Possessed While on Hiatus (3)

I opened my eyes.

The first thing I saw was a ceiling I didn't recognize, but would soon get used to. Which is to say, in a single breath: what lay before my eyes was not some grisly murder scene, but the ceiling of my own bedroom, where I now resided after being transmigrated into this body.

“Ah, thank goodness….”

It may have been an absurd worry, but the anxiety had gnawed at me constantly—that a murderer, irritated by the note-terrorism of a former web novelist (currently on hiatus), might fly into a rage and commit yet another murder. If I'd woken up at yet another murder scene in the dead of night, I genuinely thought I'd develop insomnia. Fortunately, it seemed Professor Niger was a courteous killer considerate enough to think of uninvited guests like me.

I never imagined I'd live to feel gratitude toward a serial killer, but allow me to bow my head and give thanks.

And more importantly than any of that—

I quickly sat up in bed and checked the desk. Anxious to know how last night's note had been answered, I hurriedly picked up Niger's reply.

Ah.

My labor (no notes during hiatus) had been on the verge of dissolving into foam, but it was rescued by a little savior.

In any case, though I'd only borrowed the name of a young child called Beati, I had extracted a surrender from the murderer I'd been exchanging notes with. The surrender of a killer who'd seemed to fear nothing in this world—wasn't that a prize more ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠precious than any other?

After all, I'd spent an entire week holed up at home, drifting off an hour at a time, just to persuade him. Considering I had a mere ten days of vacation left, you could say I'd lost my mind a little, but since my very life hung in the balance, I found myself doing it one way or another.

And so today I felt truly refreshed, as if I'd demonstrated that above the madman there is always a madder one. The ability to make even a serial killer blanch is not something just anyone can possess.

Anyway, that was how I struck my pact with the murderer.

Let me roughly summarize how we reached our agreement.

First, he agreed not to commit murder at random hours. Before any killing, he would either leave me a note in advance or, if the situation made that impossible, handle it as quietly as possible—and, we stipulated explicitly, without wreaking havoc on the walls and floor like a lunatic swinging his mace around.

Honestly, I tried to make peace with the killing itself as an unavoidable feature of our arrangement—no, I still can't believe I accepted that either, but I'd been half-forced into sharing a body with the man.

What I mean is: even if I had to choke that part down, I did not want to see again that horrific sight of a person turned to paste, blood spattered everywhere.

Next, I agreed to select for Niger the people who deserved to die. Choosing who would die at his hands felt distasteful, but I reasoned that even this was better than indiscriminate slaughter.

And truthfully, recalling the novel, there was no shortage of villains who deserved killing.

Niger Caritas may have been the final boss and the hidden mastermind, but plenty of incidents and events occurred without his involvement, and the reality of this world was such that human garbage overflowed even in the seediest back alleys.

Not that I was any better, being human garbage myself. A novelist on hiatus and a serial killer. Truly the worst possible combination—it made my insides tremble just to think about.

Finally, there was the clause about each of us doing ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠our best in our respective roles… which I had no choice but to accept.

Setting aside physical fatigue, curing mental exhaustion required sleep, so we divided the hours: I would take the day, Niger the night.

Niger himself had said it. “If you intend to kill someone, I will attend the Academy in your place. I will swap with you, if you so desire.”

After hearing something that deranged, I decided I really did have to do my best as a professor.

No, wait—what the hell.

The professor does his utmost at teaching, and the murderer does his utmost at murdering—and this is seriously the agreement we landed on? Not to mention I was a university student, hardly destined to become a professor. And at the very least, you should be the one drafting my curriculum, you murderous bastard.

Well, still, once we'd talked it through and sorted everything out, I felt somewhat calmer. No matter that this was a novel I had written myself, the fact that a university student with no usable skills had fallen alone into another world frightened me more than a little.

I have no idea what kind of skull that man possesses, that negotiating with a serial killer and aligning our thinking could put him at ease—but if I'd had the brainpower to worry about that, I'd have cursed out my readers and never gotten transmigrated in the first place.

And so, the week-long battle concluded, I lay down on my bed with a profound sense of exhaustion. I'd spent the whole week barely eating, locked in a test of wills with a murderer, so it felt like I'd finally returned to reality.

As tired as I was, I wanted nothing more than to fall back asleep—but I couldn't bring myself to. Not because I feared the murderer waking when I slept, and not because I'd supposedly slept soundly for a week anyway. I'd just realized something far more important.

Right.

The truth was, none of that settled business was what mattered now.

Unfortunately, time had flowed on while all that was happening, and the semester start was now three days away. Which meant the main story would begin in three days—and that I had to show up to work as a professor at the Academy.

When the Academy's break ended, the new students would enroll. The future Sword Saint and original protagonist, Lutz, along with several heroines and a fair number of significant supporting characters and villains, would all flood through the gates—the opening event of the story.

No incident would erupt on the very first day of the entrance ceremony, but it would be the modest occasion where everyone met face to face and classes were assigned. And I was slated to be assigned as a first-year Sacred Arts professor and homeroom professor for the protagonist Lutz's class.

The Academy is basically a university, so why does it have homeroom assignments and classes? How should I know. I suppose I just hated the idea of registering for courses and dragging myself from lecture hall to lecture hall, so I wrote it that way.

I'll say it again: I simply wrote whatever came to mind at the time and never once thought deeply about the novel, so if you ask me why I wrote it that way, I have no answer to give. Had I known I'd be transmigrated into it, I'd have set up every detail—but imagining that a person could get pulled into their own novel was madness to begin with.

