Chapter 21
Chapter 021
That old professor. If I try to dodge it by saying I don’t want to talk about it, he’ll definitely notice and make a scene.
I spun my brain wheels quickly.
Okay.
For now, let’s settle this by beating only one of the two.
"……First of all, as for the first student’s answer, well. Since the duty to defend the nation is indeed sacred, I have little to say."
I’m only going to beat up one of them.
"But the second."
"Oh?"
"What do you mean, fostering community spirit? How would conscription help with that?"
"It doesn’t help?"
"Of course not. Think about it. If you drag off all the village’s young men during the busy farming season, who’s going to tend the fields left behind?"
The lecture hall fell silent as if someone had poured cold water over it.
The noble young masters were looking at me as if to say, 'What kind of nonsense is that?'
Those bastards are like that because they’ve never received a training-camp draft notice.
Go do hard labor in the army, see for yourself. Patriotism? Like hell.
As if you wouldn’t blurt out, 'What has the country ever done for me!'
Frustrated, I drove the point home.
"If all the young people go to the army, who’s going to raise the cattle, who’s going to farm, and who’s going to pay taxes? Do you want to ruin the country?"
"……."
Silence.
Was that too much?
As I winced and tried to sneak a look at the professor’s reaction.
Bang!
The professor slammed his fist on the desk.
"Wahahahaha!!"
His booming laughter reverberated through the lecture hall.
"How exhilarating! Yes! Who’s going to raise the cattle! Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant!"
The professor laughed heartily, even shedding tears.
"The foundation of war is logistics, and the foundation of logistics is the economy! A commander who understands the value of a single cow is a hundred times more admirable than one who rambles on about empty honor!"
"……."
"You have a very deep grasp of tactical studies. I can guarantee that."
I’m not, though. I’m just a farmer.
'Wow…… the professor is seriously a total macho man.'
He’s overflowing with testosterone.
Looking around, the students’ reactions were a sight to behold.
It was a mix of contempt and bewilderment.
The student who’d gotten beaten up after going on about patriotism was glaring at me with resentment.
Lily was looking at me with her eyes wide open.
I let out a deep sigh inwardly.
'But me…… I’m marked again, aren’t I? Fuck.'
In the morning, Herbology A+; in the afternoon, Tactical Studies A+.
My report card was getting more and more dazzling.
* * *
Wilhelm von Kreutz’s steps were somewhat hurried as he left the Intro to Tactics lecture hall.
For the first time in ages, a fire had been lit in the heart of the man once called the empire’s greatest commander.
"Kwa-ha-ha! That’s right, a farmer dragged away during harvest season is a conscript!"
Students passing by recoiled and made way at the thunderous muttering.
But the students didn’t register at all in Wilhelm’s eyes.
Cassian Del Farne.
The barbarian of the Farne family, known only through rumors.
But having experienced him firsthand today, what he possessed was not savagery.
'Wildness! Yes, exactly!'
He was on a completely different level from the noble dandies rotted by peace who only spouted airy nonsense.
A fellow who instinctively knew the smell of soil and the smell of blood.
Even if the decisive point of war were set by dazzling magic or a knight’s charge.
He saw through the fact that the essence of war lay in the wheels quietly hauling supplies.
"And those bookworm wizard nobodies think they can take a guy like that? As if!"
His odd behavior?
Even better.
It was nothing more than youthful recklessness bursting out because he couldn’t contain his overflowing energy.
The solution was simple.
'Just drag him into the army and put him through the wringer.'
Dawn wake-up, laps around the drill field, crawling across dirt. Winter training in the North.
After several months of border watch duty in the northern frontier, that man would surely become a true man.
He would learn that even in a midwinter ice valley, sweat can still flow.
By the time he got used to seeing his breath freeze into frost in real time up north.
That sullen attitude would soon turn into the vigor of a solid young man.
This is physical therapy’s answer.
"I’ll make a proper man out of him."
Wilhelm marched straight toward the Faculty of Magic building.
His target was Iris von Evergarden’s private laboratory.
According to rumors, she’d declared that she would take Cassian on as a disciple, and that was a national loss.
Does it make any sense for someone fit to be a general to be holed up in a corner doing mana calculations?
