Chapter 198 - [Side story]
[Side story]
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 1
Chapter Title: Side Story - A Graduate Student's Day (1)
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Click-clack, click-clack.
Barklan Kedow's morning began with someone's footsteps.
It was impossible to tell exactly where they came from. They could have been from upstairs, the next room over, or maybe even below.
This dormitory had no concept of soundproofing whatsoever, so the sounds of page-turning, bathing, and even lovemaking filtered through unfiltered and vivid as ever.
But such a place was Barklan's current reality—he had no choice but to stay here.
"Ah, my head hurts..."
Rubbing his throbbing temples hard as he sat up, Barklan headed straight to the bathroom and turned on the faucet at the sink.
After splashing cold water on his face over and over, he came to a bit and finally looked in the mirror.
A young man in his mid-twenties stared back, with round eyes and a round face. Unfortunately, those eyes were puffy with fatigue, shadowed darkly underneath.
Barklan muttered in lament.
"If this keeps up, I'm really gonna drop dead."
Last night, he'd only gotten three hours of sleep after working until dawn on compiling the Eternal Lexicon.
And it wasn't just this once— it'd been like this for weeks now. Between grad school, handling the professor's tasks, tutoring, and odd jobs, there was no helping it.
The reason he endured this murderous schedule was simple: he had no money.
Barklan's family was poor.
They'd never been wealthy to begin with, and sending their only son to grad school had piled on debt, making them even poorer.
Even so, it wasn't enough for the exorbitant grad school tuition or the bribes to professors for admission. So Barklan had to cover the shortfall himself while attending.
Regrettably, a grad student's side gigs couldn't generate enough income for tuition, living expenses, and maintaining his dignity.
*Where can I scrape up some cash?*
Money, money, more money—that's what he needed. He hadn't paid this semester's tuition yet, even though the professor had deferred it, and his dorm fees were two months overdue.
It was all because a stock investment tip from an acquaintance had bombed spectacularly not long ago. He hadn't been scammed—the guy who'd tipped him off had lost everything and jumped off a building.
Either way, at this rate, he'd be expelled next semester for lack of funds.
*After holding out here for years, how could I let it end like that?*
If he didn't graduate properly, Barklan's future would plummet into the abyss.
It was already a brutally cold era. The global economic depression that had hit the Leman Republic and the rest of the world in recent years had brought catastrophe.
Streets were filled with royalists and revolutionaries clashing in bloody struggles, while job placement offices were mobbed by men and women, young and old, their cheeks chapped from sleeping rough as they hunted for work.
If he didn't graduate, Barklan would end up just like them.
Of course, it wasn't all doom and gloom.
Even in this era—no, especially because of it—the scholars delving into the mysteries of ancient Eternal tongues were more valuable than ever.
If he graduated properly, getting hired by a museum or archaeologist wouldn't be hard.
Yes, as long as he got hired.
*Maybe take out a loan from a loan shark?*
Barklan slipped into his neatly pressed black suit, checked his pocket watch, grabbed his gleaming gray cane, and stepped out of the dorm.
Eternal Language scholars—and their aspiring students—belonged to the upper-middle class, distinct from laborers, so maintaining the appropriate dignity was essential.
No matter his pocket situation, failing to uphold class-appropriate decorum would earn him contempt from professors and peers. And that would torpedo his graduation.
In that sense, maintaining dignity was more important than eating or sleeping.
Emerging at the dorm entrance, a hazy gray fog-shrouded city came into view.
Barklan instinctively pinched his nose and grimaced.
*Never gets any easier to breathe.*
Munich, the capital of Munich Province in the Leman Republic, was one of the republic's most developed cities. And developed cities inevitably meant pollution.
The ash-gray fog drifting in the sky was proof.
Claims that polluted mana smoke harmed the human body and needed regulation had been raised by environmentalists for decades, but corporate magnates and politicians' collusion kept such bills from passing Congress.
Restricting the boundless mana buried underground was political violence, or claims that mana smoke was harmful were just conspiracy theories—that's all the nonsense they spouted.
To Barklan, raised in the clean country air, the city natives who accepted this polluted atmosphere as normal were utterly incomprehensible.
"Over here!"
Before long, Barklan hailed a floating mana carriage.
"Where to, sir?"
"To Munich University."
"Well now, a university man! Got myself a fine passenger."
Even a glance at Barklan's attire screamed gentleman class, but the old coachman played it like he'd just realized, flattering his customer.
Barklan nodded silently in response, leaned back against the seat, and closed his eyes.
He planned to catch a quick nap during the ride.
But his doze didn't last long.
An unignorable racket assaulted his ears from beyond the window.
[Awaken! Rise up!]
[Remember our great sovereign! He shall return!]
[People, break free from the corrupt republicans!]
"What the..."
Barklan opened his eyes to hear the coachman ahead tsk-tsking with a sneer.
His voice dripped with clear hostility.
"Those damn royalists protesting again. Tch, it's been years since the monarchy fell."
Looking where he indicated, Barklan saw a crowd ahead in the square the carriage was passing, waving huge placards and shouting.
Their shabby clothes made their identity obvious: likely descendants of the old nobility ruined when the republic was founded. The so-called "revolutionary forces" had stripped them of wealth and power.
