Mr. Niger, Let's Commit a Murder (1)
Monday morning, in my office.
As always when I arrived for work, my office rang with a humming tune. Elia swayed her head from side to side over her teacup, and the sight was rather endearing.
"Hmm-hmm~ hmm-hmmm~"
At this rate, I half wondered if this had become our shared office, seeing as she was here with me every single morning...
Wait. Now that I actually thought about it—why did she come every day?
"Professor Elia, shouldn't you be in your own office at this hour? I imagine there are students and staff looking for you."
Professor offices didn't exist for nothing. Each of us had our own research to conduct, of course, but it was also the space where one could speak privately with a professor about official matters.
"Oh, it's fine! I put up a notice telling anyone with business for me to come to your office, Professor Niger. And since no one's shown up yet, I'd say no one actually needs me."
"...?"
No.
Who gave you permission to direct people to my office?
And besides—after being so mortified in front of the students, is it really appropriate to flaunt it this openly?
Even under my incredulous stare, Elia simply beamed and resumed swaying her head, cradling her teacup in both hands, smiling away as if everything in the world delighted her.
Goodness, look at those smacking lips.
Whether she simply couldn't contain her feelings or not, that dreamy expression she'd been wearing since earlier was adorable, and yet... I couldn't help thinking it was rather unbecoming of her age.
"Professor Niger."
"Yes, please go ahead."
"Did you know that your emotions have a way of sneaking into your eyes?"
Why on earth were we talking about my eyes?
"Hmm, I can't say I'm aware of that. In any case, why bring it up so suddenly?"
"Because your gaze just now was positively impure. It seems you were having some rather indecent thoughts."
Uh, hm.
I'd thought it before, but for all her giggling and grinning, Elia was surprisingly perceptive.
I had only been thinking it to myself, and yet she'd called it out on the spot—her intuition was frankly terrifying.
So I flashed her a serene smile and offered my answer.
"Haha, surely not. A priest of Elohim would never entertain such improper thoughts."
"Swear it to Elohim?"
"On my oath, it's the truth."
My conscience pricked a little, but what could I do? I was never exactly a devout priest of Elohim to begin with.
Besides, if I'd been possessed into a murderer's body over a mere year-long hiatus, surely I was entitled to sell out Elohim a little.
Elohim, please acknowledge this.
Such were my inner thoughts, but in the end I begged forgiveness from Elia, who had been gazing at me steadily all the while.
And with good reason.
"For someone who just took an oath, your eyes are trembling an awful lot."
She'd caught even that, after all.
After parting with Elia, I made my way to the lecture hall right on schedule.
Through the door that slid open with a rasp, I could see the students beyond. Every one of them looked tense, and I let out a soft chuckle as I stepped up to the podium.
"Good morning. Niger Caritas, at your service."
The students gulped audibly at my greeting. A few managed to return it one by one, but unlike the first day, today they all wore the sour look of people bracing themselves for whatever suffering might come to greet them.
"It's meant to be a pleasant hour of learning, yet seeing such grim faces grieves me, Brothers and Sisters."
At my words, murmurs rippled through the room. The student who'd muttered, 'A pleasant hour of learning...?' met my eyes, flinched, and promptly ducked his head.
"...Which is precisely why my heartache compels me to teach all the more diligently. After all, it is for your sake, my Brothers and Sisters."
A chorus of groans swept the lecture hall.
Honestly, why did every single thing I say earn me the reaction of some world-weary old codger?
"On that note—Sister Bellatrix, would you come forward? As our top-ranked student, you're the ideal candidate to give us a demonstration."
"No—why is it always me...!"
She was prickly enough on any ordinary day, but summoned during lecture, she fixed me with a look of utter horror. It was the expression of someone profoundly aggrieved at being singled out class after class.
"Isn't this also a form of a professor's favor? Now, come forward."
"Haah... honestly..."
Sighing under my relentless prodding, Bellatrix dragged herself toward the podium. The way the students' eyes darted between the two of us—they looked like mourners paying their last respects to a hero being led to slaughter by some villain.
...
That is genuinely offensive.
My plan had been to run only Bellatrix through the wringer today, but it simply wouldn't do.
"Fear not—once Sister Bellatrix's turn is finished, it will be all of yours. I shall assist each of you personally."
The groans thundered through the lecture hall once more.
The lecture pressed on.
Kuuwoong—!
A fist laced with a reinforcement spell slammed into the barrier with a resounding crack. Bellatrix scowled at the fissured shield, which gave a brittle crackle under the impact.
"...Ugh, Professor. I've been giving this some thought, and... hah. Is it all right if I report you to the Imperial Ministry of Education?"
"By all means, go ahead. I merely devote myself to my Brothers and Sisters. For the sake of your growth, Sister, I consider such a small sacrifice well within acceptable bounds."
"...I shouldn't have said anything."
Her face said it all. 'This lunatic is a genuine religious fanatic—there's no reasoning with him.' Every word of Bellatrix's inner thoughts was written plain across that scrunched-up expression.
Kuuwoong—!
My fists rained down again and again, yet the barrier held, somehow refusing to shatter.
"And yet you've improved tremendously. Your barrier is remarkably solid now."
"Ugh...! I refuse to believe you can say that while actively trying to smash it. Do you simply lack the capacity for empathy, Professor?"
"Haha, I was thinking the very same thing."
After all, a dog caked in dung had no business chiding a dog caked in chaff—which is to say, that was hardly a complaint Bellatrix was entitled to make.
Before leveling accusations at me, she ought to take a long look in the mirror at her total absence of basic social graces.
