[Waiting]
As the saying went, one should pull a bull’s horn while it was still hot.
I went to the Chancellor’s office early in the morning.
“I understand perfectly why you came to see me so early.”
After hearing about what had happened the previous night, the Chancellor shook his head.
“We will have to pay more attention to character education as well. Tsk. Character education at an academy.”
The Chancellor’s voice was thick with disbelief.
By the standards of the Teruna Continent, noble children around the age of twelve should have finished their basic character education long ago.
Yet they had caused a problem involving other races of all things. How absurd it must have been.
“I have seen plenty of conflict and harassment among students, but it is new when other races are involved.”
Only the race was different.
Yet that alone had turned it into a matter that gave the Chancellor a headache.
“Perhaps it was serious in itself, and I have been ignoring it all this time.”
It seemed that the Chancellor’s sense of caution, dulled over time behind the words, ‘Children are just like that,’ had been awakened again.
“Even if I must revise the school rules, I will strictly prohibit conflict among students.”
“Once they become accustomed to each other’s cultures, it should be fine to ease up little by little. But right now is a sensitive time.”
“Yes. You are right. But....”
The Chancellor’s gaze shifted to my side.
“Why did you bring those children?”
Sensing the Chancellor’s gaze, the spirits quietly gnawing on cookies raised their heads.
Before the spirits sat a refreshment basket containing nothing but red ginseng candies.
‘Even the spirits turn their noses up at red ginseng candies.’
Thinking something so silly, I brought up the main point.
“Separate from this incident, I think spirits and elves need to learn how to be wary of humans. They have far too little caution.”
“That is true. Even I am surprised whenever I see it.”
Was it because the three races had stood together so tightly during the Yggdrasil War?
At heart, spirits and elves seemed to think that humans were generally kind and just.
‘That differs far too much from the game’s story.’
That was why the three races had mingled so well without problems until now, just before the academy opened.
But what if a human with bad intentions approached them, like Griam’s group?
The elves’ characteristic slowness would combine with it, and an incident would arise in an instant.
Spirits might be sensitive to malice, but that was not all-powerful either.
I had brought these children to show that we could not rest easy by relying on that alone.
“Kids.”
I took a cookie from my pocket.
Then I waved it in front of the three spirits looking up at me with sparkling eyes.
“Your teaching assistant will give you cookies, so do you want to go to graduate school with me?”
Then—
“I do!”
“Cookies!”
“I like it!”
The children shouted with bright smiles.
For the record, these children knew what graduate school was.
When they first learned about it, they had even become teary-eyed and asked whether humans called prisons graduate school.
And yet they answered so brightly.
They were like golden retrievers who would follow their owner into hell.
“...Did you bring them here like that too?”
At the Chancellor’s question, Hans nodded in my place.
“Yes. At first, they refused because they had to attend the morning Exchange Meeting lecture. But when we waved cookies at them, they immediately followed.”
“......”
“I was so concerned that, as a precaution against kidnapping, I even considered banning cookies within the academy city.”
The Chancellor shook his head blankly.
“If you teach them not to follow anyone carelessly....”
“We did that on the way here.”
“......?”
The Chancellor’s eyes seemed to ask, ‘Those children?’
Hans sighed at that look.
“I taught them that if a suspicious person offers them a cookie and tells them to come along, they must say, ‘No!’ I did it myself.”
And he had not said it only once.
He had repeated it and emphasized it all the way here.
Repeating and emphasizing things did not make spirits anxious.
But it only lasted as long as he was speaking.
“Kids. You have to say, ‘No!’”
At my words, the children laughed brightly and finally echoed me.
“No!”
“All right, then. Again.”
I put the cookies back in my pocket.
The plump cheeks of the three spirits, which had swelled with anticipation, deflated.
“Here.”
This time, I took out jelly.
It was not an Affinity Item that gave spirits a bonus effect.
But could spirits who had already fallen in love with human snacks resist it?
“Your teaching assistant will give you jelly. Do you want to come to the professor’s office with me?”
“Jelly!”
“I like it!”
“I do!”
The three spirits threw up their hands and cheered.
