Chapter 127

Chapter 127: Star Lecturer (2)

I headed to the only tavern in Riddle Village.

Perhaps because the sun had already set, most shops had gone dark, but that place alone glowed with a soft light.

When I opened the wooden door and stepped inside, I was met with the lively noise of villagers.

Men gathered after finishing a hard day’s work.

Even a middle-aged woman polishing glasses behind the counter.

It had the warm atmosphere one would expect from a countryside tavern.

"Good evening."

I sat down, offering a formal smile with my sharp, narrow eyes.

As the only tavern in the village, the bartender seemed accustomed to outsiders.

She returned my smile with a polite one of her own.

"Welcome. What can I get you?"

"Ah, rather than a drink, I’m looking for someone."

For a quicker response, I reached into the inner pocket of my suit as if I had done it a hundred times before.

Then, I discreetly placed a single 100,000-gold coin on the bar table.

"And who might you be looking for in such a hurry?"

The middle-aged woman blinked her large eyes and asked me in return.

In response, I tapped the right side of my cheek and said,

"A former military officer with a large scar on this side of his face. I heard he’s staying here."

As soon as she heard the word scar, her lips parted slightly.

As if she knew exactly who I was talking about.

"Oh, that man."

The bartender’s face twisted in disgust almost immediately.

So much so that she even refused the gold coin I’d offered.

"If you’re an acquaintance of his, please, I beg you—take him away."

"...?"

This time, it was my turn to blink in confusion.

Just mentioning the man seemed to make her shudder.

"At first, I didn’t kick him out since he paid on time, but it’s been over half a year like this. I’m going insane."

She pointed with her finger toward a table tucked away in a corner.

There lay a man, slumped forward like a corpse, passed out cold.

"Kuuuuh…"

From between the dull brown strands of his hair, white streaks poked through.

His face was so sunken it seemed he had barely any flesh left on his cheeks, as if he’d been through hell.

He had his eyes tightly shut, completely consumed by sleep.

"He can’t even afford to pay anymore. He’s been overdue for two months. Tomorrow, I’m throwing him out—bed and all."

She seemed to be the bartender and owner of this tavern.

Letting out a deep sigh, she muttered,

"I heard he used to be a respected officer, so I took him in. What a mistake…"

A once-prominent officer.

He was probably the man I’d come looking for.

"…"

I waved off the tavern owner, signaling that I understood.

Then, I took a seat alone, across from the table everyone else avoided like the plague.

"Kuuuuh…"

The rough sound of his snoring reminded me of an old beast.

Like a giant leopard driven out from its pack.

"He looks exactly like he did in the newspaper. The way he did when he was found dead."

It resembled what I’d seen in the article about Bennet Tolkien’s obituary in the past.

Just like he had died on the streets of the slums, Tom Reed also passed away on the streets after deserting the military.

But there was a major difference between the two.

Bennet had been murdered in the slums, while Reed died a vagrant’s death from alcoholism and poverty.

Since he left the army on his own, he hadn’t even received a pension.

Cheap booze.

Low-grade liquor bottles, the kind even the military wouldn’t supply, rolled around on the table.

I picked one up and added lemon and lime.

Then, after taking a long swig, I opened my mouth.

"Wake up. You felt my subtle mana, didn’t you?"

"……"

A man with a hideous scar slashed across his left cheek.

Still, I didn’t find that wound shameful in the slightest.

It was, after all, a mark of honor—earned while fighting the Commander of the Northern Kingdom’s knights.

"Who are you…? Some regional commander?"

The man lifted his head, sensing mana nearly identical to mine—Tom Reed.

He had none of the life left in his eyes from when he was once called the demon instructor.

"I’m Roger. I run a small foundation in Nord."

Though I had stepped down as a major shareholder, the Grand Duke had told me to sit back in that seat again, so it should be fine.

I handed him the hotel owner’s business card, one I thought I’d never use again.

But Tom didn’t even glance at it.

He just stared straight into my eyes—eyes as pitch black as his own.

"The army sent you, huh. Offering a pension or something?"

"Who would offer a pension to someone who walked out on his own?"

I answered firmly, and he let out a short laugh, shaking his head.

"Figures, huh?"

He picked up the bottle I’d added lemon and lime to.

And drank it straight from the bottle.

"If the army didn’t send you, why is a high-and-mighty hotel owner here for me?"

