[ Side Quest Complete: University Lecture ]
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Bathroom. Bathroom, bathroom. Where is the bathroom? I urgently need the bathroom…
This is proof that I am not Deculein.
Even if some of Deculein’s personality has transferred to me, it is only a part of me, and most of me is still Kim Woojin. So, as a result of the mental burden I had unknowingly accumulated, my lower abdomen was hurting.
Grrrrrrr—
A physiological phenomenon only I could understand was tormenting me.
Despite that, outwardly, I was performing a perfect model walk.
As I searched for the bathroom with urgency but without looking urgent, I suddenly came face to face with someone.
Across the hall, in the straight corridor, a woman was looking at me.
“……”
I walked. She stood still.
The distance between us narrowed naturally, and I stopped first when we were within arm’s reach.
“It has been a while.”
She bowed her head first.
She was a beautiful woman.
Her fine white hair and eyes as transparent as clear ice reminded me of that moment I had once seen on the monitor, drenched in blood.
──Of the sixteen deaths of Deculein I had confirmed,
eight were related to her.
“……It has been a while.”
Her name was Yulie, this body’s fiancée.
And a named character who would one day rise to the pinnacle of knighthood.
“Have you been well?”
Yulie asked. It was a question for which I had no answer.
I looked at Yulie without any expression. If she had been a servant, she would have retreated, unable to withstand this gaze, but Yulie simply waited in silence.
With no other choice, I answered only this.
“Who knows.”
To me, it was the best I could do, but Yulie’s brow twitched.
She took a deep breath and said,
“Do you remember the promise you made with me a week ago?”
I stood still and met her eyes. At the bottom of those deep, beautiful pupils, hostility like flame was flickering.
“You broke that promise.”
“……”
It was a promise I knew nothing about.
I nodded and tried to pass by. I needed to take a dump.
Yulie took one step to the side and blocked my path.
“Are you thinking of running away?”
I was thinking of running away. I needed to take a dump.
In a situation where I knew nothing, anything I said would only make things worse.
“Again, like this?”
But this woman would not let me run. She was glaring at me with a face as cold as an awl.
In this situation, the best I could do was the worst.
“……What promise did we make?”
I asked because I truly did not know, but goosebumps rose on the back of my neck. Yulie’s anger made my skin crawl.
It itched. My back felt hot. I wanted to scratch myself, but this noble body would not permit such a low-class act.
Instead, I continued with something a little awkward.
“I am asking. It seems I forgot after suffering from fever for some time.”
“Ha.”
A hollow look close to resignation appeared on the woman’s face.
It was a sigh worse than anger.
“……Damn it. You were, as expected, nothing more than that.”
A frigid, chilling voice addressed to her fiancé.
Contempt mixed with sorrow and resignation.
“Go.”
She stepped aside, and I passed by, brushing against her shoulder. Even as I grew farther away, the back of my head was still itching.
After leaving the corridor, I entered the VIP bathroom. I glanced around, worried someone might come, and only after confirming no one was there did I take care of my business.
“I almost died from itching and needing to go……”
As I emptied my bowels, I scratched my back and neck.
To think I even had to consider the place and situation before scratching. What an exhausting personality.
No wonder he didn’t live long and died.
* * *
Even after sending Deculein away, Yulie stood there for a long time. The resentment and anger boiling inside her burned like crimson flame, showing not even a sign of subsiding.
She had been forcing it down, barely, but of all people, someone just as difficult to deal with as Deculein appeared.
It was the university chairwoman.
“Oh my.”
A young mage of the “Aether” rank wearing a cone hat. She was the chairwoman, considered a strong candidate for archmage, just one step below the immortal “Eternal,” but if one judged only by personality, she was among the worst of Yulie’s acquaintances.
As soon as she discovered Yulie, she deliberately raised both hands to cover her mouth.
“Oh my goodness! Aren’t you Professor Deculein’s wife?!”
“……”
She already knew that words like, We are not married yet, would not work on this woman. So Yulie merely nodded.
