What Was Bound to Come Has Arrived... Too Soon
What was bound to come had finally arrived… but far too soon?
Kyle’s daily life had not changed much even after the academy raid.
Lectures, meals, workouts—every part of his routine held the same steady rhythm as before.
Even his minor rule-breaking stayed carefully within acceptable limits.
Ice cream today, a mayonnaise-based sauce tomorrow—that sort of thing.
What had changed could be boiled down to two main points.
First was the way people looked at Kyle—or rather, the look in their eyes.
“Um… so, would it be all right if I worked out here with you?”
“Go ahead. Why are you asking me? Just do it.”
Because he had been camping out in the indoor training hall for so long, every student who walked in felt the need to ask permission.
Whether they themselves might be allowed to exercise here a little.
It wasn’t just the freshmen; even upperclassmen who had enrolled earlier were asking the same thing.
As a result, Kyle had the strong impression that he had somehow become the gym’s unofficial keeper—or an NPC.
Why the hell are they all watching my face for cues?
Having more people in the gym was inconvenient, no question. But inconvenience was one thing; more people deciding to train their bodies was another matter entirely, and a good one.
Maybe everyone had been too busy at the start of the term and was only now getting around to working out.
While he was at it, he might as well request an expansion of the gym and a few more pieces of equipment.
The academy owed the John Nassen family a massive debt; they would probably agree to at least that much, he thought.
And then Kyle once again devoted himself with manic intensity to his true calling—which is to say, he lifted iron.
“Hoo! Hoo!”
As if the stares around him did not exist, Kyle sank into his own private routine.
The female students watching him sent glances full of admiration. The male students, stirred by the sight of a powerful male in his element, began to harbor that perfectly natural instinct: I want to be like that too!
The old looks that had treated him like some kind of monster had almost completely vanished.
A few still shot him those kinds of glances, of course, but they were now very few in number.
The fact that he had single-handedly subdued every last intruder who broke into the academy was, after all, the biggest reason. Add to that the rumors that he had connections not only to a grand duchy but to the imperial family itself, and people’s attitudes had clearly shifted.
The second change was that his to-do list had suddenly ballooned.
Especially the personal training sessions—something he had never once imagined when he first came to the academy.
“This time I’m definitely bringing it down.”
Ian declared it with bold confidence.
“Yeah, right.”
Kyle smiled as if the whole idea were laughable.
“Grrraaaaah!!”
“…Time’s up.”
Once again, the winner was—of course—Kyle.
“Just a little more! Just a little more!!”
“Move.”
With a casual flick of his arm, Ian went flying limply once more.
He no longer ended up covered in dust and looking completely undignified the way he used to, but the pitiful result was the same.
“What the hell is this….”
Ian, sprawled on the floor again today, spoke in a voice thick with disbelief.
He already knew Kyle’s strength was no joke—that Kyle was stronger than him. Leaving aside the fact that the man was the second son of the John Nassen barony, as a swordsman Ian could roughly gauge the gap. In an all-out fight, he himself was nothing to Kyle.
But this wasn’t an all-out fight.
It wasn’t even half-strength. Kyle was simply standing there with one arm raised.
If you can lower this arm, I’ll spar with you for real. The condition was almost pure insult.
At first Ian had thought it was nothing more than a pure provocation.
Only after hanging off that arm for days did he finally understand.
It wasn’t an insult. It wasn’t even a taunt. Kyle was simply stating a fact.
That Ian was so weak there was nothing to be gained by actually fighting him.
“Still, it’s gotten a little harder. About this much.”
Kyle held his fingers a tiny distance apart. At this point Ian could no longer tell whether that was another jab or genuine encouragement.
Still sitting on the floor, Ian let out a long sigh and slowly got to his feet.
He had thought his strength was enough by now. Apparently he had been wrong.
It seemed the world was crawling with people far stronger than the likes of him.
If Kyle, who had only just reached adulthood, was already at this level… just how monstrous were the Empire’s top ten powerhouses?
“Next. Leto. You’re ready, right?”
“I’m always ready, but….”
Leto, wound tight with tension, looked at Kyle and thought of exactly one word.
Devil!
Kyle insisted he was only tapping lightly—barely touching him at all.
To Leto it felt like being struck with a club.
And whether on purpose or not, the spots Kyle hit never left a visible mark.
So even though Elga saw Leto every day, she had no idea what was being done to him.
“Hoo!”
Just as Leto braced with everything he had, determined to resist that universal weakness known as pain—
Squelch.
“Ghk!”
Today it wasn’t even a fist. A single simple massage sent Leto straight to the floor.
Of course it wasn’t a simple massage. Ian himself had once had a shoulder blade cracked by one of those “massages.”
“….”
Perhaps the memory came back to him; Ian’s body gave a little twitch as he watched Leto. Then he gingerly rubbed his own shoulder, clearly recalling the experience.
“Severe lack of willpower, Leto.”
“Kh… th-this has nothing to do with willpower! People are hard-wired to react to pain—!”
“Then when Lady Elga is in danger, I suppose you’ll run away early because it might hurt.”
For Leto, Elga was both the panic button and the calm button at the same time.
Kyle still had no idea how a guy like this was supposed to open his heart to anyone, but one thing was certain: Leto was a genuinely loyal secretary to his future boss.
