Chapter 5

The meeting was finally nearing its end.

Dean Kimberly Kelly who was desperate to escape this trainwreck even a second sooner began reading off the final handout he had prepared.

“Well then, the last item on the agenda. There’s one budget request. But, Professor Corrigan?”

“Yes?”

“You mentioned earlier, didn’t you? That the carryover budget belongs to Professor Winslet… I mean—”

“It’s his emergency fund.”

“Right. You said it was already allocated for a specific purpose. But it seems someone submitted a request to use this carryover budget?”

“Oh.”

“Professor Corrigan, it’s you. Care to explain?”

Professor Corrigan’s face turned pale.

Wasn’t she the one who had just been passionately defending Professor Winslet against accusations of neglect of duty?

The dean had assumed Corrigan was part of Professor Winslet’s faction and had submitted the request with his approval.

But it seemed that wasn’t the case.

Corrigan’s voice trembled.

“I was in a rush and… did it secretly…”

“You submitted it secretly?”

“Y-Yes. I didn’t think I’d get caught…”

At the Royal Magic Department, the carryover budget was considered the property of Winter Winslet.

No one was to touch it.

That was the unspoken rule.

And Professor Corrigan knew that, too.

She just thought it wouldn’t matter if she didn’t get caught.

After all, Winter Winslet had never shown the slightest interest in how the academy operated, and he’d never attended a meeting before. On top of that, the dean’s position was currently vacant.

She had calculated that if she acted during this administrative break, she could sneak the budget request through without Professor Winslet ever knowing.

But of all days—

Why today, of all days, did he have to show up?

No way… did he come because he knew?

If that was the case, then she had been doomed to die from the moment the meeting began.

The reason Corrigan had been so quick to defend Professor Winslet’s privileges before the dean was because she’d already committed a wrongdoing.

Hoping for some leniency, she looked toward Professor Winslet’s face…

“Hic!”

And ended up hiccupping again.

Professor Winslet spoke.

“Professor Corrigan.”

“…Yes?”

“How much do you need?”

“Huh?”

“I asked how much budget you applied for.”

She had no idea why he was asking that.

Was he testing her?

Laying a trap?

Corrigan cursed him in her head.

As if you’re actually going to approve it…

But with nothing left to lose, Professor Corrigan decided to take a shot.

“I swear I didn’t ask for that amount out of greed or anything, okay? It’s just that transformation magic is an extremely resource-heavy field, and I have to import every reagent from Karaf, and rare beast fur costs a fortune, and lately the Academic Affairs Office has even been pressuring us to expand the department’s student quota…”

“Your answer?”

“About 1,500 blanc gold coins…”

Corrigan squeezed her eyes shut.

She was bracing for a scolding, certain it would come.

But the meeting room remained dead silent, and Corrigan slowly peeked open one eye.

Professor Winslet was still expressionless.

Then, from his lips came something she could hardly believe.

“Take it.”

“…Huh?”

“I said take as much budget as you need.”

“Wha—wait, really?”

The one most surprised was Professor Corrigan.

“Y-You’re not going to change your mind later or secretly retaliate behind my back or anything, right?”

“You’ve got some nerve, asking something like that to my face.”

“Ah.”

As Corrigan clamped a hand over her mouth, Professor Winter Winslet turned his head as if he had no more business here.

“Dean Kelly.”

“Y-Yes, go ahead.”

“Allocate the carryover budget to that student dinner event that was on the agenda earlier.”

“Are you sure that’s all right?”

“Don’t make me say it twice.”

With that, Professor Winslet rose from his seat and walked out of the meeting room.

The people left behind stared at one another in stunned silence.

They were all thinking the same thing.

Did he eat something weird or what?

***

The moment I stepped out of the meeting room, I made a break for it.

And I don’t mean that figuratively. I was literally running away.

Because among the thirteen attendees of the faculty meeting, there was one person I absolutely had to avoid in the Academy.

Winter Winslet was a notorious tyrant at the Academy.

