I Became a Human-Experiment Teaching Aid at the Academy (1)
I Became a Human-Experiment Teaching Aid at the Academy (1)
#1
Bullshit.
This was bullshit.
Should I just say the whole world was out to get me? Because this defied all common sense.
All I'd ever wanted was to live an ordinary life. The envelope that arrived the moment I became a legal adult—it wasn't a draft notice, and it wasn't a final demand for last month's overdue rent.
Colossal debt.
It was a collection notice from a loan shark, ordering me to repay the debt my parents had left behind before they abandoned me at an orphanage without even giving me a name.
It didn't take long to realize that no amount of manual labor would ever cover it.
In the end, for someone like me whose only asset was a healthy body, there were only two choices.
Cross over to China and sell a few organs—I figured I had two kidneys and two eyeballs, so maybe I could sell one of each—or go up to Arcanum and live as a slave.
The thought of having my organs harvested was terrifying, and I didn't think they'd fetch enough to clear the debt anyway, so three years ago, my choice tilted toward the latter.
『Arcanum』
A sky island floating above the murky skies of 21st-century Seoul Special City, Republic of Korea, established by the vanishingly few mages who existed in this world.
Why that sky island hovered over the capital of this small country, and what those great and powerful mage ladies actually did up there—I had no idea. What was certain was that they were fabulously wealthy.
As a result, in the hundred years since Arcanum first revealed its existence to the world, Seoul had entered an unprecedented golden age through commerce with the sky island, growing into a world-class commercial city.
Arcanum was a city built on a strict caste system, where mages who looked down on ordinary humans and slaves who'd crossed over from the world below coexisted in separate spheres.
A caste system in the 21st century—you might think the slaves living there were pitiful.
But surprisingly, most of the slaves in Arcanum had crossed over and lived there voluntarily.
According to countless stories on the day-laborer forums, even a simple slave posting at the Orbis Loading Dock paid on par with a professional job in Seoul Special City below Arcanum.
From a slave's perspective, there was a certain merit to it.
And surely some people ascended to that island harboring a yearning for the mysteries of magic, passed along only by word of mouth—
Which was why I'd calculated that just five years of slave life on that sky island would wipe out my crushing debt entirely.
And perhaps—just perhaps—through some twist of fate, I'd end up working at that Strictly-No-Men Academy, get chosen by some beautiful mage lady, and become a kept man just like the protagonist of a web novel.
Clutching that hopeful expectation—no, that delusion—I'd crossed over. Three years ago.
And it really had been a delusion.
From cleaning slave at Aura Plaza to kitchen slave at Lumen Market Street. From kitchen slave to grunt-work slave at the Orbis Loading Dock.
No matter the posting, slave life in Arcanum was backbreaking labor beyond anything comparable to modern-day manual work.
Before I knew it, the name Ha Do-yun had faded from my mind, and I'd grown accustomed to being called Subject 601.
I hadn't even dared hope for the Academy. If I'd at least gotten a posting at the Bellum Estate District, I could have glimpsed those supposedly beautiful mages.
"Subject 601."
"Subject 601, are you listening to me?"
A man with a cold expression was looking at me as he spoke.
"Huh?"
"Your posting has been changed, effective today."
Sudden posting changes were something I'd already experienced, so I wasn't particularly shocked.
"What kind of posting?"
"Go to the Academy Infirmary for the details, and they'll explain. Your ID has been automatically updated, so just present it at the main gate and enter."
Whoa—had my wish actually come true? The Academy. That Academy which only a handful among Arcanum's countless slaves could ever enter.
"For reference, the Infirmary is the building directly in front of the Academy's main gate. Go to the first floor, present your ID again, and they'll explain."
Right, from here on out, the real story begins. That was what I'd thought on my commemorative first day entering the Academy. It didn't take long at all to realize that this day would become my date of death.
#2
"This is a human guinea pig. Do you think this makes any sense?"
"Quiet in the Infirmary, please. Your left arm, this way."
