The Isekai Police [Books 1 + 2 Complete!]

The sound of chalk pressing against slate echoed out from the front of the room.

"Artyom."

That was all he wrote before pausing.

The other students waited almost half a minute before speaking up. "Is something the matter, Mr. Artyom?"

"Huh? I'm just deciding on a title. And Artyom's my first name, my last name is Choi."

"Dr. Choi-"

"Nah, that was my father. I don't have a PhD," he replied, still staring at the board.

"Magus Choi?" asked another student.

"Nope, don't like that either," said Artyom, shaking his head. "How about if you use my first name?"

"Very well, Magus Artyom," replied a fourth whose voice had a haughty ring to it.

"Nah, that sounds way too old school. I might be a mage, but I've never been called magus before. Anyone who would recognize me as 'magus' usually hates me too much to use it. Maybe I can skip the title altogether?"

"Well whatever Artyom-"

"And thanks for ruining it! Uh… how about Professor Artyom, or just Professor? Yeah, I think that'll work," he said, turning around to face the class.

They were looking at him with mostly apprehension, but nobody said a word.

"Alright, welcome to my magical dueling class. I've seen how the people in this school fight, even got a first-hand taste of it with the strongest duelist around. So seeing as how you're all at Fenn's level, I think it'd be best if you start by learning more than just how to throw around basic elemental attacks."

"Excuse me, Professor?" asked one of the students while raising their hand. It was a younger boy, in his mid teens and younger than Rotte by a year or two. "We're not at Fenn's level."

"Yeah, we're nowhere near as strong as him!" said another, chiming in. This time it was a girl about the same age.

"Sure, but you're all in the same general echelon. If you were all enrolled in the same class, that means there isn't anything higher level for you all to take, which means you're in the same level for all intents and purposes."

"Prof. Artyom, this is the only magical dueling class," said Broc. "So anyone interested is taking it, despite how strong they are."

Artyom did a double take. "What? Why?!" he asked, losing his composure for a second. "There's a war going on right now, your kingdom needs war mages!"

"The kingdom doesn't use war mages," replied the haughty-sounding student, suddenly more dour. "Most of us are here to learn how to defend ourselves and our loved ones. Especially with most of us nobility unable to bring our troops to fight off the roving warbands."

Artyom felt the words he was about to shout die in his throat. His mind went back to Freeacres, the smoke that rose in the distance to the ruined buildings up close. The bodies, the dead, the crying…

He shook his head and forced the thoughts aside.

The rest of the class didn't say anything.

"Very well, I understand. I'll do my best."

Everyone in the class picked up the change in his voice and nodded.

"Alright, so start by figuring out what level you're all at-"

"I'm level seven."

"Twenty five for me!"

"Nineteen."

"Ninety one!"

"Liar!"

"Alright alright, hold on!" shouted Artyom as he waved his hands in a stopping motion. "Your Levels don't mean anything. I've fought a mage who was bragging about being level twenty, and I'm sure any of you could take him easily."

The class went silent at that. One of the students raised their hand and said, "I have a Skill that-"

"That's not helpful either, sorry," said Artyom, shaking his head. "Anyone can get a good Skill at any time, and I don't even know how this System works well enough to judge how good you are as a mage by your System arsenal."

The same student slowly put their hand down and looked down at their desk with a pout.

"But congratulations on getting it, you must've been doing something right to work your way there."

That got them to cheer up.

"How about this? Raise your hand if you're capable of pushing magic out of your body, the first step to casting a spell."

Stolen story; please report.

Everyone raised their hand.

"Good, good. It's a start! You all know the basics, I don't have to worry about helping you figure out the absolute basics! That's the longest part."

The students all looked happy at this.

"Now keep your hand up if you can cast a spell. It can even be with an external focus."

Everyone kept their hand raised.

"Even better! You know the basics! Hey, does this class have any prerequisites?"

"Only the introduction classes and the ability to partake in a duel. You don't have to win, but you have to be able to attack and defend successfully at least once," replied one of the students.

"Yeah, I probably should've asked that first," said Artyom with a shrug. "Next question: keep your hand raised if you can cast at least one spell with an internal focus."

A third of the class lowered their hands.

"Okay, nothing wrong with that if you're a beginner. And if not, you can learn pretty easily since it's just a mental thing instead of a measure of your magical talent. Let's keep going though. Can you use more than one internal focus?"

More hands lowered, this time leaving only a half of the class still raised.

"Not as much of a jump there. Now, can you use at least one focus that isn't an element; like fire, ice, electricity, and the like. And shields don't count."

Almost the entire class lowered their hands, leaving only three left.

