Chapter 155

Chapter 155

‘Ask that really? No, it’s naturally something they would be curious about…….’

Because Roan’s friends always let it pass so casually, it was awkward.

If he said he learned it at the Holy Palace, the image of the Holy Palace would be shattered, and if he said he read it in the library, explaining why he read it became strange again.

‘Even saying my parents explained it to me is…….’

As Roan frowned and stared with an ominous gaze while pondering the answer, Trian hastily waved his hands.

“Ah, no! You don’t have to tell me. I’m not that curious anyway.”

“Ah, is that so. What a relief.”

Roan moved to another seat with the component he made in his pocket.

The gang sitting near Trian made a fuss as they watched Roan’s retreating back.

— T-Trian! You almost died just now!

— Did you see Darc’s eyes just now? It looked as if he was going to pull out a knife at any moment!

— Still, as expected of Trian! You asked first, and then intimidated him by saying you weren’t that curious, right?

Trian nodded his head, sweating cold sweat in spite of himself.

“Y-Yes. It was all a planned action to intimidate him.”

It was certain that someone’s spirits were deflated.

It was just a problem that it wasn’t Roan.

Anyway, the next person Roan headed to was.

“Jennifer.”

“Kyaaaak—!”

It was Jennifer Diella, the elf half-blood.

Jennifer, who had been checking his reaction since Roan stood up, let out a scream when he actually came over and spoke to her.

“……Didn’t we reconcile last time?”

“Y-Y-Yes! We, we reconciled! I’m just easily startled!”

When Roan asked with a suspicious expression, Jennifer stammered as if she would have a fit at any moment.

‘She’s not the type of guy to get this flustered though.’

Jennifer and the members of the Diella family always possessed pride and self-esteem in having elf blood mixed in.

Well, now was not the time to worry about such things.

“I will teach you how to make it just once. Watch closely and pass it on to your friends.”

“Yes, yes! I’ll make sure to remember! I’ll take it to my grave!”

‘I didn’t mean to talk about a secret to that extent though…….’

Jennifer glared at Roan’s hands as if lasers would shoot from her eyes, and Roan quickly completed one.

“Can you remember it?”

“O-Of course! Everyone gather round! I’ll show you how to make it!”

This way, the male students could learn from Galland, and the female students from Jennifer.

Just as Roan was about to return to his seat, Jennifer stopped him.

“Wait a moment!”

“What is it?”

“By any chance…… do we have to give you half of the components we make as compensation……?”

Roan frowned deeply at Jennifer’s absurd misunderstanding.

“Do I look like a person who would demand such things from a friend?”

“Hieek! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

Jennifer jumped up and bowed deeply, apologizing.

“No, it’s not something to apologize for to that extent—”

“I will give you all of them!”

“…….”

Roan was speechless for a moment.

Then he held up the completed component he had shown as an example and said:

“I only need this one. Keep the wages for your own work.”

Leaving the female students with complicated expressions behind, Roan returned to his seat.

“Darc……”

For some reason, Sion was looking at Roan with tearful eyes.

……Roan was starting to find Sion tiring too.

“What is it.”

“You took one component because you were afraid the person receiving help would find it burdensome! I didn’t even know that!”

Sion was deeply moved, confessing the rude misunderstanding he had made.

‘I just did it to earn 2 talents.’

Even that was a misunderstanding.

“Really? Roan is truly thoughtful. I must learn from you.”

“Hey, Sion! If Roan were that petty, why would he buy us so many things?”

“I thought wrong, I’m sorry!”

Sion genuinely regretted.

‘To think I thought of him as a miserly person just because I was stingy over 2 talents, when I’m always receiving help from Darc! At this rate, I’ll fail the Saintess candidate test!’

Meanwhile, at his friends’ sudden fuss, Roan sat down with a frown.

‘Should I just take all of theirs?’

***

— Hey, do you get it a bit?

— I think so…… Darc taught us, after all.

— This is more fun than I thought?

After some time passed, around the time the freshmen were also getting a taste of the side job.

Slide—

The lecture hall door opened, and a crow beastman with dark circles reaching down to his adam’s apple entered, carrying a large box containing several small boxes.

‘It’s not easy to see dark circles on a crow beastman though.’

Like Joy, he was one of the most overworked people in Acherandir.

“Professor. I brought what you requested.”

It was Professor Uli’s teaching assistant, Layden Bettermach.

“Right, see that empty desk over there? Place it there.”

“Yes.”

Layden approached Roan’s seat carrying the box.

“Assistant-nim, I will carry it.”

Because he looked so tired and pitiful, Roan stood up and received the box in spite of himself.

“Huh? Oh. Thank you.”

Layden was moved by the unfamiliar kindness.

“What is your name, junior?”

“I am Roan Darc, Assistant-nim.”

“Gasppp! Y-You are Darc?”

Layden hastily ran and placed the box on Roan’s desk, and then clutched Roan’s hand and said:

“Since you’re so kind, make a holy power source for me too!”

Roan regretted showing useless kindness.

Commonly, there was no way Uli’s teaching assistant would be normal, yet seeing that pitiful appearance in person, he was momentarily tricked.

Fortunately, Uli stepped in.

“If you’re done with your business, get out, Layden.”

“Ah, yes, just a moment……”

Of course, it was not out of goodwill.

“The holy power source Darc makes is all mine, so get out.”

Zzzt—

“Ah, yes!”

With a voice lowered by one octave, as small and suspicious holy relics inside Uli’s fur began to make mechanical sounds, Layden hastily bolted out of the lecture hall.

“Darc, you just need to make what’s inside that box.”

