Chapter 36
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 36
Chapter Title: Can You Still Refuse to Abandon Anyone?
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From the day after the first day, physical differences began to emerge among the trainees bit by bit.
At first, it wasn't that noticeable, but now on the fourth day, the gaps were clear.
Radia took in the struggling students on the other side.
Bandages wrapped thickly around forearms, gauze stained with blood, groans coming from here and there.
Some were shaking like aspen leaves, poisoned.
Whenever the chattering of teeth reached her ears, even Radia felt deflated somewhere deep inside.
"For now, we'll rest here one more time. Those who are fine, tend to the injured and pitch the spare tents. And..."
Radia trailed off and turned her gaze toward me.
This situation felt oddly familiar.
'Well, nothing strange about it.'
Whenever Radia advanced the march, I always lounged in the rear, leisurely reading.
Then, when setting up a temporary camp like this, I'd slink out.
'Rocks are hard, after all.'
If I could snag even a spare chair, a little shamelessness was nothing.
"...Professor, you show up like this again."
"There are students who get anxious if they don't see me."
Radia showed a mix of reluctance and discomfort.
Elin grumbled at me again, but I pretended not to notice and sat in the chair.
Lately, whenever I spoke to Radia, it seemed I'd really gotten under her skin.
No helping it. It was necessary.
'Regrettable, but... at least I've protected my social standing.'
Even with all the misunderstandings piled up, this cold atmosphere should convince even Charlotte there was no more suspicion.
No more nonsense about doubles.
I'd cherish the memory of cute girls trailing after me in my heart. Precious recollection.
Huh...?
'...Cute girls?'
Were there ever cute girls? All cockroach... no.
Better not dwell.
I filtered reality through an imaginative lens.
The cockroach teacher vanished, leaving only cute girls behind.
I was satisfied with that.
Pretending to scan the surroundings, I paused half a beat.
Not expecting dramatic effect, but attention focused anyway.
I muttered—not quite a mutter.
"Injuries are piling up."
"What are you nitpicking about now?"
Ignoring Elin's sniping, I fixed my gaze on Radia.
"...The monsters are getting stronger bit by bit."
"We're patching it over with rests for now, but eventually, stragglers will be inevitable. What will you do?"
"Treat them and..."
"They'll be a burden, though?"
Radia fell silent.
Her expression showed shock at using the word "burden" for the students she was teaching.
I was surprised too.
It felt like overlapping with my first rehearsal, but the word I'd originally planned was "burden."
This guy had trouble grasping that as a euphemism.
'Whatever. No point overthinking.'
What I was going for was the hated role anyway.
I wasn't trying to make the protagonists like me. Even if they ended up despising me, I'd make them grow.
For that, a bit of resentment was a bargain.
"...I volunteered, but Professor, you handed command to me..."
"Fine words."
"......"
Seeing Radia's eyes turn icy, I swallowed my silence.
Good eyes.
Proof that defiance was sprouting vigorously.
'I wish it'd erupt once.'
That defiance just swelled like a tumor, still quiet for now.
'Then I'll nurture it more.'
"Adapted to the environment and regained your ideals?"
"No, I..."
"Yes, you can say that now. But when facing a new environment, new dangers, new crises like the first day—when even guarding your own body is hard, and others become your burden..."
Once more, I hypothesized the limit situation and tossed the same line at this point.
Repeating it whenever, just like since the training began.
"Can you still refuse to abandon anyone?"
What will your choice be, Radia?
Radia lowered her long eyebrows and glanced at the muddied ground.
Haa...
The quiet exhale sank coldly.
That matched her mood perfectly.
Artificial rain yesterday had soaked contamination deep into the earth.
The occasional artificial breeze carried a thick scent of rain.
It allowed breathing slightly cooler air, but it still choked.
'Stifling.'
High humidity.
Didn't feel particularly hot, yet sweat had thoroughly soaked my clothes before I knew it.
When the sticky undergarments suddenly felt cumbersome, everything irritated me.
I knew it was stress buildup.
Prolonged tension and the responsibility of leading others.
It wasn't my first time heading a group.
No—as heir to a ducal house, I'd always been at the top.
Rarely under anyone.
'Still, it's never been this tough.'
Extreme circumstances squeezed like a vise.
One slip, and someone gets hurt, blood soaks the ground.
Pain, groans, someone convulsing from paralytic poison.
Always protected as a student, this situation itself was unprecedented.
Naturally, the responsible position felt entirely different.
