Taking Charge of the Trash Class

"That's how the Empire's standard education works. They only treat you like a person if you've got a massive mana pool, if you can recite the standard formulas by the book, if you can perfectly mimic the knight orders' textbook footwork.

Anyone whose circuits run a little too thick, or whose flow is a little too warped — they get branded defective and shoved aside. But you know better, don't you? You know how helplessly that so-called standard shatters on a real battlefield."

"......"

Roderick lifted his teacup and gazed out at the decaying campus beyond the window. I already knew the real reason he'd called me here had nothing to do with rescuing a handful of failing students.

Six years had passed since the Demon King fell, and reports of ominous residual mana stirring once more around the Abyssal Gate in the north had begun leaking through the Magic Tower and the military black markets. What he needed was someone who could raise genuine battlefield assets — not hothouse elites — in preparation for the chaos ahead.

I signed the bottom of the contract. Not out of any grand sense of duty. I simply wanted to prove to myself that this life of mine — the one that had been thrown out empty-handed — had not frozen in place at the moment I killed the Demon King and handed everything over.

"I'll start classes tomorrow."

The faculty office assigned to Special Remedial Course Class 7 was buried in the basement of the old annex, a long walk from the main building. A film of dust coated the tarnished brass nameplate by the door. When I pushed it open and stepped inside, the smell of aged parchment and damp mold hit me full in the face. The cramped room held nothing but two creaking wooden desks and a bookshelf packed tight with magical texts.

And from one of those desks, a silver-gray-haired woman who'd been buried in paperwork snapped her head up.

Her hair was tied up neatly. Silver-rimmed spectacles. A deep navy teaching assistant's gown. The sharp jawline, the severe set of her mouth, and the clear eyes flashing behind those glasses all announced, at a glance, a thoroughgoing stickler for principle.

"Professor Hagen Kern, I presume?"

She rose from her seat and dipped her head in a slight bow. The motion was economical, but the wariness and suspicion underneath it were unmistakable.

"I am Mariel Hartman. I'll be serving as your dedicated teaching assistant."

"Hagen."

I gave a vague wave and set my leather bag on the empty desk across from hers. Mariel's eyebrows twitched. She dropped the thick leather binder she'd been holding onto my desk with a thud.

"I was informed you were appointed on the Headmaster's special recommendation. However, Professor — may I speak frankly?"

"Go ahead."

"Over the past year, I have submitted countless curriculum revisions to keep Class 7 from being dissolved. I have even sacrificed my own thesis topic trying to keep these students from being expelled. And yet the homeroom professor assigned to us on the eve of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the semester is someone the Empire has certified as Rank 4. I find that difficult to accept — regardless of how impressive your past may have been."

Her tone was impeccably polite. The content was pure distrust. Maybe she believed the ugly rumors circulating about me.

From her position, it was fair enough. A valedictorian of Arcadia, grinding out research credentials in a desperate bid for a full professorship — of course she wouldn't look kindly on some guy who'd ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠rolled in on the Headmaster's connections. And the class that guy was supposed to teach was one semester away from being shut down if it didn't produce results.

"If you secured this post through the Headmaster's old connections, I would advise you to resign now — before you ruin these children's lives. The students here are not simply underperforming failures. They are severe defectives whom the entire faculty has washed their hands of."

"Defectives?"

I dragged a chair over, dropped into it, and opened the student roster she'd brought.

"Yes. Take the first student, Lucien Bell. In raw mana capacity, he ranks first among all fourth-years — but he's been diagnosed with mana control disorder. He can't even complete a standard 1st-Circle Formula like a basic fireball or a shock bolt. The magic circle detonates mid-cast. Last semester alone, he blew up three practice rooms. Four students were injured as a result."

Mariel recited it without a hitch, as if reciting a memorized exam question. A deep furrow had settled between her brows.

"We applied every orthodox control-training method the Magic Tower has. None of it worked. He simply lacks the sense to finely split and refine his mana. There is no method left to teach him."

