A New Day
The next morning, a new day began for the students of Kizen.
Three classes were scheduled for the day.
The professor in charge of the first period — Dark Mechanics — was a middle-aged man named Eric Aura. With ideally settled wrinkles, a neat beard, a dignified face that suited a tailored suit, and the unhurried composure of long experience, he was the sort of person who inspired goodwill in everyone who met him.
"Darkness is the foundation of a Necromancer," he said. "It cannot be overstated."
Eric guided his students with practiced ease. His explanations were easy to follow, his breakdowns lodged cleanly in the mind, and though he lacked the flashy techniques of someone like Bahil from Curse Studies, the class itself was clean and unadorned.
Every student in Class A was drawn into Eric's words.
He began from the very origins of the runic language.
"The roots of runic script can be traced to the Eternal Flame of the Del Temple."
Eric never stopped at bare theory.
"People never questioned why the sacred flame never went out. To doubt a miracle of the gods was itself considered blasphemy."
At times he reached back into history to make a point land.
"In the end, they noticed that the ash fallen from the flame formed shapes not unlike letters. And they were stunned to discover that mere writing was producing the same miracle as an eternally burning sacred fire. That is the origin of runic script."
Eric wrote the ancient runes on the board, explained how the mages and Necromancers who studied them had refined the language over time, and then flowed, without a hitch, into the analysis of modern magic circles.
He took the circles apart piece by piece, showing why one worked and why another did not.
There was a skill called Dark Wisdom — a racial special ability belonging to the protagonist of the novel Overlord, Ainz Ooal Gown. Originally it had been a skill that increased the number of learnable spells through sacrifice, but after this world's Ainz crossed over, it had changed somewhat. It had imprinted itself in his mind as a form of wisdom, pure and simple.
The result was an amplification of every kind of magical understanding, and the automatic engraving of any magical knowledge he acquired. For an Ainz like that, Eric's class was extraordinarily useful.
Ainz focused on every word, engraving the knowledge into his mind as it came, and before he knew it time had slipped away.
"That will be all for today."
When the bell rang, Eric declared the class over.
"There is homework due next period. Take a non-functioning magic circle from among those you have learned, and submit a correction plan that makes it work — including the calculation formulas and the equations you used. Three students whose names I call will come to the front and present."
Ainz found himself interested in Eric's assignment. He already possessed combat power refined enough to overwhelm even Nephthys, but if everyone else kept advancing while he alone stood still, that was no different from falling behind.
So Ainz wanted to acquire new magic as well, and he began turning over how best to approach Eric's homework.
He decided he would combine various runes from the textbook into a suitably failed construct, then refine it step by step — treating the assignment as the process of creating a new spell.
Resolved to take the work seriously, Ainz left the lecture hall. Simon and Dick came out after him.
"Man, this class is way too hard."
Among the noisy stream of students pouring out of the room, Dick stretched with a weary face.
"Feels just like studying arithmetic with my dad when I was a kid. Can't we just memorize the magic circles and use them like usual? Why do we have to know every little principle of how they activate?"
"I was fine with it," Simon said, folding his arms. "I only understood about half, but I liked that he explained everything from the ground up."
"Simon, you think everything about Kizen is great. You even scraped the bathhouse soap with your fingernail because you thought it was amazing—"
Simon jabbed an elbow into Dick's chest. Dick yelped and stumbled back, but the laugh that had already burst out of him refused to stop.
"Ack! He freaked out at the bubbles in the bath! 'Am I even allowed in here?' Pffft—!"
"I'm going ahead."
Simon answered sulkily and walked off first.
Class A had no break. They had to prepare for the next period at once.
After a twenty-minute walk, the next class site turned out to be an empty plain on the outskirts of Kizen.
"There's nobody here?"
"…Uh, over there—!"
While the students of Class A waited, trading idle talk, a thick cloud of dust rose from the forest.
The ground shook as if an earthquake had struck, and a herd of more than a dozen hippos came thundering toward them.
The students cried out in alarm and scrambled backward.
"Ahaha! Hello, first-years!"
