It was no longer surprising. He gave the order in complete earnest.
“Get lost. I'm sincerely begging you.”
Seriously, doesn't he have anything better to do? What on earth was his problem?
Teron was sick to death of it. He let his feelings show plainly on his face. But Leopold had become astonishingly shameless by now. He simply plopped down beside Teron.
The other students' eyes turned toward them.
“I hear your swordsmanship is quite something.”
“Something or not, I told you I'm busy. Stop sitting next to me and embarrassing me, please just go away. And don't ever talk to me again.”
“Why? No.”
This, this lun-atic...!
He could feel his face growing hotter and hotter with anger. Teron ground his gums and dropped his head low. Leopold stared at him intently.
“Don't be angry, Teron.”
“...”
“I just wanted to talk, that's all.”
“I don't want to talk.”
“When you took down that troll before, I hadn't misjudged your skill after all.”
“Quit changing the subject, Leopold. I told you to get lost.”
Once again fixing Teron with that peculiar, horrible look, the one that seemed to say poor little commoner, Leopold utterly ignored Teron Meyer and pressed on.
“Now that I think about it, there was that time before when you knocked down Milo's whole gang. I can't believe I never realized it then... you're far, far better with a blade than I ever imagined.”
“...”
“So why is that?”
Leopold tilted his head. Teron snapped shut the book he'd been reading and shoved it aside under Leopold's gaze. Truly, nothing was going his way today.
“Why do you just sit around like this during swordsmanship?”
“I don't know what you mean.”
“You have no interest in swordsmanship at all. You always go off to some corner and study.”
“Whatever I do is my own free will. Please mind your own business and get away from me at once.”
“Letting a talent like that rot away, it's an absolutely absurd thing to do.”
What a laugh. Every stroke he could manage at sixteen was nothing more than technique mastered in a past life.
In terms of pure natural aptitude alone, Teron wasn't even gifted. Ordinary talent, at the very most generous estimate, perhaps you could call him bright.
And when sparring time like this rolled around, was he supposed to stand there alone, pathetically swinging a wooden sword with nothing else to do? Did Leopold have any idea how tedious that got when you repeated it? No, of course not, always surrounded by more people than he knew what to do with.
“Couldn't you at least be diligent during swordsmanship class? With your talent, just a little more training and you could grow as strong as me.”
“That's impossible... Leopold, I told you to leave right now.”
“I don't really want to, Teron.”
Leopold's eyes crinkled as he beamed. Teron shot to his feet to flee, but Leopold trailed right after him, so he gave up again and returned to his original spot. The man was a damned nuisance. His old affliction was flaring up again, and his stomach kept churning.
“Want to spar one more time?”
“Say something that makes sense.”
“Why have you only ever sat around like this during swordsmanship? I've been watching for a while, and there've been very few times you've actually taken up a blade in earnest.”
“Is there anyone who'd even cross swords with me in the first place?”
At the sharp retort, Leopold blinked for a moment, then answered just like that.
“Do it with me. From now on.”
He'd clearly made a huge slip of the tongue.
“No thanks.”
“No, I don't like it either. It's too much of a waste, I can't allow it. You're strong enough to walk straight into the royal knights. You're among the very best even within the academy. If you add training here, you'll grow at an unprecedented rate. Believe me.”
Only then did Teron realize it. From the very start, exchanging more than three sentences with Leopold Deluah made his head burn, brought on a headache, and turned his stomach.
In the end, he simply ignored Leopold. No matter what came out of his mouth, Teron refused to answer.
Having rattled on and on alone, the First Prince finally seemed to feel some shame and shut his mouth. Then he just sank down beside Teron and sat there in silence.
A cool breeze blew across the sparring grounds. Teron opened his book again and began to read. A gaze doggedly followed the sight of him.
At first it was uncomfortable. Later, he simply grew used to it.
It's a truly strange thing, how even the most earth-shattering event becomes numbing once you keep experiencing it.