“Neither of you has changed a bit. Frustrating.”
With men, a little pride-pricking stimulation worked better than pure encouragement every time.
At those words he could feel the fire flaring up again in both Ian and Leto.
Of course, expecting real progress after less than a week was strange to begin with.
As he left the training area, Kyle muttered to himself.
They’re holding up better than I expected. Leto too, but especially Ian.
Ian was the type who would feel wronged if anyone claimed to be prouder than him. And because he was the original protagonist, he came with that signature arrogance as a package deal.
In that situation, being told not even to win a fight but merely to force one arm down…
With only a little exaggeration, it was like calling a John Nassen weak. Wait, maybe that was going too far.
Anyway, it was the kind of statement that turned a man’s stomach inside out.
Yet Ian was enduring it, doggedly trying to pull Kyle’s arm down.
Hanging on like some kind of cicada, huffing and puffing in the most undignified way possible.
I hope this kills off at least some of that aggro-magnet skill of his. Please.
Quite a bit of time had already passed since the semester properly began.
Kyle simply hadn’t been paying attention, but Ian had caused a remarkable number of incidents in that span.
Especially that cursed mouth of his; it had earned him a lot of hatred from every direction.
“I have no idea what he’s even trying to do!”
Just a few days earlier Tisha had pounded her chest in pure frustration.
She wanted to ignore him completely, but Ian kept hovering around her.
People were already starting to wonder, What’s going on between those two? And while he did that, he kept causing trouble, putting the social capital Tisha had carefully built at risk.
“Student Kyle John Nassen.”
Suddenly the black-clad men he hadn’t seen in a while appeared in front of him.
“…Ah. It’s been a while. You disappeared for a stretch there.”
“Not seeing each other is better for both of us. Could you come with us for a moment?”
Unlike the first time, they were being extremely polite.
Apparently they were at least giving him the minimum courtesy for having protected the academy.
Or maybe they were simply terrified of ending up with full-body paralysis themselves.
“Again, out of nowhere? And for the record, I really haven’t done anything this time.”
“We know.”
“We’re not here because of something you did. It’s simply a matter connected to you.”
That sounded like the same thing, but whatever.
Still tilting his head in confusion, Kyle quietly followed them.
He had nothing to feel guilty about, so he was confident—and because he was confident, he figured anything was fine.
“We have brought him.”
The wording had been upgraded from “we brought him” to “we have brought him.”
Well, how moving, Kyle was muttering to himself when the headmaster’s voice from beyond the door told them to come in.
Wondering what this was about, Kyle stepped into the headmaster’s office—
“…Oh.”
—and had to blink hard, a short breath of astonishment escaping him.
Familiar faces and completely unfamiliar ones were mixed together in the room.
“Minister?”
“Come in, Kyle.”
It was the Minister of Education. No doubt about it. A man that busy had come in person instead of using a magic communication orb.
Beside him stood two more people wearing similar official attire.
“Allow me to introduce them. This gentleman handles Special Affairs, and this one is from Internal Affairs.”
“So… both of you are also ministers?”
The Minister of Education nodded.
What the hell is this? Why are ministers suddenly raining down from the sky?
And not just any ministers—the Minister of Internal Affairs, said to be far busier than Education, and the Minister of Special Affairs, whose organization was supposedly the most secretive after the Imperial Household itself, had both come looking for him.
It was a situation he had never imagined, and Kyle could not hide his bewilderment.
“Have a seat for now.”
When the Minister of Education offered a chair, Kyle settled into it.
A quick glance around the room told him the atmosphere was extremely serious.
What on earth is going on?
Figuring it was better to just ask, Kyle was about to open his mouth when—
“Student Kyle John Nassen.”
The one who spoke first was the Minister of Internal Affairs, a gentlemanly figure wearing glasses.
“One question. Has any letter arrived from your family?”
“A letter…? No. Nothing’s come.”
“Is that so? Hmm. I see. Understood.”
And with that the Minister of Internal Affairs fell silent again.
Kyle was about to ask what this was all about when—
“Just yesterday your older brother and sister entered the central region of the Empire.”
“…What?”
“They will probably reach the academy soon. That is why we are asking. Do you know anything?”
Unlike the previous speaker, the Minister of Special Affairs had a sharp, piercing presence as he asked the question.
Kyle thought, Is that it? and at the same time, Does that even make sense?
I only sent the letter to the family five days ago. Even if they left the moment they received it, the distance from the John Nassen barony to the academy takes this little time? Is that even possible?
When he himself had traveled to the academy it had taken well over ten days.
Granted, Tisha and Ian had been with him, but they had never dawdled. In fact, people had told him that pace was already quite fast.
So even if someone from the barony was coming, he had assumed it would take at least a week no matter how quickly they moved…
“Wait, wait a second. You’re saying my brother and sister are already this close?”
“So it would seem. Being nobles, of course, they never have trouble with the roads. That is how they reached the central region so quickly. They were so fast that even we in Special Affairs failed to detect them in time.”
“….”
“When we sent people to check, they claimed that as far as they were concerned, they had been taking it slow.”
A distance that took anyone else well over ten days even at top speed—
These two siblings had covered it in five days while insisting they were traveling slowly.