The Easiest Thing in the World
"Haaah, haaah..."
For a fleeting second, Deleve thought he had blacked out. What pulled him back from the edge of unconsciousness was a steady hand catching him by the shoulder.
"Student Deleve Kundel. Go drink some water."
"Th-thank you, Instructor..."
Deleve stammered his gratitude before he could even think, barely managing to hold himself upright on trembling legs. Every ounce of strength had evaporated from his limbs, leaving behind a hollow, weightless exhaustion. Yet, strangely enough, an overwhelming sense of refreshment rushed in to fill the void. How long had it been since he had run until his lungs burned this fiercely?
He tipped his head back. Gulp after gulp, the water raced down his parched throat, impossibly sweet and ice-cold. The bitter frustration of losing to Celia vanished in an instant, utterly drowned out by the sheer, exhilarating liberation coursing through his veins. He felt light enough to float.
Meanwhile...
"Gasp... pant..."
Celia, too, finally reached her limit. Her knees buckled, but just before she could strike the dirt, Ziel's arm caught her waist, keeping her upright.
"Student Celia Rihardt. Go drink some water. Two hundred and twenty-six laps."
"Thank you... Instructor..."
Her cheeks flushed, and the tips of her ears turned a bright, conspicuous crimson.
"Your ears are red again."
"Th-that's just..."
Whether from mortification or something else entirely, words failed her.
"I consulted a medical text earlier," Ziel remarked casually. "It noted that such symptoms can result from consuming spoiled food or ingesting excessive alcohol."
"......"
A sudden flash of annoyance surged through her. Celia shook off his supporting grip with a huff, marched stiffly over to the water barrels, and drank greedily. The cool liquid stung her throat in the best possible way. Just like Deleve, a profound sense of release washed over her.
As the daughter of House Rihardt, Celia had endured countless grueling swordsmanship regimens since childhood, as had Deleve in his own ducal estate. Yet never in their lives had either of them tasted a sensation quite like this. Before awakening their mana, their bodies had never been subjected to this degree of raw, unbuffered exertion. And after awakening mana, they had never faced an ordeal demanding enough to drain them to the bone.
It was a realization shared by every student sprawled across the training grounds.
Naturally, none of them grasped Ziel's true rationale.
'A body tempered without mana becomes incomparably stronger once mana is reintroduced.'
No matter how exceptional an assassin might be, maintaining active mana circulation for days on end was physiologically impossible. Yet assassins frequently had to lie in wait for targets over days—sometimes even months—without twitching a muscle. To endure the agonizing physical toll of such stakeouts, their foundational conditioning relentlessly pushed physical limits without relying on a speck of magic. Ziel was merely applying that exact assassin doctrine to build genuine, unvarnished physical endurance.
Consequently, the resentful glares previously aimed at him had entirely evaporated. The students were simply too exhausted. In fact, they lacked the energy to muster even a mental complaint.
'I want to take a leave of absence...'
'Why didn't I enroll a year earlier...?'
The fresh intake of the Sword School lay drowned in lethargy and profound regret. Only two stood apart from the collective despair: Deleve and Celia.
"I shall now announce your individual tallies," Ziel said, his voice carrying clearly across the quiet field. "Student Yulio Harmatan: twenty laps. Next..."
The students were too drained even to register surprise. Without consulting a single scrap of parchment, Ziel recited every student's exact lap count from memory, proceeding methodically down the roster.
"...And finally, Student Celia Rihardt: two hundred and twenty-six laps."
A faint, triumphant smirk touched Celia's lips. She had upheld the honor of the Rihardt name, and that was enough.
"Deleve and Celia... they're absolute monsters."
"Raw talent really is on another level..."
The murmurs were brief. Ziel swept his gaze over the bodies strewn haphazardly across the dirt before continuing.
"Today was an assessment of your baseline endurance. By now, each of you should clearly recognize your current physical ceiling."
The gulf was vast, stretching from those who had folded after a mere twenty laps to the pair who had run more than ten times that distance.
"Your target benchmarks for the year are as follows. Those with fifty laps or fewer will quadruple their record."
Yulio Harmatan and the other low-scoring students jerked upright, panic flashing in their eyes.
"Q-quadruple?!"
"Your stamina is severely deficient. I have been informed that starting in your second year, the curriculum shifts heavily toward practical combat majors."
"B-but still..."
"The core purpose of this elective is to build adequate endurance before you advance to those major courses."
Ziel dismissed their stammering protests without a second thought and pressed on.
"Next. Those who ran one hundred laps or fewer will triple their record."
"......"