But he wasn’t the only king in town. There was someone even he had to tread carefully around.

And that someone was…

Crash!

The wall in front of me shattered, revealing her.

“Oh, missed a little. I was aiming for your skull, not the wall.”

“…Monastrell.”

A towering woman, tall enough to meet me eye to eye.

A beauty with wild black hair reminiscent of a hippie and a lean, muscular frame like a predator’s.

Monastrell grinned at me.

“What, not surprised? Looks like you knew I’d follow you.”

“You were radiating killing intent through the whole meeting. How could I not notice?”

“That’s right. That meeting! What the hell was with that disgusting act? You, pretending to be nice? It was so pathetic, I almost threw up. Ugh.”

She stuck out her tongue and mimicked gagging.

Her yellow, crocodile-like eyes gleamed.

“You looking for a fight?”

“When the almighty Winter Winslet suddenly starts acting like he’s turned over a new leaf. You’re not actually Winter Winslet, are you?”

She was clearly joking.

But something about it hit too close to home, and I found myself making excuses.

“Everyone has moments where they act out of character.”

“You know what they say, right? When someone starts doing things they’ve never done before, it means their time’s up.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“Why are you acting so out of character? You’re making me want to kill you.”

[Notification]

[Death flag for this character has been raised.]

When an ordinary person said they wanted to kill someone, it was usually an exaggerated way of saying they were extremely angry.

But this woman…. she meant it.

The unofficial nickname given to her by Candela of Judgment Players. The Crazy Bitch of the Academy.

I’d gotten caught by the wrong lunatic.

Crack.

A horrible noise rang out. I looked over to see Monastrell tearing off a chunk of the broken wall with her bare hands.

Grinning broadly, she hurled a piece of the wall straight at me.

[Warning]

[A death flag has been raised.]

Anyone would have probably guessed the moment she burst through the wall with her bare body. This lunatic was no ordinary human.

In fact, she wasn’t even human.

She was a dragon polymorphed into a human.

The dragon who had infiltrated the Academy under the guise of a professor was none other than Monastrell’s true identity. She would beat students at every opportunity and was known for her peculiar hatred of Winter Winslet.

That was why I had tried my best to avoid crossing paths with her.

“If you hadn’t dodged that last attack, I might’ve let you off. But dodging it means you’re picking a fight, right?”

I had no idea how her thoughts followed that kind of logic, but just like that, I ended up in a fight with a dragon on my very first day.

Still, there was no need for me to flinch.

Because I was Winter Winslet. So what?

“I don’t know who let a wild beast like you roam the campus without a leash, but a beast that bites people needs to be trained. Bring it on.”

Monastrell’s smile deepened.

“Yeah. That’s the Winter Winslet I know.”

[Casting Frost Carpet Spell.]

[Casting Wind that Tears the Sails Spell.]

First, I widened the distance between Monastrell and me.

I laid ice on the ground to make it slippery, then used wind to push her back.

Dragons were considered the ancestors of mages.

However, recalling my experience from Candela of Judgment, Monastrell didn’t use magic.

Probably because if she carelessly revealed her strength, it would disrupt her ha-ha, ho-ho fun and games.

Instead, Monastrell preferred close combat. She enjoyed taking hits head-on with her race’s absurd durability and strength, only to counterattack right after.

Even in her magic defense classes, she would charge in with a chilling smile after taking all kinds of spells. Everyone in the Academy knew Monastrell was a crazy bitch.

And now, I had to deal with her.

[Casting Earth Wall Spell.]

When I saw Monastrell leap forward, I raised a stone wall between us.

Upon seeing it, Monastrell let out a snort as if she found it pathetic.

“You’re trying to stop me with this flimsy little thing?”

When Monastrell threw her fist forward, the solid stone wall was pitifully pierced straight through.

That was when Monastrell sensed something was off and frowned.

“What the hell? Why is it so thin?”

I had made it that way on purpose.

So it would break easily.

[Casting Low-Rank Air Explosion Spell.]

