A Secret Tryst with Professor Lim Sol

What the hell was this? I tried to make sense of the sentences hanging in front of my eyes, but they had come out of nowhere.

There was a reward system built into the Heroine Conquest System? And nobody thought to mention it?

What an unfriendly game.

"And what's an Equipment Status Window supposed to be?"

I looked around the room for anything that might count as gear. A security stone happened to be mounted on the window, so I stared at it and muttered Equipment Status Window under my breath.

"Oh, nice. This is actually useful."

It seemed to be an ability that displayed an item's properties in real time. I had been able to see this kind of thing in the game, but once the world became real I had naturally assumed that window was gone for good. Finding it again was a nicer surprise than I wanted to admit.

I did the 69 position one time and suddenly picked up an ability this good? Forget training — was just going around having sex with heroines the fastest way to get stronger?

Either way, now that I knew this existed, I was going to have to be more aggressive about it. If I wanted to survive in this brutal world, I needed to wring every last drop of honey out of it.

Monday morning, and the day was already packed. I slipped into the dorms at dawn, washed up, pulled on my cadet uniform, and headed out. Luckily, it didn't seem like anyone had caught me.

"Mornin'~!"

I had barely left the men's dormitory when Kim Young-han came jogging up to talk.

"You look wiped. This isn't leftover from Friday's incident, is it?"

"Nah, it's nothing."

A blond delinquent, worrying about me? I couldn't exactly tell him I was tired from going down on Rumi all night, so I brushed it off.

We traded pointless small talk the rest of the way and arrived at the first-year lecture building. The moment we stepped into the classroom, Kim Young-han went off to greet the other cadets, and I scanned the room to see whether Rumi had made it to class in one piece.

"Rumi, what's going on? You're totally spaced out today."

"Hm. Hm? No, nothing? Hehe."

"Your face is a little red, too. Coming down with something? Or is it that time of the month?"

"Mm… shh."

Watching her talk with Lucy, she seemed fine. Her face was flushed like she might be coming down with a cold, but nothing about her looked actually wrong.

"What the hell."

Her affection and libido had shot up to absurd numbers. The affection I could understand, but why had her libido gone up?

If she didn't remember sucking on me — and me sucking on her — shouldn't the libido have stayed put? Or maybe the body just remembered. Something like that.

Not that it was a problem. Higher was better. I wasn't about to complain.

The classroom door slid open.

"Hello, everyone~"

A female professor in a bright pink blouse and a miniskirt swept in through the doorway.

"Whoa, Kang Hyo-rin is teaching theory?"

"Who's Kang Hyo-rin?"

"You don't know Dr. Kang Hyo-rin?"

Honestly, I didn't know Kang Hyo-rin that well either. Theory professor, Dr. Kang Hyo-rin. I knew she had a decent reputation in dungeon and monster research, and in hunter studies, but she wasn't exactly a major character.

"I heard this year's freshmen are something else. Even the look in your eyes is intense~."

Kang Hyo-rin handed out printouts with obvious delight, talking the whole time.

"Since this is your first Modern Hunterology class, I put together a little test to measure your level. It'll count toward your grade, so do your best~."

The exam was split into a question sheet and an answer sheet, and you were supposed to etch your answers into the sheet with mana.

So that's how they do it.

I had never actually written out answers in the game, so there was no way I would have known.

For all the professor's breezy attitude, the questions themselves were vicious. Not so much high-level as just filthy hard — like someone had gone through the textbooks, scraped out only those tiny For Reference notes tucked in the corners, and turned them into an exam.

Fumitake Oni.

Of course, the difficulty of the questions had nothing to do with me. I had already put my perk, Memory Supplement, to work and finished a full first pass of every Modern Hunterology textbook, reference book, and related paper. Since I only had to read them — not actually understand them — it hadn't even taken that long.

Once I had filled in every answer, I snuck a look at the room.

Elise, first in the class, was flying through the questions. Everyone else looked grim. A so-called level check that counted toward their grades, with questions like these — no wonder they looked ready to shit themselves. Nam Da-eun had her face planted on the desk, no intention of solving a single thing, while Lucy and Rumi groaned and stared holes through the first question.

