Thus, the dean’s plot to seize control of the Magic University through sly tricks and black magic ended in failure.
I had also made it clear that every single Gem Spider he had handed out to other professors must be retrieved or destroyed, so there would be no additional victims.
The dean might find it awkward to suddenly take back gifts he had given, but so what?
What he should really be worrying about was the punishment I would pass on him.
For now, I was the only one who knew of his crime.
Depending on whether I informed the Academy, reported him to Public Safety, or simply buried the matter, the dean’s future would change drastically.
Dabbling in black magic was, at its core, a crime.
That was why the dean had no choice but to grovel before me.
“Jonathan Kingfisher.”
“Y-yes, sir?”
“Be grateful for your own incompetence and cowardice.”
“…What?”
Whether his words about never intending to kill anyone had been true, or whether he simply lacked the ability to do so—
either way, the dean had never once triggered a death flag on me since our first meeting.
And since I hadn’t actually suffered any harm, but instead held leverage over him now, he would have to obey whatever I said from this point forward.
Winter Winslet might be the real power in the Magic University, but my official position was still just that of a mere professor.
If I wanted to legally exert influence over the Academy, I needed some sort of intermediary.
Dean Kingfisher was exactly the sort of person who could play that role.
That was the reason I was even considering being lenient with his punishment.
Not that I planned to forgive him completely.
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
The dean had tried to create leverage to turn me into a puppet, so I intended to return the favor in kind.
Rustle, rustle.
The spider, still alive and struggling between my fingers, I crushed it in my palm.
Crunch.
The grotesque thing collapsed along with its bodily fluids.
Without bothering to clean my soiled hand, I reached out and placed it directly on the crown of the dean’s head.
On that half-bald scalp, I dropped the spider’s corpse and activated black magic.
Unlike the crude, low-grade kind the dean must have picked up from who-knows-where, this was 「B-rank」—expert-level black magic.
[Activating black magic: ‘Creation of Cursed Creature’.]
Unlike ordinary magic, black magic didn’t draw power from mana but from life force.
The best way to obtain life energy was to offer a living sacrifice.
Therefore, the crushed spider in my hand was the perfect material for casting black magic.
[Created the monster: ‘Skin Eroder’.]
A flattened arthropod-like creature, resembling a pill bug or trilobite, writhed on top of the dean’s head.
It was large enough to cover his entire crown.
The Skin Eroder was a magical parasite that devoured the host’s skin and nested in its place.
It had no will of its own and obeyed only its master’s commands, which was why it had been widely used in the past to prevent war prisoners from escaping or betraying.
The monster, twitching its antennae on the dean’s head, quickly began fulfilling its purpose.
In other words, it started eating into the dean’s scalp.
“Gaaahhhhhhh!”
Kingfisher screamed as the creature tore into his flesh.
No matter how frantically he clawed at it, the Skin Eroder wouldn’t come off.
“Ughhh… nghh.”
By the time his blood had stained the carpet beneath us red, Kingfisher’s screams had started to fade.
When it was finally over and he barely regained his senses, his face was streaked with tears and snot.
Feeling his own head with trembling hands, the dean was struck by shock; his chin quivered uncontrollably.
“This is impossible. Something’s… something’s on my head that shouldn’t be there!”
“This is the price of your crime. Every time you feel that alien sensation, you’ll remember what happened tod—”
“My hair! My hair grew back!”
…What?
“Ahahahaha! Pffft—hahaha!”
Suddenly bursting into loud laughter, the dean didn’t look like a man who had gone insane from a horrific ordeal.
On the contrary, he hugged me tightly, his voice brimming with gratitude.
“Thank you!”
“…?”
“My savior!”
The Skin Eroder, like the Gem Spider, was a mimic-type monster.
After consuming human skin, it transformed its appearance to match the surrounding area, like a chameleon.
In this case, that meant thick, bushy hair.
For a man with a bald crown, mistaking it for new hair growth was hardly surprising.
Still, even so…
“Do you actually understand your situation right now? If you ever defy or betray me, that creature might just burrow into your brain and destroy it…”
The dean responded immediately.
“Never! Never will I defy or betray you. Just please, don’t take it away from me. Please?”
A dull ache throbbed in my temple.
The original purpose of this visit—training the dean into a convenient tool for me—had succeeded.
…But was this really how it was supposed to turn out?
***
Casey, who worked for the Academy Headquarters Student Support Team, was a staff member who almost never had a free day during the semester.
Naturally, today too, a mountain of paperwork awaited her, and so when someone approached her desk, she didn’t even lift her head, asking as usual:
“Yes. What can I help you with?”
“I’m here to borrow a venue. They said I should come here for that.”
“Oh, you’re here to apply for a reservation. It’s not the official application period right now, but… where do you need to borrow?”
“Anywhere decently spacious is fine.”
Casey barely suppressed a sigh.
‘There are always people like this.’
People who thought borrowing Academy-owned facilities was as simple as borrowing a pencil or an eraser.
‘Even if the applicant just tosses over a single sheet, do they know how many things I need to check on my side?’
Still, politeness was second nature to her, so Casey asked in a calm tone.
“What’s it for?”
“For a duel.”
“My goodness—a duel?”
Casey squeezed her eyes shut, wincing, before finally looking up at the bold visitor.
The person standing before her was a young female student, doll-like in her prettiness, with long flowing golden hair.
