Chapter 109: Personal Differences

"...Professor, you look really well. Did something good happen? Your skin even seems more radiant today," Eirwen says to me as I gather them all to introduce Nadir, since I asked for his help teaching some things about strategy to my students.

"What do you mean? I’m completely normal as far as I know," I ask, confused, while most of them stare at Nadir curiously. After all, Nadir is pretty "famous" in several aspects, so they’ve probably already seen him on television or in magazines.

"You look radiant today, like you’re in a really good mood." When she says that, I can already imagine what Nadir is thinking.

"Ah..." I glance at Nadir, who has a little smirk on his face.

"Say something and I’ll punch that smirk right off your face," I murmur with a slight growl at him, and he just shrugs at me. I know exactly what he’s thinking, especially about yesterday.

"Okay, okay girls, focus here. You probably already know, but in case you don’t, this is Commander Nadir, and he’s going to help make you stronger. He has some free time." I don’t want to keep thinking about that idiot and what happened yesterday.

Even though yes, I enjoyed it, and he actually held up pretty well. We spent hours doing that with me on top, but in the end the obvious happened and it started hurting a little for him, so we stopped.

"And since you can’t leave the facility for the next few days because you got too involved in current affairs, I thought it would be nice to give you a new perspective on your studies. So learning more strategic things with Nadir will help you in several ways." I look at Edith, who gives Nadir a look of disgust.

’Ah, right... there’s Edith... I had completely forgotten she has an aversion to men for personal reasons... she would never accept being trained by Nadir...’ I understand it’s personal, so I won’t act like a tyrant and force her to train with Nadir. But it wouldn’t be fair not to train her either, so I think I’ll give her some private training with me.

"...Nadir, you can teach Charlotte, Eirwen, Rouge, Ashlyn, and Tanya. I’ll teach Edith privately. You can handle it, right? After all, you’re great at dealing with multiple people." Considering Edith’s issue with men, I can’t leave her near Nadir, so I’ll step away from the others’ training. Who knows if she might try something against him, or just stay rebellious without trying to learn anything.

"..." Nadir looks at Edith. Considering I’ve already told him about all of them, he’s definitely already figured out why I’m leaving the others with him and taking only Edith with me.

"Alright then, so it looks like I’ll be helping all of you today. I don’t know what Zenith has been teaching you, but I know Zenith is very practical, so I assume she’s been helping you get stronger, more physically capable, and better at controlling and using your powers. I’m more of a strategy and teamwork person." Nadir reads me like the back of his hand.

"So I can teach you how to better assess your abilities to support your allies, combine your powers for more unique uses, and how to quickly choose the best option in the middle of combat," Nadir says with a gentle smile on his face as he approaches the girls.

I take Edith’s hand and start pulling her along with me, gently but firmly, so she doesn’t waste my time questioning things. We don’t have much time to spare before they’re probably expelled and have to return to the island with me. But I stop for a moment.

"Nadir, I’d better not find out anything went wrong after this training," I say with a serious look at him.

"Hahaha, don’t worry. I only have eyes for you, and besides, these girls are way too young for me." He tries to reassure me, though not in the best possible way, but I decide to accept it.

"..." I ignore that silly man and keep leading Edith away with me.

"So is he your boyfriend or something?" Edith speaks in a harsh, somewhat cold tone with me as we walk through one of the corridors of the makeshift base that’s been forming in this place.

’Apparently they’ve already discovered that this laboratory was studying how to turn monsters into humans... considering Aurora Island is here, they must have given the Nexus a lot of data to translate...’

"No, I’m not dating Nadir." He could really work up the courage to ask, but considering our life situation, I’d probably refuse. Though deep down we’re practically dating already.

"Married?"

"Also no." When I say that, she gets confused and stops walking.

"Huh? You two seemed really close..."

"And we are close, but you shouldn’t judge something just by looking. Not every relationship is what it seems... besides... I noticed you seem to really dislike Nadir. Do you have something against him specifically?"

