How to Survive at the Academy - Chapter 42: Cat, Cat, Cat (3)

Chapter 42: Cat, Cat, Cat (3)

Cat, Cat, Cat (3)

The assistant professor, Cleoh Elpin, had her head down on the desk in her private laboratory.

Her fluttering, wavy blond hair was spread out across the table as she grabbed her glasses from where they sat beside her.

Most assistant professors—who would begin working as teachers after receiving a degree in elemental studies—spent the first month enjoying the romance and beauty as they walked around campus.

However, once they realized how much they needed to endure before becoming successful professors with influence, they quickly changed their minds. They would then desire to return back to their degree program, focusing on their studies.

The same was true for Cleoh, who was in her second semester as an assistant professor.

“I want to die…”

Cleoh was proud of her appearance—pale and baby smooth skin, with eyes that could instantly captivate others. Despite her increasing age, she was quite protective of her uniquely youthful beauty.

But when she looked up for a brief moment and saw herself in the mirror, she resembled a walking corpse. 

Despite the fact that she took good care of her skin every day in fear of having dry skin, the dark circles under her eyes were gradually expanding. Soon, they would be big enough that they would resemble two continents coming together.

“I want to die…!!!”

Even though she was yelling quietly, no one was listening.

Even if it was just a beginner course, there was still so much to do to prepare for it.

At the same time, she also has to pay attention to the academic growth of each student.

Then, in addition to that, over just one semester she had submitted more than six research proposals to the Organization of Magicians. However, every single one of them was rejected. 

It would have been great if they had explained the reason for the rejection, but it seemed like it was mostly due to their stance of not trusting rookie assistant professors.

In regards to her research, since she couldn’t proactively update the amount of data, the sources she was able to include in her paper were limited.

Because of the lack of research results, the school was starting to put pressure on her as well.

In the meantime, she had to wonder just what was with the sheer number and types of incidents that were occuring. Most of the post-processing work regarding those incidents was left to Cleoh, the assistant professor.

“……”

She had fear trickling down her back. She worried that, at her current rate, she would become a wrinkly old lady by the time she was a professor.

Cleoh used to be called a gifted child, having been sent to academy at an early age. Then, at the young age of twenty, she had completed all of her advanced degree programs. Later, she even received her own private laboratory as an assistant professor.

Other than a few honorary professors, she was the youngest person to achieve such a feat within the school. Nevertheless, her life was now like this.

She had thought that her life would have started blossoming, but instead she had no idea that all of these difficult hardships would be waiting for her. 

Knock, Knock

As she was moping pessimistically about her life, she suddenly heard a knock coming from her door. Did her assistant come to give a report after checking the equipment for the elemental studies class?

Whoosh!

Before Cleoh could tell them to enter, the door swung open as she looked up. She spotted someone with a skull-like face.

“… Were you taking a break?”

It was the senior professor in charge of the 1st years, infamously known as ‘The Mannerless Skull Face.’ He also happened to have been Cleoh’s advisor from the moment she started her degree.

Cleoh had lived more than five years of her life as a student of the stubborn Professor Glast. Having that type of history between them, seeing him here now there was nothing to feel awkward about.

However, she had a bad feeling about this. It stemmed from him coming all the way up to her lab.

“Oh, my. Professor Glast. What brings you to my laboratory? Would you like a cup of coffee?”

“No. I’m fine, Cleoh. I’ll just talk about a bit of business, then head out.”

Cleoh felt a cold sweat running down the back of her neck, but continued to smile without showing her unease.

“Wh-What reason…?”

“Did you receive the report on the accident at Ophelis Hall?”

“… Yes.”

“The inspection department has finished their investigation regarding the truth behind the incident. And the date of the disciplinary committee meeting to punish the one behind the incident has been set. Though, the school said there seems to currently be a lack of members that are going to observe the meeting. At this rate, only the dean himself will go.”

“I-I see. What about the 3rd year senior professor, Olveig…?”

“For academic reasons, he will be going to the Organization of Magicians.”

“Professor Kelbraim…”

“He’s busy consulting the royal family of Kroel. I couldn’t interfere with his affairs with the imperial family.”

“Oh! I heard that Professor Delphina has returned from her vacation!”

“She got hurt. She is currently experiencing back pain.”

