I followed Talindra to the dueling platform, but instead of summoning her spider legs, she knelt in the center of the platform, her hands carefully resting on her lap. She closed her eyes and, for a moment, I thought she would perform a Japanese apology prostration, but instead, she remained still like a faun-shaped statue.

My mind was elsewhere, trying to calculate whether my decision to open my teaching method to everyone was the correct answer. It sounded logical in my mind; if everyone had access to my teaching method, nobody would be incentivized to rope me into their faction. My only concern was the Silence Hex that prevented us from discussing the Academy's teaching methods. In practice, I was ninety percent sure it only prevented us from telling about the Restrain Hex, the selection exams, the entrance test, and some of the theoretical classes the older cadets had. As far as I knew, Leonie's father taught swordsmen in the Almedia Household despite the fact that he was an Imperial Knight. Enric Osgiria had also taught Yvain before leaving the Osgirian capital to lead their troops.

I used [Foresight] to push my worries away. The advantages outweighed the drawbacks, so I decided it was a good enough solution. Besides, a teaching method that treated all students the same had some notable advantages for the commoner caste. In a way, it was a ticking time bomb for nobility.

I focused back on Talindra, still kneeling with her eyes closed.

"We aren't fighting then?"

[Foresight] couldn't find anything relevant regarding faun customs in my mind-library. Fauns were barely mentioned in Farcrest. Most of what I knew about them came from Talindra, and I couldn't yet be sure that she was the most standard faun.

"We are not fighting. I said I wanted to talk," Talindra replied.

"Should I kneel too?"

She frowned.

"No! This is my penance for being a bad hoof, a Clatterhoof even. You can stand or even walk around me if you want. That will make me feel really uncomfortable."

I wasn't sure if I wanted to participate in a humiliation ritual, so I stood a few meters in front of her.

"You don't have to kneel. I don't think you are a Clatterhoof."

"Let me do it. It's a way for bad fauns to show our sincere repentance."

Talindra was using her obstinate tone, so I knew I couldn't change her mind, no matter how childish I found the punishment.

"I want to apologize. I'm not mad at you, and I don't believe you treated me unfairly. My reaction was just… a me thing."

[Foresight] pinged my brain. Behind Talindra's shy demeanor, there was an even taller wall. So far, I had let her keep her secrets, but her story intrigued me. Talindra had to be the only high-level person I knew who was openly mistreated at the Academy. Not only did the other instructors treat her like a second-class citizen, but even the cadets did, and I couldn't tell why.

"A 'you' thing?" I asked.

"I am a…" Talindra hesitated, like she was about to tell me she killed her grandma with a hammer. She continued in a whispher, "...a coattailer."

Coattailer. The concept sounded familiar. It combined the Ebrosian word for long jacket and the verb for following closely behind something desired, which was commonly used for bees and flies. I assumed it was a word used for someone who benefited from the work of others. Still, Talindra said it in such a way that it felt worse than what it implied. If it was just an insult, I was sure the kids at the orphanage would've used it when they got mad at each other. But they didn't, which led me to believe it wasn't the kind of insult kids used. Perhaps it was something more serious.

Talindra was appalled, but she didn't hit me like the kind of person who committed unspeakable crimes against the elderly.

"I'm not familiar with that word," I admitted.

"It means I don't deserve my level… or my Class. You should already know how much a Crafting Class can improve with the guidance and support of a good Scholar. That's a coattailer, a crafter who breezed through their twenties and thirties thanks to external help," she said. "Someone who didn't earn their levels."

No wonder the kids never called each other 'coattailers.'

"Really? You seem very competent to me," I pointed out.

Talindra had kept up with my teaching method surprisingly easily, and her control over her spider legs was fine, too.

She sighed. "You don't get it. I used to be a no-name Herbalist on the edges of Mistwood, and the next moment, I was a Lv.40 Silvan Witch known by everyone from Fairlake to the Pink Blossoms. People came to my treehouse asking for protection! I'm not even a real combatant! The biggest thing I've killed was a Red-tailed Wolf and a few Carpenter Ants who decided my treehouse had the perfect kind of wood for their nest. The System probably gave me Silvan Witch because it couldn't justify a Lv.40 Herbalist!"

I decided I couldn't remain standing while Talindra spiraled down, so I sat cross-legged in front of her. She didn't open her eyes, but her ears followed me. I made myself comfortable, trying to figure out why being a coattailer was such a deadly sin. Surpassing the Lv.40 hard-cap was a badge of honor, so I could imagine people making a fuss because someone took a shortcut. However, I knew everyone would take the same shortcut if given the opportunity. The Imperial Library itself was a giant shortcut-creation machine.

