A Simple Little Chat
"Are you out of your mind?"
"...Does something hurt?"
"Huh...?"
Ah. Right. Seol had lost her memories. Then that answer made perfect sense. A transfer student suddenly announcing that he was her master—of course she would take him for a lunatic.
"...I shall put it another way. From this moment on, I am your master."
"I don't need a master."
"...What?"
What? She didn't need a master...?
Cheon Hwi lowered his eyes very slowly, then lifted them to Seol again. As if he were opening a drawer of old memories, his gaze traveled back and forth between past and present. The child of long ago, who knew nothing and snatched up any blade she saw just to swing it. The child who caught his sleeve in those small hands and begged him to teach her, to tell her more. The child who pestered her master every single day, demanding nothing but spars. And that child was telling him now that she had no need of a master?
He must have misheard. Yes. There was no world in which Seol would say she didn't need a master. He had misheard. Surely.
"What did you say...?"
"I don't need a master."
But Seol's words only drove home how wrong that hopeful thought had been.
"Heh..."
The laugh that left him was hollow to the point of emptiness.
"...Very well. If that is what you say, there is nothing to be done."
He could not drag a disciple along by force when she wanted none of it. That would satisfy no one but Cheon Hwi himself, and to burden a disciple for the sake of one's own satisfaction was to fail as a human being long before one failed as a master.
And Hyeon? Hyeon, at least, had shown a minimum of interest. She had come when he called her, and her first refusal had been fear of him, not any hatred of training. Had she truly wanted no part of it, she would have run by now. Seol, though, showed not a shred of interest, nor of passion. She gave the impression of attending simply because she had enrolled, and that was all.
"Do you not wish to grow stronger?"
He asked it barely, clinging to one last thread of hope. If she denied him here, he would not take Seol as his disciple. The bond of their past life he could not abandon, but the bond of master and disciple—that much, he would let go. Weighed in that light, the question was anything but light.
Seol said nothing. She only looked straight at him. Her gaze seemed endlessly empty, and yet within that emptiness something flickered, small as an ember.
"...If I get strong."
Her lips parted, just a little. Strangely, Cheon Hwi smiled—not the cruel smile he had worn before, but something that looked, for once, sincere. He stepped slowly toward her, and even as the distance closed, Seol did not give a single step of ground.
"If I get strong... can I protect them?"
The question slipped out of her before she knew she had asked it. She did not even know what she meant to protect, or whom. Even so, Cheon Hwi nodded without a moment's hesitation.
"Yes. Grow strong, and you will surely be able to protect them. I will see to it that you do."
At that, Seol's eyes widened, just a fraction. For a moment she was silent. Then she nodded.
"...Teach me."
Just those few words. And yet, to Cheon Hwi, no speech in the world could have been a sweeter yes.
"As you should. You have not changed, after all..."
He broke into a laugh and laid a hand on her shoulder. To a stranger, the scene might have seemed endlessly warm—moving, even.
It ought to be touching. So why does my stomach twist like this...
Watching from behind, Hyeon felt her insides knot for no good reason.
Right. Rotten or not, she's still a friend. It's because she's about to suffer.
Betrayal or not, a friend was a friend. Who could enjoy watching one walk into hell of her own accord?
We'll have to survive it together...
Hyeon resolved, then and there, to treat Seol—her fellow inmate of the same hell—a little better than usual.
"Good. Seol. Shall we begin with a spar?"
Cheon Hwi lifted his hand from her shoulder and took one step back. Anyone looking on would have seen nothing but a heartwarming picture: a master and disciple about to begin their first lesson.
"All right."
Seol accepted at once.
Come to think of it, Seol never saw the spar...
She had never actually watched a match against Cheon Hwi. Indifferent to the world as she was, she would never have gone merely to watch a transfer exam, and she had not seen Hyeon fight him either. She had only heard that Hyeon, first of the Swordsmanship Faculty, had lost, assumed the man must be strong, and come looking to be taught.
I should help her. At least that.
From now on they would train side by side—classmates, and friends. A one-on-one against Cheon Hwi was impossible. If they had to face him anyway, two against one was the better bargain. With that thought, Hyeon reached for her sword—
"Ah. Hyeon. You may go. In exchange, tomorrow we will—no. Tomorrow I must attend formal classes myself, so I shall come find you."
