Ride Your Steed, Knightly (5)

The next morning we rose early and sat down to breakfast. Olicia hadn't slept a wink — her eyes were bloodshot as she tracked Knightly's every move. Clearly, something about the girl sat very, very poorly with her.

"We'll be heading out, so you get some more sleep. Your eyes look like a rabbit's."

I threw on my cloak and headed for the door, only for Olicia to catch the hem and tug me back.

"Dian, wait a moment."

I sent Knightly on ahead, then stepped back inside. Olicia rose onto her tiptoes and whispered into my ear.

"About that young lady. You need to keep your distance from now on. Be careful."

"Why? What's got you so worked up?"

"This isn't about whether I like her or not. That so-called private tutoring of hers — her intentions look anything but pure."

She went on to tell me that sometime in the night, Knightly had tried to sneak up to my bedroom on the second floor.

"So that's why you slept on the stairs? To keep her from going up?"

"She's probably one of those students who have a crush on you, Dian. She used a consultation as an excuse to come over, then tried to pull something in the middle of the night. If you're not careful, she'll have you by the ankle."

"Hmm. Right."

"Don't you dare take that so casually, Dian!"

Olicia jabbed a finger at me, her voice gone sharp.

"You're not just any professor — you're the Chief Professor. You have to watch even the smallest thing you say and do. Especially when it comes to women. And on top of that, secret private lessons with a girl who isn't even of age yet…"

"Professor! What are you doing? Hurry up!"

Knightly's irritated shout came from outside. I gently pried Olicia's fingers off my ear.

"I heard you. I'll be careful."

"Careful, and then careful again!"

"Yeah, yeah. Last time there was another professor along for the private lesson, and it'll be the same today, so don't worry so much. I'll be back."

Olicia followed us as far as the front door, arms folded, and glared at Knightly with a face full of grievance. Knightly glared right back, not giving an inch.

"Professor. As I told you last time, you really ought to keep a tighter leash on the help."

Knightly opened her mouth as we walked side by side toward the lecture hall.

"From the look of it, that little brat carries on as if she were the lady of the house."

"Lady of the house? What kind of nonsense are you spouting now?"

"You treat her too familiarly, so she has no idea how far she's overstepping."

Knightly glanced back at Olicia, who was still watching us recede into the distance.

"If you leave her like that, she'll be walking all over you someday — and by then, putting her back in her place will be extremely difficult. I've seen maidservants like that more than a few times. You're not a noble, and she's your only maid, so I don't expect you to understand, but…"

"Aigoo, enough already."

I made a show of digging a finger in my ear and cut her off.

"She's family. Like a little sister. Save the lectures on how to run a household for when Her Most Distinguished Ladyship goes back to her own estate."

"I am not going back."

"Then I guess you won't be a duke's daughter anymore, either. Get married and you leave the family. Don't get married, don't go home, and cut ties anyway — you still leave the family. You know that much, don't you?"

Knightly's face hardened. She knew it as well as I did.

"Listen. As someone a few years ahead of you in life — don't cut ties with your family if you can help it. You're the one who'll suffer."

"Stay out of other people's lives."

"Ah, right. Come to think of it, when you first asked me for private lessons, didn't you go on about your father and your house and all that?"

Hit twice in a row, Knightly couldn't get a word out. She just bit her lip.

"Chief Professor!"

We arrived at the lecture hall in the midst of Knightly's one-sided silence. Two professors waiting out front greeted me.

"Good morning, Chief Professor!"

"Hello…"

One was Orendi, the baby-faced Magic Countermeasure professor whose freckles covered his cheeks; the other was Anna, the Combat Horsemanship professor, a gloomy woman with dark hair who hunched her shoulders as if trying to disappear.

"Oh, Knightly came along too. You two ran into each other on the way, I take it?"

"Not exactly. I'm bringing Knightly with us."

Orendi tilted his head.

"You're bringing a student? This isn't a class — it's a supply run to secure teaching materials."

"They're not teaching materials…"

"Ahaha, sorry."

