A Massage to Remember
You think I'm just going to take it quietly? Not a chance.
Think about it. One student comes crying to the dean, shouting that something terrible has happened, babbling that a disaster has finally broken loose.
"Waaah! Sob! Dean! John Nassen—John Nassen is rampaging again!"
"What in the world happened to you?! What went on here?! Don't tell me Kyle did it again like last time…?"
"I got a massage! It hurts so much! My shoulder—my shoulder feels like it's going to tear right off! Sob sob!"
Say that, and you get an immediate slap across the face.
The dean would already be buried under work, his own shoulders aching from the endless paperwork. And this fool walks in claiming his underclassman gave him a massage, that the guy is rampaging—pure nonsense.
Hearing that, the dean would be fully justified in dropping a suplex on him. Anyone else listening would just ask what kind of ridiculous story this was supposed to be.
"No, it's true! This massage isn't just any massage!"
He would launch into how it had been at the level of his shoulder being ripped free, how it had been pure torture, pouring out his grievances with gusto and begging to be believed.
Then the only option left would be summoning Kyle to get to the bottom of it. And if, at that point, I casually offer the dean a nice, refreshing massage while remarking on how hard he has been working?
Game over.
Even if the guy yells that what he went through was nothing like this—No, Dean, it wasn't!—it would not matter. From the dean's perspective, any further incidents are simply a burden he does not need.
Those idiots want to cause a scene and drag me into it… but the situation is different now.
For the dean or the Minister of Education, nothing happening at all is the absolute best outcome. Those morons seem to believe that handing over a pretext to expel Kyle this way would delight both the dean and the minister, but that is not even half a penny's worth of chance. They would only be stuck facing an even more terrifying future, so they would try to bury the whole thing quietly instead.
"Gghaaaaah!!"
"Oh dear. Your shoulders are terribly knotted. I'll work them loose for you properly, senior."
After Lupin, yet another one found himself caught in Kyle's hands. And thus began a session of torture so hideous it could only be called a massage by the most generous stretch of the word.
"Y-you lunatic! Barbarian!!!"
"Being a barbarian is something the John Nassen family openly acknowledges, so unfortunately I have full immunity."
"Ughk! Ghehk! Kraaaagyak!"
Kyle had targeted the outer students first—the ones who looked the most soft-hearted. A little kneading here, a firm press on the shoulder there, and they would feel it deep in their bones: who was really cooking up the absurd schemes against whom. Every time they tried anything, this complimentary massage service would come looking for them.
If someone asked why a mere massage was causing this much fuss—well. For reference, just a little more force and the shoulder blade would go crack and snap clean through.
On top of that, the successor to the Litorio Grand Duchy had still not been decided. That decision rested entirely with Archduke Aias Mentain de Litorio. Everything else was secondary.
And yet nobodies were already forming factions and holding strange secret gatherings inside the Academy out of excessive loyalty? The dean would actually get more excited about that part than anything else.
"Y-you crazy barbarian… w-what kind of massage is this… my arm won't move…"
"Senior. That is exactly why you need to exercise a little. Seriously, how can your arm strength be this pathetic? How do you expect to hold a sword and fight like this? Does gripping a sword magically give you strength or something? Are your ancestors going to fight in your place?"
"Why are you bringing up ancestors all of a sudden…"
"And since you keep calling me a barbarian, how about I show you something genuinely barbaric?"
With that, Kyle made a sharp folding motion with his hands. In front of the second-year student who demanded to know what he thought he was doing, Kyle smiled and explained.
"I fold your waist like this. Not inward—outward."
If it had just been Kyle, the student might have dismissed it as more nonsense. But the name attached after it was John Nassen. That John Nassen. The battle race that had half-destroyed the Academy, smashed desks with one hand, and swatted flying swords aside bare-handed—the family the entire Empire found thoroughly exhausting and would rather never deal with again.
"Senior."
When Kyle gently took hold of the shoulder again, the student flinched hard. A natural reaction. The human body is designed to be weak to pain so it can respond faster and more effectively in a crisis—exactly like right now, trying to survive a barbarian who looked ready to kill someone with nothing but a massage.
"Help me out a little."
"H-help you with what?"
"I just want to attend the Academy quietly. I already spoke with the young lady about it."
"The young lady… y-you mean Lady Elga?"
"I even apologized. Said I was sorry. And she told me the Litorio Grand Duchy has already decided not to lodge any official protest against the John Nassen family, so everything is settled."
"…"
"What worries me is that the people who follow her older brother supposedly cannot accept it so quietly."
The second-year student's body jerked again. If Kyle had already spoken with Elga, that meant he knew exactly what they had been plotting. Which meant this encounter was no accident—he had approached them on purpose.
"When the chance comes later, I will also apologize to that young master—to the Litorio young lord—on behalf of the John Nassen family."
