Chapter 55
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 55
Chapter Title: The Earth Dragon Emerges
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Several days had passed since I pried Elin away from Professor Prezel.
Our relationship had grown distant again, so she hadn’t come to my lab.
I didn’t particularly regret it or feel that way...
But Isel was openly curious.
Of course, that didn’t mean I was going to tell her.
I had mastered indifference toward people.
She couldn’t get under my skin with just sidelong glances.
So now Isel was grumbling right in front of me.
“Why? Did Elin confess to you again or something?”
“As if that would happen...”
Elin had never confessed to me in the first place.
What unnecessary misunderstanding...
‘She did say something about lifespan...’
But I was extremely passive and defensive when it came to romance, so I couldn’t take that as a confession.
Having experienced a fake confession on a middle school field trip, I had defenses like that...
‘It’s axe disease.’
I dismissed it simply.
“Common sense says a student like you wouldn’t fall for their professor. You hate even regular teachers—so why would you like a university professor?”
Isel’s eye twitched.
I’d noticed it before, but ever since she overheard Charlotte call me a double, the way she looked at me had gotten weird.
Somehow prim, like she was playing hard to get. This was pure...
I thought of words like push-and-pull in my head and then erased them.
“Besides, I don’t touch students.”
“Even if we assume that, there’s Senior Lianel...”
“I didn’t do anything.”
Isel crossed her arms, looking displeased.
“Right. Professor didn’t do anything. They just fall for you on their own. Right?”
“...”
I had never once won an argument with Isel on topics like this.
She looked at me like I was an incorrigible playboy and sighed.
It was unfair...
“So what happened with Elin?”
“Go ask her yourself.”
When grumbling didn’t work, Isel shifted her angle.
“Why’d you suddenly stock up on cocoa?”
“It’s nothing.”
It was a half-hearted apology in case Elin came by.
I hadn’t expected her to glare like a vixen over me taking her cocoa.
Isel picked up a cocoa packet and nodded emphatically.
Pretending to agree.
“The lab does lack sweets overall.”
“Next time, write down what you want all at once. I’ll consider it later.”
“R-Really?”
Isel brightened up instantly, delighted.
She seemed a bit puzzled for a moment, but that passed quickly. She was purely happy that something sweet was coming to the lab.
I turned toward the window and scanned the university road below.
The road was dyed orange.
The students’ clothes were much the same—everything but black was tinged the crimson of the sunset.
When that suddenly felt warm, my body relaxed languidly.
Maybe because it was getting close to quitting time.
‘I’m tired.’
I don’t know if this sounds right, but I was a little worn out from a life of always prodding myself that something might happen.
As they say, it was time for a break.
‘Even supermen are human.’
Because I was Aiden, a superhuman, a one-man army who could single-handedly shift the tides of war.
It was easy to forget, but supermen were human in the end.
I couldn’t keep the string of tension pulled tight forever.
Otherwise, it would snap at the truly critical moment.
It was actually surprising that I’d been on edge from the start of the semester until now.
“Then I’ll head out now.”
“Go ahead. I’ll stay a bit longer.”
“You’re working hard.”
“...I’m a professor, aren’t I?”
With that, I looked down again.
Students were trickling out.
As they all joined the flow, a long crowd formed like this.
I took in the sight, then leaned back against my chair.
It had been an anxiously restless day, but like yesterday, it had been an ordinary part of a smooth routine. That relief washed over me.
As I exhaled the breath rising from my chest, I could just slump like this...
A faint vibration.
It made my slowly closing eyes flicker open slightly.
It was subtle, but unmistakable trembling.
“Professor, then tomorrow...”
“Isel. Get back inside from the road.”
“Huh?”
It was a vibration too faint to pinpoint easily.
Just a small rattle on the desk.
But this was a high floor.
Accounting for that, even this slight shake meant the whole building was quaking.
“Whoa!”
I barked, and Isel jumped in fright, rushing back into the lab.
“P-Professor, what’s wrong...? Oh?”
“Get under the desk.”
I shoved the uncomprehending Isel under the desk and checked the vibration.
Soon, a grinding rumble spread across the desk, and everything on it slid off.
Pens rolled away, books tumbled from the shelves to the floor.
The ceiling crumbled, and the lights shattered.
Ignoring Isel’s scream from below, I looked out the window.
When the shaking paused once, what I saw outside was...
A massive earth dragon.
I stared vacantly at the monster towering straight into the sky.
I swallowed curses inside and chose my words carefully.
The words burst out with a sigh.
“It’s begun.”
I gazed at the earth dragon belching forth.
The beast looked hundreds of meters long; there would be a beast tamer up there.
The burrow had begun.
* * *
The sudden earthquake hitting the academy made students scream one after another.
Some collapsed on the roadside, others couldn’t steady themselves and fell, while some clung to streetlamps or tree trunks to hold on.
It was the same for Radia, who had just finished class and was heading back.
