I'll Be Your Professor's Slave!!!

Words are strange things.

They have no form of their own, and not a single drop of mana ever dwells within them—and yet, sometimes, speech spreads out to consume an entire space and seeps deep into it.

The Chair Professors who had been offered the wager each reacted in their own way.

"A wager that dares to stake the honorable Chair Professorship granted by the Goddess herself? Unacceptable! If it's a duel you want, settle it with your body!"

The lion beastman seethed with fury, flaunting his muscular frame as heat poured off him.

"What did you say? He's the one offering to step down! And he claims he'll pick twenty out of thousands—as if that were possible! I'll take any amount of—"

"Our little one, wait just a moment."

The human woman ran her eyes down the roster, then curled the corners of her mouth upward.

"Slave Merchant, dear—it's declined."

"Huh? What are you doing, ma'am? The Slave Merchant is offering to walk away on his own two feet, and you *decline*? Statistically—"

"I don't play games unless I'm certain to win. I'll take the roster, though, if you're offering."

The woman slid her tongue across her upper lip and waved the roster.

"Do with it as you please."

I watched them for a moment, then turned and left the reception hall.

Everything had gone exactly as I expected.

It felt like snatching candy from children—left me a little sorry, honestly.

"Hey, ma'am, what are you thinking? We could've chased out that Slave Merchant dragging the Chair Professor's honor through the mud, and you fold?"

"The odds weren't as bad as you'd think. Look at the roster."

The halfling, Phelia, took the roster from the human, Mulan, and checked the names and credentials of the twenty applicants. The lion beastman Vande took an interest as well.

"Hmm. Such children exist? This year might be entertaining."

"Kwahahat! They'd be worth teaching indeed. If this applicant makes it up the mountain, I'm claiming him for the Fire Hall!"

"I want this one and this one. Hehe, it feels like browsing a menu at a fine restaurant."

"Hm? Wait—twenty isn't the whole list?"

Phelia flipped the page and found more entries behind the first twenty.

"Spoken like the lowly Slave Merchant indeed! He even tucked in the candidates the rest of us had been eyeing!"

These were professors who had never once set foot outside the Academy—from their own enrollment to the day they became faculty.

Their interests began and ended with knowledge, skill, and study.

Geniuses with no concern for politics, intelligence work, or the way the world turned, they were utterly blinded by the prospect of securing capable successors of their own.

'Heh. Something's being schemed here, Professor Pidia.'

Only the Principal, sensing something off in Wicker's manner, watched the Chair Professors from a leisurely remove.

Stepping out of the reception hall and walking the corridor, I was flagged down by Sersi, arms piled with documents.

"Professor! The guards filed their report!"

It confirmed that every applicant I had mentioned had passed the checkpoint screening without issue.

None of them had any real problems with character or ability—but I'd taken the precaution just in case any were unfairly barred at the gate.

"I also checked your roster, Professor. With talent like that, they really might all pass the Opticulum!"

"You've confirmed all of them?"

"Yes, sir! A bearer of the Hero's Crest, the prodigy of the Magic Tower in a thousand years—they were all absurd. Did the negotiations with the other Chair Professors go smoothly?"

The entrance exams are a contest between students—but also a contest between me and the other Chair Professors.

And since my interviews come last, and the Earth House carries the lowest evaluations, I'm at a disadvantage in claiming the applicants I want.

So it was Sersi who came up with the idea of deceiving the other Chair Professors to tip the odds—a sly little scheme to steer them toward the less promising applicants.

A fine idea, though I applied a few variations of my own.

"It went exactly as planned. They read every page of that roster, too."

"They—what? They read it?"

I had handed ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠them a roster not of lackluster applicants, but of candidates with stellar credentials.

Just not the roster of students I truly wanted—rather, the roster of bombs that must never be admitted under any circumstances.

On that list, I had written down the well-credentialed students who passed the third exam in the original story.

But among them lurked the original protagonists and a whole gallery of future villains destined to cause chaos at the Academy.

In other words—glittering peaches with rotten cores.

Not that I included the genuinely dangerous ones on the villain list. Those, I planned to fail from every dormitory regardless.

"Once those Chair Professors saw the credentials on that roster, their eyes must have spun. And once they confirmed all twenty had passed through the third exam, they'd be certain to claim them."

"Wait…? But then aren't we losing all the excellent students to them?"

"I wrote down only the ones I'm *praying* they take. And padded the pool to sixty names, disguised as candidates."

My goal was never the wager itself.

All I needed was to pass them a roster and look sincere about it.

After all, who in their right mind would accept a suspicious wager proposed by a Slave Merchant?

Though that halfling looked genuinely ready to fight, which surprised me a little.

How young is her mental age, exactly? Even the yellows, the blacks, and the whites weren't like that at her age.

"Ah! Then the odds of the students you *really* want coming to us just went up!"

"Exactly. We dispose of the bombs and hide the gems—nothing but profit."

"You truly are the Professor, sir!"

The original protagonists are unnecessary. With the Demon King's subjugation off the table, there's little motive left to drive their growth.

More than that, their personalities are garbage. Talent means nothing when the character behind it is a cesspit.

Rather than pander to those lot, I intended to select the extras I'd marked on the wiki myself, and take on the rest through real interviews—judged on character and resolve.

The first exam began. The content was simple: determine whether an applicant possessed the bare minimum of 'qualification.' All they had to do was pass beyond the main gate—through the great arched doors.

Those lacking even the baseline qualification to enter the Academy were filtered out here, denied entry altogether.

Already, more than ninety percent had been turned away and gone home.

Next, we graded the second exam: the pride of Academy testing—dueling.

