Chapter 22
Chapter 22: Exciting Academy Cultural Exchange—Stealing Another Academy's Student Council President! A Grand Uproar!
He hadn't known such an interesting and novel rule existed.
Then again, within the game, the academy was a system where inserting companions made them return stronger, and requesting party member recruitment gave a decent chance of pulling in someone worthwhile—that was about it.
In other words, it was content purely for acquiring party members and enhancement. He had no idea about the internal workings whatsoever. Couldn't be helped.
"Professor Daisy. So first we'd need to send a formal duel invitation to Rudra Academy, correct?"
"Yes. It's possible the moment the principal grants permission."
Hmm.
Given that he now knew the reason this academy had been established, a small question mark remained—would the principal even give permission?
"Will we be able to get that permission?"
"It won't be easy. No—I'll find a way somehow."
"You're quite motivated."
"It's all for the students, isn't it? Even if I rot away in this academy…. the students should get to see the light. That's what adults are supposed to do."
"Understood. I'll be counting on you."
Daisy's resolve.
She had said she was a professor who had been dragged here against her will, that she had no face to show the children—but by anyone's standards, she was a remarkable teacher.
If so, then he had to do his part as well.
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Daisy had completely revised her perception of Yujin.
He was someone even more deserving of the name teacher than herself.
She too had cleared the dungeon during her student years, and she had put an end to her life as a dungeon adventurer by breaking through Floor 21—the highest record within the academy.
That was precisely why she understood better than anyone just how fast Yuna and Silen's pace was.
Flowers did bloom even in a rubbish heap called Demeter Academy. Yet she couldn't help but feel a bitterness in knowing that those flowers had not been tended to by herself—the caretaker of that rubbish heap.
Even now, in order not to be ashamed of herself, she had requested a meeting with the principal.
"Professor Daisy. A meeting—what is this about?"
"I'd like to formally request a friendly exchange with Rudra Academy."
"Is that really necessary? It'll only be a bother."
That word—bother—carried several implications.
Bother meant not so much that the principal himself would be inconvenienced, but rather a bother in terms of what might unfold from here on. This academy wasn't a proper institution—it was a paper academy created to skim some tax money—so what meaning could there possibly be in doing something like that? Or perhaps, what if they got found out?
"Yes. It must be done. Our Demeter Academy's performance report has far too little to write in it."
"Can't you just fill it in roughly? It's not like anyone up top will bother checking it."
A Daisy Swordcraft worn down by office politics would have let it go.
But now, she had decided to change herself.
Rather than remain a professor who did nothing for her students, she had resolved to become a professor who could do at least one more thing for them.
She was a professor.
She simply could not have a teaching philosophy inferior to that of a snack bar owner who had only been open two months.
"I've heard there are talks of a change in the assigned audit officer."
"Is that true?"
"Yes. Surely you know how strictly new officers crack down at first. We need to make the records genuinely real, by any means necessary."
"Hmm…. Very well. Then I'll grant permission."
Even if it meant faking things or talking her way through—she would get it done.
That was Daisy Swordcraft's resolve.
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Professor Daisy had genuinely pulled it off.
"Then I'll go ahead and submit the application. Or would you like to go in person, Proprietor?"
"No. I'm planning to prepare an intensive training camp for Yuna and Silen."
"Yes. Understood."
"Ah. Come to think of it, Professor Daisy. When you visit Rudra Academy, there's something I'd like to ask of you."
"Yes? Ah…. Of course, go ahead."
He conveyed his request to Daisy, and she tilted her head for a moment before nodding.
"That's not difficult at all. Understood."
"Right then. I'll be heading into the dungeon with the girls."
And so he gathered Yuna and Silen and entered Demeter Dungeon.
Beyond the Snowfield Zone on Floor 5, past the staircase leading to Floor 6—what spread out before them was a vast open plain.
"Ha ha! A plain like this is no match for me!"
"Let's go. Yuna. Let's show them what we're made of!"
"Yeah! Let's go! Silen!"
And so the two of them set off—only to return a mess, precisely five minutes later.
"……."
"Master…."
"Mister…."
