I was in my office, reading Ellin’s personal statement.
As expected, it was plastered with words like best and pinnacle.
I snapped the document shut.
There was nothing more to gain from reading it.
‘This is the Ellin I know.’
I had wondered whether there might be some unexpected difference, but that hope had been pointless.
There was no opening to exploit, not even the slightest crack.
Once she fixed her sights on a goal, she had to pursue it to the bitter end.
She was exactly as I remembered her.
There was a reason I compared her to a honey badger…
I do not care about any of that! If you mess with me, we are all dying together! Huh?! What are you looking at, you…….
‘…….’
A certain image flashed through my mind, but I resolutely ignored it.
For the sake of my mental health, it was better not to think about it.
I most certainly had not imagined a beautiful girl spouting such vicious words.
If I said I had not, then I had not……
“Ahem.”
I cleared my throat awkwardly and squeezed my eyes shut.
Ellin was the sole source of peace in my heart…
I needed to regard her as something sacred.
From a distance.
I redirected my thoughts.
Runes.
The source of this entire problem.
One might wonder what the issue was if I could use them.
Runes were already an actively researched subject, and although no one had managed to fully restore them, there were modified versions that could be used to a certain extent.
But using them in their raw form was another matter entirely.
“If those lunatics did not exist, I would not even need to hide this.”
They were a faction classified as heretical even within the original story.
They were not Demon Worshippers, yet they were still treated as enemies purely because of their ideology.
They existed across every stratum of society, and bizarrely enough, both saints and villains could be found among them.
Ancestral Reversion.
Atavism.
A return to a pure state.
They were fanatics who practically foamed at the mouth over such ideas.
That alone might not have been a problem.
The problem was that they did not hesitate to commit all manner of inhumane acts or pursue twisted methods in the name of their beliefs.
I might be able to protect myself from their grasp.
I could not say the same for Ellin.
If anything, because she was weaker, she might become a target.
The longer a tail became, the easier it was to catch.
For now, playing dumb was the best course of action.
‘But leaving things as they are is out of the question too.’
Originally, Aiden and Ellin had no connection whatsoever.
In other words, they were two people who were never supposed to become involved.
Right now, we were far too close.
I needed to separate us somehow.
I covered my forehead with one hand.
As I dragged it slowly down my face, exhaustion washed over me.
‘If the route becomes any more distorted, things could get serious.’
A significant portion of the actions Ellin was originally supposed to take were already being redirected toward pursuing me instead.
The effects might not be obvious yet, but I had no idea where the critical threshold lay.
There had to be some limit to how much deviation the story could tolerate.
At worst, Ellin might fail to grow properly.
If that happened, the protagonists would lose the Mage who was supposed to provide their firepower.
And what if that became the decisive factor preventing them from defeating the source of all evil that stood against them?
The result would be the same massacre.
A Bad Ending.
Game Over.
Translated into reality, that would mean something along the lines of humanity’s extinction.
“…Do I have to use it?”
I had not wanted to go this far because it could hurt my evaluation.
But I had no choice.
Just as I steeled myself and began to rise, the door opened and a cockroa—
No, Aisel cautiously poked her head inside.
After meeting my eyes, she trotted over.
“Professor, did you visit the Department of Magic building?”
“I did. Why?”
“No reason. It was just really noisy over there.”
“The Department of Magic was?”
“Yes.”
When I looked genuinely puzzled, Aisel stared intently at me.
She had been studying my face for a while now.
What was she looking at?
“Professor, I really think you could be dropped anywhere in the world and survive just by relying on your face.”
“What is that supposed to mean……?”
Setting aside the fact that she was saying this to a Master, I had to question whether that was something a student should say to her professor.
“Nothing.”
Yet she continued sneaking glances at me.
I released a small sigh and closed my eyes.
“Do you think I will not notice merely because you are glancing instead of staring? If you have something to say, say it. Stop distracting me.”
“Really? I can actually ask?”
“…Ask.”
What did she mean by actually ask?
‘What in the world is she planning to say?’
Aisel bit her lower lip and sank into thought.
She seemed to be reconsidering one last time before committing herself.
What required this much deliberation?
Surely it had nothing to do with Ellin.
Just as I was about to tell her to forget it, Aisel apparently decided to throw caution aside and spoke.
“Why did you reject Senior Rianel’s confession?”
“Rianel……?”
Who was that?
Aisel groaned as though she had expected exactly this.
“What was it… You know, the female upperclassman with yellow hair. The one with the cute, innocent image? She is really famous in the Department of Magic.”
“I do not know her.”
“Hmm… The elevator! Yes, the girl who rode the elevator with you.”
The Department of Magic building.
The elevator.
A confession?
‘Ah……’
Apparently seeing recognition finally dawn on my face, Aisel puffed out her chest triumphantly.
Though for some reason, she also looked slightly uncomfortable.
“Why did you reject her confession?”
“Is that important?”
“No, well… Hmm. I was just curious. I heard she is really pretty, but you rejected her on the spot.”
Why was she curious?
More importantly—
pretty?
Famous throughout the department for being pretty?
Really?
…A lifetime of regret suddenly descended heavily upon my shoulders.
My eyebrow twitched.
A deep fury began boiling inside me, but since I had an observer, I quickly forced it back down.
No one in this world had the right to treat me this way.
‘What I saw that day was a cockroach.’
Grete… Grete…
Is this not a little too much?
God had given me this face while forcibly castrating my libido.
At least as far as my own species was concerned.
Even if a peerless beauty lay naked on my bed and tried to seduce me, all I would see was a black, chitinous insect.
