Chapter 18: Intermission – First Lecture of the Basic Understanding of Gifts Course

“Nice to meet you. I’m Allen Zest, and I’ll be standing at the lectern with you all for this semester’s lectures.”

“That guy is the founder of the famous Allen Trading Company? Someone like him is working as an ordinary teacher at the academy? No matter how prestigious Everlight Academy is… Is it really that impressive?”

“Who is he? Is he famous?”

“Huh? You don’t know the famous ‘Friend of the People’?”

“The one who saved the Kingdom of Renia?”

The students whispered among themselves.

The familiar reaction made me feel as if I had traveled back to the first day at the academy.

Ignoring their gazes, I stood at the lectern and casually scanned the room.

First, the most noticeable one was Elaine.

Considering that the very reason she could maintain her sanity in the endless loop horror story was due to her Gift of strong mental fortitude, it was only natural for her to take a course related to Gifts.

Next, the ones who caught my eye were, of course, the students from Class A, which I was in charge of. Among them was the student who had once judged my appearance as merely average on the first day.

A petite girl who looked like she might have skipped a grade, a diligent girl who seemed like the typical class president type, and a slightly delinquent-looking athletic boy.

There were also students who had been replaced by grotesque humans.

Among the students attending my lecture, it wasn’t hard to spot those from Class A, but there were also quite a few students from other classes mixed in.

Generally, Gifts are abilities only a very small number of people are born with,

but when it comes to students enrolled in the academy, finding Gift bearers isn’t particularly difficult.

After surveying the students, I officially began my first lecture at the academy.

“First, since this is the opening lecture, let’s start off lightly. Everyone, what do you think a Gift is?”

.

.

.

Gift.

“A rare and mysterious ability that only a very small number of humans are born with. There are no rules governing who is born with it or what kind of ability they manifest. That is why we call it a gift from the heavens— why we call it a ‘Gift.’”

The first lecture, like most introductory lectures, was extremely fundamental and covered only basic common knowledge.

Not that I had ever planned to stand at a lectern in the first place.

The subject I was assigned to teach at the academy was Gift.

To be more specific, the name of the course I would be handling for the semester was “Basic Understanding of Gift.”

In terms of other subjects, it was a foundational lecture, something akin to an “Introduction” course.

Technically, I had always been publicly known as a Gift bearer.

After all, when it came to utilizing the knowledge and skills from my past life, there was no more convenient excuse than claiming to possess a Gift.

The irony, of course, was that I only actually became a Gift bearer after I had already faked being one and joined the academy.

“Although there appear to be no rules or commonalities among Gift bearers, in reality, all Gifts share three fixed characteristics. Does anyone know what they are?”

Fortunately, the students’ attitude toward my lecture wasn’t bad.

In fact, one of them even raised their hand immediately in response to my question.

The student who raised her hand was the “diligent-looking blonde girl with glasses” whom I had glanced at earlier and internally labeled as the class representative type.

I nodded lightly at her, signaling her to answer, and she promptly replied:

“Yes. The three characteristics of a Gift are innateness, finiteness, and incomprehensibility.”

“First, innateness— as Professor Allen just explained— means that a Gift is something only a select few humans are born with and can never be acquired through external factors.”

“Second, finiteness refers to—”

“Ah, that’s enough. I’ll take it from here. Thank you for the precise answer.”

The students here are diligent.

As expected of a prestigious academy.

I stopped the girl before she could steal all my material and continued the lecture.

“The second characteristic of a Gift is finiteness.”

While it’s true that there are no rules governing the abilities granted to Gift bearers— and the variety of abilities is as vast as the number of Gift bearers themselves— that doesn’t mean these abilities transcend human limitations.

A Gift’s power is still confined within the boundaries of what it means to be human.

Even in the area where a Gift is manifested, the ability is only slightly superior to that of an ordinary person— to the point where, with enough study and effort, a non-Gifted human could eventually catch up.

For example, a Gift bearer isn’t someone who can barehandedly take down a bear with superhuman physical prowess, nor can they fly through the sky or shoot fire from their hands.

At best, a Gift might allow someone to run slightly faster than others or identify the freshest fruit at the market a little more accurately.

A Gift is nothing more than an ability that lets its bearer do what any human can do— just a little better.

That is the limitation of a Gift.

“Professor Allen, does that mean having a Gift doesn’t make someone special?”

The question came from a “bubbly-looking girl with fluffy brown long hair”— one of the smallest and most youthful-looking students in the class.

She asked with a lively attitude that seemed inversely proportional to her small stature.