A sigh escaped him involuntarily, but this couldn't be blamed on the two of them.
The monsters appearing on Floor 6 were called Wind Fangs—wolves small in body, but blessed by the wind, capable of changing direction twice mid-air in defiance of muscle movement logic. On top of that, with the blessing of the wind,【Battle Howling】 didn't work on them either.
In other words—they were the first assassin-type monsters the two had ever encountered, and since they could bypass Yuna the Tank to snipe Silen directly, the burden on Silen was overwhelmingly greater.
The fact that Yuna's current position was shield warrior also meant her vulnerability to attacks striking from the flank was another issue.
It was a complete counter in terms of elemental matchup.
"Can't be helped. It looks like we'll need someone in the rear who can apply wide-area status effects—something like【Action Speed Reduction】or 【Path Interference】."
"Master. Why would someone with abilities like that want to party with us…?"
"Mister. Let's look at reality…."
The words were a rebuke of him, yet the complexions of the two who had spoken looked even worse.
If Demeter was a trashy backwater school, then they—its students—were third-rate country bumpkins.
"No. Professor Daisy says there's a way."
"What way?! Could it be that Professor Daisy is from some incredible noble house and—?"
"Nothing like that. We're going to apply for an exchange match with Rudra Academy. I heard that if you win, you can borrow one of their students for a time."
"Ah…. Right. So Rudra has talent good enough for that, hmm…. Oh. Could it be?"
"That's right. That could it be is correct. I'm planning to bring Hyacinth over and station her in the rear."
"Uuugh…. Master. Wouldn't it be better if I just dropped the shield and committed fully to swordsmanship so we could beat the wolves ourselves?"
"No. Even if the two of you manage to hold Floor 6 that way—what if Floor 7 absolutely requires a tank? What then?"
"If I become an invincible all-powerful damage-tank…."
"Yuna. Listen to your Master."
"Mmmph…."
It was his first time seeing Yuna make a truly disgusted expression.
That side of her is charming too.
"Then from here on I'll teach you how to deal with Wind Spirit Mages. Listen carefully."
"Yeeees…."
"Hmm…. I suppose."
Even if Yuna and Silen trained enormously here and became skilled enough to clear the Grand Dungeon on their own—the information on Rudra Academy was still necessary.
If the teacher's vanguard was moving, the first move would without question come from Rudra's side.
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Milé Beginnermage had been running herself ragged trying to track down Yujin Mastermage—her senior, a monster who had become a 6th Circle Mage at the youngest age in history, and her martial brother.
"Ugh…. Senior. Where are you? Please hurry up and show yourself so I can grab you and shove you into the lab in my place…."
Making a tearful face every single day, she nonetheless did her best to find where Yujin was.
"No trace of money being withdrawn from the bank account…. Not picking up on Mana Detection…. Ugh…."
True to his reputation as what they called a fully-loaded man, he had moved without leaving a trace—but she too had been granted the surname Beginnermage by their teacher, and was a prodigy with a talent specialized in【Tracking】.
"Some sets of equipment from Senior's storage were donated to an academy side. They said they couldn't tell me the details, and since academies are military institutions, I can't track through those channels, but…."
There was no need to figure out which specific academy had purchased the items from the senior's storage.
"Finding out which merchant house handled the distribution and where things headed is easier than expected. Items that came from Senior's storage were headed for a rural area in the east. They're beginner equipment, so an academy around there must have purchased them."
On the surface Milé seemed like a complete bumbler—clumsy and scatterbrained—but in situations like this, she looked at the circumstances with calm eyes, organizing and deducing with cool precision. If Yujin had seen her, he would have made a tired expression, but she was seriously dismantling and analyzing the current situation.
"Of course, it's possible someone just happily bought up cheap beginner equipment, but at the very least it's a lead. An academy capable of purchasing goods from somewhere near the east would be…."
Milé wrote down the nearby academies and began crossing them out one by one.
"Demeter…. For now this one's out. It's a textbook paper academy to begin with—a shell company a family built to skim national funds, so excluded. If there's anything that actually functions like an academy in this countryside…. Rudra Academy and…. Eir Academy, maybe. Eir is a dedicated healer training institution, so Rudra…. Yes. This must be it. Let's focus here and gather information."