I studied the mana measurement graph and circuit diagram attached to Lucien Bell's file.

Battlefield Eye. Eyes that had spent eighteen years watching nothing but the reasons people lived and died on a battlefield. That was all they were.

Through those eyes, the way this kid's circuits twisted, where the mana flow jammed and where it burst — all of it stood out as clearly as the shape of a river. Mariel was right, from the Empire's standard point of view. This kid was a defective product, plain and simple. A typical mage's circuits spread out fine and dense, like a quiet stream. His were thick and crude, like a massive vein of magma.

Teaching someone with circuits like that to weave the Empire's standard 1st-Circle Formula with precision was no different from stuffing a palm-sized sandbag into a dam whose floodgates had already burst, and expecting it to hold the water back. Of course the mana overflowed, crushed the formula, and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠exploded.

"It's not that his control is bad."

I tapped the papers as I muttered it, half to myself. Mariel stared at me like she couldn't believe her ears.

"I beg your pardon? What did you just say?"

"The ordinary magic circles just can't handle his mana output. The vessel's too big — he's pouring water into a thin glass and watching it shatter. The formulas blow because you're forcing him to cram them into something too intricate. Wipe them all out."

"Wipe them out? If you simplify the formulas, precision and output control collapse entirely! That directly contradicts the Magic Tower's standard theory!"

"Why do you need precision to put someone down in a fight? They get hit, they explode. Done."

"Professor!"

Mariel's voice jumped an octave. A flush of indignation colored her pale cheeks.

"That is not education — that is military-style violence, nothing more! An academy is supposed to teach students safe, systematic magical theory. Methods that extreme could permanently destroy a student's future circuits!"

"Isn't it pretty much the same thing?"

I answered dryly and turned the page.

The second sheet bore the name Erin Cardia, along with a sparring evaluation from the swordsmanship department.

But the moment I looked at the motion analysis chart attached below the sparring records, a completely different picture formed in my eyes.

Traces of her already backing three steps before the opponent even drew their sword. Of throwing her entire center of gravity into blocking a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠feint and toppling over. This wasn't sluggishness or dullness. It was the opposite. She was reading her opponent's preparatory movements and killing intent too fast, too deep — the volume of information in her head was outrunning her body's reaction speed and overloading it.

You take a kid whose eyes see the future too quickly, and you teach her a standard defensive form that requires watching the opponent's blade all the way through before she parries. Of course her body breaks down.

"This one needs to throw out defense entirely."

"...Hah."

Mariel pressed her fingers to her temple and let out a long sigh. She'd clearly decided I was no longer merely an incompetent parachute hire — I was a dangerous lunatic operating entirely outside common sense.

"Very well. I shall observe whether that... original theory of yours actually holds up in tomorrow's first class. For your information, I have already posted a notice gathering all students in the old annex Class 7 lecture hall at 8:30 a.m. The Third Training Ground is reserved from 9:00. I cannot, however, guarantee the attendance rate."

"They'll attend. If they don't show, I'll grab them by the collar and drag them in."

I closed the student roster and pulled an old pocket watch from my coat. The second hand ticked with a heavy, solid sound.

Mariel stared at me with a look of utter incredulity, then offered a chilly farewell — as if she'd decided I wasn't even worth arguing with — and returned to her desk. The sharp scratch of a quill on parchment filled the cramped basement office.

I looked out the window. Dusk had already begun to bleed red across the decaying campus.

The better I raised people, the more the world's arithmetic — the kind built on standards and specifications — wrote me off as useless. It had been exactly the same even in the days when I'd cut down the Demon King and become a hero.

In that case, there was only one way forward.

Carve every last one of these kids they'd discarded as defective into monsters — and smash the perfect standard they worshipped, from the ground up.

I gathered Lucien Bell and Erin Cardia's files from the desk and slid them into the binder, picturing the faces of those defectives I'd meet tomorrow morning in the old annex lecture hall.