Chapter 42
Chapter 42
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 42
Chapter Title: Class Observation (1)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
There are many ways to gain enlightenment.
Most mages find answers in the teachings of others. However, there are those who cannot gain enlightenment from others.
Those who have already established their own path in magic.
Those with a strong sense of self.
That firmness is both an advantage and a disadvantage.
The advantage is that they do not waver, and the disadvantage is that because they do not waver, there is no gap to penetrate.
Beings with such firm convictions that others cannot slip in. How do you teach such beings?
'You have to make them realize it themselves.'
Rosel already knew the answer.
Because he had raised such an oddball before.
"Raniel."
Rosel quietly called his disciple.
"Do you remember what I told you before?"
"Ah, yes. I remember."
Raniel nodded.
She was sitting in a suit, about to head to Aphria Academy for work.
"Hm."
Rosel smiled warmly at the change in his disciple, who had always worn robes. It wasn't a bad look at all.
'If I'd known it would be like this, I should have bought it for her sooner.'
A neat outfit, hair combed back tidily.
When she wandered around in robes, she sometimes looked the same age as the students...
'At least now, no one will mistake her for a student.'
Dressed like this in a suit, she seemed to carry the dignity fitting her position. She looked even more mature.
"Mm."
Rosel nodded in satisfaction and opened his mouth.
"From today, what you need to do, Raniel, is attend the classes of the professors who applied to observe and learn from them."
Raniel's gaze turned to the paper on the table. It was densely filled with professors' names.
Normally, assistant professors would go around asking professors for permission to observe their classes. But Raniel didn't need to do that.
'That many applications in just one day after posting on the board.'
Rosel checked the names of the professors who had filled out the applications. There were quite a few well-known professors within Aphria.
'At this rate, it's hard to tell who's the main professor.'
Looking at the professors who had eagerly added their names as if eager to show off their own prowess, Rosel smiled wryly.
"Aphria has many capable professors. Having worked as educators for a long time, they have reached a certain level in the art of teaching."
Rosel said.
"What you need to pay attention to while attending their classes is as follows."
Rosel spread his fingers wide and folded them one by one.
"How they approach the students, what parts they focus on when explaining, how they understand the students' levels."
He handed his disciple the paper with those points written down.
"The important things are those three, but the others will be helpful too."
"Mm... so, learn their teaching methods?"
"It's different from learning."
To his disciple tilting her head, Rosel said firmly.
"Interpret their classes in your own way. You don't need to imitate them blindly."
Rosel knew.
Over the five years she had been away from his side, this disciple had changed, but her core had not. Telling her to learn blindly would only result in clumsy imitation.
That was worse than doing nothing.
Imitating could never make the real thing.
'So, I have to teach her the same way as before.'
Instead of explaining everything from one to ten, give hints and let her find the answer herself. That was the way to teach this peculiar mage.
"See with your eyes, hear with your ears, and interpret as you wish."
He added one more thing.
"Just like always."
"Just like always?"
"Yes, didn't I tell you?"
Rosel smiled faintly.
"Let's take it slow."
Raniel nodded slowly.
She seemed to have grasped the idea.
"Then, whose class should we start with? Master's class first?"
"No. Save my class for last. Let's see which professor to start with."
Rosel examined the paper together with Raniel.
The names of professors were densely packed, but one stood out the most.
-Combat Magic / Makhart.
Compared to the other professors' neatly aligned names, Makhart's was written large. And over the others' names, no less.
"Still as rude as ever."
Tsk, Rosel clicked his tongue briefly.
'Honestly, there's nothing to learn from that guy...'
Rosel narrowed his eyes and looked at Raniel.
Then, he recalled the phrases this disciple often said.
-Just do it.
-Why can't you?
-If it doesn't work, keep doing it until it does.
Those habits of speech.
-Just do it, right?
-Why can't you? Isn't it a lack of effort?
-If it doesn't work, keep going until it does. That's the basics of the battlefield. I have nothing to teach a mage who doesn't even know the basics!
Were remarkably similar to Professor Makhart's.
Of course, the difference was that Makhart's words carried malice... but to the listener, they would feel similar.
'In a way, it might be good for the first observation.'
From the perspective of a teacher, that is.
"The first one should be this professor."
"Professor Makhart?"
"Yes, and it's Combat Magic, perfect."
"Combat Magic... that unheard-of class?"
Flinch.
Rosel's eyebrow twitched.
"Un...heard-of, what?"
"An unheard-of miscellaneous class. No foundation. Rootless job."
"...You think that?"
"No, I don't judge classes by nobility... but that one has no roots. A mage basing it on physical training? Who in their right mind does that?"
Aren't you doing that?
The words rose to his throat, but Rosel held them back.
"Umm..."
He wanted to add something, but Rosel couldn't find the words. What could he say when the creator of the class called it rootless?
"...If you think so, then it is."
That was all Rosel could say.
2.
Introduction to Combat Magic.
Instructor: Makhart.
Students who chose the Battle Mage class learn the basics in Makhart's class. The basics of Combat Magic are physical techniques, Makhart says.
"The decisive difference between Battle Mages and other classes lies in the use of physical techniques."
He said as he walked among the students gathered in the lecture hall.
"Battle Mages do not stay in one place. They keep moving constantly. On the battlefield, unlike other mages, Battle Mages do not remain in the rear lines."
Subtly showing the scars on his forearm, Makhart brought up stories from the battlefield. The students' reactions were indifferent.
'That story again?'
It was a story they'd heard countless times.
Holding back sighs inwardly, the students let Makhart's words go in one ear and out the other.
"Battle Mages are deployed to the front lines or assault units. The advantage of Battle Mages is their ability to handle most emergencies. Their firepower may fall short compared to Wizards... but in terms of utility, Battle Mages are a cut above."
