[Sprout]
Thanks to the professor’s words, the disturbance was suppressed in an instant.
The fact that only a few students had spread the rumor with malicious intent also played a part.
Most of them simply had not known what was true.
“A body formed from the pure power of nature. You will all learn how astounding and remarkable that is in time. Unfortunately, it is a body humans can never possess.”
The professor’s words even increased the number of human students who viewed spirits favorably.
“......”
Griam and Jerome could not speak for a while as they looked at the professor who intervened at such a terribly convenient time.
After the lecture ended so futilely, I placed my arms around Griam and Jerome’s shoulders from behind as they tried to leave the auditorium.
“Students.”
Griam and Jerome looked at me in surprise.
In a low, flat voice, I warned them.
“A lecture is class too. Do not chatter too much.”
“......”
“And do not talk about things unrelated to the class. Understand?”
It was an utterly simple warning a teaching assistant could give: do not talk.
Yet the two wore stiff expressions and nodded creakily, like rusty hinges.
“Good. You seem to understand, so I will see you at the next lecture.”
I took my arms from their shoulders.
Griam and Jerome left the auditorium at a fast pace.
As I watched the two students’ backs, Hans approached.
“Will they listen to a warning like that?”
“Who knows?”
I did not know.
That would be the children’s choice.
“We will continue watching them, so do not worry too much.”
“Would it not be better to cut off the sprouts?”
“We do not even know what kind of sprouts they are yet.”
There were more than a dozen children gathered around Griam and Jerome.
Surely, some would make the wrong choice to the end.
Perhaps a student would cross the line.
But I could not cut them all off for that.
If I did, why would there be an academy?
We could simply raise Special Affairs Bureau agents instead of academy professors and dispose of anyone who did wrong.
“And you said you wanted to lure out the people behind them.”
“I believe that is the rationally correct method.”
Hans shook his head at the spirits pouring out in giggles.
“But it makes me uncomfortable.”
“So you are not a cold-blooded person with no blood to draw when pricked?”
“I was more surprised that you did not take any action until the middle of it.”
Behind the platform, a professor descended from the stage.
“How did you draw in a professor?”
“I borrowed some of the Chancellor’s authority and Kanibara’s sociability.”
I was only a teaching assistant.
I had no power to move professors.
So I had asked the Chancellor and Kanibara for help.
I told them that some human students were trying to divide the three races through strange rumors and asked them to take measures.
Naturally, the Chancellor began preparing countermeasures with the professors.
Kanibara mingled with professors giving lukewarm responses and obtained promises of active cooperation.
“Then did you not do anything at all, Lewis?”
Hans’s sharp question stung a little, but I answered with a composed face.
“What do you mean, I did nothing? Why do you think I went to Griam and Jerome?”
I surveyed the scene with the other teaching assistants.
“No matter how carefully professors listened for rumors, could they react immediately?”
“...No.”
“That is why, while pretending to regulate children as a teaching assistant, I listened to the murmuring in the auditorium.”
The professor had made a remark refuting the rumor before it even had time to spread among the children.
That was not coincidence.
It had been arranged for quite some time.
‘Of course, another teaching assistant had sent the signal, and I only took credit, but...’
Was that not how the world worked?
When I responded shamelessly, Hans accepted it and moved on.
“I was too busy to pay attention for a while, but you prepared a response plan in your own way.”
“The professors are capable.”
“But your current method is too soft. Even letting those two students go just now.”
Murderous light flashed behind Hans’s narrowed eyes.
“At the least, you should have given them a proper warning through a meeting with a professor.”
“Then suspension, and expulsion after that?”
“Yes.”
I sighed at Hans’s firm answer.
“Do you really want to uncover the people behind those children?”
“......”
“If you come down that hard, they will tuck their tails after only a few attempts.”
Really. He seemed cold and sharp on the outside, but he was soft inside.
I could tell he was worried that children of other races would truly be hurt.
That children used in adults’ conflict would truly go down the wrong path.
“...Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I was thinking you live a tiring life.”
“Do not say useless things.”
Hans stared at me as if I was one to talk.
“The one living a tiring life is you, Lewis.”
“Me?”
“For someone who constantly says everything is troublesome, do you realize you are acting remarkably proactively?”
“......”
I remembered Hans mentioning Roland before.
Meddlesome Roland.
