It may go without saying, but Lee Han hates wizards.
Why does he hate them, you ask?
It seems only natural.
As a child, he became a wizard's 'experimental subject' and endured it for a full '10 years'.
Ten years, ten years.
Calculated in days, that's 3,650 days of being experimented on every single day without fail.
The pain he suffered then, no matter how much time passes, he will never be able to forget.
Children discarded every day due to failed experiments.
Experiments increasing in intensity.
The wounds, scars, and pain that resulted from them.
Having an amount of blood drawn that wouldn't be strange if he died, the pain of his flesh being torn and burned—how excruciating it was is probably something one couldn't know without experiencing it.
That is why he cannot forget.
...If he were to tell a priest who follows the light of radiance about his life, they would probably say this, right?
That it was a trial given by the gods, that thanks to that trial you are who you are now, so throw away those memories.
Then Lee Han would answer like this.
'─Bullshit.'
If they experienced exactly what I went through for ten years and still said that, I might have the intention to acknowledge it, but who would be the crazy bastard to volunteer to be tortured for 10 years?
Therefore, even if someone says that hating them is meaningless, he will forever view wizards through colored lenses.
Of course, he shouldn't generalize all wizards.
Not all wizards would commit human experimentation.
But why is it?
'Why are the spellcasters I've encountered all nothing but psychopaths?'
It's been 3 years since he became a knight.
The countless suspicious cases he pursued were all intertwined with wizards.
Seeing with his own two eyes other 'people' experiencing exactly what he went through as a child, or experiencing it even more severely, Lee Han was certain from then on.
'A good spellcaster? Of course there might be.'
However, most good spellcasters are only those who have stopped breathing.
The same goes for Irene Windler.
Even if he knows inwardly that she is a normal-looking good girl, just the single fact that she is a wizard makes it so he can't help but constantly hold hostility toward her.
This could be seen as an obsessive hatred placed upon Lee Han.
An obsession that says wizards are beings that must be hated.
But right now.
Lee Han succeeded in confirming that this obsession of his was not wrong at all.
Look even now.
"You took my words lightly, swordsman. How dare you make light of my command! You lowly bastard...!"
Isn't he only spouting words completely lacking basic decency?
Lee Han.
"Did you come here to die at the hands of that lowly bastard, you old spellcaster?"
"!!!"
Willingly decided to become a bastard with an equally rotten personality.
* * *
A silence hung over the Swordsmanship Department's training ground.
It wasn't just an ordinary silence.
The calm before the storm.
A dizzying silence as if a powder keg could explode at any moment, and at some point.
"Hmm."
Lee Han casually took out a hand axe from his bosom.
"Let's try having some more conversation first."
"...What is the intention of taking out a blade when having a conversation?"
"You're interrupting my precious class time out of nowhere, why should I hold back? Everything the spellcaster says will be bullshit anyway, but I'll listen first, and if I think it's more bullshit, I'll chuck it."
"......Such a lowly swordsman."
"I wonder how it'd feel to be hit by an axe from that swordsman."
"...!"
Whether the old man got angry or not, Lee Han playfully flicked the hand axe.
As if saying he would take up a fight anytime.
But this wasn't just play.
In reality, Lee Han's mood right now was the worst.
Even yesterday he had given such a solemn warning, yet they dared to invade his 'territory'.
And not only that.
'What meaning could there be in coming in such a swarm other than to pick a fight?'
The group of wizards who flocked together like a gang.
There were roughly 17 young wizards, which was proof enough that the guy came to fight a turf war.
For Lee Han, who already had an extreme phobia of wizards, it was a situation of unparalleled unpleasantness.
Feeling a duty to teach the old wizard that life is real combat, he emitted a sincere aura.
"...Ignorant swordsman bastard."
However, the old wizard Oddwal Bernard, who seemed like he would act arrogantly looking down on everyone, suppressed his aura.
His eyes were still vicious, but he and his disciples did not take out their staves.
For knights, it would be the equivalent of not drawing their swords.
He also knew.
That fighting a knight at such a close range was suicide.
'Maintaining his cool for a spellcaster? Well, I guess this is why he works as an Academy professor.'
But one must be careful.
A wizard is an active volcano that could erupt at any time, and a double-faced psychopath who could turn violent at any moment depending on their mood.
