Chapter 212 : Chapter 212
Chapter 212
"Teacher! You want me to take this lunatic out to hunt monsters? Are you out of your mind?"
"It was a promise."
"This kid's been like this since the old days! He treats his own life like a tool! You're not even going after a demon—you're going to grind students' lives away just to hunt some monsters?!"
I stared at the Spear God.
His face was flushed red as if he'd had a drink, but his breathing was ragged and his eyes were bloodshot—he was genuinely furious.
Behind him, Zelta lay sprawled out, dragged in limp as if unconscious.
From what I heard, he'd done something reckless, so the Spear God had beaten him senseless and carried him in after he passed out.
"That's exactly why I'm asking you to come along. You'll have to protect the students well, won't you?"
"Aaaaargh! He's not a student, he's a lunatic!"
"But he is a student, isn't he?"
"GAAAAAAH!"
The Spear God thrashed about as if he might breathe fire.
I let his rage wash over me without resistance.
In the end, after venting his frustrations for about twenty minutes, the Spear God hooked Zelta onto his spear shaft and trudged off.
By the looks of it, he was heading somewhere to continue the scolding.
'That worked out.'
I'd been able to read Zelta's strategy from the moment I glimpsed them in the corridor.
The Spear God probably hadn't noticed.
From the front it was impossible to tell, but from the side or from behind, there was a timing that became visible.
More than anything, their formation had been slightly off.
'A formation built purely for defense.'
Simply blocking the Spear God's powerful attacks would accomplish nothing.
They needed to take one more step forward from there and create an opening.
'That was a very Zelta-like move.'
That exact point was what gave me an idea.
'A sword that suits the person.'
I can glimpse the future of a person.
More precisely, I can glimpse the potential of the sword they'll wield in the future.
But is that always the best path?
Take Rozalin's sword, for example.
It was a sword forged by a Rozalin who'd lost one arm, grinding her teeth and fighting desperately.
But now that we'd returned to the past, that sword no longer suited her.
Then what about the Rozalin of the past?
'It suited her.'
The sword had suited Rozalin as she'd been, living the life she lived back then.
The reason Rozalin had weakened upon returning to this world was because her personality, the world, and the environment had all changed.
The reason Rozalin had been able to awaken as a Sword Master now was—
'Because I was there...... No, let's not think about that.'
Anyway.
It seemed that each person had a personality and a sword that suited them.
So if I used that as a basis to set them on their path.
'The person who needs this advice the most right now.'
I called for Pan.
***
Pan was in a bad mood.
"Come on, fight us!"
He hated the students who kept challenging him for midterm exams.
The Spear God had supposedly only gotten one team.
Even after that one team beat the Spear God, apparently no other team had followed.
But Pan had twenty-six teams booked against him.
It felt like he was being disrespected—like they thought he wasn't strong enough.
"Ahahahahaha! You've got twenty-six? I only got four! Ahahahahahaha! Everyone knows who the real first Top Disciple is, after all."
And Rozalin, who burst into that strange laugh every time they met, was equally insufferable.
It was exhausting dealing with students who'd learned some weird swordsmanship and came at him with it.
She'd confessed to their teacher and gotten rejected, and yet.
Whenever he brought it up, she'd get strangely worked up and start swinging her sword.
He had another bruise around one eye.
"Hmm, but still, you've got fewer than us."
Freizia, with forty-two teams booked against her.
And Bridget and Eleveth, with thirty-six teams booked against them, wore bitter smiles.
Pan disliked these three as well.
"Don't try to console me with that half-hearted crap. You're all just mocking me for being the second Top Disciple, aren't you?"
"Hey, you've gotten way too prickly."
"Don't mope. Frowning like that is a loss for the whole Academy."
"That's right!"
Pan glared at Eleveth.
Eleveth shrugged as if to say so what, then strode off and disappeared.
Freizia glanced around nervously and followed after her. Bridget watched the two of them go with a helpless look.
"You're the strongest out of all of us. If you're sitting around feeling sorry for yourself and being pissy, who are the rest of us supposed to look up to?"
"The teacher."
"Tch, that's fair, but."
"The teacher."
"Yeah. That's true, but—we all think you're the teacher's Top Disciple, Pan. So chin up."
Bridget said that, gave Pan a light punch on the arm, and ran off after Eleveth.
Pan felt a little better.
'He really is my friend.'
Bridget—his swordsmanship might be a bit ugly, but he's a good person.
He was in the middle of that thought when—
"Pan. The teacher wants to see you."
And so Pan went to find Cassian.
"Welcome."
Pan looked at Cassian standing in the Training Ground.
He swallowed involuntarily, his throat suddenly dry.
Lately, Cassian had been radiating an incredible presence, whether he intended to or not.
Just standing there, he seemed to suppress everything around him with sheer force of will.
He was a Sword Master, same as Rozalin, but his presence was on a completely different level from that sham Sword Master.
It wasn't his imagination—it was real.
'Something, something's different.'
Those characteristically kind eyes swept the area, and each time, it felt as if his body were being pierced through.
As if he'd been stripped bare, every weakness laid open at a single glance.
Once they started crossing swords, he felt like he'd lose his life before getting more than a few swings in.
"You called for me?"
That presence was why even Pan, a sixteen-year-old in the thick of puberty, couldn't help but behave himself.
"I wanted to talk about swordsmanship."
"Yes."
"Last time, you said you'd set aside every sword you knew and pursue only your own, right?"
"Yes."
