Episode 15. Get On Your Knees and Apologize
“Th-that…!”
Gasfeldt, who had been arguing stubbornly, suddenly made a shocked expression.
Sylvia thought he had been persuaded by her stance.
It was the moment when she, heated up, was about to press him further on his shamelessness.
The practical exam supervisors discovered them and rushed over.
“What happened!”
“Is everyone okay?”
Teachers who were familiar, or unfamiliar.
They seemed to have come after sensing the magic energy wave Gasfeldt had released.
The area where the supervisors had been waiting was quite far. That was why they had arrived late.
The instructors who approached looked at the fallen Dire Wolf’s corpse and jumped in surprise.
“Did you catch it?”
Someone asked.
Gasfeldt tried to step forward, but Sylvia raised her hand to stop him.
Rike and Sylvia pointed at Binaeril.
“He caught it.”
They couldn’t believe it easily.
Because the boy at the end of their fingers looked perfectly unharmed.
If Sylvia, whose clothes were torn here and there with visible wounds, had said she caught it, then perhaps.
Or if it were Gasfeldt, who had been hiding and rolling around everywhere, maybe.
‘They must have all worked together to catch it.’
The supervisor who heard the answer interpreted it as he pleased.
“You must be hurt badly. Good work. We’ll handle the cleanup, so all of you return to Elfenbein.”
Several people clung to the Dire Wolf’s body to check if the creature was still breathing.
A supervisor capable of casting healing magic approached Binaeril’s party.
The injured Sylvia had already been treated by Rike, so the party didn’t particularly need help.
“Oh my, you must have been lucky.”
A Dire Wolf wasn’t a magical beast that several students could hunt together without harm.
The supervisor, knowing that, considered these students blessed by providence.
On the way back to the tower, Binaeril didn’t say a word.
He looked like someone whose soul had wandered off a little.
Sylvia was exhausted, and Gasfeldt was trembling for some unknown reason.
“Binaeril?”
Rike called his name.
Binaeril couldn’t immediately understand that he was being called.
“Huh? Ah, yeah.”
When Rike called again, Binaeril finally answered.
“Is something wrong?”
“…No.”
Rike worried that Binaeril might have overused his magic.
“Like hell there isn’t!”
Gasfeldt, who had been quiet, shouted in agitation.
“You crazy bastard, how could you do that just because you didn’t want it taken!”
“What are you talking about?”
Sylvia asked back in an irritated voice.
“That guy swallowed the magic stone whole!”
Hearing Gasfeldt’s accusation, Binaeril slowly turned his head.
“Crazy bastard, you should control your greed. How could you do that….”
Gasfeldt met eyes with Binaeril. And swallowed his words.
Fear.
Binaeril’s gaze didn’t seem human.
Gasfeldt remembered clearly from facing the Dire Wolf head-on.
That was the gaze of a monster.
“How could you do that….”
“Do what?”
Sylvia pressed him.
Gasfeldt forcibly turned his gaze away stiffly, like a machine.
He had seen Binaeril’s power.
He felt a sense of crisis that if he opened his mouth carelessly, that terrifying magic might be directed at him.
“Why is he like that?”
Throughout the return, Gasfeldt tried his utmost not to make eye contact with Binaeril.
“You fool!”
Professor Freud Yeong slammed the desk in the lab roughly.
His usual arrogant and relaxed demeanor was nowhere to be seen.
“How! After gulping down! The elixir! Can you produce! Results like this!”
The news after the subjugation practical was shocking.
Gasfeldt Louis had received such pathetic grades that he had barely escaped last place, let alone achieved first.
There had already been a huge outlay just to acquire the elixir.
Had he achieved grades befitting that investment, it might have been one thing, but this result was impossible to accept.
“What the hell were you doing?”
After receiving the results, he had immediately called for Gasfeldt Louis, but the boy hadn’t shown up.
According to the teaching assistant, he had barricaded himself in his room and refused to come out.
They said he was muttering strange, incomprehensible things inside…….
“He must have lost his mind from fear of being scolded.”
