The Walking Textbook - 1
That warm and beautiful sensation of stepping out of the dormitory after so long. A full week. Time at last to return as Inspector Karl Crassius.
You bastard.
And just like that, the warmth vanished. That Crown Prince brat had clearly been buzzing with excitement at the thought of sending this, waiting until the exact moment. Did he have nothing better to do?
Still, they say you should put yourself in the other person's shoes. Imagining the Crown Prince receiving a confinement order from the Emperor and being released today made it a little more understandable. I would have done the same. I can't stand a good teabagging either.
Release, my ass.
At least he could have used normal wording. It was confinement, not imprisonment. He was the one who handed down the confinement order, so why treat it like a jail sentence?
And I couldn't even laugh it off, because one more disciplinary report would turn it into actual imprisonment. Would the capital's prison even be warm?
Even if it were, it would still be colder than my communicator.
As the messages poured in one after another, my communicator grew warm of its own accord. In equal measure, warmth returned to my heart.
Yes. This was the proper way to check on someone. My time at the Academy had not been wasted after all.
People I haven't even known a year are like this.
The headmaster, the vice-headmaster, and Villar—I had only met them in March. The headmaster I had seen occasionally at official imperial functions, but only for the briefest of greetings.
The Crown Prince and I had known each other for a good two years. What the hell was wrong with him?
After reading the 1st Division Chief's message, I quietly put the communicator away.
I was reminded once again that there is always a floor beneath the floor.
I had promised Margeta I would go to her first once the confinement ended. There had been a small contribution from the lecherous devil in the process, but a promise was a promise.
It was a very minor one, yet if I could not even keep something so small, how was I supposed to build trust?
"You really came first?"
"I promised Mar, so of course."
Truthfully, aside from the clubroom, I had nowhere else to go. Margeta seemed to have greatly overestimated the range of my activities.
"Hehe. Thank you."
I could not bring myself to spoil Margeta's pure happiness, so I left the extra remarks unsaid.
"I love seeing you, Karl, but please make sure I never have to come looking for you first."
"I'll do my best."
A request that was half complaint—do not get yourself stuck with something as absurd as Academy confinement again.
I answered that I would try, but honestly it was not something I controlled. The Crown Prince's mental world was beyond mortal comprehension.
Besides, if I ever received ordinary confinement or actual imprisonment, Margeta would want to come and still be unable to.
At least she won't have any reason to come looking.
The prison was in the capital, so as a student Margeta could not even attempt a visit.
In any case, she could not come looking, so it was the classic monkey's-paw granting of a wish. Of course I did not say that out loud either.
We idled away a few more hours before I headed for the clubroom. I had wondered if she might bring up the wife talk again like yesterday, but nothing of the sort came up. Still puzzling. Why had that subject suddenly appeared in the first place?
My steps toward the clubroom felt light. Today was the day Older Brother was finally released.
No—not released. Just the end of confinement. Ryutis kept calling it a release, so now I was saying it too.
I can't make a mistake.
In front of Older Brother, who still seemed bitter about having been confined at all, talking about "release" would only wound him further. I absolutely could not do that.
Making a slip at our long-awaited reunion would be too embarrassing. True, I had gone to see him every day, but seeing him in the clubroom was a different feeling entirely.
Meeting just the two of us was nice. Even so, the clubroom was filled with memories of Older Brother, so it felt even more special.
"A week goes by fast."
While I was steeling my resolve, Erich spoke beside me in a listless tone.
I could not help shooting him a sidelong glare. Even if Older Brother had not received some severe punishment or been in real danger, that was far too indifferent a thing to say.
"Erich, did you ever go see Older Brother?"
A question about whether he had fulfilled his duty as family.
When I thought about it, this whole mess had started because Erich had named Older Brother as a participant in the four-man match. When Ryutis had fainted, Erich had at least looked sorry.
"I was going to, but I changed my mind and didn't."
The look in Erich's eyes as he said it was somehow bitter.
"Wherever he is, he went and told Mother every little thing."
"Every little thing?"
"The story about the second son getting dumped."
This time it was my turn to quietly lower my gaze. Because the one who had done the dumping was me.
And if Mother looked at me with pity after learning I had been rejected by Older Brother Karl, I thought my heart might tear in two. Of course I would not have the courage to face the person who had told Mother unnecessary things.
Older Brother went too far.
This one really was Older Brother's fault. Even for him, it was a mistake I could not defend.
But something felt off. Erich said he had talked about getting dumped?
...How much did he tell her?
A chill ran down my spine. If he had simply said Erich had been rejected, Mother might have thought of it as nothing more than a pity. But if he had also said who did the rejecting?
I would become, in Older Brother's mother's eyes, "the young lady who dumped the second son." And that same young lady would then declare she wanted to become the eldest son's wife.
Wow.