How many should I get wrong?

I considered missing a few on purpose, then decided to just give it my all. I needed that scholarship either way.

After the test, Kang Hyo-rin was still enjoying the students' suffering when she took an urgent call, announced that something had come up, and postponed the afternoon class entirely.

With the unexpected free time, I thought about what to do and decided on the training hall. I needed to test Insight. I had meant to do it over the weekend, but contrary to plan I had ended up sleeping with Rumi and never got around to it.

I reached the training building, took the stairs to the third-floor mana training room, and went into a regular training room this time instead of the private one I had used before. The training rooms let you run through a variety of combat-simulation curricula.

"Magic evasion maneuver training, starting from Stage 1."

Evasion maneuver drills were something melee-type awakeners ran, not mages. What I wanted to test, though, was my own evasion using Insight.

A hologram on the ceiling displayed my remaining health as a percentage. Any spell I failed to dodge that landed a direct hit would knock those points down, and the moment they hit zero, the session was over.

Multicolored spells came screaming in from the front.

Insight.

A low hum vibrated through my skull, and my field of vision blew wide open. I could see the paths of every spell flying toward me.

"This is doable."

Stage 1 was easier than my spar with Lucy. The incoming spells were simple elemental magic — fast, but flying in straight lines.

"Holy shit. That nearly killed me."

Stage 2 had been manageable. Same spells as Stage 1, just faster. From Stage 3 onward, though, status-effect magic started mixing in — binding, charm, paralysis. Stage 4 more than doubled the volume. By Stage 5 the quantity, the speed, and the variety had all ramped up at once, and my health points hit zero in seventy-two seconds.

"What's this ranking thing?"

I had no idea why so many systems that never showed up in the game kept appearing.

I typed in HYL — my own initials — and registered.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

"Show me the evasion maneuver rankings."

Twenty-second? Not bad.

Twenty-second on a first attempt. If I ran the drill over and over, I could climb whenever I wanted. It only occurred to me after I had already left my initials that landing first place by accident and drawing a pile of unwanted attention would have been a disaster. Dodged that one, at least.

"Still. Something feels lacking."

I had the distinct sense that Insight had far more uses than just evasion drills. Nothing groundbreaking would come to mind, though. Was there anywhere I could get information on this…?

"Oh."

Come to think of it, I already knew an expert in this exact field. There was no reason to sit here grinding my gears alone. I could just ask Professor Lim Sol. She might even give me a hint. Meeting her in person had not exactly inspired confidence, but she was a specialist in magic, if nothing else.

I ended the session and left the training hall. The evasion drills had left me soaked in sweat, so I showered first, changed into a spare cadet uniform, and headed for Lim Sol's lab.

Most of Victoria Academy's magic professors had private research labs of their own. They were all housed in the Magic Hall, and the entire second floor of that enormous building belonged to Professor Lim Sol.

I walked about twenty minutes from the dorms, past the first-year lecture building, and the Magic Hall came into view. The thought of actually stepping into a building I had only ever seen in the game made me unexpectedly nervous. I had never even gone looking for a professor in my previous life. And now I was doing it here.

The Magic Hall rose seventeen stories, huge and ornate in the way every building at Victoria Academy seemed to be. More than fifty magic professors conducted their research inside. The first floor was a lobby, which meant fifty-plus professors were splitting sixteen floors between them — and Lim Sol had an entire floor to herself. That one detail told you everything you needed to know about her standing in the magic world.

I stepped through the entrance. A large convenience store, a café, a bakery, and other amenities filled the space, with the lobby in the center and elevators lined up along both sides. I walked up to the receptionist stationed at the desk.

"Hello. I'm here on business with Professor Lim Sol on the second floor."

"Professor Lim Sol has a standing order that absolutely no one is allowed in except the people on her list. Did you make an appointment?"

"No, I didn't…"

I had wanted to make one. After all that talk about helping with her research, though, I had never actually gotten her contact information, so I had no way to reach her. This was all because I had fallen for her honey trap. I had been so out of it walking back to the dorm that I had forgotten to even get her number.

"Did she mention letting someone named Lee Ho-yeon through if he showed up?"

