Walking Textbook - 2
The faces you see in the clubroom never really change. Club members, Margareta, Villar, the occasional vice-principal, and sometimes Irina. Beyond that, hardly anyone ever comes by.
In that sense, the person standing before me was a truly rare new visitor. Should I give him a gift or something?
"I apologize for dropping in so suddenly! But I simply had to seek your advice, Inspector, so I took the liberty of coming here!"
And it seemed this new visitor already knew exactly what gift he wanted from me.
Lucky. I was fretting over how to receive him since I had nothing particular to offer.
"Please, take a seat first. I'll hear what business you have at your leisure."
"Yes, sir!"
I couldn't very well keep a guest standing, so I guided him to a chair.
Word travels fast.
Teacher... no, according to his own introduction, the history teacher Gerhardt was flushed red, as if he had sprinted all the way here.
The comment I let slip to the club members yesterday, a history teacher racing over with his eyes flipped inside out—no matter how I sliced it, it had to be because of the typos I pointed out. There was no other reason for a sudden visit like this.
How did he even hear?
I distinctly told the kids to stick to what they had been taught and not to mind what I said. And yet here we were in under a day? Not even twenty-four hours had passed.
I wondered what on earth had happened that morning, but it hardly mattered. The man who had arrived looked ready to spill everything without me even asking.
"Would it be all right if I call you Gerhardt?"
"Yes! Please, call me whatever you like!"
You, sir, are the one who needs to calm down first.
Thanks to the exquisite blend of fighting spirit and excitement, Gerhardt's voice was truly thunderous. The only other people I had ever heard speak at that volume were ministers—or the Minister of Relief, who used to throw himself on the floor demanding bigger budgets.
"With a single gold coin, every child in an orphanage can eat their fill! With ten, every pauper in a city can pass a warm winter!"
"I understand, so please just go home. I'll give you more if that's what it takes!"
When the two of them started their verbal sparring it was no joke. Though it was less a mutual exchange and more a one-sided assault of conscience from the Minister of Relief.
Anyway, telling someone to calm down in a situation like this only backfires. Time would settle him on its own.
"Very well. So, Gerhardt—you said you wanted my advice?"
I had a fair idea already, but I asked out of courtesy.
Explaining his own business would probably help Gerhardt cool off as well.
History is a noble's cultivation. Knowing what events each nation has weathered and what rises and falls each house has endured—that is only proper for a noble. It is the very foundation of society. The same holds true for commoner students who will often deal with the nobility.
But only that far. As a required subject of refinement, the learning is broad yet never deep. They acquire it as culture; they never cross into a major. That was roughly history's standing.
And even that "current" history was empire-centric. The histories of other nations barely registered.
As for the nomads, need I say more?
The nomads were simply nomads. Beings who wandered the north. Beings who had never once united and thus never formed a meaningful power. Therefore they were unworthy of study; one needed only to note, "Their way of life is like so."
That was the nomads. That was how history regarded them until four years ago.
Then, four years ago, the nomads raised a single power. They bound themselves together, built a system of their own, and faced the empire on their own terms. No longer could one claim the nomads were unworthy of research.
If only we had sources.
The problem was that even those who wished to study them lacked the means. For hundreds—perhaps thousands—of years the academy had not ignored the nomads for nothing.
In truth they had not been worth watching. Yet every so often an eccentric scholar would challenge the subject, waste his time, and come away empty-handed. There had been reasons.
The nomads possessed writing, but it differed by tribe. Worse, the lifespan of any script was short. The nomads themselves had never been diligent record-keepers. Every headache-inducing condition had gathered in one place.
The Gaar tribe had managed to unite the nomads, so for a moment it seemed an age of common writing might dawn—only for them to collapse within two years, before anything could be properly recorded.
I'll just have to tackle it piece by piece.
Just imagining it made me dizzy, but there was no choice. The one who wants it must put in the work.
Of course it was never easy. Records about the nomads were scarce; records left by the nomads themselves were scarcer still. The scripts used in those records varied wildly, and some were no longer even in use.
So I researched truly piece by piece, as if dismantling something. Progress was slow, but I advanced little by little. Honestly I was wrong about a great deal, but at least I was trying.
"Here you are, Teacher."
"Good work."
And then the miracle arrived out of nowhere.
Sarei Dobra Tala?
While skimming the answer sheet Tanian had submitted, my gaze locked. My hands trembled. What I had taught was Sareitu Dobra Gala.
