Top Instructor of a Third-Rate Academy

Chapter 6

I held my sword, took a middle stance, and calmed my breathing.

"Even if it's a wooden sword, it's going to hurt like hell if you get hit."

"Instructor-nim, as your disciple, I'll hit you a little gently, but, tsk, how far should I go?"

"You can't ask for compensation if you get hurt, okay? Uh, but doesn't the instructor at this time not have any money? Do you even have the means to pay compensation?"

"...But the opportunity to legally beat up the instructor. This is a rare one."

Was it a good idea to ask for a spar?

Rozalin's eyes were so menacing that I had that thought.

"This is a spar, you haven't forgotten that, have you?"

"Of course! A spar, absolutely. Instructor-nim, did you know? The desert warriors are very careful when they spar. Every battle is like a real one! The enlightenment gained through life-and-death experiences!"

Don't be swayed.

I sighed and checked my body.

My body was sufficiently warmed up thanks to sparring with the students during class.

In my stance, I relaxed all the muscles in my body and prepared to deal with any posture.

"Then, here I come!"

And in that moment, Rozalin charged forward.

It was a charge that happened in the blink of an eye.

It was meaningless to follow her movements with my eyes.

So I just focused on moving my sword to block.

Clang!

"Ah?"

A sound of disbelief escaped Rozalin's lips.

Her sword had collided hard with mine and bounced off.

No, it would be an understatement to say it just bounced off.

My wrist that received her sword cried out in dull pain and vibrated with a ziiiing.

"That hurts."

"It would be strange if it didn't hurt, of course it's supposed to hurt. But this isn't a story that ends with 'it hurts'!"

"Does it have to end?"

"That doesn't make any sense, your eyes couldn't follow it! So how did you block it!"

She was right.

I couldn't follow Rozalin's attack.

It was just a matter of perspective.

"I didn't see and block."

"Huh?"

"I just saw your trajectory and blocked."

Rozalin's sword's trajectory is bizarre and hard to read and counter.

But to create that trajectory, a few prerequisites are needed.

"The standing foot."

Since she has to relax all her muscles and move like a whip, she needs a standing foot that can act as a handle and maintain her axis.

"That stance, with your knees slightly bent and your waist lowered. It's to increase your mobility by lowering your center of gravity and then easily move either left or right, right?"

In other words, that stance implied that Rozalin's movements were limited to left and right.

And crucially, before Rozalin moved.

She had a small habit.

"You put your weight on the balls of your feet, not your heels, and leap in the direction you want to move. You use your eyes to calculate whether the ground you're about to move to is solid, and whether you can attack me from there."

Assuming everything she said was true, that habit would be a matter of course.

The war with the demons.

On the ruined land, securing a proper footing and measuring the distance to the demons.

It must be a habit she acquired from crossing countless battlefields, but.

"That's only possible against monster-like opponents. It would be impossible against humans who fight with calculation like me."

"Crazy. You're the only psycho like that, Instructor. No, do you know how many times I've fought with everything from barbarians to all sorts of worldly scum? This is driving me crazy."

Rozalin frowned and scratched the back of her head.

"So you're saying my sword is too straightforward."

"Well, you could see it that way."

"…Tsk, right now, it would just be self-justification if I were to say my swordsmanship is not a proper one but just a counter to your swordsmanship and that's why I can't fight properly, because your wrist is sprained, right?"

"No."

I shook my head.

"After you and Pan finished sparring, I said it. I can't praise a problem you solved with the answer key. You're right. It's as if I solved it by looking at the answer key."

"…Do you know how much of a monster it is to create an answer key after seeing my swordsmanship just a couple of times?"

I turned my gaze to Pan.

Pan had a slightly dazed expression.

His eyes were sparkling, and I could feel a mix of emotions in them, like respect? admiration?

"Pan. Homework."

"Ye-yes?!"

"Rozalin's footwork is more refined and solid than yours. So for the time being, learn footwork from Rozalin. Rozalin's footwork will be better than a clumsy person like me."

At my words, Pan nodded his head vigorously.

It was worth leaving the two of them until the end to have them face each other.

Since I couldn't move my body well, it was difficult to teach Pan proper footwork or counters.

But Rozalin's swordsmanship was a style that was good for standing in one place and countering.

Thanks to that, I was able to show Pan a swordsmanship that I wouldn't be ashamed of.

I clutched my sore wrist and was about to start walking back to the faculty room.

"Wait a minute, Inst'ctor!"

But Rozalin quickly ran up and grabbed my arm.

"What the instructor said was my swordsmanship's weakness! So you were supposed to tell me if my skills really declined over the past 10 years!"

Ah, right.

"Your swordsmanship was honest and proud. But it also pursued maximum efficiency at the best possible speed. A swordsmanship that you know is coming but can't block. That's why it was a swordsmanship that allowed your talent to shine brilliantly."

"Me?"

I guess showing is better than explaining.

Will it work?

I picked up the wooden sword again.

The pain in my right wrist was getting quite bad, so I had no choice but to hold the sword with my left hand.

This makes my stance a bit awkward, but...

"Watch carefully."

I carefully retraced my memories.

I replayed the fight with the orc from yesterday.

At that time, Rozalin took this stance.

Her stance was narrower than now.

Her back was straight, as if to reveal her noble birth.

And yet, without backing down, concisely.

She took a middle stance, as if a single sword would cover her entire body.

If her previous swordsmanship was about distributing balance by relying on one foot and pursuing extreme elasticity.

This stance now showed the pride of a sword like a castle wall.

With a virtual center in front of the body as a radius, the sword is thrust out as if a flower bud is blooming.

Like, thi-thisss...is?

"..."

"..."

