The Shameless Professor (4)
"Ughh…"
The faculty office of Elysion Academy, still humming from the splendor of its opening ceremony, had become the scene of a slow-motion catastrophe. Head of the Swordsmanship Department, Professor Simon, sat clutching what remained of his hair, groaning strange, strangled noises one after another.
"Oh, don't take it so hard, Simon."
As if that were any consolation, Head of the Magic Department, Professor Blithe, was thoroughly absorbed in teasing him between peals of laughter.
"You never can tell with people! For all we know, once you get to know him, he might turn out to be a remarkably talented fellow…"
"Kindly shut your mouth, Blithe…!"
Despite Simon's gritted muttering, Blithe only burst into fresh giggles.
"Haah… how on earth did things come to this…!"
After glaring at her with all the fury he could muster, Simon pressed a hand to his forehead and let out a heavy, defeated sigh.
"I should have known the moment he skipped not just the entrance examinations but the opening ceremony itself…!!"
From the very first day of term, protests from the students had been raining down on the department head's office without pause.
An unexplained absence from the entrance exam and the opening ceremony. Lateness to his very first class. And then, in the middle of his own lecture, some nonsense about a break—upon which he had sauntered out of the classroom and flopped onto a bench for a long afternoon nap.
Professor Simon had never imagined that a man bearing the title of newly appointed professor would commit such offenses with such shameless composure, right out of the gate.
Even in Elysion's nearly thousand-year history, this Kallen fellow could truly be called a one-of-a-kind existence.
Though, of course, in the worst possible sense.
"Ughhh…"
"And here I thought the Swordsmanship Department was finally getting someone like our dear Professor Jiya, you know?"
Blithe's words, disguised as comfort, served only to churn Simon's insides further.
"No wonder I was so nervous. I really thought this year might get dangerous…"
As she rattled on, Blithe's gaze drifted naturally to the side.
And the moment her eyes found the person seated in the corner of the table, the corners of her mouth curved into a satisfied arc.
A female professor with a neat low bun and plain spectacles sat there, quietly savoring the fragrance of her tea.
She was none other than Professor Jiya, the very woman Blithe had been praising until her mouth ran dry.
Jiya, too, had been hired into Elysion through an extraordinary appointment at the Headmistress's sole discretion, bypassing all proper procedure—yet unlike Kallen's outrages, her tenure had produced nothing but exemplary results.
From her very first year, Professor Jiya had seized her new students firmly in hand, then wielded such astonishing teaching prowess that their abilities improved explosively.
Since her arrival, the first-year Magic Department had maintained an overwhelmingly dominant win rate against the Swordsmanship Department in the academy tournament.
Professor Jiya now reigned over the Magic Department like a queen in all but name.
"What manner of bolt from the blue is this…!"
For Simon, who had sworn that this year, at long last, he would knock Blithe down a peg, it felt as though the heavens themselves were collapsing.
As if the incumbent professor Tyrell's sudden accident weren't bad enough, his replacement had to be a shameless delinquent the likes of which the world had never seen.
"Haah…"
Simon's stifled sighs kept dragging along the floor, his frustration refusing to dissipate.
"…Even Lady Talisa's judgment must be starting to slip with age. Of all the people she could have personally brought in…"
The greater the expectation, the deeper the disappointment.
Considering Talisa's towering reputation, this whole affair could only be called her gravest blunder yet.
"Well, given her advanced years, I suppose it isn't entirely surprising…"
Just as Simon, sunk in gloom, was about to beat his aching chest in despair—
"Mind your words, Department Head Simon."
Professor Jiya, who had remained silent through the entire exchange and merely savored her tea, was now looking straight at Simon.
Before long, a sharp gleam shone in her eyes from behind her spectacles as she spoke, slowly and deliberately.
"I understand your frustration. But how can a professor of Elysion permit himself such a disgraceful remark about Lady Talisa?"
