Orknodi's Potential
Aha, so that's how it is.
I hadn't thought much of it at first, but mulling it over carefully, this wasn't something I could simply let slide.
“Professor! How could you steal from Papa’s Foundation?!”
“…Papa?”
“Papa gives me allowance to attend the Academy, handles my expenses, arranged training facilities, and even found a guardian to look after me! How could you do such a thing, Professor?!”
Professor Bronze’s legs wobbled beneath her.
“Wait. First-year Orknodi. Just to be certain, let me ask… By ‘Papa,’ do you mean your biological father?”
“That's right!”
Papa had sent a note telling me to enter the Foundation.
He had granted me a massive sum of funding as the reward for the Random Papa Event.
If someone who fulfills the financial obligation of child support and the educational duty for one's future isn't a papa, then who in this world could possibly be called one? In this world, plenty of goose dads dutifully wire money home every month without ever seeing their children face-to-face.
“And is your papa the person who administered your ‘education’?”
“Providing the funding means he approved all the training regimens, so in a strict sense, Papa was the one teaching me!”
“…Indeed. No ordinary parent, then. To permit that sort of education…”
“Did you run into Papa when you broke into the Foundation, by any chance?”
“No. I only encountered the watchdog guarding the hat. I didn't harm it, fearing it might be a dog dear to you, First-year Orknodi, so rest assured.”
“Still, what kind of professor robs a student’s house? You crossed the line this time, Professor.”
Having made a perfectly valid point, I tugged on Isabelle’s waistband, urging her to back me up. Isabelle chimed in reluctantly, her face clearly showing that she didn't want to get involved.
“The professor was in the wrong.”
“That's right.”
“I concur,” Giselle added, joining Titocoga in my corner. “This could adversely affect the child’s moral development, so please apologize at once.”
Confronted by the united front, the professor offered an apology, her expression screaming that she couldn't believe what she had been dragged into.
“I apologize, Orknodi. Once this lecture concludes, I shall return it to the Foundation at a suitable opportunity.”
“Then that's all right!”
“…Are you truly fine with that?”
“Well, as long as nobody died, it’s all good, y'know.”
At this scale, it was just a little mishap. A harmless incident.
More importantly, the hat was demanding my attention.
“Enough of this chatter! Shove your skull into my mouth already! I wish to catch another glimpse of the diabolical genius concealed within that luscious mind of yours!”
“…”
It had been spouting nonsense like that for a while now, clinging to my arm with the two hands sprouting from its sides.
“Fine, fine, just let go. My uniform sleeves are already too long; you’re stretching them out even more.”
The moment I placed the hat upon my head, it slid down, engulfing my face past the tip of my nose.
…This hat is way too big.
I could smell the greasy scalps of everyone who had worn it before me. It felt damp and thoroughly unpleasant.
From beyond the fabric, muffled voices drifted in: “So cute—!”, “An absolute baby,” and “The hat swallowed her whole face! Mine was so small it wouldn't even fit, so the damn thing started punching me!”
For the record, the last speaker was Bigstone-sunbae. It seemed his stone wasn't the only big thing about him—his head was massive too. What on earth did Lizna-sunbae see in him to keep hanging around his side?
“Oh! Ooooh! Ooooooooh!”
“What in blazes transpired in merely a few months?!”
“How could anyone become this powerful?!”
“This has surpassed mere growth!”
“It is evolution! Yes, evolution itself!”
“Knight Faculty? Magic Faculty? Administrative Faculty? Production Faculty? Adventurer Faculty? You can accomplish anything! In fact, you possess so much talent that I don’t even know what to choose!”
The murmurs beyond the hat grew louder.
At first, having my face obscured had been uncomfortable, but before I knew it, I was using my own hands to press the hat down, hiding my head beneath its brim.
Stop praising me so much, you jerk. It’s embarrassing.
This was nothing short of public humiliation.
“Alright, can we wrap this up soon?”
“Oh… must we really? Couldn't I cover your face just a little longer? If given the chance to enumerate everything you excel at, I could preach for twenty-four hours straight!”
“Then it wouldn't be an aptitude evaluation, would it? If I'm good at everything, what am I supposed to pick?”
It had successfully caught on to the Player's talent and blurted out that I was good at everything. As expected of an artifact safeguarded by the Foundation, its performance was every bit as remarkable as the Academy's own hat.