Anna offered the correction in her timid way, and Orendi laughed brightly as he walked it back.

"Anyway — so you're taking Knightly along?"

"Yeah. Call it advanced study. You know she's the top of her class. Regular lessons don't fit her."

"Well, that's true enough. All right then. Knightly, you've never gone through a dimensional gate, have you?"

Knightly had been scrambling to keep up with a conversation she'd been given no context for. At the words dimensional gate, she shook her head.

"Never. Not once. But… where exactly are we going?"

Orendi looked at me.

"You haven't told her, Chief Professor?"

"We're short on time, so let's just move. We need to be back before sundown."

"Understood. We'll transfer immediately. One last coordinate check first."

Orendi and I spread out a map, cross-checked our destination, and ran the coordinate calculations several times over. The terrain where we were headed was rough enough that a misplaced gate exit could turn into a catastrophe.

Watching someone work out dimensional-gate coordinates was clearly a first for Knightly. Her mouth hung half open as she hung on every word between me and the other professors.

"Opening the gate now."

Blue mana gathered in Orendi's hands, and a small vortex bloomed in the air before us. The slowly turning spiral of magic suddenly accelerated, then in a single instant expanded into an oval dimensional gate.

"Hah?!"

Knightly sucked in a tiny breath. She'd never seen one before.

"Relax…. We're not going anywhere strange…."

Professor Anna said it in that gloomy drawl of hers.

"I'll go first. Then Anna, Knightly, Orendi — in that order."

"Yes, Chief Professor!"

We filed through the gate one after another. Fortunately, the exit opened onto flat ground rather than a cliff face or a swamp.

"This can't be…"

Knightly stepped through, planted her feet on the earth, and stood there with her mouth hanging open, looking thoroughly stupid.

"This place… what even…"

She couldn't finish the sentence. She just stared at the landscape unfurling in front of her.

"Whew. Talk about a view that opens the chest right up."

Orendi drew in a great lungful of air, smiling brightly.

"Ugh, the wind is cold…"

Anna shrank into herself, looking even more miserable than usual.

We were standing on the Brun Plateau, in the continent's northeast. The widest plateau on the continent, it was a striking mix of broad, level grassland and steep, craggy rock mountains. Dark forests along the plateau's edge ran on into blue mountain ranges, and the peaks lined up like a folding screen, as if someone had painted them there. On a clear spring day like this one, wildflowers in full bloom under a cloudless sky and grass rolling in soft waves made a truly magnificent sight.

"The Brun Plateau?"

Knightly startled at my explanation.

"That means we practically crossed the entire continent…. What on earth did you come here for?"

"To catch horses. We need them for combat horsemanship class."

Our Combat Department had a combat horsemanship course, taught by Anna. Exactly as the name suggested, it was a class in riding — the basic means of travel in this world. And it wasn't just about sitting on a horse. Students learned how to steal a horse from a stable, how to ride without tack, how to fight from horseback. On top of that, they were taught everything remotely related to horses: driving a carriage, replacing a worn horseshoe, raising a horse, and even, in an extreme situation, slaughtering one for food.

In my old life, it would have been the equivalent of teaching new intelligence-agency recruits everything from how to drive a car to how to hot-wire one when you don't have the keys, plus emergency repairs.

The problem was that our academy didn't have many proper horses. I'd gone to look at the stables Anna and the teaching assistants managed, and there were barely any warhorses at all — mostly just small ponies. Warhorses were large, had rough temperaments, came with a high risk of accidents, and cost an unimaginable amount to maintain, so Principal Kirlin had scaled the program down.

Under the Combat Department overhaul I'd drawn up after arriving, combat horsemanship needed about thirty horses. What we had didn't come close. Kirlin had suggested buying old horses cheap from the Imperial Army — ones no longer fit for active service — but that didn't sit right with me. Imperial warhorses were trained so hard that "retired" meant they couldn't even run at speed anymore. You couldn't run practical exercises on animals like that.

This wasn't a driving school. It was a spy academy, and in the field you didn't get to be picky about your mount. Better to drill them hard from the start.

