Final Evaluation (2)
Ziel knew the truth.
Even if all one hundred first-year students swarmed him at once, let alone just the forty under his tutelage, they stood no chance of victory. For that very reason, he had established an unconventional standard for the final evaluation.
"Instructor Ziel, are you truly intent on proceeding with these criteria?"
"Yes, Dean."
"Well, the other professors typically assign specific tasks or practical scenarios for the students to carry out..."
It was the day before the exam. Berhal had summoned Ziel to his office to finalize the evaluation curriculum. As the dean reviewed the paperwork, he couldn't help the doubts creeping through his mind.
It's far too simple. Sparring against the entire class?
Not a single one of the other four sword professors had chosen such an approach. In fact, in all the academy's history, no instructor had ever proposed such a thing. Ziel was the very first.
And for good reason—it defied common sense. No matter that Ziel was an instructor, and no matter that the baseline expectation for faculty was the caliber of a Great Knight wielding a Magic Sword, being overwhelmingly outnumbered remained an absolute disadvantage in combat. One careless slip, and an instructor could suffer a humiliating defeat at the hands of their own students. From a professor's standpoint, there was no disgrace more absolute. Taking on every student burned through stamina at an alarming rate, and failure carried unbearable consequences.
"Please reconsider, Instructor Ziel."
"It is the most efficient method."
"Before we even speak of efficiency, the sheer physical toll..."
"Even if I were to spar against two hundred simultaneously, it would present no problem."
"..."
Right. That was simply who Instructor Ziel was. He always offered answers that diverged wildly from the norm, yet he invariably backed them up with undeniable results.
Perhaps this time, too...
Then Berhal's eyes caught a specific line on the parchment, and his jaw dropped.
"Wait... You don't mean sparring them one by one in sequence? You intend to fight them all at once?!"
Berhal practically shrieked. Ziel merely offered an impassive nod.
"Yes. That is correct."
"H-How... How could you possibly face the entire class at the same time?"
"It is the most efficient approach."
"No, this goes far beyond mere efficiency..."
Was this not pushing things to the absolute extreme?
"Engaging forty students individually would stretch the evaluation across two full days," Ziel explained calmly. "That would severely degrade pedagogical efficiency. The students would tire, and their tension would flag."
As always, Ziel spoke with unyielding certainty. Yet strangely enough, Berhal found himself unable to refute that steady, emotionless tone. It wasn't just because the logic held water—it was because Ziel had proven his capabilities time and time again.
Could I pull it off? Berhal wondered. They were only first-years. Could he take on all forty simultaneously? Yes, Berhal could manage it. He was a former Imperial Knight, after all. He could brandish a Magic Sword a few times to crush their fighting spirit, or simply suppress them through overwhelming battlefield experience. He could easily secure victory without sustaining a single scratch. But what about Ziel?
"Do you intend to deploy a Magic Sword, then?"
"That would be inappropriate for the students' current level."
"..."
Then how on earth did he plan to handle forty armed students at once?
"This is the optimal method, Dean. It allows me to evaluate their cooperation, situational judgment, adaptability, and every other criterion outlined in the report."
Berhal found himself pressing his seal of approval onto the document as if bewitched. As he did, he noticed once again just how absurdly thick Ziel's curriculum proposal was.
"Instructor Ziel, I believe I must assign you a teaching assistant starting next semester."
"A teaching assistant, you say?"
"Yes. Your administrative workload is bound to increase. Frankly, I still have no idea how you manage it all on your own, but for your own well-being, you need help."
Ziel saw no reason to decline a free subordinate.
"Understood. Who will be assigned?"
"I'll have to consider the candidates. Typically, we inquire among the upperclassmen, though on occasion we recruit someone from outside the academy."
"Understood."
And now, the present.
The day of the final evaluation.
"Surround him from behind!"
"Don't bother setting up an ambush! Just watch for an opening and charge!"
"Scheming won't work on him! Just fight like we do in regular sparring!"
With only ten minutes remaining on the clock, Berhal stood by the sidelines, unable to tear his eyes away from the arena floor for even a fraction of a second.
Magnificent...
Ziel's movements were the epitome of brutal efficiency. There was no wasted motion whatsoever. Rather than engaging his pupils one by one, he stood at the epicenter of multiple convergent strikes, yet a single, subtle shift of his footwork allowed him to effortlessly slip past every incoming blade.
Even now, the scene played out before Berhal's eyes.
"Wait, how did you even dodge that, Instructor?!"
