Chapter 53
“Did you manage to exchange your final farewells properly?”
Haru spoke casually as she poked at the campfire, addressing Estelle as she approached from behind with steady footsteps.
“…Instructor Haru. I have one request.”
“What is it?”
“Would you hire me as the dedicated assistant instructor for the academy’s practical class?”
At Estelle’s words, Haru turned her head slightly and asked,
“…An assistant instructor?”
Haru tilted her head, then suddenly muttered,
“Why would anyone volunteer to become a graduate student…?”
“A graduate student?”
At the strange, incomprehensible remark, Estelle echoed the question. Haru shook her head and mumbled an evasive answer.
“No, it’s nothing. But why are you bringing this up all of a sudden?”
“…I merely realized once again that I am still sorely lacking.”
Estelle quietly clenched her fist and began to speak.
“When I first decided to capture the deserter Jakma with my own hands, it was because I wanted to settle my own mistake personally. Jakma was my subordinate, and I believed that I bore some responsibility for his wrongdoing because of my own shortcomings.”
“I see.”
“And… I realized that belief was arrogant. I simply assumed he would remain under my command forever.”
Estelle bent her knee slightly, smoothed down the trouser hem on her bandaged leg, and muttered,
“And I paid the price for it.”
“When you return, go straight to a professional healer.”
“I will.”
Haru offered a brief piece of advice. Estelle nodded and continued.
“I am still sorely lacking in both insight and skill. So much so that I was outclassed even by students who have yet to leave the academy’s cradle.”
“….”
“The path to becoming a knight worthy of the Rounds’ name still seems a long way off.”
Estelle muttered bitterly. Haru, who had listened to her in silence, poked at the campfire and said matter-of-factly,
“…So is that why you turned down the invitation to serve as an academy instructor?”
“…!”
Startled, Estelle stammered as she asked in return,
“H-how did you know about that?”
“Being an academy instructor lets you see and hear more than you might expect.”
Haru replied nonchalantly.
“Was refusing the instructor position also because you wanted to capture your subordinate with your own hands?”
“…I suppose it was.”
Estelle nodded reluctantly.
Clenching her fist tightly, Estelle let out a shallow breath.
“…Yes, it’s true. I may sound pathetic saying this now, after so boldly turning it down back then….”
“Ah, telling me won’t do you much good.”
Haru answered vaguely.
“Headmaster Ludwig is the one who decides whether any of the faculty get hired, anyway.”
“I-is that so?”
“Apparently, it’s the rule. I didn’t learn that until the day of my instructor interview, either.”
Haru muttered, giving a small shrug.
Flustered, Estelle asked again,
“Th-there’s an interview too…?”
“Yes.”
Haru replied curtly.
“Mine wasn’t particularly difficult, perhaps because I brought a letter of recommendation… but I don’t know how it’ll be for you, Sir Estelle. Since you even turned down the invitation you received personally, you may need to prepare thoroughly.”
“….”
At Haru’s casual remark, Estelle swallowed hard.
=
“Then I look forward to working with you from today onward, Sir Estelle.”
“Y-yes….”
As she shook hands with the old man whose hands were wrinkled down to the fingertips, Estelle bowed her head in a daze.
‘…Weren’t you the one who said I had to prepare thoroughly?’
Contrary to Haru’s words, which had sounded almost as though she were trying to scare her in advance, the interview was almost absurdly easy. Compared to Sir Rex and the other military commanders, Sir Ludwig gave off a far more relaxed and gentle air.
Of course, it might have been because they were not at war now. But people carried a habitual air even in ordinary times, which made the contrast all the more awkward.
From the old man known as the pinnacle of magic knights, Estelle could sense not the slightest trace of intimidation.
‘Maybe I couldn’t sense it simply because his level was so far beyond mine that we existed in entirely different dimensions….’
Estelle thought that briefly, then shook her head inwardly and told herself,
“I-I look forward to working with you!”
“Good. I hope you can find, at this academy, a clue leading to the answer you have been searching for, Sir.”
Sir Ludwig said with a wheezing chuckle.
“Do you know where the building containing the practical-class instructors’ offices is?”
“Y-yes.”
“Good. The vacant classroom is probably… Room 409, if I remember correctly. You can move your things in there.”
Sir Ludwig spoke as he pulled out an academy faculty uniform, as though he had prepared it in advance.
“I had to prepare it in a hurry, so I’m not sure whether the size will fit.”
“N-no, it’s fine. Thank you.”
“I prepared it one size too large, so feel free to have it altered.”
After receiving the uniform and hearing his kind instructions, Estelle continued to tilt her head in bewilderment even as she left the headmaster’s office.
‘But… is this really right?’
She did not bring it up because it felt awkward to say it aloud, but wasn’t she the brazen fool who had already turned down the academy’s invitation once?
She had thought it would be only natural if he resented her for that. Yet Sir Ludwig had shown not the slightest sign of it, as though the thought had never crossed his mind.
‘…No. Let’s not entertain pointless thoughts.’
