Chapter 23: The Saintess and the Woodcutter (1)
St. Yansk University has no garden. This was recounted at some point, but as it is an important part it deserves emphasizing twice.
Accordingly, even after somehow receiving pruning shears prepared by the administrative office, it meant Ivan had nothing to do.
But for Ivan, who had now resolved to live a “life,” or at least resolved to try his best at it, there was no other option.
This was during the time he was butchering a roadside tree with those pruning shears.
“I was watching to see what you’d do. You’ve made an even worse mess of it than the bonsai at my place.”
“……Hm?”
Behind his back, Enrique was sneering. Ivan gazed at the sky for a moment, then at the tree, then turned back around to look at Enrique.
“Isn’t it your time to sleep?”
“Surprised to find a beauty who isn’t a sleepyhead?”
“You certainly do seem short on sleep.”
Ivan, a normal person who had never harbored any regard beyond respect for someone 70-plus years his senior, shook his head at Enrique’s remark.
Enrique’s eyebrows drew sharply together. She composed herself with effort and said:
“Your post is gardener?”
“For now.”
“That does seem like work that’d be good for the mental health. Not bad, but my prescription differs somewhat.”
Elise had presumably intended for this bearded monster (in his 30s) to look after his mental health with a leisurely pastime and pick up some pocket money besides.
But Enrique’s thinking differs. This fellow needed practice rubbing shoulders with people.
That is, not rubbing shoulders with axes and guns. Strictly speaking that’s included too. But in any case, ordinary human relations.
“Come with me. I was in need of a hand.”
“……Hm?”
“I’ve decided to work as an invited lecturer for the Knight Faculty starting today. I was already an honorary professor, but I was so terribly bored.”
“……Knight?”
“Regrettably, there’s no assassin faculty.”
Of course, the world has no need for a university that teaches such a thing.
This is the reason Ivan came to be standing before a lectern glaring at new students.
***
St. Yansk University is an international prestigious institution equipped with facilities highly modern by the standards of the era.
Such as the Theology Faculty main college, which looks as though a cathedral had been transplanted whole, or the Magic Faculty main college, which imitates the environment of the Kalion Archipelago, or the College of Physical Education’s Knight Faculty department building.
The new students were busy gawking and sightseeing everywhere. Just like chicks, brings back old memories, Enrique thought with a snort.
In a gymnasium where a large ring and assorted training equipment were neatly arranged, Enrique stepped onto the platform, struck the lectern with a tak, and called out resoundingly:
“Greetings, little ones!”
An attempt at seizing the initiative, perhaps. The new students began to look at the unfamiliar professor before them.
Knight Faculty major requirement, “Understanding Close Quarters Combat 1.”
It would be an important class, given that every Knight Faculty new student must complete it, yet that slender woman was thoroughly unfamiliar.
The students, calling the faculty roster to mind, could be heard murmuring.
Enrique grinned and squared her shoulders.
“My name is Enrique. Enrique Seregeyevika. If that sounds like a name you’ve heard somewhere, you’re right. I’m that person.”
“The Hero’s Party!!”
“Eeek!!”
“Shadow Blade!!”
Enrique grinned and grinned as she listened to the scattered shrieks and cheers. Yes, this. This is what “renown” is. This name that even the royal house dares not violate carelessly.
Enrique wore a playful smile as she continued.
“There is only one thing I can teach you over this term. Defeat! You are fellows who have chosen to one day take up arms and fight at the front, and this class is the first gateway for preparing you for that!”
A warrior with a blade can never win every fight. Defeat will certainly come one day. And that defeat, in most cases, comes together with death.
Therefore one must grow accustomed to it. To being defeated. That must be learned before the techniques of fighting.
The method of being defeated. The method of surviving even in defeat.
And if possible, the method of gauging an opponent’s skill before being defeated.
“Teaching each and every one of you individually isn’t difficult in itself, but the class hours are far too tight. Accordingly, I’ll divide you by skill and teach you that way.”
However much all of you are equally new students, you cannot take the same class.
Only natural. You can hardly teach the top-of-class admission and the fellow who scraped in off a waitlist number at the same level.
The one who fights better must take the harsher class.
Therefore, streaming is necessary. Teaching some 50 people within 3 hours is far too difficult to begin with.
“Now then, new students. If I fight you, I can’t gauge your skill. It’d all be over within a single exchange anyway.”
Even at her arrogant words, no one dared to refute her.
