Please Don't Rob the Students of Their Experience
It began with a speech from the department head.
"Ahem. As of this hour, uh... we will now hold the, uh... regular Snowfield practicum. Uh... the Snowfield is home to all manner of monsters, so, uh... students, your safety is of— ...and so on, and so on... Uh... mm... Is that clear to everyone?"
"Yeees..."
"The purpose of this practicum is, uh... to culti— to improve your practical experience in real combat, uh... —and so forth. You are outstanding students, so I trust this much will be enough for you to understand. Uh... yes. Then all of you, gather the equipment you brought and begin your preparations."
"Yeees..."
The students' lifeless voices drifted low across the field.
Everyone had been certain the grand address—a full hour of it—was finally over. Instead, as if the man had resolved to torment them, that drawling voice went creeping on.
"Come to think of it, seeing your passion like this, uh... ah, it brings back the days when I myself was a student, uh... Yes, it was in those days... I was still young and foolish, mind you..."
...I'm going to lose my mind.
He forced down the honest feeling he couldn't bring himself to say aloud.
One student swallowed a sigh with a look of utter collapse. Another had already given up, head bowed, long since fallen asleep. Still others were betting on how many times the professor had said the word uh. And he, who was supposed to be the one watching over them, had gone limp from head to toe quite some time ago.
The Snowfield.
A place where the breath of life had been cut.
Every territory outside the Empire's domain had been brought to ruin by the hand of a god, and over that tainted earth a cold, dry wind kept laying down white ash. The land bleached white by the ash was what people called the Snowfield.
And the pretext for dragging students out into a place this absurdly dangerous, where death lay in wait at every turn, was nothing more than practical experience.
Match the outing to the students' level all you liked—the Snowfield was still the Snowfield. Under the name of a practicum, the injured were past counting, and so were those hurt badly enough that their lives hung in the balance. On any ordinary day, faculty and students alike would have been strung tight, with no attention to spare for anything but watching their surroundings.
Today, though, the mood had been off from the very start.
"The Hero of the 6th Holy Sword is with us today, so nothing's going to happen."
"I hear Lady Rebecca's a mage who passed the 4th Class national exam, too. Mages like us can just stand back and watch."
The students turned looks of reverence on Kim Yu-seong, the Hero at the vanguard, and on Rebecca beside him. The mood proved contagious, and the march went on without so much as a whiff of tension.
A Snowfield practicum? Please. In everything but name, it was a stroll.
He was in the middle of a yawn when a familiar back caught his eye, and his gaze sharpened.
Oh. There's Undine. Didn't think she'd come all the way out for a practicum.
She must have felt his eyes on her. For an instant, Undine's gaze flicked his way. Glad to see her, he lifted a hand in a light wave, and she broke into a loose, silly smile—then seemed to remember something all at once.
"Hmph!"
Hmph, hmph! She puffed her cheeks out round. Undine... you still haven't cooled off, have you. This one's lasting a while.
Hmph, hmph! Then I've got no choice but to answer in kind.
He matched her snort for snort, a proper hmph of his own, and turned around. Hmph, hmph! What waited there was a pair of fox ears washed in pink.
"Cecilia, how's your condition? Peak form? Awful? Or somewhere in the middle?"
"...I'm all right."
Did all right mean her condition was all right, or that she'd rather he not talk to her?
"Even if it is the Snowfield, we're only circling the area near the school, where safety's guaranteed. Don't worry so much."
Her face was far too dark to brush off. He hadn't missed the way her expression, fixed on the ground, was burning blacker by the moment. More than anything, the ears and tail that were nothing less than the symbols of the Fox Tribe hung limp.
Yesterday hadn't been so different, but if he had to pick the changes apart: first, the angle of those folded ears was twisted by about thirty-five degrees, and their stiffness looked subtly off. The tail that used to swish an average of seven times a minute was bent now without so much as a twitch, and the fur that had been glossy was standing up stiff. All of it worth a careful look.
