My lifestyle used to be centered entirely around myself.
I would wake up the moment sunlight filtered through the leaves, stretch my body, and start swinging my club.
After finishing the training that has now become a habit, I would drag a log over, split it into eight pieces, and use those chunks to carve various sculptures.
I'd carve away until the sun went down, and when sleepiness finally crept in, I'd turn in on a wooden bed I'd carved and assembled myself. For the record, there are no blankets. I once tried to act crazy and carve a blanket out of wood, but I almost got crushed to death.
Of course, that's a figure of speech. I wasn't literally going to die.
After all the training I've done, if I died from being crushed by a mere wooden plank, I'd be too embarrassed to stay dead.
Anyway… that cycle of life, which had rotated without change for years, was shattered the moment the keyword 'Disciple' entered the picture.
"Sigh…."
It's not that I particularly hate it…. Well, I do hate it….
…Maybe a little, but I've come to think this change isn't entirely bad.
My body might still reject it instinctively, but that's a burden the guy who insisted on being my disciple has to bear.
Who would be happy about their peaceful routine of several years getting pulverized?
The long and short of it is this.
In the end, I was stuck cleaning up the massive mess—the 'hot shit'—dropped off by the Soul King and that Baldy Monk: a man named Tsunayashiro.
And this Tsunayashiro guy is a hell of a lot more annoying than I anticipated.
Why annoying? Well….
"Master!"
Because he's a man with a scholarly passion equivalent to the temperature of the Earth's core, peppering me with questions at least hundreds—and sometimes tens of thousands—of times a day, excluding the time we spend training.
Even today…. How many has it been? This one.
I stopped counting after a hundred, so I don't even remember.
Anyway, at the sound of Tsunayashiro calling me, I stopped carving the wood and looked back.
"What? What is it now?"
"What were you envisioning when you created this sculpture!"
I looked at Tsunayashiro with a disgruntled face, then lowered my gaze to check the carving he was holding.
Ah…. That. What was that again? No, I definitely know what it is, but the name suddenly slipped my mind. What was it?
"…Could it be, Master, that even you do not know?"
"Ah, shut it. I'm about to remember."
"Yes, sir!"
I closed my eyes, scowled deeply, and tapped my forehead with my fingertip.
Ah, I remember now.
"A pose that makes you look like a good fighter."
"Oh…. So if one takes a stance like this, one appears proficient in combat. Like this? Like this? Should I spread my legs a bit wider?"
As he spoke, Tsunayashiro spread his legs slightly and rested both hands on his knees.
He kept asking while tweaking his posture here and there, but no matter how he shifted, from my perspective… he just looked like an idiot.
"No, you just look like a total dumbass. I just made that for fun, so don't take it seriously."
"I see! You mean I should not try to find meaning in everything! This has been a great lesson!"
No, when did I ever say that?
Before I could even speak, Tsunayashiro bowed with a smile and left the spot.
…He's a truly exhausting personality, I tell you.
"Whew…."
The tragedy is that he'll be back in ten or twenty minutes. Seriously.
Next time the Soul King and the Baldy Monk come back, I'm definitely punching them.
Making that internal vow, I continued carving the wooden figure into a human shape.
"Master!"
Oh, for fuck's sake.
* * *
It's been five years since I took in the 'shit' the Soul King and the Monk dropped off.
A lot has happened during that time.
Enough has happened that even Zoro would tilt his head and go, "Whoa, even I think this is a bit much…"
First of all: I have a house.
You might be surprised and ask if I didn't have a house until now, but the truth is, I don't know how to build one.
Think it's easy to just stack logs and call it a day? Do you think I didn't try that?
I succeeded in making something shaped like a house, but the weight distribution must have been all wrong because it collapsed in a few days.
Thanks to that, I had the experience of being buried alive under wood while I was sleeping. Dammit.
But this self-proclaimed disciple of mine—I just drew a rough sketch on the ground, and he went, 'Hmm. Mmm-hmm. I see!', and before I knew it, he had mastered architecture and asked me to build it exactly like the drawing.
'And I'm still using that house now.'