"Those who ran two hundred laps or fewer will double it."
The higher the initial count, the lower the required multiplier. The intent was simple: to bring the entire cohort up to a uniform standard. Assassin conditioning operated on the exact same principle. When an outlier group lagged too far behind, it dragged down the unit or got discarded entirely. Assassin training was cold and unforgiving, but it was rigorously practical.
'Closing the gap between them is the primary objective.'
Furthermore, setting absurdly inflated targets for those who had already performed exceptionally well served no pedagogical purpose. Ziel considered his benchmarks thoroughly grounded in reality.
'Is he out of his mind? That puts me over three hundred laps!'
'I'm dead. I'm actually going to die...'
Of course, Ziel was the only person in the yard who considered them reasonable.
"And finally. Those who completed more than two hundred laps."
Only two students met that criterion: Deleve Kundel and Celia Rihardt.
'Double? Or something lower?'
'Are they getting hit with a triple multiplier too?'
Ziel shattered their expectations with an entirely different approach.
"You two will build your endurance through a separate regimen."
"Excuse me?"
"Pardon?"
The pair blurted out their confusion in unison, as if on cue. Ziel offered only a curt, matter-of-fact response.
"You will receive a different set of lessons."
"What kind of lessons?"
Celia's eyes flashed with curiosity, while Deleve leaned forward, trying and failing to disguise his eager anticipation.
'Outliers who exist on an entirely different plane must be separated.'
Assassin training had functioned the same way. Recruits possessing extraordinary aptitudes were quarantined into isolated development pipelines. Forcing exceptional talents to match the pace of the median was an utter waste of potential. Ziel himself had been precisely such a case. While his peers ran endless physical circuits, he had been pulled aside to learn the lethal arts of assassination alongside his conditioning.
"You will find out in due course. For now, continue running. Together."
"Yes! I'll be looking forward to it!"
"Understood."
Ziel turned back toward the gathered students.
"Class dismissed. From now on, you will strive to push your counts higher in every session. Additionally, commit the posture and breathing corrections you received today to memory. Your form and respiration dictate how far your endurance can carry you."
He paused briefly before adding one final thought.
"By the time this semester draws to a close, you will perceive a profound transformation in your physical capabilities. Both during these drills and in your daily routines."
The students stared up at him, momentarily transfixed. Those who had pushed themselves the furthest felt the weight of his words most acutely. The lingering sweetness of that deep post-run exhaustion—a fatigue they had never once encountered since learning to channel mana—still thrummed in their muscles.
In truth, the elder warriors of the Valdrain Empire frequently voiced scathing critiques regarding the decline of the younger generation. Over a century had passed since the end of the Great War, and the long peace had softened their edge. The Sword School was no longer the austere crucible of old, where martial discipline and iron conditioning were forged through blood and sweat. Instead, it had evolved into an aristocratic credentialing mill—a mandatory diploma for scions seeking lucrative appointments in imperial knight orders or bureaucratic prestige. The complaint that graduating cohorts deteriorated with each passing year was hardly an exaggeration.
Ziel, of course, had no idea about any of that imperial socio-politics. His motivation was far simpler.
"This course will proceed strictly by the book. As previously stated, the use of mana remains prohibited."
By the book. Exactly as outlined in the official syllabus.
That was the only way to secure a long, peaceful tenure at Edelbein Academy and build an unassailable civilian life. And if all went well, perhaps even earn a full professorship down the line.
'I should probably prepare an incentive.'
Thinking back to his own foundational training, the instructors had always dangled rewards before the recruits. In hindsight, it was likely those very incentives that had driven them to train themselves to the brink of death. These students would surely respond to the same stimuli.
"Beginning next session, whichever student demonstrates the greatest improvement..."
The students perked up, their ears practically twitching. His tone carried the distinct promise of a prize.
'What is it?'
'Does he let us skip the next session?'
'Wait, didn't they announce a mandatory department roll call next week? Can he exempt us from that?'
An atmosphere of subtle, rising hope bloomed across the training yard—
"Will be awarded a Praise Card."
—and plummeted straight into a bottomless abyss.
"Um... what is that, exactly?"
Karen raised a cautious hand. Ziel answered without missing a beat.
"You will know once you receive one."
Once class concluded, Ziel made his way straight to the faculty cafeteria, where he polished off six full bowls of steaming rice with side dishes. It was a thoroughly gratifying meal.
'I could eat like this for the rest of my life.'
The agonizing years of forcing flavorless, gray nutrient paste down his throat were officially behind him.
'The students will definitely appreciate it too.'