‘What about yourself, Professor Glast?’ is what she wanted to ask, but she held it in. She was sure that he would go off to research his Celestial Magic, making up some ridiculous excuse.

“You can just read over the report regarding this case and make your own judgment. Then, you can write your opinion on the given form and leave the rest of the simpler paperwork to an assistant under you. But make sure to make the important decisions yourself.”

“Professor Glast, I’m sorry. However, as it’s the beginning of the semester and I’m in charge of the beginner course… I’ve been quite busy lately. And I also have more than three research papers left that I need to write, so I’m already in a bit of a crisis…”

“I see. Then you’ll just have to sleep less.”

Nodding her head and accepting her fate, she watched Professor Glast drop the files on the relevant materials before leaving the laboratory.

“……”

Cleoh opened up the files without a change in expression. Looking it over and checking through it, it was a brief summary regarding the truth behind the occupation of Ophelis Hall.

It was considered a ‘one man crime’ by Elris, the head maid of Ophelis Hall.

She had tried to persuade Shaney and Kelly, and negotiated with Willain to use Ophelis Hall as a hostage to voice her dissatisfaction.

The primary motives behind the dissatisfaction came from the fact that, despite her worsening health, she was still required to continue with the same amount of labor intensive work. 

Nobody expected her to cause such a large amount of damage, as she was viewed by others as sincere with a good character.

In addition to that, Taylee, Ayla, and Elvira were also brought up. As were Ed, Yennekar, and Ziggs—who were listed as subject to further investigation—but… If the truth was clear, then they would consider skipping any sort of additional investment into the investigation. 

There was no reason for Cleoh to think it was strange that Lortel’s name was not brought up anywhere in the files.

Anyway, after looking through it all she got an estimate of just how much work there was to take care of.

“What the…? This isn’t even all that much.”

Cleoh took off her high-grade glasses, holding them in her hand.

“Checking through the investigation proposal, submitting the academic opinion file, determining if further investigation is necessary… Attending the committee, checking to make sure there were no mistakes in the short hand report… Reporting it to the academic management team and the dean’s office, then reporting back to Professor Glast. Basically, as long as I report on it well and submit the collected data to the records room, I’ll be done…!”

At the same time, shouldn’t she be doing both academic work and research work?

Cleoh folded her glasses as she put the stack on the desk and opened the window beside her, shouting into the air.

“Even though I’m the youngest professor, I’m still only a human…!!! Someone save me…!!!!”

“That’s right. I forgot to tell you, but several research projects have been rejected this semester due to a lack of budget. They wanted you to go check and report on assets that the academy can sell. You can just have your assistant do this—”

Suddenly, she looked back and found Professor Glast standing in the room.

Cleoh hiccupped as she turned her head. The skull-faced professor stood still, as if he didn’t care.

“… I’m sorry.”

“Try to finish in a day or two. I don’t really care, but just make sure to take care of your work.”

“… Yes…”

Cleoh sat down as she lowered her head. She looked like someone who had already given up on life.

* * *

* * *

On the second night, the homing pigeon came flying back.

‘The proposal for the sale of equipment has been completed. Review of the proposal for the dismissal of the head has been completed. Elte’s authority has nearly been fully revoked. His removal is guaranteed. The situation is nearly complete. Please report your personal status.’

The tiny parchment was full of compressed information. Despite it being so simple, it was a note that was full of secrets and held a terrifying amount of power.

“If the situation has progressed this far, then my father should already be back at the headquarters, fighting his last battle. Even though it’s a useless struggle… Anyway, at the very least there’s no reason for him to pay attention to Silvenia anymore.”

“What’s the chance that Elte has something else hidden up his sleeve?”

“Well, since he is as cunning as me… It’s probably not zero. Though, I still don’t have a choice but to trust in Slogg. He’s aiming for a position as the next head. Since I’m far away from the action, there’s not much else I can do.”

The burning campfire drove away the darkness of the night. As it was now late, Yennekar had already left for the dorms.

Late summer… Or was it early fall?

The northern forest was on the border of starting to change its clothes. Some of the broad-leaved trees in the outskirts had already begun to change their colors.

The sound of the bugs had reduced greatly compared to the middle of summer, and the forest at night had become much quieter.

When it came to changing clothes, it wasn’t just the forest. It was the same for me, too.