By the time he arrived in front of Professor Iris’s office.
Bang!
Before Wilhelm could even grab the doorknob, the door swung wide open.
"Hmm?"
And the person who burst out from inside was someone unexpected.
A leather apron that looked scrubbed clean but still had a faint layer of dirt dust on it.
A tanned face beneath a wide-brimmed hat.
"……Viscountess Müller?"
Wilhelm’s eyes went wide.
"Why are you coming out from here?"
Professor Iris was standing behind Viscountess Müller as well.
So he hadn’t gone senile and accidentally come to the wrong place.
Müller lifted the brim of her hat slightly and gave a small laugh.
"Oh my, hello there. Professor Wilhelm."
"Surely you also had business with Professor Iris?"
"I did have business, yes. A very urgent and serious matter."
Just how serious it was could be guessed from Professor Iris’s expression alone.
It was sharp and taut.
"……Even Professor Wilhelm. We really are getting one visitor after another today."
Iris folded her arms and stood there with one hip cocked.
Wilhelm instinctively flinched.
"Ahem. I too have an urgent matter."
"Could it be."
Iris narrowed her eyes.
Her blood-red eyes gleamed as if they could see straight through Wilhelm’s inner thoughts.
"This isn’t because of student Cassian Del Farne, is it?"
"……Hah."
Wilhelm gave a dry laugh.
"You’re a mind reader. That’s right. I’ve taken a high view of that boy’s talent, so I came to ask your understanding."
"Sigh."
A sigh finally escaped Iris’s lips.
Her expression hardened coldly, as if to say, 'I knew this would happen.'
"Why is everyone so desperate to snatch up my disciple?"
"Disciple? I heard he hasn’t even been formally inducted yet!"
Wilhelm immediately raised his voice.
"And that lad is far too precious to waste on becoming a magician! You should’ve seen that insight during tactical studies!"
Müller cut in from the side.
"He showed that insight in my class too."
"……?"
Wilhelm’s brain stopped.
So, then.
"Viscountess Müller, does that mean you came here for the same reason I did?"
"That’s right. I’ve been in a fierce verbal duel with Professor Iris for the past few hours."
Then that guy was a monster being courted by three fields at once: magic studies, herbology, and military studies…?
'What the…….'
Wilhelm’s mouth fell open.
There was such a thing as common sense, and this seemed a little too much.
Viscountess Müller clicked her tongue and shook her head.
Iris glared alternately at the two of them, growling.
"So then. Are the two of you planning to protest in front of my lab? Demand that I hand over my disciple?"
"A protest? I’m saying we should compete fairly."
Wilhelm cleared his throat and took a step back.
But he had no intention of backing down.
Tension hung taut in the hallway.
Students passing by, startled by the professors’ murderous aura, slowly edged backward.
Then Countess Müller clapped her hands.
짝!
"Now now, calm down. Fighting among ourselves here won’t get us anywhere."
She tried to straighten out the situation with her usual cool attitude.
"I’m sorry, Professor Iris. To clear this up all at once, wouldn’t it be better if Professor Wilhelm accompanied us too?"
Iris’s brow crumpled mercilessly.
She openly showed her dislike and glared at Wilhelm.
Wilhelm forcibly pretended not to see that look and asked Viscountess Müller.
"Accompany us? What do you mean by that?"
"We were planning to go straight to the person involved and settle who they’d choose as a teacher. The person’s own wishes matter most, don’t they?"
Iris said, as if giving him a warning look.
"Though, if Professor Wilhelm finds it burdensome, there’s no need to accompany us. You do have your senior dignity, after all—it wouldn’t do for you to argue over a disciple with juniors like us."
But Wilhelm didn’t even blink.
"No! I’m simply grateful for the equal opportunity!"
Wilhelm activated his 'pretend-not-to-get-it' skill, taking Iris’s empty words at face value.
For the sake of a future general who would be responsible for the nation’s security, he was prepared to endure even the disgrace of grabbing a professor young enough to be his granddaughter by the hair.
"Then let’s go! I’ll get to see Count Corint again for the first time in a while."
Wilhelm led the way.
Behind him, Viscountess Müller looked at Iris with a secretly sympathetic expression as if she couldn’t help it, while Iris glared at Viscountess Müller with a grim face.
