Why Is He the Only One Raging Alone? (2)
Maron looked toward Gilliam in the seat beside her with open admiration.
Wow…
Maybe no one would even be able to follow Liam if he decided to keep escalating like this.
At the very least, Maron could not imagine matching him for even a second.
Trembling all over, Professor Orgh opened his mouth.
"…Gilliam Everchess."
"Yes, Professor."
"If you're free enough to flirt with the girls before class, I take it that means you've already done your prep?"
"I looked over a little of it."
Professor Orgh's eyes flashed.
"Is that so? So you did the prep…!"
Orgh seized a stick of chalk and began writing ancient-language characters across the blackboard.
Ancient language was one of the two kinds of knowledge required to cast magic.
Orgh's subject was exactly that, and what he was writing now was a magical incantation.
The problem was that it was nothing a first-year should be dealing with in their very first class.
It's way too long…
Who memorizes something like that before they even enroll…
What is that conjugation? I've never even seen it before…?
Tadadadadada… Tak! Tak, tak!
What finally took shape was a long incantation formula that looked like some serpent monster out of myth.
"Gilliam."
Professor Orgh smiled sweetly.
"There are quite a few blanks in this chant formula. Would you fill them in for us?"
Maron was speechless.
No, this is way too blatant…
She had expected him to throw out a hard problem and then pick on Gilliam for not being able to solve it.
But even so, this was ridiculous. Shouldn't he at least give something that actually appeared in a first-year textbook?
Maron's irises clouded over into a murky red—out of pure contempt for Orgh.
Vulgar. No wonder he never got married at his age…
"Hmm…."
Gilliam studied the problem thoughtfully.
Maron felt she ought to do something here.
"Li—Liam. You don't have to worry about it."
Eletra also tried to stop him from the side.
"She's right. You don't need to care. That kind of thing is advanced even among the advanced courses… content you'd only learn once you reach third year."
"…."
"…Gilliam?"
"…I think I can solve it?"
"…What?"
He really did think he could solve it.
The ancient-language material in the original work had been laid out in meticulous detail in the setting collection notices, after all.
As Gilliam stood and walked forward, every gaze in the lecture hall locked onto him.
What?
Uh…?
What is he thinking…?
And the most flustered of all was the man who had set the problem—Professor Orgh himself. Why was this guy actually coming up?
Chalk in hand, Gilliam stood before the blackboard and sank once more into deep thought.
"…."
"…."
"…."
Silence swallowed the lecture hall.
Tension swelled.
And Gilliam kept thinking.
"…."
"…."
"…."
At last Professor Orgh let out a hollow laugh.
"Heh, hehehe… Well, the effort is admirable."
Of course he did not mean it was truly admirable. He was sneering that someone who knew nothing had come forward just to waste everyone's time.
"But if you don't know, how about heading back to your seat? Class—"
Tang.
The bold crack of chalk striking the blackboard.
Tang, tadadang, tadadang, tadang.
Proper ancient words filled the blanks Orgh had left in the chant formula—correct vocabulary, correct grammar.
The students themselves could not even tell whether the answers were right. They didn't know either.
But they could tell indirectly.
Because every time Gilliam filled a blank, Orgh's complexion grew worse by the second.
Blanks filling with correct answers to the cheerful sound of chalk.
A problem a first-year enrollee should never have been able to solve was being solved perfectly.
What the hell is this bastard…!!
Gilliam's hand never once faltered.
Finally he filled even the last blank of the long formula and grinned.
"I've finished solving it, Professor."
Looking at that smile, Orgh felt as if all the blood in his body were rushing backward.
A ducal house, a handsome face popular with the girls, and on top of that a good brain?
This fraud of a bastard…!!!!
Please let his life be ruined. It absolutely had to be.
A guy like this needs to get caught by a gold digger and have his life destroyed for society to be just! That's social justice!!!
A curse aimed at a student taking his own class.
Swallowing words that would have immediately disqualified him as an educator, Orgh could only tremble.
"Professor?"
"…."
He could not even answer. If he opened his mouth now, he felt he would start screaming at the top of his lungs from pure rage.
"Did I get something wrong… Ah!"
Gilliam picked up the chalkboard eraser.
