Chapter 31

Spring had passed, and summer was slowly approaching. When the seasons changed, the wind was always the first to turn—and that wind of change had reached the academy, too.

Wooden railings had been installed along the cliffside stairs for safety, and the students had moved into rooms in the inner keep, twenty to a room.

Seventy years after the founding of the Beringen Adventurers' Guild Academy, its students had finally been freed from the chicken coop.

All thanks to a single student.

That was not all. The masons' guild sent by Helauman, Count Palatine of Kelbron and champion of the Emperor, installed a pulley over the well and repaired the buildings. They even discovered an ancient underground cistern and fitted water pipes.

One look at the academy's exterior and layout had told them exactly what architectural style and sort of structure it was, even if they could not date its construction precisely. They declared that there ought to be an underground cistern for storing rainwater, then simply found it.

Something that had gone unnoticed for seventy years could finally be put to use.

Water pipes were actually a luxury found only in certain districts of prominent cities. Perhaps because these masons served someone as important as a count palatine, they had used expensive copper to install them here.

Work on this scale would have strained even the guild's finances, but Ricard and the students had no idea how much it cost in the first place.

Even indirectly, they could feel just how much power the Count Palatine possessed—and how immense the power of the Emperor standing behind him must be.

Beringen Academy had made such a tremendous leap forward that the changing seasons seemed insignificant by comparison.

The students struggled to adjust for a while. They simply did not know whether they deserved to enjoy such luxuries.

And, as Helauman had promised, a professor arrived at the academy to teach the ancient script.

"We have mages to thank for the survival of the ancient script. According to them, its characters are inherently magical. Mages use the ancient script when writing magical descriptions or drawing certain diagrams."

The speaker looked as though he had never been in a fight in his life. He appeared to be in his late twenties and had studied at the renowned Hantz University. His name was Ellich, and he was a nobleman.

Yet only two students attended his class: Ricard and Boribori.

Of those two, one had his arms folded and his head tipped back, snoring away. That was Ricard—the very person who had made such a fuss about wanting ancient-script lessons.

"Then can you use magic if you learn the ancient script?" Boribori asked.

"Hahaha, no, not quite. Do I look like a mage to you?"

"Not really."

"Exactly. Writing is writing. My guess is simply that magic has such a long history that mages still use the old script."

Professor Ellich took a thin booklet from his bag.

"This is a textbook I made myself. If we use it during our lessons, you will be able to learn a great deal in a short time."

"A book? But I can't read."

"... Oh dear."

He could not understand why someone who did not even know the current script would attend lessons in an ancient one. Still, the new professor was an understanding man.

"Then I think we should take our time learning to read while studying the ancient script alongside it."

Ellich brought the booklet, some blank paper, a pen, and ink down from the lectern and approached Boribori. Ricard was still asleep beside him, but Ellich paid that no mind and opened the book in front of Boribori.

"The ancient script is what we call ideographic. Each character has its own meaning. Our script is phonetic. This is an ancient character, and the writing beneath it is in the script we use today."

The booklet displayed the ancient characters in large print, with their meanings written underneath in smaller, modern lettering.

"Is there anything you particularly like, Boribori?"

"Flowers and grass."

"Good. Then let's find something that means a flower."

Ellich turned the pages and happened upon the ancient character for a violet. For now, he left the ancient character unexplained and spoke only about the small writing beneath it.

"This is the word for violet. Shall we start by learning the letters?"

The mention of violets immediately caught Boribori's interest. His eyes widened as he studied the curling black lines.

The professor explained each letter, teaching him the modern script first.

"Vi, ola..."

"Now, would you like to try writing both the ancient character and our own letters?"

Ellich handed him the blank paper, pen, and ink. Boribori had never held a pen before, so writing felt awkward. But he was such a good artist that the letters took shape well enough.

"You write better than I expected."

"Yes, I like drawing."

Once he had laboriously traced out the winding ancient character and modern letters, the professor spoke.

"Shall we set off in search of our next flower?"

"Yes!"

