Acute Senses, another trait born from Park Hayul’s hypersensitive disposition, was essentially a kind of telescope.
[Activating the trait ‘Acute Senses.’]
When I expanded my vision and hearing with a small amount of mana, the physical distance between the students and me seemed to vanish in an instant.
A flood of conversations struck my eardrums as though my blocked ears had suddenly been cleared.
“Ha ha ha! Bulking is love. No matter how much I do it, I never get tired of it.”
The owner of the loudest voice among them was, without question, Lee Daeho.
He was a major supporting character, memorable for his overwhelming frame of more than two meters and a face that looked far older than his actual age.
True to the rumor that half his brain was made of muscle, he was steadfast but simple and rather slow-witted.
“Everything should be done in moderation. Agility is just as important as strength, you know?”
And then there was the male student talking with Lee Daeho.
All I could see was the back of his black-haired head, but we had already met once, so there was no mistaking him.
“That only applies to a versatile guy like you, Baek Sayoung. Not me. I am just going to devote myself to one thing.”
It was him.
Baek Sayoung.
The true protagonist of [Epic of Salvation], who had suddenly appeared before me and mistaken me for a member of the Special Mission Unit.
A handsome young man whose bright smile was one of his greatest charms, and the embodiment of Yoo Soyoung’s favoritism, who had crushed Taehak’s most talented prodigies despite having no prestigious background to speak of.
Circumstances had forced me to treat him like an incompetent fool when we met, but reality was nothing of the sort.
His overall ranking among the second-year students was first.
He was the rising star standing at the absolute peak of Taehak’s pyramid, a genius among geniuses.
His origins would later reveal an unexpected secret, but he was good-natured and sociable enough to be loved by virtually everyone.
“Then……”
If Baek Sayoung was present, there was one name that inevitably followed.
Naturally, I looked toward the opposite side of the classroom in search of his rival.
“I heard your cousin was appointed vice commander of the Monster-Slaying Corps this time.”
“Prestigious families really are different. He is the youngest ever, right?”
There, at the center of a somewhat rough-looking group, I spotted a handsome man with striking features.
“Stop making such a fuss. It is a record I will break eventually anyway.”
That single arrogant remark, which happened to reach my ears at just the right moment, revealed his personality without restraint.
He possessed that much self-love and an equally strong sense of noble superiority.
As befitted someone who lived entirely on confidence in his own excellence, he came from the Seol Family of Divine Abundance, one of the ten great families.
His overall ranking was second, almost equal to the student in first place.
“So only one is left?”
Excluding Joo Arin, whom I had already met, there was only one more main character in Class A.
But I would not be seeing that person today.
She was somewhere else rather than at Taehak right now.
It was somewhat disappointing.
If she looked the way I had drawn her, she would resemble Yoo Soyoung quite closely……
In any case, while I observed the major characters, the time announced in the notice was already approaching nine o’clock.
The instant the clock struck nine, the front door opened.
SLIDE.
“Everyone, take your seats!”
A low, weighty voice swept through the classroom.
Come to think of it, there was one more major character I had forgotten.
Probably because he was a professor rather than a student.
“There had better not be some lunatic who is late on the first day.”
His cynical voice, perfectly suited to his personality, scraped at my ears from the very beginning.
The man with immaculately slicked-back hair and a short beard was someone every Taehak student knew.
“Good to meet you. I am Professor Lee Taekjin, and I will be responsible for Class A for the next year. I am a Tier 4 Awakened of the Magic System.”
Lee Taekjin.
His ability ranked among the highest even among Taehak’s exceptionally talented professors, but he was also notorious as a results-obsessed psychopath.
“You bastard, they said he was taking Class B!”
A bolt from the blue struck the students, and they screamed silently in despair.
One of them became so agitated that he crossed a line he absolutely should not have crossed.
“Just shut up for now. If he catches you talking, you are dead. You know what Mad Dog is like.”
