Chapter 122

After lunch, the students were sent out to their volunteer assignments.

The morning drizzle had turned into a heavy downpour, and the students wore raincoats.

The waxed canvas coats were not only heavy but also reeked of that distinctive waxy smell.

Sweet like honey, yet cloying like tree sap.

Thanks to the wax coating, the rainwater didn’t seep through their clothes.

But breathing became stifling instead.

“Ugh, I can’t breathe.”

Jacqueline grumbled, pulling at her collar.

“Shannon, can you do that thing? The magic umbrella, like Professor Winslet?”

“Mhmm.”

“Then do it for me too. Please? Please?”

Jacqueline clung to Shannon’s arm, giving it a playful shake.

But Shannon firmly shook her head.

“No. It’s a waste of mana.”

“Aww, that’s so mean.”

Jacqueline tried whining in a cutesy tone, but it didn’t work.

Shannon added an explanation.

“Professor Winslet made it look effortless, like he was just breathing, but that spell actually isn’t easy. He’s just that skilled with telekinetic magic. If your concentration slips even a little, you’ll end up dumping a bucket of water on your own head.”

“Guess I’ll just stick with the raincoat…”

Jacqueline slumped her shoulders in defeat.

Rita swung her raincoat-covered arms and said,

“Wearing the raincoat over the uniform is definitely cumbersome. It would’ve been nice if we could’ve worn just one or the other.”

At the Academy, students were required to wear their uniforms during official events or external activities.

Volunteer work was no exception.

The uniform served as a kind of identification, fostering both a sense of belonging and identity.

The issue was that it sacrificed mobility quite heavily. But in terms of appearance, it was undeniably elegant and formal.

Jacqueline lifted the hem of her skirt slightly and said,

“I wore it during the Class 1 completion ceremony too, and I really do like the design. Honestly, it might be the prettiest outfit I own… Should I just start wearing it all the time?”

“You can’t do that, Jacqueline.”

Rita said, adjusting her glasses.

“That would be against school rules.”

“Eh? Really? They gave us such cute uniforms and then made a rule saying we can’t wear them?”

“Apparently, it used to be mandatory to wear them everywhere. But…”

Rita lowered her voice as she continued.

“This happened before my brother enrolled, but I heard that one of the entertainment bars in the capital started using the Academy uniform as a selling point.”

“Oooh…”

Jacqueline’s expression went blank with surprise.

“Anyway, because of that, a law was passed banning anyone who’s not a current student from wearing the uniform.”

“Hmph, then shouldn’t real students like us be allowed to wear it freely?”

“You have to let me finish the story.”

Rita wagged her index finger side to side.

“Guess what happened just a week after that law was passed? That bar ended up hiring actual Academy students.”

“……”

“So now, a more complicated school regulation was added…even Academy students aren’t allowed to wear the uniform outside of designated events.”

Jacqueline looked down at her uniform again and pouted.

“Sometimes, I think it’s better not to know the truth.”

“Well, thanks to all that, we can wear regular clothes on a normal day, right? Apparently, back in the day, most students actually preferred casual clothes over uniforms.”

Just as they finished their round of chatting, a representative from the Fishermen’s Guild arrived.

He weaved through the crowd of about a hundred students gathered in the guild hall, selecting around twenty of them.

“What are your magical affinities?”

“Water and earth for me.”

“I can use earth and fire. And a little wind too…”

As each person answered, the guild member nodded and checked the names off his list.

When her turn came, Jacqueline answered in an uncertain voice.

“I only have fire affinity…”

“You too. This way.”

“I only know basic spells, though. Will that be enough?”

“It’s fine. As long as you can light a flame.”

Jacqueline exchanged glances with Rita.

Fortunately, they were placed on the same team and Shannon was with them too.

“If all we need to do is make fire… maybe it’s a barbecue party?”

Jacqueline whispered hopefully as they moved toward the volunteer site.

“As if. What kind of volunteer work would that be?”

A short while later, they arrived through the rain at a fish processing facility near the fishing boat dock.

It was a place where freshly caught fish were cleaned and salted for preservation.

Inside the wooden building, long worktables were lined up, and fish scraps that hadn’t been cleared away were strewn across their surfaces.

On the floor, fish scales and entrails were piled so thickly they were clogging the drains, which seemed to be the reason the tables hadn’t been cleaned.

From the blocked drains, a stench rose….part fishy, part rotten.

Jacqueline covered her mouth, feeling like her lunch was about to come back up, and Shannon wrinkled her nose and pinched it shut.