Rumble rumble rumble—
The unrelenting shaking toppled chairs and shattered windows.
Whenever shards of broken glass rained down on someone, a shrill scream erupted.
For a moment, she worried if the building might collapse, but then the vibration stopped.
“W-What’s this?”
“Earthquake...?”
No.
Radia’s instincts told her it wasn’t that.
She bit her lower lip and recalled the note she’d tucked in her chest pocket.
‘No way.’
Was that note the professor gave her back then meant to warn about this?
She hadn’t checked it closely, but this shaking didn’t feel natural.
No, it reeked of something artificial.
Like... back at the magic tower, when that colossal thing slammed its whip-like arm down on the ground.
The sensation of the earth’s crust flipping and the ground shaking—that memory flashed through her mind.
She couldn’t be sure, but this vibration felt eerily similar.
‘I need to check.’
“R-Radia, what are you doing? Hide under the desk...”
“I’ll be right back.”
“Radia!”
Ignoring her friends’ pleas, Radia strode over debris to the window.
And let out an exclamation.
She didn’t know exactly what it meant, but it surely wasn’t anything good.
After Radia confirmed its form, the massive dragon piercing the sky gnashed its gear-like teeth and roared.
Graaaaaah—
It sounded less like a living creature and more like a vibration itself.
More like someone’s dying scream translated through a stereo surround system.
It was amplifying the sound with its enormous body.
A low-frequency rumble too deep to discern words echoed out.
Once its cry spread across the university, a deathly silence fell, not a peep to be heard.
The one who broke that silence was none other than Radia.
“Ha...”
A hollow laugh that bordered on scoffing hung thick over the group.
* * *
Elin was killing time in the Magic Department building.
Paradoxically, the Magic Department building with Professor Prezel was the safest place—aside from Aiden’s own lab, which he guarded.
‘Because the Magic Department building is riddled with all sorts of detection spells.’
It had labs and professors’ research rooms.
Overflowing with hazardous substances, flammables, and combustibles that needed careful handling.
Thus, per safety regulations, detection spells were installed everywhere.
The Magic Department building, where magic use should be most active, meant unauthorized spellcasting outside designated areas would trigger a chain of alarms.
Even Elin, knowing the building’s layout, had to agree with that explanation.
The professor who’d told her this probably predicted she wouldn’t visit his lab.
‘Our distance always widens at weird times.’
Whenever she felt like getting closer, something happened.
He’d burdened Senior Radia excessively at the magic tower, and now he was pushing people away on mere suspicion.
It was hard to grow attached.
“I get it. I know.”
That professor wouldn’t say it without certainty.
But still...
“You never explain it in a way I can understand.”
Always conclusions, conclusions, conclusions.
No middle steps.
She’d considered that he was hiding it because it was dangerous.
Something that would put her in danger if she knew.
A truth she couldn’t handle.
She bit her lip unconsciously.
“It’s because I’m weak. Whatever.”
If he really wanted to hide it completely, he wouldn’t have told her about Elise.
Anyway, Senior Radia was improving by leaps and bounds.
In the end, his approach might be right.
It just sparked resentment because it disregarded human emotions.
What pissed her off was how Aiden treated being hated as an unavoidable cost.
Like it was no big deal.
“So damn devoted. And bland too.”
He gave without demanding anything, so even if distance grew, he had nothing to regret.
She was the one wracked with guilt.
She wanted to get closer, but maybe she was the only one who felt that way.
He showed no desire to impress anyone.
‘At first, I liked that straightforwardness...’
His looks, talent—he showed no interest in any of it, which made the lab comfortable, so she went there.
As expected, he didn’t care what she did beside him.
No burdensome affection, no ulterior motives to use her, not even a hint of distance.
There was just ‘Elin’—stripped of all labels like ‘genius Elin.’
In other words, he saw only her, ignoring the world’s perceptions.
She clenched her fist tight.
When she lounged around like a troublemaker in the lab, he’d just let out a faint sigh and even embrace her.
That comfort turned to fondness quicker than expected.
So, that’s why. She gripped the necklace around her neck tightly.
“But after giving me something like this...”
Frustration dragged her words out.
She clutched the necklace, her face twisting.
‘Doesn’t this make me a little special?’
Distant when distant, close when close.
He didn’t block those who came or chased those who left.
His straightforwardness and embrace stemmed from seeing everyone as ordinary individuals, nothing special.
Elin didn’t like that.
So this was a tantrum.
A tantrum demanding he pay more attention to her.
Haa...
“I really feel like a kid.”
Elin slumped like a deflated balloon.
Then the vibration hit.
Elin dove under the desk in surprise.
“W-What?”
An earthquake?
‘The Magic Department building should have solid seismic design, right?’
It was full of experimental tools and machines.
Hazardous materials too. Of course it had seismic reinforcements...
But...
“What’s that?”
Elin peered out the window, her voice dazed.
There, backlit by the twilight, stood a massive black earth dragon glowing crimson.
Elin’s body froze.