A woman who had carried out her duties as a member of the 6th Holy Sword's hero party would never be frightened by the mere entrance to the Snowfield. If it was simply that her body was unwell, he wished she would tell him. He also knew perfectly well that even if that were the case, she would never spell it out for him point by point.
The most he could do was hope her mood eased, even a little.
He idly swung the weapon in his hand—the bat—this way and that, and he didn't miss the instant Cecilia's eyes tracked it.
......
Huh? Don't tell me she recognized my proud weapon number one, the bat?
He had waved it on purpose, granted. A grin split his face. Well, look at that—the corners of his mouth were coming undone all on their own.
Not really? It wasn't like he'd wanted her to notice. So why was his mouth itching like this?
If Freyja had seen, she would certainly have had a word or two for him. Unfortunately, Freyja was not here.
"Haha! That's my student, all right! That look says you're curious! This bat, I'll have you know, came from a branch snapped off the largest ancient tree standing in the heart of the great forest they call Hecate's Eye—smack in the middle of the unexplored northern Snowfield, where monsters whirl all year round—then specially worked in the imperial capital by the most renowned carpenter alive, in an orthodox technique handed down for four hundred and sixty-seven years, and the crafting fee alone blew three months' salary plus my research funds—"
A low rumble rolled through the ground.
"Everyone, watch out! A dozen monsters or more, coming in from the front!"
"Fall back! Report the type and the numbers to the rear ranks!"
The sudden tremor, the stir of voices. He didn't need to turn and look to know monsters had appeared.
"Form up! The Hero will protect us, so meet them bravely! Pour out the magic you learned at school!"
Seasoned students and instructors moved as one and set about taking the monsters down. He could hardly stand there and do nothing.
"Oho. Has the hour finally come for my bat to earn its keep? Cecilia! I'll watch your side, so go on and try casting a spell at least—"
But before he could even finish, light flashed, and the whole mess was already over.
"Hmm. So this is all."
"Hoho. Really, Hero. Small fry like these, I can handle perfectly well on my own."
Hero Kim Yu-seong and the woman who was supposedly his lover—Rebecca, or whatever her name was—strolled back at their ease. The students, coming to their senses a beat too late before a situation settled in the blink of an eye, broke into cheers like people who had lost their souls.
"Whoooa! So that's the power of a Holy Sword? Incredible!"
"He cut down every last monster with a single swing! He can pull off skill like that with the Holy Sword still in its sheath?!"
Endure... just endure... This won't be the only chance.
There would be plenty of opportunities to help Cecilia through the practicum. At the time, that was what he told himself.
But the next time, too—
"Kuh! The bridge across the gorge ahead is down! Those damn monsters, how dare they...!"
"Look! The Hero's casting magic to carry us over! That's... floating magic?!"
"Ah, this is merely ordinary magic. It simply makes use of something called the principle of pulleys."
"That's...! Lost Magic, the art said to have vanished from this world?! That's impossible!"
"To think of grafting scientific principles onto magic—as expected of a hero from another world!"
"Hnnngh! So he really is different from the likes of us, right from birth! Someone like me could struggle a whole lifetime and never catch up!"
And the time after that—
"A mere monster... dares lay a hand on someone...?"
"Hic—! Hero! I was so scared!"
"Whoooa! Not a shred of mercy for the enemy, and so cool about it! And yet endlessly gentle with his own side!"
"Now that is what an ideal hero looks like!"
"Kyaa! What do I do? I think I've fallen for the Hero! I'm so jealous of Lady Rebecca...!"
Ha.
Unbelievable.
He endured, and endured, until he couldn't anymore, and in the end he was pushed all the way to the tail of the formation with Cecilia in tow. He jabbed the blameless bat into the ground, poke, poke, and ground his teeth.
"Whaaat? Lost Magic? So you're just going to up and declare a perfectly normal spell from the textbook lost, all on your own say-so? I don't believe this. I told you people to read the case-study section, too...!"
"Oh my~ It seems our Professor Neferna isn't fond of the new generation of heroes~"
"Oh my~ And it seems our dear student Undine, saying such things, has finally gotten over her anger~"
At some point, Undine had fallen in beside him and was walking along.