“Your husband’s lecture was wonderful~ As expected of the head professor, he explains so well! I kept thinking that! If only I could learn that lecturing ability too~”
“I know. I was watching as well.”
She tried to cut her off like that, but the chairwoman insisted on seizing the opening.
“What?! You watched it? Was that wifely support? Have the two of you finally gotten closer?”
“……”
Wifely support—such a romantic purpose was absolutely not why.
Today, Yulie had come to see with her own eyes whether Deculein would truly keep the promise he had made with her, and what conclusion it would bring.
Yulie had clearly told him.
If you, Deculein, keep your own faith—in other words, if you confess your falsehoods and deceptions to everyone and seek forgiveness—
then even if the world collapsed, I would stand with you.
That this was not a matter of the family’s honor that would be harmed by breaking the engagement, nor of maintaining the formalities befitting their houses.
That transcending all worldly matters, it was merely the expression of the belief she wished to uphold as one knight……
That was truly all it had been.
Surely, you agreed as well.
“What’s wrong~? Today’s lecture was splendid, you know.”
Grrrk. At that shameless mockery, Yulie ground her teeth.
Deculein had, in the end, broken his promise with her until the very last moment.
Achievements attained not through his own ability, but by stealing and plundering another’s. He did not repent of the evil deeds and corruption behind them, nor did he apologize.
He was a man who lacked even that much courage, so now she truly had no choice but to give up.
He would live forever, pitifully, inside the falsehoods and deceptions he had fabricated……
“……What’s this. You’re no fun today. Well then, good work! I’ll be going!”
The chairwoman pouted and left.
Yulie still stood there, as though rooted to the marble floor. Beneath her feet, numerous emotions twisted together like mire seemed ready to swallow her whole.
His Yukline.
And her Freyden.
Words someone had once spoken echoed in her ears.
—Deculein, who has distinguished himself as a mage, and Yulie, who possesses innate qualities as a knight. If the bloodlines of these two noble families harmonize, it will be an affair clearly beneficial both by bloodline and politically.
However, at some point, the two families came to learn that Deculein’s magical talent was nothing more than ordinary.
Deculein deceived the world by calling himself a “genius of spell formula interpretation” and became a professor…… but after a certain incident, even those proud theoretical accomplishments came to an end.
If the two families had been houses with no ties to central politics, or if they had been inferior branch families, one side would surely have raged.
Because both were proud prestigious families, they kept quiet.
Unless one of the two came forward and rejected the other, the engagement would not be annulled, and even if the engagement were annulled, Deculein’s falsehoods would not be exposed.
That was why Yulie believed Deculein had to set himself right on his own.
Even so, today, through an action more decisive than anything, he had broken and rejected his promise with her.
If that was so, then now she would have to say it herself.
The end of this shabby engagement.
……At last, the end of their relationship was approaching.
“Are you all right?”
Behind her, the adjutant who had been standing like a shadow spoke in a low voice.
He was Veron, a man whose pitch-black hair hung heavily down.
Without turning back to look at him, Yulie shook her head.
“I am fine. It will soon be time for the lecture. Let us go.”
She walked. Behind that slender back, numerous knights followed.
A direct blood descendant of the prestigious Freyden family, known as a great house and even a holy land of knights. Yulie, called by the world a model young knight, was scheduled to give a lecture today.
Unlike Deculein, who was all talk, it would be a “real lecture” where she demonstrated in person and crossed swords……
……One of the several knights walking behind her came to a sudden stop. Between his long, flowing black hair, his red eyes flashed.
His gaze slowly turned back, glaring at the departing Deculein. A coldly restrained killing intent stretched toward the back of the man’s neck.
……Yulie’s knight, Veron, thought.
Today, he had found the answer to his countless worries and agonies.
For the sake of his lord, this was a judgment placed in his hands.
It was something only he could do.
……Let us kill him.
That shabby and filthy man.
Cut off his head and carve him into pieces.
