(TN: ↑ was mostly Ensj’s translations back in the day, I just tweaked a few lines.)
***
Ahhh, it’s as nervewracking as ever. When a new semester starts, did my old princ.i.p.al feel like this when he made the same speech he always did?
But to think he could still continue with such boring words despite that, as I thought, the job of princ.i.p.al isn’t something just anyone can do.
You’d probably need at least a mithril-grade thick face to be a princ.i.p.al.
Although all I did was walk up to the pedestal, a hundred pairs of eyes all came to focus on me.
There are some excited ones, nervous ones, and some completely emotionless ones.
Well, not that it matters.
Grow like weeds and become my incentive! Is just about all I feel from that.
“Now, my fresh hatchlings with eggsh.e.l.l still stuck on your feathers, welcome. I am the one in charge of Squad 1, Instructor Naruan.”
I could see some of them looking discontent at being called hatchlings.
Those’re probably the ones who had their heads high from their pretty high prelim ranks.
But it’s rare that top in primary school ends up being top in high school.
Of course, it’s not like the skills from having your nose buried in your desk since primary school would have gone anywhere. That’s not how talent works.
Starting suddenly and overturning the standards of normality.
That is the realm of genius. It doesn’t seem like there are any geniuses among this lot, but there will definitely be someone who will rise to their talents and overturn the previous order.
“Other instructors start training from today, but Just. For. Today. I’ll be giving you kids the day off. If I talk any more my mouth will hurt and you’ll all only get p.i.s.sed off. Go to your a.s.signed dorms and for today, enjoy your day off.”
After a moment of silence, the kids walked away happily as I watched over them and gently smirked.
As expected of an evil organization.
They didn’t even give those kids a proper break. But I’m different! I let them rest the moment they came!
Where else are you going to find an instructor like me!
“…… Is this the infamous last supper?”
But even while looking at my kindly smile, the organization’s personnel who had come to help with tomorrow’s training, for some reason or another, all had their faces turning pale.
What was it? Was there something wrong with lunch?
“It’s not their last. I haven’t had anyone die on me in my training course yet.”
“That’s true. They won’t die.”
Although her words left a sour taste in my mouth I’m not going to ask any further.
Normally in an evil organization there’s no real sense of camaraderie between colleagues.
Evil organizations that pointlessly insist on that tend to have all their members drawn in like sausages if so much as one of them get caught, so long-running evil organizations always live with the determination to abandon each other at any moment.
Because of that even when you need the cooperation with other branches, any of them could equally be enemies looking for an opportunity to stick their knives in your backs, and to prevent that you need to be pretty social even in an evil organization.
And in front of my eyes is one of the great peaks of the ‘must be friends’ list!
The famous magician brigade!
The moment you get on the bad side of either the mage corps that can blast away the enemy with accurate and heavy firepower, or any of the Treasury staff that guarantee your salary and operating overheads you might as well half kiss your organization life goodbye already.
When you desperately raised your budget but the Treasury worker that you were on bad terms with slashed your budget by half, or when the mage corps that promised to help out say they couldn’t come because they were busy, of course it would have a ma.s.sive impact on your job!
“Let’s get ready, shall we.”
“Understood.”
Even so, according to the organization’s official hierarchy I’m quite high up.
As the magician nodded in response to my words and vanished, I checked the time.
“Current time 1400 hours.”
There’s ten hours left till the day ends. I definitely said that you kids could rest Just. For. Today. you know?
#2. Their story: A certain mage’s story.
“Boss, is this really training for kids?”
As a mage of Howling, a place far removed from justice and light, and far closer to darkness and evil, I’ve done plenty of things that shouldn’t have been done.
If I was a.s.signed a target then I would spare no means or effort to do the job, and if needed I’d even casually annihilated a village or two.
With scores of experience in killing yesterday’s ally turned traitor, but this was weird, even for myself who had done all those things.
“If it’s the Empire-style carpet bombing, then not even the organization’s special forces can block that.”
The very first day of the timetable and it’s already absolutely insane.
The tactic that the Mad Witch of the Empire had devised during the last great war.
The theory behind it was simple.
A mage would head up to 5000m above sea level and create ice by freezing water vapour with ice magic, then drop it, simple as that, but the results were anything but.
A thirty thousand strong force of the Merdeia kingdom which was at odds with the Empire was annihilated with this simple tactic and five thousand of them died.
The magic barrier of the mages and archmages were torn to shreds by the simple concepts of ma.s.s and velocity, and even before Merdeia’s soldiers could send out their mages to hunt ours, the troops led by the Mad Witch attacked the capital in chaos.
The battle where just ten thousand of that Mad Witch’s forces more or less ma.s.sacred thirty thousand of the military kingdom Merdeia’s forces is already scheduled to be immortalised in the empire’s history books.
But that, is going to be fired on these kids who’ve barely pa.s.sed their preliminary training.
“You’ll have to control it well.”
“Boss! Even a pebble will break skulls if they’re dropped from 5000m above sea level.”
“Indeed. So the kids will need have the mindset that they need to dodge well.”
“If they can’t dodge they’ll die!”
Even if the turnover rate is only slightly lower than the empire’s during their slaughter-happy moments, I can’t see this wastage of human resources like this.
My conscience hadn’t run so dry to send these innocent kids to a dog’s death.
But even in the face of my pleas the boss’s answer was unchanging.
“They’re not going to die.”
No. To be precise, his eyes were dead and lilfeless.
“…Is it an order from the top?”
“It is, and one from Instructor Naruan’s direct disciples.”
Instructor Naruan’s direct disciple.
The empire, no, the continent’s evil organisations training facilities each had their own specific quirks, but what they all had in common was that each batch would have a hundred people in them.
Of course, not all of the hundred were trained perfectly.
Some places fifty, some places seventy, some places thirty.
Depending on the training there were a lot of trainees that died, and there were also some training schools where more died than graduated.
But even in amongst all those, Instructor Naruan’s trainees were regarded as incomparable.
The reason being, very simply, that each time, no more than a single digit number of trainees ever completed the full course.
Organization or no, an instructor like that should be fired, but there was a reason why he could still hold his position as an instructor. That was because all the trainees who survived his training took the top positions of the organization with overwhelming strength and speed.
Especially the cla.s.s just before the one regarded as the greatest ever, currently all the disciples from that squad broke record after record and all of them took vital roles in the organization’s military, diplomacy, internal affairs, treasury and so on.
And even so, each and every of them were so talented that blew away all their subordinates’ doubts.
“This is what the Intelligence Vice-Director says. They will feel like dying, but they won’t die. They won’t die, but they’ll at least be able to tour heaven. While being a tourist in heaven is possible, where you will end up is h.e.l.l.”
“Is it just me that I’m even more worried after hearing that?”
“Even if we say anything the higher-ups won’t listen. Since it went without a hitch last year, all we can do is just do as we’re told.”
Looking at my boss’s sighing back, I sighed as well.
He was still one of the organization’s greats as the boss of the battlemages, but even so, he was just a salaried villain.
“The start time is 0000 hours. The codeword is ‘make it rain.’ we just have to be ready to fire tomorrow at 0100 hours.”
“We can only hope and pray they don’t die.”
It leaves a bitter taste in our mouths but what can we do.
If we were going to argue about those things then we should be working for the empire, not an evil organization.
“Please… We can only hope that no one dies.”
“Is that really the case… There are times when death can be a more peaceful rest.”
Looking at the boss’s oddly bitter smile, all I could do was pray for the trainees who would fall into despair in a few short hours.