This incident confirmed it.
I was following Aiden’s original setting exactly.
There were several reasons Aiden was considered insufferable.
His arrogance was certainly one of them, but that was not the whole story.
In truth, Aiden possessed the ability to justify that attitude.
It was less arrogance than warranted pride.
Therefore, the greatest reason people found him so infuriating was……
‘His relationships with women.’
Beauties whom ordinary men would celebrate merely for receiving attention from constantly gathered around Aiden.
Yet unless he was drunk, he never touched a single one of them.
Aiden merely watched the things fluttering around him.
Some cursed him for having impossibly high standards.
Others resented him for supposedly keeping women dangling around him.
Once that perception took root, his status, ability, authority, and wealth only made him seem even more detestable.
Things other people could spend their entire lives striving for without obtaining even one of.
But I had an excuse too!
‘This is not my fault!’
It was the Great Demon’s fault.
Entirely that bastard’s fault…
Of all the Blessings it could have given me, why did it have to be this one……?
I released a long, sorrowful sigh before giving Aisel a solemn answer.
“…She is still a student, is she not? A professor should not become a source of confusion during a period when she ought to be devoting herself to her studies.”
Aisel let out a small sound of admiration at my flawless answer.
Her expression suggested that this was the last response she had expected.
“I did not realize you actually thought about things like that, Professor……”
“You occasionally underestimate me far too much.”
“I thought your standards for women were simply incredibly high.”
That was not entirely wrong.
Though it was less a matter of high standards than a matter of species.
Primarily the distinction between people and insects……
Regrettably, I did not possess the confidence to love Gregor.
Then a thought suddenly pierced my mind.
My eyes widened.
The only people I could perceive with completely normal bodies were Demi-humans.
Elves, Beastfolk, Witches.
Only races like those were unaffected by this Blessing.
The pen in my hand began trembling twelve times a second.
My breathing stopped.
My fingers shook as though I had suddenly developed a severe tremor.
Something would ordinarily have to be truly extraordinary to affect me this badly…
But the psychological shock that struck me now was intense enough to send electricity through my brain.
‘The only people I can perceive as normal human beings are Demi-humans?’
Then this Blessing…
Could it possibly be forcing me into interspecies relationships?
My mouth fell open.
Interspecies?
My upper body slowly collapsed like a ship sinking beneath the waves.
‘No……’
Anything but that……
I did not have some bizarre fetish.
I did not.
I could not.
I absolutely could not.
Never.
***
Aisel watched as Aiden suddenly seemed to sink into despair.
Unlike before, when she had felt strangely nervous, for some reason she now felt a little pleased.
Why?
‘If it feels good, maybe that is enough.’
She had no desire to assign reasons to every tiny emotional change.
Nor did she particularly want to analyze it.
Though saying that was rather unconvincing considering how dramatically her mood had improved from the moment she learned he had rejected the confession.
‘Hmm.’
“If the problem is that she is still a student, does that mean it would be fine later?”
“…If the problem is resolved.”
‘The problem, huh……’
If the problem was her status as a student, then time would eventually solve it.
Especially in a relationship between a professor and a student.
Right now, plenty of girls might approach him because they did not know this.
But surely they would give up soon enough.
‘But I have plenty of time.’
She had the perfectly legitimate excuse of needing to assist the professor.
After being an undergraduate intern in his research office, she could become his Graduate Teaching Assistant.
And after that?
She could even pursue her doctorate in the same professor’s research office.
If she wanted to, she had all the time in the world.
By then, everyone else would probably have given up, believing him to be an insurmountable wall.
They would never know what the professor was actually thinking.
Even if they realized it later, it would not matter.
By then, she would already have spent years by his side.
A sly smile slowly spread across Aisel’s face where Aiden could not see it.
“…You seem strangely pleased.”
“Surely not. You must be imagining it.”
“…Is that so?”
She glanced at Aiden, who was clutching his head in distress, then moved to prepare some coffee.
And while dragging her steps as though the question had occurred to her completely by accident, she kept her back toward him and asked,
“So, Professor, are you planning to reject every woman who approaches you?”
“For the time being, yes. You are unusually inquisitive today. Is something wrong?”
“Nothing. Absolutely nothing. You do not need to worry about anything at all.”
He was going to reject every woman who approached him?
Hehe.
Just as Aisel was savoring her delight—
CREEEAK.
An uninvited guest barged into the room.
She was a petite girl, a Half-Elf with striking silver hair and emerald-green eyes.
Whenever she participated in magical demonstrations, she carried an ancient wooden staff nearly as tall as herself, which had made her famous for her classical style of magic.
‘That retro-style Mage……’
But even setting that aside……
Aisel’s eyes narrowed.
“What brings you here, Student Ellin? This is the Department of Knighthood building.”
“I came to see Professor Aiden. Please move.”
‘I really need to figure out how to get rid of this girl.’
“You cannot just barge in without warning and expect him to meet—”
“Aisel, if you are making coffee, prepare one for Ellin as well. I will at least hear what she wants.”
Aisel suppressed the twitch threatening to pull at the corner of her mouth and took a small breath.
There was no need to behave childishly here.
“Yeees.”
“What kind of answer is that… Never mind. Ellin, come over here.”
Aiden looked momentarily bewildered by Aisel’s response before apparently dismissing it from his thoughts.
Professor Aiden had no idea.
He did not know what that Half-Elf intended by approaching him.
Aisel clicked her tongue inwardly and closed her eyes.
“I have plenty of time.”
All she had to do was remain patient.
As long as she did not become impatient.