"Recently, our foundation has begun training private knights for the academy. It’s officially supported by the Imperial Family."

As soon as I mentioned knight training, Tom's expression, which had been dazed and mocking, snapped into focus with startling speed.

As if those four syllables had sobered him up instantly.

"Directly supported by the Imperial Family?"

"Yes. His Majesty himself selected our foundation as one of the career paths for graduating academy students."

I pushed the card toward his chest so he would take a proper look.

"That’s why we need an instructor for training our new knights."

"Wouldn’t the Imperial Family recommend someone? Why go out of your way to recruit retirees?"

As expected of a once-prominent instructor—his mind seemed to clear the moment work was mentioned.

Still, the mood wasn’t exactly warm.

After all, he was someone who had grown disillusioned with the military and left on his own.

"That’s because you were the best in this field."

"……"

It was a sincere compliment.

But Tom didn’t respond to it at all.

"The best? Hardly. I just happened to be lucky enough to have some talented students under me."

Well, it was like asking someone who had once been poisoned by their own master to return as their chief secretary.

There was no way he’d open his heart so easily.

"Besides, I no longer want to serve the state."

He let out a deep breath.

Even though he had been drinking, there was no foul stench of alcohol on his breath.

As if his body had filtered it out on its own.

"It was an unmistakable war of aggression."

It wasn’t a war born from crisis or desperation—it had been a conquest. Plain and simple.

His precious students had died because of the greed of those at the top.

Anyone would have a hard time staying sane after that.

But still—

I had been the one personally poisoned by my own master, not a student of mine.

So I wasn’t about to back down so easily.

"The enemy nation gave us a pretext first."

The Northern Kingdom had been trying to form alliances with the Southern Kingdoms to keep the Empire’s growth in check.

The letter they sent even included a line stating that only by uniting could they stop the Empire—and that became the justification for our war.

"Still, there was no need to push that hard."

"If we hadn’t ended it quickly in the early stages, there would’ve been far more casualties."

There are two ideal ways to wage war.

One is to end it quickly, minimizing casualties and avoiding a drawn-out guerrilla campaign.

The other is to go all-in on a long-term strategy: blockade the enemy, choke them off slowly.

But with the Northern Kingdom’s abundance of supply lines, the only viable option was the first.

And in truth, because we struck quickly, we managed to finish the war with minimal losses.

Though, of course, we did lose a few of our strongest forces in the process.

And those elite forces had been the students Tom Reed had trained himself.

"You really don’t let up for a second, do you?"

"Occupational habit."

Every time I responded immediately, he looked at me with thinly veiled annoyance.

"And what’s your occupation?"

"I was the secretary to the Grand Duke of the North."

As soon as I mentioned the Grand Duke’s house, he clicked his tongue and gave a knowing shake of the head.

"That old man? Hah... Now it makes sense. I see why you’re so stiff. Anyone working under him would need a backbone like yours."

"So? Can I trust you to consider standing at the podium again?"

When I asked him again, seriously, Tom firmly shook his head.

Instead, he reached again for the bottle.

"No. Not at all."

But this time, he didn’t drink straight from it.

He poured the liquor slowly into an empty glass.

"I’m not someone who has the right to teach others."

His face was reflected in the golden surface of the drink.

In that reflection, the instructor’s expression looked unbearably bitter.

"I forgot to teach the kids the one thing they needed most."

"……"

I sat in silence for a moment, simply watching him.

Then, just as the middle-aged instructor lifted the glass to down it in one go—

"You're talking about teaching them how to protect their own lives?"

I struck directly at the regret that had haunted him all these years.

"Yeah."

Tom Reed set the glass down again.

Then, he looked at me with a gaze that was deadly serious.

The kind of look that said, How could a kid barely twenty like you possibly understand this kind of pain?

"In a war that wasn’t even a national crisis—just a meaningless campaign—most of the kids I trained ended up dead."

What tormented him most were the young lives sacrificed to the greed of those at the top.

"How could someone like me ever teach swordsmanship again?"

"But the ones you trained all reached incredible heights. One of them even became a Swordmaster."

Swordmaster.

As soon as those five letters were spoken, Tom Reed slammed his glass down hard on the table.

"Don’t bring up the Swordmaster. I hate that word."

