their own dorm.
Rickert and Boribori stripped as well and drew a bucket of water. A full bucket was quite heavy, requiring considerable strength to pull up by the rope.
Daily life itself was physical training—climbing the cliff stairs, making the six-hour round trip to the city, and everything in between.
As a result, not a single student at the academy was fat; most possessed lean, muscular builds.
Standing around 160 centimeters tall, Rickert was somewhat large for his age, while Boribori, at 150 centimeters, was smaller than average. For comparison, fifteen-year-old Volka was already well over 170 centimeters tall.
The students were all different in height, weight, appearance, home region, and background. However, they shared one thing in common: they had all been abandoned by their families.
Only Rickert had come here by his own choice, and perhaps because he had grown up in a relatively decent environment, his demeanor was subtly different from the other students.
Though he hadn't intended it, that fundamental difference in character might have been what influenced the academy's current atmosphere—the idea that within its walls, everyone was an equal student.
Having washed himself, Rickert quickly headed into the dorms with the others.
Students who had towels dried their wet hair and bodies before lending them to friends. Rickert, however, simply used his change of clothes as a towel, drying himself off before pulling them on. On one side of the chest was a violet embroidery.
Since the weather was gloomy, washed clothes were hung near a fire lit outside, with a few students standing guard.
Rickert’s bed had recently been moved to an upper bunk near the middle of the room. There was no special reason other than it being far from both doors, where the constant traffic of students was inevitably bothersome.
“No, seriously! It was the fencing professor! I saw him coming out of the pigsty while I was heading to work, so I asked him why he was there! Then, covered in pig shit, he goes like this!”
Every group has its clown. A naked kid chattered excitedly, flailing his arms and legs, his manhood swinging loosely back and forth.
Children gathered around him, listening with amused smiles.
“‘How strange. I drank last night and definitely made it home. I saw a pale white ass and thought it was my wife…’”
Whether it was true or not, the kid’s imitation of the professor’s solemn voice was hilarious.
“Wahahaha!”
Sure enough, the kids burst into laughter. Some clutched their bellies, rolling around on their bunks.
“But honestly, I don’t think he was drunk.”
“Then what?”
“He went in there on purpose.”
“Ewww!”
“Are you serious? Should I go ask the professor?”
Lying on his back on his bed a short distance away, Rickert chuckled as he watched the kids chatter.
Scenes like this reminded him of his military service from his past life. It made him realize that wherever you gather a group of people, they’re all pretty much the same.
Then, suddenly, the noisy, laughing kids fell quiet. The Ice Gang had walked in.
Though they didn’t particularly bully or harass anyone, the aura they gave off was simply intimidating. Especially since power had only recently changed hands, the kids were all walking on eggshells.
The problem was that Boribori was just coming in from the opposite side after hanging his laundry. With the other kids gathered in the middle blocking their line of sight, Boribori and the Ice Gang came face-to-face.
Ice quietly looked down at the short Boribori without a word. Then, for the very first time, Rickert heard his voice. Since Ice’s crew only ever whispered amongst themselves, he had never heard him speak before.
“Move.”
Contrary to his delicate features, his voice was a manly, mid-to-low baritone.
Boribori flinched and started to step aside, but then he stopped himself. Holding his ground, he spoke.
“N-No. You move.”
To an outsider, it might have seemed like nothing, but inside the academy, this was a grave situation. After all, the children had their own world with its own rules.
When Boribori refused to step aside, Ice looked up, his gaze shifting toward Rickert, who was lying on the top bunk a short distance away, watching the scene unfold.
Neither of them glared. They simply stared. Yet because neither looked away, a strange tension filled the room.
The air grew heavy. With every passing second, the situation felt like it was spiraling out of control. The previously noisy dormitory fell dead silent.
Then, Ice broke eye contact first and stepped aside. He had cleared the path for a rankless, lower-class kid.
When Ice actually moved, Boribori didn't know what to do. Moving stiffly, he hugged the opposite wall as he passed, a dazed look on his face.
To anyone watching, it was obvious how fast Boribori’s heart was pounding.
Even after he reached Rickert’s side, he wore a stunned expression, trying to calm his racing heart.
Rickert waited for Boribori to settle down before speaking, his voice devoid of emotion.
“Bori.”
“H-Huh?”
“You’re my most precious friend. I like your innocence. It doesn’t matter if you can’t fight, and it doesn’t matter if you’re helpful to me or not. But rules are rules. From now on, you step aside.”
Though his words sounded gentle, they were firm and carried an undeniable authority.
Rickert didn't judge people by rank, but he believed that order and rules were crucial for a group to function.
Because the dormitory was so quiet, everyone heard Rickert’s words. For the students of the academy, the message was finally burned into their minds: the power structure had shifted, and Rickert was the new Rank 1.
“Okay…” Boribori replied sullenly.
Only then did Rickert smile. “Come here. It might be a chicken coop, but being crammed close together like this isn’t so bad, is it?”
“Yeah.”
“By the way, I saw you drawing in the dirt the other day. You were really good. So what if you don’t have a talent for fighting? Having a talent for drawing is enough. I’m actually envious of that.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. If I were good at drawing, I could draw my mother and look at her whenever I wanted.”
“Should I draw her for you?”
“You’ve never seen my mother.”
“I can draw her if you tell me what she looks like. Besides, making things look pretty is the best part of drawing. Even if someone’s ugly in real life, they can be handsome or pretty in a picture. Everyone liked that!”
“Is that so?”
Boribori’s logic was a bit strange, but in a way, it made sense.
As Rickert and Boribori chatted quietly, murmurs of conversation began to drift from other bunks as well. At some point, the sound of rain falling outside began to echo through the room.
Still, the kids couldn’t help but wonder: what would have happened if Ice hadn’t stepped aside?