"...... Could it be that you wish to mock the way I speak?? Hm? Teacher? Is this a challenge?! A signal that you want to fight?! Is this a marital spat!"
"And who was it, again, who said she'd never speak to me again."
"Ahem...! Set such trivial matters aside for later, if you would. I only came all the way back here because I had no desire to keep that farce up ahead in my sight."
"A man chosen by a Holy Sword and called a hero—what's he even trying to do, snatching every last bit of the students' chance to practice?"
"Basking in attention and showing off is a little romance anyone might have, you know."
"...Having to watch it up close only makes it worse for me. I'll bet this month's salary that in five years he'll be kicking the blankets over this in bed."
"Pfft...! Is taking a single club for a weapon something only you do, Teacher?"
"Don't look down on my bat. It's a weapon of higher standing than some half-baked Holy Sword."
He lifted the bat with pride, and the students nearby promptly started muttering.
"That professor's always walking around with a wooden stick like that."
"That's the one he uses to point at the board in class, right? Ugh. He really does carry nothing but stuff like that."
...Dear me. Heh. Ignorant of the bat's charms—pitiful little rookies. Generous as he was, he could ignore them lightly enough. The problem was that Undine's vacant gaze had, somehow, taken on a murky weight. There was no feeling at all in the voice that followed.
"............ Oh my~ I can already pick out several students who will meet with a fatal little fall in the Snowfield today. How regrettable."
"You started it."
"I don't mind it myself, but I dislike it when someone else speaks ill of him~ That is to say, the heart of a virtuous wife. She may badmouth her own husband once she's outside, and yet grow thoroughly irritated the moment another person badmouths that same husband."
He wasn't especially eager to call someone who traded complaints about their spouse behind their back, easy as anything, a virtuous wife. Saying so aloud would only mean dealing with the aftermath, so he kept his mouth shut.
"Anyway, I'll see to those pitiful friends myself, so please set your mind at ease, Teacher."
"You angling to get summoned before the Student Ethics Committee?"
"Oh my, Professor Neferna, honestly. As if I, Undine, would ever leave evidence. This is the Snowfield, you know. Dunking a person or two is hardly even an incident."
No sooner had Undine said it, covering her mouth and laughing her little ho ho, than a rough breath sounded behind him, and Cecilia's color worsened before his eyes. He tilted his head and asked her.
"Cecilia, does something hurt?"
"...No. You needn't concern yourself."
It really didn't seem like nothing.
"...Undine, your pointless joke startled the kid."
"What...? 'Kid...?' You said kid?! Fastening such an enviable—no, such a repulsive form of address onto a fully grown woman, your desire is truly blatant, Teacher!"
"Quiet. ...Anyway, where's Ignis, and what's he doing that I don't see him."
"My brother? Brother is at the academy, of course. He isn't the sort to volunteer for hardship like this while there's someone more eye-catching than he is. ...But why are you looking for Brother all of a sudden? Is it a roundabout way of saying you don't want to answer? Are you dodging me?"
"No reason."
It was to pry her off him, obviously. When he answered flatly, Undine seemed to misunderstand something. Triumphant, she drew her shoulders back as far as they would go.
"Are you finally starting to see me properly, Professor Neferna! Ahem! It seems you're at last ready to accept me as the student under your charge!"
"Yeah, no."
"Wha— why not!"
"......Who knows."
He shrugged. At that utterly halfhearted answer Undine looked as if she'd been struck. Her shoulders trembled, and then she puffed her cheeks out full.
"I really hate you! I'm never talking to you again, you know? E-even if you cry and say you're sorry, I absolutely will not forgive you!!"
The preparations had gone smoothly. She had contacted her father as well. Permission came so easily that even Rebecca was surprised.
Had the family not been particularly pleased by Cecilia's existence, either?
The Hero seemed not to have noticed a thing. That he noticed nothing mattered most of all.
Rebecca let a faint smile rest on her lips and murmured, thinking of the Fox Tribe girl who would be trudging along at the very back of the formation.
"...Shall I get moving, then? Look forward to it, you beast."