A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Chapter 407 The Academy - Part 10

"Failure! FAILURE!" They roared. How was it that the children screamed the loudest?

He found himself gripping the wooden of the bench so tightly that his knuckle went white. He had failed. He acknowledged that to himself. Almost madly, he acknowledged that to himself, every time they came, and every time he had the strength to reply. Experience more content on empire

Like a wolf, he growled back at them. 'Aye, I failed. I failed, damn you. But I will get stronger for it.'

When he opened his eyes again, he was smiling. These were exactly the type of problems that he wished to solve. He did not know the professor's name, not yet. But the man could teach him things, many things. Oliver got that sense from him. The next time that he had to battle, he would not be so weak.

"Information," he said, more to himself. But the professor overheard it, and he frowned.

"I don't think that answers—" he began.

"I would gather more information out of it. Your Burning Building – it buys time, and it buys attention. If we can send commands to the Burning Building, then order it to stand its ground. Men fight better when they are not fleeing, even if those men are surrounded. With no cavalry of our own, we will not catch the enemy, so the best we can do is hope for information."

This time, no one laughed. The boy in the front row, with his gangly arms, and his long hair that gathered in a mop around him, even he was looking to the professor, an unsure expression on his face. He wasn't so sure that it was the wrong answer this time.

"...Good," the professor said at last. To Oliver, he suddenly sounded tired. "That's good."

Would you mock me, by assuming that we are equal, when you lack its many teachings?"

"Gargon," the professor warned. "We are speaking of strategy, not status. Keep it civil, and answer the question."

But there was a smile waiting on Oliver's face. He'd always been easily bristled, always been one to bite. He'd bitten back at Greeves long before he had the competence to sustain such an act. Against a youth like Gargon, someone so fresh-faced, so free of scars, Oliver was not likely to tolerate him so freely.

"No, I would not assume that we are equal," Oliver said. "Perhaps in strategy, you might know more terms than I, but I can see from the thinness about your arms that you have no clue of combat. You would turn your soldiers into walls of paper before you even have them battle the enemy.

Do you not see that your professor brought this problem to you because he knew that you could not – or should not – solve it with what you've been taught? He tempted you with it, with a mile, and you fell for it."

Gargon's eyes were full of anger, and he was tearing into his lip, ready to utter an angry response, but when he heard how Oliver finished, he rounded on the professor, to see if it was true. The old man merely gave a wry smile, and shrugged.

"I am a strategist, after all," he said, amused. "Would you not expect me to be setting traps within my problems?" And then, when it looked like Gargon would physically explode with rage, as his face purpled, he made an effort to placate him. "I imagine Patrick likely would have been the least receptive to this trap of mine, since I had not intended it for a student.

Perhaps this is one of those rare occasions where an outsider's perspective is likely superior, no?"

The professor seemed to be directing that question to Oliver, as though asking for his assistance in calming Gargon, who'd grown rather disembroiled in his effort to assert the superiority of his knowledge.