A sigh escaped on its own. What kind of situation even was that? I could at least tell that the odds of Mother disliking me would be high.
Please let it not be so. Please let Older Brother not have gone into that much detail.
"Looks like he's here."
At Erich's words I hurriedly lifted my head. Light spilling through the clubroom window.
Strange. Until a moment ago I had wanted so badly to see Older Brother, yet now I felt a little reluctant.
The tension filling my chest settled the instant I saw him.
"Older Brother."
"Ah, you're here?"
Seeing him wave and greet me, a small smile formed on my lips.
Right. What was the point of fretting now? If Older Brother had told Mother everything in detail, I simply needed to work harder on my image from here on. If he had not, all the better.
Stop overthinking.
Honestly, my relationship with Older Brother was still barely crawling along. I was looking too far ahead.
A sad assessment to make about myself, but I was trying to run before I could walk.
"Ryutis came, but you never even showed your face."
"I sent a gift instead. You said you got it from Ryutis."
"You prepared that too?"
"I bought the box."
When I looked at Older Brother again, he was having some strange verbal sparring with Erich. He would not normally act like that. He must have been terribly bored while locked up.
Several days had passed since the end of my confinement. Still nothing special had happened.
At this point I was starting to feel uneasy. Just how big an incident was brewing while gathering its strength?
The quiet makes it scarier.
In this world there exists a law of conservation of overwork. Either you rest now and later get worked like a dog, or you get worked at a moderate intensity all the time. Either way, the quota must be filled.
So this peace was a kind of calm before the storm. At least it had not led to a situation where we found out who the weaklings were, which was a mercy.
It'll work out somehow.
I had spent months alone, fretting and living as the Academy's inspector. I seemed to be finally learning how to think positively.
Yes. It would work out somehow. I was not the only civil servant in this Academy.
Thinking that, I took a bite of a cookie and felt my heart grow surprisingly calm.
Thank you, you little bastard of mine.
After thrashing about for months and then serving confinement, I had realized something. What I needed was to set my heart down.
In fact, had the Crown Prince not deliberately taken on the villain's role just to teach me that lesson?
"This is complicated."
"Is it because the names follow a different format from the regular residents?"
A voice shattered that little fantasy of mine.
I turned my gaze and saw the club members, who normally handled flour and eggs, now fiddling with pens instead.
They're having a rough time.
You know the type of teacher—the kind who enjoys springing pop quizzes. The Academy was a place full of people after all, so of course such teachers existed.
Still, the fact that it was announced rather than completely sudden might count as a scrap of mercy. Announcing it the day before the exam did not feel especially merciful, though.
Thanks to that, the members were cramming knowledge as if their feet were on fire. Considering the dignity of royalty and nobility, they simply could not afford low scores.
"Sareitu Dobra Gala? How was this supposed to be interpreted again?"
"It is Gala of the Dobra clan that rules the Sareitu tribe."
"What's the difference between a tribe and a clan again?"
Erich's hollow muttering stirred a solemn feeling in me. Here was the classic image of a university student crushed under assignments.
Of all things, history.
And hearing a familiar name, it seemed to be about the North. I never expected to hear that bastard's name at the Academy.
I watched blankly for a moment, then casually approached the members. I had nothing better to do, and something I actually knew had come up, so I might as well open my mouth.
"Think of a clan as a house. The head is the clan chief."
At those words the members' eyes all locked onto me.
"A group of several such clans is a tribe. Usually the chief of the largest clan becomes the tribal chief. In our terms, something like a territory and its lord."
"Oh."
Erich nodded as if he understood. The names were different, but it was not particularly difficult.
"And you wrote this wrong. Not Sareitu—Saray. Not Gala—Tala."
As a bonus I fixed the typos. Getting the tribe name wrong was one thing, but Gala? Who the hell was Gala? Mr. Gala Show?
Yet even after my kind correction, Erich only blinked.
"Um, Older Brother. The teacher told us it this way..."
"They taught it wrong. The North uses different script, so they must have interpreted it strangely."
I shook my head at Luise, who had been reading the room before speaking up.
I did not know who the teacher was, but did they know better than me? I had even exchanged names with that bastard.
"I am Saray Dobra Tala! Sword of the great Kagan, fury of the wolf!"
Even thinking about it again, it was ridiculous. Running around with a blade stuck in his neck—what kind of lunatic was he?
"Still, you should probably write it the way you were taught. Don't worry about what I said."
"Ah, yes."
It was an interpretation error, but funny all the same. Fury of the Wolf, Mr. Gala Show.
Luise did not seem bothered, but someone else certainly was.
The day after I corrected Gala Show to Tala, some teacher suddenly stormed the clubroom. It was still morning—did this person not have class?
"Inspector! I am truly, truly sorry, but might I have a moment of your time!?"
Yet faced with such blazing passion, I could not refuse.