If only Gasfeldt had failed, he wouldn’t have been this angry.
Binaeril Dalhaim’s grade had been first place. First place. The ‘overwhelming first place’ that Professor Freud had demanded Gasfeldt achieve.
He even suspected that Binaeril might have snatched the monster Gasfeldt was hunting.
But the students at the scene had clearly testified.
That the Dire Wolf had been hunted entirely by Binaeril alone.
“Does that even make sense?”
The Dire Wolf, a medium-sized monster, was a ferocious beast that even a formally appointed mage had to stake their life to face.
And yet, a fledgling who had just become a senior had faced it alone?
The skill Binaeril had shown in their previous magic duel hadn’t been to that extent.
“There’s definitely something going on.”
If his disciple had his achievements stolen like a fool, it was also a supervising professor’s job to reclaim them.
The fact that Binaeril Dalhaim was also his disciple no longer existed in Professor Freud’s head.
Professor Freud connected a communication spell to the teaching assistant.
“Bring Binaeril Dalhaim here right now.”
Meanwhile, around the same time.
Binaeril Dalhaim was drowning in pain.
The physical pain shooting through his entire body was nothing.
What Binaeril was experiencing now was a mental agony.
—How is it?
—Can you feel your magic power increasing?
—Aren’t you glad you listened to me?
“Shut your mouth, you crazy book.”
Binaeril and Veritas shared their senses.
They didn’t share the flying book’s point of view or anything, but the repercussion of this event was quite large.
Because the aftermath of swallowing the magic stone had crashed into Binaeril in full force.
Binaeril viscerally realized why it was called a magic stone.
Magic Stone (Demonic Essence Stone) and Magic. The origin of both powers was the same.
Magic was a crystallization of willpower that imagined things into reality.
A monster’s magic stone was likewise a crystallization of condensed imagination and willpower.
But it was different from magic, which could manifest in infinite directions.
The magic stone that came from monsters was a power that purely desired slaughter and destruction.
—I told you, didn’t I? That it’s a crystallization of pure magic power.
“You should have… explained properly….”
It wasn’t wrong. The magic stone was a crystallization of pure magic power, and at the same time, a crystallization of pure madness.
A desire for violence reared its head in Binaeril’s heart.
Binaeril had to make a tremendous effort to keep his friends from noticing.
When he met eyes with Gasfeldt, he had nearly lost his sanity for a moment.
Binaeril recalled the lecture contents about magic stones from a previous class.
Magic stones could be processed into elixirs that replenished magic power.
But Elfenbein strongly prohibited prospective mage students from consuming such elixirs.
The reason was that even processed elixirs could pollute the user’s mind if taken in excess.
“So this is what it feels like to have your mind polluted.”
Binaeril was repeatedly walking a dizzying tightrope to keep from losing his reason.
The bed he lay on was becoming drenched in sweat.
“Why did you tempt me?”
Resentment bloomed amidst the pain. Binaeril asked Veritas.
“Why are you trying to torment me, why are you doing this to me?”
—You made a promise with me.
“I know, that you’d find the lost pages or whatever! What does that have to do with this!”
—With such a weak mind, could you fulfill my request?
—You’re so weak. Didn’t you say you wanted to beat your brother? You can’t even endure this much pain?
—The remaining pages of the Book of Truth are far beyond your current abilities. You have to become much stronger.
Bringing up his brother was a foul move. Binaeril knew what kind of person his brother was.
—Blaming me is useless. I’m actually helping you, you know? I’m the only one on your side.
What a shameless book.
In a battle of words, Binaeril couldn’t defeat Veritas.
When Binaeril’s mind wandered to distant places, someone knocked on his door.
Binaeril ignored it.
Knock knock knock!
The visitor, who he thought would leave soon, was persistent.
“Binaeril Dalhaim, your supervising professor is calling for you. I confirmed you’re inside. Open the door quickly!”
“…What happened to your complexion?”
Professor Freud, who hated Binaeril terribly, couldn’t help but ask.
