The Role of a Teacher (2)
“What were their names again? Karen... Aswan, and who else?”
“Yulio Harmatan.”
“Right. Man, I've literally never heard that family name before.”
“Crack open a history book for once. They actually show up in the texts—even if the house is completely ruined now.”
“Who cares about ancient lineage? They're bankrupt now.”
“Seriously, rubbing shoulders with trash like that lowers our own class.”
Three second-year students from the Sword School walked along, snickering among themselves.
“Hey, but have you seen the freshmen this year? They're insane. Kundel, Rihardt...”
“Soffen, too. Can't we pull some strings with them?”
“Give it a shot. Lure them into a club or an academic circle. Sucking up to them early will make life so much easier down the line.”
Just last year, the three of them wouldn't have dared strut around like this. Back then, they spent every waking moment keeping their heads down and nervously glancing around, terrified of crossing paths with upperclassmen. But now, a new batch of freshmen had arrived. In other words, their time had finally come.
“Man, having freshmen around makes life worth living. Hey, what about Deleve? We definitely shouldn't touch him, right?”
“Touch him if you've got a death wish. What good comes from making an enemy of House Kundel?”
“I was just saying! I know, I know. His older brothers are in the third and fifth years.”
“Mess with the real powers that be, and we're dead meat.”
It was right as they were swaggering along, puffed up with pride over finally being upperclassmen, that they froze in their tracks.
“Oh? Well, well. Look who it is.”
“S-Seniors.”
Third-year Sword School students. The faces of the second-years instantly contorted into the exact same terrified expressions Karen and Yulio had worn moments before.
“G-Good day, seniors!”
“Yeah, you little punks. Feeling good about yourselves? Happy now that you have underclassmen to boss around?”
“Heh... well, you see...”
“You grinning?”
“...We apologize, seniors.”
This was the single most pronounced difference between the Sword School and the Arcane School: absolute obedience to seniors. Of course, an exception was made if one came from an illustrious family.
“Keep your heads on straight, got it? Don't lose your minds just because freshmen arrived.”
“Yes, seniors!”
“Quick with your answers, at least. We're off. Oh, the Exchange Match is coming up, isn't it? See you then.”
Watching the backs of the departing third-years, the second-years ground their teeth.
“Bastards...”
“Haah, pisses me off so much.”
“Hey, hold it in. Things'll loosen up once we hit third year.”
“Those pricks don't look like they'd ever loosen up on us.”
“Damn it, I'm so pissed off. Let's go do that thing.”
“Right now? Won't there be people passing by?”
“Hey, how many bottles do we have left? Any smokes?”
As the three second-years grumbled among themselves, another figure stepped forward and blocked their path. At first they braced themselves, assuming it was yet another upperclassman, but it wasn't.
“You must be the students who were just harassing the first-years, Karen Aswan and Yulio Harmatan.”
“What?”
Standing before them was an extraordinarily handsome man. For that reason alone, they took an immediate dislike to him.
“Your faces are rather distinctive, so it will not be difficult to remember you.”
“What kind of bullshit is that?”
“One of you has unevenly sized eyes, one has a crooked nose, and the remaining one has remarkably thick lips.”
He pinpointed their flaws with clinical precision. Xiel harbored no active malice. Well, perhaps a sliver of it, stoked by an ember of irritation.
“Who the hell do you think you are?”
“I am Xiel Steelheart, elective instructor at the Sword School.”
“...An elective instructor?”
“Hey, wait, I heard about him. That self-defense class...”
“Ah...”
The three nodded in sudden realization. Then, one of them sneered.
“Instructor, this is just between upperclassmen and underclassmen. Seniors offering a bit of advice to their juniors, that's all.”
“For advice, it was accompanied by both verbal abuse and physical violence.”
“Ah, well, that's... Wait, how did you even know that?”
“I watched.”
Now another one chuckled mockingly.
“What, going to report us to the Student Affairs Office? You don't seem to know how our school works, do you?”
“No. I have no intention of doing so. For now.”
“For now?”
“If you lay a hand on my students again, I will formally request disciplinary action according to the school regulations. Strictly by the book.”
They had heard rumors that some bizarre elective instructor had arrived, but this guy seemed downright unhinged.
“And here I thought you were going to do something grand. Instructor, you clearly don't get it. They're first-years, and their families are total nobodies. You know that, right?”
“Does that matter?”
“Ha, give me a break. You really don't know how the world works, do you, Instructor?”
Their sneering, insolent faces contained not a shred of respect.
“Instructor, juniors owe absolute obedience to seniors. Unless they belong to names like Kundel or Rihardt, they're all the same.”
“Even if they defeat you?”
“Excuse me?”
Defeat? What nonsense was he spewing now? Before they could process it, Xiel brought up the Exchange Match.
“I am told the Year Exchange Match is approaching soon. A tournament where each grade clashes against one another, is it not? You will find out then.”
“The Exchange Match? Hah. Freshmen have never beaten upperclassmen in the history of the academy. Are you actually expecting something?”
“If they are at your level, my students should be more than capable of winning.”
