Chapter 1358

Lee Han had no idea that the Valdrogard students inside were trembling in terror.

Everyone at Einroguard liked Professor Garcia. There were people who were terrified when they saw Professor Verdus, but no one was terrified when they saw Professor Garcia.

“Professor. There are circumstances behind this.”

“Of course I assumed there were circumstances, Student Lee Han.”

It would have been stranger if there were no circumstances behind this.

That would mean they had locked the Valdrogard students inside the palace for no reason at all!

To be fair, the Einroguard students were perfectly capable of doing exactly that. Professor Garcia desperately hoped there was a reasonable explanation.

...Though Professor Garcia was not entirely sure whether there could be a reasonable explanation for locking students from another school inside a palace...

“Actually, the Principal’s duplicate...”

Lee Han began complaining about how he had encountered the evil Skull Principal’s evil duplicate.

All the Skull Principal’s duplicates he had met until now had been kind and trustworthy, so he had let his guard down and gotten tricked.

‘Were they?’

Professor Garcia tilted their head.

Hadn’t the duplicate of desire for honor they first met forcibly kidnapped Student Lee Han?

“It was my mistake. Ugh. I’ll never let my guard down again.”

“Um, Student Lee Han. It was an unbelievably shocking story, but... what I was asking was why you locked the Valdrogard students inside the palace.”

Professor Garcia spoke while looking at the eyes yearning for freedom through the gaps between the boards covering the palace windows.

Judging from the state of those eyes, they looked as though they had been locked up for at least a week.

“Ah. That? We created this environment for the lectures.”

Lee Han had gone on at length while complaining about the Skull Principal’s duplicate, but when it came to the palace classroom, he explained it in a single sentence as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

“......”

For a moment, Professor Garcia wondered whether they were the strange one.

Why is he so confident?

“Student Lee Han. No matter how much you dislike the Valdrogard students, you can’t lock them up...”

“What? But this is how we’re taught at Einroguard.”

“...!!!”

Professor Garcia was rendered speechless.

There was a reason people said the student surpassed the teacher. Lee Han had barely been a Valdrogard professor for any time at all, yet he was already arguing Professor Garcia into a corner.

“That’s... true, but... that’s... um... hmm...”

Driven into a corner, Professor Garcia tried to think of a way to say, ‘We taught you this way, but you shouldn’t teach them this way,’ without sounding completely shameless.

But no matter how hard they thought, nothing came to mind.

“Professor. Please don’t worry.”

Lee Han looked around at his friends with pride.

“We’re not literally teaching them exactly the Einroguard way. We had plenty of complaints about Einroguard’s miserable and degrading living conditions too. There’s no way we’d just use the exact same methods.”

“I-I see.”

When their student criticized it as a ‘miserable and degrading life,’ Professor Garcia felt guilty for no reason.

I should have stopped it!

Still, there was at least one piece of good news: the student had said they were teaching differently from the Einroguard way.

Professor Garcia saw hope in that.

“Student Lee Han. How exactly are you teaching differently?”

“We’re using a point system.”

“......”

Professor Garcia had not even heard the explanation yet, but was already deeply afraid.

***

“Siiiiiiiiigh.”

-...Would you like some cotton candy?

One of the Death Knights had bought cotton candy from the city below and cautiously offered it, but Professor Garcia shook their head.

“Give it to the students over there.”

“Thank you, Professor! You’re the best!”

The Einroguard students, completely unaware of Professor Garcia’s feelings, cheerfully thanked them and withdrew.

“Where do you think they’ll try escaping next?”

“Probably the side door on the first floor. I confirmed there’s a hole over there.”

“Heh heh heh. Idiots. That’s a fake door!”

“......”

Professor Garcia watched the students’ conversation with sorrowful eyes. The Death Knight was impressed.

-Impressive. To think they can read the minds of escapees that well. Maybe they really are different because their year has pulled off a record number of successful escapes.

“Is this really the time to be impressed?”

-S-Sorry. I was impressed from the perspective of a patrolman... Professor. Instead of being sad, why not focus on something more constructive?

Professor Garcia fell silent for a moment at the knight’s words.

Then they spoke.

“You’re right. Instead of wasting time being sad like this, I should take action.”

-Exactly! You should return to Einroguard and get back to the paperwork...

“I’m going to find that duplicate of the Principal and fold it in half!”

-...Or you could return to Einroguard and do paperwork!

Every one of the knights wanted Professor Garcia to return to Einroguard’s territory.

There was already a grand festival between the magic schools coming up this year, and if someone like Professor Garcia was wandering around outside, there was a high chance things would become absolutely dreadful.

A school needed both good professors and bad professors, and there were already more than enough of the latter.

But Professor Garcia was determined.

“I’m going to find the Principal’s duplicate, hand it over to Valdrogard, find Student Lee Han’s contract, and burn it.”

-It... won’t be easy...

The knights hesitated.

They knew the duplicate of greed for wealth well too. In some ways, this duplicate was far more troublesome than the others.

Most of all, it was extremely good at running away.

Unlike the other duplicates, it had neither pride nor stubbornness. The moment things looked unfavorable, it fled. If it had not been their master’s duplicate, the knights would have cursed even its ancestors.

“Even if it isn’t easy, I have to do it!”

-The paperwork at Einroguard... that won’t be easy either...

-The students are waiting for you! Think how difficult it will be for the new students enrolling this year if you aren’t there. And what about the unfortunate students advancing to fifth year?