I'd checked, and fortunately everyone already had the basics of riding down. But buying thirty warhorses outright would be like purchasing thirty mid-size cars all at once in my old world — the budget would punch a hole in the sky.

So the method I'd come up with was capturing wild horses. The wild horses of the Brun Plateau lived in herds of dozens, each gathered around a lead stallion. If we could take a whole herd, we'd solve the budget problem and the students would get to train on horses in excellent condition. Two birds, one stone. And wild horses didn't have owners. How was that not a beautiful ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠idea? I'd put a capture party together on the spot.

Knightly had shown up in the middle of the night to complain that I wasn't giving her private lessons often enough, so I'd tacked her on as a side dish.

"I don't see any horses, though."

Knightly was right. There wasn't a trace of a wild horse anywhere on the grassland.

"We appeared out of nowhere, so they all hid. They won't show themselves until they decide it's safe."

"Then shall we hide somewhere and wait? How about over there?"

Orendi pointed to a corner of the grassland. Scattered there were structures half-buried in the earth, listing at a diagonal. Long logs joined into rectangles, tilted over and smothered in weeds and vines — perfect for lying in wait for wild horses.

"What is this?"

"Probably… wagons from the Demon King's army…"

Orendi asked as he ducked inside and sat down. Anna answered in that gloomy voice of hers.

"The wild horses on the Brun Plateau… are bigger and stronger than other warhorses, so the Demon King's army wanted them badly…. These are probably the wagons they dragged all the way out here to capture them…"

"Ohh, I see. But there are a lot more of these further back, and — ack! What is that?!"

Orendi had been settling awkwardly onto the ground when he leapt up with a shriek. I looked, and a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠bleached bone was jutting out of the dirt where he'd sat.

"Eek?!"

"Ow!!"

Knightly and Anna both shot to their feet at the same time and cracked their heads hard against a wagon post.

"W-we have to get out of here right now…! We're sitting on a grave…!"

Anna, terrified, tried to flee outside. I caught her cloak and laughed.

"Everyone calm down. These are demon bones."

I pulled the protruding ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠skull free. Two horns, twisted like a ram's, came into view.

"So sit back down. If you keep making noise, the wild horses will run even farther."

"Ah — so they weren't human. That gave me a real scare."

Confirmed they were demon remains, Orendi let out a sigh of relief and dropped back onto the ground. Anna muttered something under her breath and shuffled back inside the wagon as well.

"I do have a question, though."

Knightly looked at the demon skull she'd tossed into the corner.

"It's the same here, and just looking at the abandoned wagons further back there must ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠be dozens of them…. Does that mean all these demons failed to capture the wild horses and died here?"

"That's probably it, right? Professor Anna, do you know anything about this?"

"I don't know the details, but… I've heard the rumors…"

At Orendi's question, Anna opened her mouth in a voice like a whisper from a crypt.

"The Demon King's army needed good warhorses, so… they sent units here several times…. And not a single one ever came back…"

"Why?"

"Look at the terrain around us…. Rock mountains big enough for something enormous to hide in…. Open flats, easy to take off from…. Doesn't it look like a perfect place for something to live…?"

Orendi burst out giggling.

"Surely you're not about to say it was a dragon? That's absurd. The wild horses couldn't survive here either, then. They'd already have been eaten."

"Then what else besides a dragon could have wiped out this many of the Demon King's troops in a place like this…?"

"Hmm. You think so…. Well, that does have a point. Judging by the fact that there are only demon remains, it clearly wasn't a battle with the human alliance."

"That's what I'm saying…. To slaughter the Demon King's army this one-sidedly, it doesn't make sense unless it was a dragon…"

While Orendi and Professor Anna were deep in their grim discussion, Knightly was staring intently at something. It was a corner of the wrecked wagon they were hiding in, waiting for the wild horses. Between the vines wound around a thick log, something out of place had briefly caught her eye.

She reached out, tore away the vines and weeds, and letters appeared.

Every character had been carved into the surface of the log with a sharp blade. The contents were…

What on earth… was this…?