Ellich turned the page again. That was how the lesson proceeded.

It might have felt painfully slow, but neither of them found it so. The professor was patient and considerate, and his student was brimming with curiosity.

In a sense, he might have been the first proper professor the academy had ever had.

The existing so-called professors were really just adventurers sent on a sort of commission by the guild. They did not care whether the students learned well or poorly—or whether they lived or died.

That was how they had been taught, so naturally they assumed it was how they ought to teach. And so the cycle continued.

The guild saw no need to look after its students, nor did it have the capacity to do so. It simply sifted through them, like using a sieve, and trained the useful ones into adventurers.

In truth, it was neglect bordering on abuse. The sad part was that this was an age when no one found it strange. Hadn't their own families abandoned them anyway?

At any rate, Professor Ellich's lesson progressed slowly but steadily. Time passed, and the class came to an end.

"You may keep the textbook, Boribori. I hope you study hard. I shall see you at our next lesson."

Despite his nobility, he was genuinely gentle and courteous—so much so that he seemed out of place in this bleak, brutal world.

"Thank you, Professor. This is the third gift I've ever received. I'll treasure it."

"Hearing you say that makes me all the more grateful. I shall be going, then. I think you can wake Master Ricard now."

"... Huh? Rica-what? Master?"

"Oh, no. I was only joking. Haha."

As someone sent by the Count Palatine, he apparently knew a little about Ricard.

"Oh... Riki does seem a bit like a noble, doesn't he? To me, he's the greatest hero in the Empire. Hehehe."

Ellich gave an awkward smile and left the lecture hall. Only then did Boribori wake Ricard.

"Riki. Riki."

"... Uh, huh? Oh, is class over? You should've woken me. What's this?"

"The textbook. The professor gave it to me as a present."

Ricard opened it and skimmed through. With his sharp eye and quick mind, he memorized several characters in an instant before speaking.

"Lend it to me sometime."

"All right."

"Ahh...! That was a good nap. My neck's a bit stiff, though."

"You should've put your head down."

"Should have. Let's go."

Ricard stood, shoving his hands into his pockets. He had shaved off his golden broccoli-like hair, and it had now grown back a little.

He and Boribori descended the narrow spiral stairs in the defensive tower attached to the inner keep. The ground floor housed the student dormitories.

Built as soldiers' barracks in ancient times, the rooms were perfectly suited for living in. Students were running about the corridor, playing with cleaning tools in their hands.

They hesitated briefly when Ricard appeared, then went back to chasing one another without paying him any mind.

He glanced into the rooms as he passed. Everyone seemed to be doing well.

Then he caught sight of the students who had bullied Boribori. Boribori had said nothing about them, so Ricard did not even know who they were.

At the sight of Boribori, however, they panicked and scurried out of sight like rats.

Boribori paid the rats no attention. They were not worth even that.

Warm sunlight greeted the two boys as they stepped out of the keep. It felt as though a gentle giant had softly enclosed their bodies in its hand.

Castle interiors were naturally shadowy and chilly; the temperature and even the air itself differed from outside. Spending too long inside was bad for one's health, which was why nobles often took walks and sunbathed.

Ricard and Boribori headed toward the girls' dormitory, opposite their old chicken coop. Some woods beside it had been cleared to make a new training ground. The eight students who had accompanied Ricard on the commission were gathered there, along with several others.

Volka, Molty, and Fallen were sitting shirtless, sweaty and resting. Ice, Jerome, and Melson stood nearby, talking about something.

Perhaps because they had experienced real combat and brushed with death, all of them trained hard. Lara and Delphi, now princesses, were teaching the so-called ladies too, telling them they couldn't keep doing things that way and needed to get their heads straight.

They spotted Ricard and Boribori and raised their hands in greeting.

"How's training going?"

"Feels like I'm getting somewhere, then not. Maybe I've improved a little. You know."

So Volka said, but after experiencing real combat, his ability was on an entirely different level from before.

He could seem rather thickheaded, but he was quick to grasp things—just as he had been when Ricard had beaten him before.

