SSS Talent: From Trash to Tyrant

Chapter 500: Chapter 500: Eryndor’s Class

The dormitory had given him a brief stretch of quiet, but that did not last long. By the time Trafalgar reached Eryndor’s class, the training fields were already awake. Wooden blades cracked against each other across the packed earth. Some students were stretching. Others were already trading light blows, warming their bodies before the lesson properly began. The air carried dust, sweat, and the metallic tang of practice weapons under the pale morning sun. It should have felt familiar. It did, in part. What had changed was the way people registered his presence once he stepped onto the field.

He stood by himself near the outer side of the class, waiting without hurry. Across the field, the first-year who had approached him earlier noticed him and lifted a hand with open enthusiasm. Trafalgar returned the gesture and left it there. A small thing, but enough. A few nearby students caught it and glanced his way with renewed interest, as if that single motion had confirmed that the stories walking around campus had a face, a voice, and a place in Eryndor’s class like everyone else.

Eryndor arrived a moment later, and the field changed around him without needing any announcement. He was human, broad and heavy through the frame, with dark brown skin and visible scars spread over his arms and cutting across part of his face. His black hair was shaved at the sides and tied into a long ponytail behind his head. A short beard framed his jaw. His yellow eyes swept once across the class, and that alone was enough to pull the students into order. He did not need to raise his voice. Men like him carried authority the way others carried weapons.

”Good morning, students,” Eryndor said. ”I hope you’re ready. Today we’ll have sparrings.”

His attention moved over the class in one slow pass, counting the usual faces before it landed on Trafalgar. One eyebrow rose slightly.

”Ah, Trafalgar du Morgain. You’ve finally returned. Good.”

Trafalgar gave a short nod. ”I’m here.”

Eryndor kept his eyes on him for another breath. ”Later, I want you to stop by our offices. There are a few things we need to discuss. You, and some of the other students involved in everything that happened.”

”Understood.”

That was enough of that. Eryndor turned back toward the rest of the field as if he had only marked a detail that needed addressing before class went on.

”The final exams are getting close,” he said. ”My class won’t have a standard test. We’ll head to one of the academy’s hunting grounds, and each of you will bring down a monster. What you return with will decide your grade.”

That put a different kind of weight into the field. Trafalgar could feel it at once in the way shoulders straightened and chatter died.

Eryndor folded his arms and gave the class a hard, satisfied smile.

”Now. Find yourselves a partner for sparring.”

The class moved almost at once.

Students who had been standing around a moment ago began drifting into pairs with the ease of habit, wooden swords passing from hand to hand, short comments exchanged, boots scraping across the field as they spread out to make room. The process should have taken no time at all. For everyone else, it did.

Trafalgar stayed where he was.

A few students glanced his way. One looked like he might step over, thought better of it, and turned toward someone else. Another did not even pretend to consider it. The avoidance was plain enough to read. It was not the kind he had known before, where contempt came first and distance followed after. Respect in some cases. Unease in others. For a few, plain fear.

None of that bothered him.

’Less pointless talking for me.’

That part, if anything, made things easier.

He watched the others begin their practice matches, eyes moving from stance to stance, from grip to grip, from footwork to the first clumsy exchanges of wood striking wood. Nothing came from it. No pull in the back of his mind, no quiet flash from Sword Insight, no sensation that some hidden structure had opened itself before him. It stayed dormant through every student he looked at. The conclusion was simple enough. No one in the class had swordsmanship beyond what he already carried.

That realization lasted only until Eryndor noticed the empty space around him.

The director turned from the field, took in the fact that everyone had found a partner except one, and a broad grin cut across his face.

”Well, Trafalgar. It seems we’ll be having our little rematch.”

Trafalgar met it with the faintest curve at the corner of his mouth. ”It will be a pleasure, Director Eryndor.”

The field did not stop, but its center shifted. Students who had already begun sparring kept moving because they had to, yet their attention had already tilted elsewhere. Wooden blades still rose and fell around the training grounds, but the real weight of the class had moved here.

Maledicta answered his call at once.

The sword formed in his grasp with dark familiarity, settling into his hand like something that had been waiting there before the summon even finished. Across from him, Eryndor lifted one arm and brought forth his own weapon, a massive greatsword that looked heavy enough to split a man in half through armor. In his hands, it did not seem cumbersome.

Eryndor rolled one shoulder, planted the flat of the blade against the ground for a breath, and looked at Trafalgar with clear approval.

”I’ve heard a great deal about your progress with the sword,” he said. ”And about what you accomplished in that war.” His grin widened, rough and honest. ”As one of your teachers, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t proud to see one of my students doing this well.”

Trafalgar inclined his head. He did not answer right away. There was no easy reply to praise given that directly.

Eryndor seemed fine with that.

”So,” he said, lifting the greatsword back into position, ”let’s make it a light spar. What do you say?”

Trafalgar nodded once. ”Of course.”

They stepped into place across from one another, sword and greatsword catching the morning light in two very different lines. Around them, the rest of the class tried to continue as ordered. A few even managed it for a while.

But everyone on that field knew where the real match was about to begin.