What Is There to Thank?
"Instructor, this place is..."
"The faculty dormitory."
"So this is where you stay..."
Deleve had never laid eyes on the faculty quarters before. He knew it stood beside the student dormitories and had walked past it on occasion, thinking even then that it looked decrepit. Stepping inside, however, proved it far worse than anything he had imagined.
Drip. Drip.
Water fell steadily from somewhere overhead, though the skies outside were completely clear. Cobwebs clung to every corner, and a foul, musty stench hung thick in the air. It was a wretched eyesore, utterly incomparable to the lavish, donor-funded student dormitories.
"Is it not... uncomfortable?" Deleve asked tentatively.
"Why would it be?"
House Kundel was a great titan among noble houses. Naturally, Deleve had never conceived of living in squalor like this. Even in the academy, he occupied a private suite on the top floor of the student dormitory.
Is he staying here on purpose? Deleve wondered. By now, he was convinced that every single thing Ziel did was driven by some profound, inscrutable purpose. There has to be a reason. There must be.
No matter how hard he thought, there was simply no sensible reason to live here. The building was so dilapidated and gloomy that even the most impoverished faculty member would rather commute from beyond the academy walls. It wouldn't have felt out of place if ghosts began wandering the corridors.
"The yard out back should do for training," Ziel said, leading Deleve behind the dormitory.
Though strewn with discarded rubbish and choked with wild overgrowth, there was just enough cleared ground for one or two people to swing a sword.
"Do you train here as well, Instructor?"
"I do not."
Deleve took that to mean he had no need for such practice. A true master, as expected.
In truth, Ziel simply couldn't. An assassin's training was, by nature, conducted strictly behind closed doors in sealed chambers.
"Begin over there. I will watch."
"R-really?"
"A student will not receive demerits if an instructor accompanies them."
Deleve took it as an offer of personal tutelage. Ziel, on the other hand, meant it quite literally: academy rules penalized students caught training past curfew without faculty supervision.
Perhaps he's warmer at heart than he seems, Deleve thought.
With misunderstandings piling up layer upon layer, Deleve raised his wooden sword.
Whoosh! Swish!
Weighted precisely like a real blade, the wooden sword whistled through the air, lacking only a sharp edge to deliver lethal power. Deleve was widely hailed as the greatest prodigy House Kundel currently possessed—surpassing even his two older brothers in raw talent. Though youth and a lack of experience kept him from overtaking them just yet, his swordsmanship had earned effusive praise from the moment he entered the academy.
Having lived his entire life immersed in praise and towering expectations, encountering Ziel had been an unmitigated shock.
I am still lacking, he reminded himself, acutely aware of his deficiencies. I have so far to go. He was only now beginning to realize just how narrow his view of the world had been.
Whoosh! Ssshk!
Deleve's sword cleaved the empty air with crushing weight. This was the pride of his lineage: the Kundel Heavy Sword Style. By employing the family's proprietary mana breathing technique, mana circulated sequentially from the waist through the back, shoulders, arms, and finally the hands, unleashing devastating destructive force. It was a martial art capable of crushing and tearing through thick steel plate with a single strike, and in the hands of a true master, it was said to sunder the very earth.
"Haa... hup!"
He pressed on without pause. The First Form through the Fifth Form—the Basic Forms were now second nature, flawless in execution. Next came the Intermediate Forms, spanning the Sixth through Tenth. Yet the moment he attempted the Seventh Form, his movements ground to an abrupt halt.
Clatter!
Forcing the stance caused the sword to slip entirely from his grip. Deleve snatched the wooden blade back up and restarted immediately from the basic stances.
My brothers have already mastered the intermediate forms.
His sights were set on the Concluding Forms, beginning with the Eleventh. Yet here he was, stumbling helplessly through the intermediate tier, and the shame burned within him. Given the immense difficulty of the Kundel Heavy Sword Style, executing intermediate stances at his age was already an astonishing feat, but Deleve was never one to settle for adequacy.
How long had he been at it? After failing to push past the Seventh Form more than fifty times, Deleve finally let out a ragged breath, his lungs burning from the relentless expenditure of mana.
Still... I've improved.
Previously, exhaustion would have overwhelmed him around the thirtieth attempt. The grueling physical conditioning had clearly paid off, boosting his endurance considerably. What grated on him was that the Seventh Form remained an impenetrable wall.
I wanted to show Father at the Exchange Event.
His father likely assumed he was still stuck at the Sixth Form, just as he had been upon admission. Deleve had wanted to proudly display the Seventh Form and shock him. That desire was the source of his recent impatience.
The selection trials won't be an issue, but the Exchange Event itself...
