Renya grimaced. First of all, the term “nobility” evoked nothing but negative impressions in him. He was well aware that it was a prejudice of his, but he simply couldn’t help having the following phrases pop up in his mind: insufferable, looks down on commoners, dirty with money and influence, and a bunch of spineless cowards. Of course, there were probably nobles who weren’t described by those terms, but he figured those were outliers.
“So, each class in the school is taught by a different teacher. The problem happened in the class for combat training. The teacher there lost against the students…”
There were two enormous hurdles to finding teachers to teach actual fighting. The first was that very few people were willing to do it. The second was that out of the people who were, few of them were sufficiently competent. Active-duty knights and adventurers could hardly be bothered to consider the poorer-paid position of schoolteacher. For knights, the prospect of nurturing the younger generation was simply unattractive; for adventurers, they’d actually increase their own competition by creating more rivals for their jobs. It was a foolish task that only a fool would undertake, and such fools were in short supply. Naturally then, only certain kinds of people found their way to teaching position. Some were like Azu, whose party had broken up. Others were knights or adventurers who saw little future for themselves in their respective career paths and decided to quit early — second and third-rates, essentially. Even so, they rarely found themselves bested in skill by mere pupils at a school.
Rarely, but not never.
On rare occasions, young nobles tutored beforehand by parents who serve in the military would enroll in the school having already achieved a certain level of mastery. In addition, they often hailed from lineages that had long-standing military careers or produce many court mages. As a result, there were disproportionately great odds of these fast-tracked students turning out to be prodigies, who display a proficiency of skill unbecoming of their age. Against such students, experience alone was an insufficient advantage, and third-rate adventurers would find themselves suffering humiliating defeats in combat.
“Yeah, I definitely wouldn’t be doing any teaching if that happened to me. I’d be looking for a rock to hide under.”
“I trust you agree that defeating someone in combat does not preclude them from being your teacher? Even a third-rate adventurer should have plenty of wisdom to impart by virtue of his or her experience in adventuring.”
Renya tried to imagine a scenario that would illustrate Azu’s point. He was unsuccessful. His friend’s confident tone, however, convinced him that there must be some truth to those words, so he didn’t dwell on it any further. Perhaps Azu had meant the kind of advice one might find in a bargain bin book: “Five best ways to improve your party dynamics” or “How to find a mission that’s right for you.”
“Instead, a couple of them started refusing to come to class, saying they had nothing to learn from a loser. Quite the headache, really.”
“It’s not like they’re skipping your class, right?”
Azu grimaced a little and scratched his head.
“True, true. It’s not exactly my problem, but…”
A period of silence befell them, during which the mage scratched his head ever more fervently. Clearly, there were things he didn’t want to say. Figuring that it’d be rude to pry, Renya decided to change the topic.
“Well, whatever. Moving on. Let’s talk details. What will I be doing and under what conditions?”
“Hm? Ah, about that. I want you to take those cocky upstarts and put a dent in their egos. We’ll do it in a mock battle as part of combat training.”
According to Azu, the school’s sparring grounds were covered by a special force field that made it so all injuries would stop just short of becoming fatal. In other words, his job entailed the following: go to the sparring grounds, pick out the young nobles who were misbehaving, and literally beat the spunk out of them. Specifically, he would smash their egos into smithereens and then continue to wipe the floor with their broken bodies until they swore to never mock their teacher again.
“You are a teacher, right? Are you sure this request is, like… you know, okay?”
“These are kids who just don’t listen. So, we’ll hammer it into their bodies. It’ll do them good to know where they stand in the food chain. It’s a form of teaching, right?”
“Why don’t you do it yourself?”
“I could, but I’m weak at close-quarters combat. That’s why I had to get people to protect me back when I was doing jobs. If I fought those kids, I’d have to flatten the whole lot of them with one big spell right off the bat. Even then, if any of them managed to survive and get close to me, I’d be done for.”
Unlike warrior-types who could more or less fight by simply swinging things really hard, mages were always slower to attack due to their casting time. Furthermore, many spellcasters did not train their physical strength, so even a weaker opponent who specialized in close combat could often gain the upper hand when given a chance to close the gap.
“To that end, you’re the perfect candidate; you’ve got a mean sword arm, and you also use magecraft. A bunch of school kids won’t stand a chance against you, right?”
“Ehh, yeah, probably.”
The way Renya saw it, against a couple of punk kids, they could hand him a mop and he still wouldn’t break a sweat. Technically, though, he had no business calling them punk kids, considering he currently wasn’t much older himself.
“I know you might have your reservations, but I’d really appreciate the help. How about it, Renya?” Azu leaned forward and lowered his head.
It was true that Renya wasn’t particularly keen on the idea — it sounded uncomfortably like child abuse. While he couldn’t just turn down a friend who lowered his head, he was having trouble convincing himself to do something as pointless as participating in a mock battle he knew he would win.