Roland, who wanted to become a professor and teach children.
It seemed Hans was thinking of him too, not only me.
“In any event, if the situation becomes serious, I will move first.”
“There will be no need for that, so focus on the work you have been doing.”
The families inciting the children.
The unknown enemy that buried the energy sphere beneath the academy.
Whether the two were connected or not.
Depending on the answer, a great disturbance could arise at the academy.
“Then I will go.”
Hans looked over a few more children, then left the auditorium.
He could have ordered his subordinates to do it.
He was really diligent.
I, too, took out a notebook, wrote down several students’ names, and left the auditorium.
From the next day onward, every day was spent extinguishing false rumors.
False rumors that dealt with racial traits were relatively easy to put down.
That elves and spirits matured mentally slowly because they aged slowly.
That they pretended to be innocent, but were in fact greedy races that had claimed every undeveloped place on the continent.
The professors could suppress such rumors merely by making one or two remarks during lectures.
Children were indeed easily swayed by rumors.
But they also accepted new knowledge easily, without resistance.
They were far better than adults consumed by strange beliefs.
The problem was very trivial rumors.
Someone said an elf had broken school rules and sung in a flowerbed late at night.
Someone said a spirit had ignored school rules and dug a passage underground.
Someone said an elf had skipped class to go to the western forest.
Someone said a spirit complained that the Empire lacked the power of nature.
Those were not the sort of rumors one could refute with knowledge.
Nor could we find the ‘somebody or other’ from the rumor directly.
Even gathering the students and saying it was a misunderstanding would not easily quiet the rumors.
“Tch. The children are already learning only bad things.”
I let out a small sigh and sank into the sofa in my teaching-assistant office.
Elaine, who had entered with me, nodded as if she agreed.
“Elves are an exclusive race too, but humans are no less so than elves.”
“Elves are closed off. Humans are...”
How should I put it?
Foolish? Greedy? Jealous?
Several words came to mind, but none were quite clear.
Humans were the ones who competed for credit even on the front lines of the war against the demonfolk.
“Still, fewer students are swayed by the rumors than I expected.”
Elaine wore a deliberately bright expression, as though trying to lift my mood.
“Of course. Who do you think stepped in?”
I smiled and went along with Elaine’s words.
“I thought you could simply ignore false rumors.”
“Sometimes that is the right answer. But not now, when there are people deliberately spreading them.”
What if we only ignored the rumors?
Then Griam’s group would become bolder.
Until the three races grew uncomfortable with one another.
Rumors we failed to stop would continue growing, and one day would be beyond our power to stop.
Naturally, children would be the ones hurt in that process.
“I know that too. During the Yggdrasil War, demonfolk sometimes spread false rumors and made elves anxious.”
Psychological warfare in war.
It was not an experience that should come out of a young student’s mouth.
But Elaine looked as though she was seriously recalling that time.
“Back then, we knew our enemies had spread the rumors, so many people did not waver, and there was generally a restrained atmosphere.”
“That is because elves are good by nature.”
If it had been humans?
It would not have been strange for some to ride on false rumors for profit or even try to betray their side.
“Hehe.”
Elaine smiled brightly, happy that her people had been praised.
“Still, now that I think of it, everyone was probably too busy in that difficult situation to pay attention to false rumors. Like now.”
Beyond the window where Elaine looked, human students walked with dragging steps.
Most wore faces full of sorrow.
“Heh. No student can stand properly after taking this teaching assistant’s one hundred and eight consecutive pop quizzes.”
“Thanks to you, you are infamous among the students.”
That could not be helped.
To turn the students’ attention elsewhere, I had to do this much.
When your body was tired, you did not think strange thoughts.
Moreover, human students were not the only ones suffering.
Spirits and elves took the same pop quizzes.
“A strategy of strengthening unity by making a common enemy.”
“Ah! You startled me!”
I was just about to have a relaxing cup of cocoa when the door flew open and Hans came in.
“I did not expect you to resolve the matter in this way.”
“I told you to leave it to me.”
“That was not praise.”
Hans sighed faintly.
“You could have shared the burden with other teaching assistants or professors.”
As he said that, Hans stood in front of me.
“You have always been so good at passing work off to others. Why have you stepped forward yourself this time?”
“Because criticism is strongest when it gathers in one place instead of scattering.”