A sudden thought crossed his mind. Why had Instructor Ziel looked at someone like him and said he held the highest expectations? Deleve turned his head toward Ziel.
"I-Instructor?"
Over an hour had slipped by while he was lost in training. Now that he finally looked, he froze.
"Have you been standing like that the entire time?"
Ziel stood in the exact same spot, in the exact same posture he had held when they first arrived, utterly motionless. Standing at attention wasn't inherently difficult, but to remain so completely still that time itself seemed frozen around him?
Is he even human?
"Yes. Is there an issue?"
"No, not at all... It's just remarkable."
"You could do it as well, Student Deleve Kundel."
Sure, anyone could stand still, but human nature inevitably drove a person to twitch a finger or shift their weight out of sheer boredom. Shaking off the thought, Deleve asked cautiously, "Um... what did you think?"
"Of the swordsmanship you just displayed?"
"Yes."
"It looked like swordsmanship."
"..."
Deleve had been hoping for an evaluation, not a literal statement of fact.
Does it look like nothing more than ordinary swordplay in his eyes?
As expected of Instructor Ziel. Catching his eye would take far more than this.
Or perhaps he's simply maintaining strict impartiality.
He had already received special treatment by being treated to that expensive meal. Bracing his resolve, Deleve took up his sword once more and swung. Once again, the Seventh Form failed to connect.
Why can't I break through?
Just then, Ziel's words echoed in his mind.
'It looked like swordsmanship.'
Just swordsmanship?
Deleve froze in place. A stray thought flickered across his mind.
The Kundel Heavy Sword Style.
He had heard it all his life: their family swordsmanship was extraordinary, a peerless art no other house could ever hope to rival. Naturally, Deleve had treated it as something sacred, striving to execute every motion as something exceptional. The Seventh Form, for instance, demanded a downward cleave followed immediately by a full-body spin into a crushing downward strike. It required two full cycles of mana circulation to power the two consecutive blows—at least, that was how House Kundel's doctrine prescribed it.
Just ordinary swordsmanship... What if I look at it from a simpler perspective?
Standard swordsmanship prioritized efficiency, often packing multiple forms into a single cycle of mana breathing. Kundel swordsmanship, however, loaded mana into each individual stance to maximize raw destructive power. At least, that was how the basic forms worked, and that was how he had been taught.
His eyes widened.
An epiphany struck him like a bolt of lightning.
Lowering his blade, Deleve steadied his breathing. Keep it ordinary.
Taking a step back from the reverence he held for his family's martial legacy, he could finally see what had eluded him.
Carry two forms within a single breath.
That had been the problem all along. One stance per breath of mana. Because a single breath couldn't be drawn fast enough, his internal flow couldn't keep pace with the physical speed of the movement. But what if he channeled both actions—two stances—into one continuous breath? Just like ordinary swordsmanship. What if he discarded his obsession with being extraordinary?
The moment the thought solidified, Deleve poured two forms into a single breath.
"...It worked."
A rush of exhilaration washed over him. For the first time, he had successfully executed the Seventh Form. Because the amount of mana circulated in a single breath was fixed, the destructive yield was slightly diminished, but the technique itself was complete.
It was this simple all along?
From here, all he needed to do was gradually accelerate the tempo of his breathing. Why had he never realized this until now? No one in his family even knew he had been practicing the Seventh Form; he had kept it secret, determined to master it on his own. And now, he truly had.
I didn't need to cling stubbornly to a single path.
If the direct route proved impassable, one could take a detour. What mattered was reaching the destination in the end. He felt as though he had attained a profound realization, not merely about the Seventh Form, but about life itself. And that enlightenment had been handed to him by none other than Instructor Ziel standing right before him.
"Thank you, Instructor."
Deleve bowed his head in deep, heartfelt gratitude. His advice was flawless.
To think that a single, offhand remark held such wisdom. In Deleve's mind, Ziel's stature rose to yet another untouchable height. At the same time, having endured two grueling training sessions in a single day, a wave of exhaustion crashed over him.
"Instructor, may I take my leave for the night?"
Ziel checked his pocket watch and nodded. "The hour is late. Return to your quarters, Student Deleve Kundel."
As expected of a true mentor. Anyone else would have taken credit or boasted of their guidance, yet Ziel remained entirely unfazed.
Damn, he's so cool.
Meanwhile, Ziel was lost in his own thoughts.
What on earth is he thanking me for?
He genuinely could not fathom why the boy was so grateful. Furthermore, Ziel had already noticed the presence lurking near the bushes some time ago.
It's Teaching Assistant Tyron.
Two days remained until the selection trials.
