A Familiar Face
Every eye in the faculty cafeteria converged on a single point.
A man marched across the hall, his voluminous belly undulating heavily with every indignant stride.
It was Professor Elcanto.
"How dare you! What in blazes does a mere lecturer think he is doing to a student?!"
"I am not certain what you mean, Professor Elcanto Paredes."
Xiel's reply was completely flat.
"You don't know what I mean? Huh?! Don't you remember what you did to Deleve Kundel in class today?! Well?!"
"I provided instruction in basic self-defense. Nothing more."
"That… Argh! That is the problem! Why a student?! Of all people, a scion of House Kundel!"
"Is there a problem with that?"
"Of course there's a problem! How could there not be! You slammed a direct son of the Kundel family straight into the dirt! Are you going to take responsibility for this? Huh?! Are you going to answer for it?!"
Xiel tilted his head, genuinely failing to grasp the issue. "I conducted class. Why would there be any responsibility to bear?"
"Aaaargh!"
Elcanto seemed on the verge of detonating. His teaching assistant hastily stepped between them, waving his hands in a panic.
"P-Professor, please! If school property gets damaged in here, it comes out of our department budget…"
The word budget snapped Elcanto back to reality like a bucket of cold water.
Only then did he register the dozens of faculty eyes fixed upon him.
Damn it.
Elcanto drew a long, wheezing breath through his nose, thrusting his face within inches of Xiel's nose. "Instructor Xiel Steelheart. If House Kundel cuts our Sword School donations or demands restitution over this, you had better prepare yourself!"
With a furious huff, Elcanto turned on his heel and stormed away.
Xiel merely stared at his retreating back, still entirely innocent of any perceived wrongdoing.
"Instructor, it really looks like you're in deep trouble," Celia murmured from across the table.
"Trouble?"
"Yes. Word about what happened in our lecture clearly reached the higher-ups."
"You mean following standard procedure?"
"…Standard procedure?"
"I conducted the class strictly by the book. It should warrant praise, so this reaction is puzzling."
Celia was momentarily rendered speechless. This wasn't merely being upright or rigid… Did the man possess some unfathomable personal creed?
"That… was by the book?"
"To instill a proper appreciation for fundamentals, practical experience was necessary. I believe that aligns precisely with orthodox pedagogy."
"……"
Coming from any other instructor, she would have branded him an absolute lunatic on the spot.
Yet why was it that hearing it from him made her involuntarily want to nod along?
Should I watch him a little longer?
Celia quietly shelved the offer she had been preparing to make. Judging by Professor Elcanto's temper, this strange instructor was not long for this academy anyway.
It will be far easier to recruit him once he's fired.
Offering him the post of personal escort knight would carry far more weight the moment he was turned out onto the street.
"By the way, did you not mention having business with me, Student Celia Rihardt?"
"Ah. Um… Actually, I forgot."
"Do you suffer from memory deficiency?"
"Pardon?"
"Eat plenty of salmon and walnuts. They improve memory retention. The manual says so."
"……"
"Ah. And another thing." Xiel paused, as though a sudden obligation had crossed his mind. "That will be a demerit."
"Excuse me?"
"It is written in the school code. Students are strictly forbidden from entering the faculty cafeteria without valid authorization."
"Unbelievable…"
Celia stared in utter bewilderment as Xiel turned away, before a slow, amused smirk curled the corners of her lips.
"Inflexible to a fault. I like that."
A second later, her smirk froze.
"Wait, what?"
Xiel hadn't left at all. He had simply walked over to the food counter, retrieved another towering plate of roast meats and steamed vegetables, and sat right back down in front of her.
"Have you not left yet, Student Celia Rihardt?"
The following morning, inside Professor Elcanto's private office.
Elcanto reclined in his plush armchair, nursing a steaming porcelain teacup while perusing the morning paper.
"Hmm. Delightful."
The sheer stress of the previous day had driven him to binge on an obscene quantity of midnight pastries. Today, he resolved to endure on nothing but herbal tea until lunchtime to salvage his waistline.
Four Remnants of Assassin Syndicate 'Black Sky' Apprehended… Three Commit Suicide
Leader Executed: With Black Sky Crushed, Only 'Phantom' Remains at Large!
