Don't Fight, Have Sex (4)
"It's been a while, everyone. A whole week, hasn't it?"
Professor Londo, whom we hadn't seen in a week, seemed remarkably bright.
Until recently, her expression had been rather dark after viewing Time Walking Path, the additional exhibition piece for The Elf Who Dreams of Coupling with an Orc Remains Frustrated Tomorrow.
Even so, she had managed to finish the scheduled final exams properly and then taken a week of leave. It seemed she had finally sorted out her feelings.
"To be honest, I shouldn't have let it affect me so much, but Siwoo's new work shook me quite deeply."
"Because all of you, my precious students, live lives of a different span from my own, I will almost certainly have to witness your deaths. In truth, elves have always carried that blessing and that curse together."
"So I kept wondering whether I could truly endure it—whether I ought to step down from teaching even now. I thought about it a great deal."
...Hold on. I draw one piece and nearly derail an entire elf's life?
Of course, how someone interprets a work and what they take from it is entirely their own freedom. Still, seeing something like this every so often is a little terrifying.
This project has taught me, more than once, that I need to think a little more carefully when I draw.
I had been careful because of Orca—doing research, turning the ideas over thoroughly before putting anything on the page. And yet, looking at Orca's reaction and Professor Londo's reaction, I find myself thinking even more deeply.
"But the other day I stopped by the manga club, and there was a swordsmanship student named Orca. She said something to me."
That you don't necessarily have to walk the piece in only one direction to view it.
So I went back myself, returned to the past, and looked at what those earlier drawings had been like.
They were truly beautiful. All three of them looked so happy.
"That work is made of two pictures that form a single whole. But I was so shocked by the second that I completely forgot the first."
"The relationships already formed in that past were genuinely beautiful and happy, and I simply hadn't seen it."
Spending this time with all of you beautifully—that is what I truly ought to be doing. That is the mindset a professor should have. I only realized it late.
It was all there in the work. I was simply too dense to notice.
I... didn't think that far ahead, though...?
It had only ever been a way to soothe Orca. I hadn't meant to pack some enormous meaning into it.
Still, I was relieved that we had somehow arrived at a fairly bright ending.
"In truth, this year is a very special one for me. It is the first year since I began teaching Basic Magic that not a single F appeared on the first exam."
"Normally, F's always turn up, which is why we hold the finals early—so I can run supplementary lectures and reduce the number of students who fail."
But this time there were no such students, and I found myself wondering what to do with the remaining period.
At first I thought we might simply rest together, or go view some art, since no one had failed. But honestly, starting this year everyone has been doing plenty of art-viewing within the Academy already. There was no longer any need for me to herd everyone out.
You're the one who made such a fuss about building that manga gallery in the first place.
Somehow the atmosphere had settled into "finals are over, but lectures will continue," so I found myself throwing a jab without meaning to.
But why, after that warm, heartfelt speech, was the conclusion that we should study even harder?
Don't tell me this flower-field-of-a-professor who lives for studying thinks "enjoying time with students" means more studying?
"There is one topic that is not originally part of the curriculum. I would like to study it together with you, partly as a way to test what you have learned in Basic Magic."
...You've got to be kidding me.
Professor Londo's lectures were high quality, and you always took a lot away from them—but I had been planning to use the freer schedule, now that this class was winding down, to prepare a new work.
This would throw the entire schedule into chaos.
Is this my own fault, or should I be blaming Orca...?
While I sat there with thoroughly mixed feelings, Professor Londo prepared to begin the lecture in earnest. A few sighs escaped among the students.
Having to attend lectures even after finals were over was bound to put all sorts of thoughts in people's heads.
"Ah, and I do intend to hold a test at the end of this lecture series. It's better to have a goal."
"What!?"
This time I genuinely shouted in shock.
That meant we were taking another exam.
You've got to be kidding me.
"Ah, but don't worry. It will add bonus points to your grades, but it won't lower your existing scores. I've already spoken with the Academy, and arrangements have been made so you can earn additional A's and B's."
