Awakening Madness (2)
In the calm atmosphere of the cafe, Tirsi began to speak. “I rewrote the thesis that McRoyver had ruined last time.”
She must have rushed out in a hurry again, because she was dressed exactly like before—in a pink nurse uniform with a doctor’s coat draped over it. But who the hell was McRoyver again? My brain froze for a split second. After turning the gears a few times, I remembered that the racist alchemist bastard’s surname was indeed McRoyver.
As expected, my memory is excellent. The only reason I hadn’t wanted to recall it was because that racist piece of shit was such an absolute fucking dog. I could understand my brain’s reluctance.
Tirsi continued in a weary voice. “I was going to send the completed thesis to Heisvent. I heard the mages’ guild there would evaluate it.”
“It was for a promotion review, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. I thought that if I officially requested a guild review, more vicious interference might come my way. But if I had known things would turn out like this… maybe it would have been better to let the interference happen instead.”
Tirsi tapped the drink in front of her with a soft tok tok. Knowing her situation, I sank into a sorrow I couldn’t even put into words. To think that the two of us would have our theses stolen at the same time. What a cruel twist of fate. It really felt like Tirsi and I were always suffering the exact same calamities. Ever since the sewer incident, in fact.
Still, this time it can’t exactly be called a coincidence.
The transport guild’s carriages only departed once every few days. Tirsi had probably waited for things to calm down after cleaning up that racist bastard’s mess. The fact that her thesis ended up on the same carriage as mine was simply unavoidable given the schedule.
“Do you not have any drafts left?” I asked, carefully reading the mood.
Even on Earth, when writing something important, people would repeatedly back up and revise until they ended up with files like ‘Thesis_Revision_9-9-9.hwp.’ In a world that still used paper, it was even more necessary. Making backups was far more annoying than in the 21st century—there was no Ctrl+C+V after all—but it was still common sense to keep at least some copies.
I could rewrite mine if I really had to. I still had the original draft of the thesis I’d written every night while doing farm work.
But why the fuck should I?
Anyone who’s done college assignments or office work knows. No matter how hard you struggle to rewrite something from vague memories and leftover materials, it’s never going to be the same as the original. Even if you somehow managed to produce an identical text, why the hell should I have to rewrite from scratch a paper I spent days pouring my soul into, just because some thieving bastards stole it?!
People lose their minds over a power outage caused by lightning. Yet here was someone trying to erase the fruits of my labor and force me to repeat that hellish process. And without even a shred of remorse for what they’d done!
Just thinking about it is pissing me off again.
I had been happily preparing to take the promotion exam with Franc today. Stealing my thesis was unforgivable on any day, but to pull this shit specifically on the day of our important promotion match?
—Bubble bubble.
My insides boiled with stress. Ever since awakening my mana, the burning rage in my gut had started to feel almost physically tangible. Just like right now.
“Drafts… hehe. I don’t have a single decent one left.” Tirsi answered my question with a hollow laugh. “I was such an idiot. The most intact draft I had left was the one McRoyver had completely trashed. Every time I looked at it, it made me so angry that I ended up burning it.”
She probably never imagined it would get stolen. Since I was in the same boat, I didn’t think her actions had been foolish.
“I don’t have the right words to say… but I understand how you feel.”
Seeing the sorrow in Tirsi’s demeanor, I carefully chose my reply. “When something similar happened to me, I tore everything up so thoroughly that not a single scrap remained.”
“Hehe. So Mr. Wayne has experience with this besides this incident?” Tirsi asked with a bitter smile.
Well, if someone told me they’d had their thesis stolen more than twice, I’d probably only be able to respond with a bitter smile too. If I started telling stories now, I could talk all day, but it would be meaningless and only make us both miserable, so I decided to drop it. Professor Creepika’s theory of hatred weathering still had room for practical application. I’d keep my rage toward Yerna buried in my chest for now.
“Well, yes. It’s not exactly something to brag about, so please don’t ask for details. If I remember, I might actually start crying from sadness.”
I wouldn’t actually cry, but I said it anyway.
“I see. I can at least show that much consideration.” Tirsi laughed as if the joke had lifted her spirits a little. Anyone could tell it was a forced smile.
“The thesis I wrote last time was something I struggled desperately to make acceptable in that man’s eyes, so I hated even looking at it. But now… I wish I still had it.”
“I suppose getting support from the mages’ guild will be difficult?” I asked, clutching at straws even though I knew there was little hope.
Tirsi shook her head. “I heard that bandits who steal medicinal herbs recently purchased by the mages’ guild have increased. The damage isn’t that severe, so they’re leaving it alone for now. Instead, the guards in front of the guild have become extremely sensitive. They say the guild can’t even properly catch the bandit groups operating around the city.”
The guards had become sensitive…?
Wait a fucking second, wasn’t that exactly what happened when I went to the mages’ guild? I clearly remembered them suddenly spreading a formation and thrusting spears at me without warning. So the reason I was treated like a bandit despite being completely innocent was all because of those fucking bandit bastards!!
“Ughhhk—grrrk—grrrk—!!”
As I bit my lip to hold back the rage, bright red blood dripped down from beneath my mask.
Just how much more do those fucking ninja bastards plan to ruin my life?!
“W-Wayne! You’re bleeding!”
A startled Tirsi pulled out a handkerchief and offered it to me. I calmly declined and used my own handkerchief to wipe the blood. This handkerchief had been prepared specifically for Franc.
“──I got a little excited. My apologies.”
Anyway, shouldn’t those petty thieves be classified as harmful vermin by now? No one would blame me if I slaughtered those worthless human scraps on sight.