"Instructor Ziel, as I mentioned previously, you need only observe from your seat during the trials," Tyron said, meeting briefly with Ziel before classes began. "You won't have any specific duties. To relay the professor's words, you can consider it an opportunity to gain experience."
"Understood."
"The grading for the physical fitness test will be handled by myself and the other teaching assistants, while the professors will oversee the swordsmanship evaluations." Tyron handed over a document detailing the event proceedings. "Ah, and the test categories are listed here. Students will be evaluated on physical fitness and swordsmanship, with two events for each category."
"A new criterion has been added to the swordsmanship evaluation."
Ordinarily, swordsmanship was assessed purely through sparring. Yet here, a 'Sword Dance' had been appended to the roster.
"Yes. I understand it was decided during the faculty meeting."
"Is there a reason for it?"
"Well, I wouldn't know the details."
A sword dance was, quite literally, an evaluation of martial artistry. It judged the aesthetic elegance of sword forms displayed in the air. From Ziel's perspective, it was a completely meaningless, inefficient, and impractical metric. At the very least, its weighting was relatively low—around ten percent.
Someone must have poured in another donation, Tyron thought cynically. Whenever an established system suddenly gained or lost a component, it invariably meant someone stood to profit.
Tyron recalled the previous year's selection trials, which had ended with a shocking upset: Rowan Valkyr, the second son of House Valkyr—one of the Five Great Families—had failed to make the cut as a first-year. The margin had been razor-thin, caused entirely by dreadful bracket luck.
Didn't House Valkyr provide the third-highest donation this year?
The picture painted itself. The administration clearly intended to ensure that Rowan Valkyr, now a second-year, would secure a spot in the Exchange Event without fail. House Valkyr's swordsmanship was famed for its breathtaking grace—an art so captivating that legends told of opponents being struck down before realizing an attack had even been launched.
"In any case, that is how the order of events will proceed," Tyron continued. "The students who fail will likely be quite despondent, so please comfort them as their instructor." Lowering his voice to a whisper, Tyron added, "In my opinion... barring any miracles, Students Deleve and Celia are the only ones from the first-year class practically guaranteed a spot. Ah, Student Maris might have a slight chance as well."
"No. I do not think so."
"Ah, you think Maris is on the fence as well? It is a bit ambiguous—"
"Far more will be chosen."
"Pardon?"
Ziel cast a brief glance toward the students preparing for class before speaking in his usual flat tone. "Ten students from the class I oversee will be selected."
"..."
Rather than flustered, Tyron was simply flabbergasted. Where does he get this confidence?
Anyone with eyes could see who the frontrunners were. While Deleve and Celia were the only scions of the Five Great Families among the first-years, that didn't mean the remaining students were devoid of skill. In fact, among the sixty students Ziel did not teach, quite a few were exceptionally capable.
Well, daydreaming is free, Tyron thought with a shrug. Perhaps having dealt with Professor Elcanto for so long had conditioned him to simply nod along whenever someone made absurd assertions.
"I suppose you could view it that way. Ah, and one last thing: the Department Head will also be attending the first-year selection trials."
Tyron watched closely, half-expecting Ziel to show some hint of tension. "The Department Head has taken a special interest in this year's freshmen, you see."
The Dean of the Sword School! The pinnacle of the entire martial department and a former Commander of the Imperial Knights! Even high-ranking nobles were forced to tread lightly in his presence.
"Yes. Understood."
Yet Ziel's response was entirely impassive. "Since you said that was the last item, are there no further notices to relay?"
What is wrong with this guy? Tyron thought, bewildered. Normal people would at least pretend to look nervous upon hearing the Department Head was coming.
"Ah, yes. That's all."
"Then I shall proceed with class."
Watching Ziel's retreating back, Tyron's assumptions deepened once more. He isn't even afraid of the Department Head?
That implied backing of monstrous proportions. No one knew the true extent of it, but it had to be staggering. Seeing how respectfully Deleve Kundel treats him... does House Kundel know something?
Just a few nights ago, Tyron had stepped out of the dormitory late at night to fetch something from the department office. By sheer chance, he had spotted Deleve training behind the decrepit faculty quarters, with Ziel supervising. And he had clearly witnessed Deleve bowing with profound, humble gratitude.
There's definitely something going on.
Question followed question; misunderstanding fed into misunderstanding. The pile of assumptions grew ever taller.
"Just what kind of person is he?"
Yet Tyron had no desire to dig any deeper. Unfathomable backing meant poking around was an invitation to disaster, and Tyron fully intended to live a long and comfortable life. I can't afford to die before I make professor. Absolutely not.
Teaching Assistant Tyron hurried out of the training hall, having no inkling whatsoever of the storm that would unfold at the selection trials two days from now.