Using telekinetic magic, I compressed the air and then released it all at once.

Boom!

With a cannon-like blast, a heavy shockwave slammed into the stone wall.

The wall shattered instantly, turning into jagged, razor-sharp fragments that tore toward Monastrell like blades.

A simple combo of two spells.

It was a standard combo frequently used in Candela of Judgment.

Caught off guard and taking the hit head-on, Monastrell…

“Ha, you’ve got a pretty fun way of fighting, huh?”

—as expected, she was perfectly fine.

At most, she had a few scratches on the arms she had crossed in front of her face to block the debris.

Even those were already healing, and she still looked relaxed.

However, judging by the twitching veins at the corner of her eyes, it was clear I had really gotten on her nerves.

Monastrell roughly swept her bangs back and taunted me.

“Go on, try that again.”

***

She asked for more, so I gave her more.

For over ten minutes, what unfolded between Monastrell and me wasn’t even a real exchange. It was one-sided offense and one-sided defense.

The colorful barrage of spells, demonstrating my skill as a seasoned veteran of Candela of Judgment, prevented Monastrell from predicting my next move. And thanks to Winter Winslet’s S-Rank Mana talent, I could unleash hundreds of attack spells without tiring.

No matter how many times she tried, Monastrell couldn’t find a single opening to get close to me, and she gradually began to lose her patience.

“You’ve got to be kidding me… Ugh!”

[Casting Suffocating Arrow Spell.]

“Wait. Wait, time out. I said time out!”

[Casting Icicle Barrage Spell.]

“You just wait right there. If I get my hands on you… Damn it!”

[Casting Elrnbach’s Stretching Ground Spell.]

Monastrell growled, shrieked, and even jumped up and down on the spot in frustration. But all she really managed to do was prove how much energy she had. She was no threat to me at all.

Dragon or not, if she’s going to stay in human form and not even use magic, she’s just a tough punching bag at best.

“You only ever knew how to use ice magic; when did you learn all these unheard-of spells?!”

[Casting Tauber’s Heavier Gaze Spell.]

They say a mad dog needs a firm beating.

Unable to withstand the weight of the pressure spell, Monastrell eventually collapsed on all fours.

It wasn’t like I had any kind of sadistic streak, but seeing Monastrell groan in pain filled me with a sense of satisfaction.

But at that moment, Monastrell’s chance came.

It wasn’t that I let my guard down.

An unexpected variable had appeared.

Drawn by the commotion, a crowd of spectators had gathered, and one man stepped in between Monastrell and me.

Surprisingly, he didn’t show any real skill to stop the fight, nor did he try to reason with us.

He simply shouted:

“My poor classroom!”

It seemed he was the owner of the lecture hall we had just destroyed in our fight.

Due to the unexpected intruder, I withdrew the spell I had been preparing for my next attack, and Monastrell seized the opportunity to charge at me.

She used the stunned professor as a shield to close the distance between us.

[Casting Frost Carpet Spell.]

[Casting Wind That Tears the Sails Spell.]

I hastily cast the two spells, trying once again to push her back, but Monastrell resisted the wind by digging her fingers straight into the floor.

Splat-splat-splat!

The tiled floor rippled like puddles splashed by wheels on a rainy day.

Then, exactly one breath later, Monastrell appeared right in front of me.

In an instant, she grabbed me by the collar.

“Any last words?”

Survival instincts surged up fast.

I remembered that dragons were weak to flattery, so I decided to compliment Monastrell’s appearance.

“Your insides may be trash, but your outer shell is a masterpiece. Ever thought about coming home with me? You’d make a perfect trophy if I stuffed and mounted you.”

It was around this moment that I realized a serious problem.

Although I had possessed Winter Winslet’s body, I couldn’t quite control the way he spoke.

This was a serious issue.

Especially when it came to survival.

[Warning]

[A death flag point has been raised.]

“You son of a bitch. You got a death wish.”

Monastrell’s face twisted in rage.