"No word of that, I'm afraid. The only names on the list are the Headmaster and the Chairman."

"But you have a way to contact her, don't you? Could you let Professor Lim Sol know that a cadet named Lee Ho-yeon is here to see her?"

"Well… the professor specifically said not to contact her even if strange people show up…"

"I'm not a strange person. I'll take full responsibility, so please just tell her Lee Ho-yeon is here."

This was genuinely infuriating. Why did that professor live like a shut-in? Did she have a stalker or something? If anyone was going to attract a stalker, it was Mun Su-rin.

"Tsk tsk. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Does he really think he can just barge in and see the professor?"

"He'll get expelled at this rate. That'll teach him."

I was still arguing with the receptionist when the mockery floated over, loud and completely unhidden. I glanced in that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠direction. About a dozen guys were sitting on a bench in front of the convenience store, each of them holding a bag of snacks. The big one in the middle had what looked like cake boxes in both hands. He was clearly the center of that little pack.

The whole picture was so ridiculous I almost laughed, and I turned back to the receptionist.

"Who are those people?"

"Students from the Magic Research Department."

"The Magic Research Department? Fine. Why are they standing around the Magic Hall in a group holding snacks? Having a snack party?"

"Well, actually… Professor Lim Sol comes down to the convenience store and the café about once a week and buys a huge amount of chocolate cake and chocolate snacks."

"…Chocolate cake and chocolate snacks."

"Yes. And at some point those students found out, so they wait like that, and when the professor comes out to buy chocolate they offer her the snacks they prepared and ask her to look at last week's club research results."

"…"

"Then Professor Lim Sol skims through them, gives a comment or two, takes the snacks, and goes back upstairs."

I had just heard a great many words, and my brain was refusing to process any of them.

Don't just dump bizarre lore on me like that.

"How do they even know when she'll come out?"

"From what I understand, they keep watch in four six-hour shifts."

What was this, the Magic Research Department or the Jobless Losers Report Here Club? Academy cadets pulling four-shift watches on the Magic Hall? What kind of bullshit was that?

There was a bit of lore that Professor Lim Sol used teleportation magic to get to class because walking was too much of a hassle — but I never thought it would get used like this.

"And what's this about expulsion?"

"Last year around this time, freshmen came every single day for a month wanting to see Professor Lim Sol in person. She warned them she would expel anyone who kept coming, and one student who didn't stop got expelled."

"…Scary woman."

"Shall I still put through an emergency call?"

"Yes. I'll take responsibility, so please do."

The receptionist looked uneasy to the very end, but she put the emergency call through.

Finally. Contact. She wouldn't hear the name and kick me out asking who I was… right? I was getting anxious for no good reason.

"Hey. You. What do you think you're doing?"

The big one from the center of that pack had decided to come talk to me.

"Is there a problem?"

I did not expect a productive conversation with a bunch of guys who had nothing better to do, but I caught the brooch on his chest and realized he was a senior, so I kept my tone polite.

"Small fry never do know their place."

The big guy looked down at me with an ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠expression that was supposed to be intimidating. Surprisingly, it was not intimidating at all.

"A freshman. Don't recognize the face, so you're not from any famous family. Trying to get close to Professor Lim Sol somehow?"

"…"

"Ah. Then you wouldn't know my name either. Kim Hyeondo, president of the Magic Research Department. Don't tell me you haven't heard of us. It's no exaggeration to say we're the most famous club at Victoria Academy."

Kim Hyeondo turned around to show off a robe with Magic Research Department written across it in huge letters. The smug confidence on his face was the real highlight.

Not just a loser with nothing better to do. He's a complete idiot.

Now I was genuinely curious how far this guy would take the bit.

"So what I'm saying is, don't go bothering Professor Lim Sol. She's the advising professor of our Magic Research Department. What if you get in the way of her reviewing our research results…"

Ding—

A woman in a robe stepped out of the elevator. The moment Kim Hyeondo saw her, he jumped like he had been electrocuted and let out a yelp.

That blue robe was unmistakably the same one Professor Lim Sol had been wearing last time. She stepped out of the elevator and started walking straight toward us.