"...No! Anyway, so you’re available, right?" I feel more at ease. Her hatred is a much more generalized and personal issue in her life. If she hated Nadir specifically for being Nadir, we’d have problems here.

"...Don’t get your hopes up, girl. Just stay quiet. I’m going to give you private training... since you clearly don’t want to learn from Nadir." Considering Edith’s power, she’s one of the ones who most needs to learn strategies and how to use them.

"...Okay, so we’ll have private training, right?" She asks as if she didn’t know, even though that’s exactly what I said.

"Yes... don’t try anything weird, or you’ll regret it."

"Relax, Professor. You’re pretty, but not to the point of driving people crazy over you." She teases me with a little smirk while I roll my eyes at her.

’I hope Nadir does better than me...’

...

...

...

"Wow, so you’re Commander Nadir. I saw you several times on television. Your feats were incredible," Eirwen says to me, a little impressed.

"Indeed, but television exaggerates a bit. All those feats that show me doing things were mostly teamwork. I was just the image they wanted to project." I won’t take credit away from everyone who carried out difficult missions.

"So you’re a commander. You seem really different from Professor Zenith," Tanya says to me with a suspicious tone.

"Zenith is someone quite tough, so I know she must have been hard on you. But don’t expect me to go easy. You’re going to learn about strategy from me."

"So—"

"Are you dating Professor Zenith? She seemed really satisfied next to you," Rouge asks me, wagging her tail as if she had great interest.

"No, we’re not dating, not siblings, not anything like that." It’s strange to say, but the relationship between me and Zenith isn’t something concrete. It has no label. Because of who we are, we couldn’t date in the army, and I never tried to ask. But in my view, after yesterday, we kind of are dating—we just haven’t said it out loud.

"A-Are you as strong as Professor Zenith?" Ashlyn asks while I take a look around.

"First, we should go to a proper room to teach you. Now, about my strength, I’m weaker than Zenith, since my abilities are far more useful as large-scale support."

"Now follow me. I’m going to introduce a method of study that the academy would never allow." I draw their attention with that and lead them to a room with enough space. Then I take a chip from my watch and toss it onto the floor.

It forms a complete hologram of a ruin area with 99.98% compatibility with the real structure of the place where we are.

"We’re going to use this hologram to teach you a bit about strategy. Does anyone want to go first? Whoever gets the best results will be able to take this chip home." Unlike Zenith, who I know must have been teaching in a much harsher and more direct way.

I prefer to create healthy competition among them. That way they’ll want the reward and will try to learn more than the others.

"I’ll go first! Obviously," Tanya says, stepping forward.

"...Hmm... that’s a bad decision. You should have let someone else go first. After all, the first person won’t know anything and will have to adapt to the study, while those who’ve already watched the first person’s experience will learn more," I say to Tanya, who looks surprised.

"Of course, I’ll be fair. I’ll teach and do a demonstration first. I won’t throw you straight into an assignment."

"That’s... really different from Professor Zenith. She throws us straight into the mission and then criticizes our failures..." Charlotte murmurs, touching the hologram.

"Hmm... well, we’re different people. You don’t need to worry. So I’ll go first, then Tanya, and then you can decide who wants to go next."

"The task is quite simple. I’ll position holograms of monsters in the city and outside the city in the hologram, and you have to tell me what you think is the best course of action based on what you know."

"I’ll tell you what’s a good idea, what’s a bad idea, what’s an idea that doesn’t work, and I’ll help you think quickly about which among several ideas is the best when you have multiple good options." I adjust the hologram slightly, adding 20 weak monsters.

"Y-You’re really going to give us the hologram? You can do that?" Ashlyn asks nervously, but she seems excited about the chance to win it.

"Yes, it’s personal military equipment, so there’s no problem with me handing it over. But you can’t use it in public places, and I’ll have to wipe all the data, so you’ll have to get a map yourselves to simulate."

"Now let’s begin!"