Chapter 15: Instructor Lee Han (1)

Pendragon Royal Academy, also referred to as The Academy.

As a place of learning, a place for the young students who’d lead the kingdom in the future to study, the Academy offered a lot of courses. Swordsmanship and magic were the obvious ones, but they also offered other courses such as medicine, statistics, astronomy, smithing, and many more.

If someone really bothered to look it up, they’d realize that the Academy also offered many strange lessons for the students to learn. Even the number of the subjects alone exceeded thirty, but that wasn’t even all of them.

However, even though they offered so many subjects, the level of the instructors and professors who taught those subjects weren’t compromised at all. There was a reason why it was also called the Royal Academy. The name of the royal family was attached to it, comparing its quality would be nothing but an insult.

That was why the Royal Academy’s faculty was filled with excellent people. It went without saying that those people were more skilled and more experienced than anyone else since they had to train the talents who’d be responsible for the future of the kingdom.

However…

“…That’s the guy right?”

“So, the rumors were true?”

“Oh my goodness.”

“Should we at least try to get acquainted with him?”

“Let’s not. He must be feeling down right now.”

“…You got a point.”

Before the Academy’s Entrance Ceremony, they gathered all the professors and instructors—all the teaching staff, basically. As for the purpose of this gathering, it was like a presentation so that the staff could mingle and introduce themselves to others.

But, even as the teaching staff tried to get to know each other, they threw their glances at one man in particular. This man was unlike others who were crowded together; eating his steak alone, like a lone wolf.

Despite the words that came out of their mouths, all those people already knew of his name and identity.

“I believe his name is Lihan, right?”

“Someone from the Silver Lion, huh? I guess this sort of thing happens in life too, huh? Haha.”

“Right?”

A few professors who had been teaching in the Academy for a while casually mentioned his name.

Knight Lihan. An active knight who was dispatched to the Academy as an instructor. Of course, this wasn’t the first time they saw a knight, but it was the first time they saw an active knight, a young knight at that, at the Academy.

What did this entail? It meant that he was in his peak condition, in a state where his combat techniques were at its strongest, the age when his life force was the most dynamic.

The problem here was that, becoming an instructor at such a time meant the knight would have to waste this time that he could use to train instead. This was why active knights usually tended to avoid the Academy.

This was also why the staff members thought that the man was displeased with this assignment. But, even if he was demoted, or rather, reassigned, it didn’t mean that he was weak. After all, he was still a knight of the Silver Lions. That was why the professor deemed him to be a dangerous element and just quietly left him by himself.

They refused to take any risks and decided to just avoid him. Such was the wisdom of age.

As for what Lee Han thought about this…

Seriously, people would think that I poisoned someone before coming here after seeing their attitude.

He snickered at them. Even though they did such a thing secretly, they still couldn’t fool his eyes.

Those people…

How cute…

Seeing how they were afraid of him rather than looking down on him didn’t make him feel displeased.

Gulp-!

Another piece of steak disappeared into his mouth.

A week ago. The sudden news of Lee Han’s new dispatchment became a big thing within the Knight Order. It became a rare moment where the other knights ‘sympathized’ with him.

…At a glance, this decision might be confusing.

After all, how could teaching the young people who’d eventually take responsibility for the future of the kingdom be a punishment?

If anything, it should be an honor for a knight to be in that position.

But that was what someone who knew one thing but not the other would think.

Now, let’s take a step back and answer this question. What was the Order of Silver Lion?

They were none other than the royal knight order.

Their purpose was to protect the glorious royal family; an honor that all the knights in Silver Lion wouldn’t exchange for anything.

Now, what if they were told to abandon that glorious mission to become an instructor instead?

Well, if the knight was a retired one, they might think it would be a nice task to have, but for a young knight in their prime? It was nothing more than an extremely heavy punishment. After all, this was the time when a knight should be worrying about whether they were skilled enough to move up in the hierarchy or not. They should be focusing on honing their skills, not teaching the younger kids. For a young knight, this would be the worst thing possible.

That was why it wasn’t strange that the other members of the Order felt sorry for Lee Han.

However, as for Lee han himself…

“Ah, so this is the arrangement she made? As expected, that old lady’s really clever. She could even make this whole thing look legitimate, tsk tsk.”

“What an impious bastard, watch how you refer to the princess.”

“Anyway, old man, I’m guessing that you understand the situation to some extent?”

“I made a few guesses.”

“Hmm, I see. My salary will stay the same, right?”

“Haa… I already expected this kind of reaction from you, but I wish you’d show at least a hint of regret…”

Baltar knew that Lee Han didn’t have much attachment for the Order, but his reaction was still too carefree to his liking, which was a shame. Then again, if he had been a little more passionate about the Order, he would’ve promoted the young man a long time ago already.

