White Dwarf (1)
A short while later, I found myself standing before Professor Babalk’s office. Even I felt overwhelmed by the sight of that imposing door, my breath catching in my throat. And fittingly, the wave of cold air that washed over me the moment it opened felt like it was freezing the marrow in my bones.
Knock knock—
“This is Yohan. I’m coming in, Professor Babalk.”
The head professor’s office I stepped into was stripped of everything except the bare necessities. Magic circles and combat relics had been driven straight into the walls. It was profoundly strange. If the room was going to look like this, why bother with such an enormous space?
While I was still turning that question over in my mind, Babalk—seated in an executive chair that looked almost comically small beneath his massive frame—exhaled a plume of cigarette smoke and offered me one.
“You’re here. Care for a smoke?”
“…I’m a student.”
“What do you take my intelligence network for? I know perfectly well you light up the moment you step off campus.”
“Professor, at the very least I’m not uncouth enough to do it inside the academy.”
“Hah. Is that so? I’m not sure how I’m supposed to interpret that.”
“…Is there any reason you should?”
“You’ve already moved beyond the category of student.”
Babalk ground his cigarette into the ashtray with a mechanical twist and spoke in a flat, emotionless voice.
“The reason my office is so barren is simple: these few pieces of furniture are all I need. The imperial family and the academy simply assigned me this room. There’s no need to become attached to it, Yohan.”
“…I suppose I was staring too obviously.”
“Every single person who has ever walked through that door has had the same reaction. It’s hardly unusual.”
He rapped his knuckles twice on the chair beside him—an unmistakable command to sit. He might not have meant anything by it, but the heavy pressure of his presence told me that refusing would be a very bad idea. As a mere student, I obeyed and took the seat.
Why did he call me here?
I was just about to voice the question when he spoke first.
“How is your body…? Any discomfort?”
Suddenly, in a tone completely unlike him, Babalk asked after my health and took my hand as though it were something precious. I stared at him.
Hah. Haa…? What the hell was this? This wasn’t his character at all.
He kept stroking my hand. Damn it. It was the first time anyone had ever touched me with such obsessive fascination, and the profanity rose in my throat before I could stop it. If he had been one of the Six Swords, I would have torn him apart without a second’s hesitation.
What he asked next was straightforward.
“…After killing one of the Six Swords, have you experienced any mental instability? Any physical side effects? I’ve reviewed your medical charts multiple times, but if anything feels wrong, tell me. I can help.”
“I’m fine, Professor. There are no problems.”
Since I really was fine, that was all I could say.
“So it’s true. You really did destroy one of the Six Swords.”
“…It would appear so.”
“…Khh, khaha— Khahahahahaha!!”
In the end, all that remained was his usual mad laughter. He didn’t seem to care about my gaze or anything else, but did he have any idea how unsettling it was to watch this up close?
…Haa. What a lunatic.
Then my eyes fell on a photograph on his desk. It showed him with his daughter, taken when he was middle-aged. The picture was so old and worn that its details had almost faded beyond recognition. The moment I saw it, I understood exactly why this man was so obsessed with the Six Swords and the demon race—why he acted this way even in front of me.
I had already known his past, of course. …He’s a survivor of the demon army’s human farm. What more needs to be said?
Human farms. To harvest the “human souls” required to maintain the sun, the demons beyond the barrier operated vast breeding facilities. The millions trapped inside were worked to death, ordered to breed when the demons needed new stock, and then slaughtered once they had served their purpose. Just like animals fed into a grinder.
Intellectually, one could argue it wasn’t meaningless—if those souls were truly necessary to keep the sun burning for the rest of humanity. But that was only a rationalization. The very existence of a slaughterhouse like that was nauseating, an act of pure insanity. Millions might sound like a statistic, but each of those millions had their own stories, their own lives.
If the sun could only be sustained by treating humans like livestock, then from a human perspective it would be better for the sun to disappear.
In the original story, that’s exactly why Eclipse destroyed it.
A farm whose very existence gave the demon army a reason to be eradicated. In any case, Babalk had somehow escaped that place as a child. That alone would have been enough to fuel a lifetime of hatred. But the daughter he had late in life—the one in that faded photograph—had been taken during a demonic invasion and dragged back to the farms.
