The Professor in Slippers
The classes that followed were one ordeal after another.
Second period was Divine Defense, third was Hemomancy, and in each one the professors summoned Simon—the Special Admission No. 1—up to the podium and put him to the test.
It was an annual tradition. The truth was that at Kizen, the competition wasn't just fierce among students; it was every bit as cutthroat among the professors themselves.
Professors with poor results could be cut mid-semester. Pay fluctuated with performance, and so did their influence and leverage within Kizen's inner circles.
Naturally, every professor fought to secure as many majors as possible, and the truly exceptional students were the ones they coveted as direct disciples. Testing the strongest students in the very first class was part of that campaign—and so it was only inevitable that Simon, Special Admission No. 1, would find himself called to the podium.
In both classes, Simon's opponent was a girl named Meilyn Villenne.
She was ranked first in Class A, and her entrance scores were among the highest of the entire freshman year. In written evaluations alone, she was practically the top student in the school.
For Simon, who had only just entered the world of dark magic, beating her was a fantasy. Against Hector he had at least managed to land a punch or two, but with Meilyn the match was over before it could even be called a fight.
The professors tilted their heads at this unexpected turn, and even Simon's Class A classmates were beginning to realize that he was a rank beginner.
'Uuuugh…….'
And so he had slogged through three straight periods without a moment's rest. Thankfully, the last class had ended a little early, leaving him a small window of time.
Simon lay sprawled face-down on an empty table in the campus store, resting.
'The classes are actually interesting, but they're brutal.'
He hadn't known school could be this exhausting. Especially that duel with Hector—it had drained every last ounce of strength he had.
Simon groaned and rested his head on his arms.
"Hey there."
Just as he was catching his breath, someone spoke to him. He lifted his head to find a short-haired blond boy, sunglasses pushed up on his forehead, grinning down at him.
"I'm in Class A with you. Name's Dick Hayward."
"……Simon Polentia."
The two shook hands lightly.
"You're already famous, you know. They're talking about you even in the other classes."
Simon shrugged.
"That the Special Admission No. 1 bubble is bursting, I bet."
"Hahaha!"
Dick laughed out loud and dropped heavily into the seat across from him.
"Honestly, you're the normal one here. It's the first day of school and everyone's losing their minds over nothing."
"Thanks for saying so."
Dick folded his hands on the table, his expression turning a shade more serious.
"Did you know? Hector's already building his own faction."
"……Faction?"
"He made a hell of an impression in the first class. Of course people are flocking to him. He's the eldest son of a powerful family, too—he's popular with all the noble kids."
Simon propped his chin on his hand, frowning.
"Not really interested."
"Hey, hey, just listen. At Kizen, politics matter too! What happens if Class A goes running to Hector lock, stock, and barrel? Anyone branded as Hector's man is done. You won't even be able to find partners when group assignments come around."
Well, that changed things. Simon straightened up in his seat.
"You seem quick on the uptake about this stuff. So why aren't you over with Hector?"
Whether Simon had struck the heart of the matter or not, a flicker of awkwardness crossed Dick's face.
'Sharper than his innocent looks suggest.'
Dick laughed it off and scratched the side of his head.
"Fact is, I'm a commoner. Merchant family."
Then he rose from his seat and bowed with exaggerated formality.
"If a lowly commoner has offended you, I humbly beg your pardon, milord."
"……Cut that out. I heard everyone at Kizen is just a first-year."
Dick sat back down, looking satisfied.
"True enough, but some kids just can't help advertising that they're nobility."
"Not me, at least."
"Good to hear. Actually, I've got a proposal for you."
Dick held out his hand.
"Join my faction, Simon."
"……?"
"Whether you've got real talent or you're all hype, either way, you being Special Admission No. 1 is a hard fact. The head start, the accelerated coursework—it looks big now, but it all evens out eventually. Lady Nephthys must have brought you in as a Special Admission for a reason. You're worth something."
Simon smiled gently.
"Forget factions and all that."
"……?"
Simon reached out and placed his hand in front of Dick's waiting one.
"How about just being friends, as equals?"
Dick let out an awkward laugh.
"……Wow. That is one seriously corny line."
To think that in this Kizen, there was still someone offering plain friendship instead of an 'alliance' or a 'faction.'
Frankly, it was old-fashioned.
It was cringe.
And yet, somehow, squeezed in among all these people calculating costs and benefits, Simon's approach felt genuinely special.
Dick stretched out his arm and clasped Simon's hand firmly.
"Every once in a while, this kind of sappiness isn't so bad, I guess."
"……Ha ha."
From Simon's perspective too, befriending a student who knew Kizen inside and out and had sharp political instincts was hardly a bad deal.
Having shaken hands, the two rose slowly from their seats. It was about time to head to the lecture hall for the next class.
"What was next class again?"
"Hold on."
Dick pulled a notebook from his pocket and flipped it open.
"Oh—it's Summoning."
At those words, a distinctive light kindled in Simon's eyes.
* * *
Simon and Dick entered the lecture hall without delay.
Unlike the stiff, uncomfortable atmosphere of the first class, the room had loosened up considerably—students were chatting now, trading stories with friends they'd made. And just as Dick had said, four boys were gathered around Hector, laughing and talking loudly. As Simon passed, they let out muffled snickers.
