I Possessed the Heroine’s Teacher

As with any journey, the travel time is always boring and tedious. If this were the 21st century on Earth, I would have passed the time by playing games or using my smartphone, but in this medieval fantasy world, such convenient and entertaining items didn’t exist.

I sighed, lamenting that this world was very slow in terms of entertainment technology. It just meant that I was extremely bored. No matter how much I slept, the journey didn’t end, and the carriage kept moving. Around the time I felt a headache from sleeping too much, it seemed that others were also feeling bored.

Glacies was reading a book she had brought to pass the time. I glanced at the title, which read, . Wasn’t this porn? How could she read porn in public? Come to think of it, I remember seeing an old man reading porn on his phone while riding the bus. It seemed that such people existed even in this medieval fantasy world.

Maybe it was just a cruel novel. It could be a novel with graphic descriptions of blood and gore. Judging a book by its cover is a bad habit. I ignored the fact that Glacies’s cheeks were slightly red. When reading descriptions of blood and gore, it’s possible to have a condition that makes your cheeks turn red. We shouldn’t make assumptions about people’s conditions or illnesses without knowing them, as it’s a barbaric custom.

My disciple, Iris, was sitting next to Glacies, reading the same novel. Glacies’s face was red, and so was Iris’s… Was it really porn? I shouldn’t rule out the possibility that Iris also had the same condition as Glacies. I’m not a barbarian, but a Confucian and Neo-Confucian scholar who doesn’t judge a book by its cover or misunderstand people without knowing them.

“Hey… Don’t turn the pages so fast.”

“How slow are you at reading? It’s an important scene, so don’t stop me from turning the pages.”

“Wow… Nowadays, erotic novels are so explicit.”

“Among today’s erotic novels, this one is quite mild.”

It was definitely porn. You can tell just by looking at the cover, and when someone’s face turns red, it’s a clear sign that they’re reading something erotic. The nomadic tribesmen were probably the first to notice this, which is why they were able to establish the vast Mongol Empire. Meanwhile, the foolish scholars, who judged books by their covers and misunderstood people, were invaded while reading porn.

After fighting, they united over porn.

Omnia vincit amor et nos cedamus amori.

‘Love conquers all, so let’s fall in love.’ This is a quote from Virgil, and it’s one of my favorites. But in my opinion, love is closely related to eroticism, which is why it’s so powerful. You can see this in how those two, who were fighting, are now united in reading porn.

So, I would modify Virgil’s quote as follows:

Omnia vincit scabiēs et nos cedamus scabiēī.

‘Eroticism conquers all, so let’s engage in erotic acts.’ How does that sound? Doesn’t it exude the aura of Eros, the god of love and peace?

Ignoring the two women who were faithfully following Virgil’s quote, I turned my gaze to Camelia, and… I almost fell off my seat. As soon as I turned, our eyes met.

“Oh, you scared me!”

I was so startled that I leaned back and hit my head on the window. I wondered how long my head would last these endurance tests.

“Sister, why are you staring at me like that?”

I was so startled that I almost had a heart attack. Good thing I’m a man who can’t have children. If I were a woman, who knows what could have happened? Camelia should thank me for not being ts’d and perform the three kneelings and nine kowtows to show her gratitude.

“Werner.”

“Why are you staring at me like that? It’s scary.”

“I’m bored. Don’t you have any interesting stories?”

I know a lot of interesting stories. Like, if you say the letter D twenty times, it sounds like smoothie, or how Marvel is four times bigger than Netmarble, or how grandfather is mantle in English, or how scorched rice is Bobbi Brown in English. These are jokes that my friend often told me. I considered using these jokes, but most people hate them if they don’t fit their taste.

In Camelia’s case, her ‘hate’ could take the form of a sword stab, so I had to be careful.

So, how could I relieve her boredom? I thought seriously and came up with an answer.

“Then, let me tell you an interesting story.”

Camelia, as well as Glacies and Iris, put down their books and listened to my story.

I wasn’t going to tell a joke like ‘If you block a city, it becomes a city lunchbox.’ I was just going to tell a story I knew well.

“This is a story from a place far away from this continent. I heard it from an acquaintance, but…”

“You have an acquaintance?”

“Just listen quietly. Anyway, there’s a country that looks very peaceful and wealthy, but it’s just a facade. Underneath, they gather orphans and train them to kill people.”

“… That’s not a very surprising story. I’ve seen many such organizations.”

Indeed, there were many organizations in this world that gathered orphans and used them as weapons. In the end, they were all destroyed by Werner’s companions, and their leader was killed, his head split into 21 pieces.

“Their operating method is a bit different. When the orphans arrive, they’re given numbers instead of names and assigned partners.”

“Partners… That’s unusual. Usually, in such organizations, children are raised either individually or in platoons, not in pairs.”

“Yes, it’s unusual. For example, number 1 is with number 36, number 302 is with number 232, number 69 is with number 74, number 137 is with number 333, and number 200 is with number 204… and so on.”

Some old memories came to mind, making me feel complicated. It wasn’t sad or angry anymore, but there was an unpleasant, sticky feeling left.

“Then, they sleep in the same room, eat together, train together, and never leave each other’s side.”

“They must become very close. Is this a way to foster camaraderie?”

“Similar. It’s also to make them monitor each other, but… later, when they’re sent on missions to kill people, they’re sent in pairs and fight together.”

Those damn guys followed us wherever we went, making it very annoying. It was fortunate that they didn’t follow us to the bathroom.

“And in the end, they lock up all the orphans and make them kill each other until only two are left.”

“Cruel. I’m sick of hearing stories about organizations that select warriors in such a way, and I can’t hide my disgust every time I hear them.”

“And the two who survive are usually partners. Why? Because they protect each other while fighting for their precious friend.”

Most of them couldn’t even fight properly and died. It was a very bad selection method.

“So, do the two survivors work together? It’s quite unusual to form a team like that.”

“No, it’s not like that.”

The bastards who make killing machines wouldn’t let them off with a warm ending like, ‘Friend, we survived, let’s do well.’

“In the end, they lock the two survivors in a room and create a situation where they have to kill each other. They beat each other to death with their bare hands.”

It would have been better if they had weapons, but they didn’t even have that. I wondered how much of the budget they had embezzled.

“Then, the surviving child leaves behind their friend of many years and escapes. It’s a system that creates assassins by sacrificing the lives of about 400 orphans.”

“… It’s not interesting, but rather a cruel story, Werner.”

I seemed to have chosen the wrong topic.