The Eye That Sees the Trash Class (2)

Training Ground 3, tucked away in the western corner of Arcadia High Academy, was an outdoor arena where dust blew freely in the wind.

The sand of the floor was cracked and pitted in places, and the surrounding wooden fences creaked, rotted soft by years of rain and sun. Compared to the gleaming indoor marble sparring halls the Central Department and Knight's Department students enjoyed, it was hardly better than a stable — but it was the only official training space ever allocated to Class 7.

Yet when we arrived at the entrance, another group had already claimed the sand.

Pristine white uniforms embroidered with gold thread. Some twenty second-year cadets of the Central Department stood in formation, receiving posture drills. And before them stood a middle-aged man gleaming in silver half-plate, arms crossed with arrogant ease.

Professor Berne, instructor of Practical Magic Combat for the Central Department — an empire-certified 2nd Grade (B-rank) knight and one of the most celebrated orthodox scholars in all of Arcadia.

"Huh? Isn't that the Class 7 trash?"

"It really is. What are they doing here? It's our practical session today."

The Central Department cadets stopped training and began murmuring as they looked our way, their glances laced with naked superiority and undisguised disgust.

Behind me, the footsteps of Lucien, Erin, and Brahm froze heavy in their tracks. Apparently well accustomed to this familiar humiliation, they simply bowed their heads and dropped their eyes to the ground.

Mariel quickly stepped forward and pulled out the schedule documents she'd been clutching to her chest.

"Professor Berne! From nine to eleven this morning, Training Ground 3 is officially reserved for Special Remedial Class 7. The Central Department's schedule is assigned to the afternoon."

Mariel's voice was firm and impeccably polite, but Professor Berne only snorted.

"Ah, Assistant Mariel, is it. The schedule? Yes, I know perfectly well what's written on that scrap of paper. But circumstances have changed. My Central Department students need ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠special supplementary training to prepare for the imperial inspection practicum next week."

"Professor, unauthorized occupation without formal procedure is a violation of academy regulations!"

"Regulations?"

Berne smiled thinly and took a step forward. A faint afterglow of murderous intent bloomed above his breastplate.

"Face reality, Assistant Mariel. Doesn't it strike you as a waste of resources to hand this precious training ground over to a failing class that's going to be dissolved after this semester anyway? Are you seriously asking the empire's future elite to halt their training for a bunch of deadbeats who'll just spend their years inhaling dust?"

Sniggering laughter burst out among the Central Department cadets.

Lucien's fists clenched until her knuckles went white, and the fingers gripping Erin's wooden sword hilt trembled. But neither of them could say a word. To them, the academy's power structure was an unassailable wall — vast and impossible to defy.

Mariel's cheeks flushed crimson with indignation. Just as she opened her mouth again to recite the bylaws, I lightly touched her shoulder and held her back.

"Professor……?"

Mariel looked up at me with startled eyes.

With a perfectly indifferent expression, I strode forward until I stood before Professor Berne. The hem of my worn coat fluttered bleakly in the morning wind.

"You talk a lot."

At my short remark, Berne's eyebrows shot up.

"What was that? Are you the Hagen Kern I've heard about? Hah. So the hero of the Demon King War finally washed up in a place like this."

Berne looked me up and down and let out a derisive smirk.

"The rumors weren't for nothing — that even during the war, you just rode the coattails of Sir Swordmaster and your comrades while collecting credit. Reduced to a measly 4th Grade assessment, and apparently you never even learned basic courtesy. This is no place for a washed-up relic like you to be loitering. Take your brats and clear off to some corner of the old building. Now."

Berne's voice carried the frostbite pressure of killing intent — the full presence of a 2nd Grade imperial knight. The Central Department cadets held their breath, and the color drained from the faces of the Class 7 kids.

Mariel frantically reached out to grab my arm.

"Professor, don't! Berne is a certified 2nd Grade warrior from the knightly orders. The official rank gap is far too wide. Let's go to the headmaster's office first and seek mediation—"

"Move."

Cutting her off, I stared Berne dead in the eyes.

I'd seen that look hundreds of times. The reason people died was always the same.

To my eye, the silver killing intent Berne was spewing out looked like a leak in a crudely soldered pipe.

It glittered impressively, but the axis of the force was grotesquely skewed. The mana circuit running into his right shoulder was crushed far too narrow, bottlenecking every time he pushed his killing intent upward, while the core circuit near his solar plexus swelled under excessive resistance, forced apart by nothing but pointless posturing.

It was the circuit of a textbook hothouse warrior — all surface polish, aping the knightly orders' orthodox forms. If he ran his intent like that in a real battle, the structure would burn itself out from strain alone before a demon's blade ever got close enough to graze him.

"Reservation starts at nine. One minute left. Pack up and get lost."

At my low voice, every sound in the arena died at once.

And right then, the bell rang out, announcing nine o'clock.