The sword held in my left hand fell powerlessly to the ground, and a tempo later, my body also collapsed to the ground with a flop.

When I cautiously raised my head, Pan was looking at me with eyes that had completely lost their earlier respect.

It was a look closer to pity than contempt.

"I think I finally understand why I left you, Instructor. It's shock therapy, right? Yep, it's good. The memories and emotions from 10 years ago are coming back, and it's also reminding me of the sense of mission that I must protect you. It's great. Right?"

Rozalin sighed and grumbled.

Feeling somewhat embarrassed, I sighed and put away my sword.

Then, Rozalin, with a look of 'oops,' started talking, trying to console me.

"I know what the instructor was trying to do. I also remembered to some extent. Really, that eye is a cheat. It means you know what my swordsmanship means. Although your body is a bit, uh, what, defective? to reproduce the swordsmanship? Defective...?"

"That's enough."

"Yes."

Rozalin stopped her attempt at an excuse and stood at attention, closing her mouth.

I slowly got up from my spot and brushed the dirt off my clothes.

Just as I was about to leave the training ground.

"Instructor, why are you in a place like this?"

Rozalin asked, her playful demeanor gone and replaced with a serious expression.

"Honestly, our academy is a third-rate academy stuck in the countryside of the kingdom. With eyes like yours, instructor, even if you're bad with a sword, shouldn't you be somewhere like a strategic researcher for a famous swordsmanship family or the Imperial Royal Academy?"

The deep eyes I saw when she was looking at the Akarind tree now looked at me as if they were piercing through me.

Strange eyes that held time and depth.

So I turned back and looked at Rozalin.

"Is the Imperial Royal Academy really that great?"

"Of course it's great! It's the best academy in the world, so much so that people from all over would want to at least step on its threshold. The entrance exam is tough too. All the graduates go on to live as leaders who sway this world. Well, that all turned to ashes after the Demonic Invasion started, though."

A person of power.

There was a time when I dreamed of that too.

"I'm from there."

"Ugh? Really?"

Rozalin looked at me with an expression of disbelief.

It hurt a little that Pan next to her was also looking at me with a look of disbelief.

"Entered at the top of my class, graduated at the top of my class."

"No fucking way, then that shitty swordsmanship of yours doesn't make any sense! Graduating at the top means you get to join the Lionheart Knights as a full member right away, without any probationary period!"

"The administration."

"Then it makes sense. Yep. If you're good at everything, that's a cheat. I was wondering if this instructor was faking his academic background."

When I was young.

I was what people called a genius.

Studying was the most fun thing in the world, and I could understand the contents of most documents just by reading them once.

Everything in the world seemed to be mine, and it was around the time I was about to head to a prominent family to display my talents.

"I ran into bandits."

When I was weaker and my body was in a worse state than now.

I lost all my possessions and almost lost my life to just three peasants.

If it weren't for a passing knight, I probably would have died.

"That's when I realized. What rules this world is not the pen, but force."

So I pleaded with that knight and learned martial arts for a month.

How to use a sword.

How to use my body.

How to observe an opponent in a fight, and...

"Wa-wait! Those eyes, you learned them, you weren't born with them?"

"How could I be born with them? I can't even control my own body."

"Tsk? Then it makes even less sense. There's another monster of an old man who can teach such monstrous eyes? Who was that knight back then? Do you know his name?"

Of course, I knew.

The person who accompanied me for a month was Perdius de Lionheart.

The current knight commander of the Lionheart Knights, and the man called the strongest in this world.

Hearing the name, Rozalin spat on the ground with a look of disbelief, "Tweh."

"No fucking way, that old geezer?!"

"You know him?"

"That bastard! He's a secretive person who supposedly never goes outside to protect His Majesty the Emperor! Even during the demon war, he didn't show his face except when the demons invaded the imperial palace! And such a person just happened to appear to save the instructor who was luckily getting mugged by some thugs, and taught him 'learn everything I know' and then disappeared?"

"Not everything."

The first thing I learned was that I was terribly clumsy.

The second thing I learned was that I had at least one good eye.

The third was that if I used that eye properly, my body would be completely ruined.

And the fourth…

No matter the attack, no matter the opponent.

I could face them by sacrificing my own body, by swinging my sword along a single line just once.

"Hmm... so that's how it is."

I learned the sword while living for a month with the most perfect teaching material in the world.

Perhaps because of my existing intellect, it was easy to look at people's swordsmanship stances and figure out what kind of life they had lived, how they had tried, and what they pursued.

"I know what I have to do. First, I need to bulk up the instructor's body. Should I start gathering elixirs from undiscovered lands?"

"Undiscovered elixirs? Such things exist?"

"Hehehe, do you know how many treasures have been unearthed because the world was turned upside down by the demon war? And as it happens, I'm the guard captain, right? If I go on a business trip, all those things..."

"Rozalin! There you are!"

Just then, a person came running into the training ground, looking for Rozalin.

It was a guard dressed in clothes similar to what Rozalin was wearing.

"Someone has come from the House of Marquis Vürhelm to escort you after hearing news of your withdrawal."

"Wow, they came flying in just one day."

Indeed, I didn't expect them to fly over in just one day.

It seems the news of Rozalin's withdrawal was truly shocking.

"This is going to be a mess."

But Rozalin, the person in question, just snorted once, "Hmph."

"Good. I needed to settle this quickly anyway."

"Settle it? Surely you're not going to do something with those people?"

But Rozalin threw a question instead of an answer.

"Instructor. Me, I'm missing an arm, no, I was missing one, right?"

Rozalin smiled, baring her canines.

"Who do you think cut it off?"

It was a smile that was both extremely violent and sad.