Top Instructor of a Third-Rate Academy

059

“Would I have stabbed him to death if you hadn't stopped me? Aw, sir. I have common sense, too. Of course, I wouldn't have killed him, just scared him.”

“Why did you pretend to be a student there?”

“Then those people would have been hell-bent on finding me to try and beat me. Or they'd drag another instructor over and say this student is, uh, morally corrupt and a lost cause, has no manners, and the discipline of Akarind Academy is collapsing, lives are collapsing, and the Belmain Kingdom and this world are collapsing! I thought they'd make a fuss like that.”

“Really?”

“That's when I'd say just one thing. I'm not a student. And the person next to them would be all flustered too. Uh, this person is not a student. This person is none other than the great Lady Rozalin Vürhelm, the commander of the Invincible Akarind Guardian Security Team that protects the Great Akarind Academy and the Grand General who fights demons!”

Ta-da, with a sound, Rozalin spread her arms wide and struck an exaggerated pose like in a play.

It was a sight that might have been ridiculous if others did it, but for some reason, it suited her well.

The moonlight, now faintly risen, settled on her hair.

“What, Vürhelm? That Vürhelm of the Empire that raises elites who are proficient in both literary and martial arts! The point is to cover my mouth with the back of my hand and laugh like ohohohohot like a villainess when the other party is surprised, you know?”

“Still, they are instructors of the same school. They're new and overwhelmed, so try not to tease them too much.”

“Aw, sir, you're too nice.”

“I don't think so.”

As I shook my head, Rozalin's eyes widened.

“You heard what I'm going to do in this grade evaluation. What do you think people's gazes will be like when I do that?”

“Well, they'll gather on you, sir, won't they?”

I am not a fool.

I could fully predict what kind of results my actions would bring.

No matter how hard the instructors of classes C, D, and E tried to come up with a good strategy, I was confident that I could steal all the attention that would go to them.

When that time comes, they too will naturally realize.

That the students they had looked down on were, in fact, giants.

That if their students seemed lacking, it was because they were providing a messy education.

Rozalin, who had heard my entire story, smiled as if she couldn't be helped.

“You know, when I think about it, you're the most sinister one, sir. It's like you're saying, 'No matter how hard you guys try, compared to my educational philosophy! My secret notebook! You're not even worth the dirt under my toenails!'”

“About that notebook. Because you spread it around as you pleased, my dark history is about to be known all over the world.”

“Aw, if your dark history is of that level, then, uh, you should spread rumors about it in the neighborhood. Something like that should be designated as a national cultural heritage and preserved in a museum.”

“Please refrain.”

While we were exchanging jokes like that, I soon arrived at a quiet space, quite a distance from the other dormitory buildings.

There was my dormitory building.

“……This is crazy.”

Avril, does this person not know moderation?

Only a few days had passed, but a house of a scale that was hard to believe had been built in that time was standing there.

Yes, it wasn't a dormitory, but a complete house.

The cozy house was a two-story structure, and what seemed to be rooms had large windows.

There were three doors, one in the front, one on the side, and one in the back, and a large chimney was installed as if to tell me to stay warm.

On one side of the house, a pile of firewood that seemed more than enough to overcome the cold early spring weather was stacked, and a little further from there, a well for drawing drinking water was made.

And past the well was the training ground.

“Isn't this better than the priest's training ground?”

“It's made wide and well. That's great, isn't it? Pan and Bridget, and me too. We all come here to swing our swords every day. If it's good for you to create your swordsmanship, then it's a good thing, isn't it?”

Overall, it was too much.

But that impression completely disappeared at the sight that unfolded as soon as I opened the door.

“……Wow.”

There was a small library.

As soon as I opened the door, bookshelves filled the walls.

The entire first floor was a study, and the bookshelves were packed with books of various kinds.

They seemed to be of a higher level and more luxurious than the collections in the Akarind Academy library.

I cautiously took a step inside my dormitory.

“The smell……”

Well-maintained books have a unique smell of old books.

How should I put it, it's a smell like well-baked bread in the sun, where the musty smell of dust mixes with the smell of aging paper and ink to create a unique fragrance.

It calmed my heart.

On one side of the wall was a well-decorated brick fireplace, and as if to tell me to sit comfortably and read, a high-quality rug and a rocking chair were also placed there.

“Ugh, the musty smell of books. I told that Avril brat to build a dormitory, but what's with this moldy-smelling place he built.”

Rozalin frowned as if it were terrible.

Not knowing the charm of books, I felt a little sorry for her.

‘This is the first time I've seen a desk like this.’

In the center of the bookshelves, there was a huge and wide work desk.

It was a desk that a representative of a large merchant guild might use.

It was the size of two or three regular desks combined, and in the center, a wide, slanted reading stand was installed.

And around it, the notebooks that were in my old dormitory were scattered about haphazardly…… huh?

“Ugh?!”

I quickly approached the desk and gathered the notebooks.

It wasn't the page I had left open.

That Avril brat, really!

‘Why does he like other people's unfinished manuscripts so much!’

Showing unfinished manuscripts that hadn't been proofread, corrected, or edited was similar to the feeling of someone barging in while you're in the shower.

The feeling of your raw, embarrassing thoughts being thoroughly understood.

The sense of awe and gratitude I had felt looking at the bookshelves and desk disappeared in an instant.

“It's an interior that you would like, sir. It seems Avril put a lot of thought into it.”

I went up to the second floor.