“Isn’t it a bit too shabby, considering it’s a uniform that has been mended?”

“Well, I mean… This much is fine.”

“Hmm… Hmmm…”

There was nothing good that would come from me prolonging my absence any longer, so I planned to go to school the next day. I went ahead and tried on my uniform, which was thankfully pretty clean.

“Well, right now I’m safe… So that’s a relief.”

With a big smile, Lortel pulled at her robe’s hem and sat down.

“I have quite a lot of work to do right now. I guess it’s just deciding what to do first…”

“No matter how hard they work to restore Ophelis Hall, it will still take at least a semester.”

“That’s true. I’ll have to check and see if there are any spaces left in the temporary accommodations… Then I’ll have to clean up the rest of this incident… But most things seemed to have ended quite well.”

“I heard that empty academic offices in the teacher district, as well as the closed buildings in the southern part of the island, were quickly remodeled and turned into temporary accommodations.”

“Though they had done so as nicely as possible, being an improvised accommodation filled with students that are coming from Ophelis Hall… There’s no way they will be satisfied. Though, I guess being in such a situation, there’s not really a choice but to endure it.”

“Elris seemed to be of the biggest concern, but now it seems like that has all been ‘concluded’…”

“……”

I threw some more pieces of firewood into the campfire.

“Elris didn’t disclose the fact that you were the black curtain behind this incident, right?”

“There’s no way she would have. That’s because I… ‘paid in advance.’

“Paid in advance?”

“Think about it, Ed. The head maid Elris will be trying to stay closest to the side that wins between Elte and me.”

Lortel took out a small piece of parchment. It was given to her by Bell Maya, who had visited after the incident was over.

The parchment was a list of orphanages that Elris had sponsored her entire life, the cost of maintaining them for a year, and the method that she could use to sponsor them.

“Since my victory was already certain to a degree, she tried to rejoin my side. It’s just that… It’s hard to regain trust, since it was already lost.”

Elris had already betrayed Lortel once before.

Now matter how necessary it might be, would Lortel be able to trust her again?

Even if trust was given back out of necessity, it was likely to be disregarded the moment the value of it disappears.

Nobody would trust a man who had already betrayed them before.

“Ms. Elris… you must already know that I wasn’t planning on trusting you. But as a means to instill confidence in me, you tried to prove yourself by keeping your mouth shut. Well, from my point of view, I don’t want the fact that I am the black curtain behind the entire occupation incident to be revealed. As such, I have no choice but to be on the same side as you.”

Elris was also a malicious person.

Even though her health was deteriorating, the school never listened and the hard work never ceased.

Eventually, she would not have been able to work and wouldn’t have been able to take responsibility for the orphanages she was in charge of… In the end, she bet her whole life on that plan.

The back door of Ophelis Hall on that rainy day.

I still remembered Shaney’s face, when she looked up at me with her bloodshot eyes.

At least those who followed Elris had some understanding of her situation and psychological state.

“Do you have any ill feelings towards Elris? After all, she betrayed you.”

“Of course I’m very angry. If I meet her again, I won’t hesitate to slap her.”

“Even considering that, you look quite relieved.”

“Well, right now I’m fine. I’m just rather short on time.”

Staring across the fire looking at me, she put her chin in her hands and smiled like a fox.

“In the first place, I’m not a nice enough person to walk around with my heart wide open. If necessary, I’ll even use someone who has stabbed me in the back before. After all, in my world there’s no such thing as an eternal enemy or ally.”

“Alright. Then let’s not have a relationship where we hold grudges or hate each other.”

“Of course.”

Lortel laughed as she stood up from her seat, shaking off the ends of her skirt.

Now that her safety was guaranteed to a certain extent, it was time to get to work.

Even if Elte’s demise was set in stone, there was no way that a girl as greedy as Lortel would give up on the Sage’s Seal. Since the scale of the incident had gone so far already, I was sure that she would get her hands on the seal.

It was time for her to go back to her world, which revolved around business and her life as a merchant.

Staying in camp and doing nothing all day except staring blankly at the campfire, or laying down on the ground counting the stars that she could see in the sky through the plentiful trees in the forest… Such a romantic, peaceful life was only a brief deviation for her.