Despite a youthful face that looked barely older than her students, an odd, overwhelming dignity flowed from Jiya all the same.
It was the reason she had been able to command the notoriously stiff and unyielding students of Elysion's Magic Department like her own hands and feet.
Moreover, what she said was simply the truth.
With an embarrassed expression, Professor Simon covered himself with a belated cough and corrected his statement.
"Ahem—my apologies. I simply let my emotions get the better of me for a moment…"
All of Elysion revered Talisa, but Professor Jiya's devotion to her stood in a league of its own.
Only after hearing Simon's retraction did she disperse the faint displeasure on her face and return to savoring her tea.
"A-anyway, why on earth is he taking so long to get here?"
Professor Simon, visibly flustered, glared at the clock and fumed alone to no one in particular.
This was the man who had arrived brazenly late to the very first class of his life—a class every professor waits for with bated breath.
Expecting someone like that to show up to a meeting on time might, if anything, have been the stranger expectation.
"Damn it all… should someone contact him again…"
And just as Professor Simon, unable to bear it any longer, made to rise abruptly from his seat—
"My sincerest apologies for being late."
The office door swung open roughly, and a figure appeared in the frame.
"The academy is just so vast that I had quite a bit of trouble finding my way."
A scruffy man in disheveled clothes poked his head in with an unsteady gait, grinning ear to ear without a shred of remorse.
"The newly appointed Basic Swordsmanship professor—Kallen, at your service."
This was the moment the professors finally laid eyes on the newly appointed professor whose reputation had preceded him.
At the sight, a few of them widened their eyes in mild surprise.
They had braced themselves for a sloppy appearance and loose manners—but his face looked far younger than anticipated, which had been entirely outside their reckoning.
And in his bleary eyes, there lingered somehow a weariness of hardship that seemed to exceed his years.
It created a subtle, enigmatic air of an entirely different flavor from Professor Jiya's commanding dignity.
Of course, what truly drew everyone's attention was not that, but rather his slacker's attitude and his feather-light, breezy manner of speech.
"Hoho, well, these things happen."
The one to welcome Kallen was not Simon of the Swordsmanship Department, but Blithe, Head of the Magic Department.
"Elysion is famously maze-like. Students get lost left and right in their first year—what makes professors so special? Now, come, take a seat."
Unlike Simon, who stood on the verge of apoplexy, she still wore that mischievous smile of hers.
"I'm Blithe. I teach Elemental Magic and head the Magic Department. That gentleman there is Professor Simon, Head of the Swordsmanship Department. Over there is Professor Jiya of Introduction to Magic, there is Professor Wendell of Curse Dispelling, and…"
As she guided Kallen to his seat, Blithe introduced the assembled professors one by one.
Nodding along halfheartedly at her introductions, Kallen was just lowering himself into his chair when he suddenly frowned, unscrewed a portable flask, and took a long swig—emitting a hearty aahh of satisfaction.
And in that instant, the face of Professor Simon, who had been openly broadcasting his displeasure this entire time, flooded with sheer disbelief.
"I—I say there."
"Hm? Is something the matter?"
"That thing you just drank… d-don't tell me that was alcohol…?"
It was an absurd guess on its face—yet considering the man's staggering gait on arrival and his reaction just now, it somehow felt disturbingly reasonable.
Kallen, for his part, merely shrugged his shoulders with perfect nonchalance, as if the question were hardly worth asking.
"It's not alcohol. It's my Life Water."
"Pfft—"
At this textbook sophistry of the hopeless drunk, Blithe forgot all decorum and burst into unrestrained laughter.
"H-huuurgh…!"
Professor Simon was now teetering on the very edge of losing his mind.
And the eyes of Professor Jiya, who had been glowering at Kallen since the moment he appeared, somehow grew sharper still.
"Ughhh…"
"So then, why exactly did you summon me…?"
At Kallen's innocent question, Professor Simon—who had been clutching the back of his neck and moaning—rounded on him, eyes blazing.
