55. The New Professor (2)
At Stella Academy, every subject basically had at least three professors and around ten assistant professors beneath them.
Considering that there were over a thousand students in each year, even that was an extremely small number, but there was no helping it.
Popular subjects might have more than ten professors handling a single course, but for less popular ones, it was perfectly natural for the number of professors assigned to shrink.
Even so, the subject “Understanding Dark Magic and Methods of 대응ing to It” was very important, yet had only four professors.
That was because earning a doctorate in dark-magic countermeasures was extremely difficult, and even among those who did, there were very few whose level was high enough to teach at Stella.
Compared to other schools, which often had none at all or barely one, one could say Stella having as many as four was remarkable, but that was no longer the case.
After the “School-versus-School Competition” during summer vacation, two professors had been quietly dismissed by Eltman Eltwin without anyone noticing, and the remaining one had left for personal reasons, so now only one was left.
Thud!
—My, my. But now there’s none left at all?
“Guh…!”
The Witch King, Scarlet Maiden, laughed as innocently as a child, her pure white hair swaying as she did.
She looked down at the man twitching beneath a fallen boulder.
Hayton, the only remaining professor for the dark-magic countermeasures subject at Stella.
His life was not in danger, but…
his injuries were so severe that it might be difficult for him to return to teaching for several months.
—Now then….
She lifted her head and looked toward the main gate of Stella Academy.
Originally, she had intended to enter thoroughly disguised as a “transfer student,” but Eltman Eltwin’s vigilance had been far too strict, and she had failed.
—I really hadn’t intended to come in this violently~
She cast a spell on the fallen Professor Hayton and granted him a special reward.
After all, she did feel sorry for injuring him.
Once he awakened, he might perhaps gain some kind of special enlightenment.
If he seized that opportunity, he might be able to develop one step further as a mage.
‘And if he misses it~ well, too bad!’
She passed proudly through the main gate of Stella Academy and walked forward.
The brightly paved road, the endless Starlight Gardens stretching out on either side.
And at the end of them all…
the great main tower of Stella, which looked almost like a castle.
Smiling, she gazed at it.
It had been a very long time since she had come here like this.
For some reason, it was exciting, and her heart fluttered as if she were arriving here for the very first time.
Almost like a new student.
—So Baek Yuseol goes here, does he~?
Humming to herself, she snapped her fingers.
At once, Professor Hayton’s unconscious body vanished somewhere.
Exactly six hours later, the fact that Professor Hayton had been gravely injured would come to light, and the dark-magic countermeasures subject would be left completely vacant.
In that case, with the principal’s approval, they would need to urgently find a replacement professor, but of all times, Eltman Eltwin was currently away with the Dwarf Emperor, investigating a strange phenomenon that had occurred near the World Tree.
Which meant that, for the moment, the highest decision-making authority had temporarily passed to Vice Principal Akiheyden.
He might not have the authority to decide major matters for the school…
but surely he had enough power to bring in a single professor to fill an empty seat.
—The school got prettier than before~?
With her hands behind her back, Scarlet danced her way into Stella as though she were skipping through a dream.
—Maybe I should go look at the cute children’s faces.
The Primeval Mountain Range, which stretched in all directions from the Primeval World Tree, the Cheonryeong Tree, lived up to its name as the source of life, housing countless fairies and divine beasts.
There had even been a joke that simply breathing here lengthened one’s lifespan, but as of one hundred years ago, it had become a place outsiders could not casually enter.
“Tch. Back then, it was a dangerous time.”
Dwarf Emperor Geumgang Paljeong.
At three hundred and eighteen years old this year, it would not be an exaggeration to say that he had lived through the entirety of the current history of the magic world.
By comparison, Eltman Eltwin, who was only two hundred years old, was much younger by far, but he did not bother speaking with any special respect.
“You’re reminiscing about the old days? That makes you sound like too much of an old man.”
“Don’t get cheeky, Eltman. You owe me a great debt.”
“And I paid you back double. When are you going to repay mine?”
When Eltman said that with a cheerful smile, Geumgang Paljeong’s expression instantly twisted.
When he turned his head away, this time he found Kkotseorin smiling sweetly back at his irritation.
“Please calm yourself, Your Majesty.”
“Don’t grin at me, Elf King. Just looking at an elf’s fake smile is enough to foul my mood.”
“Yes….”
At those unrestrained harsh words, Kkotseorin wore a crestfallen expression, and Geumgang Paljeong felt as if his conscience were being ripped apart.
“Graaah! Damn it! Not a single one of you is to my liking. Duamri! Where is Duamri?!”
“Your aide? You sent him back because you said it was dangerous.”
“Damn it all.”
The emperor let out a heavy breath and slammed the weighty metallic staff in his hand against the ground.
At once, dust rose in a gust, making Kkotseorin’s hair flutter.
The deepest reaches of the Primeval Mountain Range.
The Land of the Dead Giants.
One hundred years ago, the last giant remaining in this world had met death there.