Boribori kept fidgeting and trying to hide behind Ricard, though he could hardly conceal himself there.

Ice looked at him and spoke.

"Have you practiced?"

"Huh? Y-yes..."

"Show me."

Whether reluctant, unwilling, or merely embarrassed, Boribori awkwardly picked up one of the students' practice swords.

Naturally, every student present turned to watch. He gripped the sword and concentrated, his whole body trembling.

It was enough to make anyone wonder what he was doing, yet not one student laughed. His clumsy swing soon left a trail of inky black mana in its wake.

His swordwork was sloppy, and his body swayed because he could not properly control his own strength. But a flower of mana had unmistakably bloomed.

That single swing seemed to exhaust Boribori completely. He panted and dripped sweat, watching Ice anxiously.

"Good. Keep practicing. Otherwise, you'll hurt yourself."

Mishandling mana could rupture muscles or blood vessels, burst one's eyes, or, in severe cases, damage internal organs. Injury to a vital organ such as the brain or heart meant instant death.

Every student there knew Boribori had extraordinary talent for mana. After all, he had beaten a student to death with his bare hands.

Failing to control it properly could therefore be terribly dangerous. It was Ice who was teaching him how to control that mana—Mana Drive—even though Boribori had disliked him as a heretic.

Perhaps that left him feeling guilty, because he kept fidgeting, unsure what to do with himself.

"Most people build up mana gradually, a little at a time, so it's safe for them to use it in their bodies. But for you, doing things in reverse will be safer."

Boribori was a highly unusual case. His innate reserves of mana were immense, and his vessel for holding it was so large that, despite his abysmal swordsmanship and fighting ability, he had begun by practicing the so-called Bloom-stage sword.

"Okay... Thank you..."

His thanks were so quiet that even an ant would have struggled to hear them.

But Ice evidently was not teaching him for the gratitude. His expression was as impassive as ever.

Then he turned to Ricard.

"If you would."

Ricard, who had been standing idly by, went over and took the practice sword from Boribori, then walked to the center of the clearing.

Ice picked up a practice sword as well and slowly followed. The watching students' eyes took on a different light. A chance to watch skilled fighters spar was worth more than gold. They could witness it here at the academy, but such opportunities were rare elsewhere.

Ricard turned his sword this way and that, as though giving it a casual inspection. Then he raised his head and looked at Ice. His gaze was perfectly calm.

Yet meeting that calm gaze made Ice feel as though something unknown had bound his entire body. A chill swept over him, raising every fine hair.

This was not the first time. He felt it whenever he sparred with Ricard. Facing those eyes head-on always sent an inexplicable shiver through him and seemed to make his body stiffen.

Those eyes. They were the greatest problem. Ricard did not seem to be merely looking at his opponent, but at something beyond him. Seeing through his thoughts—even into his heart.

Ice had to force himself to turn his neck and move his arms and legs, reassuring himself that nothing was wrong with his body. Even so, meeting those eyes made his chest feel tight.

He took deep breaths where he stood, struggling to relax. At last, he managed to assume his stance and speak.

"You first, please."

Ice asked Ricard to attack first because, whenever he himself had taken the initiative, he had never lasted even a single exchange.

Without hesitation, Ricard darted left, immediately slipped right, and swung at his waist.

His form was clean, but the movement was nothing special. His speed was about the best a trained boy his age could manage—not particularly fast to a skilled fighter. It was well within Ice's ability to counter.

Instead, Ice dodged toward the incoming attack and moved into Ricard's blind spot. So far, there was no problem.

Ricard turned to face him again and immediately raised his sword high overhead. At that instant, Ice's blade went for Ricard's side. But the blade Ricard held above his head was pointing downward.

CLANG!

Their first clash. Ice thought he needed to disengage. Countless possible developments flashed through his mind.

But Ricard made a move that appeared in none of them, as though he had read Ice's thoughts in advance and responded accordingly.

Flustered, Ice met Ricard's gaze again. Those eyes... What on earth were they seeing? What could they see in him?