"When you feint toward the upper body while keeping your eyes fixed low, anyone would grow suspicious, Student Celia Rihardt."
Ziel's physical mechanics were fundamentally distinct from orthodox knightly combat. Traditional knights prioritized defense over evasion. Nearly every knight across the Empire fought that way—clad in heavy armor, bearing massive shields, often utilizing sheer physical mass to deliver concussive shock. Yet Ziel moved as though...
He evades as if a single grazed attack would end his life.
His footwork was tuned entirely toward dodging incoming strikes whenever possible, parrying and deflecting only when strictly unavoidable. It was utterly unlike a knight's doctrine. And then, Berhal's gaze shifted to the students.
So that's why they fight like this.
The first-years under Ziel's instruction were visibly different from the rest of the academy. They dodged what could be dodged and refused to mindlessly crash their bodies into incoming blows. In recent years, a new doctrine had begun circulating among the younger generation of knights, reevaluating defensive theory. Instead of stubbornly absorbing blows with heavy plate and grit, they sought more efficient alternatives. As expected, veteran knights scoffed at the trend, but Berhal held a different view.
It is undeniably necessary. Combat injuries have grown far too severe over the decades.
Taking direct hits always carried catastrophic risks. Berhal agreed that shedding armor weight, increasing agility, and prioritizing evasion was the superior path forward. Yet to see that very doctrine flourishing right here in a first-year classroom...
He has read the flow of the era. How remarkably trendy.
Ziel had unexpectedly become the vanguard of modern martial theory in the dean's eyes.
I should have known the moment he drafted his own textbook. The man possesses an astonishing passion for scholarship.
Ziel's custom manual was already slated for expansion following a faculty review, with plans to officially distribute it across the Sword School next semester.
"Incredible, truly incredible," Berhal murmured.
Did the students realize it? Did they comprehend that the level of martial prowess they displayed while clashing against Ziel set them leagues apart from any previous first-year class in the history of the academy?
Should I try again? No, I got shut down at the thirty-seventh strike last time.
Celia gritted her teeth in the middle of the melee. Her breath came in ragged, burning gasps. She must have charged Ziel dozens of times already, yet he had not permitted so much as a single graze upon his coat. Her secret technique had failed earlier. But she couldn't think of any other way to break through.
"Deleb, back me up."
She grabbed Deleb by the shoulder.
"I'm going to unleash my secret technique one more time. And if you peek, you're dead."
"What kind of nonsense are you barking now? I'll block his line of sight from the front, so attack however you want." Deleb paused, then added in a low murmur, "Make sure you pull it off this time."
Celia blinked in surprise, then offered a resolute nod.
"Obviously. And once I succeed, you won't even dare to dream of copying it."
"Oh, is that so?"
Deleb scoffed playfully and lunged straight toward Ziel. Sensing their intent, Ziel shifted his gaze toward them. They were the two strongest students under his care, and for this exchange, even Ziel dialed his focus a fraction higher.
Here they come. One obscures line of sight while the other flanks from behind.
A textbook tactic. Ziel recalled the blistering fifty-move sequence Celia had displayed earlier. If executed to completion, it was undeniably a formidable assault.
"Here I come, Instructor!"
Deleb bellowed at the top of his lungs, deliberately drawing attention as he closed the distance. The crushing weight of House Kundel's heavy swordsmanship reverberated through the clash. Ziel parried the opening strike, then fluidly redirected and slipped past every follow-up blow.
"He's insane. This makes no sense."
"He looks like he's moving at normal speed, so how does he dodge so easily...?"
Deleb's heavy blade whipped through empty air again and again. Yet he maintained his composure, refusing to break form.
Hurry up, Celia!
Celia vanished around Ziel's blind spot. And finally—
Clang!
Beginning with Celia's opening strike, the secret art unfurled once more.
Twenty, thirty...! Almost there...!
In the span of a single breath, her crimson blade flashed past twenty, then thirty, hurtling toward the dreaded barrier: the thirty-seventh movement. This was Rihardt Fast Swordsmanship, the absolute antithesis of Deleb's crushing style.
I have to conquer this to truly earn my place in the family.
The prerequisite for being acknowledged as a true swordsman within House Rihardt was mastering this first secret technique. Only by completing it could one stand at the legitimate starting line of their lineage. Celia was progressing at an extraordinary pace; her older brothers had only begun learning the technique two years later than her current age. But that wasn't enough for Celia. She wanted to prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, why she was hailed as the greatest genius of her generation.