“I’ll get going, too. You’re going to come by the company’s local branch later this week to sign the contract, right?”

“That’s right.”

I put down the bow I was holding, took out poker that was in the campfire, and then cast ‘Ignite’.

For the time being, it would be sustained to some extent by magic power and would take on the role of a torch. The forest got dark at night, and without being familiar with the geography such a light source was a necessity.

I went over to Lortel, who was getting ready to leave, and handed her the torch. Lortel looked down, deep in thought, as she let out a ‘Hmm…’

“… What are you thinking about?”

“No… It’s just that you’re taller than I thought.”

“What are you saying all of a sudden?”

“No matter how hard it may be, maybe I should do something a bit extreme to overtake that girl…”

Suddenly, she started to mumble something that was hard to understand. I stuck out my hand with the torch to try and send her on her way quickly.

But Lortel didn’t take the torch, and instead randomly began to talk about something else.

“Did you know? Relationships are all about push and pull.”

“What?”

“It’s just like your tie. See how it’s all crooked?”

Lortel approached me with a smile as she grabbed my tie.

“You have to pull the back part of the knot like this, and push the front part like that, to tie it nice and straight.”

“Either way, there isn’t anyone here looking, so why would I wear it so uncomfortably?”

“Well, there’s nothing wrong with always being well behaved? We are students from SIlvenia, after all.”

Before I could say anything back, Lortel grabbed my tie with one hand and pulled on it sharply.

To my surprise, my head was pulled forward. Lortel, thinking it was time, stood on her tippy toes—

……

“… The raspberries we had for dinner were so good, right? Thinking of it again, it was quite nice.”

“……”

“Oh my. I didn’t know you’d be so serious.”

“Watch the line.”

“You upset me…” 

Only then did Lortel take the torch and take a few staggering steps back.

Ignoring the fact that she said she was upset, she covered up her smile with her hand. If this girl had a tail, it would definitely be a fox’s.

“If you pull or push too much, you won’t be popular. Next time, I’m going to have you pull me, Ed.”

She turned her body away from me, but still looked back with a smile as she added on.

“I’ll have to practice pushing, as well.”

And so, Lortel disappeared into the dark forest. The light from the torch gradually moved further away, and even though it would shake once in a while or even fall to the ground, she still wouldn’t lose her way.

I stood in the place that I said goodbye to Lortel as I wiped my face.

I felt like I had been hit hard in the back of the head with a hammer. First, I needed to calm down and get a hold of myself.

I tried to avoid getting involved with the main storyline characters more than was necessary. However, as expected, things didn’t go the way I wanted them to.

Above anything else, Elte’s demotion had been brought forward way earlier due to the occupation of Ophelis Hall.

One of the main storylines—Act 2, Chapter 10’s “Battle for the Sage’s Seal”—was the story in which Elte was supposed to be demoted.

In other words, as the story progressed there would be a big hole in the storyline.

However, since it was either Elte or Lortel who would have ended up taking their leave, in the end there was no choice other than taking Lortel’s side. She had more of a role within the main storyline… In the first place, I didn’t have a choice to make at all.

Anyway, Elte’s demotion was something that was bound to happen. I needed to try and think of it as the story’s sequence being changed a bit, and that it wouldn’t have much of a major impact on the storyline… But even as I considered that, I started to feel my anxiety grow.

I’d already experienced it many times over. The fact was, even the smallest of influences could have big changes on the progression of the story. 

Theoretically, as long as I thought that everything was going smoothly, the major progression of the story should have been about the same. However… I couldn’t be sure of that anymore.

Looking up at the sky, the stars above were as beautiful as always, and the moon was bright.

The chirping sound of bugs lingered as the crackling of the campfire remained the same, but… I felt like the path the story was heading in would only continue to twist and change.

Watching the storyline progress smoothly from the sidelines, while only taking action when necessary, was my plan of action. That had never changed.

Nevertheless… I felt anxious, as if I was starting to get sucked into the center of the story against my will. As I considered that, I couldn’t help but scrub at my face.

I wasn’t someone with ambitions. I just wanted to receive my diploma and take care of my own specs.

That plan of action seemed all too simple… But it wasn’t all too far in the future that I would start to realize how foolish and difficult of a challenge that was.

Summer had passed and autumn had arrived.

It was the start of the second semester.