"Two spells at the same time?"

All hands went down.

"I don't think even Fenn is a high enough level to have the Skill to cast two spells at the same time."

"It's not a System Skill, it's a mental one," corrected Artyom. "You just need to practice until you can hold two of them in your mind at once."

"H-how?" one student asked without raising their hand. The others were quietly mumbling amongst themselves.

"By practicing. Just try it out and keep trying until you get the hang of it."

The mumbling only grew even louder, soon reaching a wailing crescendo that went immediately silent with a crash of a single spoken sentence.

"I don't believe you. You can only get special abilities through Skills or ancient relics," replied the noble-sounding student. "Even Fenn, for all we hate or fear him, hasn't achieved anything like that through hard work alone."

Artyom put a hand to his head and shook it. "Skills aren't everything, you know. They're just a bonus on top of existing magical ability."

That didn't do anything to dissuade the students from that point of view, however. They stared at their teacher as if they were on a prank show and he was the host trying to play a terrible joke on them. "Skills are the foundation of magic, that's the first lesson we learn here."

Now it was Artyom's turn to look like he was being pranked, but soon his eyes went wide and he looked at his students more seriously. "Raise your hand if all of your internal magical foci come from Skills."

Two thirds of the class raised their hand.

Artyom stifled a curse and continued. "Alright, new question. Without using any Skills, how long can you last in a duel? Raise your hand if it's for at least thirty seconds."

Everyone raised.

"One minute."

A few put theirs down.

"Two minutes?"

Two thirds of the class lowered their hands.

"Five minutes."

Only one student's hand was still raised.

"Psst, he said while not using Skills," another student whispered a little bit loudly, and they quickly lowered their hand.

Artyom couldn't help but smile as he slowly shook his head. As disappointed as he wanted to feel at the lack of raw ability, his lips never twisted into anything resembling mockery. It was true, sincere happiness.

"Good news class, this means you all have even more potential to fulfil if you're this weak!"

"We're not weak!" shouted several of the students.

"With your Skills, sure," replied Artyom. "But your baseline natural ability is a second source of strength you can rely on! Think of it like a fist fight; you've only ever used one arm, aka your Skills, but not the other. It's atrophied into a useless husk, but with a little bit of practice, you can bring it up to a decent level. Not enough to win you a fight alone, but it'll put you at an advantage against anybody else only using one arm."

Some of the students began nodding to themselves and a few even flashed him excited smiles, but plenty still looked hesitant. Artyom couldn't blame them, his lesson was antithetical to everything these kids knew about learning and using magic.

"Alright, how about this?" he asked. "Your first task is to obtain a new internal magical focus, one you probably never even considered before: gravity."

"What's gravity?"

Artyom didn't immediately answer, and instead took a piece of chalk and threw it up into the air before catching it. "Why did that piece of chalk come down after I threw it up?"

The students silently looked between themselves before one of them answered. "Because that's what it does? When things go up, they go back down."

"But why?"

He was met with plain, silent confusion.

"You know what force is, right? Like when you push or throw something, you're exerting force on it to make it move."

They all nodded.

"I put force on the chalk to make it go up, but as it went up, it started to slow down before reaching its peak. And once it was at its peak, it started to come back down, gaining speed as it did. Another force was acting on it. So class, what force was that?"

Even more confusion, but one of the kids slowly raised their hand and answered. "Was it… gravity?"

Artyom nodded. "Today I'm going to teach you how to harness gravity magic. CLose your eyes and focus on the weight pushing down on you. Heck, get up and jump! Feel the force pulling you back to the ground. Everything has gravity, but the larger something is, the more it has."

"Does that mean we have gravity?" asked Cane. "Why don't we all go flying into each other, then?"

"It's because you have to be really big for your gravity to be noticeable, and even the biggest structures like the school barely have any."

"So then why are we getting pulled down? Is there something really big underground?" asked Broc.

"You tell me, is there anything really big under you?"

The class was silent, and it took all of Artyom's will not to slap his face.

"Like… the entire world itself?"

Everyone's eyes went wide and a few gasps went out from the crowd.

"So it looks like you all have a good idea of what gravity is, but you still need to understand what gravity is. Figure out its workings, internalize it, meditate on it. Throw some stuff and just observe how it falls, close your eyes and feel it acting on you! Just get to know it."

The students nodded, beginning to try it out for themselves.

Artyom gave them ten more minutes to mess around before looking at the clock and shaking his head.

"Your homework is to improve your understanding of gravity, and tomorrow we'll see if we can't turn it into a new spell focus. Class dismissed!"