“What is this?”

Instead of Roan, Demona asked first, showing curiosity about the box.

“A 1,000-talent job.”

“Hieek─! I want to make it!”

At the unexpected fortune, Demona quickly opened the box.

Uli looked at Demona with a pitiful expression and said:

“If you can make it, make it then.”

Inside the box, there was an instruction manual, but the problem was.

“Hmph…… I don’t want to make it.”

That manual possessed a thickness approaching that of a magazine.

Demona wore a tearful face, placed the manual back into the box, and returned to her seat.

Roan inspected the box and manual with suspicious eyes.

“……Is this not a holy power clock?”

“Oh, you know just by looking at the manual? That’s great, no need to explain.”

Uli grinned, perhaps because it was a rare pleasant thing.

There were several laws in Acherandir, and one of them was:

‘The mood of the professor and the student are inversely proportional.’

Indeed, as Uli’s mood improved, Roan’s mood became extremely poor.

Roan looked back and forth between the box and Uli with dumbfounded eyes.

“Are you telling a student to make a holy power clock right now?”

“Yes.”

Just like on Earth, a clock was a product that required highly precise skills in this world too.

Of course, since it was a world with holy power and mana, for Roan, the situation was far better than on Earth.

‘Looking at it roughly, it’s also a kit where most of it is already assembled.’

Even so, it was not something a professor should suddenly present to a freshman who had enrolled only two weeks ago.

Moreover, there was another reason that made Roan’s mood even worse.

“Doesn’t a holy power clock kit cost about 20,000 talents in labor?”

“Yes. That’s why I’m giving you as much as a thousand talents.”

“…….”

Uli spoke as if there was no problem.

Of course, there were very many problems.

“Professor, but didn’t you say the Principal told you not to make money off students?”

Demona asked.

Uli answered with a bit of irritation at the repeated similar questions.

“That’s why I’m giving you money too! If you don’t want to make money, don’t do it! And you learn starting from making things like this! Do you think anyone taught me even something like this in my time?”

Naturally, if one made things like this well, their understanding of holy relic crafting would also improve.

……If they could make it, that is.

But at this rate, was he not a malicious factory owner rather than a professor?

No, more than that.

‘‘‘Did the Principal say it was fine if he gave us money?’’’

……In the minds of the devout Acherandir students, a brief doubt about the Holy Spirit was growing.

“Achoo! ……It seems someone is making an unpleasant misunderstanding.”

At the same time, Harden, who was in the principal’s office, felt highly unpleasant.

Anyway, Uli asked Roan.

“Darc, do you not want to do it?”

“Is it fine if I don’t?”

“No, you have to do it even if you hate it.”

Uli did not bother to add, ‘Because your work makes the most money.’

In fact, Uli was already doing a side job similar to what he gave Roan, but with a slightly more expensive unit price.

Since Harden, who knew Uli’s situation better than anyone, wouldn’t have fined him a mere coin or two.

“……Then I suppose I must.”

Roan sat down, thinking ‘who else is there to blame at this point.’

A thousand talents was money-making that a freshman could rarely find, and anyway, there was no particular burden even if he failed.

‘I roughly know how to make it though…….’

Since Roan had also done such side jobs frequently when he was short on money during his player days, he roughly knew the knack.

But since he had never actually learned holy relic crafting, with the mind of ‘let’s just put my hands on it,’ he opened the kit and began to assemble the parts.

Click— Click— Click—!

“……Huh?”

Unexpectedly, it was made so well that he was startled.

‘It shouldn’t be like this though?’

There were roughly two ways to do such side jobs in God and Devil.

The first was the player directly assembling while looking at the blueprint.

And the second was simply leaving it to auto-craft based on the character’s stats, with a certain time and probability.

Naturally, Roan had only crafted directly at the beginning; it was far better to run it on auto for both time and efficiency, so he didn’t pay much attention after that.

However, even a decently raised character failed quite a lot at first in this kind of side job.

All the more so for a complex item like a holy power clock.

However.

“Wow~ Roan! There’s really nothing you can’t do, is there?”

Just as Demona admired, Roan was assembling the clock like an experienced hand.

Even Uli went so far as to ask Roan:

“……Did they tell you to earn your own keep at the Holy Palace?”

The thought ‘what dreadful bastards’ naturally showed on Uli’s face.

Two words was useless, but for even Uli to think that meant they were the worst miser one could never associate with.

……Though it wasn’t as if Uli was someone one should associate with either.

Roan shook his head while assembling the parts according to the blueprint.

“It’s my first time.”

“Puhahahahaha!”

At Roan’s answer, Uli burst into a hearty laugh with his small body.

Recalling Harden and Vulkan from that sight, Roan felt highly unpleasant.

“A fellow doing it for the first time is assembling a holy clock so smoothly, even if it is a kit? Then all the craftsmen in the world would have gone penniless.”

Uli even wiped a tear from one eye, as if he had heard the best joke of his life.

‘No, if you thought I couldn’t make it, why did you make me do it in the first place?’

An amazing situation where the very person who assigned the work didn’t believe him.

Roan argued with a sense of grievance.

“I awakened my holy power just before admission, so where would I have made something like this?”

“““……Eh?”””

Hearing Roan’s words, Uli and his friends tilted their heads simultaneously.

‘Why is he really good at it?’

However, while his friends were genuinely admiring Roan’s unexpected(?) talent,

‘He does well even without being taught? I can bring more difficult and expensive things in the future.’

……Uli was admiring while thinking of something slightly different.

Teaching a talented student was a very fortunate thing as a professor.