A Classroom in Chaos and the Silver Wolf of the Woods
The desk edges grinding against the lectern creaked precariously. On the left, Elena's crimson eyes radiated a chill killing intent; on the right, blue frost crackled and spat from Sylvia's fingertips.
"A thieving cat, daring to covet my Master's right side. You truly don't know your place."
Elena's voice was like a sheet of ice. The knuckles wrapped around the desk had gone bone-white.
"Ha! Who are you calling a thieving cat, you defective failure? The imperial princess's seat belongs right beside the Instructor, obviously! This distance is essential if I'm to administer emergency treatment without wasting a single second!"
Sylvia gave no ground either, her sapphire eyes blazing wide.
Crash!
The two desks slammed together savagely once more, sending chalk dust scattering in a shiver across the lectern. A crimson sword-aura rippled along the point of Elena's blade, while frost crept out from under Sylvia's feet and spread across the floorboards. It was a standoff on a hair trigger, one breath away from a storm of blood.
At the very center of that storm, Ethan sat with his chin propped on the lectern, staring blankly out the window. Even the sharp, sweet heat of the mint candy crushed between his teeth couldn't soothe his throbbing head.
His exhaustion-worn eyes drifted slowly over the two girls as they glared and growled at each other. Then he plucked a stub of chalk from the corner of the lectern, wedged it between his fingers, and brought it down hard against the blackboard.
Crack!
The brash little report tore the killing intent in the classroom to ribbons in a single stroke, white powder bursting rough across the blackboard's surface.
"Quiet."
The tone was flat, steeped in irritation.
"If you want to fight, take it out to the training field. Smash my desks first thing in the morning and I'll bill you both for damages and throw you out."
Princess or count's daughter, it made no difference to him; the blunt, informal words simply dropped out of his mouth. At that one remark, the murderous air hanging over the classroom froze solid.
Elena released the desk, smoothed her skirt, and folded her hands neatly atop her knees.
"...If it is my Master's command, I shall heed it."
She had turned into a docile lamb, as if she'd never breathed killing intent at all.
Sylvia's reaction was another matter entirely. Eyes wide and sapphire, she thrust out her lips in a pout and shot Ethan a wounded glare.
"...Hold on, Instructor! You were so perfectly polite yesterday, so why are you suddenly talking down to me, the imperial princess?!"
To the princess's indignant protest, the tips of her ears going red, Ethan propped his chin in his hand and let loose an enormous yawn.
"Yesterday you were Her Highness the Princess of Class A. Today you're my student in Class E, who came crawling in here on her own two feet."
"Wh-what did you...?"
"You ever seen an instructor use honorifics with a student in his own classroom? If you don't like it, pack your things and crawl back to Class A right now."
"G-go back where?! You think I came here because I wanted to?!"
Sylvia sputtered, her face flushing scarlet. But the memory of Ethan's warmth kept her from kicking her chair back and storming out. In the end she bit down hard on her lip and whipped her head away.
"Hmph... It's simply an instructor-and-student matter, so I, in my boundless magnanimity, am choosing to overlook it! Consider yourself honored!"
Even as she tossed out the haughty retort, Sylvia quietly drew back her frost and settled meekly into her chair—a picture of surrender, her teacher's informal speech accepted as the most natural thing in the world.
Watching the whole display from the side, Elena murmured, cold as frost.
"Master, there is no need to dignify that shameless thieving cat with a reply."
Ethan pressed a hand to his temple and clicked his tongue softly. And I'm already running on empty, right out of the gate.
Sparks flew between the two girls' glares across the lectern, but at least the classroom had been spared a catastrophic demolition.
Ethan leaned against the lectern at a lazy angle and stretched out a yawn.
"Nothing grand for a first lesson. Mana control fundamentals... work through it on your own. I'm going to close my eyes."
It was an instruction devoid of even a hair's worth of sincerity. The two students' reactions, however, were anything but careless.
Elena laid her wooden sword across her knees, crimson eyes gleaming. Master is wary of rote instruction. Such profound insight—he means for us to awaken to the path with our own hands...! She closed her eyes and sank into meditation, tracing the pure grain of swordsmanship untouched by mana.
Sylvia's circumstances were rather different. Desperate to prove herself, she tried to clamp down her mana with the imperial secret arts of control, but contrary to her intent her breathing turned ragged and short.
Crackle... crack.
Frigid cold burst from her fingertips and bleached the desk white with frost. Her lips went blue, and cold sweat beaded across her forehead.