"Y-you say you'll apologize."
"Of course! Naturally. The moment he sets foot in the Academy, I will absolutely do it."
He had just opened an escape route. Now these fragile types had only one option left: take the path to survival and run.
"A-ahaha. Looks like we completely misunderstood. We had no idea…"
"Right? See? I knew it. Seniors really are seniors for a reason. So how about one more massage?"
The student waved both hands frantically while producing something that sounded like "Euueueuegaaaahn!" Even now his shoulders had no feeling left; going through that a second time? Getting beaten up would have been better. At least then he could console himself that he had been hit. Right now he was just a pathetic guy sniveling over a massage.
Still staggering, the second-year fled with hurried steps, eyes full of the terror that he might get caught and massaged again.
Alright. That takes care of the soft ones' public sentiment for now.
The reason they had kept bothering the John Nassen family even while fearing them? Lack of reaction. If you never push back with real force, they simply dismiss you. Even Kyle's older sister Lea had endured constant remarks about being a barbarian who would never marry and had simply attended the Academy without batting an eye. They were weaklings not worth fighting; they were not interesting strong opponents, so she never bothered. Only when someone crossed a true taboo did she finally cut loose for real.
Thanks to that, these people seemed to have developed a strange misunderstanding: that the John Nassen family, tempered by every hardship since childhood, possessed incredible patience. So they figured they could just needle them carefully and get away with it.
What a bunch of idiots.
But Kyle had no intention of facing situations that required him to endure anything in the first place. He was a direct-line John Nassen and, at the same time, the person who least belonged among them. He just wanted people to ease up on the training, eat comfortably, and—rather than ignore the fools who ran their mouths—subdue them by force.
I peeled off the low-loyalty ones, but the rest are the problem. I need something a little more intense.
The core members supposedly had enough loyalty that it would not be easy. Kyle slowly recalled the conversation he had shared with Elga the day before.
"Have a seat."
He had been planning to go looking for Elga, yet she seemed to have already expected him. Leto appeared out of nowhere again and offered to guide him. There, in a quiet corner of the garden, Elga was enjoying tea time.
"Since you followed so obediently, I take it you heard about it from Tisha yesterday."
"I'll ask straight out. Lady Elga, you know, don't you? About your older brother's subordinates—the secret gathering their relatives and children formed inside the Academy."
"I have a rough grasp of it. I simply stay silent because nothing good comes from it becoming known."
"Tell me who they are."
No circling around, no stalling—straight to the point. He had decided this was the right way to speak in front of Elga, and the words came out accordingly. His judgment proved correct; Elga's lips curved slightly.
"For free?"
"Of course not. What do you want?"
"First, I want to know what you plan to do once I give you the names."
"Persuade them to stop."
"How?"
"In my own way."
Elga smiled again. Whether it meant that a John Nassen method was obvious, or whether she was simply curious about what Kyle's way might be, was unclear.
"You're not planning to use your fists, are you?"
"Hardly. People break that way."
He was not joking. It was the absolute truth.
"Why go that far? What do you even gain?"
"An enjoyable Academy life."
"Is that something you want so badly?"
"That's just how life is. You enjoy whatever comes, even when you don't know how it will turn out."
"That's a very un-John-Nassen thing to say."
Even as she spoke, Elga held out a sheet of paper she had prepared in advance.
"This is the list of everyone I've identified so far. I couldn't pin down a few, but this should be enough. Groups of people tend to fall apart on their own once you persuade just a handful of them."
"Thank you, Lady Elga."
"It's nothing. If anything, I should apologize. The Grand Duchy officially decided not to make an issue of it, yet a pack of hangers-on are sticking their noses in. Under normal circumstances I would have handled it myself."
"But that wouldn't be easy for you either. Self-proclaimed or not, they still follow your older brother—the legitimate son of the Litorio Grand Duchy. The moment you strike them down, it becomes open war."
At Kyle's words, Elga's eyes curved faintly. Then she began studying the man seated across from her with a truly remarkable look.
"Sharp. Have John Nassen people always been like this? I don't think so."
"Rumors always twist in the strangest directions."
"Or maybe not. For example, maybe you're simply special."
He was special, all right. The contents of his body did not originally belong here.
"Was the merchandise satisfactory?"
Kyle nodded at Elga's question. A list of this quality was more than enough. All that remained was to go find them and do the persuading himself.
"Then I can state my own demands now, yes?"
Sip.
Elga brought the teacup to her lips with an elegant, almost antique grace. After savoring the tea, she said,
"I need you. Kyle John Nassen. I'd like to make use of you a little."
"Make use of me."
"It's simple. You get to attend the Academy in peace, and I get to accomplish what my second older brother could not. Something like that."
Lean.
She tilted her body slightly forward and delivered a proposal he could not refuse.