A quiet stillness blanketed the clearing deep within the forest. I stumbled backward, eyes wide with disbelief, and blurted out, “What the hell are you even talking about?”
Professor Baldwin flashed a teasing smile. “Why? You don’t like the idea?”
“It’s not a matter of like or dislike, Professor! That’s completely out of line!”
She chuckled at my flustered reaction, clearly amused. “Relax, it was just a joke. No need to get so worked up.
I stared at her, dumbfounded. There wasn’t a hint of humor in her expression; it looked serious enough to make anyone second-guess whether she was joking at all.
What era are we living in that a professor thinks it’s okay to joke like that with a cadet? I frowned.
In response to my stare, she gave a soft smile and placed a hand lightly over her chest. “Well, joke or not, I’m indeed interested in you, Dale. Both as a hero... and as a man.”
“Sorry, what now?”
That came out of nowhere. What the heck?
She replied calmly, “There’s no rule saying a professor can’t be interested in a cadet, is there?”
“Well, I mean, technically no, but...”
“Before being a professor, I’m still a woman. It’s only natural to be drawn to a male I like.”
Elisha Baldwin is interested in me? What kind of situation is this? I wondered.
“Uh, so, what you’re saying is...” I couldn’t think of what to say, my mind having gone completely blank at her blunt confession. After another second, I asked, “Isn’t this only the second time we’ve spoken?”
Neither of those times had involved particularly friendly conversations.
“Hm? Does the number of meetings matter when a woman is drawn to a man?” she asked out of pure curiosity.
“Well, I don’t think I’ve done anything in those meetings to make myself that appealing to you, Professor.”
Let’s just ignore the whole “male or female” terminology for now, I told myself.
“What are you talking about? You showed me plenty, and on the first day we met, in fact,” she replied.
“You mean that sparring match with Assistant Instructor Vincent?”
Sure, a cadet dominating an instructor in a duel was not an everyday occurrence. But in my honest assessment, that didn’t seem enough to capture the attention of the Cursed-Eye Spider, ranked ninth among thousands upon thousands of heroes. After all, Yuren could’ve also taken Vincent down easily. If Yuren was too outstanding to compare, then even Camilla could probably have held her own against Vincent.
I didn’t think Vincent was actually all that impressive. The only reason he looked so powerful during that first duel was the low skill level of his opponents. Cadets barely scraping by on average grades wouldn’t stand a chance against a swordsman specializing in quick draw like him.
Professor Baldwin admitted with a nod. “Well, yes, there was that. But that’s not all.”
“There’s something else?”
Don’t tell me... Is it the Primordial Flame? Did she find out? I wondered.
She seemed to have read the suspicion in my expression, as she flashed an even deeper smile. “Hoho. You’ve got the wrong idea. What intrigued me most about you, Dale, was your appearance.”
That was not what I expected. “Come again?”
She reached out and gently brushed her fingers across my cheek, nodding. “Yes, you’ve got such a gloomy, sullen face. I find it quite charming.”
It was such an odd sentence that I wasn’t sure whether it was a compliment or an insult.
Suddenly, looking away quickly with a cough, she said, “Mm, don’t stare at me like that.”
The tips of her ears turned red, and she asked, “Aren’t you even a little embarrassed?”
I let out a heavy sigh and shook my head. “Not really.”
You just called me dreary and depressing-looking. Blushing afterward doesn’t make it better, you know? I seriously can’t tell what’s sincere and what’s not with her, I thought.
“Don’t worry about it. It’s just curiosity, for now.” With a faint smile, she reached into her coat and pulled out a cigarette, placing it between her lips. Then, she tilted her chin toward me and gestured with it. “Fire.”
“I don’t carry a lighter, sorry!”
“Didn’t you just use flame magic earlier while fighting those monsters?”
“That was...”
Using the Primordial Flame to light a cigarette didn’t seem appropriate to me.
“Hmph! Guess I have no choice then.” She pulled a lighter from her pocket and handed it to me. “Fire.”
“You could light it yourself, couldn’t you?”
She teasingly replied, “Cigarette lit by the man you’ve got your eye on has a special flavor, don’t you think?”
Who is this crazy woman? I asked myself.
Sighing, I took the lighter and lit her cigarette. She took a deep drag, smoke curling around her as she exhaled with a pleased expression. “Fuuu! That’s nice.”
Recalling how all this started, I said, “So, about that investigation you mentioned earlier, what exactly are you planning? Should I give you a blood sample or something?”
“No need. I doubt we’d find anything useful anyway.”
Then what was the point of bringing it up? I wondered.
She then added, “Hehe. Wasn’t it a perfect excuse to try to kiss the man I’m interested in? Perks of being a special professor.”
“That’s a very professor-like way of thinking,” I replied.
With a serious expression that made it hard to tell whether she was joking or not, Professor Baldwin exhaled a long plume of smoke. “Hearing that praise makes me a little embarrassed.”