“No need to apologize. Honestly, I feel like yanking my own hair out right now.” Tirsi made a gesture of grabbing her white hair beneath her nurse cap and pulling. Then she gave another tired smile.
“This time, I really put my heart into it… I even made sure the spacing between every single line was perfectly even…”
“Every single line?” My jaw dropped at Tirsi’s words. She had adjusted the spacing for every line of a handwritten thesis? Did she have some kind of obsessive-compulsive disorder?
“H-How is that even possible?”
“I use a ruler every time I write. I had one custom-made to match the size of my handwriting.”
“Good god… you went that far?”
It went beyond admiration and straight into chills. In this world, the ‘readability’ of a thesis was closer to an aesthetic or a form of military discipline. Like soldiers obsessing over perfectly folded blankets, perfectly aligned name tags, and the stiffness of their uniforms—an emotional realm impossible to understand without experiencing it firsthand!
At first people wonder why the hell they have to do this, but after a few years they can’t stop noticing it and keep revising. Even if they don’t, they get constantly chewed out by their asshole superiors. It was a vicious cycle! The ‘readability’ pursued by scholars in this world was exactly that kind of culture.
I had been tormented by asshole professors over my handwriting countless times, so I knew. Young scholars might inwardly despise the culture of ‘readability,’ but in reality they inevitably became attached to it without realizing. But Tirsi’s obsession existed in a realm beyond even mine.
To think she wrote her thesis while considering the size of every letter and the spacing of every paragraph! That was no longer a thesis—it had reached the level of paper art!
“And… you’re saying that thesis was stolen from you?”
I was so shocked I couldn’t speak. My hands were actually trembling. So this was what it really felt like. Looking down at my shaking hands, I muttered in a daze.
“I… I can’t keep up with this reality at all.”
It was like carefully ironing your uniform and polishing your boots because you had leave tomorrow, only for some bastard from another company to barge into the barracks, step all over it, wrinkle it, and steal it to wear. The unbearable rage made it feel like my heart would explode. The trauma from all those past years churned through my brain. It felt like a whisk attachment on an electric drill had been shoved into my cerebral fluid—my thoughts refused to organize themselves! It was exactly like that day after the college entrance exam when high schooler Kang Bukho, trying Red Bull for the first time, clutched his heart and puked in the PC bang!!
“Puhuhuhu.”
Laughter burst from my lips as the world before my eyes turned pure white. When rage exceeded what a person could endure, it instead burned with cold calmness.
──Ah, I see. So that’s how it is.
As white-hot fury wrapped around me and I let out a manic laugh, a certain realization pierced through my mind. It filled my chest like sunlight breaking through the frozen river of a snowfield.
Those bandit bastards── they’re no different from professors.
That’s exactly what they are. Those who torment others for their own selfishness. Those who refuse to give proper compensation to people who work hard. Those who treat people harshly while exploiting them. All of them are professors. This other world was filled with professors so vile that even Satan would be made into a graduate student under them.
“Then I──.”
Then I.
“──I will become the Professor Slayer.”
I will bring justice to this world.
“Y-Yes?”
Tirsi looked at me with startled eyes as I stood up. She hadn’t noticed my awakening.
“Miss Tirsi.” I gazed at the flustered woman with deep, profound eyes. “From now on, I intend to exterminate that bandit group and retrieve our theses.”
“S-Suddenly? No, more importantly—how?”
“There is a way. It will require some preparation, but I believe I can locate their den and annihilate them alone.”
It might sound arrogant, but I honestly thought my king-level ability was more than sufficient. There was no way a bunch of human-shaped trash mobs who only knew how to steal could be strong. I planned to do some light preliminary investigation before pursuing them. But that bandit group wasn’t some massive mafia-like criminal organization. The scale of the crimes they committed was pathetically small. They were clearly nothing more than neighborhood thugs.
If they were a group made up of proper powerhouses, why would they be robbing peddlers in rural cities? The scale of this incident was no different from stealing a neighborhood Coupang delivery truck. They were the kind of trash mobs that were good at running and hiding, and even if you beat them, the cost-performance was so bad that people just left them alone. Those petty thieves were exactly like juvenile offenders who commit crimes relying on juvenile protection laws—the frequent flyers of juvenile detention centers. There was no reason not to kill them.
“So before that, I have one question.”
With my elite brain spinning at full speed and constructing flawless logic, I asked Tirsi.
“──Would you like to come with me?”
It didn’t matter if I went alone. If Tirsi refused, I could go with Franc instead. But Tirsi was also a victim of this incident. She had just as much right as I did to vent her anger.
“Is there… really a way?” Tirsi asked, her eyes blazing.
She might look frail, but she was an adventurer too. She was a mage who could possess both the ability and the will to take revenge on her enemies. I answered with absolute certainty.
“It is possible.”
After all, it was a method I had used often since my slave days.
The white-hot fury has crystallized into cold determination.
The Professor Slayer persona has begun to awaken.
“First, let’s start with preliminary investigation.”
With those words, I asked Tirsi to go to the adventurers’ guild and gather information. Since she belonged to the mages’ guild, the receptionists would be more willing to hand over details about the bandit group.
The place I headed to was the transport guild. Whether the story about his son being kidnapped was true or not, that bald representative had an obligation to answer my questions.
“Y-You’re saying you’ll subjugate the bandit group?”
The bald representative who had been called out again widened his eyes at my words.
“Please! My son—please save my son!”
He then prostrated himself before me, sobbing.
“If you do that, not only will I pay you handsomely, I will also return every single stolen item our company purchased from our customers!”