“In a sense, yes. Gifts are certainly special abilities, but in truth, everyone has at least one unique talent. So in that sense, Gift bearers are just ordinary people.”

The girl’s face openly showed disappointment at my words.

Was the idea of not being special really that shocking?

“…If Gifts are such insignificant abilities, is there really a need to study them so seriously that we even have lectures about them?”

“Of course. If simply possessing a Gift meant you could effortlessly surpass others and reign above the masses without studying or striving, then would there even be a need to analyze and refine them? On the contrary, precisely because Gifts are only slightly better than what ordinary people can achieve by default, we must study and observe them to truly understand them.”

“What do you mean by ‘understand’ a Gift?”

The petite girl who had asked earlier posed another question.

Now that I stood at the lectern, I finally understood.

How grateful it is to have students who ask timely questions whenever something piques their curiosity during a lecture.

“Let me use the example I mentioned earlier—the Gift of discerning fresh fruit. At first glance, it might seem like an ability to pick out fresh produce at the market, but what if the true nature of that Gift was actually an insight into the growth state of plants? Then, what if that ability was applied to inspecting the fields of a noble’s estate, predicting poor or bountiful harvests even before autumn arrived? Or what if that insight was honed to the point of identifying the causes of poor harvests early and eliminating them? Could we still call it just an ability to pick fresh fruit?”

“Ah…”

The girl nodded as if she had realized something.

“In this way, by grasping the underlying principles of a Gift and applying them accordingly, what was once just a skill for finding cheap, good fruit at the market can transform into an ability that controls the fate of an entire territory’s harvest.”

Perhaps my analogy was interesting—I could feel the students focusing more intently on the lesson.

“But interpreting the principles of a Gift isn’t easy. The example I just gave was a case where the Gift was properly understood and utilized in the most ideal way. But what if the ability to discern fresh fruit wasn’t rooted in understanding plant growth, but rather in reading the expressions and psychology of market vendors? Or what if the Gift’s scope was limited only to fruit and didn’t apply to grains?”

This time, another student voiced their doubt.

“Wouldn’t that be strange?”

The one who spoke up was the ‘blond male student with a delinquent-like appearance’ I had noticed before class.

“What part seems strange to you?”

“You’re saying that even the Gift bearer themselves might misunderstand how their Gift works— but how does that make sense? How could someone not know whether their own ability stems from sight or smell?”

“Of course it wouldn’t make sense. For an ordinary person, that is. But Gift bearers are different. That’s because of the third characteristic of Gifts—their incomprehensibility.”

“Incomprehensibility?”

It seemed even in a prestigious academy, not every student was a model scholar.

The boy frowned at my answer and pressed further.

Tsk, slipping into informal speech now, are we?

If this were back when I ran the company, I would’ve fired off a sarcastic remark, but since I’m playing the role of a kind and capable teacher here, I’ll let it slide. For now.

“An ordinary person, when picking fresh fruit, can explain why they think it’s fresh and how they made that judgment. It’s only natural— they thought about it and made the choice themselves. But Gifts don’t work that way.”

The Gift simply activates, and the bearer merely accepts the result.

In this process, the holder of the Gift cannot know why their Gift made such a judgment or what reasoning was behind it.

To put it another way, a Gift is like a household appliance.

We all skillfully use microwaves and smartphones, but when using them, we don’t necessarily understand how they work, do we?

In fact, Gifts are even more perplexing because they come without manuals and lack comparable examples.

“That’s why, even as we possess Gifts and benefit from them, we can never fully understand them. We merely inch closer to that 100%, step by step. That’s what makes them inscrutable.”

And that third characteristic is definitive proof that Gifts are undeniably fantastical.

If they were merely innate abilities that allowed someone to do what others could— only better— they would be called nothing more than “talent.”

But Gifts defy human comprehension, operating independently— making judgments, taking actions, and delivering only the results to their holders.

“To summarize, these traits are the three absolute elements of a Gift: innateness, finitude, and inscrutability.”

Truthfully, it was a ridiculous notion.

After all, the Gift I had obtained— Observation— had already broken free from the first two elements, innateness and finitude.

What could the true nature of a Gift possibly be, that defeating urban legends would grant one…?

Ding— dong— dang— dong—

Just then, the bell rang, signaling the start of break time.

“Hmm. It’s break time now. Today’s lecture will end here. As I mentioned earlier, through this course on foundational understanding of Gifts, I will spend the semester helping all of you properly comprehend and effectively utilize the Gifts you possess. So, I ask for your active interest and enthusiastic participation.”

With those words, I stepped down from the lectern and bowed my head.

The students responded with applause, and just like that, my first lecture came to a smooth close.