Episode 673
Episode 673
"Professor, I think the griffin is scared..."
At Nilia's words, Professor Bendozol flew into a rage.
"Griffins don't get scared! Don't insult them with such words!"
"Eek!"
"Listen up, all of you! Griffins love to play by swinging their tails. So if you ever have to take care of one, stick your head out like this. Make it easier for the griffin to hit you with its tail."
"But wouldn't getting hit by a griffin's tail cause serious injury?"
Durgyu cautiously raised his hand.
Among monsters classified as beasts, griffins were exceptionally powerful.
Naturally, even a casual tail swipe packed the force of a mace. One wrong hit and it wouldn't end as mere play.
Professor Bendozol nodded knowingly and replied:
"Endure it!"
"......"
"......"
"..."
"I'll raise Ponlig myself."
"You damn little fraud! Getting all cocky just because a griffin shows you affection!"
Professor Bendozol barked while on all fours, but Lee Han pretended not to hear and ignored him.
Had this happened when he first entered Einrogard, Lee Han would've been flustered. But after encountering so many insane professors, Bendozol's antics no longer fazed him.
After rambling about "How to Properly Raise a Griffin" for a while, Professor Bendozol finally gave up and shut his mouth when Lee Han kept ignoring him.
"Basilisk!"
"Yes?"
"Setting aside griffins, how are you raising that basilisk?!"
"Quite well, actually..."
The basilisk's tail peeked out from Lee Han's sleeve and wiggled.
It had recognized its name and was greeting them.
Seeing this, Professor Bendozol's face twisted in petty jealousy before breaking into a fatherly, satisfied smile.
"Seeing how playful it is, you must be treating it well!"
"Thank you."
"What about food? You should be feeding it premium Minotaur shoulder cuts! Are you doing that?!"
"......"
That diet would bankrupt him after just a few meals.
Lee Han answered awkwardly:
"I've been sharing my own food with it."
"You... you... ignorant...!"
The four-legged professor's face turned beet red as foam bubbled from his mouth.
Siana whispered:
"Isn't that rabies?"
"Priestess Siana..."
"No. Think about it rationally. We shouldn't let this slide just because he's a professor."
"%&%##%^#$!"
After spewing incomprehensible dialect-laden curses, Professor Bendozol barely regained his composure.
He then passionately lectured Lee Han on proper basilisk care.
"Meat is important, but you must periodically mix dragon's blood with viper's venom for its meals."
Just hearing those names made it clear how expensive those reagents would be.
Lee Han pretended not to hear. The basilisk, seemingly uninterested in such fare, shook its head while tightly coiling its tail around Lee Han's arm.
"Professor Bendozol, stop being jealous that monsters like me. Let's finish discussing the unicorn."
"Grr... why must it be some clueless brat like you! Some ungrateful fool who doesn't even recognize his own luck! Stupid, ignorant..."
Seeing the professor would keep nitpicking Lee Han, Professor Lightning Step finally kicked him aside. Bendozol went rolling away.
Lee Han still tried to console him as a fellow professor:
"Professor, other animals love you, don't they? What does it matter if creatures like basilisks or griffins don't?"
To Lee Han's knowledge, Professor Bendozol was quite a renowned animal expert in the Empire.
The sheer variety of creatures he'd cared for proved he must possess considerable affinity—something impossible otherwise.
Professor Bendozol listened silently.
"I actually don't get along with sensitive, timid creatures like spirits. If anything, I envy your—"
"You damn brat, still bragging! Who are you mocking now!"
Professor Bendozol, who had seemed to be listening quietly, suddenly exploded in anger and tried to fling dirt from the ground at Lee Han.
Professor Lightning Steps sighed and kicked Bendozol aside once again.
After barely regaining his composure, Professor Bendozol began explaining about the unicorn.
From the moment he first encountered it, the unicorn had been severely injured. Bendozol had decided to care for the unicorn instead of returning to Einrogard.
After all, saving a unicorn was far more important than teaching wicked and despicable students.
"Let's stop adding unnecessary details, Professor Bendozol."
Initially, he had only planned to help the unicorn recover from its injuries, but it turned out the unicorn also had a young foal to care for.
The double burden of nurturing its young while injured itself.
It was only natural that Professor Bendozol had taken leave from the academy and devoted all his time to them.
"And the injuries weren't ordinary wounds either."
"That makes sense... There aren't many creatures capable of injuring a unicorn."
Professor Lightning Steps nodded in agreement with Bendozol's words.
Despite their pure image, unicorns were incredibly powerful monsters, and injuring one was no easy feat.
Conversely, if a unicorn was injured, it meant the wounds would be difficult to heal.
"What kind of creature injured it?"
"A Taotie. One has been slumbering here in the Sorrow Mountains."
"!"
Though Professor Lightning Steps was a veteran imperial explorer, even his expression darkened at the mention of the Taotie.
That was how fearsome this monster was.
At first glance, the Taotie resembled an ox-like monster, but its nature was the complete opposite.
Greedy and cunning, it avoided stronger foes while relentlessly pursuing weaker prey.
Of course, a monstrous nature alone didn't make one powerful. Many weaker creatures had similar temperaments.
What made the Taotie truly threatening was its immense physical abilities.
Its tough hide could deflect blades and magic, its hooves could split bedrock with a single stomp, and its speed could shake the earth when it charged at prey...
On top of that, it possessed several innate magical abilities, making it entirely plausible that it could wound a unicorn.