So musing, I brought my fist down on the barrier once more—only to feel something astonishing.
"Oh...? Oh..."
My hand stung.
I had channeled a reinforcement spell before striking, and yet a faint ache bloomed in the very hand that had hammered the barrier.
"Haah... did you really think I would just keep taking your hits forever?"
And there stood Bellatrix, the culprit herself, beaming at me in open triumph.
A reflection effect, was it...? I certainly hadn't taught her anything like that yet.
"As expected of our top student. Then shall we see if you can block this as well? You truly are a rewarding pupil to teach."
Heart swelling with pride, I layered on a different reinforcement spell and brought it crashing down on the barrier.
KWAANG—!
"Ugh...! No...! Are you actually insane, Professor?!"
I'll say it again—that was hardly a complaint Bellatrix had any right to make.
The moment the lecture ended, Bellatrix spat out a few choice words and collapsed.
If I recall her mumbling correctly, it went something like, 'This unhinged professor... he promises he'll go easy on the other students too, so why does he keep tormenting me, specifically...'*
Contrary to her grievances, I had gone easy on the other students as well, one and all.
It was simply that, delighted as I was to watch Bellatrix flourishing so vigorously, the amount of leniency I extended to her happened to be exceptional.
With the lecture behind me, I whiled away some time at the library before leaving the Academy grounds together with Elia.
How I might torment Bellatrix in the next lecture. How to handle the Headmaster, who had been ranting about stripping the theory curriculum entirely. Whether it might be nice to have dinner with Elia again this weekend...
I was strolling down the street at a leisurely pace, savoring one pleasant thought after another,
when a voice shattered my reverie.
"Professor Niger, have you heard the news?"
"Hmm, and what news might that be?"
"That His Grace the Duke will be attending the Open Event this time. They're saying Duke Feltner himself is coming to the Academy?"
Ah.
No.
The Academy Open Event.
I'd forgotten all about it.
Was I an absolute idiot...?
How did this add up—the original author, the man who wrote the thing, forgetting a crucial episode entirely and giggling to himself about living an ordinary, peaceful life?
The Academy Open Event was, for all practical purposes, the first major episode.
The episode that laid the groundwork for the first villain's appearance in my novel, How to Survive the Academy.
By the timeline, the Open Event was still two weeks away.
And that was when the villain who would detonate a bomb at the Academy was scheduled to appear.
Which meant, in other words, that the first incident was coming—and that I had no business lounging around dreaming about pleasant little dinners.
"So everyone's been fretting about it, you know. There's going to be a huge crowd, and on top of that..."
Elia's voice drifted in beside me, but I couldn't even bring myself to answer her.
Of course the crowds would come.
The Duke would attend thanks to his daughter, the Ducal scion who'd enrolled as the top student, and the nobles scrambling to fawn over him would form a train a mile long.
Besides, the food stalls that set up every year and the Empire's subjects who flocked to every Open Event would pack the grounds to overflowing.
And somewhere in that Academy plaza, a bomb was destined to go off.
In the original, the explosion had happened too. I'd used it to claim a fair number of casualties and to darken the story's lighthearted mood, if only briefly.
But this time, a few lines of narration about the dead would not be the end of it.
Back then, it might have been nothing more than a disposable scene meant to make the protagonist and his heroines shine. Now, it was vivid, breathing reality.
The thought that the people I'd grown close to over these not-so-long months, the students who received my instruction, might all die—it made my breath come a little faster.
"Professor Niger, so anyway—about the day of the Open Event..."
What was I supposed to do?
Because I was an idiot.
An idiot who, while writing the novel, had never bothered to flesh out a throwaway villain—so I didn't even know the culprit's precise appearance. The description had ended at: a short man with a slightly hunched back.
As for where the explosive would be planted, all I'd written was "the plaza." I'd never specified the location. I'd figured the explosion had to happen regardless, so I'd simply... set it off.
And understandably so—the Academy plaza was so vast that finding a single bomb hidden in that sea of people would have been an impossible task.
The sum total of what I actually knew:
One description. That it happened on the final day of the Open Event, during the hour when the sky turned violet, drifting from afternoon into evening.
Aside from the fact that the explosion began in that strangely quiet, peaceful stretch of time, I knew nothing.
God, honestly...
Now was not the time to be patting myself on the back over possessing the final boss.
Whether I inhabited Niger or not, the villains who drove each episode's incidents were going to appear all the same.
Had I been wallowing in self-reproach for long?
A hand seized my shoulder with a firm grip, and I lifted my head. A clear, lilting voice rang in my ear.
"Professor Niger!"
"Ah... yes...?"
"Are you brooding over something all by yourself again?"
I opened my eyes at Elia's words. My house had come into view at some point.
Lost in thought as I walked, I must have arrived without even noticing.
"Ah, um. My apologies."
"No, no—that's not what I meant. I'm asking whether you need help."
Help, is it.
I had worried it over, and yes—I most certainly needed help.
"...Professor Elia."
"Yes, go ahead."
"If I asked a favor of you later on... could you help me?"
"Oh! Of course, absolutely. Just say the word, whenever."
And she simply beamed at me, nodding her head.
After parting with Elia, I entered my house alone and scribbled a note. I placed it on the desk and laid a hand over my chest.
"Sleep"
⟨ Sleep ⟩
Divinity flowed through my body, and my vision soon went dark.
On the desk where the note lay, a single short sentence had been written.
— Mr. Niger, let's commit a murder together.
For the first time since my possession, I had asked him to kill someone.