TAP-TAP-TAP.

Ricard swiftly pursued as Ice retreated in short steps. Gritting his teeth, Ice swung in counterattack. He could not lose without doing anything but defend. He had to try something.

WHOOSH! THWACK!

"Urgh!"

The two swords swept past one another. One cut through empty air; the other struck its opponent squarely in the neck.

Ice faltered briefly after the blunt blade hit his neck, then instinctively tried to resume fighting. But he stopped. Had these been sharp swords, the match would already have been over.

Ricard had already put some distance between them and stood quietly watching him.

"You're still thinking too much. How many times do I have to tell you not to let your thoughts swing the sword? Just swing at what you see. Trying to outthink every move is a bad habit."

Honestly, in Ricard's eyes, Ice was making no progress at all. In that respect, he could see no difference between Ice and Boribori. From a sufficiently lofty height, everything below tends to look much the same.

In truth, fights between people who had attained a certain level of skill almost inevitably became contests of moves and countermoves. But Ricard was talking about something beyond that: a state free of conscious thought.

Here, Ice had hit a wall. How could anyone fight without thinking?

He was unquestionably a genius, with scarcely an equal among others his age. He could instantly envision all manner of optimal attacks and defenses, choose the best of them, and execute it.

But he was supposed to abandon thought? How was he meant to do that...?

"... Thank you."

Ice spoke with a faint, pained frown, touching his neck. The spot where he had been struck stung.

Watching from the sidelines, Molty remarked matter-of-factly,

"That makes exactly ten losses in ten matches."

"No matter how many times I watch them spar, I can't make sense of it," Volka replied. From the outside, there had been nothing remarkable about the match. Their bouts were always like that.

To Volka and all the other students, Ice was genius incarnate. Sparring with him made that clear: they lost so completely that it felt as though he were toying with them.

Yet whenever that same Ice sparred with Ricard, he lost without much of a fight. They could not understand it even while watching with their own eyes.

"It's like playing at building towers," Ricard told Ice, twirling the practice sword as though it were a toy.

"You work hard to build one, then knock it all down at once. And suddenly, new things open up before your eyes. You realize that the tower you treasured and put so much effort into was actually nothing at all, and then you no longer need to think. I suppose you're not ready to bring your tower down yet."

It was difficult to understand. But telling Ice how far apart to place his feet or how to hold his stance would have been pointless. This was the only sort of guidance Ricard could offer.

And he himself thought he was explaining it fairly accurately. There was no other way to put it.

However, survival had been Riki's overriding goal in his previous life. Whether he wanted to or not, his circumstances had constantly forced him to tear down the towers he had so painstakingly built. Letting an opponent read a predictable pattern could mean death.

Creative attacks and defenses. Attacks and defenses that went beyond even those and appeared ordinary instead. The workings of force, paths, lines, points, freedom from thought, the mind, and the life one had lived. The higher one rose, the harder it became to express in words.

"U-um..."

As Ice and Ricard returned to the others, Boribori unexpectedly approached Ice. Ice turned to see what he wanted and found him holding out a small paper packet.

"For your neck... I made it by chewing it up really well..."

Without a word, Ice accepted the packet. Inside was something resembling mashed grass.

"It won't leave a scar, and it'll heal quickly..."

Boribori could not meet Ice's eyes the whole time he spoke. Seeing that, Volka laughed.

"Hey, you wouldn't make me anything like that if I were dying."

"W-well, you're tough, Volka."

"What's that supposed to mean? Ice is tough too."

"No, but... Ice is handsome. It'd be a bigger loss if he got a scar."

"What!? Ha! Hahaha! Ha!"

Volka was apparently so dumbfounded that he could only keep giving hollow laughs. The other students, however, roared with genuine laughter.

And so the students of Beringen Academy continued to grow, supporting and encouraging one another through friendly competition.

They never dreamed, however, that the lessons they received so casually from the boy beside them came from the first person to break through humanity's limits and open new horizons for the sword.

Nor did they know the extent of their own potential.