A man was riding one of the hippos. Dark-skinned, thick-lipped, lean of build, with short limbs overall and bare feet, he brought the herd to a skilled halt in front of the students and leapt down.
"Professor Hongpeng has decided that today's class will be held at Rok Mountain! Come on, everyone — mount up!"
The Martial Arts professor, Hongpeng Tun Sokum Marlat, was one of the more notorious eccentrics at Kizen. The academy had prepared both a research office and a residence for her, yet she spent her days wandering Rok Island and camping wherever she pleased. Because of that temperament, nearly all of her Martial Arts classes were held outdoors.
"…You're telling us to ride those?"
One male student made a face of pure disgust at the hippos standing there, flaring their nostrils.
"Hey, servant! Shouldn't you at least put a rug on that beast?"
The man who heard him smiled faintly and walked over—
"Aaaagh!"
—and seized the student's face in one hand, lifting him clean off the ground. Startled cries erupted from every direction.
"Wh-what are you doing?"
"How dare you treat a Kizen student like that!"
Thick killing intent rolled off the man who still wore that innocent smile. The students who had been coming forward to protest faltered and stopped in their tracks.
"Why are the new students these days so lacking in basic sense? You don't call me 'servant.' You call me Teaching Assistant."
Only then did the dangling student grasp the situation and shout in a panic.
"Aagh! I-I'm sorry, senior!"
A teaching assistant was, in all likelihood, a senior who had attended Kizen — and even if not, someone close enough to a professor to handle their affairs. No first-year could afford to slight such a person.
"Not 'senior.' Teaching Assistant."
"I'm sorry, Teaching Assistant!"
Watching the whole farce unfold, Simon shook his head.
"What is wrong with these people?"
"They're nobles," Dick said with a shrug. "Raised like greenhouse flowers, so the habit of treating people like servants sticks around. Stuff like this will be common until the start of the term settles down."
The explanation was so thoroughly convincing that Simon nodded.
Standing a comfortable distance away, Ainz watched the chaos as if it were a comedy sketch. Beside him, Maylin and a few other students smirked at the boy whose face was still caught in the assistant's grip.
A moment later, the teaching assistant's face returned to its innocent expression. He waved an arm.
"All right, we've lost a little time. Everyone, please mount the hippos! Up to three people per animal!"
The students climbed on with markedly snappier movements.
Simon swung up in one smooth motion. Dick slipped several times, grunting and struggling, before finally managing to haul himself aboard.
Ainz casually boosted a few students who still could not get up.
"Hoo. Class hasn't even started and this is already brutal."
Behind Dick, who was wiping sweat with his sleeve, a girl on the neighboring hippo was hopping in place in helpless frustration.
"Everyone on? Then we leave now!"
At the assistant's words the girl's face turned desperate. The students already mounted could not see her small frame.
Ainz gave her a light push as well, lifting her onto the hippo's back.
"!"
The small girl looked startled, but Ainz paid it no mind. The moment he saw her settled, he moved to mount a remaining hippo himself.
No sooner had he gotten her aboard than the teaching assistant kicked a hippo's rear.
The lead animal surged forward with a bellow, and the rest of the herd thundered after it in a single mass.
Ainz calculated the hippo's speed and distance, fixed a target point, and teleported — landing naturally on its back.
The full-body vibration of the ride kept anyone from noticing he had used teleportation magic. One student cried out as if in agony.
"T-Teaching Assistant! I'm going to fall! What do I hold on to?"
"Anything."
"It's too fast!"
"Grit! Overcome it with grit! This is part of your training too!"
Balancing on his two legs alone, the teaching assistant raised a right arm in a crisp salute.
"Of course, if you fall and get trampled by the herd, that would be a real problem, wouldn't it? Every year, one or two students always have an accident, you know."
"…What?"
The students doubted their own ears. It ought to have been a joke — but in the present situation, treating it as one was nearly impossible.
"Hang on! Hang on! A student who can't even ride a hippo's back properly has no place at Kizen!"
"Uwaah — whoaaa!"
"Moooom!"
"Hey, stop! I said stop this thing!"
"Hahahahahaha!"
It was, in every sense, a transport class of pure madness.