* * *
At the same time, in a corner kitchen on the first floor of the Farne mansion.
It was full of peace.
How can you see peace with your eyes?
Ah.
Peace is 'smoke.'
With the most serious expression in the world, I was humming to myself while placing a homemade smoker on the grill.
Sizzle—
As the smoking chips burned, a rich woody fragrance filled the kitchen.
Ah, this smell.
This is a drug. Soul-healing aromatherapy, that’s what it is.
Heh-heh-heh.
But the expression on Head Maid Marie auntie’s face, standing behind me, was not good at all.
"Young master, aren’t you doing this too often lately?"
Yikes.
Auntie must be getting irritated now.
Come to think of it, I really had been smoking stuff in the kitchen so often that the place was getting coated in odor.
Even with all the windows open for ventilation, the smell wouldn’t leave easily.
I smiled and made my excuse, holding the tongs.
"Sorry, sorry. Marie auntie. Lately I’ve been seeing poor kids at school who keep going hungry."
"Poor kids? At the academy?"
"Yeah. They were going around hungry. Once I started sharing, it kept running out fast. They say even a single bean should be shared."
In my case, it was basically robbery, though.
I try to eat it alone, but when five people eat it together, it really doesn’t last.
Marie sighed and fanned the smoke with her apron.
"Even so, at this rate the whole mansion will end up smoked."
"But I’m not going to do it often anymore. I won’t have any more freeloaders."
She gave me a skeptical look.
The answer in times like this is fixed.
"Come on, don’t be like that. I’ll head out to the capital’s shopping district soon and buy you something really nice."
"……What?"
"You know that essence that’s trendy among noble ladies these days. The one that smooths out wrinkles. I’ll get you a whole set."
Marie’s eyes lit up.
As expected, financial therapy is the best.
"My, really? That expensive stuff?"
"Promise. Have you ever seen me make empty promises to you and the old man?"
"Hohoho! Then I’ll let it slide!"
What a lightning-fast change in attitude.
Marie auntie left the kitchen humming, and I snickered as I flipped the jerky again.
The smell of the meat sizzling away sent my happiness circuits into overdrive.
'Life isn’t a big deal. This is happiness.'
I was enjoying the small happiness of peacefully flipping jerky like that when.
Swoosh.
I felt a presence behind me.
"Marie auntie, what is it?"
Did something happen already?
I asked without even turning around.
But the voice that came back wasn’t Marie auntie’s high pitch.
"Young master."
"Ack! You startled me!"
I nearly dropped the tongs and jumped.
When I turned around, the stooped old Alfred was standing there like a ghost.
Normally, he’d have joked, 'Were you startled?' but today his expression was strange.
I’ve been seeing that expression a lot lately.
"……Old man? What is it? Why the face?"
Alfred asked in a low, subdued voice.
"Have you…… caused some kind of trouble again?"
"Uh…… well."
The fierce confrontation with Princess Evelyn flashed through my mind.
And then the bit I’d pulled in front of the old professor in tactical studies—'who’s going to raise the cattle'—also came to mind.
"……Probably?"
I can’t deny that.
Alfred let out a deep sigh.
It felt like the ground itself was caving in.
"Young master. Prepare yourself mentally. The head of the house is currently in the reception room speaking with the professors."
Professors?
Professor Iris, at this hour?
"Ah, that’s no big deal. I get along well with Professor Iris. Why did she come? Did she come to give me the lab key?"
"No. It’s not just one person."
"Yes?"
"The academy professors……."
Alfred shut his eyes tight, then opened them and dropped a bombshell.
"Three of them came."
"……."
I froze like a statue, tongs still in hand.
My brain stopped.
Three?
Professors?
At our house?
"I didn’t mishear that, did I? Three?"
"Yes."
Wow.
This is insane.
I really don’t want to get tangled up with professors for any reason at all.
Even worse, I could roughly guess who those three were and why they’d come.
The Iris professor who had challenged me to a no-holds-barred duel, and the other two.
'The two A+ nutjobs.'
And of all things, there were exactly three of them, leaving no room for interpretation.
I pressed a hand to my forehead.
"……Ah, damn."