Mad Dog.
He had actually uttered the nickname Lee Taekjin despised more than anything right in front of him.
He had whispered it, but that was meaningless.
“You there, center seat in the third row. What is your name?”
The gates of hell opened on the first day of the semester.
“L-Lee Eunseong.”
“Lee Eunseong……”
His voice lowered.
Which only made it colder.
Lee Taekjin opened the faculty notebook that was practically his trademark.
It looked like an ordinary notebook, but it was actually a fairly advanced Armament.
It stored not only high-level magic formulas, but also the students’ personal information and every rumor circulating throughout Taehak……
Among the students, however, it was simply called the Death Note.
Because whenever he opened it, bloodshed inevitably followed.
“You are unimpressive. Your ranking is…… 589th. Correct?”
“……Yes.”
“And with ability that pathetic, you think you are in a position to be picky about your supervising professor?”
“I-I am sorry.”
“You have nothing to apologize to me for. If anything, you should apologize to your parents. They raised someone with neither manners nor ability.”
Having found his excuse, Lee Taekjin drove him relentlessly into the ground.
His verbal assault continued for more than ten minutes, and the unfortunate extra, Lee Eunseong, ended up completely dazed.
The rest of the students were no different.
Everyone sat rigidly upright, thoroughly intimidated.
“It is unfolding exactly the same way.”
Unlike them, I remained calm.
Everything matched the original plot.
The opening scene of Chapter 1, beginning with the supervising professor giving the students a brutal lesson.
“Make Lee Taekjin look as sharp as possible here. Especially when he tells the student to apologize to his parents.”
“Like this?”
“No, sharper! More!”
“……Like this?”
“Nooo. Add those radiating lines so he looks really, really……”
“Forget it. Draw it yourself.”
It had been a panel Yoo Soyoung and I had poured considerable effort into, revising it five or six times.
If I had known this would happen, I should have just drawn it the way she wanted from the start.
I lived by the principle that regret was useless, but sitting alone and watching the real-life version of the novel left a strangely bitter taste in my mouth.
“Listen carefully. The other fourteen classes are not Class A’s competition. Your benchmark is the greatest class in Taehak’s history……”
Despite that bitterness, the orientation proceeded without incident.
The content was conventional and tedious, so I did not pay much attention.
“Finally, I am recruiting a special scholarship student to assist me in the department office. Anyone interested should stand.”
At least it seemed to be nearing the end.
Since it was the final item on the agenda, I hoped he would simply brush past it, but quite a few students, including Baek Sayoung and Lee Daeho, stood to apply.
“There are more students with a sense of honor than I expected.”
Lee Taekjin made no effort to hide the particular attention he paid to Baek Sayoung and Lee Daeho as he wrote down the applicants’ names.
I merely gave a faint scoff.
On the surface, it was presented as an opportunity for high-achieving students to build connections with a professor.
In reality, it was nothing more than becoming the professor’s personal lackey.
There were a few episodes related to it, but none were central to the story, so I decided it was a position I could safely ignore.
───────────────
[Main Quest #1]
[Objective: Become the Special Scholarship Student.]
[Reward: +7 days to remaining time, Time Shop activated, 10 SP awarded.]
───────────────
At least, until a new quest appeared.
Seven days?
I was caught off guard, but my decision came faster than light.
“Anyone else? If not, then we will—”
“One moment, Professor. I would like to apply as well.”
I shot to my feet and called out.
***
Perhaps because it was a Main Quest, the rewards were substantial.
Even ignoring the Time Shop and SP, whose functions I did not yet understand, it offered a full seven days.
No terminally ill man would turn that down.
“What is your name?”
“Park Hayul.”
Lee Taekjin opened his Death Note with a somewhat displeased expression.
“Your academic ranking is near the bottom. Seven hundredth out of seven hundred and fifty…… Your family is the Origin Sorcerer Family?”
Then he raised his head slightly and stared straight at me.