There was a reason he specifically mentioned the Wizard class.
Makhart shifted his gaze.
Where his gaze landed, a girl was sitting.
"Don't you think so, Professor Lania?"
A subtle sneer played on Makhart's lips as he looked at her.
Lania van Trias.
As far as Makhart knew, she was a mage registered as a Wizard class.
'Mainly elemental magic, I hear?'
Its power was tremendous, but elemental magic required a long preparation time proportional to that power.
'The magic with the least practicality in real combat.'
It was practically the antithesis of Battle Mage.
Recalling that fact, Makhart snorted.
"...?"
However, the girl receiving his gaze merely tilted her head. She seemed clueless.
"You're a Wizard class, right?"
"Ah, yes."
At that response, some students' eyes wavered.
'...Wizard class?'
They were the ones who had been in the spell training room during the terrorist incident. They had witnessed Professor Lania's combat.
'The person who smashed the training room floor with their bare hands?'
Regardless of the students' reactions, Makhart continued with what he had to say.
"Well, since you're observing this class... experience what the Battle Mage class is like before you go."
"Yes."
"Come down first? My class is extremely combat-oriented."
Makhart emphasized the word 'combat'.
Even the students noticed his blatant provocation. But the target herself remained expressionless.
"Yes, understood."
She nodded briefly.
She stood from her seat and walked to the center of the lecture hall.
"Hmm."
Makhart scanned her slender frame up and down, letting out a lecherous chuckle.
"Today, I'll teach you the physical techniques of Battle Mages from the basics, step by step."
3.
Belnoa, a shaman and Battle Mage.
He found no particular interest in Professor Makhart's class. There was no reason to be interested.
First, the physical techniques Makhart emphasized.
'The knights' basic manual, or something?'
To Belnoa, it didn't seem particularly helpful. It only raised questions as he watched.
'Why bother with strikes? Just break the joints, right?'
With countless experiences in the slums and having mastered the ancient martial arts saved by old man Cardi, Belnoa found Makhart's physical techniques crude.
'And learning spell Stock or body reinforcement spells...'
If he wanted to learn that, he could go to the Black Mage Tower Lord.
That was the place that had researched spell Stock concepts since ancient times.
'A pitch-black old man, but...'
At least, the Black Mage Tower Lord fulfilled his duties as a master. If asked to teach, he'd make time anytime. As a master, the Black Tower Lord was quite good.
'Not so much as a guarantor, though.'
In any case, it meant there was little to learn from Makhart. But Belnoa wasn't particularly dissatisfied with that.
'Time to stretch.'
That's all he thought of it.
He hadn't expected much from the start.
'Until now, at least...'
Today, that thought seemed about to change. Thanks to one professor observing the class.
Glance.
Belnoa glanced toward where Professor Makhart was.
Usually, Makhart wandered among the students giving pointers, but today he stayed in one place.
With a professor, not a student.
"Again."
"...Pardon?"
"That's not it. Like this. Feet here! Fist like this! Put more power into it! Basics!"
Gray hair shook.
Even students in free sparring kept glancing that way.
Lania van Trias.
Makhart was teaching her physical techniques.
Discussing the basics.
"·····."
To Belnoa, who knew Professor Lania's true skills, it looked like a child trying to teach an adult.
'Those movements from the underground waterway.'
The movements Belnoa remembered.
They were cleaner and more efficient than any Battle Mage he had seen. On a different level from Makhart's crude techniques. Movements worth learning from.
"Umm."
Yet, watching Makhart give pointers to such a woman stirred a strangely subtle feeling.
'...Why is she even observing?'
Such doubts arose. Even he, a student, felt there was nothing to learn.
While Belnoa thought that, Makhart's pointers continued.
"Try it!"
"Huh? Like this?"
"No. Like this, I said. Why can't you? I showed you, didn't I?"
Makhart stuck right next to Professor Lania, pulling her arms this way and that.
"Like this!"
"·····."
"Your basics are lacking too much! Tch, tsk. This is why Wizards..."
Professor Lania's face, being dragged around, gradually lost expression. Belnoa felt an inexplicable chill from those cooling blue eyes.
"Umm."
Then, someone let out a short groan.
Belnoa looked toward the sound.
"Rak?"
"Mm, Belnoa."
A familiar white-haired boy.
Rak approached Belnoa, shivering.
"Belnoa, doesn't it feel cold somehow?"
"Cold?"
Belnoa tilted his head.
"Doesn't feel cold to me."
"Something, something gives me chills."
"...What?"
"C-Cold. Why? Am I the only one?"
"It's spring now. And hot."
"Feels cold. Definitely chills from over there..."
Rak, pointing toward the source of the chills, froze briefly. He stopped speaking.
Where his finger pointed.
There was Professor Lania, expressionlessly receiving instruction. Her slender arm was being pulled this way and that by Makhart.
It might look like a lack of enthusiasm at a glance...
But to others' eyes, maybe not. To Rak, praised among northern warriors for his 'hawk eyes', it was clear.
Twitch.
Professor Lania's eyebrow trembling faintly.
Crack.
A vein bulging on her forehead.
'A-Angry?'
Rak swallowed dryly.
He had seen a similar expression before. Probably when he asked his master's name.
-What was your master's name again?
-Just, something. Trying to remember.
Eyes like a beast selecting prey.
An eyes similar yet different to that gaze now occupied that spot.
'Like a beast looking at a rabbit hopping in front of it.'
Rak imagined a rabbit hopping before a tiger. A rabbit even kicking the tiger on the nose.
Crunch.
The aftermath was easy to imagine.
Imagining the tiger, at the end of its patience, tearing into the rabbit, Rak shivered.