Touch Our Murderer Recklessly and You Die. (1)
The moment the entrance ceremony ended, I made a beeline for the back gate. Bellatrix's glare had been so piercing that I figured if I stayed in my seat any longer, I might actually suffocate.
And so, having told Professor Elia I was stepping out to the lounge for a bit, I was walking the corridor alone when—
"Hm, yes. So it's you, then. The priest who butted into the students' duel."
The voice came from behind me so suddenly that I nearly stopped breathing.
The fact that the voice belonged to Bellatrix of all people, and the fact that her words struck the exact truth dead center, both played their part. I had slipped away quietly to avoid her—never imagining she would follow me.
My face stiffened despite myself. Clasping my trembling hands together behind my back to hide my fluster, I turned my head.
Then I spoke, calmly.
"Sister Bellatrix Feltner. The entrance ceremony is over, so you should be heading to your assigned classroom, not to me."
"…."
Had my tone been too cold? Her eyes trembled, uncharacteristically of her. She stared at my face like someone frightened, then took a step back.
No.
I hadn't meant to scare her…. I was only trying to hide my own fluster.
"I am Niger Caritas, the professor in charge of Divine Studies. I am a priest of the Elohim Order, so there is no need to be afraid of me."
So I turned to her with a belatedly kind smile. Her guarded posture didn't ease, but at least her trembling eyes were beginning to settle.
"…Professor Niger Caritas."
"Not 'professor'—Professor, Sister."
She may be the Empire's treasured princess, but if she's enrolled at the Academy as a student, shouldn't she show a professor a measure of respect?
"Is it true? That you interfered during the duel."
Uh, hm.
Though apparently she had no intention of using honorifics at all. Even after hearing my words she stubbornly stuck to informal speech—either she lacked the mental bandwidth for courtesy, or simply didn't care.
Come to think of it, I was the one who wrote Bellatrix into having this personality in the first place, so even if she resented me, there was nothing to be done about it.
Her backstory was that her extraordinary talent had drawn crushing attention and expectations around her since childhood, and it was that pressure that broke her.
She hadn't been some blankly innocent child—even as a young girl she'd shown age-appropriate warmth. But the elders of her house, greedy for a prodigy, ground that girl down into the detached, cold creature standing before me now.
"…Then allow me to apologize first. I am sorry, Sister. I did interfere."
"Why did you interfere?"
I couldn't exactly tell her the truth of why, but if pressed, this much was true.
"As I watched the duel, I recalled the words of Elohim, who commands us to always stand with the weak. Looking upon it in that spirit, the student helplessly battered by you, Sister, seemed unmistakably the weaker party. So I moved to help them. That was all."
Honestly, I had felt a little sorry for him. Watching the protagonist get brutally beaten down on his very first day of school had tugged at me. So yes—that psychology existed too, faintly.
Sure, I'd cursed him out in my head, but aren't curses born of love, in the end?
Lutz, you little bastard.
"…That's your reason? You helped him out of genuine pity, and that's the end of it?"
At my answer, the tension drained from Bellatrix's face, and she looked at me as though I were absurd. Judging by that reaction, perhaps she had suspected something more.
To anyone with eyes, Lutz had looked genuinely pathetic in that moment, after all.
"Yes. In fact, I intended to seek you out and apologize separately. Regardless, my actions did cause you distress, Sister, so allow me to apologize once more."
I bowed my head slightly as I spoke, and Bellatrix soon let out a sigh.
"Haa… fine. I still have my doubts, but I'll let it go. For now."
"I am grateful that you'll let it go."
Having apparently said her piece, she brushed past me and walked on. The crisp click of her footsteps echoed down the corridor, and after watching her proud, lonely silhouette for a moment, I called out.
"Sister—I'm sorry, but you can't go that way."
"…."
Wordless, Bellatrix glared at me—then turned in exactly the direction I had pointed.
Really now. Why glare at the person who just helped you? Ungrateful.
Once that unwanted encounter ended, I headed for my assigned classroom.
My conversation with Bellatrix had taken longer than expected, and with no sign of Professor Elia—despite her saying she'd wait for me—I walked the corridor alone.
The long hallway was utterly deserted. Presumably all the freshmen had already filed into their assigned rooms. Fair enough—it was their first day, after all; they'd have been bursting with anticipation.
Laughter spilled from every lecture hall I passed. With no actual classes scheduled for the first day, everyone seemed to be lounging about comfortably.
And then, past those lecture halls, I came to a stop in front of the class I would be teaching.
"When's our professor even showing up?"
"Honestly, him not showing up might not be such a bad thing."
"Ahaha, that's fair."
Roughly that sort of exchange drifted out from inside. Apparently I really was quite late.
But wishing I wouldn't show up at all—that was going a bit far, wasn't it? You're making me want to lecture you on day one.
Thinking such thoughts, I opened the door. The murmur of voices died in an instant, and every chattering student's gaze snapped to me.
But what mattered to me wasn't the sudden hush. It was whether Lutz—Lutz—was sitting properly inside the classroom. That was what I needed to confirm first.
I swept my eyes across the students. Quite a large number had been assigned to my class, so the seats were packed tight, but mercifully I spotted Lutz right away and could finally breathe easy. He sat in the front row, grinning ear to ear like he hadn't a care in the world.
Smiling, are you?
The sheer audacity. Honestly.
Setting my indignation toward Lutz aside, I addressed the class. The first button had been sewn on correctly, at least—so it was time to set personal grudges and relief behind and do a professor's work.
