A Favor in the Rain
Shaaaaaaa—
It was late at night.
Rain was still pouring down beyond the window, and the patter of droplets striking the glass sounded unusually loud.
…….
Simon sat on the floor with his arms crossed, waiting. Before long, the bathroom door creaked open.
"Sorry about that. I've put you to some trouble."
Chehekl, Bahil's chief TA, emerged from the bathroom, toweling off her dripping hair.
"N-no, not at all, Professor TA! Please, take your time."
"The rain came down so suddenly. My apologies."
She gave a small bow and sat down in front of Simon. There was a faint smell of rain-damp, and beneath it a perfume so watered down it seemed almost diluted.
She had washed her hair, but her clothes were still soaked through from the rain. Simon startled and spoke up.
"You've been out in the rain all this time—shouldn't you take a shower or something?"
"No."
Chehekl shook her head and gave a faint smile.
"I have to go back out anyway. I'll shower at my own quarters."
"O-of course."
Simon was doing his best to look composed, but inside, his nerves were in a full-blown riot.
The taboo of taboos. He'd brought a girl into his dorm room. Even if she was a TA rather than a student, it made no difference—if the dorm supervisor caught them, he could kiss his points goodbye, face expulsion from the dormitory, and have no one but himself to blame.
Restless with anxiety, Simon glanced around and then looked toward the bed.
"Toto……"
"I've put him into a deep sleep. As long as we don't make too much noise, he won't wake up."
Chehekl had already taken care of it.
Blissfully unaware of what was unfolding right in front of him, Toto lay scratching his belly in nothing but his underwear, dead to the world. Simon, out of respect for the boy's dignity, pulled the covers over him.
"Anyway."
Simon continued, avoiding her gaze.
"Wh-what brings a TA like you to my room……?"
"Simon—no, Mr. Student Council President. I've come to ask a favor of you."
"Oh, please, just call me like you always do. Is the favor about Professor Bahil?"
"Yes."
Chehekl blinked mid-conversation.
Something was off about Simon. His face was flushed beet-red, he was stammering, and he couldn't meet her eyes.
Only then did she look down at herself.
"Oh."
The rain had soaked her shirt through, leaving her underwear visible. Chehekl covered her chest and smiled awkwardly.
"Sorry about that. In front of a student, too."
"N-no, it's fine."
Having finally found somewhere to direct his eyes, Simon recovered his composure and returned to a serious expression.
"Has Professor Bahil come back to Roc Island?"
"Yes. We tracked down the professor where he'd been hiding out at his villa—every department's professors pitched in, and even the Crow. We barely managed to talk him around, and for now, we've succeeded in bringing him back to Roc Island."
Simon's expression stiffened slightly.
'For now,' is it.
"To be honest with you, the professor's state is beyond words."
Chehekl heaved a sigh deep enough to swallow the ground.
"It seems the heartbreak was too much for him. He has no motivation for his classes, he doesn't even ramble on about his usual strange nonsense, and he just lies there staring blankly at the ceiling, mind completely broken. I've never seen him this drained before."
Simon's face twitched.
"Could that be……"
"Yes, it's almost certainly because of what happened with you, Simon."
Simon was a little bewildered.
"I hesitate to say this, but it's strange to me that someone like Professor Bahil would fall apart over one person like me. If there's any other reason you can think of……"
"It was because of one student. I'm certain of it."
Chehekl declared flatly, then added with a bitter smile,
"I don't think he himself has any idea just how strong his obsession with you, his fixation on you, really is."
"……Ah."
All Simon had ever seen was Bahil behind his masks.
Of course, Simon had naturally sensed that Bahil treated him a little better than the other students—teaching him Compellonia and the 'Four Great Curses' alone. But he'd never imagined the man's mind was still broken over that one rejection.
"……What a pathetic man."
As the talk turned to Bahil, anger and irritation crept into Chehekl's eyes. She swept her wet hair back roughly, muttering as though chewing on the words—when suddenly Simon turned his head away sharply, his face going red.
"?"
Chehekl, who had been pushing her hair back, belatedly realized and laughed an 'ahaha' as she covered her chest.
"Sorry."
"N-no, it's fine."
Simon turned back around and gave an awkward cough. Ahem.