In that case, all she had to do was not let it show. Whether he truly had not thought that way or had simply concealed it, the best thing was to take it as meaning that she should do her best from now on.
Hadn’t she sworn that day, deep in her heart, never to try to run away again from the path she had chosen?
Both as a Round and as the academy’s assistant instructor.
‘It was Room 409 in the practical-class office building.’
Estelle steeled herself and set off.
“…A-about what happened then!”
It was at that moment that a familiar voice came from beyond the corner she was just about to turn.
“I’m sorry… for getting angry. I apologize.”
‘Instructor Haru?’
At the sound of such an unexpected person’s voice, Estelle instinctively held her breath and hid around the inner side of the corner.
‘W-why did I hide?’
Though she wondered that, Estelle kept her breathing quiet, anxious that she might be discovered.
She felt like a child secretly eavesdropping on a conversation she was not supposed to hear.
As Estelle swallowed dryly, another person’s voice reached her ears.
“…No.”
The moment she heard that voice, Estelle nearly let out a startled gasp on reflex.
‘Hk…!’
Estelle quickly clapped a hand over her mouth. Her heart pounded violently.
‘S-Senior Rex…?!’
“I was too hasty, too. You don’t need to apologize….”
“No!”
Haru urgently shouted at Rex as he tried to take a step back.
“I… It was my fault. Back then, and now. I was always the one who said harsh things first and got angry.”
‘What are they talking about?’
Forgetting her surprise, Estelle listened closely to Haru’s words.
From the looks of it, Rex and Haru were quite close. The familiarity between them was difficult to explain merely by their being instructors at the same academy. They hardly observed any formalities, making them look like people who had known each other for a very long time.
In Rex’s voice as he comforted the other person, Estelle could sense an emotion that was undoubtedly warm, though she could not tell whether it was consolation or pity.
‘Come to think of it… this is the first time I’ve heard Senior Rex speak informally, too.’
As far as she knew, Rex was an orphan, and the friends he had made at his old orphanage had apparently all been male.
Had they met before the war? Or after it?
But the war had ended only three years ago. The time she had spent with him was undoubtedly longer….
‘…Well, if I interpret things as generously as possible, I was nothing more or less than a comrade-in-arms who fought on the same front as him. Besides, I had even stubbornly insisted on my own unreasonable demands….’
A reliable superior. An impeccably skilled senior magic knight.
Rex had been Estelle’s role model. The reason she had been willing to inconvenience him despite knowing it would burden him was that she was certain she could learn something from him. And she had, in fact.
It was only after the war had ended that she realized she had gained something from him beyond an attitude worth emulating.
Rex had left the Western Front as soon as the war ended. Estelle had never heard the reason.
Perhaps Haru knew why he had left the Western Front as though fleeing the moment the war ended.
Perhaps he had gone to meet her. If he had known her longer than Estelle had known him and had thrown everything else aside to go see her as soon as the war ended… then they must have shared a private relationship that had lasted at least as long as Estelle’s relationship with him, perhaps one that went back even further.
If Haru had not even come to visit him once during the war, then she must also have had a valid reason for being unable to go see him.
The pieces fell into place in Estelle’s mind.
‘Could they have met… at the magic knight training camp?’
The magic knight training camp was a coeducational training institution where male and female trainees’ barracks were strictly separated, but their training was conducted together.
This stemmed from the unique nature of the magic knight profession.
In ordinary military boot camps, men and women were strictly separated, and men made up an overwhelming majority—more than ninety percent. Among magic knights, however, the ratio was only about seven to three.
The reason was that physical enhancement through mana more than made up for the differences in physical ability caused by sex.
Of course, women inevitably had to use more mana than men to enhance their bodies to the same level, so their endurance was lower on average, but even that difference was not significant.
Moreover, because guns and swords did not distinguish between men and women in actual combat, magic knight training camps only separated the barracks by sex; male and female trainees trained in otherwise identical environments.
But no matter how much their training-camp lives were filled with blood, sweat, and hardship, they were still young people in the prime of their lives, brimming with youthful vigor.
It was not uncommon for male and female trainees to develop that sort of relationship, and some even went on to become more intimate after passing the magic knight examinations in the same year.
And the possibility that Rex and Haru were one such pair was far from negligible.
If Haru, like Rex, had gone to war as a magic knight, but had been deployed to a different front and therefore could not meet him during the war….
‘….’
The possibility was more than plausible. No—she could think of no other explanation.
The only thing that did not quite fit was that a knight with that level of skill had never been mentioned as a candidate for the Rounds.
Even Rex, who had come from the same training camp, had risen to the position of Second Seat among the Rounds, so it was unlikely that her background had been held against her.
With a slight frown, Estelle kept her breathing as quiet as possible and continued listening to the two of them.
“…I have something I need to confess to you.”
Estelle’s breath caught. In the broad hallway, where there were only three people, only Haru’s voice echoed softly.
“Confess?”
“The thing is, actually…!”
After hesitating for a long while, Haru squeezed her eyes shut and was just about to speak.
-Crash!!
A window on the outside wall shattered, and a brilliant-red stake flew straight toward Estelle’s eyes.