Top Instructor of a Third-Rate Academy

016

While waiting for Cassian, Pan swung his sword in the training ground.

Warming up his body made training easier.

Soon, the sound of crunching footsteps approached the training ground.

'The instructor is here,' he thought as he turned his gaze.

Standing there was the grey-haired merchant, Avril, dressed in a simple tunic.

"Why are you here? Isn't it Class A's lesson time?"

Avril looked at him as if he didn't understand.

His indifferent yet cold eyes seemed to be looking down on him, blaming him.

Eyes that seemed to put a price on his every word, every action.

Pan hesitated and took a step back.

'I don't like him...'

It wasn't just Avril; it was the same with Rozalin and Yuria.

Strangely, all the new faces would mutter things he couldn't understand or have a strange, feverish excitement in their eyes whenever they saw him.

Though young, he could tell instinctively.

Passion, love, reverence, and so on.

It was a different kind of gaze from the ones he had glimpsed from adults, a twisted and distorted gaze.

"Answer."

At Avril's sharp gaze, Pan's answer came out rather defiantly for that reason.

"It-it's because of you..."

"Me?"

Avril's eyebrow twitched from beneath his grey hair.

"Because you told the Class A instructor, Sordian, not to teach me, me..."

"...What?"

"Hiek?!"

Pan was startled and took a big step back.

That's how unusual Avril's expression was.

A person who seemed indifferent to everything, who seemed to only know money.

Such a person's eyes were gleaming.

"I, what, what did I do?"

"Y-y-y-you told him to just le-leave me alone, so I went to Instructor Cassian...!"

"Me?"

Avril had an expression as if he really didn't know anything.

But Pan was not fooled by Avril's expression.

"And that instructor, to Instructor Cassian...!"

"What are you doing now!"

Cassian quickly ran into the training ground.

It was because Pan's voice from outside had sounded unusual.

The moment he entered, Avril's expression was so distorted that it was hard to believe it was really him.

An atmosphere as if he was about to approach Pan and threaten him at any moment.

He was already a person I didn't like, and I couldn't let him get away with such hooliganism.

Yuria also followed behind him with quick steps.

Her gaze was strangely sunken, and the hazy look from yesterday was nowhere to be seen. She stared at him with wide, unblinking eyes.

'Combat stance.'

Seeing her, Avril frowned.

She was a Saint in name, but no different from a mad zealot.

'It's not for nothing that Rozalin sought out that madwoman first.'

Even though it had only been a day, she seemed to have decided to protect Cassian.

It would be a loss to show emotion in a place like this.

'Hoo.'

Avril composed his breathing and suppressed his emotions.

A merchant, in the end, is one who hides their face and aims at hearts and minds, insight and wisdom.

As someone who had stood at the pinnacle of such merchants, it was not difficult to control his heart.

"I'm sorry."

"...Hic."

Apologizing was not difficult either.

Emotions were a luxury in transactions where money was involved.

"That was not my intention. It seems like excessive loyalty."

"Y-you should apologize to the instructor too...! That person bruised the instructor's arm...!"

At Pan's words, Avril's hand immediately went to Cassian's sleeve.

Before Cassian could even dodge, his hand rolled up the sleeve.

A faint handprint bruise remained there.

"What are you doing."

At Cassian's question, Avril let go of his hand and took a step back.

It was a heavy step.

"Pan. From tomorrow, come back to Class A. I'll replace him with a proper instructor."

"Th-then that Instructor Sordian..."

Avril left the training ground without answering.

His pace gradually quickened.

After walking down the hallway for a while, when he was almost near Class B.

Grind.

The sound of grinding teeth came from Avril's mouth.

'That crazy bastard.'

There was no particular reason for visiting the Class C training ground.

He was the type who was only satisfied after micromanaging the businesses he invested in on-site.

So, as usual, he was planning to look around and check on the state of Class C, especially Cassian's teaching.

But what was that about what?

"Young master?"

So, upon arriving at Class A, he immediately walked up to Sordian.

"You were playing around."

Sordian was sitting in a shady corner of the Class A training ground.

"Playing around? As you can see, I'm working."

He wasn't wrong.

It was currently Class A's swordsmanship guidance class, and the Class A students were doing autonomous training.

Students who had questions would come to Sordian for guidance.

Then Sordian would fix the students' stances a few times and then enjoy his leisure time again.

It was a teaching method not unlike Cassian's in Class C.

"My money is leaking out, and you're just sitting on your ass playing around."

Except, he wasn't Cassian.

"Hey, young master. That's a bit too harsh...!"

Avril's palm covered Sordian's lower jaw.

It was so stealthy that he didn't even know when he was grabbed.

"Ugh?!"

His breath caught in his throat as his nose and mouth were covered.

Above all, the strength was monstrous.

He wanted to tear it off somehow, so he grabbed Avril's hand and wrist and struggled, but it didn't budge.

"What I said was not to taint Pan with your pathetic swordsmanship knowledge. Not to neglect him and chase him away."

