What Is This Situation?
There is no such thing as absolute in this world. No matter how confident you are. No matter how much effort you pour in. Humans can fail at any moment and crumble just as easily. I learned this ‘truth’ the day I received my first high school report card. When I bombed the college entrance exam and chose to retake it. Even when a traffic accident kept me from sitting for the teacher certification test. It cut deep.
But the important thing is the mental fortitude not to surrender to failure. If you just endure, opportunities always circle back around. I never gave up. And I never would.
“......”
......But this feels a bit extreme, doesn’t it?
“Young Master, it’s time to leave for work. Today is your first day, correct?”
“Ah, yeah. It is.”
I stare at the man in the mirror—the one they call ‘Grace.’ Tall frame. Broad shoulders. Handsome face. No matter how I look at him, he isn’t ‘me’… yet he moves exactly as I think and speaks exactly as I wish. This is me now. Grace Dailon. Second son of Count Dailon. My new identity.
“I will prepare the carriage.”
“......Yeah.”
There is no absolute in this world. That’s why things I once dismissed as unreal could still happen to me.
So. To sum it up…
“As of today you have become a professor. How wonderful that you’ve achieved your dream.”
I had transmigrated. Into a character from a novel I used to read for fun, overnight.
The carriage rattled and shook without pause. A faint wave of motion sickness rolled through me. That alone was proof enough that this wasn’t a dream.
“Lucia, who am I?”
I asked the brown-haired woman seated across from me. Her name was Lucia. She appeared to be my exclusive maid.
Lucia answered in her usual dry, emotionless tone.
“You are Young Master Grace Dailon.”
“Yeah… I figured.”
“......If you’ll forgive my asking, are you feeling unwell?”
“Just motion sickness.”
Lucia tilted her head a fraction. Her face showed almost no change, so I couldn’t read her exact thoughts, but I interpreted it as something close to concern.
“That is a problem. It would be unfortunate if anything interfered with your first day. Shall I have the carriage stop?”
“It’s fine. Being late would be worse.”
Problem. Problem, she says. Motion sickness, tardiness—those don’t even register as problems. Nothing could top the mess I was already in!
“I’m a new professor. A brand-new professor.”
The current time was noon. Since early morning I had spent over six hours trying to sort out my situation…
What the fuck.
I had transmigrated twenty-five years into the past of the original story.
At first I convinced myself it was a mistake. After all, what kind of transmigration story drops the protagonist into an era before the main character is even born? It’s absurd to apply common sense to an absurd situation, but still—logically!
......
......
Unfortunately, it was no mistake.
The novel I had entered was a standard academy story. In the original work, ‘Grace Dailon’ was a veteran professor with a full twenty-five years of experience, a middle-aged man who occasionally offered the protagonist’s party unexpected guidance in the role of a true mentor.
But the Grace I had seen in the mirror was young. Not middle-aged at all—he looked to be in his late twenties. And as I already knew, a complete rookie.
I realized then that I myself was living proof.
Above all, Grace’s memories had been surfacing since the moment I arrived, making denial impossible.
The era I would live in was not the original story.
“We have arrived.”
Now what? I knew nothing. I could do nothing. I didn’t even know why I had transmigrated. In twenty-three years of life I had never felt this utterly lost.
“Young Master?”
“Ah, sorry. Let’s get down.”
I stepped out of the carriage with a heart full of restless thoughts.
“Hmm?”
An overwhelming landscape unfolded before me. A grand main gate. Straight rows of trees. The distinctive beauty of medieval fantasy spread everywhere—the Academy.
My eyes widened on their own.
“This is where I work…?”
“Yes, it is.”
The world I had only imagined through sentences was now right in front of me. No matter how magnificent or how incredible it was, my limited vocabulary couldn’t convey even a tenth of it.
Only now did it truly sink in. This really was fantasy.
And.
“I’m supposed to teach here as a professor…”
Ever since I was a child I had wanted to become a teacher. There were many reasons, but the greatest was the pure joy of teaching. So a sudden thought occurred to me. If I was going to be a professor, I could still teach. Hadn’t I essentially achieved my dream? Of course ‘teacher’ and ‘professor’ weren’t exactly the same, but… did that really matter?