No further explanation was necessary. No one could endure that without going mad.
“It’s a good day. A very good day…”
Even though he was a madman, he was our madman. He had spent his entire life researching ways to destroy the demon army. According to Casacos, the reason he had chosen me during the entrance exam was that he saw the potential in me to do exactly that.
“You are the brilliant star I saw from the very first moment.”
A star. He kept using that word to describe me. I didn’t know why, but it carried a heavy, almost ominous weight.
“Completely destroying one of the Six Swords is something no one has ever achieved before. Humanity has just taken a step closer to the true death of the Demon King…!”
But how long was he going to keep praising me?
“Professor, did you really call me here just to compliment me on destroying it? That doesn’t sound like the man I know.”
Babalk never acted without purpose. I had no way of knowing exactly why he had summoned me, so my nerves were stretched taut.
And then, with complete nonchalance, he turned my worry into reality.
“Ah, were you perhaps thinking I called you here because of the forged corpse?”
“…You found out.”
“Obviously. No matter who you hired to retrieve and cremate the body used in that sham wedding, it was an audacious move. The cleanup gave me quite a headache.”
“Ugh…”
“That corpse belonged to Roban, didn’t it? Cutting off an arm and attaching it to disguise the body—impressive improvisation.”
Oh, shit. So he really did know everything.
“…About that—”
“You were also the ones who killed Vankite. Or should I say, the Grand Duke’s daughter did.”
“We edited the footage using the Magic Tower’s power—how did you—?!”
“I’m the one who developed the cartridge system. I know its structure better than anyone. Did you really think third-rate hacks throwing a tantrum could prevent me from restoring it?”
“……”
“Never forget why they call me the head professor, boy. That’s why I said you no longer seem like a student to me.”
Damn it. I should have stayed on guard. It seemed I had underestimated Babalk’s venomous nature and obsessive personality. He hadn’t called for me all this time, so I had relaxed. But that silence had simply been him gathering evidence, holding his breath.
Even though I had tried to hide everything, he had dug it all up. The sense of futility was almost crushing.
Then Babalk spoke again.
“If I were to scatter all this evidence across the imperial court, the current situation surrounding the academy would be resolved in a single stroke, and the North would descend into absolute chaos. Don’t you agree, Yohan?”
Hah. But to my ears, those words sounded like nothing more than a bluff. He had just told me himself how high my stock was in the public eye right now.
“You would really do that to me?”
“……”
“Don’t waste your breath. You can’t do it. What possible benefit would you gain by abandoning me, Professor?”
I had smashed one of the Six Swords with my bare gums, so to speak. As he himself had said, I was the only human who had ever done so.
“Since you already seem to know, I’ll speak plainly. Vankite deserved to die, so I killed him. He was colluding with the demons. Yet you—who claim to want the demons destroyed more than anyone—now threaten me? That doesn’t add up.”
Even though the man radiated overwhelming pressure, I refused to be crushed.
“I only used every means available to achieve that goal. I regret the disturbance, but I have no intention of apologizing. Nor do I intend to kneel.”
“…As expected, your guts pass with flying colors.”
“…Pardon?”
“I’ll say it directly. Did you think I was doing all this for no reason? Yohan. Become the next Hero. If you refuse, I will spread these pieces of evidence everywhere I can.”
Shit. Shit. Shit?!
“………What the hell are you trying to pull?!”
“A clever student like you should be able to understand, no?”
This was bad. Catastrophically bad. After careful consideration—ah, screw that.
Bang—!
Without realizing it, I threw a punch at the old bastard who was trying to shove my fate into an abyss of darkness and hurled myself at him.
“Wait, listen to me, Yohan!”
“If you’re going to say something like that, at least bow your head and ask properly first! Is it right to threaten someone by grabbing their weakness?! Now I understand why everyone hates you!”
“Unfortunately, I never expected anyone to like me.”
“Good. Then this works out perfectly. Instead of doing what you want, I’ll just kill you here and destroy all the evidence!”
“…Oh, damn it.”
Bang—!Crash—!
Blood sprayed across the room.