Study 4

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Everyone in the faculty dining hall turned their eyes to one spot.

A man was striding in, his belly fat wobbling with each heavy step.

It was Professor Elcanto.

“Who do you think you are, just a mere instructor, to do something like that to a student!”

“I’m not sure what you mean, Professor Elcanto Paredes.”

Ziel answered calmly.

“You don’t know what I mean? Huh? Do you not remember what you did to student Dellev Kundel in your class today? Huh?”

“I did nothing beyond self-defense training.”

“That… argh! That’s exactly the problem! Why would you do that to a student! And of all people, a member of the Kundel family!”

“Is there a problem with that?”

“Of course there’s a problem! How could there not be! You slammed the Kundel family’s son into the ground! Are you going to take responsibility? Huh? Are you going to take responsibility!”

Ziel asked back, genuinely confused.

“It was a class in proper procedure. What exactly is there to take responsibility for?”

“Ugh!”

Professor Elcanto erupted in rage.

The assistant beside him hurried to intervene.

“P-Professor, if property is damaged here, our budget…”

The word budget jolted Elcanto back to reality.

Only then did he notice the eyes watching from all around.

Oh, shoot.

He took a deep breath and leaned his face close to Ziel’s.

“Instructor Ziel Steelheart. If the Kundel family cuts off their donations to our Sword School or demands accountability over this matter, you’d better be prepared!”

Professor Elcanto stormed off, fuming.

And yet, Ziel still wore the expression of someone who had done nothing wrong.

“Sir, I think you might be in serious trouble,” Celia said.

“Trouble?”

“Yes. I think the incident from class has reached the wrong ears.”

“You mean the demonstration conducted by the book?”

“…By the book?”

“I followed the proper curriculum. I should be receiving praise, not criticism. This is strange.”

Celia was speechless.

This wasn’t just rigidness… it felt like he was driven by some kind of unwavering conviction.

“I believe it was standard procedure to provide appropriate real combat experience to make them recognize the necessity.”

“That was… standard procedure?”

Had it been any other teacher, she would have thought they’d gone mad.

But for some reason…

When this teacher said it, she found herself nodding.

Maybe I should watch him a little longer.

Celia decided to withhold the proposal she had been about to make.

Judging by Professor Elcanto’s reaction, this teacher was unlikely to remain unscathed.

If he gets fired, it’ll be even easier to recruit him.

Offering him the position of bodyguard would be far more appropriate after his dismissal.

“By the way, didn’t you say you had business with me, Celia Rihardt?”

“Oh, um… I forgot.”

“Is your memory lacking?”

“…What?”

“Make sure to eat more salmon and nuts. They’re good for memory. I read it in a book.”

“……”

“Oh, and…”

Ziel added as if he had just remembered something.

“You’re getting a demerit.”

“…What?”

“The school rules state that students are prohibited from entering the faculty dining hall without a valid reason.”

“……”

Celia stared blankly as Ziel strode away… only to suddenly curl her lips into a pleased smile.

“I like him. He’s uncompromising.”

Meanwhile…

“What the…?”

Celia saw something strange.

She thought Ziel was leaving, but instead, he got another plate of food and sat back down.

“You’re still here, Celia Rihardt?”

***

The Next Day – Professor Elcanto’s Office

Professor Elcanto sipped tea as he read the newspaper.

“Hm. Not bad.”

He had overeaten last night due to stress, so today he planned to survive on a few cups of tea until lunch.

[Assassination group ‘Black Sky’ remnants—4 captured… 3 committed suicide]

[‘Leader Executed’—Black Sky destroyed, only the ‘Wraith’ remains!]

[Sir Sores, Commander of the Knights: “Complete eradication is near.”]

“Can they even catch that Wraith guy?”

This was the hottest topic in the Valdrein Empire.

The ongoing purge of the Black Sky assassin group.

Their leader had been captured and executed within a day, and now they were hunting down the remaining members.

But one man remained at large.

The assassin who had elevated Black Sky’s legend.

The Wraith.

Professor Elcanto clicked his tongue as he took another sip of tea.

“Where could he be hiding… Can they even catch him?”

Since the ascension of Emperor Valdrein X, many things had changed.

Imperial authority was being strengthened.

Public welfare was being stabilized.

And the assassination groups were being wiped out.

It seemed the current emperor had thoroughly prepared long before taking the throne.

“Well, good riddance to filth like them.”

Who could sleep peacefully if powerful enemies lurked in the shadows?

Though he was from a noble family and not particularly fond of the imperial house, even he approved of this one thing.