The skin beneath his eyes trembled—maybe from the alcohol, maybe from the emotion.

Within the shadow of his lowered brow, his green eyes churned with fury.

"The higher-ups, they took kids who had just reached enlightenment and threw them around like pawns. I’ll never forgive them for that."

"I know. I know exactly how they treated your students."

I gently pried the glass out of his trembling hand.

Blood dripped from the retired instructor’s palm.

"They used them and discarded them like chess pieces."

"If you know that, then just leave me alone."

Sir Tom covered his forehead with a hand still wet with blood.

"You’re only here to ask me to train loyal, easily-exploitable knights like before, aren’t you?"

"…"

I said nothing for a moment.

Because suddenly, his eyes reminded me so much of Debier, the man who had once taught me.

"If that’s what you’re worried about, why don’t you come and see for yourself when you have the time?"

Tom, myself, and Debier.

The three of us might have been cut from the same cloth—only destined for different fates.

"Let it be your chance to see that not everyone is like the superiors you once served."

I stood up from the table, where a man consumed by prejudice and trauma sat.

Then, I tucked the now-damp business card into the retired instructor’s jacket.

"Owner, I’ll take care of the tab for tonight."

I quietly left the place.

Tom never once raised his head the entire time.

Because he had fallen asleep just like that.

「―――――」

Tom dreamed the same dream every night.

A dream of standing in the national cemetery.

Dressed in a black suit, he stood solemnly before a gravestone, together with the parents of the fallen.

No one said a word.

They only watched in silence as the priest finished the eulogy, and a white cloth was laid over the coffin.

"Instructor, my daughter... She really did die honorably, fighting for her country… didn’t she…?"

One of the parents asked the instructor a question.

And he answered, as if it were the most natural truth.

"Of course. Sherry was braver and more knightly than anyone."

Another parent, who had been listening quietly, lifted his head at those words.

Then, his face twisted completely, so much so that the sound of his teeth grinding was audible.

"What...? Braver than anyone?"

"Dear, please. There are people watching..."

His wife tried to stop him, but the man shook her off and shouted loudly.

"Stop? What do you mean, stop?! Our child is dead—how long do I have to keep quiet?!"

His voice rose in the quiet cemetery.

Thanks to that, everyone who had come to pay their respects turned to glare at one man.

"You killed her…!! Just what kind of lies did you feed those kids?! They all survived, so why was it only my child who died?!"

As the instructor bowed his head in a silent nod of mourning, the enraged father lunged and grabbed him by the collar.

He shook the middle-aged instructor violently, like a man gone mad.

Of course, a mere civilian’s grip on his collar couldn’t possibly harm him.

And yet, for some reason, the instructor felt as if he were going to be sick.

Because his own heart felt just as scorched and hollow as theirs did.

"So that’s why I drink myself to sleep every night…"

He muttered those words as he woke up from the dream.

Holding his throbbing head, he habitually lit a cigarette.

"……"

When he got completely wasted, he didn’t have that nightmare.

That’s why he had stamped his name into the register at the bar every single night.

But last night, he had met a brat who sobered him up instantly—and thanks to that, the dream had returned.

Even as he smoked, his whole body trembled.

Wondering why it felt so cold today, he looked around—and soon realized why.

The landlady had turned off the fireplace in his room alone.

"Damn it."

Now that he was sober, he realized that all of his belongings—aside from the bed—had been thrown out of the motel room.

It was an unspoken eviction notice for unpaid rent.

At this point, he figured he might as well give sleeping rough a try.

But his body, still shivering from the booze, refused to cooperate.

"Back in the army, I did outdoor training for a month straight…"

Dragging his aching body, he made his way into the hallway.

Then, as he was collecting the belongings scattered outside the motel entrance,

He noticed a business card tucked into his clothes.

"Erian Hotel…?"

He blankly stared at the emblem of the hotel, recently certified as five-star by Nord City Hall.

Five stars, printed proudly.

"So that’s why he acted all high and mighty—he’s the hotel owner."

He scoffed and flicked the card away.

Then, while scanning for a good spot to sleep on the street,

He happened to spot a squad of patrol guards, cracking down on both loiterers and homeless vagrants.

"……"

Tom Reed turned his head back toward the discarded card.

Then, he quietly picked it up and muttered,

"Alright then. Let’s see just how noble that guy’s intentions really are."

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