Nothing on earth made food taste better than working one's body to utter exhaustion. A meal was wonderful on its own, but devoured on an empty stomach after rigorous labor, it tasted like heaven itself. Imagining how thrilled his students would be once they experienced that simple joy, Ziel strolled out of the dining hall, only to spot a familiar silhouette lingering near the courtyard.
"Professor Elcanto Paredes."
"H-huh? Ah! Instructor Ziel?"
Professor Elcanto looked visibly startled, his rotund frame stiffening slightly.
"Good day."
"Y-yes, quite. Ah, did you just finish your class?"
"I finished class and just had a meal. It was very delicious."
"I... see."
Elcanto's lips twitched as if he were wrestling with something he desperately wanted to say. But after a brief hesitation, he simply cleared his throat.
"Ahem. Well, yes. If you ever run into any difficulties, feel free to come talk to me anytime."
Ziel regarded the man with faint curiosity. Only recently, this very professor had been red-faced and screaming bloody murder inside the faculty dining hall, practically threatening to have his head.
'A total reversal in demeanor worthy of a seasoned operative.'
Or perhaps he was merely putting up a polite front because they were in broad daylight with witnesses around? Either way, he clearly wasn't a man to be underestimated.
"I shall take my leave, then."
"Ahem. Of course. Ah, wait—"
"Do you have something else to say?"
"No, no. Never mind. Cough. You may go."
Ziel inclined his head and walked away. Watching his retreating back, Professor Elcanto let out a long, deflated sigh.
"Good grief... what's the point of asking? It's not like the fellow would give me a straight answer anyway."
Just who on earth was backing him? Who was providing enough imperial leverage that this newly hired nobody could walk around ignoring every political boundary, doing whatever he pleased without a shred of hesitation? Rumors had already reached Elcanto's ears that Ziel had run the freshmen ragged in his second class until their tongues hung out. And shockingly, not a single student had dropped out or walked off the field.
"I can't make heads or tails of that man..."
Elcanto tapped his chin in deep thought. Perhaps he ought to swallow his pride and cultivate a friendlier rapport before it was too late.
While Elcanto fretted over academy politics, Ziel had already completely forgotten the encounter, strolling peacefully down the sunlit cobblestone paths of the campus.
"This is nice."
The tranquil breeze, the boisterous chatter of the new freshmen, the vibrant buzz of a fresh semester—it all washed over him. Ziel had never experienced an ordinary youth, so he couldn't conceptually define the nostalgia or romance of campus life, but he could feel the infectious energy humming in the air.
"Come on over, folks! Fresh meat skewers! One cel each, or three for two cel!"
"Recruiting ends today! Art and Sketching Society! Freshmen, right this way!"
Being the start of the academic year, the central plaza was packed with colorful canopies, student club recruitment booths, and bustling street stalls.
"Those look appetizing."
Ziel dug into his pockets and counted his loose coins. After his earlier expenses, he had exactly one cel left.
"I can only afford one."
Just as he turned toward the skewer stall, an energetic shout from the neighboring tent caught his ear.
"Step right up, today is the final day! Knock it down and double your money! Even if you miss, you walk away with a snack!"
It was a promotional carnival booth for a student club. The hand-painted banner overhead read: Sword Love Research Society.
"Sword Love Research Society?"
As Ziel tilted his head in mild puzzlement, a member working the booth immediately sidled over with an eager grin.
"Anything you can do with a blade, we do! And if it's got an edge, we love it! Longswords, daggers, throwing knives—you name it! Blades are truly the greatest creations in existence!"
"Is that so."
"Of course! If you'd like to sign up... wait, are you a freshman?"
"No. I am an instructor."
"Ah... an instructor? Does the Sword School even have instructors?"
"I was recently appointed."
Ziel pointed at the array of small daggers laid out on the wooden counter. "Do you throw these at the targets?"
"Oh, yes! Non-students are welcome to participate in the game, though you won't be able to join the club, of course. It's one cel per throw. If you hit the target on the far wall and knock it flat, you get two cel back."
It was an absurdly simple setup. You picked up a compact throwing dagger that fit neatly into the palm and hurled it at various wooden markers arranged by distance. Hitting the closest mark yielded a minor confection. But as the student had said, knocking down the furthest target paid out double.
'Then I can buy twice as many skewers.'
It was the exact moment Ziel's understanding of financial management began to awaken. And on top of that, the challenge involved throwing a blade into a bullseye.
"Just fair warning, sir, it's a lot tougher than it looks. The distance is quite substantial."
Could there possibly be anything easier in the entire world?