Knock, knock.

At the sound of knocking, Professor Elcanto answered without looking up.

“Enter.”

“Good morning, Professor Elcanto.”

It was his assistant.

He entered, placed the mail on the desk, cleaned off dust, and polished the glass windows he had replaced himself last night.

He looked as though he might burst into tears.

“Oh, right. Assistant.”

“Yes, Professor?”

“That Ziel fellow—he’s apologized, right?”

“Uh… I haven’t heard anything about that.”

Elcanto shot to his feet.

“He still hasn’t apologized?”

Those windows were replaced just yesterday.

“That damned brat…”

But the assistant hadn’t brought it up without reason.

“Student Dellev also hasn’t reported anything to his family yet.”

“What?”

Elcanto’s trembling hands stilled.

“He hasn’t reported it?”

“Yes.”

He had gone to visit yesterday but was turned away by Dellev’s bodyguard with an eviction order.

The young master was supposedly under strict rest.

“…What’s going on?”

“I’m not sure either…”

Professor Elcanto thought for a moment, then clapped his hands.

“That’s it!”

“Yes?”

“That guy… maybe he has someone powerful backing him!”

The assistant sighed inwardly.

If he had backing, why would he apply to be a liberal arts instructor?

No one wants liberal arts instructor positions.

Only nobles qualify, yet the pay is miserable and the job is contractual.

Despite being affiliated with Edelvine Academy, they were treated like dirt by professors and ignored by students.

You’d think they’d treat liberal arts instructors better…

But professors never would.

Because the ones who filled the gaps were assistants—practically no different from slaves.

As a result, the skill level of Sword School students had been declining year after year.

“Yes, he must have backing! There’s no way he would act like that otherwise!”

“Perhaps.”

“Assistant, when you have time, ask him discreetly. Find out which side he’s with. Who knows? Maybe his sponsor is an unbelievably powerful family.”

Steelheart.

A family name he had never heard in his life.

If you combed through the empire’s history books, you might find the name written somewhere.

“Yes, I’ll ask him once.”

“Man, seriously—what if that guy is actually someone incredible?”

The assistant thought to himself.

That’s exactly why I’m asking—why would someone like that take a liberal arts instructor job? And at the Sword School, of all places.

As if he’d have any backing.

If he did, he would’ve gone to the Arcane School, not the Sword School.

***

Ziel calmly finished preparing for class and shut the door to his dorm room.

He didn’t forget to set up a few devices to detect intruders.

His sense of self had returned, but old habits hadn’t vanished.

“Not bad.”

Webs everywhere.

Damp everywhere.

Mold everywhere.

Even bugs everywhere.

The furniture and walls were so old they were rotting through.

At last, a tenant had moved into a faculty dorm that had clearly been neglected for years.

“W-Wow… he really moved in there…”

Right next door, a guard from the lavish, glittering student dorm clicked his tongue as he watched Ziel walk out.

What kind of lunatic faculty member at Edelvine Academy would move into that place?

Maybe if you were a penniless academy kid with no connections and nowhere to sleep!

“Good grief, how did he even sleep in there? Didn’t any ghosts show up?”

But for Ziel, it was the perfect lodging.

When he went on missions and needed to lie low, he sometimes chose places no one would notice and hid for days in a pigsty.

Spending a month motionless beneath a ceiling where bugs and rats skittered was the bare minimum.

And that wasn’t all.

Living beside a cesspit was practically routine.

So this is what my own space feels like.

He felt genuinely pleased.

Back when he was brainwashed and working as an assassin, the only space Ziel was allowed was a tiny cell barely big enough for a single bed.

With no self, he had no desires to pursue, and he was merely given a place to sleep after training.

Now he had a room big enough for a bed, a desk, and even a locker, with space to spare.

Still, some habits were hard to break.

The window.

The ceiling.

The floor.

And the entrance.

Ziel finished setting traps at every point where someone could infiltrate or hide.

It was the same routine he always performed at safehouses during missions.

There was also good reason not to relax just yet.

But more than anything, doing this put his mind at ease.

Schwing.

Ziel drew a dagger and slipped it under the blanket.

So he could counterattack at any time.

Lastly, he adjusted a mirror so it reflected the window.

“That should do it.”

Instead of lying on the bed, Ziel sat with his back against the wall.

He had never once slept lying down.

At least, not while on a mission.

He fell asleep the moment he closed his eyes and woke twenty minutes later.

He immediately sat at the desk and laid out several items.

Cards.

He brought his bag over beside them.

Then he pressed and turned the lock at measured intervals and opened it.