"You know, Professor TA Chehekl…… it doesn't seem like you hold only warm feelings for Professor Bahil, either."
"……No, honestly, I don't."
She let out a long sigh.
"To be blunt, the grudge is much bigger."
"What happened?"
In a flat tone, she laid out her story.
"Back when Professor Bahil was still a new professor, he took notice of my talent—I was a Kizen student at the time—and he wanted me for himself."
Just like he wants you now.
As if saying exactly that, she stared at Simon for a long moment before continuing.
"In the end, thanks to his endless interference, I couldn't even survive my second year. I was washed out. And the moment I'd taken off my uniform and started packing my things in the dormitory, he offered me a position as his TA."
At the time, Chehekl said, she'd had no choice but to accept.
Her parents had fallen gravely ill, and money for their treatment was needed right away.
Bahil took responsibility for her parents' care, and on top of that guaranteed her the next professorship in Curse Studies.
And so she had accepted her enemy's offer, and become her enemy's subordinate.
"But the resentment only grew with time."
Chehekl said, looking up at the ceiling.
"There I was, fetching and carrying for a professor, gathering supplies for students—while my old classmates were living the happiest school days of their lives and sprinting toward brilliant futures. Sweeping the floors with a broom and bowing my head to every classmate or junior who walked past. Can you even imagine how that felt?"
"……"
Simon pressed both palms to the floor, his face troubled.
"So the reason you endured life as a TA all this way, up to the chief TA position, was……"
"That's right. I wanted my revenge."
Chehekl smiled.
"I tried more times than I could count. Leaked important information to his rivals, published papers refuting his own work. But as time went on, I came to understand only one thing: I was never in his league. He's a genuine genius. There was no way an ordinary person like me could ever beat a genius like that."
Having concluded that surpassing and crushing Bahil on merit was impossible, Chehekl changed tactics to an all-out negative strategy. There had even been times when she inflicted damage massive enough to shake his qualification as a professor.
But in every single instance, Bahil never blamed Chehekl.
And in every single instance, he refused to accept her resignation.
'It wasn't just a professor and TA—it was a relationship tangled up in far more history than that.'
Simon saw a whole cascade of expressions cross Chehekl's face.
Love and hate. Love-hate.
Perhaps that was the most fitting way to describe the relationship between Chehekl and Bahil.
"Of course, I still haven't given up on my revenge."
Chehekl said, her voice sinking low.
"But I don't want to score a victory over a man who's been reduced to that—a hollowed-out shell."
"Professor TA……"
"I've rambled long enough. Getting back to what I came here to say—I have a request for you, Simon."
Chehekl, who had been sitting with her legs stretched out to the side, now knelt formally with her knees together and bowed her head. It was practically a posture of supplication, and Simon, horrified, dropped into the same position himself.
"P-Professor TA……!"
"Tomorrow is course registration day, isn't it."
She lifted her head, her face grave.
"I'm not asking anything unreasonable of you. I only want your first-choice elective to be Professor Bahil's Curse Studies."
"I'm sorry?"
Simon blinked.
He had already worked out his full schedule with the other Student Council members.
To be sure, Bahil's Curse Studies was on it—but in second place. The first class of the day was set to be Professor Jane's Jet-Black Mechanics.
"……B-but will that be enough?"
"He's an adult, but emotionally, there's something almost childlike about him in places. It's the hallmark of geniuses and eccentrics."
Chehekl sighed.
"Yes, as a second-year, Simon chose Professor Aaron. But if you can at least give him the belief that next comes Bahil—"
A strange light flickered in her eyes.
"—then perhaps you can bring that broken man back."
The next morning.
The rain that had hammered down all night had dwindled to a drizzle. Mercifully, course registration season would proceed without a hitch today.
The four hundred second-year students donned the raincoats they'd been issued over their uniforms and lined up at the starting line outside the Second-Year Campus.
Hyaam.
Among the adults standing before the students, one familiar face stood out.
The Card Necromancer, Endolas Vaudeville.
One of the Ten Continental Mysteries alongside Nephthys—the very man who had presided over Simon's BMAT back in first year.
Endolas was rubbing his eyes with a face steeped in exhaustion.