That was impressive enough, but when I taught him a few other things, he understood them immediately and followed suit.
No, he went even further and applied them.
"I, who suddenly reincarnated into the world of Bleach, was despondent over a million years of isolation, but when I took in a new disciple, he turned out to be a total genius and now my life is on easy mode!?"
That sounds like a title that would easily rank in the top 20 of a Longest Light Novel Title World Cup.
But the funny thing is, what I just said wasn't made up; it's based on a true story.
Reincarnated in the Bleach world (Correct). A million years (Correct, actually it was even longer). Despondent (Half correct). Took in a new disciple (Also correct). Disciple is a genius (Correct).
Easy mode… okay, let's call that an exaggeration.
Taking in one disciple rarely flips your whole life upside down.
"Master! I have created iron using the metallurgy techniques you taught me!"
"…."
But we just skipped the Paleolithic, Neolithic, and Bronze Ages and jumped straight into the Iron Age. I think I'm allowed to use the 'Easy Mode' tag for that.
Actually, forget easy mode. This guy is literally upending the era.
…Sigh. I don't even have the energy to be surprised anymore.
I let out a deep breath and nodded.
"Yeah. Impressive."
"Haha! It is all thanks to your teachings on metallurgy, Master!"
He says I taught him metallurgy, but I don't know a damn thing about metallurgy.
Calling it 'teaching' is a stretch. I just told him the crumbs of knowledge I possessed.
It was basically, 'There's this thing called iron, it has such-and-such properties and is usually found in certain places. When it rusts, it looks red, which is why some rocks look red…. It has to be insanely hot to melt…' It was just some guy who knows nothing about the 'M' in Metallurgy pretending to be an expert with scavenged trivia.
'And yet, he actually did it.'
This guy actually went out and produced real iron.
He doesn't just learn ten things when taught one; he learns them even when I haven't taught him anything.
He once told me he was confident in his ability to learn, but to be honest, it's starting to get a bit scary.
How is it even 'learning' if you figure it out before being taught? That's not a talent for learning; that's a talent for enlightenment.
Genius, when taken to an extreme, is terrifying.
"Here! Please, take a look, Master!"
'Well, I'll be.'
I took the metal—which might be the very first piece of iron in this world—from Tsunayashiro's hand and examined it from all sides.
From weight to texture, hardness to strength. It felt a little soft, but from my perspective, even steel would feel soft, so I let that slide.
I kneaded it with my hands into the shape of a rod and tapped it against a tree.
Ting, ting—
The familiar sound of iron rang out.
It wasn't some imitation; it was real iron.
"It's iron, alright."
"Right? Is it not incredible! With this 'iron' you taught me about, we shall be able to do so much more! It possesses a sturdiness incomparable to wood or stone. If refined correctly, we can create things much sharper than any stone axe!"
"Yeah. I suppose so."
"Then, shall we create something with this immediately? What should it be?"
"Let's just make whatever we need and use it. There's no need to stick to just one thing."
"Indeed! I understand!"
Every time you say that, you scare me, you little brat.
Last time I told him a bit about constellations, he suddenly yelled, 'I understand!' and produced a celestial map within days. It nearly gave me a heart attack.
…Not like telling him would do any good. He wouldn't listen.
I sighed inwardly and looked at Tsunayashiro while tapping my shoulder with the iron rod I'd molded.
Meeting my gaze, Tsunayashiro blinked with eyes as innocent as a deer caught in high-beam headlights on a midnight highway.
Looking at him now, it's almost creepy. No, that's not it….
"Tsunayashiro."
Tsunayashiro's eyes widened when I called him by his surname.
Since I hadn't called him by his family name once the entire time we'd lived together, he looked slightly surprised before quickly kneeling before me with a solemn expression.
"Yes."
"…There's something I've been wondering about, but haven't asked."
His extreme sincerity made me feel serious in turn, and I scratched my head.
Life is easier when you keep a few screws loose in your head…. Sigh.
"Why are you so obsessed with learning?"
I had to ask.
"…Haha!"
At my question, Tsunayashiro laughed.