Orgh's eyes flashed.
Was he correcting a mistake he had only just noticed, or had he written it correctly and only now decided it was wrong?
Either way, Orgh planned to use it as an excuse to pour out a barrage of insults.
Right before those eyes, Gilliam erased.
Not a blank—part of the chant Orgh himself had written.
And rewrote it.
Correctly.
He had fixed the incorrectly set blank-fill problem at the very place where it had been set wrong.
"—!!!"
Orgh felt a crushing shame, as if his heart were being crumpled in a fist.
"Now I've really finished solving it, Professor."
Gilliam looked thoroughly pleased with himself.
To hide a trap problem like this. Did he think just putting blanks would be too easy?
A magic that blankets an entire area in flame. Once a secret art passed down only among the emperors of Yong, it underpinned their tyranny.
Pay 300,000 points to acquire Heaven-Burning Flame Hell?
[Yes] / [No]
Oh.
So this was how you learned magic.
300,000 points, huh. Well, it is 5-star.
Not easy—but a goal that felt reachable if he put in the work.
"Professor Orgh. You truly are…."
He was grateful.
He wanted to praise this true teacher who had given him such an opportunity… but stopped at the last moment.
"…Nothing."
Instead he simply smiled.
"You—youuu…!!! Everche—ugh!?"
Professor Orgh suddenly clutched near his heart and collapsed.
A line that had been written only in passing in the original rose to mind.
The professor changed. Starting tomorrow some other woman would teach instead of that unpleasant pig Orgh.
"What was the reason?"
"Orgh's cerebral vessel burst and he died. His heart and vessels were already bad, and getting furious after losing big at gambling was the problem."
"Ahah."
"Huuuurgh!!"
Heart attack!!
Orgh's cause of death was about to strike years earlier than it had in the original!!
"You can't, Professor!! Stay with us!! A true teacher like you can't go so meaninglessly!!"
"Keugh!!"
"The teacher who worked so hard just to teach me can't die like this!!"
"Keuuuugh!!!"
Even when he cheered him on to hang in there, Professor Orgh's face only grew blacker with every word.
Orgh tried to squeeze sound out between lips that had stiffened and would not move.
"I—I…!"
I curse you!
I curse you even in death!! Gilliam Everchess!!!!!
May peace never come before you!! May your soul never find rest for eternity!!!
I wish the most miserable fate upon you!! May you get played by a whore who hid her past, have your entire fortune stolen, and get divorced!!!!
"Healer! Someone call a healer—Aaaah!! Teacher, noooooo!!!!"
Orgh Gent, age fifty-six.
Dying in the arms of the man he hated most, cursing him to the very end.
"Teacherrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!"
That evening.
"Boy, why so gloomy today?"
The big-breasted white-haired woman from next door whose name he still did not know asked.
"A true teacher has passed away."
"Hmm?"
The big-breasted white-haired woman rested her chest on the fence again today.
"There's a weird rumor going around the academy. That some delinquent student reverse-trolled a professor who was trying to pick on him and made the professor die."
"What a nasty rumor to be going around."
"He supposedly mocked the professor with 'You are… pffft, never mind,' triggered a seizure, then clung to the guy dying with bloody tears and poured scorn on him until the last moment?"
"Damn, who is it. There can't be many people at the academy with a personality that rotten…."
"…."
The white-haired woman brought her fingers to her lips in a V-shape, as if trying to smoke an invisible cigarette.
Research student Lucy brought her index and middle fingers to her lips, as if putting a nonexistent cigarette between them.
"…Ah."
He remembered.
"You're a research student."
If the cadets were university students, research students were the graduate-student position.
"Hmm? Why would you think that, boy?"
Her name was definitely—
"Aren't you Lucy Merhantia, who bears the destiny of the Dark Ice Star?"
"…Hmm?"
In the original she was clearly a person who would one day stage a terrorist attack on the academy.
"Boy."
Lucy leaned her chest even further onto the fence. Squeeeze—and her well-shaped breasts squished right before his eyes in real time.
"You really are an interesting per—"
"Whoa, your tits are huge."
"…."
"Sorry."
The target does not dislike it.
Compliment Points: +10 (1580 → 1590)