As expected.
"You don't know."
"...What?"
"I'm saying you don't know! How delicate of beings wizards are...!!"
Where had the calm appearance from just now gone, the old wizard suddenly shouted like a patient with anger management issues and pointed his finger at him.
"You lowly swordsman bastard! What kind of trickery did you pull on that genius to make her neglect her magic training! You evil bastard of all evil bastards...!"
"Move your finger before I cut it off."
"It's because of you! You spouted strange nonsense! That's why she became so delinquent!"
"I warned you."
Their stories did not mesh.
It was a situation where they were only saying what they wanted to say.
But one thing was clear: neither had any intention of backing down, and neither of them had any intention of having a proper conversation.
An old wizard who loathes knights—no, who despises everyone who cannot use magic—and a knight who has a deep phobia of wizards.
In reality, a normal conversation between the two was impossible.
In the end, only struggle would remain.
In such a situation.
"I-Instructor, please restrain yourself!"
"You must not fight!"
The cadets of the Swordsmanship Department flocked to stop him.
Even if it was a short period, having already grasped his personality to some extent, they knew that if Lee Han said he would do something, he really would.
Conversely, the group of wizards was the same.
"Professor! Didn't we agree to solve this through dialogue first!"
"You can't do this here."
"Please, if only for our sake, just a little!"
It seemed the 17 Magic Department cadets didn't come to stage an armed protest, but rather to stop Oddwal from causing an incident.
They also knew their professor's personality inside out, which was why they tagged along; ironically, the knight and the wizard, whose bodies were held back by their disciples, had no choice but to calm their excitement.
And from that spot.
"First of all, I think it would be best for both of you to calm down."
A man stepped forward, volunteering to play the role of mediator.
"L-Loen Young Master..."
At the words of Lionel's powerful successor, who exuded a noble bloodline, atmosphere, and mystique, even Oddwal, who was showing a purely violent attitude, visibly flinched.
As if he didn't expect him to step forward personally.
Once a flow that guided the situation was formed, Loen.
"Both of you are too excited. Because of that, you're only saying what you want to say and have no intention of calming the situation down."
Loen's deep, dark gaze, like a black pearl, turned toward Irene.
Flinch!
Irene flinched, but as if that was none of his business, only his cold gaze remained.
[Arin, did you perhaps do something wrong to that handsome guy?]
'N-No, I don't think so? ...Maybe?'
Irene sensed something ominous in the cold gaze shot at her, but unfortunately, she lacked the leisure to identify the source of the ominousness, and Loen spoke.
"Professor Oddwal Bernard. Please calm down and talk first. What is the reason you brought your faction to another department, and what are the words you want to say to Lady Irene Windler; I would like you to explain these clearly."
His tone was calm and polite, yet by no means yielding.
Instead, it radiated an extraordinary charisma.
The dignity of a hegemon.
Lionel.
It was the dignity fitting of the northern royal family.
"Umm..."
In front of such dignity, even Oddwal couldn't act carelessly.
Even if he considered all humans other than wizards to be trivial, he wasn't such a reckless person as to treat someone with this level of dignity carelessly.
Oddwal smoothed his collar and tried to regain his calm...
"-Old man, I'm disappointed. I thought you'd jump me like a man, but you're just flapping your gums and ending it? I'm hurt."
"......You bastard...!!"
As if he had reloaded at some point, Lee Han immediately fired a provocation.
Oddwal rampaged again, and the Magic Department cadets had no choice but to glare at Lee Han resentfully while stopping Oddwal.
"......Instructor."
"What? Isn't it better to just fight it out hotly than to squabble pathetically with words? I'm confident."
"......"
* * *
As the situation calmed down to some extent, a Magic Department cadet came out as a representative and delivered the story of why Oddwal was angry. It was quite a long, complicated story, but...
"So in the end, you mean he came to argue because the Instructor restricted 'telekinesis'?"
It was Arno's summary, and the Magic Department cadet felt uneasy because his story seemed too compressed, but he nodded his head, trying not to show his dissatisfaction.
"Y-Yes. To summarize roughly, it's something like that."
For Irene's health—no, 'survival'—Lee Han recommended exercise and restricted the telekinesis she used as naturally as breathing.
He didn't say not to use it at all, but told her to reduce its usage as much as possible during daily life.