“Wait, thinking about it, I’m a noble in this world too… and since I was an orphan with no friends back home, no one will come looking for me…”
“Pardon?”
“Tsk. There’s no need to be so pessimistic, is there?”
My mind cleared. Or rather, it brightened. I smiled and grabbed Lucia by the shoulders.
“Lucia, I’m going to do this right!”
“Yes……”
“See you later!”
Come to think of it, the distance from the original plot meant I had nothing to do with its future ‘tragic’ events. Grace’s knowledge kept uploading itself, so I should be able to handle classes without major issues. Hadn’t I dreamed countless times on Earth of escaping into a fantasy world?
Yeah. I’d been given a transmigration, and it wasn’t a bad one at all. A smile rose to my lips without permission.
Just wait, students.
I decided not to overthink why the ‘information upload’ was happening. Transmigration itself made no sense; there was no point adding more complications. I simply chalked it up to a convenience patch and moved on.
Anyway.
From the memories that surfaced, the first thing I needed to do after reaching the Academy was visit the Principal’s Office.
“I’ve been waiting for you, Professor Grace Dailon.”
The woman seated behind the large desk looked at me. At first glance she appeared to be in her early-to-mid twenties, but that was far from the truth. The novel had described her exactly like this.
Miruel Levelon.
A witch who had already lived for several centuries was, for some reason, maintaining the appearance of her youthful days.
Seeing her in person made the description feel even more unreal. She looked like any woman my age, yet on the inside she was an old grandmother?
“I’m truly delighted we’ll be working together. I personally found your thesis quite impressive, Professor.”
“You flatter me.”
“My, and humble as well. You’ll make an excellent role model for the students.”
After the polite formalities, the real business discussion began.
“The contract is exactly as I informed you beforehand. A two-year term with a monthly salary of fifteen gold coins. As long as you fulfill the required teaching days, I will not interfere with your lectures.”
Miruel slid two sheets of paper across the desk. One was a copy of the contract. The other was a map of the academy campus.
“You may begin teaching in two weeks. I look forward to it.”
“As do I.”
I checked the locations of the ‘personal lounge’ and ‘dormitory’ marked on the map. The lounge was closer, so I would stop there first.
“I’ll take my leave now.”
“Very well. You must be tired from the journey; it would be rude to keep you longer.”
I bowed and turned to go.
“Ah, one more thing.”
I stopped.
“There is something I must ask of you.”
“What is it…?”
“You are assigned to the second-year classes, correct?”
“Yes.”
“This year’s second-years have quite a few problem children.”
Miruel wore a troubled expression.
“Among them is one student in particular. You must be careful with her.”
“......May I have her name?”
“Ciel Green. She is the daughter of an underworld figure. You’ll recognize her easily—she has pink hair.”
“I’ll keep it in mind.”
After leaving the Principal’s Office I swallowed hard.
“A problem child, huh…”
Every school has students who refuse to follow the rules. But this was a fantasy world, and the scale of ‘terrible things’ that could happen to me was entirely different from Earth. If even the witch felt the need to warn me…
Damn it, I couldn’t lose my nerve on the very first day.
“Ah, forget it!”
Besides, it was pointless to worry about a student whose face I hadn’t even seen. The matter was two weeks away; the me of two weeks from now could handle it. Right now I was more curious about the lounge.
“This way, I think?”
The moment I took a step—
“Found you.”
I spotted someone watching me from a corner roughly ten meters away.
“......Huh.”
Hadn’t the principal said she would be easy to recognize because of the pink hair? Were there two pink-haired students in this academy?
“Teacher……”
The ‘pink hair’ muttered something, then slowly began walking toward me.
“Teacher……!”
Then she broke into a run.
“W-wait, whoa?”
Panic. And a touch of fear. I instinctively started backing away.
“I missed you so much……!”
She was already right in front of me.
She threw her arms around me in a tight embrace.
“......?”
The woman clung to me, repeating only one word.
“Teacher, Teacher, Teacher……”
Her voice was thick with longing and sorrow, joy and pain all tangled together.
Then she whispered, voice trembling:
What the hell is this situation…?
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