"Ooh, look, Special Admission No. 1 is gracing us with his presence."
"The greatest fraud in Kizen's history."
"And that guy beat Serne, Chatel, AND Lorraine? Yeah, right."
They were snickering away, but Hector himself, at the center of the group, stayed quiet. He merely glanced at Simon for a moment, then turned his head away.
"Don't mind them, Simon."
Dick said.
"No need to lend an ear to windbags."
Simon sat down with an expressionless face and pulled his Summoning textbook from his bag.
"I'm looking forward to it."
"……Huh?"
"Summoning class."
Simon's eyes were shining bright. He wasn't ignoring the hecklers out of some learned restraint—he genuinely hadn't registered them at all.
Dick snorted a quiet laugh.
'Yeah, there really is something different about this guy.'
Before long, the bell rang to announce the start of class. The students hurried back to their seats.
Scrape. Scrape.
The sound of shuffling footsteps came from outside the lecture hall.
From Bahil Amagar of Curse Magic on down, every professor Simon had seen so far had been impressive enough to make jaws drop. The students waited, brimming with anticipation over who would walk through the door next.
Click.
At last the lecture hall door opened, and a man in his early thirties walked in.
Hair like he'd just rolled out of bed, a stubbly jaw that hadn't seen a razor in days, a loose shirt and shorts, and—on top of it all—worn-out slippers.
Simon genuinely wondered if some random uncle from the neighborhood had wandered into the wrong room.
The other students thought the same. After a parade of immaculate, sharp-looking professors, the sight was almost shocking.
The professor dragged his slippers along the floor as he shuffled to the podium and stopped behind the lectern.
"I'm Aaron Deia. I'll be teaching you Summoning this semester."
A languid voice echoed through the lecture hall.
Aaron walked over to the blackboard and slowly, unhurriedly, wrote out the word Summoning.
One hand buried in his pocket, the other scrawling chalk—everything about his back radiated a profound weariness with the world itself. And yet, perhaps that laziness was its own kind of cool, because a few of the girls were whispering among themselves, cheeks flushed.
"Summoning is the root of the necromancer. It is our history itself. Scholars hate to admit it, but it's hard to deny that we came from grave robbers, tomb raiders, and corpse worshippers."
Aaron set down the chalk with a gloomy smile.
"Anyway. If you've got ears, you've heard the stories about Summoning. That it's outdated. That it gets no respect. That it's hard to study and carries too many handicaps."
A few students nodded in rueful agreement.
"All those countless prejudices you've picked up along the way……"
Simon felt his heart begin to pound a little faster. The other students swallowed hard, waiting for Aaron's next words.
"Most of them are true."
"……?!"
Simon doubted his own ears.
Did this Summoning professor just say what I think he said?
Aaron continued in that same languid voice.
"In the classes you've had before this one, I imagine you heard a lot about how great our respective majors are and why you absolutely must choose them. I personally disagree with that approach. You should be told the pros and the cons, plainly, so you can make a proper choice for yourselves."
Aaron stepped back up to the blackboard and picked up the chalk. The students took hold of their quills, ready to take notes.
"Disadvantage number one of Summoning."
Simon gave a wry smile.
We're starting with the disadvantages?
"Summoning is expensive."
Aaron wrote the words across the board, then turned back to face the students.
"I'm not saying this lightly. Whatever figure you're imagining, Summoning burns through more in material costs than that. And then some."
A sudden hush fell over the lecture hall.
"The material costs of Summoning alone can exceed those of every other subject combined. Of course it can. What, are you going to kill the person next to you every time you need a skeleton or a zombie? Raid a village? Go hunting animals and slaughter them one by one? No. Necromancers these days use skeleton kits, or specially treated corpses that can be made into zombies on the spot. And even the undead you produce this way are, for the most part, single-use."
Some of the students' faces darkened. The commoners in particular went visibly pale.
"It's not uncommon for the materials consumed in a fight to cost more than the mission pays out. If you intend to major in Summoning, give up any thought of making money. Now—disadvantage number two."
Aaron wrote out the next line.
"Summoning leaves you dangerously dependent on your summons. Well, that one's obvious, isn't it? Summoning is a discipline where you fight through your summons."
Aaron raised his chalk-holding arm and circled the word dependency over and over.
"If your summon is destroyed, the summoner's combat power drops by more than eighty percent, just like that."
"……"
"These days especially, most practitioners don't bother with disposable undead—they pour modification upon modification into a single semi-permanent undead of their own. Now picture it: in the middle of a war, that undead gets destroyed. What happens to you?"
The corner of Aaron's mouth curled upward.
"Picture your classmates spreading out their maps, huddled together, earnestly planning tactics—while you stand there having lost your summon, sucking on your thumb."
Simon could only gape, more stunned with every word.
He's really going that far? Is this guy actually a Summoning professor?
"And this dependency ties right back into the first disadvantage."
Aaron drew a line from the circled word dependency and connected it to expensive.
"Lose your main summon, and the summoner takes a devastating blow—both in combat power and in finances. You'll be spending a long, long time scraping money together just to rebuild what you had."
A heavy silence settled over the lecture hall.
"And now, the third and final disadvantage."
Aaron finished writing on the blackboard, then turned with a grin.
"This one is the most important of all."