Chapter 17: Signs of Change

「Taaah!」
「Yah!」

With spirited shouts, two small figures sprint across the ground—Sig and Yuuki. Their near-simultaneous strikes, offset by a hair, are hard to stop: whichever one you block, the other slips through.

「So by shifting this steelyard’s fulcrum off center, I improved it so we can weigh things without adjusting the counterweight with water on the other side.」
「That’s brilliant—I didn’t think of that.」

Amata batted their attack aside one‑handed without even glancing, all while talking with me. He swept out Yuuki’s legs to drop her and, at the same time, grabbed Sig’s slim upper arm and heaved him away. The two of them ended up eating dirt side by side.

「…You really are incredible.」
「I’m humbled.」

As I voiced my admiration, Amata bowed apologetically. Seeing an opening, Sig lunged from behind, but the raised fist was chopped down by Amata’s hand blade and, with the returning motion, Sig was sent flying.

No matter how I looked at it, it felt like he had eyes in the back of his head. I found myself idly wondering if this, too, was a kind of magic.

Since then—since I vowed I would make Sig strong—I shamefully leaned on Amata. Of course I’m still exploring Sig’s potential as a mage and teaching him magic, but I knew the quickest, surest way was this.

Amata readily agreed and has been training them like this. You could call him the world’s first PE teacher. I’d meant to make hand‑to‑hand lessons elective, but besides his sister Yuuki and Sig, who both want to get stronger, Violet-san also pursues the martial path. Once she joined without hesitation, Rin added herself because it looked fun, and when the rest of the class signed up, Luka came too—and in the end, everyone took the class.

Right now the other three are either sprawled flat or sitting and resting. Only Sig and Yuuki still have gas in the tank—but even they must be nearing their limits; their movements have lost their edge. Amata, on the other hand, isn’t even winded. He’s still young himself, yet frighteningly, overwhelmingly strong—the very picture of the Sword Clan’s next head.

「Sensei! How’s this look!?」

As I blankly watched a fight I couldn’t possibly keep up with, a shout came from the distance.

「Hold on, I’m coming! …Take it easy on them, Amata.」
「Yes. I’ll be sure to live up to your expectations, Sensei.」

Amata nodded, his already sharp features setting even firmer. Feeling a bit sorry for Sig and Yuuki, I headed around to the back of the schoolhouse.

There I found the regular class students, faces and limbs smeared with dirt—and a field neatly tilled in straight rows along stretched ropes.

「Yes, wonderful! Thanks, everyone—this is perfect.」

I took some soil in hand and offered praise. Not that I could tell good soil from bad, but if the stones and weeds are cleared and the soil is loosened, that’s plenty.

Doing this by magic is trickier than you’d think. Turning soil is one thing, but the delicate work of separating out weeds and pebbles goes far faster by hand than with magic. It’s like trying to eat tiny beans with a huge shovel.

There’s no way the special class alone could handle this workload, so I pulled in help from the regular class and villagers as well. Having set down weights and measures also made it possible to give concrete instructions, which was huge.

「All right, let’s sow Hiiro wheat here.」

The main crops the village grows are grain and yams. They look and taste roughly like wheat and potatoes, so I could have just called them that, but for now I decided to name them Hiiro wheat and Hiiro yams. Frankly, I can’t even tell the difference between wheat and barley; I couldn’t say for sure they’re the same thing.

「Blessings of the earth upon these wheat seeds. Sleep slowly through the winter. Sleep and grow large.」

We chanted as we sowed. Rin started this custom, but I honestly don’t know how much it actually matters—at best it’s morale.

「Sleep slowly through the winter. Sleep and grow large.」

Still, working while chanting together like a song does make the time pass better than toiling in silence. Even in the world where I lived in my previous life, farming had become mechanized, but in essence the work hadn’t changed much since antiquity.
Even in a world with magic, it’s the same—painstaking, unglamorous labor.

「All right, that’s it for today. Good work, everyone!」

Once we’d sown the prepared seed, I dismissed the students. I did feel a twinge of guilt about making them farm as classwork, but they didn’t seem to mind. If anything, many were intrigued by planting and raising things with their own hands.

We already have small‑scale success to point to. It seems they’re placing great hopes in the prospect of getting food without trekking into the forest.

Since there’s new material to teach, I’ve been taking the lectern in the regular class as well lately. How to measure length and weight. That you can derive quantity from weight. The changing seasons and how to read a calendar—the list of things we need to teach is endless.

「Good work.」
「You too.」

As I stretched my stiff lower back, Nina came over and we exchanged words of thanks. Despite just finishing farm work, there wasn’t a speck of dirt on her clothes—truly the favored child of earth and wood. If everyone could use magic like she can, we wouldn’t have to sweat like this…

Maybe she sensed that thought. Nina suddenly thumped me in the stomach. There was hardly any force to it and it didn’t hurt, but had I managed to rile her again somehow?

But when I looked down at her face, she was smiling.

「Uh… what was that?」
「No‑oothing.」

Contrary to her words, she leaned her back into me like she had something to say. I didn’t get it, but she seemed in high spirits, so… sure.

「Haaah, I’m beat—」

Then Yuuki came over and, almost collapsing, flumped into a hug from behind. Nina in front, Yuuki in back—I was sandwiched between the two.

「Good work, Yuuki.」
「Thanks. Ugh, Amata’s just so merciless.」

For all her griping, there were hardly any real injuries on her. Despite how ruthlessly he kept tossing them around. That only made Amata’s skill stand out all the more; I’d gone beyond impressed and was drifting toward sheer disbelief.

And even Amata doesn’t hold a candle to the clan head, Amaga. The Sword Clan truly is something else.

「But Founder‑sama was even stronger, right?」
「Hmm… hard to say.」

In terms of technique, they’re unquestionably more refined now—Yuuki may even surpass him there. But when I picture an actual fight, I just can’t see Dalga losing. That’s how strong he was at his peak.

「I wanna hear about that time.」
「Sure, of cou—」

I was about to say I didn’t mind when a faint wrongness tugged at me. I could have sworn I’d just heard a note that wasn’t her usual.

「Me?」

Nina echoed it, puzzled, and I finally realized—Yuuki’s first‑person pronoun had changed.

「Uh… it sounds weird, doesn’t it?」
「It doesn’t.」

Yuuki hunched shyly, and I shook my head. Her hair had grown out recently and, at least in looks, she’d gotten much more feminine. At the very least, people wouldn’t mistake her for a boy anymore.

I wasn’t about to tell her to act feminine just because she’s a girl—but it wasn’t some change to shy away from either. In this world and this era, you could even call it a welcome thing.

「…Well, whatever.」

And yet Nina’s earlier good mood had drained from her voice. Back to her usual flat, even tone—but I could tell. That was the voice she used when she was quietly angry.

Huh? Why?

We’ve been together a long time; by now I know how to handle it. When Nina’s angry like this, you mustn’t touch it. No matter how much you ask why, she won’t tell you—and the more you ask, the worse her mood gets.

「Great! It’s a promise, okay, Onii-chan!」

Yuuki beamed, while Nina pressed into me with sulky insistence. Sandwiched between the two, I could only tilt my head in puzzlement.