“No. You should say, ‘No!’”
“Why?”
The three spirits tilted their heads, their eyes fixed on the jelly.
The Chancellor squeezed his eyes shut at the sight.
For the record, spirits were not unintelligent.
Their memories far surpassed the average human’s.
Their academic achievements were not shallow either.
And that was not all. They used the power categorized as spirit magic as naturally as humans moved their limbs.
But these children did not consider humans dangerous in the slightest, so they simply ignored everything they had been taught moments ago.
“We need special instruction, do we not?”
“As Chancellor, I will authorize the arrangement of special instruction. Incorporate it into the Exchange Meeting lectures.”
I smiled at the Chancellor’s approval.
Hans looked at me with a doubtful expression.
His face clearly said that he had no idea what I was planning.
“Don’t worry. It’s nothing much.”
“Looking at that expression, I do not think it is nothing much....”
***
The reason Griam’s group, who were only around twelve years old, could target spirits and elves was simple.
The two races did not guard against humans.
Then the solution was simple too.
I just had to raise their caution somehow.
Somehow!
“So this is the plan you came up with?”
Hans looked at me as though I was pathetic.
“Why? The reactions have been good so far.”
Ten more days had passed since I met the Chancellor with the spirits.
And during that time, my intention to interfere with Griam’s group had worked exactly as intended.
The problem was that those bastards were causing a disturbance?
Then I would cover it with an even bigger disturbance!
And I would slip in some educational meaning while I was at it!
That was why I had set traps throughout the academy.
“That is education.... Sigh....”
Hans shook his head as though he did not even want to say more.
In the corridor Hans had been watching until a moment ago, an extremely suspicious trap had been set.
It was a trap with a small cookie placed on a plate and a large box propped at an angle above it.
If someone crouched to pick up the cookie, they could pull away the stick holding up the box and capture them.
“I have only seen it for the first time today, but would anyone fall for a trap this obvious? Spirits are not dogs.”
“Just watch. My kids will definitely fall for it.”
For the past ten days, I had laid these shoddy traps all over the academy.
Sometimes I even deliberately picked fights with elf and spirit children.
‘It sounds a little strange when I put it that way....’
For example, this was what I meant.
Elf students liked to bask in sunlight pouring through the huge windows in the corridors.
The only natural light entering the buildings came through those windows, so perhaps that was only natural.
But the problem was that they stopped right in the middle of the corridor to enjoy the sunlight.
I deliberately bumped into those elves, then gently told them that they should not do that.
I led them to the edge of the corridor, near the windows, and told them to enjoy sunlight in places like that if they wanted to bask in it.
After that repeated a few times, the elves naturally began to bask in sunlight at the edges of the corridors.
Very occasionally, an elf still stood blankly in the middle of a corridor.
But then humans and spirits avoided them on their own.
They had learned that elf society had a culture of not interrupting those enjoying sunlight, and they were considerate of it.
Once that harmony took shape, Griam’s group deliberately bumping into elf students to pick fights stood out.
It was only a source of conflict when cultures differed.
When everyone respected one another and only some people caused problems?
There was no behavior that stood out more.
And it happened not once or twice, but repeatedly throughout the past ten days.
By then, even the few who had been harassed by Griam’s group had changed how they thought.
It was not ‘humans’ who were strange. It was ‘Griam’s group.’
‘Griam’s group realized that too late and stopped, but....’
It was already too late.
Griam’s group had become a clique that elves and human students alike were slowly beginning to avoid.
‘And Griam kept cutting loose people and denying it too.’
Because Griam kept cutting people loose, there seemed to be division within the group as well.
‘All the running around and exhaustion were worth it.’
Now only the final phase remained.
What was the final phase, you ask?
The bullies’ last method was always the same, was it not?
‘Follow me to the recycling station behind the school after classes.’
Griam’s group had used most of the methods available to them by now.
Soon, they would take out their final card.
I only had to stop that.
That was the purpose of the trap.
“Hans. Think about it. Griam’s group gives off such a bad atmosphere. Would spirits approach them?”
“Absolutely not. They already have an extremely bad reputation among spirits.”