Because the Hero’s Party are the ones who butchered the Demon King and the Seven Dragon Generals. Which is to say, the strongest in all the United Kingdoms.
“So I’ll be conducting instruction pitched to your level, for your sake. Here we have our assistant!”
Following Enrique’s gesture, the students shifted their gaze and soon saw a freak standing behind a shadow with his arms folded.
A gaze burning deep blue, a sharp impression, a blunt expression.
But a beard shagging over the whole of his lower jaw, making his age impossible to gauge.
On top of that, worn work clothes and a towel around his neck. (A gardener’s set hurriedly prepared by the administrative office.)
As great question marks stamped themselves over the students’ heads, Enrique grinned and said:
“The assistant is this university’s gardener. I invited him urgently this morning. Now, I’ll give you this assistant’s profile.”
Age 34. (Most of the students were appalled at this.)
Post: gardener. (Two students were appalled at this.)
No income, a pitiable pauper living off the state’s welfare pension. (Because Lieutenant Colonel Petrovich was officially deceased, there was no way for him to receive a military pension. He was living off donations while running the orphanage.)
“This assistant will gauge your skill. I’ll watch you fight and score you, and I’ll finalize the streaming when this class ends.” “I have a question!”
One student shot his hand up. A neatly worn light gym uniform and tidy features. A noble house’s son at a glance.
When Enrique nodded, the youth opened his mouth with a face full of derision.
“What if that pitiable gardener gentleman gets too badly hurt?”
“What? Ahahahaha!!”
Enrique burst out laughing, squeezing out a tear.
“Then I’d have to reward you! I’ll give bonus points according to how badly you injure the assistant! Ahaha! Good heavens!”
“……??”
“Ah, don’t misunderstand, students. I’m not doing this because I want to watch someone die. But do at least mind your manners. Whether it’s manners toward your elders, or manners toward those who have been through more than you.”
If you want to live, Enrique finished with a smile.
***
During that time Ivan had been glaring at the students.
That he had gone in as an assistant for a practical assessment was not in itself surprising.
Because it is “common sense” that an academy’s first class is a skill assessment.
He had no idea why a skill assessment would be built into a university’s curriculum as its first session, but presumably that was down to the backwardness of this pre-modern fantasy world’s educational process.
In any case, the fellows worth keeping an eye on were 4.
Oscar, Isabelle, Yuri, and that muscle-bound old freak sitting in the very back. Esidis’s escort guard.
No, why is that fellow sitting there. Is he sitting as a student? Has he no shame?
A muscle monster in his 40s sitting among students roughly half his age is grotesque beyond words.
That fellow’s name was, if he recalled, Mord. Mord Eriksson. He has a memory of encountering him during his service. One of Great King Einar’s closest confidants.
He’d been among the ones whose heads worked reasonably well. Now, when he ought to be retired and raising disciples, coming in as a “new student.”
And that kid.
Yuri. Yuri Frank. Knight Faculty top-of-class new student. Highest marks in the swordsmanship evaluation and a perfect score on the written exam. Full scholarship student.
That one’s behavior is suspicious too.
The moment that kid saw him she displayed abnormal behavior: hurriedly averting her gaze, breaking into a cold sweat, fidgeting restlessly. (She had even been appalled on hearing the word gardener.)
His eyes narrowed further and further.
A possessor……?
If not, what reason would there be to take fright at him, a man of entirely ordinary and harmless appearance?
Two red underlines were drawn beneath the name in Ivan’s mind.
“Now then, who’ll try first?”
When Enrique’s lengthy explanation ended, the many students began sizing up one another.
An understandable thing. In their early 20s, putting oneself forward among students met for the first time would be quite embarrassing.
It wasn’t that their skill was lacking, or that they feared disgracing themselves facing Ivan. They were simply being shy.
Contemptibly.
Ivan silently glared at the students.
At that moment, one student who had been sitting in the very back shot a hand up.
The muscle-bound freak in his 40s, Mord.
“We meet again. Don’t we?”
“……Hm.”
“And however I look at it, you seem like a fellow I know.”
Mord rolled his shoulders with a crack and broke into a hearty laugh.
“Get up here. We should see it through. Ah, and. If I win—”
Mord leapt onto the ring in a single bound and said:
“I’ll give you a shave.”
“Go, Mister Eriksson!!!”
Isabelle, who had been watching Ivan anxiously, started in shock and abruptly shouted.
It was a scathing betrayal by a child of the Hero’s Party.
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