To think it could detect not only the innate talent residing in ‘Orknodi’s’ vessel, but also the ‘transmigrator’s soul’ dwelling within!
“Indeed, the professor remarked that the Academy is desperately curious about what manner of person you shall become. Allow me to illuminate the additional possibilities awaiting you!”
The hat went a step further, transitioning past an aptitude assessment to offer career counseling and class recommendations.
“First, you possess the aptitude of a Devil Lord! Once you comprehend the true essence of profane power, you shall be fully qualified to vie for a throne in the Abyss!”
Beyond the brim came a shrill screech from Bigstone-sunbae, followed by the crisp sound of Lizna-sunbae smacking his back repeatedly.
“Your qualification as a Dark Princess is formidable as well! Your sweet yet lethal charm grants you more than enough standing to become the most adorable demon in all of Hell!”
I could sense Isabelle and Giselle exchanging hushed, grave words nearby.
“Might you perhaps be interested in walking the path of a Holy Dark Pilgrim? Oh, I dearly hope you are! Should you embrace it, you shall become the sovereign of every shadow-imbued relic under the heavens and partake in the sublime glory of returning to eternal night!”
…Why are all these class recommendations so unhinged?
In the game, the aptitude test had never calculated the Player's ‘soul,’ so it had never factored in countless death counts and harrowing adventures. The only benchmark had been the ‘body,’ whether randomly rolled or meticulously stat-built at the start of each run.
A Devil Lord? A Dark Princess? A Holy Dark Pilgrim?
Every single one of them sounded utterly absurd.
“First-year Orknodi! Remove that hat this instant!”
“Pay no heed to that cunning professor!” the hat hissed back. “She desires you for herself! She has marked you as a convenient tool to satisfy her murky ambitions! You must never let yourself be ensnared!”
“First-year Orknodi! Do not succumb to the sweet poison of a hat steeped in wicked wisdom! Take it off at once!”
Hmph. Is the hat even wrong?
Whenever professors spotted exceptional talent, all they wanted was to drag them down into the hell of graduate school under the guise of an apprenticeship. Compared to that, the careers recommended by the Aptitude Evaluation Hat felt infinitely healthier.
“Ah, right. Though I would hardly recommend them, should you truly wish it, you could also become Eddahol's Last Finger, Pignut's Endbringer, or Sonya's Clarity—provided you desire to serve others and cater to their petty whims, that is.”
“Blegh. Gross. No way.”
“A wise decision! Those evil gods are pathetic wretches compared to the righteous deities anyway! Scurrilous losers who got thoroughly thrashed in the War of Hegemony and can't even show their faces in public!”
“First-year Orknodi!!”
The professor's shout pierced through the fabric, stabbing straight into my eardrums. Yelling, “Gah!”, I shoved my hands up into the hat to cover my ears. With that movement, the hat shifted upward, and Professor Bronze snatched it away in a single, fluid motion.
“Unhand me, you thieving wench! I forbid this! I will not permit that child to be reduced to a common chivalrous thief! The likes of you could never nurture her brilliant gifts!”
“I believe we had an understanding,” Professor Bronze said, her voice dropping cold. “Should you play tricks on the students, I promised to ensure you would never leave the laboratory again. Do you truly wish for that outcome?”
“Ha! Don't make me laugh! With my wisdom at her disposal, there is no class under heaven that child cannot achieve! Would you have the key to elevating any among the Twelve Good Gods or Twelve Evil Gods to the rank of Supreme Lord waste away picking mundane, secular locks?!”
The hat flailed its stubby arms like windmills, unleashing a flurry of miniature punches through the air.
“…Haah. If you commanded even half as much power as you do creeping cunning, I would have destroyed you on the spot. You certainly cling tenaciously to life.”
With an annoyed scowl, the professor drew a dagger and poked the hat's fabric. High-pitched squeals of “Ouch!”, “Ack, not there!” erupted from the Aptitude Evaluation Hat.
“O-Orknodi… Are you alright? It didn't do anything strange to you, did it? You don't suddenly want to annihilate mankind or feel like human lives are worthless garbage, right?”
“I’m fine, Titocoga! Thanks for worrying! But you don’t have to shout from all the way over there!”
“…N-No, Orknodi! For today, I think this distance is just perfect!”
Thirty meters was