"So… why is being a coattailer such a bad thing?" I asked as Talindra fell silent.

Elincia didn't have problems dragging me to her alchemy station to brew potion bases every time we had five minutes without a kid scraping their knees, nor did she have any qualms about flexing her levels before the members of the Alchemists Guild.

Talindra frowned. "It's dishonorable. Dishonest! A Lv.40 should be the real deal, someone who can look at the monsters of the deep Farlands and not even falter. Someone like you. A coattailer is a mockery of a real high-level," she replied.

Although she couldn't see it with closed eyes, I shook my head. Maybe Captain Kiln was the only real high-level at the orphanage, because I almost soiled my pants when the Lich-Dragon hatched at the Warden's Tree. Not faltering before the monsters of the deep Farlands wasn't part of my repertoire. If the kids had not been there, I would've run as fast as my feet allowed and let the royal army handle it.

"Do you feel like a coattailer?" I asked.

"It doesn't matter how I feel. A coattailer is a coattailer."

"I think it does matter how you see things."

Teaching teenagers had taught me that good and bad feelings had very real consequences in the real world, and one must deal with them like any other problem. Talindra breezing through levels thanks to her mysterious Scholar friend was an objective reality, but her interpretation of those days could go either way. Elincia, for instance, always told me how much fun it was to work with me. She didn't consider herself a coattailer even though she had hit level forty in record time.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Elincia and Ginz definitely deserved their levels. Both were smart and hardworking, bordering on workaholics. Even with my help, they spent afternoon after afternoon absorbed in their work for months at a time. As a result of my mentorship, Ginz was even forced to take a small vacation into the Monster-Surge-plagued Farlands.

I scratched my chin.

Progressing beyond the Lv.20 soft cap was commonly regarded as increasingly challenging, but it wasn't uncommon to find people who made that challenge look easy. Enjoyable, even. They appeared to reap the fruits of their labor with apparent minimal effort. Plenty of factors made the complex tasks enjoyable: talent, good company, and goal-oriented mindsets were a few that came to the top of my head. However, the fact that something seemed easy didn't mean it was any less challenging.

I looked at Talindra and, suddenly, the realization hit me. As a low-level Herbalist, she simply didn't have the technique to up-brew things beyond her reach. The System wouldn't give Lv.40 recipes to a newbie in the same way it didn't provide high-level [Fencing] or [Swordsmanship] to new combatants.

"Elincia could brew high-level potions because of Mister Lowell's teaching!" I shouted.

Talindra opened an eye, alarmed.

"Don't get mad! I swear I was thinking about what you just told me," I quickly added.

"It's fine. I'm well familiar with the inner workings of a Scholar's mind." She sighed. "What did you discover?"

I grinned.

"Do you think the cadets are coattailing us?"

"No!" Talindra replied, scandalized. "Sharing knowledge isn't the same as coattailing. The cadets are working as hard as any other squad. Even harder, I think."

My smile grew to the edges of my face.

"I think you get your forty levels the same way our students are learning fencing. The System doesn't simply give a low-level Herbalist the knowledge to brew high-level medicine. To level up fast, you must first learn to brew high-level stuff, then put those recipes into practice with the help of a Scholar. There's no way around it. A Scholar can help you brew potions and essences with a lower toxicity level, but not a higher effect. The brewing processes differ for low and high-grade potions, so either you are a Gauss-level genius or your Scholar friend taught you."

Talindra opened her eyes, taken aback. "I'm not an idiot! If he had taught me, I would've realized! He didn't give me lessons or anything."

Maybe it was a Scholar's thing, but discovering something felt like a shot of dopamine. I couldn't keep the grin off my face.

"Lessons aren't necessary. There's gamified learning and simulation-based training. People can gain knowledge through active play. Half the world learned English through video games, movies, and music, not sitting in a classroom!" I explained. "So… it's not like you didn't do any work. You were just so enthralled in the exercise that you forgot the inherent difficulty of developing your class. Either that or you were head over heels for your Scholar friend and too distracted by his Scholarly manners to pay much attention to the process."

I learned a lot of chemistry just by proxy when I was lab buddies with Laura in high school, so it was possible.

Talindra sprang to her feet, her face the same color as her hair.

"You can't just say that out loud!"

I raised my hands, palms forward, to appease her.

"Sorry, got caught in the heat of the moment. But my point stands. The System feeds you information as you level up, but you don't need the System to get that information. We are giving [Fencing] and [Mana Manipulation] information to the kids the same way your Scholar friend gave you information about herbalism. Does he have a name, by the way? Was he handsome? Was he a faun?"

