The Fist King (1)
What kind of teacher acts like that?
Granted, short-term instruction didn't exactly require impeccable credentials — but could someone that hopelessly unreasonable really make a living in this line of work?
I was starting to doubt Amy's judgment.
"Do you... perhaps harbor some resentment toward me?"
"No! It's not that at all! I mean, if all you heard was the explanation, I suppose she might sound a bit like garbage... but..."
Amy flustered through one excuse after another, trailing off as if even she couldn't quite believe what she was saying.
"She sounds like a woman with... quite a story."
"Her standards are just very high. If someone doesn't meet the criteria she's set for herself... she's a little... merciless about it."
Still, wasn't that sexual harassment way past the line?
"What exactly does she do? Is she famous?"
"Perhaps you've heard of her... they call her the [Fist King]. Her rank is 3rd, believe it or not. Honestly, she's caused so much trouble that her promotion was withheld — her actual skill is probably higher."
"Hmm..."
I barely managed to suppress a laugh at that wuxia-style epithet.
Personally, I thought it was incredibly childish, but people in this era seemed to find such titles impressive, since more than a few adventurers carried them.
Though this was the first time I'd seen one quite so grandiose.
...In a world where actual [Kings] exist, is it really okay to run around with an epithet like that?
Just how strong was 3rd rank, anyway?
"The Fist King once punched a hole clean through a mountain. She literally bored a tunnel straight through it."
"...Seriously?"
"Yes. She's famous for it. And it's not even that far from Bolston. There was talk of turning it into a tourist attraction — I'm not sure how that's going these days."
Mana existed in this world, sure, but... was that even physically possible?
Yet there wasn't a hint of a lie anywhere in Amy's outrageous claims.
Amy smiled at my stunned expression, apparently pleased by it.
"Are you getting interested now?"
"...Intriguing, I'll admit. You said she just arrived in Bolston? How long is she staying? Are there still plenty of openings?"
"I don't know how long she'll remain in the city... and as for openings, there aren't just plenty — the slots are completely empty. Her infamy is that bad."
That was both good news and bad news.
Either way, if I filed a request, getting lessons was guaranteed.
I threw Amy one last question.
"Recommending that I seek instruction from someone with that kind of reputation... I assume you have your reasons?"
"The Fist King is surprisingly lenient with talented rookies. Your party — currently rewriting the record for youngest titleholder in the Bolston branch — should be right up her alley."
"Oh, really?"
"Yes. Most of the terrible reviews out there come from people whose talent she belittled, spreading malice wherever they go. Of course, as they say, three men make a tiger — the rumor did end up settling in as if it were true..."
"And the fee for a request?"
...
"So this is where we're heading...?"
"The house the Fist King is staying at for now."
"That's in the inner city, isn't it?"
"She's borrowing it, apparently. I didn't even know you could rent a place in the inner city."
Having decided to file our request with the Fist King, we discovered that Amy had, without any additional procedure, simply handed over the address of the house where the Fist King was staying.
As it turned out, the short-term lesson request the Fist King had posted was set to remain active for twenty-four hours with automatic acceptance.
In other words, all you had to do was pay.
"Forty gold coins per person, per day."
"With the two of us... that's eighty a day. *Gasp.* That's insanely expensive."
"...True enough. But as the price of advice from a powerhouse of that caliber, it's cheap."
Teach nothing to those who are unworthy.
No instruction is given to those who lack the makings of a proper person.
Of course, "the makings of a person" here carried roughly the same meaning as bloodline, connections, and school ties.
In a society this closed-off, the chance to receive genuine training with nothing but money was truly rare.
But Lena muttered cynically.
"That's if we get any advice, you mean. No matter how I look at it, this is a huge waste of money."
"Let's just pay for one day and see."
The materials we'd obtained in the dungeon had been processed by the guild in no time.
Adding everything together: two platinum coins.
If we dumped every coin we had, we could buy two days' worth of time.
"You're not coming, Unni... because of your body, right? Worried someone might recognize it? Will you be upset about it?"
"Nothing to be done. We don't know what kind of person the Fist King is — if Noah's body got exposed for no reason..."
She might get abducted on the spot.
There was no way I was showing Noah to someone who was already infamous.
"@#$%@!!"
"Hm? What's that noise?"
Because of the disappearances, security in the inner city was far stricter than the outer district, but with the official documentation the guild had issued, we managed to push through.
Having passed through and drawn near the Fist King's rented house, we could hear some kind of noisy shouting for reasons unknown.
As we got closer, the house the Fist King had borrowed came into view — and so did the source of the commotion.
"Th-this is tyranny!"
"What tyranny?"
"Where on earth do you find a teacher this derelict in her duties!? You poke at my body one time and then tell me to leave!?"
A young man, dressed in clothes that were obviously high quality at a glance, was shouting at someone in front of the door.
Whoever he was shouting at had retreated inside the house, so they were nowhere to be seen.
All that could be heard was a curt, androgynous voice dripping with pure boredom as it fired off one-line answers.
Was that the Fist King?
"Hey. Your body is trash — why is that my fault? Take it up with the parents who gave you that body."
"Wh-what!?"
"Process garbage and you get garbage. It'll never become a gem. That's the fate you were born into."
At an insult that went beyond sharp-tongued and straight into personal attack, the young man's jaw hung wide open.
From the look of him, he wasn't an adventurer so much as someone close to nobility — and clearly, he'd never heard words like that in his entire life.
He fumbled with his mouth, trying to summon some kind of rebuttal, but his opponent was faster.
"Yeah, yeah, I know. Your family fawned over you, told you how talented you were. But that's not enough. You'll struggle to get any stronger than a common knight."