"Do you—do you have any self-awareness as a professor of Elysion?! Hm?!"
"I'm afraid I don't quite follow."
"I'm asking why you had the audacity to show up late on the very first day of class!"
"Ah, is that all."
He continued, still without a hint of shame.
"I stopped to help someone on my way to work. It delayed me longer than expected, and I missed two coaches in a row. What can you do?"
"Wh-where do you get off telling such a worthless lie?! It's obvious you were guzzling booze all morning and came scrambling in…!"
"How rude. Is it proper for the Head of the Swordsmanship Department of Elysion to condemn a man without a shred of evidence?"
"K-khhk…!"
Blithe was now nearly asphyxiating from suppressed laughter.
"Y-you—!!"
The circumstances all pointed in Simon's favor—but then again, circumstances alone were not enough to pin anything on Kallen.
"Th-that's not all!! Didn't you spend your very first lecture not teaching, but sprawled out on a bench taking an interminable nap?! I've heard it directly from the students—you can't deny this one…!"
"Ah, you mean that?"
While Simon trembled with rage and jabbed his finger wildly, Kallen replied with perfect indifference.
"The new students seemed tired—they were nodding off from the very first day. So I exercised my professorial discretion and granted them a short rest."
"Wh-what?"
"Oh, and I took a bit of a break myself while I was at it. Waking up early for my first day of work left me rather short on sleep. But really, what's the harm? No need to be so rigid about things…"
"You—you little wretch!!"
And at last, like a volcano finally erupting, Professor Simon roared at the top of his lungs.
"A graceless commoner like you dares insult me, head of the noble House of Rus?! Fine, you cur. Today, it's your life or mi…!"
"Now, now, calm down, Professor Simon. No matter how angry you are, that kind of remark is going too far."
Only then did Blithe, who had been doubled over laughing this whole time, finally intervene to restrain him.
"Elysion's tradition is to respect each professor's discretionary powers to the fullest. Department head or not, you have no authority to interfere with another's curriculum. Pressing this further would hardly reflect well on you, would it? Hm?"
Professor Simon's habit of favoring noble students over commoner ones was an open secret among the faculty.
True, it was the result of him cleverly skirting Elysion's regulations by exploiting the discretion granted to each professor—but faced with Blithe pointing that very fact out, he had no defense to offer.
"Grrrgh…!"
"Fufu, that's quite enough out of you."
Watching Simon grudgingly go off to cool his head, Blithe chuckled, then turned around.
"And Professor Kallen, you really shouldn't push your luck either. You're still the new one here—wouldn't it be wise to take your lumps and learn as you go?"
"Wise words indeed."
Kallen simply grinned and nodded along.
"So then, our Professor Kallen—what did you do before coming here?"
"Well, I knocked about a bit as a mercenary and an adventurer. Did some traveling on the side…"
"Tsk tsk, if you keep being so vague, how is anyone supposed to know!"
Just as Professor Blithe, working hard to keep the mood cheerful, tossed her question at Kallen—
Simon, who had been scowling in displeasure the entire while, could not hold his tongue and rudely cut in.
"You ought to disclose exactly what you did and for how many years! It's not as though you worked somewhere unspeakable… how can a professor be so thoughtless… tsk…"
The bald professor growled on at Kallen, ignoring even the sidelong glances Blithe was shooting him.
"Hmm…"
At his words, Kallen fell into what seemed to be deep contemplation.
Having finally settled the matter, he tilted his head and opened his mouth.
"Well, if you insist so strongly…"
And on his face bloomed an inexplicably impish smile.
"My most recent position was at the Cheeky Mare. I mainly handled facility security and human resource management."
"The… Cheeky… Mare…?"
"It's a bit of a name…"
"Where on earth is that…?"
"Ah, I never did mention, did I."
And with a beaming smile at the utterly baffled professors, Kallen opened his mouth once more.
"It's a brothel. In the Free City of Kroghall."