Chapter 3
-Snort.
The horse stopped by the roadside and snorted roughly. The coachman turned his head over his shoulder and said casually,
“We’ve arrived.”
“Thank you.”
I handed the coachman a silver coin along with my thanks.
“One silver coin... That’s the proper fare. Well then.”
The coachman nodded, and I lightly hopped down from the carriage. When I stepped onto the hard ground after getting off the constantly swaying carriage, I briefly felt as though I had arrived in another world.
As soon as I got off, the coachman lightly flicked the reins. The horse shook its head and cheerfully struck the stone road with its hooves, and the carriage quickly grew distant, kicking sand and gravel behind it.
I glanced at the carriage’s rear, then looked away and turned my gaze toward the sky above the royal capital.
“So this is the royal capital.”
Was it just my imagination? Even the color of the sky in the royal capital seemed different.
And it wasn’t only the sky. The number of people passing by, as well as the number and height of the buildings lining the streets, was completely different too.
It was a splendid sight incomparable to both the hometown village where I had spent my childhood and the East, where nothing but forests and trees stretched in every direction.
Yet two things in particular drew people’s attention.
The first was the dozen or so spires rising high in the very center of the royal capital.
And the second was the enormous castle floating serenely among the clouds high in the sky, even higher than those spires.
Sky Castle Helios.
The castle said to be the residence of Markurd III, king of the magical kingdom of Atlas—the place commonly known as the Celestial Royal Palace.
And directly beneath that palace. The building resembling a massive castle, with a dozen or so spires rising from it, was my destination: Manus Academy.
A military academy that trained countless apprentice magic knights, and the ‘golden eggshell’ that had produced the kingdom’s outstanding heroes.
As I gazed at the spires rising as if to pierce the sky, I recalled what Lord Logis had told me.
‘Head to the president’s office first. I’ve already contacted him, so after a brief interview, he should take you straight to the instructors’ quarters. It’s been quite a while since I left the academy, so I can’t say for certain, but I believe the formal welcome ceremony will probably be held together with the entrance ceremony.’
‘Are there separate quarters for instructors?’
‘Manus Academy is entirely residential. Students and instructors alike. Even the dean himself is no exception.’
Instructors’ quarters. That was actually for the best.
After all, I was an orphan. Even if I returned to my hometown, I had nowhere to live or even a place to eat and sleep.
‘An instructor.’
Now that I had arrived in the royal capital, it finally felt real.
‘Can I really do this?’
Lord Logis had said that I could use my master as a model and grow alongside the students.
Looking back, perhaps that had been his own way of showing consideration.
…I was still a child. A child with an adult’s years, or an adult who was still a child.
I had been trapped in this cursed body since I was twelve. Seventeen years had passed since then, bringing me to twenty-nine. Many things had happened, but most of them had been extreme stretches of time spent cut off from the world.
Five years of mountain training to overcome the curse, which I began by following my master at the age of fourteen. Seven years of war that I was swept up in, and three years spent in mourning.
During that time, I learned how to suppress the curse inside me, how to wield the special power known as mana, and how to swing a sword and cut down anything that stood in my way.
But I had never learned how to interact with people, hold ordinary conversations, or laugh and chat with them.
For someone like me, Lord Logis’s proposal was an opportunity to grow alongside the academy’s students.
The world was what I had to learn, and society what I had to master. The core subject of the curriculum was adaptation.
‘It’s a long road ahead.’
I muttered inwardly as I began walking along the road.
If I kept going while looking toward the spires at the far end, I would arrive before long.
=
…Or so I thought—once.
“…Where am I?”
Standing alone in the middle of a deserted, gloomy back alley, I scratched my head and muttered.
“Come to think of it... I don’t think I’ve ever gone somewhere on my own.”
Let’s see. I must have been about twelve when I was possessed.
For the first two years after that, I lived in my hometown village. It was an exceptionally quiet place, and at the time I was so sickly that I could barely walk for long periods, so it never even occurred to me to go somewhere on my own.
After that, I met my master and left for the eastern part of the kingdom to train, spending five years practically shut away in the mountains. Looking back, I was always with my master back then, and I never had any errands or other business to handle alone.
Then war broke out, and for seven years I followed my master to the front lines as an unaffiliated wandering swordsman. At first, I merely followed at my master’s heels, but later I happened to get involved with the knights led by Lord Logis and traveled with them.
I did travel around a little during the remaining three years, but the eastern part of the kingdom was far too quiet and rural for that.
“…Could I really be directionally challenged?”
No, no. I shook my head vigorously.
Surely no one could go seventeen years without realizing they were bad with directions.
Right, the royal capital was simply excessively complicated. With so many people, the streets had inevitably been built this densely and confusingly.
I wasn’t the strange one.
‘Right, a local.’
Just then, a good idea occurred to me.
‘I’ll find anyone familiar with the royal capital’s geography and ask for directions.’
I nodded proudly, then turned around.
“Where are you off to in such a hurry, miss?”
As luck would have it, someone appeared.
He was a towering, hairy man.
There were about five or six other men lined up behind him, and they seemed to be traveling together.
I blinked unconsciously and asked,
“Miss?”
“Who else would I be talking to?”
A miss?
Who?
Me?
“E, eheh. How kind of you. I’m a little old to be called a miss, though.”
“…What?”
After all, twenty-nine was hardly an age to be called a miss.
It’s the dreaded age ending in nine, you know. The dreaded nine.
I’d be turning thirty the day after tomorrow, so I should be grateful they hadn’t called me ma’am….
“Oh, wait, that’s not what I meant!”
