Top Instructor of a Third-Rate Academy

184

The first round of talks between the asylum-seekers of the Crownhardt Ducal House and the people of Akarind Academy had ended somewhat inconclusively.

What linked the two groups together was Cassian.

With Cassian unconscious, it was difficult to move discussions forward.

"For now, we need to wake Cassian up."

At Sihan's words, Berlith, Rozalin, and Pan gathered around.

"Going with shamanic arts again......"

"You brought that, did you not?"

"Ah."

As though she had forgotten, Rozalin pulled a single Fantasy from her robes.

The Sacer Fantasy.

Despite being a demon's byproduct, it was a Fantasy that handled Holy Power.

Those who possessed it gained healing and regeneration that transcended human laws and order — abilities so potent that they made the Holy Power of the current Saintess candidate Yuria look like child's play.

As long as the head remained intact, they could demonstrate near-immortal abilities.

However, it had one drawback.

That it could not dull pain.

"It is fine. Cassian is a pervert anyway."

At Sihan's words, Pan and Rozalin nodded.

Separate from the fact that Cassian was a respectable teacher, the way he fought was genuinely perverse.

He fought while enduring pain that felt like his body was tearing apart from the inside.

Even this time, when he had collapsed, it was the same.

He had absorbed the Holy Power pouring out of hundreds of Holy Knights into his own body and then fired it out through the Holy Sword.

This was not something a human should do.

"I am going to use it in reverse."

"In reverse, you mean...... you are going to kill him with Holy Power instead of healing him?"

"To be precise, I am going to convert the Holy Power accumulated throughout his body."

There was far too much Holy Power remaining in Cassian's body.

On top of that, right after the incident, the Saintess's Holy Power and the Holy Knights' Holy Power had been poured into him once more.

"He has this much Holy Power in him and still cannot regain consciousness? Then let us try pulling the Holy Power out instead."

"What if his body gets worse?"

"His body is already normal. We checked together with Instructor Berlith back then."

Saying this, Sihan received the Sacer Fantasy from Rozalin.

"With this here, what is there to worry about? If something goes wrong from pulling it out — we just put it back in."

After all, medicine only advanced through human experimentation.

Sihan infused mana into the Sacer Fantasy.

***

"Watch carefully."

With a crash, a monster collapsed.

The monster that had fallen had earth-colored skin, a massive frame about three meters tall, and a single eye that covered its entire face.

A Cyclops.

A massive line had been drawn across its chest — a deep gash stretching from shoulder to flank.

A single sword stroke had carved through the Cyclops's innards and ended its life.

"Did you see it?"

"No."

"Tsk. You lacking fool."

"How am I supposed to see that? You went swish with the sword, and the thing went gukh — agh?"

"That is what a sword is."

"Good grief. So someone called the pinnacle of the world's swordsmanship talks like this. Does it even make sense for ordinary people to practice the sword?"

At my grumbling, the old man walking ahead snorted.

"Why would ordinary people practice the sword? The sword is for those with talent."

"Wow...... That is seriously elitist."

"Everything in the world is that way. Only those who are good at studying should study. Only those who are good at farming should farm. The same goes for the sword. No — for the sword, even more so."

"Why?"

"Those who cannot wield a sword die."

The old man tapped his blade.

The droplets of blood clinging to his sword scattered on the ground.

The blade was so fine that just shaking it a few times left it as clean as if it had been freshly polished.

"Those bad at study can live well enough. Even a bard with no musical talent can scrape by serving drunks at a tavern. But if you cannot wield a sword, you will absolutely be killed by someone who can."

"But they can threaten people who have never held a sword."

Like me.

The bandits I had met on the street during my transit to my post had been third-rate — no, fourth or fifth-rate — riffraff.

But I had rolled on the ground bloody, without landing a single punch on them.

If this old man had not saved me, I would have truly died.

The old man clicked his tongue.

"That is because you are a fool."

"......"

"Trash like that can be subdued by a single talented child who has never held a sword even once."

"Come on, that is a lie."

"What would I gain, at this age, by lying to you?"

Well, that was true.

"Then why would someone as foolish as me deserve to be taught for a whole month? They say you are so strict that you drive out those without talent from the Knight Order."

I looked at the stubborn old man.

He looked like nothing more than an aged, cantankerous elder, but his identity was the foremost swordsman of the Empire.

Considering that the Empire was the pinnacle of martial might in this world, he could be called the greatest swordsman in the world.

Perdius de Lionheart.

Ever since he had saved me, he had been dragging me around from place to place for a month, teaching me the sword.

Perdius's eyes turned to me.

"Your eyes resemble mine. No. They are eyes even higher than mine."

"......"

"You see through the world, do you not? The cause and effect of things appears to you, and your intuition works even on small subjects."

It was content I had never shared with anyone.

"That day, with that hopeless body, the only reason you did not die was because of your eyes."

"......"

"You saw every attack. Instinctively, it seems you avoided or blocked the attacks that threatened your life."

What he said was true.

In my imagination, I had dodged their blades dozens of times.

I had severed their necks hundreds of times, and pierced their hearts thousands of times.