"You—are you even listening to me? What the hell do you take people for—"
At that moment, a pair of crimson eyes looked up at me. Ah—
Damn, she was pretty... So this was what magic-wielding mages looked like...
My body stiffened. No matter how I struggled, I couldn't move. It was like staring at Medusa from one of those Greek mythology comics I'd read in the school library as a kid. The instant I locked eyes with the mage before me—
The inside of my skull, behind my eyeballs, was being stirred.
No, not stirred—it was hot.
My cerebrospinal fluid was boiling.
Was the boiling point of cerebrospinal fluid 100 degrees Celsius too?
Probably not. My head was burning up. If someone split my head in half, seared the inside with a red-hot branding iron, and stirred it around like mixing a Maxim coffee from my manual-labor days—that was probably what it would feel like.
No, not probably. Even without experiencing it, I could tell. I didn't like making absolute statements about things, but this was certain. It was definitely hotter than having a red-hot branding iron stirred inside my brain.
It was burning.
My brain was burning.
Before that, I would die. No—did dying happen because the neural lumps in my head burned up? What difference did that make—honestly, it didn't matter.
Ah—at some point, the pain had vanished, and the crimson-eyed woman who'd been standing at the information desk was now looking down at me.
To be precise, I should correct myself. She wasn't looking down at me—I was kneeling and looking up at her.
"Subject 601, you are a Teaching Aid owned by the Academy, so I'll stop here, but I'll ask just in case."
"..."
"Do you still believe there's a problem with the Academy's administrative procedures?"
"..."
"Subject 601, you are scheduled for a practical class that will use you in Astravia Hall in one hour."
"..."
"Subject 601, are you aware of Astravia Hall's location?"
"..."
"Hey, get up. Why is it that every day I work, people have to make a scene? Hey! I said get up. I've got a ton of work to process after you!"
"Why are you doing this to me?"
"Do I look like your babysitter? First time seeing a mage? I'll warn you now—I'm just an apprentice working here, so this is as far as it goes. If you meet a real mage, you could drop dead on the spot."
It was a posting I could barely stomach saying aloud as a Korean. Was this what the Academy was really like?
What they demanded of me was a simple task. Become a human test subject for magical training. No—even "human test subject" was the wrong phrase.
Didn't the term "human test subject" at least imply the meaning of "human"? To these women, I was probably worth less than one of those logs lying out in the meadow. A Teaching Aid—nothing more than an object.
A scarecrow to be targeted by Fireballs, a recipient for living-transformation alchemy reagents, a sparring partner for magical beasts, a frozen-human specimen for ice magic. One of those fates awaited me as a test subject.
Perhaps endings far more horrific than my paltry imagination could conceive were waiting in abundance.
In any case, to summarize, my job was an incredibly simple task.
Accept death, and contribute to the advancement of great magic.
In hindsight, it was obvious. This was a gathering place for those magnificent mages. There was no need for janitors, no need for cooks.
Moreover, I was a man.
At an Academy with the regulation of Absolute Ban on Men, what other reason could there be to specifically call for me? To them, I was probably lower than a single housefly from the world below.
#3
I left the Infirmary and walked toward Astravia Hall, as the crimson-eyed apprentice had explained again.
It was supposed to be the same sky above Seoul. Yet the sky on this sky island didn't seem particularly murky. If anything, I would have called it clear.
I'd never traveled abroad as a total orphan, but if I'd ever visited a place like Switzerland or the Himalayas, this was probably what the sky there would feel like.
Well, that wasn't what mattered. What mattered was that I was in roughly the same position as a hog being dragged to the slaughterhouse. Mulling over such thoughts as I walked, I eventually arrived in front of Astravia Hall.
Looking at the clock hung above the building's main entrance, there were about 15 minutes left until the practical class. That meant I'd walked for at least 40 minutes. Was there some kind of spatial magic cast inside this Academy? Anyway.
Back when I'd lived in Seoul, the social convention was to arrive 10 minutes before an appointment. It probably wasn't much different here. I'd go in early and wait.
