Noah tucked his gourd away in its hiding place beneath the sink and headed out of his room, making for his room in building G. He reached it just before midday and stepped into the dusty room.

It was empty, which didn’t surprise him much. Time was still a bit of a rough concept to him, but Noah was pretty certain there was still some time left until the class was meant to start. Considering his students had barely even bothered to show up last time, he didn’t get the feeling that they planned on getting here early.

That was fine with him. He still wasn’t sure exactly what he was meant to be teaching them. There hadn’t been a lesson plan in all the papers that Vermil had kept around on his desk, but the exam that Moxie had mentioned very likely had something to do with it.

Noah settled down to wait. He watched the sun crawl across the sky through the dirty window, his eyes tracing the rays of light as they danced through the dim room. He flipped through Vermil’s book, mostly just to take a cursory glance at the other Runes in it and see if he’d missed anything too important.

Feet scuffed against stone. Noah looked up, closing his book with a snap as Isabel stepped into the classroom. She looked mildly surprised to see him sitting in front of the chalkboard.

Todd followed her in, covering a yawn. He flopped down at a desk in the back of the class without saying a word.

“Welcome back,” Noah said, rising to his feet. “I forgot to ask this last time around, but why are there only two of you?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Isabel asked.

“Shouldn’t I have more students?”

“Do you not remember?”

“Just humor me.”

“It’s just us,” Isabel said with a shrug. “Nobody else got saddled with you. We’re just unlucky.”

Small class sizes. More like a mentorship or an apprenticeship than a proper professor, but I had some friends in higher academia that only taught classes of a few kids. I think. It's been so long I can hardly remember.

“Well, that’s lovely,” Noah said with a sigh. “We’ll get around to them when the time comes, I suppose. How did the homework I assigned you go?”

“Didn’t do it,” Todd said promptly. “It doesn’t matter in the end. Magic is magic, who cares how it works?”

Noah just looked to Isabel.

She cleared her throat. “I thought about it. A bit.”

“And?”

“I don’t know,” Isabel admitted. “I couldn’t really think of what Runes really are beyond what we already discussed. They’re… just Runes. Can’t you just say?”

“Nope,” Noah replied, stretching his hands over his head. “I don’t know either.”

Isabel and Todd stared at him.

“What?” Noah asked. “I told you already. If it was easy, then we’d have the answer. I don’t think most mages you run into are going to have that answer. It’s something we have to determine for ourselves.”

“Then what was the point of wasting our time by telling us to think about it?” Isabel demanded, crossing her arms.

“It was to make you think,” Noah replied. “And thinking gives you a goal. I trust you have one.”

There was a short pause before Isabel replied, as if she was trying to figure out if Noah’s question had a deeper meaning to it. “Of course we do.”

“And? What is it?”

“To get stronger,” Todd said promptly. “Strong enough that I can do what I want without having to worry about getting–”

Isabel shot Todd a sharp look and he trailed off, then cleared his throat.

“Getting scammed. Or something,” Todd said, clearly changing whatever he’d originally been planning to say. “Rank 5 would be incredible. Maybe even 6.”

How high do the Ranks go, I wonder?

“Six?” Isabel asked. “That’s it? I’m going to be a Rank 7.”

“Aiming high, huh?” Todd grinned and prodded Isabel in the side. “There hasn’t been a Rank 7 in the kingdom since it was established.”

“Not one that anyone’s seen,” Isabel replied, crossing her arms. “I bet that a bunch of people have hit Rank 7 and slipped away to avoid having to waste time here. There’s a lot more to the world than just the Arbalest Empire.”

And I finally have a name for the place I’m in. Arbalest Empire. Very medieval. I guess it’s a monarchy, then.

“Why not higher than that?” Noah asked.

“What, you mean to Rank 9?” Todd snorted. “As if. Ranks that high are basically just legends. I’m not trying to become a god.”

Rank 9 is the rank of gods? No, from what it sounded like, it’s more like 9 is known to exist, just probably incredibly difficult to achieve. Renewal and the monster that attacked the Waters of Life are probably higher than Rank 9 then. And I’m Rank 1. Quite a ways to go.