“Do they not clean this place?”

Rita muttered as she looked around.

“Now I think I know where the ingredients for that porridge we almost ate came from…”

“What kind of volunteer work are we supposed to do in a place like this?”

Before Jacqueline could finish speaking, a guild member shouted loudly.

“Alright, listen up! Fire users, burn the pile of fish scraps over there! Water users, wash the fishing nets! Wind users, handle ventilation! Earth users, dig pits outside to bury the waste!”

A murmur spread through the students. Their expressions made it clear they were questioning whether this could really be called volunteer work.

“So… they’re basically telling us to clean this place?”

“Hold on a second.”

Rita stepped forward and asked,

“Is this really volunteer work?”

The guild member grinned slyly.

“Helping the locals is volunteer work, isn’t it? We’re locals too.”

“Still, this is a bit much…”

“If you don’t like it, I can send you somewhere else.”

The guild member cut her off and jerked his chin toward the distance.

“They’re unloading cargo over at the shipyard right now. That job’s even tougher.”

“……”

“Busy, busy. If we don’t get this cleaned up now, the evening shift won’t be able to process the next batch. Fish spoil easily, so could you hurry it up?”

A murmur spread among the students.

“This really doesn’t feel right…”

“Didn’t they say we’d just be doing stuff like checking streetlights at most?”

“I don’t know. There’s no one to ask, either.”

“Where’s the professor?”

“The guild people keep glaring at us… Do we just have to go along with it?”

The students bit their lips in hesitation, torn.

Then, a cold wind suddenly blew through, sweeping away the foul stench in the workshop.

Everyone turned toward where the breeze had come from.

A man was walking in through the entrance, stepping through the sound of rain.

It was Professor Winslet.

“Everyone, stop what you’re doing.”

***

With Professor Winslet’s arrival, the workshop fell silent.

The faces of those holding their breath showed a mix of emotions.

The ones who were clearly relieved were the students while the guild members who had been assigning them tasks had gone pale.

They had spotted the harbor supervisor entering behind Professor Winslet, wearing a nervous expression.

Professor Winslet spoke.

“Supervisor Stanley.”

“Y-Yes?”

“Do you take me for a fool? Or was it my words you found foolish?”

“I’m not sure what you mean…”

“I clearly gave you a chance. When I saw that pathetic farce during lunch, I could’ve removed you and the guild masters you’re so friendly with on the spot. But I didn’t. I wanted you to correct your own mistake.”

As Professor Winslet’s voice, cold as ice, fell upon his ears, Harbor Supervisor Stanley recalled a story he’d once heard.

That a mage who had surpassed a certain realm could affect their surroundings not through spells, but merely by expressing emotion.

“And yet, you pull this nonsense right before my eyes again. You’ve completely lost your sense of fear.”

Fwoooosh.

Professor Winslet’s frigid fury settled over the fish processing facility like a season that had arrived at the wrong time.

The temperature plummeted in an instant, dropping below freezing.

In the kind of cold that felt like it could freeze the hairs inside his nose, Supervisor Stanley realized his shoulders were trembling.

It wasn’t from fear, but from the cold.

Yet that very cold soon brought fear with it, making the two indistinguishable.

Stanley’s teeth chattered as he offered an excuse.

“I-I’m not sure what you’re referring to, but I believe there’s been a misunderstanding.”

“A misunderstanding. I wonder what part of what I’ve seen around the harbor could possibly be misunderstood. What exactly are you having the students do under the guise of volunteer work?”

“It’s… just normal volunteer work.”

“You have them unloading cargo at the shipyard, hauling scrap in the dock warehouse, and now, from what I see, cleaning the fish processing facility.”

“I can explain.”

Stanley’s lips barely moved.

“So, at the shipyard, we had to urgently offload cargo before the damaged vessel sank, and…”

“Spare me the obvious lies. There wasn’t a single sinking ship near where the students were working.”

Gulp.

The supervisor swallowed dryly and continued making excuses.

“As for having them haul scrap… the warehouse district was recently hit by flooding, so it was part of the recovery effort—”

“The warehouse floors were dry. Not a trace of water damage.”

“And this fish processing facility…”

Stanley bit his lip and attempted one last excuse, but Professor Winslet cut him off.

Tap, tap.

Winter Winslet pointed at the work schedule posted on the wall.

“Today’s the scheduled cleaning day, right? So you needed more manpower than usual?”

Cold sweat formed on Stanley’s forehead.