The bed in the bedroom, as well as the wardrobe and closet, were all simple yet high-quality products with excellent finishing.

They were high-end brands that I wouldn't have even seen in the Imperial Academy's dormitories, each one a product that would be hard to afford with my salary.

“It seems it's not lacking for our sir to stay in. Hmm, hmm. Khuhuhu, you must have been tired for the past few days, so take this opportunity to sleep well. I'll be going now!”

Rozalin poked me in the side, giggled, and disappeared.

Fatigue, I was certainly terribly tired.

The blanket was soft enough to tickle my skin, and the bed was so plush that the moment I lay down, I would fall into a deep sleep.

I slowly examined the books on the shelves.

‘Understanding Advanced Swordsmanship. The Correlation between Mana and Swordsmanship. A Philosophical Approach to the Hierarchy of Mages. The Correlation between the Standard of Living of Imperial Nobles and the Mana Hierarchy. An Easy Introduction to Mana, This is Not Swordsmanship…… they are all renowned high-end books.’

Those books were showing off their beautiful forms, as if urging me to read them quickly.

There was no way I could sleep in an environment like this.

‘What terrible torture.’

That Avril brat probably knew my personality.

Perhaps he's giving me a space like this to put unspoken pressure on me to produce a theory as soon as possible.

But.

‘How can I not love a hell like this.’

Among them, I picked up ‘This is Not Swordsmanship,’ which I had wanted to read for a long time, and headed to the rocking chair.

I used a tinderbox to light a fire on the well-placed firewood.

As the fire flared up, the remaining cold air of early spring retreated, and a cozy warmth spread throughout the house.

I opened the book, using the gentle light of the fire as a lamp.

The rocking chair, bearing my weight, vibrated naturally.

The night slowly ripened.

* * *

The next day, as soon as the class was over, I brought Zelta to my dormitory.

“We’re going to plan the strategy together.”

Zelta didn't seem too keen on my proposal.

No, it felt like he didn't like me as a person that much.

Was there something I did to earn his dislike during our trip to the monster habitat?

Zelta, who had been like that, changed 180 degrees the moment he entered the dormitory.

“……Sir.”

“Yes?”

“Is this heaven?”

It's pretty close.

“I didn't have a dream. But now I have a dream. When I grow up, I will become Teacher Cassian.”

“Not someone like me, but me?”

“Even if I become someone similar to you, sir, I won't be able to have this semi-library.”

For some reason, those words sounded like he would kill me and take this house, which was chilling.

In fact, Zelta's eyes were filled with more passion than ever before.

“Sit here.”

I brought a guest chair next to the meeting table.

Zelta, as if surprised by the texture of the luxurious chair, touched the armrests and the seat cushion a few times and swallowed his saliva.

“You heard the plan back then, right? We're going to aim for the last turn on the second day.”

As the explanation of the plan's outline began, Zelta's eyes started to gaze into the void.

It was as if he were writing down the briefing's content on his own documents and reading them.

Looking closely, his hands, which were on his knees, were also twitching slightly at the wrist, a motion as if he were writing and erasing numerous memos on those documents.

“The number of people we can mobilize in one class is 60. The students are likely to bring bait like meat to lure the harpies, or even a horse.”

“They'll place it in the center of the formation and hunt the harpies as they come down.”

“To hunt a lot of harpies, more than half will have to carry bows, and the other half will have to carry shields. They'll block the attacks coming from the air with tower shields, and shoot arrows through the gaps between the shields.”

“Is it a method where the swordsmen hidden among the shield bearers cut down the harpies that come down for the horse?”

“That's the standard. And the variation that's added here is how much magic is involved.”

Our eyes met.

“Including the entry and retreat times, we can probably hunt about 20-30 harpies at most.”

He finished the calculation in an instant and looked at me.

Good.

“If we successfully lure the Beholders, it won't be difficult to slaughter more harpies than that.”

“But if the Beholders catch all the harpies, we won't get any points.”

“So we'll move into hiding on top of the canyon a day before. The route will be like this.”

I took out an empty notebook and began to draw the map Hati had shown me on a larger scale.

Although it was a short time, it wasn't difficult to reproduce the drawing as I had seen it clearly.

‘But this alone is too simple.’

Since it was a canyon, it was unreasonable to discuss a strategy with just a simple topographical map.

So I began to express the elevation on the map using contour lines.

The surrounding scenery that I had stepped on, seen, and felt was naturally reproduced in my head as I moved the pen.

Also, I logically inferred and drew in the kind of curves that would be formed in the empty spaces between the contour lines.

The information on military science and geography that I had learned at the academy in the past intersected in a complex way.

‘This is not enough either.’

Forest, rock, normal wilderness.

I draw the places with and without cover, and fill in the paths in the empty spaces.

60 students had to walk.

Unlike Hati's mercenary corps, they needed time to firmly hammer in the nails.

‘Simplify the path. The harpies are fighting at the entrance of the canyon, so we have to use that time.’

In addition, I also consider the placement of shadows according to the sun's path.

Once in the morning, once at midnight.

Considering the sun's position at those times, the path was bound to become a bit more complicated.

After a long time, my wrist became sore, and my fingers, which had been strained for a long time, started to creak.

When I put down the pen, about six maps, enough to fill the wide desk, were completed.

“……Let's move with this route.”

After finishing the explanation, I looked at Zelta.

Zelta was staring at me blankly with his mouth open.

Uh, what did I do now?