Now!
Just before the thirty-seventh strike where her momentum always collapsed, Celia's concentration peaked. In that precise microsecond, Ziel's razor-sharp eyes dissected the mechanics of her frame.
The musculature of her left arm is rigid.
Up through the thirty-sixth form, her muscles rapidly contracted and relaxed in perfect harmony, only to seize into rigid tension upon initiating the thirty-seventh. That minute rigidity was the sole bottleneck preventing her from crossing the threshold. Ziel weighed his options for a fraction of a second before reaching a conclusion.
Guiding a student to greater heights is my duty.
The solution was simple. Ziel slipped a fine acupressure needle from his breast pocket, coated it in a micro-thread of mana, and flicked his wrist.
A faint blur whipped through the air, far too fast for the naked eye to register. It struck with feather-light precision right at the focal node of the contracted muscle.
What?
In that fleeting instant, just as Celia braced for the thirty-seventh movement, her left arm suddenly felt as light as a feather. The invisible drag vanished, taking all hesitation with it. And with that—
It worked!
Bathed in sheer exhilaration, Celia surged past the thirty-seventh strike, rocketing through forty, forty-five, and finally reaching the fiftieth movement.
Clang!
Ziel halted her final, climactic thrust with a clean, solid block.
"Well done, Student Celia Rihardt."
A surge of burning emotion rose in Celia's throat, hot tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. She had finally done it. The secret art! The technique she had wrestled with for an entire semester was finally complete!
"Instructor..."
"Pay close attention to the musculature of your left arm going forward," Ziel advised evenly. "If possible, prioritize developing physical strength in that arm."
Celia froze in realization.
He knew all along.
A flaw she hadn't even been conscious of. She understood in an instant why her blade had stalled at the thirty-seventh form every single time.
Wait, did Instructor help me?
She opened her mouth to ask, but an intruder came crashing into the fray.
"Now's our chance! Bwahahaha!"
It was Quantus.
"Guh!"
To be precise, it was Quantus getting launched across the arena floor a single second later.
"Student Quantus Hophel. This is not an arena pit. When launching an assault, approach your target quietly whenever possible."
"Urk..."
Immediately after, Anne, Maris, and Yurio spearheaded a coordinated charge, flanked by the rest of the class. Swarmed by blades, Celia lost any chance to question Ziel.
Well, whatever. I can just ask him later.
Meanwhile, every student who charged in failed to land a hit, tumbling across the flagstones in a tangled heap of limbs.
"He's a monster. A complete monster."
"If we had fought Ruinbark instead of Instructor Ziel, at least we would've left a scratch!"
"If Instructor were a monster, what rank would he even be?"
"Why are you even asking? Supreme-grade, without question."
At this point, facing the high-grade monster Ruinbark felt like a far more merciful prospect! Throughout the entire evaluation, Ziel's breathing hadn't hitched once. Not a single drop of sweat dotted his brow, and his expression remained carved from stoic granite.
"Student Maris Sophen. Your leap was a fraction of a second too late. Had you closed the distance sooner, you might have threatened my shoulder."
"Student Anne Peshua. Prudence is commendable, but excessive caution caused you to surrender your opening. Be bolder next time."
He was casually dispensing personalized feedback in the dead center of a high-speed melee. Was this man even human?
"I'm pretty sure we completely bombed this final," Karen muttered from the perimeter. No matter how she looked at it, this exam was an unmitigated disaster. "Don't you think so, Yurio?"
"Mm..."
"Do you have any ideas on how to actually land a hit?"
"No way. Not a chance. We'd never pull it off." Yurio offered a surprisingly sound deduction. "Remember when he let Deleb land a hit during that one lesson?"
"Yeah?"
"I'm pretty sure he was going easy on him. Instructor Ziel is moving way faster right now than he was back then."
"..."
Truly inspiring words.
"Still, Karen, doesn't something feel off?"
"What do you mean?"
"Instructor has to know. He knows that at this rate, not a single one of us will land an attack before the timer expires."
"Well... yeah?"
"Then doesn't that mean the grading criteria lie somewhere completely different?"
Yurio was the very student who had originally pioneered using unconventional tactics via traps. His mind turned over the possibilities.
"There are three minutes left. Let's try this."
Yurio whispered into Karen's ear. She gave a skeptical nod.
"Will that really work?"
"He told us to use everything we've learned, didn't he? When I went to fetch the trap gear earlier, I pocketed something."
Yurio produced a pair of throwing daggers from his coat.