“Our level? What did you just—”
Infuriated, one of them took a menacing step forward.
“One more step, and you will regret it, second-year.”
The moment their eyes locked with Xiel's amber gaze, their feet froze in place. Their entire body locked up stiff.
W-What is this?
Something every human being felt, yet something the Phantom lacked.
Namely—
“U-Ugh...”
Terror.
Thud.
His knees buckled, and he collapsed onto the dirt.
“H-Hey! What's wrong with you?”
“U-Uhh...”
“W-What did you just do?!”
The second student who met Xiel's gaze gasped for air, stumbling backward in raw panic. An overwhelming, suffocating horror washed over them.
What... What is this?!
And the last one.
“What in the—Eep!”
Just like the first, he crumbled to the ground.
Xiel stared impassively at the unsightly heap of boys, a realization dawning on him.
Is this what it feels like when a sense of self manifests?
Though Xiel had yet to fully comprehend it himself, a surge of emotion akin to indignation had coiled around the three boys.
Killing intent.
From his days as an assassin. One of the very techniques that had earned him the moniker 'Phantom.' An art that could only be executed by one who had mastered the Breathing of the Polar Night.
And those who even knew of its existence were vanishingly few—because Xiel was the sole living practitioner of the Breathing of the Polar Night.
“What's going on over there?”
“Aren't those Sword School second-years?”
“Looked like they were just talking, but...”
Hearing the murmurs of passing students, the three were seized by equal parts terror and humiliation. The cocktail of the two resulted in sheer panic.
“L-Let's go! Run!”
“Get up, you idiot!”
They scrambled to their feet and fled as if chased by demons, eager to escape both that horrifying gaze and the stares of onlookers.
Watching their retreating backs, Xiel nodded quietly.
“My students will win.”
With that, he turned and resumed his walk toward the faculty dormitory, as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.
Meanwhile.
“D-Did you see that, Yulio?”
“Uh... yeah... We really just saw that, right?”
Karen and Yulio had been watching the scene unfold from not far away.
“Did Instructor Xiel... punish them?”
“Looks like it... but he didn't even lay a hand on them, did he?”
“Could he be a mage?”
“No way. He didn't chant any spell, and I didn't see any magic tools.”
To Karen and Yulio, subduing an opponent through sheer terror without lifting a finger was beyond comprehension.
Wait.
Terror.
Xiel had told them before: that he would teach them how to overcome fear.
Could this have been part of that lesson?
Oddly enough, recalling the sight of those upperclassmen fleeing in disgrace...
“I think my fear faded a bit, Yulio.”
“Huh?”
“Of the seniors, I mean.”
Yulio muttered in awe, “I just think Instructor Xiel is incredible...”
Healthy Body and Physical Strength.
A class no one called by its official title anymore. The hour for what everyone simply dubbed "Long-Distance Running" had arrived.
“Did you practice?”
“As if.”
“Don't lie. Hey, Yulio, I saw you running last night.”
“That was just a walk, okay?!”
“Were you that desperate to get a Praise Card? Or did you predict the cut-off and deliberately stop at twenty laps?”
“Screw you, who'd deliberately take last place?!”
Before Xiel arrived, the students were chattering away like typical freshmen.
“By the way, what do you even get if you collect five Praise Cards?”
“No idea. Someone ask him today. I don't even know what kind of reward he's talking about.”
“Deleve got one, right? What'd he say? Did anyone ask him?”
“Who knows? Is there anyone here who can actually strike up a normal conversation with Deleve?”
“Sigh, if I skip this class I fail, so I have to do it.”
“Says the guy who was sprinting his heart out last night!”
“I told you, it was a walk!”
The freshmen seemed to be gradually adapting to the long-distance running class, just as they had with the self-defense lectures.
They really had no alternative. If they didn't clear their general education requirements now, they'd have to retake them as second-years. Of course, that wasn't the only reason.
Xiel Steelheart. The elective instructor who had appeared out of nowhere. Even Deleve, who held the most illustrious background among the freshmen alongside Celia, sat quietly and obeyed in his class.
Though a few had rebelled—like Deleve in the first self-defense session or Maris in the second...
Both had been thoroughly tamed.
I never imagined an elective class would be like this.
Karen Aswan stood with her arms crossed in deep thought, then nudged Yulio.
“Are you feeling okay? You said you practiced yesterday. Weren't you pushing yourself too hard? If you keep that up, what happened last time will—”
“Shh. Someone might hear.”
“No, Yulio, working hard is great, but still...”
Yulio's face fell.
“I know. I know I'm different from the others... That's why I want to work harder. We don't have the wealth or the prestige to just blame everything on bad luck at birth.”
“Is there really no other way? Medicine, or something...?”
“I wish. Even the doctors said they don't know the cause.”
“Don't give up. You can do this.”
Karen and Yulio had bonded on entrance ceremony day. Perhaps their shared status as scions of minor, impoverished houses made them kindred spirits. Birds of a feather, after all. Yulio, in particular, hailed from a powerless family and suffered from a congenital ailment that left him chronically frail, earning Karen's deep sympathy.