The instant permission to leave left his mouth, that noble resolve of hers vanished as if it had never been, and she started slipping away. Friendship? Camaraderie? You had to be alive to keep either of those. She didn't care to drag up old memories, but Seol had already abandoned her once. So once from her side ought to be fine, shouldn't it? Yes. It would be fine. Look—Seol wasn't even saying anything. Her eyes seemed to tremble a little, but that was surely imagination.
"Hang in there, Seol!"
With that brief call, Hyeon left the training ground without a shred of regret.
"So... are you all right?"
Hyeon was doing her very best to soothe Seol's sulk. It wasn't exactly that she had done something wrong... No. She had. If offering a person up to a demon—and not some lesser demon, but a Demon King descended upon the mortal world—was not a wrong, then the word itself would not exist.
"You knew, didn't you...?"
"I knew, yes..."
Knew? She had done more than know. She had been the first to suffer it. But she did not add that. The moment she did, Seol's anger would only climb.
"But you seemed fine, Seol... sorry."
She tacked the apology on in a hurry. Seol only folded her arms and turned her head. The corners of her mouth sank; the corners of her eyes rose. The classic sulk.
"Still... you held up on your own, didn't you? You're strong."
Yes. Who was Seol? Second in the Swordsmanship Faculty. The faculty was small and looked down upon, but ranking second there was hardly an easy thing.
"Hyeon."
"Y-yeah?"
"What rank are you?"
"...First."
But the moment the one saying it was first place, those words stopped being comfort and worry and became condescension and pity.
"Hmph."
"..."
Yeah. I definitely messed this up.
The Seol Hyeon had known until now was an emotionless person who would offer anything if it made her stronger, so she had thought it would be fine. If even that Seol was acting like this, she could imagine just how grueling Cheon Hwi's training had been. The one mercy was—
"Next time, we do it together."
So she wasn't running from the training, and she wasn't truly angry? If she had been, she wouldn't be eating with her at all, and she wouldn't have spoken to her in the first place.
"Let's."
Knowing that much of Seol's heart, Hyeon agreed, and the thread between them held. And so, in the very moment a quarrel and a reconciliation unfolded between the two disciples—
"You look well enough."
"......!!"
Both of them whipped their heads around. There stood a man with a meal tray in one hand and a teacup in the other, the sun blazing at his back, smiling. Cheon Hwi.
"I worried you might be suffering, yet here you are, perfectly fine. What a relief."
Were his eyes just knots in a board? They were practically collapsed over their rice, and he called that perfectly fine?
"Why are you here already...?"
Hyeon asked.
"Hm? Did I not say yesterday that I would come?"
That had been real? She hadn't exactly thought he was lying, but she had at least expected him after classes ended, the way he had come the day before. She had even laid a trap to land one solid blow on him once school was out, and all of that effort had just gone up in smoke. Her ill will toward Cheon Hwi piled a little higher. Oblivious to every bit of it, he set the tray down in front of the two of them.
"Today I thought we might share a meal, and a simple little chat."
A chat? She had thought the only things worth sharing with this man were a fist and a few heartfelt curses. And even when the word chat did leave his mouth, it usually came after someone had already fainted.
"Conversation over a meal is an ordinary thing between master and disciple."
He said it as if to settle their doubts. He lifted his spoon. Quietly, he took a mouthful of rice. Nothing happened.
...For now.
Was it not said that a storm is calm before it breaks? Hyeon and Seol felt it at the same time. This was the lull before the storm. And Cheon Hwi had never once betrayed his disciples' expectations—not in the good sense.
"I received a professor's permission. I shall be the one to teach you."
"What?"
What was he saying? Teach? Who—him? Them? No—what? He had gone so far as to get a professor's permission for it? The rush of information left them unable to gather their wits. The only one who did not look surprised was Seol. She alone.
No way.
"Seol... don't tell me... you told him where we were?"
Right. He had only said he would come find them. No one had ever told him where they were, or sent word. For him to find them this easily in an academy so vast...
"Can I ask just one thing—no, two...?"
Unable to believe her own theory, Hyeon looked to him for the answer.
"What is it? Ask."
"First. How did you know we were here?"
"Hm? Did Seol not tell you? She said that once she had gathered all of you today, she would let me know where you were."
"That's right. Cheon Hwi teaches well. You can get stronger too, Hyeon. Let's do it together."
They were already doing it together, more or less... So Seol wanted training even harsher than this. If she was going to hell, she could go alone. Why drag a friend with her? A lie, surely. Yes. How could a friend haul her into hell? It had to be one of Seol's cute little acts of spite.