Knight Commander Sir Sores: "Total Annihilation Is at Hand"
"Tsk. Can they really even catch this Phantom bastard?"
The most sensational headline sweeping the Baldrein Empire remained the subjugation of the dreaded Black Sky syndicate. Its supreme leader had been captured and executed within a single day, and the imperial garrison was currently scouring the provinces to mop up what few stragglers remained.
Yet there was one.
The legendary assassin who had elevated Black Sky into a kingdom of terror.
The Phantom remained entirely unaccounted for.
Elcanto clicked his tongue, taking another measured sip of his tea. "Where in the world could he be hiding… I wonder if they'll ever track him down."
Ever since Baldrein X ascended the throne, the empire had been shifting beneath everyone's feet. Consolidation of imperial power. Administrative stabilization. And the systematic purging of the criminal underworld.
His Imperial Majesty had clearly laid meticulous preparations long before donning the crown.
"Good. Scum like that ought to be wiped off the map."
If syndicates like that lingered, how could an honest noble sleep at night without dreading an assassin's blade over every petty feud? Born into an aristocratic family himself, Elcanto wasn't particularly fond of the crown's centralizing policies, but this aggressive crackdown had his full approval.
Knock, knock.
Without bothering to look up from his paper, Elcanto grunted, "Enter."
"Good morning, Professor Elcanto."
It was his graduate teaching assistant. The young man slipped into the office, set down the morning mail, dusted the shelves, and meticulously polished the tall windowpanes he had spent the prior night replacing with his own hands. There was a hollow, tearful vacancy in his eyes.
"Ah, that reminds me," Elcanto called out. "Assistant."
"Yes, Professor?"
"What about that brat Xiel? Did he apologize yet?"
"Uh… I haven't heard anything of the sort, sir."
Elcanto bolted upright from his chair.
"He still hasn't apologized?!"
Please, no, the assistant prayed internally. I just replaced that glass last night.
"That insolent bastard really thinks he can—!"
"However, sir!" the assistant blurted out hastily before the professor's lungs could finish drawing in mana. "Student Deleve hasn't informed his family either, it seems."
"Hm?" The tremor in Elcanto's flabby jowls subsided a fraction. "He hasn't reported it home?"
"No, sir."
The assistant had gone to inspect Deleve's quarters the evening before, only to be sternly turned away at the door by the Kundel family's private escort knights. They had insisted the young master was under strict orders of absolute bed rest.
"…How can that be?"
"I am not certain either, sir."
Elcanto stroked his fleshy chin in deep contemplation before suddenly clapping his hands together. "Of course!"
"Pardon?"
"Could that fellow… have powerful backing?"
The teaching assistant swallowed a profound sigh.
If he had powerful backing, why on earth would he apply as an elective lecturer?
The general elective lecture post was a position nobody wanted. Noble lineage was a prerequisite for applying, yet the pay was pitiful and the contract temporary. Despite carrying the nominal prestige of Edelbein Academy, instructors were treated like dirt by the tenured professors and utterly ignored by highborn students.
You'd think the department would treat the lecturers with an ounce of dignity…
Not a chance. The senior professors had no reason to care, because any administrative void left behind was simply dumped onto the indentured graduate assistants. It was precisely because of this negligence that the general performance of Sword School students had been steadily deteriorating year after year.
"Yes, he must have a secret patron! There's no other way he could act so brazenly."
"Is that so, sir…?"
"Assistant, find some time to casually fish around. See which faction he belongs to. Who knows? He might be backed by an enormous ducal house!"
Steelheart.
It was a surname Elcanto had never heard in his entire life. Perhaps if one dug through the ancient imperial archives, the name might crop up in some dusty footnote, but certainly nowhere among modern high society.
"Understood, sir. I shall look into it."
"Good grief… What if he's actually someone tremendous?"
The assistant stared at the ceiling in quiet despair.
I repeat: why would someone tremendous teach elective self-defense at the Sword School?
There was no way Xiel had political backing. If he possessed that kind of pedigree, he would have waltzed into the Arcane School without a second thought.
Having prepared his lecture materials in total tranquility, Xiel pulled the door of his quarters shut.