"Let's use these."
It was the dagger-throwing technique they had learned specifically in preparation for the survival practical.
"I'll throw them, so charge in alongside the others."
In truth, neither of them expected it to accomplish much. But with only three minutes remaining, they had to throw everything at the wall.
Pour out everything we've learned.
They had learned an immense amount over the semester. Yet right now, their viable options were nearly exhausted.
Here they come again.
Ziel watched Yurio with faint intrigue. Though concealed within the boy's tunic, the throwing daggers had not escaped Ziel's hyper-perceptive gaze.
"Charge!"
The remaining students swarmed forward in a wave, Yurio circling around their flank. Just as the frontline engaged and Ziel ducked beneath their crossing blades—
Shhk, shhk!
Two throwing daggers sliced through the air in rapid succession.
In that microsecond, for the very first time in this entire evaluation, Ziel paused to deliberate.
Which meant—the attack was sharp enough to force him to think.
Splendid.
Impeccable timing. Appropriate velocity. An admirable tactical maneuver. Except—
Clang!
His throwing posture was flawed.
"..."
To deflect them so effortlessly...
Yurio stood frozen in place, lost in sheer hollow defeat.
"The final evaluation is concluded."
And with those words, the exam came to an end.
A chorus of heavy, deflated sighs rippled across the arena. To the students' eyes, the evaluation had been an absolute catastrophe. They had scrambled desperately, yet achieved nothing to show for it. They hadn't managed to land even a single blow.
We worked our butts off, and he dodged every single swing...
Did he go easy on Ruinbark, too?
Our grades are ruined... What happens to my GPA?
Amidst the despair, Ziel spoke.
"Every student has earned a grade of A or higher. That is all."
"Huh?!"
"All forty of you have received an A or above."
The students stood frozen in disbelief.
"Six of you have earned an A-plus."
What? Did their instructor understand the grading scale in reverse?
"Did you... perhaps mistake a D for an A?"
"Negative, Student Karen Aswan. Academic marks range from A-plus to F. Among those, every single one of you achieved an A or above."
Only then did tentative cheers begin to break out among the ranks. Yet they remained utterly bewildered. Not a single person had landed a hit, and Instructor Ziel wasn't even breathing heavily...
Everyone received an A or higher?
"B-But Instructor, we didn't land a single attack on you!"
Ziel shook his head at Karen's bewildered protest.
"Setting high standards is commendable. However, I have never instructed you to pursue impossible objectives."
"Ah..."
"Nor have I ever presented an impossible goal in my curriculum."
He had conducted the entire evaluation under the foundational premise that landing a hit on him was inherently impossible from the start!
"...Damn it, you can't even argue with that," Celia grumbled under her breath.
"Impossible..." Deleb muttered, clenching his fists as he silently vowed to shatter that very word one day.
"S-Someday we'll be able to hit you, right, Instructor?"
And Yurio's budding hope was ruthlessly extinguished.
"If I allow it, you will."
"Oh."
"If I do not, it remains impossible."
Zero room for delusion! Utter, unflinching fact. Yet none of the students felt genuinely disheartened.
Everyone got an A or higher on finals!
Incredible. My grades are saved!
"Report cards detailing specific scores for each subject will be dispatched to your respective households. Keep that in mind." Ziel surveyed the courtyard. "That concludes today's session. Are there any questions before we dismiss?"
Celia's hand shot up immediately.
"Instructor, what are your plans for the break?!"
"I prefer not to say."
Celia, entirely undeterred, pressed on.
"Just tell us one thing! Just one!"
Tracking down the remnants of the 'Black Sky' assassin organization. And gathering intelligence on House Siren. Neither could be shared with students. However, there was one detail he could disclose.
"I plan to locate a material artisan to craft protective armor from Ruinbark's hide."
"Really?!"
"Yes. You will be wearing it starting next semester. It will become an absolute necessity."
The students erupted into ecstatic cheers. Equipment and artifacts forged from the remains of high-grade monsters boasted extraordinary defensive capabilities. Even for scions of great noble houses, such gear was nearly impossible to acquire! High-grade monsters were exceptionally rare, and artisans capable of refining their hide were rarer still.
"Armor made from Ruinbark hide is a necessity...?"
Meanwhile, Yurio stared blankly into space, murmuring under his breath. If they were going to need that level of protection... just what kind of insane curriculum awaited them next semester?
"There is one more matter."
Ziel recalled the conversation he had shared with Berhal just yesterday.
"I will be conducting home visits."