Free Academy.
A few years ago, Yuuki, the [Grand Master] who transformed the Mutual Aid Association into the [Guild], founded this academy first of all. It was famous as the place in the Kingdom of [Ingrassia] with the least class discrimination, and the only place untouched by royal authority.
No matter how noble and majestic the royal family of a great nation might be, before the heroes who had preserved the balance of the West for hundreds of years, they were little different from any other noble house.
Especially after Adelio, one of the two [Hero]es of the [Hero Party], took in the two [High Elf] women who were practically the masters of [Sarion] as his fiancées, he had effectively become one of the highest-status figures in the entire West.
That was why it had been unthinkable from the start for anyone to meddle with an institution created by the otherworlder Adelio regarded as his prized disciple.
Fwoosh!
And on top of that—
"Eek...!"
"...Ryota's hair almost got completely burned off."
"...That's nothing like Miss Shizue's swordsmanship. It's sloppy."
"Kenya! If you're going to use magic, control it better!"
"I-I know that! That's why we're sparring right now!"
—there were now five more otherworlders who had become disciples of Adelio and Shizue.
Here, they were the masters and kings of this place, and the children taught by such heroes were new seeds who would become the leading figures of the next generation.
"N-next time, I'll control it perfectly for real!"
First, the child with orange hair like blazing sunlight,
"...Ugh, I really am a bad match for Kenya..."
then the boy with a timid face and dark blue eyes full of thought,
"If you do that again next time, I'm hitting you with Teddy!"
then the exotic girl who freely controlled stuffed animals,
"Haha... let's be a little more careful next time."
then the tall boy who mediated among the children like an eldest brother, and finally,
"If Miss Shizue had seen that just now, she definitely would've been disappointed."
the quietest girl of them all, yet one gifted with more genius than anyone else.
The children themselves did not know it, but their teachers Adelio and Shizue did.
Every child here possessed the talent to be reborn as a hero of the next generation, and among them were even children fated to one day follow after them and be called [Hero]es themselves.
"Oh...? They've improved more than I expected."
"Hehe, they really have. It seems they've been practicing steadily while we were away."
That was why—
—they were quietly watching the children's sparring from inside the academy without interrupting them.
"At only ten years old, if they're already this skilled, then in a few years they could probably beat the [Empire]'s elite soldiers one-on-one."
It wasn't empty praise. He meant it.
They still couldn't fully handle the vast energy circulating inside their bodies, yet judging by how they were already controlling the range of their magic through pure technique alone, it would not have been strange to say their instincts were already on par with seasoned veterans.
Especially considering that Kenya, the worst of the five at controlling magic, had still managed that much.
'Good thing we came straight here instead of wasting time at the [Guild]. At this level, the results are better than I expected.'
With a faint smile on his lips, Adelio turned his head, intending to properly greet his disciples now, and started toward the stairs.
"......"
Or rather, to be precise, he tried to.
"N-no... even if you beg me like that, I can't do any more than this..."
"Please, just one more volume...! Just one more, please... please!!"
If only he had not seen, inside the classroom behind them, his ridiculous disciple bowing to Rimuru and begging for more comic books.
"......"
'...Sometimes I really wonder if he's actually the head of [Cerberus]...'
Back when he founded the [Guild] and seriously trained in martial arts, he might have been a little lacking, but at least he hadn't been the kind of disciple too embarrassing to show other people...
But the sight of him now—clinging to the pant leg of a woman who still looked no more than a young girl, someone he had only met for the first time this morning, and begging for the final volume of "Fullmetal Alchemist"—was far too disgraceful for Adelio to call him his prized disciple.
Of course, since he had been forcibly transferred to this other world right in the middle of the manga boom, Adelio could understand a certain amount of shameless begging. But even so, for someone bearing the title of [Grand Master] to keep this up the entire way from the [Guild] to here was just too much.
"......"
"Ahaha..."
It was such a shocking sight that even Ria, who stayed calm in almost any situation, lowered her eyes expressionlessly, while gentle Shizue let out an awkward laugh.
In other words, it was not merely pathetic in Adelio's eyes. Anyone would have thought so.
"...Huh?!"
"...!!"
"Mr. Adelio!!"
And while Adelio's attention was stolen by Yuuki, the children who had been sparring below had already cleaned up the training ground and leaped all the way up to the second floor.
"Mr. Rio~!"
"Teacher!"
"Even Miss Shizue too...!"
"Are you back for good now?!"
Misaki Kenya, Alice Rondo, Sekiguchi Ryota, Gale Gibson, and finally Chloe O'Bell.
Calling each of the children by name as they came running toward him, Adelio gave a light nod, set aside the shameful disciple in the classroom for the moment, and accepted the reunion with his younger disciples with a smile.
"If you don't have paper, then I'll even trade this book by equivalent exchange, so please, somehow...!!"
...In the middle of that reunion, noisy words drifted out now and then from the classroom next door, things like "half the shares of the [Guild]" and "a two-thousand-year history of the world," but he ignored them lightly.
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