"Hhk... nngh..."
Her frozen mana surged backward through her veins as if to ice them over from within, constricting around her heart.
Ethan, halfway to slumping onto the lectern, frowned. As though annoyed at having his nap disturbed, he cast a sidelong glance at Sylvia's blue-tinged hand. She was damming a pouring waterfall behind a narrow embankment; of course the levee was going to burst.
"Are you an idiot?" Ethan tossed out, bone-dry.
"...Wh-what did you just say?"
Sylvia, still gasping through the pain, lifted wet eyes to him.
"It's bursting because you're trying to plug overflowing water with your fist. Stop forcing your mana down. Let it ride its current out into the air, like a river."
It was advice thrown out for no better reason than that the noise annoyed him, but to Sylvia it landed like a bolt from a clear sky. Don't suppress it... let it flow out? The imperial court mages had only ever pressed her to cage the cursed cold with every ounce of strength she had.
Sylvia loosened her trembling fingers and, exactly as Ethan had said, let her mana spill out into the air along its natural current. What happened next defied belief. The cold that had been flaying her skin melted into a gentle, rolling pulse.
Fwoosh.
What bloomed above her palm was not ice at all, but a mystical, utterly serene blue flame—azure fire at last, her mana finally finding its circulation and settling into stillness.
Sylvia stared, entranced, at the blue flame wavering over her hand. The pain that had been carving through her bones had vanished as if washed away. All those years of trembling in fear every night, never knowing when it might run wild. The shackle that no one in the imperial family had ever been able to break had come undone with a single throwaway word from a lazy instructor.
The curse even the empire's great archmages couldn't touch... with one sentence?
Her sapphire eyes wavered violently. Just how unfathomable a realm was this man standing in? Even Ethan's languid back, already folded over the lectern in sleep, looked to her like the bearing of one who had transcended all things under heaven.
Beside her, Elena murmured low.
"Master's discerning eye is a marvel, truly. But you have bestowed a grace far too generous upon that thieving cat."
Dong, dong!
The clock tower's bells tolled soft and low, marking noon. Ethan pushed himself up from the lectern and cracked his neck.
"Lunchtime, then."
As he moved to rise, his throat scratchy, a dry cough slipped out of him.
Cough, cough...
It was a cough let slip without a thought, the kind you blame on stale dust. But the eyes of the two girls flanking him flashed with fierce alarm.
Bam!
Elena set an obsidian thermal jar down on the lectern, and the rich scent of medicinal herbs struck him head-on.
"Master! A restorative tonic, simmered from the thousand-year spirit mushrooms and black ginseng of the Arden domain! It is a sovereign remedy for internal injury to the lungs—you must drink every last drop!"
Elena thrust a porcelain spoon boldly up against Ethan's lips.
Clang!
Not to be outdone, Sylvia slammed down a royal-exclusive magical thermal vessel, silvery-white radiance and a fragrant steam blooming upward from its mouth.
"Who would put that dirt-smelling country mushroom water in anyone's mouth? Instructor, this is a royal-special eternal-snow ginseng soup, condensed from the vital energy of the northern everlasting snow peaks! The absolute best for restoring your vigor! Come on, open up!"
Silver spoon raised, Sylvia charged in under his chin as well.
"Stand back, thieving cat! I, as his direct disciple, have exclusive charge of Master's meals!"
"You stand back! The Instructor is my savior and my charge alone! He has to drink my soup first!"
In the middle of the lectern, porcelain and silver met with a sharp ring.
Clang, clang!
As the two locked in a shoving war of strength, hot broth and droplets of tonic spattered in every direction. In the eyes of the two young beauties burned an uncompromising, possessive fire.
A chill ran down Ethan's spine at the sight of two enormous spoons bearing down on him from point-blank range. If he swallowed all of that, far from healing his internal injuries, he'd be carried out of the room with a ruptured stomach. He backed away, waving both hands.
"Hey. Both of you, put those away. I'm not hungry."
"Absolutely not! You just coughed! If your body gives out, Master, then my life is over as well!"
"She's right! Instructor, how can you skip meals looking this pale?! Open up, right now!"
The two girls advanced on him like a storm, spoons first.
"I'll feed myself, so get away from me!"
Seizing the opening while the two of them waged their spoon battle, Ethan kicked open the classroom's back door and bolted.
"Ah! Master?!"
"Instructor! Where do you think you're running?!"