And in it all, that professor appeared whenever her throat tightened.
With questions impossible to ignore.
"Can you still refuse to abandon anyone?"
'Can you still refuse to abandon anyone...'
She didn't know. Such things.
If the situation worsened?
No leeway, hard to even manage her own body?
Why assume that?
She lifted her head and met Professor Aiden's eyes.
"...Do I have to answer?"
"No need. I'm just asking you to think about it."
'A test.'
Lately, Professor Aiden wanted her to show something.
'Without even telling me what. Demanding arbitrarily.'
Then arbitrarily disappointed.
Radia bit her lip.
The questions Professor Aiden had asked so far.
'What if deaths occur due to your choice?'
'If you can only save one of two, who do you choose?'
'Can you bear responsibility for your choices?'
Or,
'What if everyone here gets hurt because of your choice?'
'Now it's about what to do when everyone drags you down.'
Even an idiot could tell he was urging her to choose something.
All his questions revolved around the premise of choice.
But that made answers hard.
Weighing irreconcilable values and picking one.
'And that's not even the end.'
Then asking if she could take responsibility for the abandoned ones after.
Radia swallowed a groan.
'Fine, the questions.'
But she couldn't fathom the reason behind them.
If they were truly important, he'd demand answers—but he didn't.
If he desperately wanted something, he'd press for replies.
That professor didn't.
Dragging it out, unable to answer...
Just one thing.
"I don't know."
"...I see."
Below expectations, a faint regret showing.
The emotion in those pupils: undisguised disappointment.
In this precarious place where just standing was unstable, those questions uprooted her.
Radia squeezed her eyes shut.
"I don't know."
I mulled over Radia's answer and nodded.
'I don't know, huh.'
If Elin simply achieved many conditions by contracting with Elise, the other protagonists weren't so easy.
One needed to recognize altruism, another to feel the wind at a storm-lashed cliff's edge.
Mental maturity and ability had to bloom together, so naturally difficult.
Gaining conviction in oneself wasn't easy.
"I see."
Based on the original work, left alone, they might gain conviction naturally.
My meddling was because of the fallout the burrow would bring to the academy.
If Radia truly planned to get what she needed from the burrow...
'Lots of students will die.'
Like Elin awakening fully upon seeing dead students in the clearing, Radia too needed despair once in the burrow.
That trauma squeezing her, tormenting, self-loathing, suffocating conflict—forcing her to shed her old self.
What I focused on wasn't Radia overcoming adversity in anguish.
The adversity itself.
The weight of lives needed for Radia to feel despair.
No less than Elin's, probably more.
'I want to stop it, but.'
Radia showed no sign of responding.
Sighing inwardly, I turned my gaze.
Countless withered dead trees.
In stark contrast to the swollen spores ready to burst.
Spores clung to the trees, sucking all life away.
Meaning they'd start appearing somewhere soon.
'Botany Professor.'
Since she answered she didn't know, I added one line to Radia, who I hoped would go soon.
No more point in scattered questions.
They only cowed her momentarily; afterward, she labeled me eccentric and buried it herself.
Questions lost their effect as questions.
"Radia."
"Yes...? Professor."
"Do you remember the questions I asked?"
Radia hesitated, then unwillingly nodded.
'Good if she remembers.'
"Think hard. The day to answer them isn't far off."
Now the demonkin would move directly.
* * *
The Botany Professor tore through the thin membrane enveloping him and rose with hazy eyes.
Tree sap that had protected his body inside the membrane gushed messily onto the floor.
Puddles formed.
The first thing he saw was the egg about human-sized that he'd emerged from.
A growth device made by connecting various dead trees and roots.
The dead trees linked to him, matching the vitality and omnipotence he felt, were skin-and-bones dry, ready to wither completely.
"Is this the thirteenth?"
Thirteen growth cycles.
And the twelve remaining shed skins.
No longer needed, the Botany Professor slowly gestured, and the shed skins rose.
At first unresponsive, now they obeyed.
Spores detached from the main body began moving as he willed.
The unnecessary shed skins: accumulations of his past power.
Transformed wholly into foot soldiers.
The same for animals and plants coated in spores.
Even magic beasts, if infested by spores, were no different from his limbs.
In an instant, commanding something like a legion, the Botany Professor closed his eyes.
Pure elation surging from his chest's base rode long breaths, rippling out.
"Let's go."
A gloomy voice no longer human. Yet feeling no strangeness, the Botany Professor turned his head.
"Time to greet them."
He had to see Professor Aiden.
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