Before leaving, he did not forget to set up several subtle tripwires and counterweight mechanisms across the frame. His lost ego had returned, but two decades of professional conditioning refused to die so easily.
"Not bad at all."
Cobwebs draped over every corner.
Damp, stagnant air.
Patches of thick, dark mold creeping up the baseboards.
A thriving population of insects scuttling under the floorboards, alongside rotting wooden furniture and peeling plaster walls.
After standing abandoned for several years, the dilapidated faculty dormitory had finally welcomed its first resident.
"Is that… is that guy seriously living in there?"
Just across the paved courtyard, a guard stationed at the entrance of the opulent, pristine student dormitory clicked his tongue in disbelief as he watched Xiel emerge. What kind of deranged academy staff member would willingly choose that hovel? Even impoverished commoner bursary students would rather sleep in the stables than step foot inside that decaying shack.
"Good heavens… How did he even sleep through the night? Didn't the ghosts eat him alive?"
Yet to Xiel, it was an incomparably luxurious safehouse.
During infiltration missions, he had once held his breath inside a rancid pigsty for three days straight just to blend into an unmonitored blind spot. Concealing himself inside crawlspaces infested with rats and centipedes for an entire month without shifting his posture had been standard tradecraft.
What were a few cobwebs compared to crouching inside an open latrine trench?
So this is what having personal quarters feels like.
He was in remarkably high spirits.
During his days as a brainwashed assassin, the only space allocated to him had been a windowless cell barely wide enough to fit a thin cot. Stripped of an identity, he harbored no desires; he had simply been provided a slab of concrete to rest his body between training cycles.
Now, he had been granted an entire room that easily accommodated a bed, a study desk, and a wardrobe, with floor space to spare.
Old habits, however, were not easily broken.
The window.
The ceiling rafters.
The floorboards.
And the entryway.
Xiel had meticulously rigged every viable infiltration route and ambush angle with lethal spring-loaded traps. It was second nature to him—the standard operating procedure for securing an undercover safehouse. It was partly because it was still too early to let down his guard, but primarily because setting them simply put his mind at ease.
Shring.
He had slipped a concealed throwing dagger beneath the mattress lining, positioned for an instant draw in the event of a midnight breach, and adjusted an angled mirror by the armoire to reflect the courtyard window directly into his peripheral vision.
"That should suffice."
Rather than lying horizontally across the bed, Xiel had spent his rest cycle sitting upright against the wall. He had never once slept lying down in his life—at least, not while on an assignment. Closing his eyes, he had slipped into a state of suspended consciousness instantly, waking precisely twenty minutes later with total clarity.
Seated at the desk before dawn, he had arranged a neat row of stiff parchment cards.
Next to them sat his personal leather satchel. Pressing and rotating the hidden tumblers on the clasps in a specific sequence, Xiel unlatched the false bottom.
Click, clack, tap.
He withdrew a series of small, unlabeled glass vials and aligned them upon the wood. Uncorking the first, he allowed minute, measured droplets of a clear, odorless reagent to soak into each card.
"This concentration should be adequate."
Returning the vials to their concealed compartment, Xiel examined the cards. Visually, there was no change whatsoever. To the naked eye, they appeared to be nothing more than blank, ordinary paper.
He paused, dredging up memories of receiving mission briefings from his handlers. Whenever an order was handed down, a heavy iron seal had always been slammed onto the parchment. He recalled faint traces of spellcraft woven into those seals, though he hardly required something so elaborate.
"Hmm."
Stepping outside for a brief moment, Xiel had retrieved a smooth, palm-sized river stone from the courtyard pathway. Producing a razor-thin paring knife from his sleeve, he set to work.
Scrape, shave. Tap, tap.
With frighteningly steady hands, he shaved the stone's surface, carving the outline of a simple smiling face. His movements were fluid and surgical. Innate dexterity honed by decades of assassination drills made short work of the mineral.
Smoothing the base down to a perfectly flat plane, Xiel produced a vial of dark ink from his bag and pressed the improvised stamp against the wet pad.
"This will do."
Thump.
The grinning face stamped neatly onto the blank parchment—flawlessly symmetrical, inscribed within an immaculate circle.
With that, the Praise Card was complete.
I wonder if the students will appreciate them.