“Do you need to take it all onto yourself?”
“I am a teaching assistant in disguise. I do not have much work.”
The other teaching assistants were people who truly aspired to scholarship and education.
How could I impose this situation on people like that?
No matter how often I said things were troublesome, I had some decency as a person.
“Look at the other teaching assistants. Is that any way for people to live?”
One or two teaching assistants who already drifted somewhere between zombies and humans were appearing, and the academy had not even opened yet.
“How can I ask those people to bear a bad reputation because it is an important matter between races?”
“It is work for the nation.”
“Ugh. You are a terrible person. There are people, and then there is a nation. Does a nation come first and people second?”
When I shook my head, the crease between Hans’s brows deepened.
“Elaine, you must not grow up to become a nasty adult like—”
“Sigh. Stop talking nonsense. I came with serious business.”
“Tsk. A junior who cuts off a senior so freely. The discipline of the Golden Mane Knights has collapsed!”
Squeeze—
I could hear the force entering Hans’s fist from here.
“You did not even join as a regular recruit!”
“Yeah. I was granted a knighthood before you. No matter what anyone says, you are my junior. Junior, your senior is hungry, so bring me some cookies.”
“If you want to be treated like a senior, train properly! Before I tell Commander Richard!”
“No.”
I went limp on the sofa as if I had been possessed by a slime.
“Nyeeeh. Playing is the best.”
Elaine snickered at my slack appearance.
Hans also released the tension from his fist and shook his head as though there was no helping it.
“Elaine, you must not grow up into an unfinished adult like that.”
“He is cute like a vine. He looks a little like a drooping zelkova tree too?”
“That thing is cute...?”
Hans froze as if he had heard something as nonsensical as ‘Goblin Swordmaster.’
But he soon collected himself and told me why he had come to my room.
“Thanks to you, they appear to be moving on to their next plan.”
“Huh? Their next plan?”
He said the letters Griam’s group exchanged with their families contained that information.
Since false rumors were having little effect, they were to provoke conflict by directly harassing others.
“That could make the problem bigger.”
“Yes. That is why I came to ask what you intend to do.”
Hans looked steadily at me.
“Can you protect the students as you have been doing?”
“What will you do if I can?”
“Special Division 4 and I will remain uninvolved and continue only watching.”
“Until they grow bolder and the people behind them reveal themselves?”
“Yes.”
Viewed broadly, that was the right way.
They had not yet uncovered a clear connection between Skadivian nobles and the demonfolk.
They had suspicions but no evidence.
Therefore, waiting silently until they secured proof was wise.
‘The problem is whether those children can stay within the line...’
I thought back to the rumors so far.
The conclusion was, ‘I do not know.’
Some students cooperating with Griam had spread false rumors at the level of childish pranks.
Others had deliberately spread things meant to divide the three races.
‘They must have received instructions from above to do that.’
I had already marked those few out.
They were likely the ‘Seeds of Malice’ mentioned by the Sub Quest.
But this time it would not end with rumors.
“If you are worried about the students’ safety, stopping here is also an option.”
“You said it was work for the nation.”
“There are people, and then there is a nation. There is no nation before people.”
Hans gave back the exact words I had said.
That actually made me trust him more.
“It seems Special Division 4 could make it happen with a little effort.”
I could not duck out because it was troublesome or because I was worried.
In the end, I had to complete the quest.
“What would you like us to do?”
“Besides secretly opening letters, can you alter them too?”
“Of course.”
Hans nodded without even 0.01 seconds of hesitation.
As expected, terrifying! Special Division 4!
“If instructions to cross the line come down, soften them appropriately. And share their contents with me.”
“That is naturally something we need to do.”
“Then I will handle the rest.”
Direct harassment after false rumors?
No matter how capable children in this world were, they could not surpass the Korean school bullies of twenty-first-century Earth.
And someone who had been beaten knew best how and where to be hit so it hurt less.
They could predict how the other side would hit them too.
Based on my experience, I would bring the damage done to the children all the way down to zero!
Just as I was burning with motivation for once, Elaine and Hans whispered to each other while looking at me.
“His expression is strangely gloomy despite the way he talks.”
“He makes that expression sometimes when he thinks of the past.”
“Did neighborhood delinquents beat him up?”
“Seeing how he provokes people, there is a high chance of that.”
Hey! No slander!