With applicants still numerous, we observed eight at a time across four groups through the magic mirror.

"That applicant is a martial artist—is that an empty sleeve? What determination."

A girl in a threadbare martial artist's uniform, as though she'd just been discharged from service, was settling into a fists stance. She looked like any ordinary imperial citizen, but just as Sersi had said, her left arm was gone.

"However badly she wanted into the Academy, that was pushing it. Her opponent looks strong, too…"

"Precisely the kind of talent I'm looking for."

"What? Professor, your target is the Opticulum no matter what. That one looks like a big risk…"

"Haha. Just watch, Sersi."

"Uh…"

When the duel began, the martial artist girl moved with graceful footwork, stepping in clean rhythm.

The instant her opponent dove for her undefendable left side, she repelled the strike as if an invisible barrier had sprung into being.

She darted in like a marlin and drove her right fist squarely into the opponent's solar plexus—and he wheezed out his breath and dropped unconscious.

"Whoa."

Ignoring Sersi's astonishment, I wrote on my scoring sheet without hesitation.

Perfect score.

I reread the entry I'd marked on the wiki.

The martial artist girl pressed her one hand vertically against her chest in a respectful single-palm salute and called out.

"This humble one may have one arm, but she carries two burning hearts! My thanks for the good duel, warrior of the Western Lands!"

Sersi looked at her and turned to me.

"Warrior of the Western Lands? Is that applicant from the East?"

Of course not.

She's a concept-chaser.

By the end of the long-running second exam, three hundred applicants survived and prepared for the third exam the following day.

The third exam was a short-form survival trial held in the mountains. A grueling full-day test of pushing through monsters to reach the goal.

Every applicant gritted their teeth and gave it their all. Nobody who made it this far wanted to go home, naturally.

Some got to show their full ability; some were cheated by misfortune or blessed by luck. Someone laughs, someone cries—it's the way of things.

Everyone must have prepared to their absolute limit for this day.

I applauded their desperate effort.

At the end of it all, 103 final qualifiers were born, and the time for the final interviews drew near.

Every third-exam qualifier rotates through interviews with all four Chair Professors, then selects the dormitory they wish to join. If the dormitory of their choice doesn't select them in return, they fail.

The idea, presumably, is to make them think seriously about their aptitude and their future.

Though the moment the Chair Professors started handing out advance hints, that meaning had already withered on the vine.

Well then, I'll simply use it to my own taste.

The last day.

The third-exam qualifiers interview in order of last year's dormitory rankings: Water, Fire, Wind, then Earth.

In other words, the students who reach me have already finished interviews with the other three Chair Professors.

There was no chance anyone would deliberately come to the Earth House, so instead of choosing from all 103, I'd be selecting twenty from around forty-three.

But the bombs had already been dropped on the other side, and the sixteen I truly wanted would almost certainly still be available—so I only needed to trim back five or six more.

Sersi and I waited for the applicants in the interview hall. First in line was the one-armed martial artist girl I'd had my eye on.

She raised her right hand solemnly ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠before her chest in a one-armed salute.

"Hao, shifu!"

"Pass."

"What?!"

Confusion washed over the concept-chasing martial artist of mystic Eastern lore.

Enough of that. I don't have the bandwidth to play along with your shtick.

"If you heard me, go. The next applicant is waiting."

"Uh… I passed? No—ahem. You say this humble one has passed, honored warrior-shifu?"

"I said get out."

"Yes, sir!"

Utterly baffled, the concept-chaser scratched her head and shuffled out.

Her skill, talent, and fighting spirit—all verified through the wiki—were the real deal. The earlier dormitories must have passed on her at the sight of the missing arm.

And there were others.

"What in… what did… you just say to this old one… Professor…~~??"

"You passed."

A twenty-year-old swordswoman whose body had aged from overusing her time-stop ability.

"Urp… bweh… the other dormitories'… Professors were… scary… but… here… I thought… I could… really… try… hard…."

"What on earth are you saying. Pass."

A stuttering spirit-tongue sorcerer with social anxiety.

"Haha, I've had to feed my family since I was little, so I never had the chance to hold any job but Miner. If you'll just take me, I'll study with everything I have!"

Sixteen students with both the ability and the will—students the other dormitories had failed on appearances or nametags alone—all received their pass.

For the rest, I weighed resolve against character and picked for balance.

Those already claimed by another dormitory had no use for the Earth House, so they tried to hedge their bets in the interviews.

The moment I saw that coming, I threw them out first. A few of the original protagonists and heroines were among them.

"Damn it all—only the Earth House left? Professor—or no, are you even a *professor*? What in the world does your nametag say? Tch. For your information, I am a mage who has reached the Third Circle. Do you understand? I'll grace the Earth House with my presence, so I expect treatment worthy of—"

"Begone. My eardrums have a limited lifespan, and I'd rather not waste them on your drivel."

I cut off the trash that looked down on the Earth House on the spot.

"I passed—you mean it?! Truly?! Good heavens, I'm going to be a student of Caesus! Professor, I'll serve you for the rest of my life! I'll be your slave! I can't? Then after I graduate, I'll become your grad student!!"

On the other hand, one student got so overwhelmed he latched onto my trouser leg, which was fairly entertaining.

But however desperate you are, you don't just casually announce you'll become a grad student.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Buddy, you're in real trouble now.

And so the final interviews ended, and twenty students stood assembled before me.

A one-armed girl, an old-timer, nametags reading Porter and Clown between them—appearance-wise, they were a motley crew if there ever was one.

"Um, Professor… are you really sure about this…?"

Sersi looked back at me with a worried expression.

I answered without a beat of hesitation.

"Perfect."