Its corpse had been so lofty it seemed to pierce the clouds and touch the sky, and its torso had been vast enough that one might have founded a kingdom atop it.
Many had coveted that mysterious body, made entirely of mana, but no one had been able to take the giant’s corpse.
Because of all places, it had died exactly where Dusk Soil February slept.
…Kuuung!!
Flinch!
At the vibration that came from afar, Geumgang Paljeong, Kkotseorin, and Eltman all stopped walking and turned to look.
“…Where is the special analysis team?”
When Geumgang Paljeong asked with a grim face, Eltman answered with an equally hardened expression.
“You know. Mages can’t come this far in. Instead, Association mages set up a forward camp at the entrance. The Society seems to have built a camp too, claiming they’re going to analyze the ‘Stirring,’ but I’m not sure it’ll amount to much.”
“Analyze the Stirring? What kind of pointless nonsense is that? How exactly do you analyze sleep-talking?”
“There is nothing impossible with magic. There are only things we have not yet done.”
“How ridiculous. If anything is possible, then why don’t they just put that damned Divine Month back to sleep?”
“That’s why we came here.”
Eltman turned back.
The dried earth, as though a drought had struck, was heaving like waves.
An ordinary mage would probably struggle to place even a single foot on it.
‘The terrain is doing whatever it wants.’
A place that had been flat ground just moments ago had now risen into a hill the size of a sixty-story building, and the mountain that had blocked their sight earlier had become a hollowed-out crater.
The terrain changing according to Dusk Soil February’s mood was something they had long since grown used to, but they had never truly adapted to it.
“Don’t be so tense.”
Had he noticed Eltman’s stiffened expression?
Geumgang Paljeong passed by, patting him once on the shoulder.
“We already did this once a hundred years ago.”
“That… is true.”
This was not the first time Dusk Soil February had stirred like this.
Over a thousand years of history, it had sleep-muttered countless times, and each time the fairies had joined together to lull it back to sleep with magic.
But those stirrings had grown more and more severe, and one hundred years ago they had escalated to the point of causing a great calamity, forcing three reclusive nine-class mages to gather and suppress it.
Eltman lifted his head and looked far away…
toward a towering “mountain peak.”
The Primeval Mountain Range had once been said to have four branches, but one hundred years ago, a fifth had appeared.
Because the dead giant’s body had been so enormous, it had become a mountain range itself.
Now, with trees growing thickly atop it, it looked like nothing more than a mountain, but Geumgang Paljeong and Eltman Eltwin, who had once faced the giant in person, could still see traces of an old friend there.
“Make your preparations.”
After saying that, Geumgang Paljeong reached into a small backpack and pulled out a single monument almost the size of a house.
Kuuung—!
It was a feat only possible thanks to a special backpack imbued with space-expansion magic.
Eltman went even further, summoning three large monuments in succession with nothing more than a casual gesture of his hand.
The monuments they had brought were all different in size and color, but all had one thing in common:
powerful seal sigils carved into them.
A single one alone was strong enough to seal away a divine beast, yet they had brought no fewer than nine of them.
“Elf King. Begin.”
“…Yes.”
As Kkotseorin clasped both hands together in prayer, branches of the World Tree sprouted from the ground and began linking each monument to the next.
The monuments rose into the air, and the once-blue sky began turning pitch-black.
A tremendous surge of mana affected the natural order of the world itself and blocked out the sunlight in an instant.
Red, blue, yellow, green….
Lights ignited one by one within the monuments, and the sections connected by the World Tree’s branches began to burn.
“Ugh…!”
Kkotseorin let out a groan of pain, but unfortunately no one had any room to worry about that.
“Eltman.”
“I know.”
At Geumgang Paljeong’s signal, Eltman rose into the sky and unfurled the sealing ritual.
The nine monuments spread wide across the heavens, covering the entire region in a single colossal magic circle.
Kuguguguguung…!!
The vibration intensified accordingly, but they could not afford to delay.
If they stalled even a little more here, then the disaster from a hundred years ago would begin all over again.
And yet, somewhere in the back of Geumgang Paljeong’s mind, a doubt arose.
Was it truly the right approach to keep sealing it away with makeshift measures like this?
No matter how much humans tried to seal and reseal Dusk Soil February, it only struggled harder with stronger and stronger force to awaken.
When another hundred years passed in the distant future…
would it really still be possible to suppress it with this same method?
That fundamental question lingered in his mind, but Eltman merely laughed it off.
‘You don’t need to worry about that, Your Majesty.’
Eltman had spoken as though, so long as they suppressed Dusk Soil February right now, then everything would simply be over.
‘When the time comes, it’ll all be resolved.’
Was that optimism?
Or did he have some other method?
‘I don’t know.’
Geumgang Paljeong looked at Eltman, who hovered in midair with both hands full of dense, complex magic circles.
‘…A suspicious man.’
A man whose thoughts could not be read.
His instincts were warning him.