Leopold kept coming over whenever swordsmanship class rolled around, whispering that they should spar. Sometimes he'd strike up a conversation after class ended too. The topics were mostly trivial things. How was today's class, what are you doing when it's over, I did such-and-such today and it turned out useful, and so on.
Contents utterly unworthy of a reply.
At first he ignored them; then he'd just give a nod; and as he grew accustomed, he gradually started responding once or twice.
Once or twice became three times, then ten times, and in the end Teron Meyer found himself dragged out every swordsmanship class to receive, from Leopold, lessons disguised as sparring.
The teaching of a swordsmanship instructor, especially teaching aimed at sixteen-year-old greenhorns, is utterly meaningless. And these days in particular, most everyone did their own training to prepare for the midterm evaluation.
Teron, who ordinarily would have been sitting there with a book, began crossing blades with Leopold at all hours.
Teron would attack, and Leopold would show him how he ought to move from there.
Teron, indifferent at first, gradually changed his mind.
He hated to admit it, but Leopold truly was excellent with a sword.
Every single movement he taught was meaningful. His swordsmanship, which he'd thought would never improve again, began to steadily get better.
By this point he couldn't even deny it.
Swordsmanship was a field of no use to him whatsoever, but the thirst for learning he'd been born with wasn't going anywhere.
Learning had always been a pleasant thing for Teron. On that yearning alone he forgot everything else, and in the end he became someone who held conversations with Leopold. Unbelievably.
And this phenomenon was the starting point of yet another change.
Leopold was the student with the greatest power in the academy.
Because it gathered only those of the same age, the atmosphere inside the academy was friendly enough, but fundamentally the divide of social rank stood firm. The man who, with his gentle and cheerful disposition, had won not only others' obedience but their affection as well, was the First Prince of Deluah.
Everyone strove to win his favor, and groveled to make a good impression.
Whatever Leopold liked, everyone at the Royal Academy liked. If he disliked something, the students disliked it too.
With but a single exception... that is, the loathsome Teron.
For the past three years, Leopold hadn't paid Teron much attention.
Even though the boy had entered under his patronage, there had been no real point of contact beyond obligatory care.
In his first year of enrollment, Teron was severely bullied. The children forced rotten food into his mouth and doused him with water. Even as they did, they'd steal glances at Leopold to gauge his reaction. But the First Prince showed no reaction whatsoever. It was tacit permission.
From then on, Teron Meyer sank to the position of the Royal Academy's official outlet for frustration. Something other than human. If you insisted on categorizing it, some loathsome thing akin to a bug.
And yet, those very people.
Weren't they, of late, putting on a strange spectacle?
The First Prince spoke to the academy's parasite at all hours. During swordsmanship class, they sparred together.
Now and then Leopold's small laugh could be heard, and Teron Meyer's low voice pricked at the ear.
The children were bewildered.
They hadn't known that the kingdom's most honored man and a pest of vulgar blood could be together. It was a thing that couldn't happen in a lifetime.
A few of the sharper children briefly wondered whether it was all right to keep picking fights with Teron, but they couldn't ponder it seriously.
Not until that incident.
During swordsmanship class, Teron mostly used a wooden sword or a communal longsword. As Teron's skill visibly grew, Leopold's appetite soared as well.
He knew that Teron Meyer's main weapon was a dagger. Since he couldn't display dagger techniques that fell outside the curriculum during swordsmanship class with the teacher watching, he proposed a private meeting.
He'd properly look over Teron's dagger work, he said, so let's go to the pine forest for just one day on a holiday.
The pine forest was an unsettling place, full of traces where Teron underwent black-magic enhancement procedures once a week and covered the bloodstains with soil. Even so, Teron ended up accepting Leopold's persistent demand.
That was how remarkable Leopold's swordsmanship was. Remarkable enough to make one doubt why he wasn't a sword master yet.
The appointed day was today.