And make my lord happy……
* * *
The campus cafeteria. Epherene sighed as she pushed around an innocent omelet rice.
“……Sigh.”
The truth was, she had tried to screw Deculein over at the lecture hall.
The “spell formula interpretation ability” that Deculein prided himself on was clearly inflated. Originally, it had been her father’s ability, so if she asked him to interpret a new spell formula in a situation where he could not cheat, he was certain to panic.
Of course, there had been the risk of getting marked by Deculein…… but she had ended up being the one caught instead.
To think he would turn her into an ill-mannered idiot just because she had not said one name. As expected, he was no easy opponent.
“I thought I was going to die of embarrassment……”
The snickers—pfft, pffft—still rang vividly in her ears, but there had been results nonetheless.
“Pfft. As if it’s an illusion-type spell.”
Epherene grinned.
As expected, he must have panicked because he had never experienced something like this before, right?
Illusion magic, my foot. Even if he just spouted whatever came to mind, why did it have to be illusion magic of all things?
Illusion magic was an extremely difficult field of magic. To disrupt and deceive a person’s perception and cognition required an enormous amount of mana, enough to make it terribly inefficient. That was why most illusion spells required a “medium.”
But an illusion without a medium?
“As if he wasn’t already an idiot, he really is one.”
Just as she muttered in satisfaction—
“Epherene! Epherene!”
A noisy voice and footsteps approached while calling Epherene. She looked that way.
They were the classmates she had seen last week at the freshman mage orientation.
“We figured it out thanks to you!”
“……Hm? What? What are you talking about?”
Epherene merely blinked. A fellow mage placed a hand on Epherene’s shoulder and shouted.
“The spell formula at the front gate of the dorm yesterday!”
Last night, a mysterious spell formula had been engraved in red mucus on the front gate of the mage dormitory.
At first, because it was a formula never reported in academia, everyone had made a fuss, saying, “It’s the work of demons—” but now, the freshmen were causing an uproar, saying, “I’ll interpret it and make it my achievement—” The competition had even become divided by category.
“……What? I didn’t do anything?”
“Come on. Don’t say that. You asked Professor Deculein, didn’t you?”
“……Huh?”
Epherene was bewildered.
I didn’t ask him. I was trying to screw him over. What are they talking about?
“Ah~ This is huge, huge. We were too scared of that professor to even think of asking him. You’ve really got guts.”
“Huh? No, wait a second. That magic…… was really a barrier?”
Epherene was bewildered.
Then did that mean Deculein had been right?
“Yeah. Seriously. When we reconstructed the formula assuming it was a barrier, it fit perfectly. Wow~ Isn’t Deculein really amazing too? How did he guess it was illusion magic when there wasn’t even a medium?”
Epherene’s slowly opening mouth nearly reached the table. From her wide-open mouth, only faint wheezing breaths—hieek, hieek—escaped.
“Thanks, Epherene. We’re going to make a report on this and submit it. We’ll put your name on it too.”
“Huh? No, there’s no need to…… not that there isn’t, but…… y-yeah. Put it on.”
“Okay!”
They smiled brightly like that, then all left in a rush.
Epherene stared blankly at their backs.
They were truly good people. They could have kept their mouths shut, but they were deliberately saying they would share the achievement……
However, the situation itself was not good.
All they had done was raise Deculein’s reputation for no reason.
“H-he’s lucky. He guessed and got it right?”
Soon, Epherene, denying reality, took one sheet of paper out of her backpack.
It was a lecture syllabus written by a certain professor of the Magic Tower, where the semester would soon begin.
[ Understanding Elemental Attribute Magic ]
[ Grade: Advanced (5 Credits) ]
[ Professor in Charge: Deculein von Grahan Yukline ]
“……”
Deculein’s class.
She herself was not of the elemental attribute, but there was no reason not to take it. To begin with, elements could be called the foundation of all magic, and since ancient times, it had been said that “if you know yourself and your enemy, you will never be defeated in a hundred battles.”
“Just you wait……”
Epherene glared at the syllabus and growled.