The New Professor Is a Lunatic (3)
A private office had been prepared for me on the second floor of the main building. A nameplate hung on the door.
Combat Chief Professor Dian
The office I'd been assigned was small and modest. My predecessor had thrown down his resignation and fled in the dead of night, so the furniture—desk, chair, and the rest—had been left behind, ready to use.
The Academy had agreed to supply all the stationery. The real problem was that bookcase and those shelves.
The empty bookcase and display shelves standing against one wall were an eyesore. The trouble was, I didn't have any books to fill them with, or anything worth putting on display. Ah—I'd just had a good idea.
"Dian! You are actually a professor here, right?"
Olicia, answering my summons, unpacked what she'd brought in her bag and shot me a look thick with suspicion. She'd carried over the teacup set and teapot we'd used since Brunswell, along with an assortment of snacks.
"If you're a real professor, shouldn't there be books in here? Something like that?"
"I didn't exactly sit for an exam to get this job, so it's fine. And besides, what I'll be teaching isn't theory—it's field experience."
"Even so, if you pile a bunch of random junk in an office like this, the important people are going to be uncomfortable."
"Then I'll just quit."
Olicia stared at me as if she couldn't believe what she'd just heard.
"I do not want to go back to that backwater."
Come to think of it, Olicia had always wanted to leave Brunswell. More precisely, it wasn't that she hated Brunswell itself—she just wanted to live in a more developed city.
Girls her age preferred glittering shopping streets and well-groomed noble sons over drunken, uneducated sailors and the fishy reek of the sea breeze.
"Anyway, you have to stay put here, Dian. Now that it's come to this, you'd better take it seriously."
"Yeah, yeah. I got it. While you're at it, pour me a cup of tea. I've got a meeting to get to."
"Drink it here before you go. Don't show up to a meeting with a teacup in your hand as the new professor and get called arrogant for it."
"So what? Drinking tea during a meeting isn't exactly a crime."
Teacup in hand, I walked down the corridor toward the conference room.
"Good morning."
I opened the door, and a swarm of eyes locked onto me at once. There were about twenty of them, of every gender and race. Let's see. A dwarf, of course—and an orc, too. Wonder if we'll be able to hold a conversation.
"Why are you blocking the door?"
I turned around to find Principal Kirlin, the dark elf, standing behind me.
"And what's with that teacup? Thank you, but I'll pass. In the mornings I usually—"
"Huh? This? It's for me."
I took a loud slurp of tea, and Kirlin's face went a dark, furious red.
"Get out of the way. Now."
I followed the Principal past me into the conference room. Where's my seat? Over there? Next to the Principal, then.
"Don't sit. I was about to introduce you anyway."
I'd been halfway into the chair when she stopped me, so I straightened back up in an awkward half-crouch, teacup still in hand.
"Your attention, everyone. This is Dian, our newly appointed Combat Chief Professor."
The professors glanced at one another and began to murmur in low voices.
"He is a specialist whose expertise is well suited to our Academy's curriculum. As of today, he is one of us. I trust you will all get along. That is all."
When the Principal finished, the professors applauded. I answered with a smile and opened my mouth.
"Then if I could just say a few words—"
"Let us begin the meeting. First, today's schedule."
The meeting started before I could even get a sentence out. I'd even prepared a few jokes for my opening remarks.
I sat down, feeling a little sheepish, and the professor beside me leaned in and whispered a greeting.
"A pleasure to meet you, Chief Professor. I'm Lina, Infiltration Professor in the Combat Department."
She was a bright-looking woman with a short bob.
"Nice to meet you, Instructor Lina."
"I'll give you a useful tip. Whatever you do, do not run into the Comprehensive Combat Professor in private today."
Lina flicked her eyes toward the far side of the table. A stubborn-looking older man sat there, staring straight at me.
"He's the most senior member of the Combat Department. He absolutely cannot stand anyone eating or drinking during a meeting."
"I'll keep that in mind. Still, it'd be a waste not to finish this, so I think I'll drink it."
I knocked back a few quick sips from the teacup in my hand. Lina clapped a hand over her mouth and snickered as if it were the funniest thing in the world, while a deep crease carved itself between the Comprehensive Combat Professor's brows.
The meeting itself was ordinary enough: this morning's wake-up, the day's schedule, the condition of the Academy students, and other miscellaneous items. What caught my attention was the Safety Evaluation.
A Safety Evaluation, simply put, was a procedure for identifying potential hazards in upcoming training exercises and addressing them in advance. The process was so punishingly thorough it caught me completely off guard.
There were well over fifty items on the list, and the moment anything looked even slightly dangerous, the Principal herself stepped in to adjust it.
"That section there is likely to cause ankle injuries. Replace it with a flat-ground drill."
"It's early spring, so the seawater will still be quite cold. Postpone the diving training to next quarter—hypothermia is a concern."
"How about we extend the warm-up calisthenics before training? That should help reduce the risk of injury."
By the time the Principal had finished carving the plan to pieces, half of the training that had originally been scheduled was gone. What the hell is this?
"Is it always like this...?"
"W-well, the Principal is... extremely sensitive about the students getting hurt or accidents happening..."
Watching Lina's awkward smile, I understood the situation at once. Kirlin was doing this so that no one could find a pretext to have her dismissed.
In the military of my previous life, a single accident was often enough to send a whole chain of innocent commanding officers rolling. And with the Second Princess already watching with her eyes lit, looking for any excuse to replace her, Kirlin wasn't about to tolerate even the slightest bit of noise.