Don’t want to spend too much time on this yet, though. Need to keep things moving.

“We’re going to move on to a slightly different topic,” Noah said. “Are you aware of what happens in a month?”

Both Todd and Isabel paled a few shades and glanced away, avoiding his gaze. Todd looked down at his hands, suddenly finding them the most fascinating things he’d seen in years.

“Yes,” Isabel said. “The test, right?”

“The test,” Noah confirmed with a nod.

“We’ll have everything together before it starts,” Todd said, lowering his voice. “Don’t worry about it, man. It won’t be a problem.”

Noah’s eyes narrowed. Something about the way Todd had spoken didn’t sit right with him. He’d seen that shifty look in students eyes before, and it was never a sign of anything good.

“What exactly do you mean by that?” Noah asked.

Todd pressed his lips together. “You know. So we don’t have to do it.”

“What? How do you plan to pass the test if you don’t do it?”

Isabel stared at Noah like he’d grown a horn between his eyes. “Because we aren’t going to do it. That’s the whole point, isn’t it? You haven’t taught us anything aside from one class the day before yesterday, but you can’t make us all fail the exam or Arbitage will be breathing down your neck. So…”

“You want me to just lie and say you passed?”

“Well, that’s literally what you told us we’d be doing when the semester started,” Todd said dryly. “I’m not sure why we’d think anything else. As I said, we’ll get the materials you need to justify the effort it’ll take you to fake the results.”

A bribe. Vermil was going to make them bribe him to not take an exam? Every time I learn more about this guy, the more of a scumbag I realize he was.

Noah leaned against the chalkboard and sighed. “Plans have changed. We’re not doing that.”

Isabel and Todd both shot to their feet.

“What? You’re actually going to make us take it?” Isabel asked, aghast. “We can’t!”

“Why not?” Noah asked.

“That test ends up seriously injuring students that actually have good teachers,” Todd said. “How do you think we’re going to each kill a powerful monster when we don’t even have that to back us up? We’ll die. Literally.”

“Remind me of what you’re required to do to pass it again?” Noah asked.

“We’ve got to kill a Slasher,” Isabel said. “Seriously, you don’t even know what the test covers. How do you expect us to pass it? We’re both just going to get killed and you’ll be at fault.”

Noah let out a relieved sigh. For a moment, he’d thought the test was actually going to be hunting a dozen of the monsters or something even more ridiculous.

“Just that? You can do that no problem,” Noah said. “It’s just a Slasher. A good hit to their neck takes them out, and their movements are really predictable. They’re fast, but if you get the jump on them and work together, I can’t imagine it would be that impossible.”

Both Isabel and Todd glared at Noah. Their anger turned to nervousness when Noah didn’t back down from his stance.

“Easy for you to say. You’re not the one that has to kill them,” Todd said. “Can you even fight one yourself? I don’t see how you’re going to protect us when you’re literally the same Rank as we are. Slashers might not be the strongest monsters in the Scorched Acres, but they’re far from the weakest. False confidence isn’t going to do anything when they tear your throat out.”

Noah opened his mouth, then let it close.

It did take me a few deaths to figure out how to avoid getting killed by those things, but they really aren’t that unrealistic to beat if I managed to take two out with my level of experience.

“See?” Isabel asked. “Look, I don’t know why you suddenly decided to become a teacher again, but don’t get us killed because you’re trying to repair your self-image.”

Noah pursed his lips. “I’ve killed two Slashers. They’re dangerous enemies, but they aren’t impossible to defeat. You say you’re at my level, so you should be able to handle them as well.”

“You’re full of it,” Todd said promptly. He pushed his chair back and stood, glaring at Noah. “There’s no way you beat a Slasher unless someone else held it down and beat it to an inch of its life first.”

“Sit,” Noah said firmly. Todd pressed his lips together. They stared at each other for several terse seconds. Slowly, Todd lowered back into his chair.

“You’re serious?” Isabel asked.

“Yes. I killed one yesterday using just my Wind Runes, and they’re all lower ranked. I think it went down in two or three strikes, so I only used a single Rune during the fight. You’re both confident you’re at least as strong as I am, aren’t you?”

