Novel Bin Vol. 1 - Ch. 38 - Progress of the Hill Road Club
"I told you to use your head! Go back!"
"And I told you to not use your head! Go back!"
"Oh, you\'re doing great, senpai! You\'re the best!"
"Listen to the voice of the earth with your knees and reply with your hips! Give up!"
My work as the coach of the club was just like usual: hurling strict words like a company boss blind to the forest, missing others\' shade while chasing and overtaking them.
As far as I could recall, I had already stopped doing what a \'coach\' was supposed to do. I had run out of complaints that were borderline abuses and finally, all that came out of my mouth was just nonsensical crap, yet not a single dropout emerged.
No, let me correct myself. Far from there being a dropout, the members of the Hill Road Club kept increasing at a staggering rate.
For example, around three days after Riyad-senpai joined the club, he brought in three 3rd year students saying they wanted to join the club after school.
"They are my friends from Class 3-A. When they heard that I was participating in the training of the Hill Road Club, they said they wanted to participate as well and hoped I could introduce them to you. It might be tough to guide the upperclassmen but I can assure you they aren\'t whimsical guys and will make earnest efforts in the club activities. So, do you think you can accept them?"
" "Nice to meet you, and we would like to join the club if possible." "
They bowed and requested to join. Their bowing form was crude but I could see they were fairly trained at least.
But the students of Class 3-A, huh? I was sure they must have their own pride, yet they lowered their head to a junior, someone who was just fresh out of the farm so they say... I reckoned that they were anything but pleased deep inside.
I thought about it but swiftly accepted their request in the end. I mean, they were introduced by Riyad-senpai. Turning them down was never an option.
Besides, the club activities were basically sort of self-service all along. All I needed to do was to see how they ran and give them advice accordingly. They just had to follow that advice and then, they would be able to do the follow-up on their own accord. So it wasn\'t time-consuming for me either. Or so I had naively thought.
Following them, two days later, senpais from Class 2-C, a group of ten this time, visited me expressing their desire to join the club.
I thought, \'Why bother joining the club? They can run on their own.\' But I was a bit overwhelmed by the determination of their representative, a short black-haired man named Konri-senpai, as he made a dogeza pose — something only criminals did in this world — and said,
"We\'re graduating next year. We absolutely want to jump over the class rank by then, no matter what it takes! So, please let us join the club!"
He excluded such a grim atmosphere as if the doctor had just announced he didn\'t have long to live.
In the end, I accepted them, impressed by their determination, thinking \'Well, not like it\'s gonna cost me much time..."
After classes, I held a briefing session with the seniors, listened to their goals, explained to them how to control their body-strengthening magic and mana compression to show them the basic training plan that the club was doing, and gave some advice.
But who would have known that this was just the prelude to the disaster?
After the afternoon lecture, I had planned to go out in town as usual to look for a cliche blacksmith, who, despite being a skilled master, would be poor and unknown due to said master\'s obstinate nature. However, as soon as I opened the classroom door, there was a long line of club applicants. A bad feeling crossed my heart.
Godorfun\'s assignment, in the beginning, was "Do something about that disastrous scene of the morning class" which I negotiated to my favor by saying "My responsibility will be limited to the members of the Hill Road Club."
It was a so-called grey area.
I was sure my plan was flawless, but as they say, the more variables there were, the harder it was to predict the situation. Obviously, I couldn\'t predict what unforeseen circumstances might arise. And if Godorfun actually insisted that the talk was about \'all the members of the Hill Road Club\', there was no way I could guarantee my masterstroke of a plan would go as intended.
Just as I was contemplating my grim situation, the one at the helm of the line spoke out. The said person had a typical cocky smile hanging on his lip, someone I would never consider befriending.
"Are you Allen Rovenne? I assume you already know me. I\'m Rudelio von Dialmack, the top performer of Class 2-A. Your Hill Road Club seems to have quite a reputation. Well done reaching this far. I want to join too, and if you accept me, the club\'s brand value will skyrocket and I can confidently say its name will echo through the kingdom. However, I have one condition for joining. Switch the role of coach with me in the next year\'s grade advancement. Of course, if you want to switch right now, I\'m willing to take over."
" "Hehehe." " (Followers A, B, and C, chuckling yada-yada)
He was the typical idiot archetype, spouting gibberish.
"My, oh my, I\'m truly honored that the esteemed Rude-senpai has gone to such lengths to visit me. However, I don\'t consider myself worthy of teaching others. Especially teaching someone as esteemed as you, senior, is quite beyond me."
"Pfft."
I had all but intended to settle it politely, but hearing Fey, who had been behind me watching the whole spectacle, chuckling made Rudelio-senpai flare up in anger.
"What!? I\'ve already checked that there\'s no requirement for joining! Have you any inkling of your folly for rejecting me? I am the heir of the Dialmack family, one of the nine great marquis families. Do you think you, a country bumpkin of a rural viscount household, will be able to lead a tranquil school life after turning me down?!"
His momentum was certainly impressive, but contrary to the threatening aura of both my mother and Godorfun, his rage was like a toddler throwing a tantrum.