“Right. Even elves avoid them.”
Human society’s power did not work on spirits or elves.
What way could Griam’s group have to lure a target to a secluded place?
At most, they would lay out bait to lure them in, or ask an unfamiliar person to call them over.
“That is why I put effort into trap lessons for the past four days.”
“No, calling it putting effort in is too generous. They are far too crude....”
Just as Hans deeply furrowed his brow—
From far down the corridor, Suni the water spirit came tottering over.
“You know Suni too, right?”
“Yes. They are the water spirit in your Exchange Meeting group, are they not?”
Hans’s brow creased even deeper than before.
“I heard that Suni earned excellent marks on the pop quiz for the newly begun safety lectures.”
“You were outside for the past few days, so how did you find that out too?”
“I take particular care over your safety.... No, that is not important right now.”
Hans frowned and jerked his chin toward the corridor ahead.
“Suni will not fall for such a low-grade trap.”
As though time was precious and we should stop this and leave, he began to rise.
Well, to someone active in Special Division 4, it must have looked ridiculously crude.
But Hans froze halfway to his feet.
Suni had seen the cookie and approached it.
“Surely not....”
Hidden around the corner, Hans looked back and forth between the trap and Suni with shaken eyes.
His gaze said, ‘They will not fall for that thing, right? Right?’
“Tsk, tsk. Hans, my innocent friend.”
I clicked my tongue, lowering my voice even further so Suni would not hear me.
“No matter how sensitive spirits are to malice, traps do not have feelings.”
“Malice, my ass—!”
Hans clenched his fist in frustration.
He thought it was absurd that someone would fall for a trap practically screaming, ‘Do not eat this.’
Of course, that would be strange for a human.
But spirits did not have that kind of thing.
‘No. Normally, they would have been different.’
If the Teruna Continent had followed the original story, that was.
Spirits were a powerful force that protected the continent’s nature.
And the demonfolk of the Underworld targeted those spirits.
Who was more cunning than demonfolk?
In the original story, spirits had learned to be wary of other intelligent beings through their war with those demonfolk.
Of course, even those spirits were sometimes caught by the human baseness that slapped even demonfolk back and forth across the cheeks.
Anyway.
The point now was that spirits as a race were completely defenseless against schemes aimed at them.
As I thought that, Suni had already approached the trap containing the cookie.
Tilt—? Tilt—?
They kept shaking their head from side to side while looking at the cookie.
That innocent sight made me smile without realizing it.
Why was there a cookie here?
Did someone leave it behind?
It looked delicious.
I wanted to eat it!
That was probably what they were thinking.
“How have spirits like that survived intact for thousands, even tens of thousands, of years....?”
Hans sighed beside me, genuinely wondering.
“Because middle-ranking and high-ranking spirits are on a completely different level.”
Elves and spirits were beings born drenched in the gods’ love.
They had talent related to magic hardwired into them as a passive ability.
And not individually, either. It was hardwired in at the level of the entire race.
On top of that, elves had an average lifespan of five hundred years.
A leisurely race that basked in sunlight while singing by day and basked in moonlight while singing by night?
No matter what, living that long meant they were bound to realize something.
Mostly things related to magic.
Spirits were even more so.
Each time they matured mentally and evolved, their strength became an entirely different thing.
Even three or four middle-ranking spirits together could play with a decent knight order.
Of course, perhaps Teruna had handled the balance patch well, because spirits were overwhelmingly fewer in number than humans.
They were a race without much desire, so they rarely came into conflict with humans either.
‘If not for human greed, that is.’
While my thoughts had wandered elsewhere, Suni finally crouched in front of the cookie.
Then they stretched a hand toward it.
“Ha ha! I was waiting for this!”
At that moment, I pulled the string connected to the stick.
Thump!
The stick fell, the box came down, and Suni was trapped beneath it.
“How can this possibly work...? Why...?”
Hans clutched his head, unable to understand it at all.
Hans and I walked over and lifted the box.
Then we saw Suni looking up at us with round eyes.
“Teachew?”
“I’m not Teachew.”
I was the sack-toting teaching assistant who kidnapped children caught in traps.