"Was it the Taotie's horn that injured the unicorn?"
"Correct."
"That explains why the wound hasn't healed."
Professor Lightning Steps clicked his tongue.
The Taotie's horn was an evil object imbued with curses and resentment, making it difficult even for creatures like unicorns to recover from its wounds.
"Of course, the beast was also badly wounded by the unicorn. The fact that it entered a long hibernation to recover tells you as much. Under normal circumstances, I would have tracked it down and finished it off then..."
"But you failed... So that's why the monsters are behaving strangely now?"
The erratic movements of the monsters in the Sorrow Mountains—darting about as if terrified—must have been their instinctive awareness that the Taotie would soon awaken.
By nature, the Taotie didn't just hunt for food—it reveled in indiscriminate slaughter. For the surrounding monsters, it was nothing short of a calamity.
Professor Lightning Steps packed his pipe with tobacco, lit it, and took slow, deliberate puffs.
He needed to organize his thoughts.
"There's no need to fear the Taotie's awakening. With our current numbers, we can handle it. Wouldn't you agree, Professor Bendozol?"
Bendozol didn't deny that.
"Now that we know the situation, we'll need to adjust our plans again. The students will stay with Professor Bendozol to guard the unicorn in case of emergencies. The hunters and I will track down the Taotie and finish it off before it awakens."
"Wait!"
Professor Bendozol interrupted, and Professor Lightning Steps turned his gaze toward him.
"Even if you want to join the hunt, it's not possible, Professor Bendozol. Someone needs to stay and protect the unicorn."
"That's not what I was going to say. I was just wondering if we could take the students along."
"......"
"......"
The students stared at Professor Bendozol in utter disbelief.
Professor Lightning Steps didn't even bother to reply and simply called the hunters to depart immediately.
"Unicorns are noble and powerful creatures."
Professor Bendozol began leading the students along a narrow mountain path behind his campsite.
The path was so steep and narrow that they wouldn't have even imagined a trail existed here if the professor hadn't stepped forward first.
Tap, tap-tap, tap-tap-tap!
Thin slabs of rock flew through the air and attached themselves to the empty space, forming a new path where there had been nothing before.
"For brats as young, clumsy, savage, cowardly, and vulgar as you to even think of tending to a unicorn is a thousand years too soon. But given the circumstances, I'll teach you how to care for them. Understood?"
"Wow! It's a unicorn!!"
Gainando excitedly chattered to his friends.
As he watched Gainando's imagination run wild with thoughts of what he could do with unicorn hair, Professor Bendozol's eyebrows twitched.
His expression looked like he wanted to yank the stone slab beneath Gainando's feet and send him tumbling down the mountain.
"...The most important thing when tending to a unicorn is earning its bare minimum acknowledgment. If you can't even manage that, you can't care for it. The moment you approach, you'll either get trampled by its hooves or impaled by its horn."
"How do we earn its acknowledgment?"
"It's not about doing anything! The unicorn will observe and judge what kind of person you are."
Professor Bendozol lectured as they ascended the winding path that coiled around the massive mountain peak.
"Those the unicorn dislikes will stand guard at the entrance. Those it acknowledges will go up and tend to it. Remember—if the unicorn rejects you, don't even think of stepping inside. I can't guarantee your life!"
As he finished speaking, the path ended. A flat expanse of land atop the mountain peak came into view, shrouded in thick mist—terrain that had been invisible from below.
And in that space stood two unicorns.
One was fully grown, its body marred by dark red wounds that pulsed like a curse, while the other, still a foal, was fast asleep, snoring softly.
"Unicorns favor two types of people. The first are the strong and righteous—similar to pegasi. The second are the kind and pure. That's an even harder condition to meet. If you're some wishy-washy in-between, don't bother the unicorn—just step back."
"I'll just... stay back, then."
Ratford, due to his profession, had no desire to approach the unicorn.
No matter how he looked at it, he couldn't foresee a good outcome.
In contrast, Durgyu wanted the unicorn to judge just how knightly he had lived his life.
"I'll take one step forward."
The unicorn lifted its head as Durgyu approached, then slowly shook it—a clear refusal.
Durgyu accepted the rejection gracefully and stepped back. The unicorn gave him a faint smile, as if to say, Try again another time.
"They're pickier than I thought..."
"Let's send Nilia."
"Nilia's pretty much our only option."
"W-Wait, why me?! I'm a hunter! If the unicorn hates me, it hates me, but...!"
Nilia protested vehemently, but her friends pushed her forward anyway.
Surprisingly, instead of rejecting her, the unicorn actually stood up and walked over to Nilia, scrutinizing her slowly.
Then, suddenly, it made a displeased sound, turned sharply, and trotted back to its spot.
"Wh-What was that?! Why did it...?!"
"Is that unicorn just weird or something?"
At the students' complaints, Professor Bendozol kindly explained.
"Unicorns are highly jealous creatures. You must've recently made contracts with multiple spirits, right? It smelled that and got jealous."
"......"
"Ah. So it thought Nilia was a playboy."
"What kind of insane nonsense is that?!"
With even Nilia failing, the students lost their motivation.
"Let's just stand guard at the entrance."
"Yeah. Let's set up camp."
Just as they all turned to leave, someone tugged at Lee Han's sleeve.
Shockingly, it was the unicorn—holding onto his sleeve as if telling him not to go!
"...Grrrr..."
Professor Bendozol glared at Lee Han with eyes full of jealousy.
Why the hell do these powerful monsters always love this kid?!