Chapter 19

And so, the dean’s scheme to seize control of the Magic Department through underhanded tricks and black magic ended in failure.

I made it clear he was to retrieve or destroy every last jewel spider he had distributed to the other professors, so there would be no further victims.

It might have been humiliating for the dean to have his “gift” taken back so suddenly, but who cared about that?

What really mattered was the punishment I would decide to hand down.

For now, I was the only one who knew the full extent of the dean’s crimes.

Depending on whether I chose to report it to the academy, turn him over to the authorities, or simply bury it, the dean’s future would take a vastly different turn.

After all, dabbling in black magic was a criminal offense.

That was why Dean Kingfisher had no choice but to bow to me.

“Jonathan Kingfisher.”

“Y-Yes!”

“You should be grateful for your own incompetence and cowardice.”

“…Huh?”

Whether he truly hadn’t meant to kill anyone or had simply lacked the ability to do so—

The fact was, from the very beginning until now, the dean had never triggered a death flag for me.

Since I hadn’t actually suffered any damage and had even gained the upper hand by exposing his weakness, he would now have no choice but to obey me from here on out.

While Winter Winslet might be the true power behind the Magic Department, his official title was still just a professor.

To exert influence through proper channels, I needed a liaison of sorts.

And that’s where Dean Kingfisher came in.

It was this reasoning that led me to consider a more lenient punishment.

Not that I intended to let him off the hook completely.

An eye for an eye.

To the dean who had tried to create weaknesses in others and use them as puppets, I would return the favor in kind.

Rustle, rustle.

The spider still squirmed between my fingers.

I tightened my grip.

Crunch.

With a sickening squelch, the hideous thing was crushed to a pulp.

I brought my now dirty hand straight to the crown of the dean’s head.

On the half-bald scalp, I placed the crushed spider’s corpse and activated black magic.

Not the cheap kind learned who-knows-where like the dean used, but a proper “B-rank” spell. This was professional-grade black magic.

[Casting Black Magic: ‘Creation of the Cursed Being’.]

Unlike regular magic, black magic draws not on mana but on life force as its source of power.

The best way to obtain life energy? A living sacrifice.

And so, the spider I had just crushed in my palm made for the perfect material to cast this spell.

[You have created the monster: ‘Flesh Eater’.]

A flat arthropod, resembling something between a woodlouse and a trilobite, began to wriggle atop the dean’s head.

It was large enough to fully cover his crown.

The Flesh Eater was a parasitic magical creature that fed on its host’s skin and made its home there.

Since it lacked a will of its own, it acted solely on the caster’s command. In the past, such creatures were commonly used to prevent escapes or betrayal among prisoners of war.

As the monster twitched its antennae atop the dean’s scalp, it began to fulfill its purpose…

That is, it started devouring the skin of his head.

“Aaaaaaagh!”

Dean Kingfisher screamed in pain as his flesh was ripped away.

But no matter how hard he tried to tear it off, the Flesh Eater would not come loose.

“Hrrgh… nghk…”

By the time the carpet beneath him had turned red with his blood, even his cries had weakened.

When it was finally over and the pain allowed him to regain his senses, Dean Kingfisher was a mess—

His face was soaked in tears and snot.

He felt around his head with trembling hands….and then, overcome with shock, his chin began to quiver.

“This can’t be happening. There’s something… something on my head that shouldn’t be!”

“This is the price for the sins you’ve committed. Every time you feel that foreign sensation, let it remind you of what happened to—”

“My hair! My hair is growing back!”

…What?

“Ahaha! Puhahaha!”

Suddenly, the dean burst into boisterous laughter. No matter how it looked, he didn’t seem like a man who had gone mad from a horrific ordeal.

On the contrary, he wrapped me in a tight embrace and exclaimed in a voice filled with emotion:

“Thank you!”

“……?”

“My savior!”

The skin-eating parasite that had settled on the dean’s head, like the Jewel Spider, was a mimic-type monster.

After devouring human skin, it would camouflage itself like a chameleon to match the surrounding area.

In this case, it had mimicked a thick patch of hair.

Given that the top of the dean’s head had been bald, it wasn’t surprising he misunderstood and thought his hair had miraculously grown back.

But even so…

“Are you sure you understand your situation? If you defy or betray me, that creature might burrow into your brain and destroy it.”

The dean answered immediately.

“Never! I’ll never defy or betray you. Just please…don’t take it away from me. Please?”

A sudden pain flared at my temples.

In the end, I had achieved my original goal of taming the dean to make him easier to use.

But… is this really how it was supposed to go?

***

Casey, a staff member of the Student Affairs at Academy Headquarters, never had a quiet day during the semester.

Naturally, today was no exception. Her desk was buried in a mountain of paperwork. So when someone came by, she didn’t even look up as she asked, just like always:

“Yes, what brings you here?”

“I’m here to borrow a venue. I was told to come here for that.”

“So you’re here to apply for a venue rental. It’s not the official application period right now, but… which place are you looking to rent?”

“Anywhere’s fine, as long as it’s spacious enough.”

Casey suppressed a sigh.

There’s always someone like this.

Someone who thinks renting a space owned by the Academy is as simple as borrowing a pencil or an eraser.

Even if the renter just tosses over a single sheet of paperwork, there’s still so much we have to check on our end.

Still, politeness was second nature to her, so Casey asked calmly.

“What’s the intended use?”

“It’s for a duel.”

“A duel, oh dear!”

Casey shut her eyes tight for a moment, as if dizzy, then finally looked up to see the bold visitor.

It was a young girl with long, flowing blonde hair. She was pretty and looked like a doll.

