The students still couldn’t quite believe their ears.
“Us… beating the second-years?” someone asked, voice thin with disbelief.
“Yes,” Ziel replied. Not we might. Not it’s possible. Just—yes. Flat. Certain. As if the matter had already been settled.
“But… how?” another student sputtered. “They’re already in advanced courses. They get deployed in real missions.”
Advanced courses. Active duty. All undeniably important.
But Ziel had seen it with his own eyes.
“They’re not unbeatable.”
He didn’t mean the trio of dullards who had harassed Karen and Yurio before getting suspended for drinking on school grounds. No. That wasn’t the comparison at all.
Not long ago, Ziel had observed a second-year combat fundamentals class through his position as TA. He measured their standard against the forty first-years he now trained.
The conclusion he reached was simple.
“You can beat them,” he repeated.
“Really?” someone echoed.
“Yes.”
“Actually?”
“Yes.”
“You mean—really, really?”
“Yes.”
“How on earth—”
“Miss Celia Rihardt,” Ziel interrupted dryly, “please ask your questions efficiently. ‘Can we really beat the second-years?’ is an efficient question.”
“Oh. Right.” She straightened. “Then… how do we win?”
Dellev and Celia. Both hailed as prodigies among the first-years. But naturally, the second-years would have their own prodigies. No matter how gifted they were, victory wasn’t something anyone could reasonably guarantee.
That was what Celia believed.
Ziel, apparently, did not.
“You just do it,” he said.
“…Pardon?”
“You do what you’ve been taught. Your stamina has improved. Your reflexes have sharpened. Once you’re in a real fight, you’ll feel the difference.”
His voice was calm, almost unreadably casual—like someone describing tomorrow’s weather after already seeing it in a dream.
Celia swallowed, thrown off balance.
“But… it’s barely been two months.”
“Have you ever fought a second-year?”
“N-No. We’re not even allowed to spar among ourselves outside of class…”
The academy’s rules were strict—surprisingly so. Swords could only be drawn in designated areas. Private duels required faculty approval. Unsanctioned fights were punishable.
And crucially—first-year curriculum did not include sparring at all. It was theory, forms, and striking wooden dummies. Most students had never felt a real clash of steel. They had no way to gauge their own growth.
Except here, in Ziel’s training.
Reaction times. Defense patterns. Endurance scores. Every improvement was quantified, named, and handed back to them like proof of transformation.
Yes—they could feel their growth. But feeling stronger and believing they could crush second-years were two very different things.
And yet—
“When your foundation is built right,” Ziel said, locking eyes with Celia, “everything else rises with it. Trust that.”
The strange ember glow of his orange irises pinned her in place.
Trust.
She nodded before realizing she had.
“…Right.”
Even as doubt stirred again in the back of her mind, it no longer boiled over the way it had moments earlier. Something about his certainty disarmed questions before they formed.
It wasn’t logic. It wasn’t charisma. He had the emotional flexibility of a steel door. And yet…
Somehow, I believe him.
“If—if we really win…” her thoughts ran ahead of her, spiraling with sudden speed.
“Knight Order recruitment?”
“Wasn’t even aiming that high but… beating a second-year?”
“That’s career-changing.”
Among the students, excitement flared like kindling catching flame. Especially for those from mid-sized or minor houses. For them, this wasn’t just training. This was opportunity. Visibility. Future itself.
“Karen, we’re going all in,” someone whispered hoarsely.
“Should we sneak a duel tonight?”
“We’d get demerits.”
“Second-years do it all the time!”
“They have club rooms they can lock. We do not, genius.”
But there was one student who remained unconvinced.
Dellev Kundel.
Ambitious. Hungry for validation. And notoriously impossible to persuade without proof.
I can’t even land a proper counterattack yet, he thought darkly. And we’re supposed to beat second-years?
Unlike others, Dellev didn’t come from trauma or tragedy—he came from two older brothers who had lied to him often and mercilessly for sport. The habit of questioning everything was self-defense at this point.
His earlier confidence had already been crushed once under Ziel’s boot in their first class. Now, the suspicion was back at full strength.
“Sir.”
“Speak, Dellev Kundel.”
“When it comes down to blade versus blade, fundamentals and stamina have limits. Swordsmanship is not a field that can be defined by basics alone.”
The class shifted. He wasn’t wrong. Even Celia felt the logic land like a stone.
Ziel nodded.
“Correct.”
A ripple of surprise went through the room.
“Swordsmanship cannot be explained by foundation alone.”
Then it hit them—had Ziel ever actually demonstrated swordsmanship?
“But,” he continued, “your foundation determines whether advanced skill can land at all.”
“And so… how can you be so sure?” Dellev pressed.
Ziel didn’t pause.
“It just looks that way.”
“…What?”
“The level. It looks beatable.”
What kind of answer was that?
“And,” Ziel added, gaze softening just slightly as he met Dellev’s eyes, “I expect the most from you, Dellev Kundel.”
Dellev’s jaw dropped—slowly, comically, like a gate being lowered one rusty notch at a time.
Me? He’s expecting the most from me?
***
Later, Ziel recalled the line he had read from Teachers Who Are Loved, Teachers Who Are Not:
—Praise, properly applied, draws out the deepest potential in students.
He was starting to suspect the book was right.
After that first instance of praise, the students had attacked their training with frightening intensity. Dellev had come agonizingly close to a counterattack—technically still a failure, but almost a success. And almost was enough to spark fire.