"As unfortunate as it may be for some of you, the professor cannot simply fail to appear. Brothers and sisters, welcome. I am Niger Caritas, professor of Divine Studies."
Yet even after my introduction, the silence held. These were students who had been chattering loudly until the moment I walked in—why did they clamp their mouths shut the instant I arrived? No, more precisely, they sat there gaping at me, mouths hanging open.
It was exactly like my school days, when not a single soul had responded to my self-introduction. Hm…. They do say the authority of teachers has declined lately—perhaps the Academy suffers the same affliction.
Still, I had to press on.
"Since today is your first day, there will be no formal lecture. But the first day is precisely the most important one, wouldn't you agree? So if you have any questions about the Academy, feel free to ask them."
With that, I smiled and stepped up to the lectern.
Smiling, I surveyed the students. So many of my assigned students had changed during the entrance duels that I couldn't help wondering whether some other significant figure had landed in my class.
A few students stood out. I couldn't be certain who was who on first glance, but looking more carefully, I recognized familiar faces.
Agatha White, who'd served as class representative in the novel. Dorothy, with her air of easygoing mystery. Bellatrix Feltner, the Empire's treasured princess…?
Wait. Why is Bellatrix in my class?
In the novel, she'd been assigned to Professor Elia, hadn't she? Had the entrance duels shuffled her elsewhere?
New information on the key cast was not a good sign. The relief I'd felt about Lutz curdled the moment I laid eyes on Bellatrix.
Please don't tell me it's already fallen apart from the very start. It won't actually collapse over something as trivial as one girl's classroom assignment, right? Such thoughts crowded my head for a moment before I exhaled them away with a sigh.
The water was already spilled. What was the use of crying over it?
On reflection, Bellatrix ending up in my class probably didn't matter. If anything, having a key character like her among my students might actually work in my favor.
Though, in the interest of honesty, I was mostly just annoyed that the bald old man had spilled the water and I was the one mopping it up—which was the only reason I was trying to stop thinking altogether.
That damn bald fossil of a chairman.
At any rate, Bellatrix sat alone, apart from the other students, watching me intently.
Her wariness seemed a touch diminished compared to earlier, which I found endearing enough to flash her a smile—and she scrunched her face into an immediate scowl.
The sheer insolence of it. The wounded indignation. I nearly snapped, You're the student and I'm the professor, so why do you keep treating me like the villain?—but a student raising her hand in the front row mercifully turned my head away in time.
"Yes, Sister. Do you have a question?"
"Professor! Do you happen to have a lover?!"
Uh, hm.
"…I do not. However, this is not a session for satisfying personal curiosity."
"Then how old are you, Professor? You look so young!"
"I am twenty-six. I served as a priest of the Elohim Order until the Headmaster extended an invitation, which is how I came to the Academy."
No, but if you're going to ask something, could it please be about the Academy rather than my personal life….
"Professor, you're handsome!"
"Hm. Grateful as I am for the compliment—surely you have questions about the Academy…? Course registration is tomorrow, after all. Anything about the lectures, perhaps…?"
"No!"
What…? These children are terrifying….
From then on, the students fired off nothing but questions about me. I squeezed out answers through gritted teeth, eventually ran out of endurance entirely, and had no choice but to escape the classroom first, telling them to spend the time getting to know one another.
Ah.
If only I could have lectured from day one—shattered that burning enthusiasm into pieces—I would have been so happy. But with no classes on the ceremony day, and no lectures tomorrow either thanks to course registration, the tragedy of it all was almost too much to bear.
So that's how it was, then….
Experiencing it firsthand, I finally understood why the professors of my past had always started lecturing on day one.
I left the students to their own devices, walked to the far end of the corridor, and slumped down on the stairs.
Every single question had been painfully personal, and it had been agonizing. What was a murderer supposed to say when asked about his hobbies and tastes? There's no honest answer to that.
When I'd first walked in and introduced myself, everyone had been so quiet that I briefly wondered if they disliked me. But really—where in this world is there a person who hates a handsome face?
"Professor Niger? What are you doing sitting on the stairs?"
Right—and where in this Empire is there a person who loves a handsome face more? Professor Elia had tracked me down as if she had a radar bolted to her skull, even though I'd perched myself at the far end of the staircase precisely to stay out of sight.
"Ah, I, well. The students in my class are terribly passionate, so I was catching my breath for a moment."
"Ahaha… well, you never did like crowds, even back in the day."
I didn't know exactly what the pre-story Niger had been like, but judging from the note exchanges we'd had, he clearly wasn't the sociable sort.
He'd been brutally blunt, possessed his own private creed (madness), and seemed the type who never approached others first—except, perhaps, when killing them(?).
The problem was that I, too, belonged to the breed of person who drains dry in crowded rooms. Having just spent so long talking with so many people after ages of quiet, I felt like I was suffocating.
"Indeed, that is so. It is true that the influx of new students is a blessing of Elohim, yet my own devotion is too meager to receive that blessing in its entirety."
"Mm… then would you like to take a stroll around the grounds? Stretch our legs, walk a bit together. I came out for pretty much the same reason."
"…Yes. That seems a fine idea."
She held out her hand with a gentle smile, and I took it and rose from the stairs. Once standing, I let go and lightly brushed the dust from my trouser cuffs. Perhaps my brief hand-holding had pleased her, because her steps turned noticeably lighter as she led the way out of the building.
After all, it was my firm belief that refusing the offered hand of a beautiful woman was nothing short of a sin.