Moments later, giants clad head to toe in metal appeared. Combat golems operated by the police, no doubt.
[Grab 'em all!]
[Resist! Against the filthy republicans...!]
The combat golems moved to suppress the protesters, who fought back fiercely.
A few mages among them flashed mana lights and hurled spells, but such attacks wouldn't faze the golems.
Judging it impossible to pass the now near-battle zone, the coachman turned the carriage toward another route.
Gliding down a relatively quiet street, the old man muttered on.
"I lost a leg fighting in the Revolution War in my youth, but I've never regretted it once. It was for saving the nation. Look at our republic—proven that elected chancellors govern better than bloodline monarchs, right? And yet they cling to old nostalgia like that."
Sure enough, the old man was missing one leg.
From there, he unleashed a torrent of his political views, as if a dam had burst. Nobles should've all been hanged during the revolution, young people these days were lazy and tanking the economy, and so on.
*But the current chancellor's the previous one's nephew, the previous was the first one's son...*
He wanted to point out it was hereditary in all but name, but Barklan had no desire to argue politics with a apparent veteran.
Barklan nodded silently.
Soon after, the carriage arrived at Munich University.
Checking his pocket watch, he saw he'd already missed the time the professor had summoned him—thanks to detouring around the protesters.
He'd notified ahead, but that wouldn't save him from a scolding. The later he was, the harsher the reprimand and disdain.
Barklan paid the fare with his communicator and hopped off with unseemly haste.
"Good ride!"
"Farewell, sir!"
After sending the carriage off, Barklan hurried across the university grounds as fast as dignity allowed—he couldn't afford to look frivolous by running.
Entering the grad school area moments later, he ran into the sharp gaze he'd hoped to avoid.
"Barklan Kedow."
"Yes, Professor."
"You're late."
"I'm sorry."
"Fourth time this semester. And getting later each time. How long do I have to accommodate you?"
"I have no excuse."
"I'm warning you—don't keep wasting my time. History deals with time itself. So you should know better than anyone how precious it is. Understand?"
At his advisor Professor Azin Lemur's reprimand, Barklan bowed his head in quiet apology.
Knowing excuses were what he hated most, Barklan said nothing about the protesters delaying him.
He'd just get, "You should've left earlier accounting for that."
This professor wasn't the warm type to care that his grad student slept three hours a day earning tuition.
* * *
After classes and errands, Barklan collapsed onto the table like a half-dead corpse. With sleep tugging at him the moment his head touched anything, he couldn't be bothered with decorum.
Then, someone addressed the drifting Barklan.
A clear, lovely young woman's voice.
"Senior Kedow?"
His eyes snapped open. Before him stood a girl a few years his junior, it seemed. Her light purple hair neatly braided, features sharp and beautiful—a real knockout.
Barklan quickly wiped drool from his mouth and asked.
"Wh-what is it?"
"Professor Yeriko wants you. Said if you could spare a moment..."
Barklan's fleeting rosy fantasy shattered on the spot. He replied listlessly.
"Ah, yes. Tell him I'll be there soon..."
"I'll let him know."
With her business done, the girl breezed past Barklan and vanished.
Putting aside his brief delusion sparked by a beauty speaking to him, Barklan hauled himself up.
* * *
"Come in, Kedow!"
"Good to see you, Professor."
Professor Yeriko headed the Biotech Department at Munich University.
Once called magical biology, the field manipulated biological traits of humans, nonhumans, and combat golems alike.
And Professor Yeriko was one of the world's top authorities.
"Thought about my proposal?"
"Ah, that one..."
Not long ago, Yeriko had pulled Barklan aside with a bizarre offer. A sort of illegal human experiment.
By his account, animal trials were fully complete, but ethical issues blocked human approval. Theoretically safe, just tripped up by minor ethics.
"Brain transplant experiment, right?"
"Yes. As I said before, it's nothing major. Lie down, get up, earn 1 billion rant. If you weren't an Eternal ability user, I wouldn't even offer."
1 billion rant was beyond generous for a human trial—overflowing.
Enough to cover grad tuition and living costs till graduation, even buy a small family home in pricey Munich.
Money a laborer could never earn in a lifetime of toil.
"Well, I..."
But such pay was pointless if he died. To Barklan, a famed professor pushing illegal experiments screamed danger or dirt.
The hesitant Barklan faced the professor's fervent persuasion.
"Nothing shady or risky, I assure you. This reached you because of politics. Those petty senior profs fear losing their spots, so they block my approval. This chance won't last forever—once approved, they'd grab death-row Eternals. Now's your shot."
It was a proposal he'd rejected before, and he planned to again.
1 billion rant was huge, but achievable post-grad as an Eternal scholar.
Risking life for it would be foolish.
That had been his thinking just days ago.
But now, Barklan was reaching his limit. Empty bank account despite slaving away, exhausted body at its breaking point, family buried in debt, anxiety over the future.
To such a Barklan, Professor Yeriko's offer felt too sweet.
"I..."
A smile crept across the professor's face as he watched Barklan.
He seemed to sense it too. That Barklan was leaning toward accepting.