The liquid soaked into the paper was a specialized alchemical compound favored by elite operatives. Imbuing the card with it lent it a rather unique property. In truth, the card itself was a modified piece of equipment Xiel had engineered during his syndicate days. Upon activation, the material would instantly disintegrate without leaving behind a speck of ash or evidence, making it exceptionally safe and convenient to carry.
Its intended purpose here was simple: student protection.
They would discover its true function soon enough.
"Today's lecture is… physical conditioning."
Tucking the finished cards securely into his coat, Xiel reviewed the academy timetable and recalled the textbook chapter he had memorized the previous night.
Physical strength is national strength!
The bold slogan printed across the opening page had resonated deeply with him.
Without stamina, one can achieve nothing.
He could not agree more. In the syndicate, physical conditioning had been the very first curriculum forced upon young inductees. Only with supreme endurance could an operative maintain razor-sharp focus during days of freezing stakeouts and seize that single, split-second opening to strike. Most high-level assassination arts placed such immense strain on the body that an operative lacking stamina couldn't execute them more than twice without collapsing.
"This should prove to be a productive hour for them."
Leaving the staff quarters, Xiel walked toward the Sword School's primary academic complex.
"Elbat Hall."
Named after Elbat Angsen, the founding professor of the Sword School who had been revered as the Guardian Knight of the Baldrein Empire two centuries ago. He was also the first warrior in imperial history to be bestowed the legendary title of Imperial Knight. Even after two hundred years, his name unfailingly ranked among the realm's five greatest historical paragons.
Consequently, while Elbat Hall was the oldest structure in the martial quadrant, its stone corridors were kept immaculately pristine.
"It is quite pleasant."
His memories of Black Sky facilities were defined solely by suffocating, windowless stone bunkers—places where exits were intentionally obscured and the absence of sunlight systematically eroded one's perception of time.
"Who is that? A freshman?"
"I don't remember hearing about a new student who looks like that…"
Xiel's calm, measured stride through the colonnade drew curious glances from every passing cadet. His striking, pale features caught the eye first, but it was the quiet gravity rolling off his upright posture and indifferent gaze that held their attention. Yet unlike the overbearing pressure projected by veteran professors, his presence didn't actively repel approach.
"Wait, I heard about him. Isn't that the new elective instructor?"
"Ah! The one who caused that scene during his very first class?"
"I heard a freshman was being insufferable and got put in his place."
"Yeah, but that freshman was from House Kundel."
"…Oh."
"Did our Sword School actually hire a real general lecturer?"
Xiel caught every whisper passing through the corridor. With his sensory acuity, tuning them out was impossible. Yet he paid them no mind.
Instead, his focus narrowed entirely on a sharp, persistent gaze that had been fixed to his back.
It began outside the courtyard. Roughly five minutes now.
At first, he had dismissed it as idle student curiosity, but the shadow was actively matching his pace and maintaining spacing. It was an unmistakable tail.
The cold instincts of an assassin stirred quietly beneath his skin.
I must isolate the target.
When dealing with a tail, standard doctrine dictated two responses: lose them cleanly, or eliminate them permanently.
However, this was an educational institution. Shaking a pursuit naturally in these crowded halls wasn't simple, and terminating the target was out of the question.
That left only the third protocol.
Reaching inside his dark jacket, Xiel's fingers closed around a flat metal cylinder. Rounding a sharp corner in the stone corridor, he verified in a fraction of a second that the hallway ahead was entirely deserted.
Click.
He deployed the small device against the floorboards and tossed a pinch of luminescent powder over the casing. The device chimed softly, bending the ambient light around it until the mechanism vanished entirely, leaving behind the seamless illusion of an empty hallway.
A few seconds later, soft footsteps rounded the corner.
"Huh?"
The stalker came to an abrupt halt, blinking in confusion.
"W-Wait… was this corridor always a dead end?"
Her crimson hair swayed as she stared blankly at what appeared to be a solid stone wall.
Standing just a few feet away on the other side of the transparent optical projection, Xiel observed her silently.
Is trailing instructors a campus pastime here?
It was a very familiar face.
He looked straight through the one-way camouflage screen—an exclusive piece of syndicate tradecraft designed to cast an ultra-refined spatial mirage—and met the bewildered eyes of Celia Rihardt.