Chapter 269

Chapter 269

Zion, utterly flustered, stammered and answered exaggeratingly.

Roan spoke in a calm voice.

“Thinking about it on the way here, my parents are not students or faculty members of the school, and above all, they are currently deceased, so they cannot bear legal responsibility. So……”

It was a absurd question, but wouldn’t it be fine if he answered seriously?

“Kyaaaak!!! Be quiet, pleeease!!!!!”

Apparently, it was not fine.

Hearing Roan’s words, a few students murmured slightly.

—Did you hear that just now?

—Yeah, it seems the Saintess Candidate has something with Darc……

Zion, who knew full well what kind of things Roan heard whenever the students whispered.

She repeatedly stood up half-way and sat back down, looking as if she were contemplating something.

It seemed she was roughly debating whether to grab Roan by the collar or cover his mouth.

Riel, who was watching this scene, gave a brief evaluation.

“Roan cruel.”

“Hm? Riel, what did you say?”

Rafia, who hadn’t caught those words, asked, but Riel shook her head very slightly—virtually invisibly—and sat down.

Before long, most of the students arrived in the classroom one after another, but today they looked a bit different than usual.

“Hm? Roan, why is everyone carrying bundles?”

“I wonder.”

As Demona said, in addition to the bags they usually carried, they had each brought a small bundle.

Even Trian and Garland’s gang were the same.

Actually, although he pretended not to know, Roan was aware of what was inside the students’ bundles.

‘As expected, it was a good idea to tell Jennifer and El.’

During dinner yesterday, he had casually hinted, ‘We might need some herbs for the healing class.’

Worthy of the two who could be called the social butterflies among the Acherandir freshmen, they seemed to have passed the news even to that gang, which was the polar opposite of Roan.

Hector asked Trian, who happened to be passing by him.

“Lesterol, what’s inside the bundle?”

“Uh? Ah, Pabilto. Herbs.”

“Herbs?”

“Yeah.”

“Why did you bring them?”

At Hector’s question, Trian glanced at Roan sitting nearby for some reason and answered hesitantly.

“I thought they m-might be needed……”

At that, Roan nodded with a satisfied smile.

‘Indeed, preparedness forestalls disaster!’

Even though Trian wasn’t on very good terms with him, having his advice accepted was always a happy thing for a veteran player.

Flinch─!

However, whatever Trian thought of Roan’s behavior, he shuddered violently.

—Trian? What are you doing there?

—Did the Darc guys pick a fight again?

Just then, other students approached and asked Trian, who was conversing with Hector.

Trian snapped and replied.

“Nonsense! I was pointing out the complacency of not even bringing basic herbs for the healing class!”

—Wow, as expected of Trian!

—You should be the one to pull out Darc’s fingernails!

—And whip him too!

Shuuudder──!

“W-what on earth do you mean by that?”

Trian, the hippo beastman, sweated red drops profusely and was visibly flustered.

Telling him to do such a thing to the notorious Roan Darc.

Why were these bastards suddenly pushing him to his death?

However, the students, not knowing Trian’s mind in the slightest, put their arms around his shoulders in a friendly manner and headed to their seats.

—What? You haven’t heard that story?

—How it went was…… by the way, Trian, why are you sweating so much?

“Of course it’s because I ran here for physical training!”

—As expected of Trian~

At any rate, realizing that what the students brought were herb bundles, Demona clasped her hands behind her head and relaxed.

“What foolish fellows~ Roan said stabbing arms wasn’t the exam~”

She probably thought they wouldn’t get hurt if it wasn’t about stabbing arms.

Roan nodded as if extremely pleased.

“That’s correct. It’s not an exam about stabbing arms.”

Freeze─

At that, Demona stared blankly at Roan with a highly shocked expression.

“Why are you like that?”

“No, there’s no way Roan would quietly agree that I’m right.”

“…….”

Even in Roan’s opinion, it was quite an awkward situation.

“You’re not going to beat me up saying, ‘You got hit!’ or something, right?”

Demona asked, trembling violently.

Since she was treating him like a habitual physical abuser, it was quite an unpleasant sight.

“Do you want to get hit?”

“Hieek─! Look at this!”

Demona pressed her body tightly to the side to distance herself from Roan in the next seat.

“Get away from me, heretic!”

Of course, that next seat was Hector’s, so she had no choice but to be pushed back toward Roan.

It was difficult for the slender Demona to overpower the bulky Hector with strength.

While Roan was contemplating what to do with Demona, and Demona was trembling like a mouse in front of a cat.

Rattle─

“Hello, everyone! Good morning!”

Atoga, looking very cheerful for some reason, opened the classroom door refreshingly and walked in.

Demona stood up abruptly and spoke to Atoga.

“Professor, save me!”

“……? Are you hurt somewhere, Student Wycronon?”

At the sudden plea for help, Atoga tilted his head.

However, no matter how he looked at her, Demona was perfectly fine.

Demona hesitated, glancing slightly at Roan as she spoke.

“Well…… I feel like I might get hurt.”

Atoga shifted his gaze to Roan with a questioning look.

Roan was an extremely excellent student, but if he was involved in any untoward incident, it had to be strictly addressed.

However, Roan was merely sitting quietly with his usual gloomy and dangerous expression.

‘……Ah, even if it’s his usual self, is it not okay?’