“So, do you feel like devoting yourself to the Order more, now? If you do, I could tell the princess to cancel the mission.”

Baltar had enough authority to do so, so he made that offer.

“Nah.”

“…At least think about it for a second before you answer.”

Because of the circumstances, Lee Han had zero intention to refuse the mission, so Baltar could only click his tongue in disappointment.

Besides…

Lee Han had already started studying the curriculum and a few other courses that didn’t fit his current life at all. Because of that, he was suffering from a massive headache.

I swear if she doesn’t give it to me after all of this is over…

Though he had been maintaining a calm demeanor, he hated the fact that he was being pulled along by Isis. She must have been confident that he wouldn’t refuse her proposal, but she still had to prepare herself.

Because, if she were to do something else than give him the medicine…

If that really were to happen, there would be no step-sibling bullshit anymore.

Lee Han was confident enough that he could handle at least one person who hit him in the back of his head.

Even if that person was the heir to the throne herself.

After his curriculum studies for today were finished, Lee Han went back home and noticed that he received three letters.

One of them was from Jake.

As expected of the perceptive guy, he didn’t worry about his well-being. Instead, he managed to guess that the whole Academy thing was some sort of a secret mission. He simply wrote him a [Do your best].

Meanwhile, the next letter, sent by Yord, the guy he hadn’t known for long, was filled with worrying contents and his own misunderstandings. He even wrote things like [I’ll make a petition to the commander, so…] and whatnot.

…What the hell is wrong with this guy?

“Did I hit him too hard last time?”

I don’t think I hit him in the head back then, though…

Feeling awkward from that letter, he decided to move on and check out the last letter. But, when he looked at the envelope, the name of the sender wasn’t there. Not only that, when he opened it, there was only a blank paper inside without any traces of ink. But, he could smell a faint scent of a perfume, so he instantly knew who had sent the letter.

He filled a large bowl with water and dipped the blank sheet of paper inside it. Not long after, letters started filling up the paper.

[Lee Han, the trustworthy brother of this lady, if you received this letter—]

The letter started with the annoying noble’s writing style and poetic expressions. It was so boring that no one would think the sender was the crown princess herself.

To summarize the content of the letter:

‘I’ll keep my promise, so you should do well.’

Strangely, she even wrote down something like [This lady trusts you] or [This lady trusts your choice and judgment], but they didn’t move Lee Han even a bit. Some would think that receiving a letter from Isis would be an honor for them and their lineage, but to Lee Han, this was nothing but a pain in his ass.

After he finished reading the letter, the paper melted in the water. He stared at it, thinking of how thorough she was to erase her own tracks.

“I did hear that she’s interested in alchemy and magic, but I never thought she’d be good at them…”

Then, Lee Han burned the envelope with a zippo lighter.

It didn’t take long for it to burn completely.

“…Now, where should I start?”

The entrance ceremony would start in four days. From then on, he’d be able to meet all the people of interest.

But, the problem here was the princess didn’t tell him how to handle them. She probably decided to leave everything to his judgment, just like what she had stated in her letter. Maybe she was also being considerate of his personality as he’d easily disregard orders.

This meant he’d need to act on his own. So, he thought hard about what he should do and wrote it on the blackboard. Nothing was finalized yet though, as he was just writing down his line of thought; A habit he developed since back when he was a non-commissioned officer in his previous life. Back then, he had to resolve countless unreasonable orders from his superiors.

…Thinking back, it was ironic that he had acquired this kind of habit, but at least that habit was useful now. In any case, because of it, his thoughts became somewhat more organized.

He roughly realized the very first task he had to do.

“First, I need to make them approach me. If there’s one thing that a protagonist in rofan novels and regression novels have in common, it’s their endless curiosity.”

Curiosity even killed the cats.

As if trying to put this saying into test, the protagonists of rofan and regression novels were usually crazy punks who couldn’t control their curiosity and would always go into dangerous places. Even if they ended up getting kidnapped, stabbed, and put in dangerous situations every single time, they were still unable to suppress their curiosity.

It was like some kind of disease that made them unable to bear with that curiosity unless they satisfied it themselves.

So…

“I should just roll with that.”

Lee Han quietly wrote something down under the two people’s names. He thought about the most damned situation they would find themselves in. In other words, situations where their true nature would be revealed.

“Not bad.”

He involuntarily let out a refreshing smile.

The thought of conveying the pain he had experienced to someone else already felt very rewarding to him.

Meanwhile, on the blackboard, the word [guerrilla] was written.