“Don’t call them unfortunate students.”

-The students moving up to sixth year will have to travel all across the Empire. They need someone who can warmly help them. Who else could do that?

“...There is a lot to do at Einroguard too...”

In the end, Professor Garcia admitted defeat.

Professor Garcia was not shameless enough to abandon all the work at Einroguard and wander around the Empire. To manage that, one’s personality would need to be at least 0.4 Verdus.

“And this time, apparently someone hatched a Bulgassari inside Einroguard again.”

-What?! Another one?!

The Death Knight was horrified. Professor Garcia looked extremely embarrassed by the reaction.

“...W-Well, the existing one is fairly well behaved... and rather friendly...”

-I won’t bother mentioning the fact that the Bulgassari swallowed three of our armories whole.

“......”

Professor Garcia quickly changed the subject. As a former Einroguard student, techniques like that flowed in the blood.

“Anyway, the important thing isn’t the adult. It’s the baby Bulgassari.”

-You’re right. This could become a serious problem.

The Death Knights exchanged grave looks.

Einroguard students caused incidents every single day, but most of those incidents were, in truth, manageable.

Looting or blowing up warehouses, someone attempting to break into the Principal’s room, the lake becoming contaminated or drying up, knocking down sections of the walls, and so on.

Those sorts of incidents were practically everyday occurrences, so even the Death Knights did not pay much attention to them.

But a creature like Bulgassari, when combined with Einroguard’s abundant mana, had enormous growth potential.

And since it also possessed a voracious appetite, there was no telling what might happen if its personality turned vicious.

-Where was it discovered? And °• N ?? v ?? l i g h t •° who hatched it?

“I don’t know that either. I overheard the students’ secret clu... No, I happened to overhear the students talking.”

-Could it perhaps have been the heir?

The Death Knight displayed some razor-sharp reasoning. It was an extraordinarily impressive process of elimination.

Hatching a Bulgassari requires a lot of mana -> leave only the student with the most mana -> conclusion!

“Student Lee Han is that reckless... I mean, he is reckless, but he wouldn’t do something like... Well, he might do something like that, but it wasn’t Student Lee Han. He’s been busy at Valdrogard this entire vacation.”

-You’re right.

The knights agreed with Professor Garcia’s explanation.

Hatching a Bulgassari required extensive preparation. It would be difficult to do while tormenting the Valdrogard students this thoroughly at the same time.

-Then wasn’t it Professor Verdus?

“Why?”

-Just because.

“......”

Professor Garcia was dumbfounded, but the Verdus theory received surprisingly enthusiastic support. The knights started saying things like, ‘Let’s just make Professor Verdus take responsibility.’

“Professor Verdus is the kind of person who might do something like that, but no.”

-How can you be certain?

“Actually, the moment I heard this information, Professor Verdus was the first person I checked...”

-......

The knights were impressed.

A mage called a genius really was different.

-Could it have been Professor Bendozol?

-Professor Bendozol isn’t liked by monsters, so hatching one would probably be difficult.

-They could have stolen it. Or perhaps it was the student from House Hormasi?

-No matter how I think about it, riding a Bulgassari into a jousting match seems a bit much.

-I don’t think that student would agree...

“Professor. Have some of this while you talk.”

Despite being busy, Lee Han came over carrying refreshments and placed them on the table where Professor Garcia was sitting.

Feeling unnecessarily guilty, Professor Garcia said,

“Student Lee Han. It’s fine to focus on your lectures. Don’t spend your time because of me.”

“It’s fine. My friends are helping too, and right now the Valdrogard students are too busy dodging water spheres to think about anything else.”

“......”

Professor Garcia wanted to ask for a more detailed explanation of what they had just heard, but could not quite summon the courage.

-Oh, right. Heir. Have you ever heard anything about a baby Bulgassari?

“A baby Bulgassari? Why?”

“It seems one of the students hatched a baby Bulgassari. By chance, purely by chance, I happened to overhear some students talking...”

Crash!

The teacup fell to the floor and shattered into pieces. Lee Han was horrified inwardly.

‘Bulgassari!’

Lee Han had long wondered who Bulgassari, the member of the Watchers Club, really was.

Compared to the other members, Bulgassari had far more authority and possessed so many resources within Einroguard that they could even use an entire room as a communication artifact.

Whenever the other members tried to torment their juniors or students from other magic schools, Bulgassari would say things like, ‘You shouldn’t do that,’ only to get mocked for it.

And there was also the strangely old-fashioned slang Bulgassari sometimes used...

‘Bulgassari... was Professor Garcia!’

Then could it be that Professor Garcia was also the one who had brought the Bulgassari into Einroguard?!

The more Lee Han thought about it, the more sense it made.

At some point, the Bulgassari had started treating Lee Han rather kindly. Lee Han had simply assumed it had taken a liking to him, as ferocious monsters tended to do, but thinking about it now, Professor Garcia was the only person who would ask it to do something like that.

“Student Lee Han. Is something wrong?”

Professor Garcia looked at him worriedly.

Normally, he would have immediately caught the cup with telekinesis and lifted it back up, yet he had simply let it fall.

Professor Garcia began to worry that teaching at Valdrogard had overworked their student.

But to Lee Han, Professor Garcia’s kind appearance now looked completely different.

‘How far... Just how far did Professor Garcia plan all of this?!’

Had he been dancing in the palm of Professor Garcia’s hand from the very beginning?!