Atoga harbored such a question for a moment and looked at the friends around him one by one.

Head shake─

Rafia shook her head first.

Head shake─

Zion also shook her head, as if Roan was not in the wrong.

……

It was hard to tell what Riel was trying to say.

“You heretic fellow, false accusation is a heavy crime!”

Hector forced Demona, who had jumped up, to sit back down.

Demona whined and sat down helplessly.

Atoga recalled the conversation he had yesterday with Assistant Anne, whom he had met by chance.

—I think Student Darc is really wonderful, Professor Atoga.

—Pardon? Ah, of course he is.

—Yes, he looks scary, but he is truly a devout believer who loves the peace of the school!

—……?

Although Anne was kind, she rarely praised any student in particular.

……In fact, it was more appropriate to ask first if there even were many students worth praising.

Yet yesterday, perhaps something had happened, for she had praised Roan so much.

‘Well, Assistant Anne is not someone who would make things up.’

Atoga decided to observe the situation for a while.

“Yes, first…… today is the pop quiz, right?”

—Yes, Professor!

At Atoga’s words, the students answered in unison.

Of course, they didn’t just answer.

—We heard we’re pulling fingernails and healing them today?

—No, they said it was whipping!

The students directly relayed the wild rumors they had heard from somewhere to Atoga!

Atoga asked back with a bewildered expression, tilting his head.

“Isn’t that just torture?”

—Huh?

—Oh?

The students tilted their heads along with Atoga, as if they had heard something completely unexpected.

—Th-that was torture?

—But we even stabbed our own arms directly……

Considering the past record of the healing class, some reacted wondering if that even counted as torture.

—But isn’t Professor Atoga the last person who should say that?

Although in the minority, there were also reactions like this.

Atoga wondered if he should explain the difference between penance and torture to the students, but soon changed his mind.

‘Since they will have plenty of opportunities to find out in the future!’

……It was a thought that would terrify the students if they knew.

At any rate, to correct the chaotic atmosphere, Atoga decided to reveal the content of the exam immediately.

“What we are going to do for the pop quiz is none other than stabbing our own thigh and healing it!”

—?!?!?!?!!!

—How is that any different?

—Isn’t that even worse?

The students were horrified by the unexpected exam.

Naturally, Demona jumped up and asked.

“Professor, Roan said we wouldn’t be stabbing our arms!”

Atoga answered, looking back and forth between Roan and Demona, slightly surprised.

“Yes, because it’s not stabbing arms. We did that last time, didn’t we?”

“What on earth is this……”

Demona slumped back into her seat with a highly shocked expression.

Judging by her face, it looked as if she had received news that her family had been ruined today.

Rafia quietly asked Demona.

“By the way, Demona. Didn’t you say you feel like you can stab your arm now without batting an eye?”

“Yeah, for arms, that’s true.”

“Then isn’t the thigh similar?”

“Stupid Rafia! Thighs and arms are completely different!”

Demona shouted, as if asking how she could say such a harsh thing.

“Y-you’re too much……”

Of course, it was the common consensus that the one who actually heard harsh words was Rafia, who had been called ‘stupid’ by Demona.

Since if you were going to stab, arms and legs were really similar, weren’t they?

Since it wasn’t about stabbing the heart or the middle of the stomach.

Demona whined, tearing up as she looked around.

“So that’s why the kids brought herbs.”

“Right.”

Roan nodded calmly.

“Did your parents not tell you to bring herbs this time?”

“……Do you think my parents are some kind of school notice?”

Roan glared at Demona with contempt as she asked so naturally.

—Though that had never actually happened—he found it extremely insolent of her to think of his parents as people who prepared his school supplies.

‘‘‘Ahem, isn’t it similar?’’’

However, hearing those words, the friends cleared their throats for no reason and averted their eyes from Roan.

Of course, they didn’t think of them rudely like a school notice, but hearing it, it did feel similar.

“Ahem! Ahem! Cough!”

……Hector cleared his throat even more violently.

Judging by his reaction, it seemed to be even worse, not better, than treating them like a school notice.

“Be quiet, Hector. Like someone who has a guilty conscience.”

“G-guilty conscience? What do you mean by that! You have no idea how much I respect your parents.”

‘‘‘If only you couldn’t talk.’’’

Roan and the friends glared at Hector simultaneously.

Because his illustrious track record had already made it well known that he was far from ‘respectful.’

At any rate, Roan spoke to reassure his shocked friends.

“Whether it’s the arm or the thigh, the principle is similar. You just stab and fix it.”

For the friends who could conveniently use healing holy magic, that was indeed the case.

This exam was more about the courage of whether one could stab oneself or not, rather than the difficulty of the healing.

‘The only problem is that I have to heal it with black magic.’

However, as mentioned before, for Roan to produce an effect similar to healing holy magic, he had to work on it step by step, similar to surgical operations on Earth, so it was indeed more difficult than the arm.

Meanwhile, the students who overheard Roan’s words whispered.

—Did you hear?

—Yeah, the part where Darc said stabbing the thigh is nothing?

—He must be fine since he has stabbed himself multiple times, but……

—Hieek? Wh-who?

—Surely he did it to himself in the Secret Penance Training Room?

—……Whew!

—What, did you think Darc kidnapped others and stabbed them or something?

—No, of course not……

‘Those bastards…….’