Tap, tap, tap.

Small medicine vials came out of the bag and lined up on the desk.

He opened one and began dripping the contents onto the cards—little by little, bit by bit.

“This dosage should be enough.”

He slid the vial back into his bag as if the work were complete.

The cards showed no outward change.

They looked like ordinary blank cards.

He hesitated for a moment, recalling how he used to receive mission orders.

They’d stamp the order with a heavy thud before handing it over.

If he remembered right, there was some kind of magic on the stamp, but he figured he didn’t need to go that far.

“Hm.”

After a brief thought, he stepped outside, found a smooth stone, and brought it back.

Then he took out a very small knife…

Scritch, scritch. Tap, tap.

He carved the surface, etching what looked like a smiling face.

His hands moved with exquisite precision.

Scritch, scritch.

Innate dexterity.

Refined further by assassin training.

He finished in no time.

Ziel flattened the surface, pulled ink from his bag, and dabbed it.

“This should work.”

Thud.

A smiling face stamped onto a blank card.

Perfect bilateral symmetry, a flawless circle.

With that, the “Praise Card” was complete.

Will the students like it?

He had crafted the drug using a formula favored by assassins.

By applying it to the card, he’d made it special.

The card itself was also unusual.

It was a modified version—card-shaped—of an item he had used back in his assassin days.

Once used, it vanished without a trace, and it was incredibly convenient to deploy.

The purpose was simple.

Student protection.

The students would naturally come to understand how to use it.

“Today’s class… physical conditioning.”

Ziel packed the cards away, checked the schedule, and recalled the textbook he’d studied in advance yesterday.

“Stamina is national power!”

That’s what it said on the very first page.

If your stamina is lacking, you can’t do anything.

Ziel agreed completely.

After all, the first training assassins received was endurance training.

Only with stamina could you maintain mental focus during long stakeouts and seize fleeting assassination opportunities.

Most assassin techniques could barely be executed a few times without stamina.

“It’ll be a good session for the students.”

He left the dorm and headed to the Sword School lecture hall.

“Elbat Hall, huh.”

Elbat Ansen.

At the founding of Edelvine Academy, he had been a Sword School professor and was known as the Guardian Knight of the Valdrein Empire.

He was also the first person ever granted the title of “Imperial Knight.”

He lived over two hundred years ago, but if you listed the greatest figures of Valdrein, he always ranked in the top five.

Thanks to that, while Elbat Hall was the oldest among the Sword School buildings, the interior was perfectly maintained.

“Not bad.”

His memories from the assassin days were only of dingy, pitch-dark buildings.

Places where you couldn’t find an exit, where there wasn’t a single window, where even your sense of time broke down.

“Who’s that? A new freshman?”

“I don’t think I’ve heard about any freshman like that…”

Ziel’s relaxed stroll through Elbat Hall drew a lot of attention.

His looks, the aura that emanated from his appearance and gait, and his indifferent expression all combined into a weight you couldn’t quite define.

But it wasn’t the suffocating heaviness that some professors wore, the kind that forbade even approaching them.

“Oh, I heard about him. Isn’t he the new liberal arts instructor?”

“Ah! The one who supposedly caused a scene in the very first class?”

“I heard a freshman mouthed off at him.”

“And that freshman was from the Kundel family.”

“Ah.”

“So we actually have a real liberal arts instructor at the Sword School?”

Ziel heard every word aimed his way.

He couldn’t help it.

But he didn’t particularly care.

Instead, he focused on one sharp gaze that had been fixed on him for a while.

They’ve been on me since outside—about five minutes now.

At first, he assumed it was just someone staring, but since it kept trailing him, it had to be a tail.

The assassin’s instinct stirred.

Time to lure them out.

When you were being tailed, there were two ways to respond.

Shake them naturally.

Or eliminate them.

But this was a school.

Right now, shaking them naturally—or eliminating them—wasn’t easy.

So he decided to use a third option.

Ziel slid a hand into his jacket and pulled something out.

After turning into a side corridor, he confirmed that no one was ahead.

Click.

He quickly set the item from his jacket onto the floor.

Then he sprinkled a glittering powder over it, and the corridor looked empty again.

A moment later—

“Huh?”

The person tailing Ziel appeared.

“W-Was this always blocked off?”

They looked utterly bewildered.

And Ziel…

Is tailing teachers trendy at this school?

Found himself facing a very familiar face.

From Ziel’s side, it was beyond a transparent wall.

It was a trap used exclusively by Black Sky assassins.

In short, a device that projected a perfectly crafted fake scene.

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