Hearing Pan's answer, Cassian folded his arms and studied him.
He was starting to look like a young man now.
Cassian recalled the Pan he'd seen in Rozalin's memories.
Nearly two meters tall, muscles so thick it was as if his body was buried in them—a hulking frame.
It was a completely different image from the current Pan, who anyone could see was a refreshingly handsome young man.
The Pan of that time had wielded a sword so beautiful that even Cassian himself couldn't reach it.
He mentally placed that sword onto the current Pan.
"It doesn't suit you."
"What?"
"Neither your future sword nor my current sword suits you."
Pan stared at Cassian, bewildered.
This was the person he respected most, the one whose smallest habits with the sword he wanted to emulate.
And that person had just told him not to follow his example—for the sole reason that it didn't suit him.
But he didn't lose heart.
'He must have a reason.'
If Cassian had brought this up, it was surely to present a different path.
Pan watched him with those expectations.
"Mmm......"
Cassian hesitated, opening and closing his mouth as if debating whether to actually say it.
His expression said he wasn't sure if he really should.
"Teacher?"
"Mm. Right, mm. It must be. Pan. Draw your sword."
The hesitation was brief.
Pan drew his sword and took his stance.
He settled into his usual familiar Sword Force, layered with Sword Intent, and immediately his Aura wrapped around the blade, vibrating.
It was a practical and beautiful stance.
"No."
But Cassian shook his head.
"That still doesn't suit you. How about...... something that looks a bit more, I don't know, cool?"
"Cool?"
Not some specific adjustment, but cool? Was that really what he'd just heard?
Until now, Cassian's corrections had always been incredibly detailed and relentless.
The placement of his feet, the tempo of his breathing, the angle of his wrist.
Everything had been controlled with obsessive precision.
And now, without any specific instruction, just......cool?
"H-how?"
For the first time, a bewildered Pan asked Cassian a question in return.
It was the first time since he'd enrolled at Akarind Academy.
"Mm, how about striking the pose that you think looks coolest?"
The pose he thought looked coolest?
What?
Pan awkwardly adopted a Cassian-like stance.
"Not cool. Try showing a bit more of your inner coolness."
Pan awkwardly adopted a more internally cool Cassian-like stance.
"Mm. Still a bit bland. It looks sort of wishy-washy and limp and...... has no presence."
"That's exactly what I look like, though."
"Is that cool to you?"
"Uh, yes, I think it's cool."
Cassian couldn't understand why someone like Pan would find something like that cool.
Pan couldn't understand why Cassian couldn't understand his own coolness.
"What I mean is, show me a bit more of your coolness."
"Hmm......"
After that, Cassian continued shaking his head at Pan's stances.
It was abstract, but not entirely without direction.
"You really are handsome, Pan. I think you could show us a sword as refreshing as your looks."
And things like.
"A sword like a breeze cutting through a sweltering summer wind would be nice too."
And so on.
After fumbling through one contextless word after another for a long while.
Pan found himself in a peculiar stance.
"Is this right?"
Rather than holding the sword aloft, he was resting it on the ground like a cane.
The blade pointed down.
One hand placed lightly atop the pommel.
His weight was on one leg—right knee slightly bent, left leg straight.
And yet his upper body was balanced with uncanny precision.
"Mm."
Cassian looked Pan up and down.
It was strange, but precisely because of that, it suited him perfectly.
"I'm coming. Try to block."
Cassian drew his sword and, without any telegraphing whatsoever, thrust straight for Pan's heart.
And in that instant—
CLANG!
Pan's sword—rising from some unknowable angle along some unknowable trajectory—struck Cassian's blade upward.
"Huh?"
Even Pan, who had swung the sword himself, was stunned by the arc it traced.
"How did that work?"
All he'd done was rest his hand at an angle on the sword.
And yet the entire sequence of gripping and lifting the blade had been impossibly smooth.
His feet, too, moved as if they already knew where they needed to go, flowing like water.
Above all—
Wooooong—
The Aura wrapping the blade didn't scatter.
"Congratulations."
Cassian smiled.
"Looks like you've found your path."
"......Is this Master level?"
"No."
Pan wasn't quite at Master level yet.
But if he continued walking this path, it wouldn't be long before he arrived there.
"The swordsmanship that suits you best is the strongest."
At Cassian's words, Pan stared blankly at his own hand, then at the sword held within it.
Two years ago.
Pan had been the least talented, most hopeless student at Akarind Academy.
Forget swordsmanship—his joints creaked every time he moved, and his coordination was impossibly dull.
He was short, slender, and the only thing he had going for him was a decent face.
The reason he'd absorbed Cassian's teachings so quickly was, ironically, because he'd been foolish.
Students who knew even a little about swordsmanship had looked down on Cassian.
That teacher is a loner too.
Then at least I should listen to what he has to say.
He'd only been seeking emotional comfort from the smallest of connections.
But it turned out the teacher was an incredible person.
And he was told he had talent too.
Then he should follow the teacher more closely.
Imitate the teacher.
Be like the teacher.
More cool.
More.
With each step of the process, Pan had discarded himself.
Rozalin had also discarded her past sword and reached the realm of Master.
So he'd thought that if he discarded everything too, he could become a Master.
But the teacher said that wasn't it.
'A sword that's mine.'
Pan covered his eyes with his palm.
He didn't want to show the tears that had suddenly welled up.
'A life that's mine.'
Two and a half years.
That was how long it had taken a student who'd only ever tried to erase himself to finally look at who he was.