“Just to confirm—you’re a student here, right?”
“Yes.”
“Could you show me your student ID?”
“Here.”
Pushing her glasses up, Casey examined the card.
Name: Shannon Quinlivan.
The surname wasn’t familiar, and she was listed as a foreign exchange student.
“And… a freshman, huh?”
Casey couldn’t help thinking how typical this visitor was.
All Academy students were young.
And youth meant making mistakes.
For instance, misunderstanding dueling as some sort of honorable problem-solving method—or worse, a cool way to look impressive.
You’d think no one would be that foolish, but working in Student Affairs proved otherwise.
And of course, the outcome was never good.
The best policy was not letting things escalate to the point where violence was needed.
‘Still, what can I do.’
Dealing with impulsive students and persuading them to turn back was part of the job.
“Is there a problem?”
Shannon asked nervously when Casey didn’t respond for a while.
Casey smiled her standard businesslike smile.
“No problem at all. So… who are you planning to duel with? A classmate? Or maybe an upperclassman?”
“A professor.”
“Excuse me?”
Casey’s smile cracked.
“Uh… did I hear you wrong? Did you just say a student is going to duel… a professor?”
“You heard right. I’m going to duel Professor Winter Winslet of the Magic University. He already agreed to it.”
For a moment, Casey was speechless.
‘Ah, so it’s a lie.’
This wasn’t unheard of.
Sometimes people made up false reasons because they wanted to borrow a facility without revealing its actual purpose.
But there was a limit to how absurd a story you could spin.
A duel with Professor Winslet? Please.
“That’s quite an amusing joke, but you know giving false information on the application form causes trouble for everyone, right? And it won’t just end with a couple of demerit points, are you sure you want that?”
“It’s not a lie.”
“Then can you prove it? For a duel, there should be witnesses, or at least a signed testimony from someone, right?”
“Well, I don’t have those yet…”
Seeing Shannon struggle, Casey felt vindicated in her assumption.
“You’ll need all of that when filling out the facility use form anyway. So why not come back after you’ve got everything ready? The rules are the rules; I can’t help it.”
“…Then I’ll come back another time.”
The doll-like student turned away, looking disappointed.
Watching her leave the office, Casey gave a wry smile.
“Good grief. Of all people to name-drop, why use Professor Winslet? Is she just clueless because she’s a freshman?”
Well, it was the kind of mistake only a freshman could make.
If you attended this Academy, there was no way you didn’t know who Winter Winslet was.
A new student telling such a transparent lie felt almost cute.
Either way, it was time to get back to work.
Turning back to her desk, Casey stretched as she looked at the mountain of documents.
“Ughh… when am I ever going to get off work today…”
***
By the time she left the Academy Headquarters, evening was already settling in.
Shannon felt a growing sense of impatience.
The process of preparing for a duel was anything but smooth.
Three things were needed for a duel to be approved:
People, paperwork, and a location.
People meant a referee to act as a witness.
Paperwork meant a testimony proving the circumstances that had damaged her honor.
The location was, of course, the place where the duel would be held.
Even though this was the simplified version of the procedure, it was still this troublesome.
But having boasted so confidently in front of Professor Winslet just yesterday, she’d been desperately struggling to get everything ready…
‘How is it possible that I haven’t succeeded at a single thing yet?’
Getting a witness statement had been the first major obstacle.
Shannon had been insulted by Professor Winslet right after the skill test.
That meant the only people who could testify for her were those who had passed his test.
But how many could there even be, considering that the test had been tough even for her?
If she’d at least remembered their faces, she could have tracked them down, but at the time she had stormed out of the auditorium in anger.
A decision she now regretted.
She’d even tried asking the Academic Office for Professor Winslet’s class roster, but the staff only shook their heads apologetically.
“I’m sorry, but we don’t handle Professor Winslet’s classes at all. He manages everything himself. Maybe you should ask him directly?”
Completely missing her point.
The next problem was the referee.
A referee had to be a public, neutral figure.
But Shannon, a foreign exchange student, had no such connections.
She’d even approached professors she knew from the basic courses, but…
“A duel? With Professor Winslet? Uh… I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”
“I really think it’d be best if you apologized to the professor and dropped the matter.”
“Shannon, you just don’t understand how this Academy works yet.”
All she got were infuriating excuses.
Were there only cowards in this entire school?
‘What the hell is so special about that Winslet guy anyway?’
Unable to get either a witness or a referee, she had tried at least securing the location first by going to the Academy Headquarters… but the result had been obvious.
Apparently, saying you were dueling Professor Winslet was just asking to be treated like a joke.
‘This isn’t why I came to study abroad in Lorencia. What am I even doing right now…’
Lost in frustration, she stared at the sunset.
Tap-tap-tap-tap.
From a distance came the sound of regular footsteps.
Someone was jogging in the evening.
Shannon looked up and, seeing the person approaching from across the road, decided to wait until they passed.
But then—
“Oh? You’re—!”
The light footsteps spun around toward her.
The approaching figure was a girl with orange-reddish hair.
Her sweat-dampened hair glittered in the setting sun.
With a bright, innocent face…
“Shannon, right? We meet again.”
“…Who?”
The girl’s mouth fell open in shock.
“What! It’s me, me—Jacqueline! Don’t tell me you already forgot?”
Shannon sighed.