“Instructor Xiel said it himself, remember? That he'd show us how to overcome fear. You'll overcome yours too, Yulio.”
“Really? I hope so...”
Yulio muttered without much conviction. Yet one thing had left an indelible mark on him: the sight of Xiel subduing three second-year seniors without lifting a finger.
Could I ever become like that someday?
Within both Karen and Yulio, an unspoken admiration for Xiel had begun to take root. And for Yulio, that reverence ran even deeper than Karen's.
Why? Because for the first time since entering the Sword School, he had received genuine praise.
Rattle.
The doors to the training hall slid open, and Xiel stepped inside. The noisy chatter died down in an instant.
“I will now take roll call.”
As always, his voice was flat, devoid of pitch or modulation.
He called Karen's name.
“Karen Aswan.”
“Present, Instructor!”
“Yulio Harmatan.”
“Present!”
“Refrain from chattering during roll call.”
“...Understood.”
“Yes, sir...”
After finishing attendance, Xiel pointed toward the box filled with sandbags, just as he had before.
“Equip them and take your places at the starting line. Ensure you finish your warm-ups properly.”
Unlike the hesitance of their first session, the students moved without prompting, grabbing their weights. Once warm-ups were complete and the class lined up, Xiel strapped on his own sandbags and stepped beside them.
“The use of mana is prohibited. And Deleve, Celia.”
The only two students who had managed over two hundred laps in the previous session.
“As discussed in our first class, the two of you will run at full sprint.”
They knew it was coming, but hearing the command aloud made them swallow hard. Their throats went dry in anticipation. How many laps could anyone possibly manage at a full sprint without mana?
“Sprint for two laps, then jog one lap slowly. You will repeat that cycle.”
If there was any mercy, it was the inclusion of that single recovery lap.
“Begin.”
Thud, thud, thud, thud.
The training hall filled with the rhythmic pounding of footsteps as thirty-nine students and one instructor ran, two of them tearing ahead at a noticeably faster pace.
“Pant, pant.”
By the time they crossed the twentieth lap, Yulio—who had dropped out at exactly lap twenty last time—began gasping for air.
Damn it... I ran until I nearly died all week.
It was utterly humiliating. Honestly, he couldn't even blame his family background. It was true he had barely squeaked through the entrance exam, but he hadn't realized his stamina was this abysmal. That was why, after the first class, he had gritted his teeth and run night after night...
Am I really just hopeless?
His family had treated his admission to the Sword School as a grand triumph, but they had never placed great expectations on him. When he arrived, he found a sea of monsters alongside hostile upperclassmen.
Still, he refused to quit. If only for his family. He was their only child, and to give him a shot at life, they had pulled out the very pillars of their estate to afford it.
“Pant, huff.”
Yet his lungs burned relentlessly.
I'm only on lap twenty-two...
His legs grew leaden. Just as his knees threatened to give out—
Tap.
A hand rested on Yulio's shoulder. It was Xiel.
“Gasp... Instructor?”
“Your upper body is leaning too far forward, Student Yulio Harmatan.”
“Y-Yes, sir!”
“If it is difficult, slow your pace slightly. The goal is not to run fast right now; it is to run for a long time.”
“Yes, sir!”
By all accounts, it sounded like plain, detached advice.
It didn't sound like comforting words at all, but...
Strangely, strength welled up inside him. To think that simply adjusting his posture could make such a difference.
“Huff, puff.”
Pacing himself slightly slower and keeping his torso upright, Yulio's ragged breathing noticeably stabilized.
Watching him, Xiel withdrew the faint trace of mana gathered at his fingertips.
He should be able to run a bit longer now.
Building the confidence of a lagging student was also part of a teacher's role. That was what the books in the library had said.
Moreover, the moment his hand had touched Yulio's frame, Xiel had noticed something unusual.
The mana within him feels abnormal.
It felt obstructed, unable to circulate smoothly. Even the rhythmic pulse of mana vibrating through his shoulder was erratic.
He won't last long.
Just as Xiel anticipated, while Yulio managed to push further, he finally collapsed from exhaustion at the thirtieth lap.
Xiel immediately stepped over and scooped Yulio up effortlessly.
“I-Instructor... pant... Thank you.”
“Drink some water. Slowly. Moisten your throat in small sips.”
Following Xiel's instructions, Yulio sipped the water slowly.
“Huff, whew.”
“Your physical stamina is deficient, Student Yulio Harmatan.”
“N-No, sir! I'll work harder!”
Desperate not to reveal his weakness—his congenital condition—Yulio answered with fierce urgency.
“It does not appear to be a lack of practice.”
“Pardon...?”
“I overheard your conversation earlier. You have been practicing relentlessly, have you not?”
Xiel placed a hand on Yulio's shoulder once more.
“Your mana flow is abnormal.”
“...?!”
How could he possibly know that?
Xiel pondered in silence for a brief moment, his amber eyes settling on Yulio.
“Leaving things like this would hardly be fair.”