How...?
In truth that name had been one of the ones I agonized over while interpreting. I had wavered between Sarei and Sareitu, finally settled on the latter, and never spoken of the former to anyone.
"Student Tanian. What is this answer?"
"Ah."
At my question Tanian let out a short sound of realization, as if he had made a mistake.
"I'm sorry. I wrote it incorrectly."
The light smile he offered almost made me say, "I see," and move on.
But I could not. This was a chance to gain enormous help for my research and interpretation. Did the Holy Kingdom perhaps keep separate records?
After that I pleaded and pleaded with the Tanian who tried to dodge answers until I finally heard the truth.
Advisor.
Advisor of the Baking Club. Academy Inspector.
Learning the truth sent a chill down my spine—yet the thrill that rose above it was greater. The answer had been so close at hand.
In that moment, a scholar's passion conquered human fear.
Watching Gerhardt speak with such fervor, I almost applauded. The courage to come find me of his own free will just to learn the truth—truly moving.
"Understood. Insofar as my knowledge allows."
"Thank you, truly thank you!"
So I agreed to give what advice I could. A brave man deserved a fitting reward.
Besides, the Emperor had already permitted the names of the Six Swords to spread; there was no need to watch anyone's face. The more people who knew the north well, the faster those fellows' names would travel.
In that case I could help as many times as needed. Endure a little inconvenience and the results would be quite decent.
Only when people know how strong the enemy was does the renown grow.
Guan Yu became famous because he took down the likes of Yan Liang and Wen Chou, didn't he? If he had only beaten the Mu'an Guo or Yang Hong types, he would hardly have been celebrated.
Discussing history in the Baking Club room felt far too unbalanced, so we moved. And in a place I had never seen before, a familiar scent reached me.
This is a professor's research lab.
My head swam for a moment. After transmigration I had escaped that den of horrors by a hair's breadth; I never expected to meet its cousin here.
Worse, someone was wriggling in the corner over there. That was pure university—
"Please, make yourself comfortable! Miss Christina? Would you prepare some tea for our guest?"
"Yeees..."
At that utterly limp voice I nearly closed my eyes. Yes. Exactly the academic slave I had imagined.
Still I deliberately looked away. Those academic slaves who had voluntarily discarded their human rights were hurt most of all by pitying gazes from others.
Why they chose that path I would never know, but they must have had their reasons. I, too, had somehow ended up a public slave, after all.
"I cannot express how glad I am that the Inspector will help us."
"Is that so?"
Gerhardt beamed as he set a stack of papers on the desk. Were all of these sources?
More than I expected.
He had claimed he was starving for sources, so I wondered how bad it was. By scholars' standards, even this counted as sparse?
Reading that look in my eyes, Gerhardt gave an awkward smile.
"Some of these are my personal interpretations, mixed with things Miss Christina produced."
"You must have gone through a great deal of trouble."
Thinking of them wringing non-existent sources into this made me solemn without meaning to. That level of passion could succeed in any field—yet of all things they had chosen this one.
Still, you cannot tell a hardworking person, "Bro, this is a dead-end class. Start over." Besides, the more widely Gerhardt spread the history of the north, the better for me.
I casually picked up part of the paper stack and began scanning page by page. First I would correct every single typo; only then could we discuss anything.
And then something leaped out that made me doubt my own eyes.
"Ah—Gerhardt. This?"
"Ah, that is Miss Christina's thesis. As an assistant teacher she needs to report her academic achievements in her major."
He added that they had spent months on it and the content was rather solid; my lips twitched.
Of all things.
Thinking of it as a master's thesis, I simply could not open my mouth. The moment I uttered a single word, this paper would depart instantly for Enen's side.
"Inspector? Is there some problem...?"
Sensing my hesitation, Gerhardt asked carefully. Christina, who had just arrived with the tea, stared at me with trembling pupils as well.
...Fine. It was a problem that would explode someday. Better it explode before submission than after—that would be far worse.
"This thesis."
I set down the academic slave's—no, the master's—no, Christina's thesis and pointed at the title.
More precisely, I pointed at the two names written on the paper.
Aridu Keja, Udesreu Jairug
They were not typos. To my knowledge those names were correct.
The problem was that the thesis compared the two of them.
"These two are the same person."
"...What?"
Gerhardt's voice came out completely vacant.
—Crash!
Behind Gerhardt came the sound of Christina dropping the tray.
But I did not look.
In truth I had gone blind since yesterday...