Besides, the homeroom professorship was nominal anyway. I'd only see the students at morning and afternoon roll call and have nothing to do with them during lectures—so really, it was a thankless position of no actual consequence, except that you'd be held responsible if anything happened to the students. The position with all the blame and none of the power. Sadly, I had become the very person who had to shoulder that blame.

In any case, strictly speaking, I had nothing to do on ceremony day itself. I would simply sit quietly among the staff until class assignments wrapped up, exchange a few greetings, and be done.

Yes—if ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the suffering is unavoidable, better it begin sooner rather than later. As long as I had my eternal comrade Professor Niger with me, at least I wouldn't need to worry about dying.

The three days passed quickly.

Fortunately, whether because Professor Niger remembered his pact with me, or because he simply finished his killing and came home to sleep while I was unconscious, I did not wake up at a single murder scene during those three days.

That doesn't mean I got to rest, though. There was far too much to prepare as a professor.

My life. Honestly.

And so, on the early morning of the entrance ceremony, I was summoned to the Academy ahead of time on account of being a professor, and made to listen to the Chairman and the Dean of Departments.

“For that reason, beginning with this year's matriculation ceremony…, it is planned, so all of you….”

“As expected of you, Chairman. If such a thing exists…, that is, it will surely benefit the students.”

Did I actually hear any of that? Truthfully, I just smiled and nodded, and I don't remember a word of what was said. Probably something about looking after the students well. Nothing important, surely.

And so the entrance ceremony began.

The returning students sat in the hall's second tier, gazing down at the freshmen. They were probably delighted to be coasting through another day on their seniors' privileges—and honestly, so was I.

Having become a professor by pure accident, I had nothing ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to complain about relative to the students, but the mere fact that I—someone who knew absolutely nothing about Sacred Arts—had become a Sacred Arts professor was grueling enough on its own. I'd spent all three days cramming like a maniac before clocking in, so the knowledge that one more day of grace remained was enough to let me breathe a little.

If I was going to get transmigrated at all, why couldn't it have been as an administrator or the Chairman instead of a professor? Not that I'm saying those people coast—well, actually, I am saying that—but at least they wouldn't need specialized knowledge to teach children.

As I stood there sighing over such idle thoughts, the Chairman's voice boomed out before I knew it. You who have been admitted into the venerable Aeternum Academy… blah, blah, wa-l-la-la…. In truth, I had no idea what he was saying.

Seriously, that speech was for the incoming students, so there was no reason for a professor like me to listen. He'd already been going at it for a solid ten minutes.

“Professor Niger, you must find this terribly boring?”

Amid all that, a quiet whisper drifted over from beside me. The voice was gentle, slender and clear, and when I turned my head, I found a woman smiling up at me.

Uh, hm… and you are?

Come to think of it, I was a professor at the Academy. Worse, my established backstory was that of a professor in his third year, meaning I ought to know every member of the staff—yet I'd been so busy cramming course material that I'd never properly memorized the faculty's names and faces. An empty-headed blunder of the highest order.

Who was it? Who was it again…

Gray hair, fair skin, black eyes. Shorter than me—though I was male—but tall for a woman. A white blouse and black skirt, exactly my type… and a generous chest…. Hmm. A generous chest.

Ah. I remembered.

Elia Claudius. Daughter of a count's family and a professor at the Academy. A professor who had been treated with considerable weight in the story. And no wonder—she was the swordsmanship professor Lutz trusted and relied on most, and, if I recalled correctly, his first love. Excellent with a blade and stunning to look at; there was no way not to like her.

And why did it end in the past tense—was his first love? Because she died later on. Not at Niger's hands, admittedly, but at those of another villain—still, she died all the same.

Bitterly enough, that was Lutz's awakening event. She'd been a heroine of real weight in the story, but in the end she was nothing more than a discarded piece, used as fuel for the protagonist's awakening like the most tired of clichés.

Oh, right. That was also why I got savaged in the comments. The proud subject of a 5,700-character profanity-laced reply, written on the eve of my transmigration.

“Professor Niger…? Don't tell me… you find me boring as well?”

“…Ah, perish the thought. Even moments like these are granted by Elohim, so I can only be grateful.”

“For someone so grateful, your answer came rather slowly.”

Elia puffed out her cheeks, seemingly hurt—though for a woman her age, it somehow didn't land. Did she have any idea how absurd it looked for someone who would one day shred men apart with a sword to act cute? She was certainly beautiful, but I'd only just met her, so….

“My apologies if it seemed that way. I was merely lost in thought for a moment.”

“About what?”

“I was watching the new students and thinking how profound Elohim's grace is, year after year.”

Ah.

There was a reason I spoke like this.

First of all, Niger Caritas's surface identity was that of a devout priest of the Elohim Order and a professor of Sacred Arts at the Academy. Which meant the man had surely maintained this manner of speech for the three years before my arrival—so I couldn't very well start talking like a normal person out of nowhere.

“Truly a virtue to aspire to. The Chairman, too, seems so delighted that he's gone on at length….”

Just as I was dispensing pieties with the devotion of a saint, the Chairman's voice rang out, loud with excitement.

“Therefore, beginning this year, we shall hold an entrance mock duel, that our new students may display their splendid talents! The results will be weighed alongside your practical and written entrance examinations to determine your grades—so I bid you all, give these duels your utmost!”

I'm sorry, what the hell?

Chairman, there was no entrance mock duel event in the original novel!