The shrieks chased at his back, but without so much as a glance over his shoulder, Ethan sprinted at full speed for the forest behind the rear garden.
Deep in the thick woods behind the annex, sunlight broke apart in the crowded branches and fell in warm patches across the dirt path. Only after walking a good long way did Ethan finally stop and draw an easy breath. He glanced back; thankfully, he seemed to have thrown off the two predators still reeking of medicinal tonic.
"...I survived."
Ethan pressed a hand to his temple and clicked his tongue. Shoving food in my face that could've been nourishment or poison, no way to tell. I came out here to rest, and I nearly died with a burst stomach.
Far from the main building, this was dense primeval forest untouched by human footsteps. Ancient trees hundreds of years old stood in silent ranks, and the smell of damp moss and wet earth brushed the tip of his nose. A deep shade, hidden just behind the gleaming marble corridors.
The empire's hypocrisy flickered through his mind—how, the instant the war with the Demon King's army ended, it had begun scorning the northern beastfolk who bled on the front lines as "worthless beasts"—but Ethan shook his head. Drop the bothersome thoughts. It looked like the perfect spot to lean against a shadowed trunk and claim a nap.
He was ambling along, mid-yawn, when the wind shifted, ever so slightly. Threaded between the scent of grass came something alien and faintly fishy.
Ethan's brow drew tight. The briny tang of iron. Without a doubt, the smell of fresh blood.
...Blood?
The warrior's instinct carved into him across a hundred battlefields sounded its alarm without being asked. Riding the breeze, a thin, ragged breathing beat against his ears.
Hahh... khh...
A coarse, grinding breath, teeth clenched hard against pain. Not a mere animal—the moan of something unmistakably sentient.
A student?
He had no desire to get tangled up in trouble, but his senses were far too sharp to pretend he hadn't caught the blood-scent drifting through the trees. Hands still in his pockets, Ethan turned his steps toward the source of the moaning—beyond brambles grown taller than a man, toward the pitch-dark shadow at the base of the rocks. Without so much as the crunch of a fallen leaf, he approached the thorns like a shadow himself.
Ethan nudged the densely tangled brambles aside with one hand. At the foot of a rock draped in damp, chilly shade, a small, slight figure lay slumped against the stone, collapsed upon the dirt.
A silver-white bob, swaying faintly, mottled with grime. Beneath a uniform torn to ribbons, jagged gashes and deep purple bruises crowded over every inch of her. The first thing to catch his eye was the pair of ears rising through her hair—silver wolf ears, blood-stained and hanging limp, and behind them a tail drooping slack against the ground.
A beastfolk. The title of war hero had been forgotten along with the mud of the front lines; all that remained for her kind was the mockery of nobles who treated them as animals, and brutal lynchings. How badly she had been beaten in some shadowed corner of the academy showed in the red blood still seeping through the torn hem of her clothes.
At the sound of a human presence, the limp wolf ears gave a violent tremble. The girl pressed a shaking arm against the dirt and dragged her upper body upright. Through her tangled silver bangs emerged deep, luminous violet eyes—but those eyes blazed with fear and hatred alike, the killing light of a wounded beast. Twisting her bloodied lips into a snarl, she bared sharp fangs.
Grrr...!
A low growl tore out of her, scraping from the depths of her throat.
"Don't come any closer... you humans...! One more step... and I'll tear out your throat and kill you...!"
Even with every joint in her body screaming, the girl wrung out her final strength to threaten him. A deep distrust and hostility aimed at all of humankind—the desperate last flailing of a wildness barely holding on.
But before that murderous growl, Ethan didn't so much as blink. With slow, unhurried steps, he walked calmly to a stop right in front of her.
Grrr...!
The girl hunched low against the ground, coiled as if to lunge, venom pooling in her violet eyes.
Ethan drew his hand from his coat pocket—and then, without ceremony, shrugged off the worn, loose indigo instructor's coat he wore and tossed it over her.
Fwump.
The coat cut through the air and settled snugly over the small shoulders of the girl shaking with cold and pain. A heavy warmth, steeped in Ethan's body heat, in the faint scent of grass and the bittersweet trace of mint. At that unexpected warmth, the growl in the girl's breath stopped dead.
Scratching at his tousled hair, Ethan tossed the words out flat.
"It's cold. Keep it."
The girl, still huddled on the frozen ground, stared blankly down at the coat draped over her shoulder. Ciel's violet eyes met Ethan's languid gaze as he yawned hugely and scratched the back of his head.