It was undeniably Lee Han's consideration and effort, wanting her to walk even a little more and become healthier.
...However, the problem was that this came off as endlessly distasteful to Oddwal, a wizard supremacist.
"Professor Oddwal often says this. 'Telekinesis is the foundation and core of all magic, and the [primal power] of a wizard'... Just as these words say, restricting telekinesis also means controlling a wizard from growing their power. To give an example with knights, it's the same as telling them not to do strength training, yes..."
"Is that also the old man's teaching?"
"......This is just my personal opinion."
"As expected."
"Haha..."
That old man, of course he'd be like that.
But as everything has a point of connection, Lee Han conceded that there was a statement he had to acknowledge even if he didn't want to.
'Telekinesis is a wizard's power, so it must be like muscle strength or stamina.'
Just as exercise must be done consistently to take effect, magic must also develop by consistently training telekinesis.
But since Lee Han had restricted this, the old wizard would have felt displeasure in many ways.
In a way, Irene was doing something that went against the wizard's teachings, and Lee Han was the one who forced it upon her.
He was a guy who threw a fit just because a cadet coughed during the entrance ceremony, but seeing that he had stayed quiet until now, he must at least make distinctions between people before acting like trash.
"......Tsk, he should have said that from the start."
It was a somewhat reasonable argument, and if he had said such things first, he wouldn't have been so prickly.
Of course, he wasn't sorry.
'What's the point of feeling sorry to a spellcaster.'
Lee Han scoffed.
"I-I'm sorry, Instructor. If we're being specific, it's because of me that this..."
"The 2nd Chick isn't at fault."
"B-But."
"Let me ask you one thing. Has the 2nd Chick ever neglected her magic training because she takes my class?"
"No! That is absolutely not true!"
She could assert this with everything on the line.
[Right? I nag every day, and Arin has never skipped her training.]
With the ghost girl in her head nagging every day, she hadn't skipped magic training even a little bit.
The same went for restricting telekinesis in daily life.
"I use it for everything except when exercising. Like bringing a water cup when I don't want to get out of bed, or when fixing my hair."
"......I'm a bit jealous of that."
"Hehe."
She had a diligent laziness(?) that knew how to make consistent efforts to catch two rabbits at once.
And listening to her words.
"See? I don't think there's any problem, so I don't know why you're making such a fuss, old man."
He motioned his chin at the old wizard as if asking if that was enough, and Oddwal trembled with rage and retorted.
"You bastard, that's not the issue! Magic must be pure! An impurity must not enter her genius!"
"......I don't understand why becoming healthy is an impurity?"
"In the first place, why is that health needed for a wizard! As long as there is telekinesis—no, 'mana'—'we' can live as healthily as we want! Instead of stacking useless impurities like exercise or stamina, it's more efficient to train mana...!!"
"......Crazy bastard."
Why is his logic so extreme?
This was no different from saying that as long as you take nutritional supplements, there's no health problem even if you don't eat food.
The logic of a madman.
"Old man, I'll say it again, your logic is..."
"You bastard! Old man, old man! Don't call me that! I'm still twenty-eight!!!"
".........What?"
...Was his hearing wrong?
Lee Han blinked for a moment and looked at the cadets around him.
A questioning glance asking if they too heard the bizarre sound he thought he heard.
To this, they.
"......Twenty-eight? Kunta, it seems you're not used to the common language yet. I think I heard something strange. That old man looks older than our Grand Priestess."
"You didn't hear wrong, Kunta. You heard correctly."
"What did he do..."
They murmured as if confirming he hadn't heard wrong, and Lee Han looked in dismay at the old man—no, the prematurely aged wizard.
'...He's two years younger than me?'
Could it be.
"You didn't sacrifice your lifespan to a devil, did you?"
"You bastarrrrd...!"
In the end, Oddwal grabbed Lee Han by the collar.
Crack!
"Arghhhh!"
It was broken right away, though.
Meanwhile, looking at this old wizard...
No, at the appearance of this young wizard, Irene Windler.
[Arin. Let's exercise hard and make sure to follow the diet the Instructor gave us, okay!]
'...Yeah, I was planning to do that anyway.'
She began to make up her mind to improve her lazy lifestyle.
As expected, learning from a negative example was what sparked a person's motivation.