Isabel grimaced and looked out the window, avoiding Noah’s gaze. “Please don’t do this. I don’t care what you’re planning, but I don’t want to die. If you want to start becoming a good teacher, start with the next class. We’re already screwed. Don’t get us killed as well.”

Noah drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. He couldn’t deny that Isabel’s suggestion was tempting. He had more than enough on his plate already. Surviving while making sure nobody figured out his true identity wasn’t exactly a simple task.

Ignoring his class and letting them cheat their way through everything until they were someone else’s problem would certainly lighten his load, and it was clearly what Vermil had been doing for quite some time.

I won’t fail my students. I don’t care if they aren’t even technically mine – Vermil screwed these kids over, and I’m going to make that right. It’s my duty as a teacher.

“No.” Noah shook his head. “I’m sorry, but I’m not going to do that. I apologize that you had to deal with my incompetent teaching in the past, but there will be no more of that. I won’t be letting you leave this class without the proper abilities to defend yourselves in the future.”

“You’re going to get us killed,” Todd said flatly.

“I swear on my life that I won’t.” Noah pressed a hand to his chest. “I’ll die buying you time to escape the monster if need be. Once they get a kill, they focus on eating it instead of attacking other threats.”

At least, I’m pretty sure they do. The monkey seemed pretty distracted eating my corpse.

Neither Todd nor Isabel looked all too convinced by his proclamation.

“How about this. Show me what you can do right now, and I’ll do the same,” Noah proposed, raising his arms out to his sides, palms up. “I’ll be as honest as possible, and you’ll do the same. If I truly don’t think you can defeat the Slashers, I’ll let you cheat your way through the exam, and you won’t even have to pay me that bribe. But, if I’m right, you train with me and we pass the exam normally.”

“We can’t beat them,” Isabel said without an ounce of doubt in her voice. “It’s not like I’ve sat around doing nothing. I’ve trained. I’ve practiced. I know my limits, Professor Vermil. I can’t kill a Slasher.”

“First, there are two of you,” Noah said. “And second, we’ve still got a month until the exam. That’s more than enough time to practice. Let’s take things one step at a time. We’ll go test out how strong the two of you are. For one month, you’ll do what I say and train together with me. When the month is up, if we decide you can’t do the test, then I cheat for you. Otherwise, you do it. Wouldn’t you rather learn something from the class than waste your time?”

Isabel sat silently for a few moments. She and Todd exchanged a glance. Todd shook his head slightly, but Isabel clenched her hands at her side.

“What if he’s right?” she whispered.

“It’s stupid,” Todd replied, equally as soft. “Some other teacher probably figured out what he’s doing and he’s trying to save his own ass.”

“I am not,” Noah put in.

They both ignored him.

“But what if he’s serious? We’re shafted in our next year if we don’t get him again,” Isabel muttered. “We really don’t have a choice, and he’s right. I don’t want to be a worthless mage forever. Eventually, we have to get stronger.”

Todd let out a heavy sigh. He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms, glaring at Isabel. “You’ve already made up your mind.”

“Only if you agree with me.”

“Fine,” Todd said. He rolled his eyes and looked back to Noah. “You got one month before the exam, man. If we aren’t convinced, we’re out.”

Noah grinned. “Fantastic. That’s all I needed. You’re in as well, Isabel?”

Isabel nodded. “Against my better judgement. Don’t get too excited. You’re still a terrible professor, and we all know it.”

Noah waved his hand dismissively and gestured for them to stand. “We’ll see about that. Is there somewhere good for you two to show me what you can do?”

Isabel and Todd both rolled their eyes.

“The training grounds, I guess,” Isabel said. The mention of the training grounds took the stress from her spine, and she straightened up as confidence welled up in her expression. Noah raised an eyebrow, but he didn’t address it. “Seriously, how much have you forgotten?”

“This isn’t about me,” Noah replied. “To the training grounds! It’s a field trip. Isn’t that fun?”

“No,” Todd and Isabel chorused but, despite their sarcasm, they rose from their seats and joined Noah as he headed out of the classroom.