That was a slight improvement—but it still meant that, except for the absolute top students, the results would affect your grades.
Of course you wouldn't lose anything, but you would still have no choice but to work hard.
That was the point of a test, so it was only natural.
"As you all know by now, drawing with completely new tools has been the part of Basic Magic we practiced the most. In truth, the exams were mostly about drawing magic circles in various ways, so the evaluation method may not have been entirely suitable."
That was rich, coming from the professor who had suddenly brought in fruit that took color especially well and ordered us to draw perfect circles for magic arrays.
I had heard she brought absurd things every year, but the sheer randomness of showing up with fruit had been impossible to predict.
And she was saying this next topic was more suitable for evaluation than that?
"Ah, no one saw the fruit coming? My apologies. It must have been more appropriate than I expected. In any case, this topic is also appropriate—because it is the content of a paper I recently published."
Professor, is it really all right to teach first-years something as difficult as the content of a paper you just published?
Sometimes Professor Londo said the most outrageous things with complete seriousness, and it was genuinely frightening.
Was this the difference between humans and elves, or was Professor Londo simply strange...?
Then again, you could also call it experience—because most of the things she did that way turned out successfully.
Honestly, when I first heard that she would hold finals early, hand out F's for the moment, and then let people escape through supplementary lectures, I hadn't understood it at all.
Now I fully accepted that pulling the finals forward was fine.
"I'm going to lose my mind..."
"You hate it, Cali? Honestly, if it's Professor Londo's lecture, I'd be happy to take more."
"Happy, but I still hate it."
I did like the idea of taking Professor Londo's lecture as an advanced course. But being a student, the mere mention of another test was already stressing me out.
On top of that, I was disappointed that I wouldn't be able to focus on my work for a while.
It meant I would have to abandon the plan of nearly finishing one piece before vacation started and then working on another during the break.
"Well, don't get too tense, everyone. I'll only give you a taste of the fundamentals. Anyone who wants to study it properly can look up my published paper and work through it on their own."
"Ah—who just sighed in relief while saying 'thank goodness'? I put that much thought into designing the lecture, you know? Should I be hurt?"
It was probably more than one person.
I myself had felt a considerable wave of relief at those words.
At any rate, that exchange lightened the mood into something more playful, and taking that as her cue, the professor began to slowly unpack the content of this lecture series.
"By now you have all studied the dotted characters. A character that passes through only four of the five points that make up a magic character can become a different character if you place a point of similar mana in the spot it did not pass through."
So then—why must you call up similar mana?
If it is not the same character, the spell still functions without that cumbersome process, does it not?
The project that began from that question is precisely Dual Casting.
"Now then, please watch carefully the magic I am about to activate."
Professor Londo casually drew a circle and constructed a magic array. Just when I thought she was drawing a magic circle as usual, she suddenly raised both hands and began drawing different magic characters with each one.
The feel of the magic characters settling into each hand was refined so distinctly that they formed without the slightest collision. The magic array, completed far faster than usual, flared with light and activated.
"...Holy shit?"
"Because you have to handle mana with such fine control, you must draw with your fingers, which demands far more concentration than other magic. And since you cannot rely on tools, the quality drops somewhat—but in exchange, you can draw magic at a much higher speed."
She explained it as if it were nothing special.
But the moment you learned that technique, you would need to overhaul the systems for magic mock battles and the sparring between the swordsmanship and magic departments. It was that revolutionary.
If you gave up the tools that assisted magic, your maximum speed nearly doubled.
Of course, "nearly double" was easy to say—there would not be many people who could draw with both hands as perfectly as if they were separate people.
"I will not ask you to do it at a proper speed the way I do. Honestly, it took me several months."
"So simply succeed at drawing with both hands at the same time, and I will give you bonus points. That is the final exam I am giving all of you this semester."
Professor Londo's distinctive teaching style remained the same: announcing what the exam would be from the very start, and explaining how to pass it.
But the same person who had once told us to draw perfect circles with fruit we had never seen before was now telling us to solve this before summer vacation?
Just how hard was this thing supposed to be?