"Seol is correct. From now on, you train with me in earnest."
But those words only confirmed that Seol had not been lying.
Had she felt sorry toward Seol? Sorry, her ass. Wrong as it had been to offer a person to a demon, for that person to fall and come back seeking revenge on the one who offered her—this wasn't some novel. Well. What was done was done, and giving up on it made life easier. She didn't hate training all that much to begin with. If it could make her stronger, what couldn't she endure? What mattered was the second question.
"Second. How did you persuade the professor?"
Despised as the Swordsmanship Faculty was, the title of professor at Elysia Academy was not something a man could win on a bet. And such a professor would hand other students' classes over to a transfer student? Tell that to anyone and you'd be called a madman, with nothing to say in your defense—and the professor in question would be stripped of the post besides.
And Professor Lawrence? What of him? Yesterday, once school was over, call it extra study and a professor had neither pretext nor reason to step in. That much, she could understand. But taking regular classes in the professor's place—how in the world had he talked anyone into that?
"Hahaha. You ask after something of no use at all."
Useless? To her, that was the most important part! She had no idea how he had done it, but if she only learned the method, persuading him to let them sit through ordinary academy classes might not be impossible...
"I told the professor of my methods and showed them to him directly. He wept, and told me to proceed."
"Bullshit."
To be fair, though. She had endured him for a single day, but given the character she had seen yesterday, he would never have asked nicely.
"Tell me the truth. How did you persuade him?"
"No, it really is—"
"Say it properly!"
Hyeon refused to believe him and kept pressing for a straight answer, and Cheon Hwi could not get a word in.
What does she even want me to say properly!
Unbelievable as it would be to Hyeon, nothing he had said was false. He had truly gone to the professor, shown his lessons and his methods in person, and persuaded the man with nothing but his own tongue. For one month only, of course. There was no reason to mention that. Who knew what would happen if he did.
"You didn't hit the professor, did you?"
"...Hyeon? What did you say?"
The professor might be younger than he truly was, but as he stood now he was nothing but a child. The instant he struck a professor, his neck would come off—socially or physically—and he was not about to do any such thing.
"Hyeon. There is some misunderstanding..."
He opened his mouth in a rush to explain, but Hyeon, already certain her conclusion was the truth, ignored every excuse and kept driving at him.
"You! Do you even know who we are?"
"..."
"Out of nowhere you start treating me like your disciple! I keep telling you I'm your senior, and you hit me and say I'm not!"
"That..."
"I'm not finished! Fine! I'll accept that you won't treat me as your senior! I'll even accept that you're strong enough to teach us! But hitting a professor?! Are you in your right mind?!"
"Eh...?"
"Don't you have any sense of rank at all?!"
...That professor doesn't look a day over sixty, even at the outside. Am I not the elder here?
No. No. That was not the point. He hadn't hit the professor. Cheon Hwi tried to broadcast his grievance with his entire body, but it did not reach Hyeon, who had already settled on the answer.
"...What do we do about the professor?"
Hyeon spoke first.
"Apologize."
Did Seol believe it too? Eyes narrowed, she told him to apologize. In the midst of it, Cheon Hwi raised a hand, tentative.
"Now, you two...? I told you, I did not hit him."
At that single line, both disciples' eyes fixed on him.
"And he calls that an excuse..."
Hyeon and Seol despaired. He would not even admit the fault. Nothing but excuses.
"...Should we run?"
She had no intention of skipping the training itself, but surely they ought to wait until he apologized to the professor, or until the eyes on them died down, or something.
"Agreed."
Seol sided with her.
"...Haah. Enough. You will not listen, no matter what I say. And do not think of running. From now on, I will come to train with you."
"And what is that supposed to mean?"
Hyeon asked.
"I will be waiting there before you. I will leave you no gap to flee."
"...That's a stalker."
She whispered it in a voice that was nearly a sob. Cheon Hwi heard her, smiled brightly, and took a sip of tea. The sun at his back blazed all the brighter. But in the disciples' hearts, the warmth of that sunlight rushed in like the chill of a dungeon.
"Well then, our simple little chat ends here. From today, let us begin lessons in earnest. Ask Seol where."
And so, the moment Cheon Hwi left, a class of madness and despair was sealed. No sooner had he gone than the world around them began to warp. The air, so calm a breath ago, pressed down heavy as the reek of blood on a battlefield. Hyeon shouted.
Truly, a madman's measure always soared far beyond the measure of the world.