Talindra covered her face with both hands so her words came out muffled. "I'm not telling you anything!"

I raised my hands again.

"Fair enough. The bottom line remains the same, though. You are not a coattailer. You just had a good mentor and, I assume, a great work ethic."

Talindra opened her fingers and gave me a suspicious look. The blush covered even her eyelids.

"Are you sure you are not telling me this so I feel better about myself?"

"Do I look like the kind of guy that would lie to you?"

"Well, yes? You have a shady side, one so big even the cadets noted it, and we fauns are excellent at detecting danger," she said, before quickly adding, "No offense."

"None taken," I sighed. My list of shady endeavours went deep. The number of people who blackmailed a marquis and hid crucial information from the royalist faction couldn't be that big. I had secrets for days. "Thanks for telling me this. I guess I should ask you now if you want to be my disciple. It's a big task, but I think you have the profile to become a great teacher. If you say yes, I will tell you everything I know, and I will prepare you if you want to teach others when I'm retired. What do you say?"

Talindra gave me a serious look and nodded.

"I'm enjoying teaching and would love to do it as well as you. The System might have its reasons for making me a Herbalist in the first place, but I really see myself teaching from now on. I think I'll be happy doing it and even happier if I'm good at it."

I couldn't help but smile.

"Being happy is important."

"It is."

I clapped my hands and walked to the door.

"It's settled then. While the cadets are in their theoretical classes, I will teach you. You should prepare a few Stamina Potions, because I'm not as kind when it comes to teaching people who tried to stab me with a poisonous stinger," I said with utmost seriousness.

Talindra caught up to me, her wooden clogs clacking against the wooden floor.

"You are not being serious, right? Right? Should I kneel again?"

I couldn't hold my laugh, which seemed to offend her. "If you can't tell I was joking, then your danger sense isn't as good as you made it sound."

"It is good. The problem is you. You are a scary good liar. And my danger sense has literally never stopped going off when you're around."

I couldn't deny I've been lying a lot since I arrived at Farcrest.

It may be time for a change.

"I have a question," I said as we hit the corridor away from the classrooms. The cadets were waiting for us at the dining hall. "When did they start calling you names?"

Talindra froze, and I walked ten steps before realizing she had fallen behind.

"I-it doesn't matter."

"It matters if you are becoming my disciple," I said. Like a switch inside my brain, neutralizing threats had become a recurrent feature of my personality since I became responsible for the orphanage. "I don't think you would've announced from the rooftops that you are a coattailer, so someone snitched on you. Did you tell anyone, or did someone dig into your past?"

Talindra cleared her throat.

"It doesn't matter. It's fine. Really."

"Hey, my life motto is forget and forgive. I'm not going to pick a fight with anybody," I said, recalling the Wolfpack chanting 'do no harm, take no shit'. "I just want to know who might stab me in the back."

Talindra sighed.

"Fine," she said. "I told Rhovan last year, when I was the magical instructor of Hawkdrake Squad. W-we used to get along fine until I told him. Then, things changed." She looked up at my face. "Rob?"

The part of me who didn't see anything wrong with using extreme violence to solve my problems, the one who saw no problem killing Red and blackmailing the Marquis, grew slightly stronger.

"Rob?" Talindra asked again.

"I'm killing that rat," I said, turning towards the teacher's dormitories.

Talindra reacted an instant later and grabbed me by the edge of my blue and gray capelet, with the sigil of the Rosebud Fencing Academy embroidered on the back. Her clogs slid over the polished floor as I continued walking.

"Stop right there! You said you won't pick a fight!"

"I lied. My motto isn't forget and forgive," I replied, dragging Talindra effortlessly. Sage must've had a way better strength growth rate than Silvan Witch. "I've realized that my motto is, in fact, 'do no harm, take no shit.'"

Talindra pulled back with all her might.

"Let's focus on the 'do no harm' part, okay?"

I stopped short and looked over my shoulder.

Talindra bumped into my back, visibly unhappy.

"I was kidding! We still have to debrief with the cadets. We can pick a fight later," I said, turning around and returning to the corridor that went towards the dining hall.

"We won't pick a fight later or ever! We should live in harmony like the ancient fauns did!"

"I bet they fought each other all the time."

"No, they didn't!"

Suddenly, a weight I hadn't realized I was carrying lifted from my shoulders.

"Fauns are a feisty race," I said, like it was a fundamental truth of the universe.

"Of course not!" Talindra gave me a quizzical look. "What got into your head?!"

I shrugged my shoulders.

"Hope, I guess?"

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