Ziel felt… pleased.
He didn’t yet have a word for it. But pleased felt close.
And today—he was pleased again.
“Salary…” he muttered thoughtfully.
In his years as a ghost, money had never mattered much.
But now…
Well.
Now was different.
This was money in the ordinary sense—the kind people exchanged for goods, meals, and necessities. For Ziel, the concept was still something of an oddity.
To him, money had only ever been mission equipment. A stack of coins to bribe a contact. A pouch of notes to slip to a broker. Or emergency funds used only when an operation dragged on longer than expected. He had never earned money before. Never been paid. Never thought of it as something owed to him in return for his own time and effort.
Assassins of the Black Sky Order returned to headquarters once their assignment was complete. Payment, freedom, or personal living expenses were never part of the equation. They were possessions, not employees.
So when someone said the word salary, Ziel still felt as though the term had been borrowed from someone else’s language.
“This is the Imperial Bank,” the academy clerk had said earlier while giving directions.
The Imperial Bank. The Valdrein Empire’s only official bank—and, luckily for academy staff, it had a campus branch.
Ziel had never stepped foot inside a bank in his entire life.
Not until today.
Other visitors tended to pause mid-step upon entering, stunned by the overwhelming spectacle of it—towering ceilings, chandeliers larger than classroom desks, gold-trimmed architecture that glittered like an unrestrained display of national vanity.
Ziel barely blinked.
“It’s… large,” he concluded, and walked in.
A uniformed attendant greeted him instantly, a professional smile poised and practiced.
“Welcome, valued customer.”
A chill of conditioned air brushed his cheeks—and within 1.8 seconds, Ziel’s mind had mapped the room.
Thirty guards. Sixteen decorative traps disguised as fixtures. Twenty-three concealed mechanisms. Arcane-activated security doors. Possible.
Twelve windows. Six viable exits. Four potential concealment points.
Conclusion: Primary target elimination and extraction possible within five seconds.
Not that he needed to assassinate anyone today.
Hopefully.
“How may I assist you?” the attendant asked.
“I’m here to withdraw my salary,” Ziel said, oddly pleased with the sentence.
He wasn’t aware he looked pleased. But he very much did.
“Oh! Are you academy faculty, perhaps?”
“Yes. Sword School.”
“Then right this way.”
A second attendant greeted him soon after, radiating the trustworthy warmth of someone who had never once lied, cheated, or misplaced an important document in their life.
“Welcome, Mr. Ziel Steelheart. I’ll be handling your transaction today. You’re here to withdraw your salary, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Wonderful. Please sign here and verify your mana.”
Ziel signed using the alias signature prepared in advance for this mission—not mission—for this job. Yes. Job.
Then he placed a finger on the mana verification plate. A soft click.
“Authentication confirmed.”
The skin layer he’d fabricated flickered with faint residual mana before he peeled it off and retracted it smoothly into his palm without drawing attention.
“Your account holds 2,500 sel. How much would you like to withdraw?”
“All of it.”
The clerk’s fingers blurred over coin trays at impressive speed. Ziel watched with genuine admiration.
He’d master dagger techniques quickly.
“One 1,000-sel gold coin, and fifteen 100-sell silver pieces,” the clerk announced. “Would you like the denominations adjusted?”
Ziel packed the coins into a leather pouch.
“No. This is fine.”
The clerk’s smile softened.
“Records show this is your first salary deposit and withdrawal. Congratulations.”
Ziel blinked once.
Was… congratulations appropriate?
It’s payment for labor, his mind reasoned. Not an achievement.
His grasp of social economics still had a long road ahead.
“Do you have plans for how you’ll spend it?” the clerk asked conversationally.
This one, at least, Ziel could answer with confidence.
“I will eat.”
“Oh! Eating is wonderful. Someone as striking as yourself surely has reservations with a companion, perhaps—?”
“I will eat alone.”
“…Ah.”
“And I will eat a lot.”
Ziel meant it with complete sincerity. He had only recently become aware that salary was something he could have been receiving all along.
The delay tasted like injustice.
If he’d known sooner, he would have eaten better, earlier.
“I’m going now,” he added gravely.
“Oh—right now?”
“Right now.”
The clerk coughed politely and slid a small parcel across the counter.
“Before you go, a sealed delivery arrived for you. Mana-locked. Only opens for your signature.”
Ziel took it, inspected the seal, nodded.
“Is that all?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then I’m going to eat.”
“Of course. Please enjoy your meal!”
The attendant maintained their professional smile until the very moment Ziel stepped out of the bank—
—and the moment the doors clicked shut, the staff erupted like a burst flour sack.
“Who was that?!”
“Sword School faculty.”
“Wait—that academy instructor? The absurdly handsome one?”
“Since when do you know this?”
“My boyfriend works in academy administration! So? What did he say?”
“He… withdrew his salary.”
“Oh, come on. I thought maybe Ella was finally escaping singledom.”
“Escape? Please. Calm down.”
But Ella had already spun abruptly, realization striking her like divine revelation.
“Wait! He said something else!”
“What?”
“He said he’s going to eat.”
“…Okay?”
“Alone.”
A beat. Then—
“Why?? He’s gorgeous!”
“Right?? But apparently, he’s going to eat a lot.”
A bewildered silence.
“…Strange man.”
Ella crossed her arms thoughtfully, cheeks faintly flushed.
“But,” she added, almost fondly, “he did look really happy about it.”
Cliche Novel 