He was trembling all over as if afflicted with a sickness.
His hair was disheveled, and his eyes were bloodshot red.
He looked so haggard that even a mortal enemy would ask after his well-being.
“Please get to the point.”
From his insolent tone, it was certainly the Binaeril he knew.
“You haven’t changed that temper even after learning magic. You can’t even thank the teacher who helped you.”
‘Bullshit.’
“I heard you achieved good grades in this practical. It seems you’ve accomplished quite a bit.”
Binaeril became curious about Freud’s intentions.
He wouldn’t have been called here just to be praised.
Was he trying to act like a mentor now that Binaeril had distinguished himself?
His thoughts kept stretching in negative directions.
“You don’t look well, so I’ll keep it short. The Count Dalhaim household is quite an influential family in Ruben, is it not?”
‘What nonsense.’
The Count Dalhaim household was by no means a powerful family. If anything, the opposite.
“If you show some sincerity to your old teacher now, I’ll actively recommend you for this Scala exam.”
“Ha.”
Binaeril couldn’t stop the snort that escaped.
So this was it. The true face of him who reigned as a tyrant over his assigned students.
The true face of Professor Freud Yeong, the youngest 4th-tier mage and an authority on elemental magic, was this.
Binaeril found his past self, who had feared him, truly laughable.
“It’s not a bad offer, is it? You don’t think you can graduate safely while holding a grudge against me, do you?”
Binaeril had already met a mage more outstanding than him.
It was Dean Angelo Yulio.
Compared to him, Freud Yeong was utterly insignificant.
In the well called Elfenbein, wielding a small authority and reigning like an emperor, he looked so pathetically small.
“Cut the crap.”
“No matter what happens, I will never accept your offer. Whatever it may be.”
“Ha. Impudent brat. Fine. I didn’t think you’d accept anyway. You’ve been a rebel from the start.”
Binaeril’s body trembled finely.
Whether it was the influence of the magic stone or another reason, he couldn’t even tell himself.
“Here is the main point. The academic affairs office said there is a matter that requires face-to-face notification. Binaeril Dalhaim, you are to be expelled from Elfenbein.”
“What?”
“Is your hearing bad? Lack of sincerity, poor attitude, insubordination toward your supervising professor. There are various reasons. The expulsion request has already been submitted.”
“How about it, does my earlier offer sound a little sweeter now?”
Binaeril looked at him with eyes mixed with complex emotions.
Professor Freud Yeong also received that gaze with indifferent eyes.
“Are you calling that a proposal?”
The rebellious spirit he had suppressed quietly raised its head.
“What doesn’t make sense? Do you think you’re something special? You’re just a student. I’m your supervising professor. To you, my words are law.”
Normally, he would have said, ‘Do as you please, I’ll file a formal objection,’ and left the lab.
Not so much running away because he was scared, but because it was filthy.
Because quarreling while turning red in the face wasn’t to Binaeril’s taste.
But now, now when both body and mind were suffering from a burning fever, it was different.
Professor Freud should not have provoked him.
“Professor, you made a promise before.”
“You promised that if I broke the Cube, you would kneel and apologize to me. Didn’t you?”
“Apologize for the unfair discrimination you showed me, including what you just said. Then I’ll let it go.”
“You really must be crazy.”
Professor Freud snorted.
A mere student telling a professor of Elfenbein to apologize?
He was truly ignorant of how the world worked.
“I must have spoiled you too much. Rather, that’s what I should say. Kneel immediately and apologize to me.”
Professor Freud sharpened his imagination to a keen edge.
Magical powers resonated with his mind and boiled up.
And one more person.
The magical powers stirring in Binaeril’s mind reacted to it.
The furniture in the lab began to float one by one from the surging magical energy.
“What…!”
Professor Freud was bewildered.
What kind of power was this?
“Kneel.”
“Kneel before me immediately and apologize.”
Binaeril looked up, meeting Professor Freud’s eyes.
Freud felt a chill.
In that gaze dwelled the same eyes found in monsters, those corrupted beasts.