"No one can know the future!!"
"Well... not entirely wrong. But that uncertain future isn't worth the trouble of teaching you to me."
"That someone famed across the land as the Fist King would be such a thug — never in my dreams did I imagine it! You've feasted on my family's patronage, so the least you could do is—"
"Ugh, so annoying."
Thud!
The young man, who had been spewing words while trembling like a bomb about to go off, suddenly crumpled to the ground behind him.
Alarmed, I hurried closer and found the man had fainted dead away at some point.
Fortunately, it was a simple knockout — no other injuries.
While I stood over the man out of common decency, a massive shadow fell over me.
"And what are you supposed to be? This guy's attendant too?"
"No... oh, oh."
I turned around to find a person of truly enormous build looking down at me with a languid expression.
Backlit by the light, I couldn't make out the details of her face, but she had to be a good three meters tall.
And her limbs — thicker than a log.
Then, the finishing touch: two horns growing from her head.
This was the Fist King?
Gulp.
A faint waft of alcohol rolled off the Fist King.
Had she been drinking?
This was even more of a mess than I'd expected...
I swallowed dryly at the chaos that had somehow exceeded my expectations and spoke up.
"I'm a student... who filed a request through the guild. I was told to come here."
"A guild member?"
"Yes."
"Hmm... it's been a while since anyone who wasn't a noble showed up. Fine, come on in."
"...And this man?"
"Leave him. He's loaded — his attendants will come fetch him eventually."
With a glance at the collapsed young man, the Fist King wagged a hand far larger than both of mine pressed together and headed back into the house ahead of us.
Lena muttered with clear distaste.
"Is this really okay, Ajusshi? Noble or not, she seems like someone with no eyes at all in her head."
"...Today's payment already left our hands."
"Ah... this isn't usually the kind of person I am... but I really don't want to go in."
"Same here."
I couldn't help but agree with Lena.
Now I understood exactly why her reputation was so terrible.
We shared a look of mutual anxiety and reluctantly followed the Fist King inside.
For some reason, the young man sprawled out on the street felt like he was still holding onto us.
...
In an inner city overflowing with luxurious mansions, the Fist King's borrowed house was, paradoxically, modest enough to stand out.
A perfectly ordinary two-story home with a small training yard attached to the back.
To be fair, the yard was tucked between the inner-city wall and the house, shielded from prying eyes by design.
"...It's cozier inside than I expected."
"Did she decorate it herself?"
"You're saying that after seeing those massive hands?"
The interior of the house was as neat as its exterior suggested — and, strangely enough, it had a charming sort of taste to it.
Tiny, adorable ornaments sat here and there all over the house.
Considering the Fist King's tough(?) appearance, it wouldn't have been odd for the place to contain an entire pub instead.
Just as we were cautiously peering around this corner and that, a booming voice rang out from deeper inside.
"Stop dawdling and get in here!"
"Yes, ma'am!"
Show up late and we might get punched.
We quickly picked up the pace and went inside.
We passed through a hallway, then the kitchen, and came upon something like a common room whose far wall opened directly onto the training yard.
The Fist King was sitting there, steadily emptying a bottle.
"...!"
Only now could I get a proper look at the Fist King's appearance.
Muscles rippling across her entire frame like twisted steel.
Two horns with the placid look of a cow's.
Silver hair tied in a ponytail, so pale it might pass for blonde in the sunlight.
And, unexpectedly, a rather beautiful face.
But more surprising than any of that was the fact that, no matter how I looked, there was no Adam's apple on the Fist King's throat.
Could it be... she's a woman????
Adam's apple.
Technically, it should be called thyroid cartilage rather than an "Adam's apple," but either way, the Fist King lacked that so-called emblem of manhood.
Anatomically, the people of this era weren't all that different in skeletal structure from Old Humanity, so men — human or Beastfolk — generally carried one...
I found myself thoroughly thrown into confusion.
"Judging by your faces, you've figured it out. Yes, I'm a woman. Didn't know?"
"!"
At the Fist King's sudden declaration, Lena's eyes — which had been empty until now — went wide.
Having drained the bottle dry at some point, the Fist King set it down carelessly and said flatly:
"Is that such an important thing?"
"Ah... no. No, ma'am."
"Hm. Good. Every so often some idiot starts babbling nonsense — 'I can't believe it~,' 'mind if I check?~' — and I simply have no interest in talking with people who don't know the first thing about propriety."
Are these people insane??
I was half aghast, half in grudging awe at the sheer obliviousness of this era's people.
Unless I was suicidal, I wouldn't dream of spouting that kind of garbage at a 3rd-rank adventurer.
The Fist King nodded and continued.
"Well... as you saw with that guy outside, I'm a fairly picky person. That is to say, I don't teach those without talent."
"Will you be giving us a test, then?"
"Of a sort? Just have your bodies worked over a bit. It might hurt a little. Still want to do it?"
Come to think of it, that was exactly what the unconscious young man outside had protested — that being poked at and chased out was hardly a "lesson."
So this was her way of running her own kind of test.
"...Of course."
"Good. Let's start with the little one."
The Fist King approached Lena first.
Come to think of it, this is the first time I've ever seen Lena stay quiet after being called a pipsqueak.
Was it the effect of the character education Noah drilled into her every single day... or the Fist King's terrifying muscles?
As the Fist King rose from her seat, that absurdly overdeveloped chest — impossible to tell whether it was bust or pectoral — shifted with the motion.
She placed her palm on the crown of Lena's head as the girl sat obediently in place.
That alone was enough to swallow Lena's small head entirely.