"Pulling an all-nighter since the wee hours of the morning in this rain—it's killing me."
"Oh, you've worked so hard, sir! Lord Endolas!"
The Kizen staff member and Endolas chatted idly while the students murmured among themselves, exchanging whispers about course registration.
"What?! You're changing the order now?!"
Simon explained the situation to the Student Council members. Meilin bounced up and down on her toes, yelling, while Simon scratched the back of his neck.
"Yeah. I'm really sorry—I decided on my own, out of nowhere."
Simon had ultimately accepted Chehekl's proposal.
Setting Bahil the man aside, Simon genuinely liked the Curse Studies he taught.
There was no disputing the quality of Bahil's instruction, and personally, Simon owed him a great deal of help. Above all, thanks to the 'Compellonia' the man had taught him, Simon had survived with his life intact.
He couldn't just stand by and watch the man who'd saved his life fall apart like this. If nothing more than shuffling his application order from second to first would save him, Simon was more than willing to do it.
"It's okay, Simon! Don't feel bad about it."
Camibarez beamed.
"All you did was swap the order a little. The four of us are still taking Professor Jane's, Professor Bahil's, and Professor Hong Peng's classes together, same as planned, right?"
"Yeah, true."
"I truly believe we'll get to sit in class together, all four of us, just like before!"
With Camibarez's encouragement, Simon felt his resolve strengthen all the more. Meanwhile, Dick stood with his arms crossed, deep in thought.
"Hmm—so what if we all just follow Simon's lead and put Curse Studies first, then?"
"No, no. There's no reason for the rest of you to suffer for my whim."
In truth, Dick had slipped out of the dormitory in secret the night before, mapped the shortest-distance route, and already scouted the positions of the cards Endolas Vaudeville had planted.
Changing the order wouldn't just reduce all of Dick's hard work to bubbles—it would introduce far too many variables.
"Don't worry about me. I work better alone anyway, and I'll find a way to lock in all three classes no matter what."
Simon clenched and unclenched his fist as he declared, brimming with confidence.
Just then, the Kizen staff member and Endolas Vaudeville stepped forward.
"Now then, second-years! It's time to explain the rules of course registration!"
Simon already knew all of it—he'd heard everything from Dick.
The Second-Year Campus had been transformed by Endolas Vaudeville's power into something like a 'Wonderland'—a maze teeming with monsters, with multiple spaces overlapping and jumbled together.
The professors were waiting in their own offices inside the campus buildings. Students had to carry their registration forms to each professor and obtain their signature to complete the registration.
And of course, once a class's seats filled up, registration became impossible. The time spent reaching a given professor and the Jet-Black burned out parrying monsters and traps would all go to waste—every split-second decision mattered.
"You will all be entering wearing these protective suits!"
Endolas held up a vest-style defensive suit as he spoke.
"This suit converts the attacks of my card monsters into numbers, draining your Barrier Gauge. The moment your gauge hits zero, you will be trapped in the barrier installed at that spot, frozen in place for thirty minutes."
A collective groan of dread ran through the students.
Thirty minutes was more than enough time to register for an entire class.
"Yikes. Gotta watch our backs out there, huh~"
Dick muttered.
"At this level of competition, a thirty-minute freeze might as well be the end."
Having said that, Meilin turned her head.
"And Simon?"
"Yeah?"
"Let me make this clear—there are more students who picked Professor Jane's class as their first course than there are seats in the entire class. You understand what that means?"
Simon nodded.
"I have to hit Professor Bahil and reach Professor Jane before everyone who picked Jane as their first choice."
"Right. I'm not going to talk you out of it at this point, but can you really pull it off?"
Sensing the sincerity behind Meilin's worry, Simon answered with a wide grin.
"Yeah. I'll get it done, no matter what."
Dick yelled 'That's our President!' and handed Simon a map.
"Good news is, the Curse Studies building and the Jet-Black Mechanics building are close together! Move twice as fast as everyone else, and you can just barely make it!"
"Okay."
"Are all students ready?"
At Endolas Vaudeville's shout, every student roared back, "Yes, sir!"
"Course registration season begins now! May each and every one of you get into the classes you desire!"
His cape billowed, and his arm swept down.
"Begin!"