Having made that judgment, Milé moved immediately.
She opened a small shop near the market area close to Rudra Academy and started operating an alchemy stall.
【Beginner Potions are cheap. Fire Scrolls too. Trustworthy goods.】
She was too much of a bumbler to advertise openly, but even so—with reasonably priced and decent goods stocked up—customers with the discernment to recognize quality wares began gathering at Milé's stall, and it occasionally came up in hushed conversation that the goods over there are decent and the prices aren't bad either.
And so a few weeks passed.
"Hmm…. Is it not here after all?"
The potions had been selling reasonably well, but having obtained not a single piece of information about Yujin, Milé looked up at the ceiling and let out a sigh—and at that moment, a customer arrived.
"Excuse me. I'd like to buy some potions."
"Ah. Welcome. What kind of potions do you need?"
"Two beginner potions and—did you make this scroll yourself?"
"Yes. I did. Handmade. Shall I show you my alchemist's license?"
"No. That's fine. I'll take these then."
"Yes. Thank you."
Milé spared a brief glance at the clean-looking adult woman before letting out a small sigh.
Someone who had clearly lived her whole life walking the straight and narrow—and even her gait carried confidence.
Compared to her—with her hair braided into two tails hanging down in front of her shoulders, round-framed glasses, laziness, and nothing she could do besides alchemy and research.
Even so, since research itself was quite fun, she had figured she'd devote herself entirely to that and die alone someday—except that too was going the way she didn't want.
After the customer left, Milé looked up at the ceiling again and sighed.
"Senior…. Where are you? Seriously…. Please, get stuffed into the subspace lab in my place. Seniooor…."
Overwhelmed by the sheer weight of her stress, Milé drank down one of her own potions.
"I can't hold on without drinking one…!"
Stuffing herself with something sweet until her stomach burst would have relieved some stress, but she shed tears over the faint, hollow sweetness of a potion she had pushed herself to improve as much as possible.
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After spending the entire day drilling how to fight a Wind Spirit Mage into Yuna and Silen—late at night.
Daisy, who might as well have been doing outside field work on his behalf, came to the Snack Bar, and he served her a peach appetizer.
"A fruit appetizer is lovely too. Ufufufu. Then shall we have a glass of the wine I bought at Rudra's market—!"
"Outside food is not permitted inside. Professor."
"Eh…. Really?"
"I'm joking. You've worked hard."
"Aah—! Proprietor, your face is so serious that your jokes don't come across as jokes at all!"
Saying that, Daisy cheerfully popped open her wine bottle and poured it into her glass.
Glug glug glug—the glass filled to the brim with wine, she downed it in one shot and cried out, Puhaa!
Ah. Right.
She was getting more and more drunk so before she became completely incoherent, the request he'd made needed confirming.
"What happened with what I asked of you?"
"Oh! It's right here! You asked whether there was a newly opened alchemy shop or magic tool shop nearby, right? No magic tools—but there was one alchemy shop. It was a shop run by a woman…."
Looking at the potions and scrolls Daisy had brought back per his request, he felt a tension enter the space between his brows without meaning to.
"What kind of woman was she? Do you remember?"
"About a head shorter than me, dark hair…. Twin tails…. Glasses? That much I remember."
"I see. Thank you."
"Why? Why? Could she be a woman you know? An ex? Something like that?"
Grown adults they were, but with eyes lighting up like that, asking a thing like that—honestly.
"No. The quality of the potions was quite good. I was wondering if she might be an adventurer I know."
"Aaahh—! How boring. For the crime of being boring, one more appetizer!"
"Yes. I'll make whatever you'd like. What'll it be?"
"Hmmmm—! Shall we go with meat this time? Chef? Match it to the wine, please."
"Understood."
Leaving Daisy's drunken murmurs behind, he let out a quiet sigh.
This potion-making method.
This mana pattern embedded in the scroll.
Milé.
As I thought—you were the one at the teacher's vanguard.