Professor Berne's face flushed an ugly mottled red. Being insulted in front of his own students by a washed-up relic with nothing left but a name had apparently stomped his arrogant pride straight into the dirt.

"You insolent has-been……! How dare you run your mouth in front of me!"

BOOM—!

Berne slammed his foot down and seized the hilt of the sword at his waist.

Silver killing intent erupted from his entire body, spiraling up and whipping the dust into a furious storm. Sand leapt from the arena floor in every direction, and the Central Department cadets surged back with a cheer.

"Today, with my own two hands, I'll rip out that arrogant tongue of yours and throw it beyond the academy gates!"

Half-drawing his blade, Berne dragged his killing intent up from his solar plexus toward his shoulder with terrifying force.

Mariel, ashen white, was about to scream.

I didn't draw my sword. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I didn't even consider raising my own intent to clash with his. With a damaged Holy Core, there wasn't a flicker of reason to waste mana on that kind of empty theater. I had neither the time nor the mana to burn on a pointless duel between professors.

Through the swirling dust, I simply took a single step — into the sliver of an opening, the instant before Berne could finish drawing his blade and trace its arc.

"Wha……?"

The sneer vanished from Berne's lips.

Before he could even register it, the index and middle fingers of my right hand pressed down on the bottleneck beneath his right collarbone — the point where his killing intent had knotted and jammed.

And at the same moment, my left palm gave the base of his sternum a light push.

Nothing more than a physical motion, carrying no trace of killing intent — merely pressing down on the critical point of his circuit with raw mechanical force.

But that single, trivial stimulus unleashed a catastrophe inside Berne's body, which had been wringing its killing intent upward by sheer force of will.

"Your right shoulder bottleneck's severe. Your sternum circuit's kinked, too."

My quiet voice lodged itself against Berne's ear.

"Kkh……?!"

CRACK!

Berne's silver killing intent, jammed fast in his shoulder with nowhere to go, reversed its flow and crashed mercilessly back down into his sternum circuit.

It was like a canal valve slamming shut the wrong way — a colossal water pressure blowing the pipes apart from the inside and bursting clean through them.

"PFAAH—!"

Dark red blood fountained from Professor Berne's mouth.

The silver sheen of his killing intent scattered like smoke in an instant, and both his eyes rolled back white. The hand reaching for his sword went limp and lost its grip, and the half-drawn blade clattered back down into its sheath.

Thud.

A 2nd Grade knight certified by the empire, a senior professor of the Central Department, collapsed to his knees and crumpled into the dirt without a single exchange of blades. Wracked, wheezing breaths and raw groans were all that leaked from his mouth ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠as he clutched his chest.

"Kk— hkk…… kkh……!"

Qi blockage.

His own killing intent had crushed his circuits shut from within, leaving him paralyzed — a sorry sight if ever there was one.

A dead-bell silence fell over the training ground.

The only thing that rang clearly was the sound of wind-scattered grains of sand rolling across the floor.

The Central Department cadets trembled like aspen leaves as they stared down at their fallen professor, and from the looks on their faces, not one of them had the faintest idea what had just happened.

He hadn't drawn his sword.

He hadn't cast a single spell.

He'd walked up and given him a tap — and a 2nd Grade knight had been suffocated by his own killing intent, coughing up blood and collapsing.

"……That's impossible."

Assistant Mariel's trembling voice came from behind me.

The file folder slipped from her hands and scattered across the sand. Beyond her silver-rimmed glasses, her face had gone white with shock and disbelief.

For someone who had lived her whole life inside the standard theories of the Magic Tower and the academy, there was no theory anywhere in the world that could explain the scene unfolding before her eyes.

Lucien, Erin, and Brahm were also staring at me with hollow expressions.

In eyes that had been brimming with contempt and self-loathing, something they'd never once felt before was beginning to take root — a strange, tingling awe.

Looking down at the fallen Professor Berne, I brushed the dirt from the toe of my shoe.

"Time's up. Grab your things and drag this trash out with you."

The moment my low voice broke the silence, the Central Department cadets scrambled forward with something close to a scream, hoisting up their frothing professor between them. They fled the training ground in a flustered stampede, glancing back at me as if they'd just seen a monster.

The commotion swept itself away, and a bleak sand-wind was all that stirred through the now-empty Training Ground 3.

I flicked up one of the practice wooden swords the Central Department had left behind with the tip of my boot and caught it in my hand. The rough-hewn wood wrapped heavy and solid against my palm.

"Assistant Mariel."

"Y-yes……? Professor!"

Mariel jolted and scrambled to gather her scattered papers, her fingertips visibly trembling.

"Time's up. Training begins."

Gripping the wooden sword's hilt, I took a step toward the three remedial students still standing there in a daze.

"Lucien. Get up front. That damn water gate of yours — I'm going to smash it to pieces."