“?”
“Um, do you happen to know how to get to Manus Academy?”
“Manus Academy?”
The man’s eyes widened, then he burst out laughing with a pfft before answering.
“Of course I do!”
“What a relief!”
It seemed kind people could be found anywhere.
“I have some business at the academy. Could I ask you for directions?”
“Of course I can tell you.”
The man replied with a grin.
“But I’ll need a little fee for my trouble.”
“A fee?”
I tilted my head and asked in confusion.
“I can’t tell you for nothing. Right?”
The man spoke loudly, clearly for show, and the men standing behind him snickered in agreement.
I furrowed my brow and thought,
‘A fee just for giving me directions? Is this how things are in the royal capital?’
I was a little offended, but soon shook my head. Perhaps it was some custom of the royal capital.
If I got angry for no reason, I might be treated as the strange one.
I sighed and said,
“…All right. How much do I owe you?”
“Everything you’ve got.”
“What?”
Wondering if I had heard wrong, I looked up at the man and asked again.
“How much?”
“Didn’t hear me, miss? Hand over everything you’ve got.”
The man answered with a swagger.
“Don’t be ridiculous!”
I raised my voice and shouted.
Even so, demanding that I hand over everything I had was an outright rip-off.
“Do you take me for a fool? Asking for everything I have in exchange for merely showing me the way is an obvious shakedown!”
“…Hey, miss. It seems you still don’t understand the situation.”
The man spoke in a low voice. At that, the group that had been crowding behind him fanned out to either side and blocked the alley.
“You’re not leaving unless you pay.”
“…Hey.”
I lowered my voice as I answered.
I wasn’t a fool.
…All right. I admitted that I was somewhat ignorant of the ways of the world.
But I wasn’t such an idiot that I would respond with nothing but goodwill to a group of men blatantly radiating malice while trying to intimidate me.
No matter how harmless they looked!
I gripped the hilt of the magic sword at my waist and muttered,
“I shouldn’t have judged people by their looks. You looked kind, so I trusted you.”
“…I looked kind?”
The man tilted his head.
“Who? Me?”
The man muttered to himself, asking and answering his own question, then suddenly burst out laughing.
“You crack jokes, miss! Are your eyes bad?”
“What do you mean….”
“Hey, you guys over there!”
Just then, a voice rang out from above our heads.
I looked up in surprise.
I had been quite angry, so my senses were on high alert. If someone had been approaching, I should have noticed them in advance.
A girl with short ash-gray hair was crouching atop a wall as high as three people.
‘Manus Academy’s uniform?’
Because of her seated position, my gaze was drawn beneath her skirt. Fortunately, she was wearing spats, so I didn’t have to worry about where to look.
In a high, rough voice like a wolf’s howl, the girl spoke quietly.
“That’s enough. Why don’t you get going?”
“W-who are you?”
The man spoke threateningly.
Instead of answering, the girl gave a dismissive snort and hopped down from the wall.
After landing lightly with her knees bent, the girl instantly twisted her waist and kicked one leg upward.
-CRACK!!
He took the kick to the chin and, without so much as a scream, flopped onto the stone road like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
“B-Boss!!”
The men shouted in panic. What a way to address him. They really were a bunch of punks, after all.
“Quit posturing and just leave quietly.”
The girl narrowed her eyes as she spoke. Perhaps because of the atmosphere, her silver eyes seemed to radiate a murderous glint.
The men hesitated, then gradually began backing away before scattering and fleeing. They left the fallen man right where he was.
They had called him boss, but apparently they didn’t have the loyalty to stand by him.
“You little punks, where do you get off causing trouble in a place like this?”
With her hands on her hips, the girl turned to me and asked,
“Are you okay?”
“Thanks to you. Thank you for helping me.”
“It’s dangerous to wander around an alley like this alone, without anyone accompanying you.”
The girl stared at me, then asked curiously,
“By the way, were you serious about what you said earlier?”
“Pardon?”
“That bit about them looking kind. You were joking, right?”
“No?”
I shook my head.
“Huh?”
“Don’t they look pretty normal to you…?”
They had eyes, noses, and mouths, and their arms and legs were all intact.
I stared intently at the girl, but she didn’t seem to be teasing me.
‘…So that guy had a frightening face.’
After cutting down freakish monsters every day—things that kept moving even after their skulls had been smashed, had twisted ribs jutting out through their backs, had horns sprouting through their eyes or nostrils, or had buck teeth protruding through their cheeks… how should I put it? It had become extremely difficult to distinguish people by their expressions. As long as they had properly arranged eyes, noses, and mouths, everyone looked more or less the same to me.
It had been just under six years since I began distinguishing people by the unique waveforms of their mana rather than by their faces. I supposed I needed to start adapting to this too.
“A-anyway.”
I addressed the girl.
“Could you possibly tell me how to get to Manus Academy?”
“Manus Academy?”
The girl turned to me and asked in return.
“Are you the transfer student who’s supposedly entering the third year this time?”
“…Transfer student?”
“I heard a transfer student from the East was coming in… so I thought you might be the one.”
I shook my head.
“No. I’m not a transfer student.”
“Then are you a new student?”
The girl asked again, evidently curious. I paused to think.
‘It should be all right to show her, right? No one told me I had to keep it secret.’
“…Uh, ahem! Excuse me. I haven’t introduced myself.”
Having made up my mind, I took Lord Logis’s letter of recommendation from inside my clothes, showed it to her, and answered,
“Starting this year, I’ll be serving as an instructor at Manus Academy. My name is Haru.”