He could feel a strong grip, as if his fingers were about to pierce his cheek.

What was scarier was that, beyond his blurry vision, Avril's sharp eyes were staring at him clearly.

An emotionless gaze, as if he himself had no value.

'B-breath... I'm dying!'

His face turned red, and the sky turned yellow.

Just before his vision completely evaporated into blackness.

Thump.

The hand that was holding his mouth disappeared, and in an instant, air rushed into his mouth and nose.

"Gack, gack!"

With the sudden rush of air, snot and saliva mixed and flowed down to the floor.

With the tears welling up in his eyes, it was an unsightly sight.

Standing in front of him, Avril looked down at him with eyes as if he were looking at a bug.

"I don't care what happens to your naive educational philosophy."

Slowly, Avril's body bends down.

The now darkening sky, and the long shadow cast by the last rays of sunlight, covered Sordian's body.

"56 billion gold."

"Hah, hah..."

"You almost blew 56 billion gold of my money, so what should I do?"

Sordian couldn't understand what Avril was saying.

It was only natural.

That Avril, who had pushed aside his father and brothers to take over the Goldline Merchant Guild, had supplied military weapons to the empire, and even the whole world.

That he had bet his life and the entire fate of the merchant guild on the victory of humanity.

That the amount invested there amounted to a whopping 56 billion gold.

And now that he was back.

That Avril was making an even bigger bet.

There was no way Sordian would know.

Above all, Sordian didn't have the luxury to focus on such detailed nitpicking.

Because as he caught his breath, he could feel the distrustful and mocking gazes of the students.

'A little brat who just plays with money dares to screw me over, someone from the Imperial Royal Knights...!'

He couldn't grasp what that technique that had just grabbed him was.

For the frail young master from a few days ago to have pierced his senses.

That couldn't be Avril's skill.

'An artifact! He's just getting cocky with an artifact his old man gave him!'

He's giving me this humiliation, trusting a mere toy?

It was unbearable.

"Eek!"

Sordian's body moved.

Just as it had been trained tens of thousands of times and tempered in thousands of real battles.

His body shot forward, and a sword shot out from his side like an arrow.

A fast sword pushed to its limit aimed at Avril's arm.

An attack aimed at a place that would leave no aftereffects but cause great pain.

"Obvious."

Avril, who had predicted everything, dodged Sordian's sword with a ghostly, fluttering movement.

It was a movement like a piece of paper fluttering in the wind.

Sordian had seen that movement before.

The clan, Twilight, said to be home to the world's best assassins.

It was their movement technique.

But he had no time to be surprised.

Stab.

The pain that pierced one of his eyes stimulated all the pain receptors in his body and ate away at all his cranial nerves.

It was a small dagger, the size of an index finger.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah—!"

The terrible scream was enough to make the students watching the scene cringe and step back.

Avril looked down at Sordian for a moment.

His anger was not completely gone with just this.

But.

'The instructor was preparing something.'

Even a piece of trash like this should be used if there's a use for it.

With that thought, Avril swept his messy bangs back with his right hand.

As his hand touched it, the slightly cut hair scattered to the floor.

He had dodged, but it was such a tricky swordsmanship that he couldn't completely avoid it.

Thanks to that, Avril's emotionless eyes swept over the students from between his now-cleared bangs.

"From today, I will teach Class A instead of that trash."

There was no resistance.

* * *

What will Avril do with Sordian?

'Considering his personality, won't he just give him a good scolding?'

Or he could be replaced with a new instructor.

Goldline has that much capital.

'No, he won't be able to easily replace an instructor from the Imperial Knights.'

It wasn't just about money; it was about people.

Originally, Sordian was said to be an escort belonging to the merchant guild.

It would be nearly impossible to fire such a person and bring in someone new from tomorrow.

So we should just continue our preparations as planned.

"Sordian's swordsmanship is a fast sword, but it's a bit more subtle than that."

Since I couldn't move my body, I brought a stick and drew a picture on the ground.

It was a stick figure of a human holding a sword, but the angle and posture were still quite clean.

"Ugh, it's hard to make out."

"Just look at the position and posture of the sword. From here, like this. The sword moves."

In the case of a fast-swinging swordsmanship, the trajectory had to be simple.

"Because it's not swung with just arm strength."

He twists his body and draws a trajectory with that rotational force and elasticity.

The important thing to look at here is the tip of the sword.

"But Sordian uses the flat of the blade. He puts weight on the front part of the sword."

When I saw him last time, his sense of distance when extending his hand was a bit strange.

Even the way he planted his feet and used his muscles.

"You can tell just by looking at that?"

"Probably. So to avoid that swordsmanship, you need to move one more step, about the length of a palm, from the tip of the sword to the central axis."

"But you said it's a fast sword. And he's a knight from the Imperial Knights, not just anyone..."

"We can do it. What we have to do is not to break through and attack him, but to block and evade."

I was so passionate about Pan's guidance that I stayed up late.

A week before the performance evaluation.

"This body has arrived!"

Freutche, who had organized his teaching schedule, officially joined us.