I grew tired of this exchange, feeling it was foolish to waste more time with him, and left the scene in silence.
"Fuhahaha!"
"Hehehe. It seems like you have been rejected, Rudelio-senpai."
I seemed to have heard someone\'s blatant provoking tone taunting Rudelio-senpai, but it would be a chore to handle the mess so I just ignored them.
However, the next day and the days after that, the applicants for the club didn\'t tone down at all. I didn\'t know how or whom they learned it from, but seniors and classmates who had awkwardly learned my hobby of \'bowing\' came every day to apply for membership.
It was plain bothersome and I also dreaded Godorfun twisting the assignment so I wanted to turn them down, but I couldn\'t find it in me to shoo away the sincere individuals who lowered their heads to a third son of a rural viscount family when there wasn\'t any need to.
But I wasn\'t so free as to spend my time guiding strangers. So, I decided to bring in Leo and Dan, who were part of the first group of the morning training from the beginning, along with the recently promoted Stella to solve this matter.
"Teaching others is difficult. I\'m no exception, and I doubt any of you consider yourselves so great as to teach others. However, it\'s through teaching others that you gain insights. I felt it strongly when I became the club\'s coach. The one guiding others needs repetitive training too. I want you all to assist in guiding the club as its vice presidents. Make the most of this opportunity. Leo, you\'ll be in charge of the third years, Dan, the second years, and Stella, the first years. I\'ll leave the teaching approach to you. After about six months, I will choose a captain from among yourselves, incorporate the best aspects of each approach, and create a unified direction for the entire club."
I casually threw in whatever sensible-sounding explanation came to mind and delegated all the handling, including the members\' interviews, to them.
Leo and Stella were both single-minded people by nature, so they were easily motivated to take on the task. Though, it was Dan who seemed to have seen through me as he sharply retorted \'Isn\'t this because you find it a chore?...\'
However, since our advisor Godorfun had already stated that he wouldn\'t interfere with my plans, and that \'I am the rule in the club\', I just pushed everything to them regardless of what they had to say. Dark politics at its finest.
In these two months, I also created one more position using my authority as a coach. It was the introduction of a \'Manager\'.
Apparently, this world didn\'t have a concept of having a manager position in club activities. Of course, it had completely slipped my mind as an eternal member of the go-home club.
However, one morning, it suddenly came to me when I saw our class president… I mean, Kate giving out water to her friends who were somehow shoving down the grilled fish with tearful eyes. No, seriously, it reeked so bad I thought it was a crime to not declare it rotten.
Ahem, I digressed. Anyway, the thought \'Isn\'t she the perfect manager...\' came to my mind. So I exercised my authority and pushed the position of manager to her.
"A club without a manager is like udon without green onions— lacking essential flavor! You don\'t understand the importance of condiments and the beauty they add!"
"Manager...? What on earth do you want me to do?"
A pity, people here just didn’t understand the profoundness of my words. Kate ignored whatever I said and simply asked what I wanted her to do.
It started when the club had exceeded 100 members at the mark of one month. I could no longer tell the progress of our members while overtaking them in the morning each day. To be frank, I really didn\'t care how they were faring, but saying \'I just tossed the matter to the others so I don\'t have any idea\' when reporting to Godorfun felt irresponsible and it would also tarnish my image.
So I had Fey create plenty of that wristwatch-like tool which I once shattered into pieces that could record the changes in someone\'s residual mana quantity and used them to record everyone\'s mana level during running. The cost was completely borne by Fey.
Speaking of the person herself, she just uttered something terrifying like \'You really are a brute when it comes to using people, you know? This means you owe me one now, alright?\' so casually. As they say, \'Desperate times call for desperate measures.\'
The next day after I had requested her, she casually delivered over 100 magic tools, saying \'\'It\'s just an improvement for a ready-made product, and the design blueprint is already there. Anyone from outside can achieve this as long as everything else is ready". Truly a talented girl that the Dragoon family was proud of.
In this way, without even lifting a finger, I managed to set up the flow where the manager would collect the records, compile them into data, and pass them on to me.
Also, I perceived that it seemed to be too much for a single manager to undertake, so I appointed Kate as the Chief Manager and delegated the duty of scouting and training managers as well as overseeing them to her. As of now, there were 2 managers for each grade, expanding their number to a total of 6 members.
Of course, they, too, were participating in the running training. Basically sort of a Playing Manager.
Speaking of which, I had only requested them to compile the data into one report for me, but being the elite among elites handpicked by the Royal Academy, I might have forgotten that the girls, all of whom were from the civil course, were undoubtedly national-level talents.
They showed their finesse by coming up with tasks of their own volition like analyzing the relationship between the members\' training condition and growth rate, compiling the result, managing their health and schedule, and many others. I never asked them to do all of that.
As for me, I didn\'t intervene in any of the intricate matters and just stuck to the task that I needed to do— to throw my weight around as the coach and hurl borderline extreme words like a gruff boss.
And when two months had passed since the time Godorfun handed me this assignment, I stormed into the staff room once again.
EN - I left the name mentioned by the MC as "Rude-senpai" on purpose because it was so sarcastic and hilarious.