***
"Yes, come in!"
I climbed to the building's second floor and knocked on a reddish-brown wooden door. A cheerful voice called out from within.
"Subject 601 here. Is this the practical lab?"
"Yes, that's right! Take a seat over there. What's your name? I need to record it."
"Subject 601."
"No, your real name."
Right, my real name. It had been so long that saying it felt incredibly awkward.
"Ha Do-yun."
"Nice to meet you! My name is Elysia. Elysia Florentia! I became a third-year Apprentice Mage just a week ago. Pleased to make your acquaintance!"
"Yes. Pleased to meet you as wel—"
Udadada
Before I could even finish speaking, the woman who'd introduced herself as Elysia had dashed off into a room at the back of the lab.
Well, still, she seemed like a better person than I'd expected.
As her silver hair, which reached her waist, fluttered past, a subtle lingering scent remained where she'd been. Did she wear a special perfume, maybe? I'd never bought perfume, so I couldn't really say.
More importantly, I needed to focus on observing my surroundings. I'd expected to be treated like a cadaver in one of those med-school dissection labs from TV dramas, but that didn't seem to be the case.
It looked like a fairly large laboratory for one person. Was she alone because class hadn't started yet? As I was wondering, Elysia returned.
"Ah! The preparations are all done! There's still a little time left, but I'll just do a quick questionnaire and then we'll jump right into the experiment!"
Was this a solo experiment, then? As if reading that thought from my expression, the girl spoke to me.
"Oh, actually, once you're a third-year apprentice, you're free to request Teaching Aids and conduct practicals on your own. It's a kind of self-directed study subject. You're my very first Teaching Aid, so I hope I can use you for a long, long time!"
"Okay. So what should I do from here?"
Use me for a long, long time, she said.
So she was outright treating me like an object. Still, a sense of relief settled in one corner of my heart. It didn't seem like she was about to run an experiment that might kill me on the spot.
"Ah! Still, we should go over some basic common knowledge to make things easier for both of us, right? Every mage in Arcanum possesses a Unique Magic.
In my case—to put it in terms that'll be easy for you, Mister Do-yun, to understand—it's something like alchemy. So today, I'm planning to administer a reagent I made yesterday to you and observe the results!"
Is she insane—those words had risen to the tip of my tongue, but the terror of those crimson eyes I'd seen an hour ago sealed my mouth shut.
"Alright, anyway. Before I administer the reagent, I'll do the questionnaire with you first, Mister Do-yun! I need to adjust the formula. Mister Do-yun, do you have a girlfriend?"
"...No, I don't."
"Then, have you ever dated a woman?"
"Yes."
"What's the longest you've dated someone?"
"About a year."
"...If it was about a year, then, well... you must have had sex, right?"
Why was she the one blushing? The truth was I'd never dated a woman, never even held hands. There was no way a total orphan could manage something like that.
But saying I hadn't—it felt like I'd be admitting defeat somehow. Since I might die anyway, I wanted to put on as much bravado as I could muster.
"Why do you ask? Are you embarrassed? Don't be like that, just tell me. Have you ever had sex with your girlfriend?"
"..."
"Mister Ha Do-yun. Have you never had sex with a woman?"
"Why are you curious about that?"
"If you don't want to answer, you don't have to! The House Florentia respects privacy!"
I would've appreciated it if they'd respected my right to life before my privacy.
"I'll ask something else... so at home..."
"Why are you curious about that?"
"Huh?"
"Whether I've had sex or not—why are you curious about that?"
"I brought you here because I thought you hadn't, Mister Do-yun!"
Now this was getting on my nerves. On what grounds, exactly?
"Ah, don't get the wrong idea. It's a lot easier to adjust the reagent if you're a virgin, Mister Do-yun! I can leave out several ingredients. Anyway, I've more or less got the picture, so—would you mind taking off your pants?"
Apparently, this wasn't the time for pointless worrying.