I understood how she felt. But if this was how things were going to be, there was no way proper training could actually take place. This is worrying.
When the meeting ended, the first place I went was the Comprehensive Combat Training Ground—the largest training facility in the Academy, and home to the students on the verge of graduation.
As a first visit for a Combat Chief Professor who needed to understand the Combat Department's training as a whole, it was the right place to start. The Comprehensive Combat Professor walking ahead of me did not appear to share that opinion.
"Eating and drinking during a meeting is a breach of etiquette, Chief Professor."
He had the broad shoulders and thick neck of a man who'd been a force to be reckoned with in his day, and a long white beard braided down his chest. The Comprehensive Combat Professor was a dwarf, and despite the look of him, he turned out to be a surprisingly petty man who held a grudge. Over one cup of tea, of all things.
"Please refrain from doing so in the future."
"Drinking tea in the morning is a habit of mine. I'll try."
The Comprehensive Combat Professor stopped walking and turned to look at me.
"If I may ask—how old are you this year?"
"Old enough. And a Chief Professor outranks a General Professor, doesn't he? What's the problem with me talking down to you?"
"I am old enough as well."
"I can see that. That beard of yours is saying as much."
I pointed a finger at the Comprehensive Combat Professor's white beard.
"So drinking tea during a meeting is unforgivable, but a man who's supposedly an Academy professor growing a beard like that isn't worth making a fuss over?"
"This has a special meaning. You probably wouldn't know this, Chief Professor, but—"
"Oh, I know perfectly well. You're showing off that you're from the Long-Range Patrol, aren't you?"
The Corps Long-Range Patrol would infiltrate deep into enemy territory for months at a time, so they couldn't shave regularly and ended up braiding their beards like that—and now it had hardened into a tradition. A ridiculous tradition.
"I don't know how long you served or which battlefields you fought on, but don't be foolish enough to think that puts you above me. The fact that I'm wearing the Chief Professor title at my age should tell you everything you need to know."
The Comprehensive Combat Professor's face flushed red and pale by turns, but he didn't seem able to find a retort. Still, he was older than I was, and I'd pushed him a little hard, so I smiled and clapped him on the shoulder.
"I'll try not to eat or drink during meetings if I can help it. So let's put this behind us. If you stay wound that tight all the time, you'll end up with a serious illness."
"...Understood."
The Comprehensive Combat Training Ground sat at the foot of a hill inside the Academy. The course was a straight run from the base to the summit: reach the flag at the top within the time limit.
It looked simple enough at a glance, but dozens of obstacles of every kind were strung along the route, and getting through them was no small feat.
I climbed the control tower at the starting line and watched the Academy students run the course from start to finish. About thirty of them advanced toward the summit at their own paces, like a line of ants.
And yet something was off. Their movements were all strangely sluggish. Worse, several of the obstacles had detours around them, or planks laid across them like bridges.
"Pew! Pew! Pew!"
In the section where they were supposed to suppress enemies with bows from behind cover, they were shooting empty bows with no arrows nocked, making the sound effects with their mouths. What the hell is this supposed to be?
"Professor. What is this? Why are they half-assing the training?"
"On the Principal's orders, all hazardous elements have been removed. We are conducting the exercise safely."
Once I heard the full story, it made a grim kind of sense. Obstacles with a high risk of injury had been skipped entirely, and they weren't even issuing arrows for fear of a stray shot.
I'm going to have to do something about this. If things kept going this way, the quality of the graduates would drop, and then the Inspectorate and the Intelligence Bureau would complain—one hundred percent guaranteed.
The Second Princess, seeing those complaints, would seize on them as the perfect excuse to take the Principal's head. And once Kirlin's head rolled, the one who'd get dragged up into the vacancy was obviously going to be me.
If I refused, they'd threaten to call Linus back—Linus, who'd only just started taking care of his baby. That was not happening. Not a chance. That was the whole reason I'd come here.
"There's a mage at this Academy, right?"
"There is, but... what do you need one for?"
"Bring the mage here. From this moment on, I'm taking direct control of this place."
Rumble. Rumble.
Buried in paperwork, Kirlin jolted at the sudden roar and the shudder that ran through the building, and she rushed to the window. A towering cloud of dirt was rising from the hillside where the Comprehensive Combat Training Ground sat.
Why? Every element that could have caused a disturbance like this had been stripped out of today's training.
A flash of light, and a new cloud of dirt bloomed. Kirlin suddenly remembered that Dian had said he was going to observe the comprehensive combat training.
It couldn't be. It couldn't... it couldn't...?!
Unwilling to waste even the time it would take to go down the stairs, Kirlin threw open the window and leapt from the second floor.
She landed like a cat and immediately sprinted toward the Comprehensive Combat Training Ground, where explosion after explosion was shaking the earth.
"Hah?!"
The moment Kirlin arrived, the scene before her eyes froze her in place. She couldn't get a word out.
Dozens of Academy students were charging up the mountain for all they were worth, looking for all the world like active-duty corps soldiers in a battle to take a hill.
Behind them, flashing bolts of light slammed down in a relentless barrage and exploded.
The source of those bolts was the control tower at the starting line. An Academy mage stood atop it, cheerfully pouring out attack magic.
And beside him—
"That way this time! Keep pushing them! Train as you fight! Fight as you train!"
Combat Chief Professor Dian was wildly waving a long tree branch, directing the fire.
"A drop of sweat in training is a bucket of blood on the battlefield! Keep pouring it on!"
"AAAAARGH! You lunatic!!!"