I saw all of that, but my body would not follow.

The moment I tried to reproduce the movements from my imagination, my body creaked and enormous pain would hit.

I rolled on the ground, unable to do anything, struggling just to manage the ringing in my ears.

They took my ignoring their words as defiance and trampled me mercilessly.

A vicious cycle.

"Which is why I am honing your eyes."

Then again, Perdius's training hardly stood out.

"All you do is fight monsters and ask me if I saw it."

As now — Orcs, Ogres, Cyclopes, Trolls, Drakes, Chimeras, Manticores......

We would walk up to countless monsters, he would swing his sword a few times, and that was the whole of his asking me if I had seen.

"Tsk tsk. I tell you to see the forest and you look only at the trees."

"I am looking at the sword."

"You have to see why I swing the sword, what intent I hold before swinging, and how the world changes after I have swung."

......Huh?

As I listened to the old man Perdius's words, a strange feeling came over me.

Why was I here listening to this talk right now?

"Before swinging the sword, a swordsman holds an intent. The sword simply moves according to that intent."

That is called Sword Intent.

Sword Intent is the first step toward emitting Aura.

"Once intent is placed upon the sword, the sword can cut through the world."

"Cut through the world?"

"It can cut away parts of what exists — natural order and truth. Like magic."

A miracle like magic.

That refers to the swordsmanship beyond Expert.

......Aura.

And Expert.

When had I learned these concepts?

"But what is more important comes after."

"......"

"Your eyes could be even faster than that. It means you can see death before the intent is even established."

"......"

"Did you feel your intuition was piercing cause and effect? It is not. Your eyes, pushed to their limit, will see the future and the past."

The sky I looked up at was red.

A deep sunset had settled, and the sky far in the distance was ablaze.

The color of blood.

"My eyes did not reach that far."

The old man Perdius was smiling.

His mouth was stretched all the way to his ears, and his white, gleaming teeth boasted healthy teeth even in old age.

Each tooth was massive, the size of a finger joint.

"Your eyes are dangerous."

"To the Empire?"

"No, to this world. And to us."

In that instant, the world turned upside down.

The sky became earth, and the earth became sky.

An enormous serpent with a hundred feelers crawled across the heavens, and an enormous grub swimming through the earth flapped its green wings.

An eye larger than the sun appeared behind the sun and looked at me — and within that eye were millions upon millions of zeros and ones.

Then the world turned pitch black, and pain felt as though it was severing my entire body.

"......! ——! ——!"

A scream rose and cut off inside my mouth, over and over.

"So I will have to sort out those eyes of yours here, this one time."

With a cackling laugh, the voice grew distant.

"Today's memory shall be buried in the past."

The world turns pitch black.

No — the world turns snow white.

Forgotten past and future intermingle.

It all came back to me.

***

"Hah!"

Cassian shot upright as if he had been pinged.

"Teacher!"

At that moment, Rozalin supported his back.

He had been pouring sweat like rain for a while now.

His breath was so ragged that a grating, metallic sound was mixed into his heavy breathing.

"You said he was fine!"

"He was supposed to be?"

Rozalin glared sharply at Sihan.

Pan worriedly looked at Cassian from Rozalin's opposite side.

The sweat and breathing were problems, but the bigger issue was his complexion.

His face was as pale as if he had seen a ghost.

"Teacher. Are you all right?"

"......"

Cassian kept breathing hard and clutching his forehead.

The scenery he had seen in his dream while unconscious was too vivid.

Why had he forgotten such a memory?

Thinking about it, it was strange.

He had memories of Perdius teaching him the sword.

But his memories of how and why Perdius had left were faint.

At some point he had been wandering the world to train in the sword, and he had a body that protested with pain even when he swung a blade just a little.

He had lived as though that were simply natural.

'When I was younger, it was not like that.'

If his body had been that pathetic, he would never have survived at the Imperial Royal Academy.

But if all of that had, in fact, been Perdius's design — no, his scheme?

Cassian's mind raced.

'Perdius was already using Aura when I met him ten years ago. At Expert level, no less.'

Perdius had said Cassian's eyes were dangerous.

That his eyes did not pierce cause and effect but traveled between future and past — a kind of Demon Eye.

'I was not reading the students' potential.'

He had been reading the "future" students reached when their abilities were trained to the extreme.

He had been extracting the "past" in which the students' abilities had withered.

And all of that ability.

'Is dangerous to us.'

Cassian chewed over what Perdius had said.

Rozalin had told him so.

In the past life.

Perdius had never once appeared on the front lines, even when demons invaded.

So why, of all moments, was Perdius there now?

It was......

"The Emperor! Perdius!"

"Yes?"

Cassian urgently looked at Rozalin.

"Where did the Emperor and Perdius go after I collapsed?"

"Those two? They say they went to the Empire's northwest to take the demon summoner's head."

That was not it.

He had not gone to catch the demon summoner.

If Cassian's thinking was correct, Perdius was either the first demon to appear in this world.

Or someone directly connected to the demon summoner.

And if the Emperor was beside him.

"The Emperor is in danger......"

Cassian's eyes trembled faintly.