“Anyway, what were those demonic monsters?”
“We’re still in the process of confirming that ourselves.” She flicked the spent cigarette and approached the crocodile-like monster’s corpse. “With how large the exam field is, it’s not unusual for outside monsters to occasionally slip through. But for an eight-eyed demonic monster to show up? You’d have to go back five hundred years to find a case like this.”
With a hint of suspicion, I said, “Which means...”
“It’s more reasonable to assume someone sent it here intentionally.” Professor Baldwin’s eyes sank into a grim calm as she examined the monster’s corpse.
“Do you have any suspects?” I asked.
“Well, nothing more than speculation for now,” she replied.
She then reached down and touched the blood oozing from the corpse, bringing it to her lips. A vertical glint of gold split her violet eyes as her pupils shifted—the phenomenon that happened when she used the Blessing of Insight—and the uncanny gleam of her gifted sight flared with intensity.
“Just as I thought. This wasn’t an ordinary demonic monster; it was someone’s tamed summon,” she said.
“Like the unicorn?”
Professor Baldwin nodded slightly. “Exactly. Not many can control a monster of this caliber as a summon.”
Coincidentally, or maybe not, a single name immediately came to my mind.
Professor Baldwin’s fingers grazed the scar running across her left eye as she said the same name in a heavy voice. “The Archpriest of Beasts, Jackal.”
Jackal was one of the six Archbishops who stood at the pinnacle of the demons, a terrifying enemy who commanded tens of thousands of demonic monsters. In my past life, humans had to fight a whole war just to bring that bastard down. Nearly half of the 1,000-strong tri-nation allied army had fallen before Jackal and his monstrous horde were finally slain. And the hero who had killed Jackal back then was Elisha Baldwin.
Was it fate? Coincidence? I glanced at Professor Baldwin and clicked my tongue under my breath. In my past life, she had joined that war against Jackal, severed his life with her hands, and died on the battlefield shortly after.
However, I hadn’t witnessed it myself. The alliance between the three nations and the war against Jackal had erupted ten years after I graduated, about twelve years from now.
From what I recalled, that was right around the time I quit being a mercenary and formed a party with Yuren and the others. Back then, we were just getting started. Our party never joined the war directly.
As I was tracing those memories from my past life, Professor Baldwin called out to me, “Dale? Do you know something about Jackal?”
“Eh
“Hmm. I see.” Professor Baldwin crossed her arms and looked down at the monster’s corpse, eyes dark with contemplation. A dangerous gleam shone in her eyes as she said, “Jackal!”
After a moment of silence, she turned to me. “Dale. I have a favor to ask.”
“What is it?”
“I’d like you to keep this incident quiet. At least until the investigation is over.”
“Keep it quiet? To what extent are we talking about?”
“Quiet from everyone. I’d prefer even your assigned professor doesn’t hear of it.”
Startled by the request to keep it from even Professor Kane, I looked at her in disbelief. “Are you planning to bury the incident completely?”
Professor Baldwin gave a firm nod. “If this spreads around the academy, the perpetrator will just disappear again, just like during the last Sealing Festival.”
Of course, the real mastermind behind the Sealing Festival incident hadn’t escaped. I had killed him myself. But I couldn’t exactly tell Professor Baldwin that now.
So, I just replied, “Understood. Let’s keep this between just the two of us.”
“Oh? You make it sound so thrilling, just the two of us and a secret.”
“No.”
“Haha, just teasing.”
“You really enjoy your jokes, don’t you?” I said.
“I can’t help it. I’m naturally witty and humorous, you know.”
“Hah. That’s some next-level nonsense, even for you.” I really couldn’t win with her.
“Well then, I’ll be taking this crocodile monster’s corpse with me,” she said.
“Sure.”
“By the way, are you feeling alright? You don’t look too good.”
I was indeed barely staying upright, about to collapse at any moment. “To be honest, not great.”
“Looks like I held you up for too long. I’ll clear out the rest of the monsters in this area. You get some rest.”
I could probably survive being attacked in my sleep, but Yuren was still unconscious from mana exhaustion. It could be fatal for him. So, I replied, “That would be appreciated.”
With a snap of her fingers, dozens of silver threads spiraled out and wrapped around the monster’s corpse. The next instant, she disappeared with the body in tow.
Letting out a heavy sigh of exhaustion, I slumped against the rock where Yuren lay unconscious. I felt like I had forgotten something, but I really couldn’t hold on anymore. I let sleep wash over me and slowly closed my eyes.
***
Professor Kane stood at the front, holding a stack of score sheets. “I’ll now announce the exam results. Yuren takes first place, regardless of score, since he completed the bonus objective. Next, Morris is second with 182 points. Camilla is third with 98... Juliet is 57th with 47 points... Albert is 136th with 24 points... And lastly—”
Professor Kane’s eyes landed on me. “Dale, with 0 points, is in 253rd place.”
Only one thought came to my mind: What the fuck? I’m dead last. Again?