“Just to confirm, you’re a student here, right?”

“Yes.”

“Could I see your student ID?”

“Here you go.”

Casey pushed up her glasses and examined the ID.

Name: Shannon Quinlivan.

The surname wasn’t familiar, and she was listed as an international student.

“And… you’re a freshman?”

She’s the textbook example of the type.

All Academy students were young.

But being young came with certain mistakes.

Like misunderstanding dueling as an honorable way to resolve conflicts….or worse, as something stylish.

It was hard to believe people actually thought that way, but when you work in Student Affairs, you see it more often than you’d like.

And of course, not once had it ever ended well.

In the first place, it was always best not to let things escalate to the point where violence had to be the solution.

But what can I do?

When situations like this came up, it was part of a Student Affairs staff member’s job to calm the agitated student and send them on their way.

“Is there a problem?”

Shannon asked nervously after a long silence.

Casey gave her a professional smile.

“No, nothing at all. So… who are you planning to duel? A fellow freshman? Or an upperclassman?”

“A professor.”

“Huh?”

Casey’s smile faltered for a moment.

“Um… did I hear that right? A student… planning to duel a professor?”

“You heard right. I’m going to duel Professor Winter Winslet of the Magic Department. I’ve already gotten his consent.”

Casey grew momentarily stunned but managed to come up with a response after a pause.

Ah, she’s lying.

It wasn’t unheard of.

Some people just wanted to reserve a space without revealing the real reason or who would be using it, so they made something up.

But even lies had their limits.

A duel with Professor Winslet?

“That’s a very entertaining joke, but if you put false information on the application form, it causes problems for both sides. You won’t get off with just a point or two off your record. Are you sure about this?”

“I’m not lying.”

“Then can you prove it? If it’s a duel, there should be a witness’s statement or confirmation from an observer, right?”

“Well… not yet…”

Seeing Shannon hesitate, Casey felt sure her guess had been right.

“You’ll need all of that anyway when you submit the facility request form. So how about coming back once you’ve got everything? Rules are rules.”

“…Alright, I’ll come back later.”

The doll-like girl turned around with a disappointed look on her face.

Watching her retreating figure as she left the Student Affairs office, Casey gave a wry smile.

“Good grief, of all people, she had to use Professor Winslet’s name? Is it because she’s a freshman and doesn’t know any better?”

Well, it was the kind of mistake only a freshman could make.

If you attended this academy, it was nearly impossible not to know who Winter Winslet was.

The freshman, who had come to tell a lie only to make such a basic mistake, struck Casey as a little cute.

Regardless, it was time to get back to work.

Turning her head back to the desk, Casey stretched as she looked at the mountain of paperwork piled in front of her.

“Ugh… when am I ever getting off work today…?”

***

By the time Shannon stepped out of the academy’s main office, the sun was already setting.

She felt a wave of nervousness.

Preparing for a duel was proving to be anything but smooth.

There were three things required to make a duel official.

People, paperwork, and a place.

“People” meant an observer to act as a referee for the duel; “paperwork” referred to a witness statement that would prove how her honor had been damaged; and “place” simply meant the location where the duel would take place.

This was already the simplified version of the process. Normally, it was said to be even more complicated.

Still, she had made a bold declaration right in front of Professor Winslet just yesterday, and that kept her burning with determination…

How could I have made zero progress so far?

Just trying to get the witness statement had been an uphill battle.

Shannon had been insulted by Professor Winslet immediately after the skill evaluation ended.

In other words, the only people who could testify on her behalf were those who had passed Professor Winslet’s test.

But how many people had actually managed to pass that exam, which had been tough even for Shannon herself?

If she had even recognized their face, she would’ve gone looking…. but at the time, Shannon had been so furious that she stormed out of the auditorium without a second thought.

That was something she now regretted.

She even tried going to the academic office to look up Professor Winslet’s class list, but the staff member there shook his head with an awkward expression.

“I’m sorry, but we don’t handle anything related to Professor Winslet’s classes. He manages everything himself, so perhaps you could ask him directly?”

They clearly had no idea about her situation.

The next problem was finding a witness.

A neutral witness had to be someone both public and impartial.

But as a foreign exchange student, there was no way Shannon had any connections like that.

At best, she had some basic familiarity with a few professors at the Magic Department, thanks to the foundation courses she’d taken. So she tried going to them, and they said…

“A duel? With Professor Winslet? Um… I’m not sure that’s a very good idea.”

“In my opinion, it would be better for you to apologize and move on. It’s in your best interest.”

“Shannon, I think you just don’t know enough about this academy yet.”

Nothing but frustrating nonsense.

Was this academy really full of cowards?

What is it with that damn Professor Winslet, anyway?

And so, without a witness or an observer, she had gone to the main office thinking she might at least reserve the location… but the result went without saying.

Saying you wanted to duel Professor Winslet seemed to be treated like a joke at the academy.

This isn’t what I came to Laurencia for. What am I even doing?

She was sinking into that sense of defeat, staring blankly at the sunset, when—

Tap, tap, tap, tap.

A steady rhythm of footsteps echoed from the distance.

Someone was out for an evening run, it seemed.

When Shannon recognized the face approaching from across the road, she simply waited for them to pass.

But—

“Oh? You’re—!”

The footsteps stopped and spun lightly toward her.

It was a girl with orange hair.

Her sweat-dampened hair sparkled in the sunset.

That bright, cheerful face was…

“Shannon, right? Looks like we meet again!”

“…Who are you?”

The girl’s jaw dropped in shock.

“What! It’s me, Jacqueline! Don’t tell me you already forgot!”

Shannon let out a sigh.