That Eltman Eltwin was more dangerous, by far, than even Dusk Soil February, who was trying to unleash calamity right now.
But for the moment, they had no choice but to cooperate.
Eltman Eltwin was a nine-class mage who had founded Stella Academy, the school with the greatest influence in the magic world, over several decades.
If Eltman Eltwin desired something, then whatever it was, it would surely come to pass.
Because he possessed that much power—
and that much influence.
‘I can only pray that he does not.’
Since the second semester revolved mainly around practical training, the number of hours spent in indoor lecture classes had been drastically reduced.
Most lessons were now held in laboratories, practice rooms, training halls, outdoors, or in the Stella Dome, which was rather bothersome from Baek Yuseol’s point of view.
Because the theory classes, where he could simply sit quietly at a desk and study, had been the only time he could truly rest.
So whenever one of those rare theory periods did come around, he used it as efficiently as possible.
“Khhh….”
“…That student in the very back. Surely you’re not sleeping right now?”
He used it very, very efficiently.
By taking a nice nap.
The professors’ eyes were prickling hot on him, but what could he do? It wasn’t as though he understood any of the lessons anyway.
Besides, by now most of the major main episodes of the first semester of second year had nearly all passed, so as long as he kept a close eye on the few things that still demanded his attention, his tension had inevitably loosened a little.
“Did you fall asleep in class again?”
“Uh….”
After class ended, Eizel came over and asked. He had been asleep the entire time, so he hadn’t realized, but apparently she had been in the same class.
“I’ve just been really tired lately.”
“Please manage your condition while you do whatever it is you’ve been doing recently. Though I don’t know what that is.”
“Nothing much….”
There really wasn’t anything much.
It was simply a daily life of training, then more training.
“What are you going to do about the League of Spirit finals?”
At that point, a single major problem had arisen for Flame Team.
They had ended up advancing to the finals after stubbornly getting worked up over defeating Ga Yurin.
And why was that a problem?
“Well… honestly, it’s just a pain now.”
Because no one on Flame Team had ever intended to work that hard at League of Spirit all the way to the national finals.
That included Flame, who had only started League of Spirit in the first place to avoid Jeremy’s scrutiny.
And since Eizel too had enjoyed it enough as a hobby and now wanted to return to studying even harder, practically no one on the team had actually wanted to advance.
“Then…”
“We’ll have to give it up, I guess.”
Of course, they would not be allowed to give it up without any penalty.
The moment they withdrew from the finals, they would never again be allowed to participate in Stella’s preliminaries, and if they ever entered the pro scene, they would also be banned from matches for several years.
But what did that matter?
They had no intention of playing League of Spirit anymore anyway.
“Even so… I feel really bad about it.”
“About what?”
“To us, it might have just been a sport we enjoyed for a moment, but for other people, this is serious.”
That was true too.
Even on Earth, there were plenty of people who devoted their lives to sports. This world was not all that different.
Admittedly, since this was a world where magic warriors and monsters existed, the weight of it might feel lighter, but that still did not mean one should dismiss the sincerity of those who devoted themselves to sports in earnest.
Besides, according to the original story, it was fate for “the character Flame” to advance to the finals here and even go on to win the championship.
‘If that doesn’t happen, then what?’
That too had been a main episode, which meant it carried the premise that “Flame must win.”
Any other result was something that did not even exist in the first place.
And yet, after the main episodes had already changed several times over, maybe failing to win one League of Spirit championship would not really change all that much—
and still, it worried him just a little.
‘Well… how much could the future really change from just this?’
With that thought in mind, Baek Yuseol went with Eizel to the next classroom.
The subject they were about to attend was “Understanding Dark Magic and Methods of 대응ing to It,” and because professors had been quitting that course in droves, it had become one of those classes where as many as two hundred students crowded into a single lecture hall.
“You take this class too?”
“Yes. It’s a required course for the second semester.”
“Is it…? At this point I don’t even remember what’s required anymore.”
“You should pay more attention in school too. I’m sure it’ll help.”
Baek Yuseol yawned widely as he entered the lecture hall.
The students inside were noisier than usual.
“Hey, hey, did you see?”
“She’s really tiny….”
“She looks younger than us.”
“That person is the new professor?”
“How does she look that young? Isn’t she a nine-class mage?”
“No way. Then she’d be on the same level as the principal.”
Something was strange.
The phrase “new professor” itself felt unfamiliar.
There should have been absolutely no reason for a new professor to arrive at this point in time.
That creeping sense of unease slowly rose from his chest.
Baek Yuseol pushed through the other students and forced his way toward the front.
To see the face of the person standing there as the professor.
And then.
At last, their eyes met.
“…No way.”
It was a face he had never seen before.
And yet he recognized her instantly.
The oldest witch.
The Witch King.
Scarlet.
Seeing her give him a smiling glance and wave, as though she had recognized him too, cold sweat broke out across Baek Yuseol’s skin.
He realized the situation had become thoroughly tangled.