I had only applied, yet he was looking at me as though he wanted to devour me alive.
Well, I understood why.
Near-bottom grades, combined with a family whose arts stood at the opposite end of the spectrum from magic.
Park Hayul possessed nearly every quality Lee Taekjin disliked.
Lee Taekjin let out a derisive chuckle.
“Are you serious?”
“Pardon?”
“The competition is already considerable. I am asking whether there is any point in stepping forward when you are going to fail anyway, Student Park Hayul, rank seven hundred.”
What?
I wanted to ask what kind of bullshit that was, but I glanced at my remaining time and swallowed the words.
“Well, I believe I can prove that through ability, so I do not think you need to concern yourself……”
“Is that so? Then how about proving it right now?”
I knew I had a bad feeling about this……
The situation veered in a completely unexpected direction.
“Consider it the first test. And to be fair, I will include the other two applicants ranked below five hundred as well. I would prefer that no one question the fairness of the process.”
“What do you mean……”
“P-Professor!”
Apparently, I was not the only one who felt wronged.
A male student stood and spoke up boldly.
Lee Taekjin continued in an indifferent tone.
“There is a clause among the application requirements: applicants must possess basic proficiency in the subject taught by the supervising professor. If I set the minimum standard at rank five hundred, I would say I am being rather generous. Would you not agree?”
“……”
The male student lowered his head without another word.
There was technically nothing in the rules that prohibited it.
But Lee Taekjin could not conceal his intentions completely.
No matter how he dressed it up, he was simply using the test as an excuse to eliminate us.
“Magical Beast Studies should suffice for a simple assessment. I will ask a question. Answer correctly, and you pass.”
Lee Taekjin offered the proposal as though granting us a favor.
I, on the other hand, was considerably unsettled.
No matter how much experience I had as a webtoon artist, there was no reason I would know detailed, unpleasant worldbuilding trivia about something like Magical Beast Studies.
Perhaps mistaking my silence for courageous acceptance, Lee Taekjin began his question.
“A month ago, an accidental experiment attracted considerable attention. A Magic Crystal extracted from a Rank 5 magical beast was transplanted into a human, and the results were surprisingly positive.”
I could state with certainty that this was obscure knowledge no one would know unless they specialized in the field.
In other words, he rambled through a mountain of useless technical nonsense before finally getting to the point.
“So I am curious about your opinions. How were the recipients able to tolerate the Magic Crystal’s impure demonic energy?”
As though exerting silent pressure, Lee Taekjin approached the applicants one by one.
“Some unique property in their blood that allowed it to be purified?”
The mild-looking female student shook her head and gave up early.
“Or perhaps a specially evolved heart?”
The male student who had boldly stood earlier merely bit his lip, unable to answer.
The more they struggled, the higher the corners of Lee Taekjin’s mouth rose.
“Lastly, Student Park Hayul. Your turn. Answer.”
By the time he stopped in front of me, his expression already said he knew the outcome.
Of course it did.
He had chosen the question specifically to make us fail……
“If you do not know, sit down. Do not waste my time.”
“……”
I might not have known the answer, but I wholeheartedly agreed that time was precious.
Heh.
So I smiled along with him.
“You are laughing?”
What, should I cry?
I had to complete the quest one way or another.
That left me with only one option.
“Professor. Forgive the discourtesy.”
I did not hesitate to seize Lee Taekjin’s slightly extended hand.
GRAB.
[Activating the trait ‘Reading.’]
[You can search for and acquire information from the medium.]
Reading was a trait that activated through physical contact with a medium.
[The effectiveness of the trait is reduced when the medium is a living organism.]
[The medium vastly exceeds your current level.]
[Automatic Reading has been canceled.]
[Please provide a specific keyword.]
It was my first time using it on a person, but fortunately, it activated.
Before Lee Taekjin could shake off my hand, I hurriedly continued.
“The reason the Magic Crystal transplant was successful was……”