Chapter 34

Chapter 34

A holy power source was merely a Hilidium rod charged with holy power.

The same went for a mana source charged with mana.

Roan looked down at his rod with a reluctant expression.

‘Why was something like this created?’

Roan, of course, knew how such a phenomenon occurred.

But was this really supposed to go this far?

He had merely pushed mana into the Hilidium rod.

And Roan slightly scanned his surroundings.

For some reason, he had an ominous feeling.

‘I feel like this is going to cause another commotion…’

Sure enough, the False Divinity chided Roan.

Wooong—!

See, didn’t I tell you to do it moderately!

‘When?’

Roan genuinely didn’t know.

Meanwhile, Demona, who had tossed aside his own rod, also made a big fuss as soon as he saw Roan’s.

“Wow, Roan’s is just floating around?”

At that, the gazes of the other students, who were struggling while holding their rods, began to gather one by one.

—Look at that!

—He must have already made a flying object using a holy power source!

As the lecture room grew noisy in an instant, Uli, who was engrossed in her work, could no longer ignore it.

“Quiet down! Every time you interrupt my work, how much loss do I…?”

But soon, she began to sniff with her cute nose.

“Sniff, sniff. Where is that smell of money coming from?”

Sniff, sniff— Sniff, sniff—

Uli tossed aside her tools and seemed about to jump off the workbench, gradually approaching the source of the smell.

Roan, for some reason, had a feeling he knew where her destination was.

Ultimately, Uli hopped onto Roan’s workbench.

“W-What is this!”

With that, she was startled.

Roan tried his best to reply calmly.

“I’m not quite sure, but isn’t it just a normal holy power source?”

“Normal? Normal! You call this normal!”

Uli shrieked.

She was the size of a squirrel, but thanks to her vocal-assist holy relic, all the students had to cover their ears.

“If this is normal, all the craftsmen in this world would end up as beggars!”

Standing on her two hind legs, Uli yelled as she stamped her foot on the desk.

Then, with ecstatic eyes, she examined the holy power source Roan had created.

“This is… a Super Holy Power Source!”

“…….”

Roan kept his mouth shut.

At the current point, a Super Holy Power Source was a dream object that no one in the history of “God & Devil” had ever realized.

It only appeared in myths, stating that the Lord God Hiloa used it to defeat the demons swarming the continent after creating the world.

It was characterized by an infinite power that never depleted no matter how much it was used, floating in the air against gravity, and taking on a murky light due to being far more compressed and heavy than standard holy power.

‘Strictly speaking, it’s not a Super Holy Power Source.’

It wasn’t a matter of it being a super mana source since he put mana into it.

A few years from now, the Super Holy Power Source would actually be developed.

With the creation of a new alloy called Hardeum, which was far more efficient than Hilidium, and the application of a new fabrication process.

And that was a feat achieved by the fifth- and sixth-year ‘advanced course’ students of Acherandir.

Thus, what Roan made might be similar, but it wasn’t a Super Holy Power Source.

Yet, he had a guess.

‘Compression was the issue.’

The theory behind creating a Super Holy Power Source was the concentration of holy power that broke through the limit of the material.

In the process of compressing the Abyss and pushing it to the limit, he seemed to have suddenly transcended that limit with Hilidium.

…If anything, this might be an even more amazing feat.

Wooong—!

At that moment, the False Divinity vibrated cheerfully.

See, it worked out well because you listened to me, right?

‘This fellow…’

Roan felt his anger rising, but he suppressed it.

Meanwhile, the students who heard Uli’s words doubted their ears.

—Did you hear? She said it’s a Super Holy Power Source.

—What? What is that?

—You fool! With that, you can make an infinite wine cup!

Although it was deplorable that the thing they thought of doing with a mythical Super Holy Power Source was making an infinite wine cup,

the students still knew very well how incredible it was.

However, Uli, who was examining it closely even after putting on a magnifying glass, muttered with a slightly disappointed look.

“Hmm. Looking closely, it’s not a Super Holy Power Source. There’s no circulation loop. It’s just compressed to an absurd degree, and although it’s crude, it produces this kind of effect. Still, at this level… You, what’s your name?”

‘At least I won’t get caught right now.’

Roan replied calmly, hiding his relief.

“I am Roan Darc.”

“What? A Darc!”

Uli dropped her jaw.

“I heard that your secret workshop is impressive, but you can create something like this?”

“……?”

Roan was speechless in bewilderment.

‘What on earth is a secret workshop?’

He just didn’t have the information, but this family had really dabbled in every single field.

—Did you hear? There’s a secret Darc workshop!

—That Darc fellow, not satisfied with the Holy War, even previewed the holy relic class at a place like that…

—How persistent, how persistent.

‘Why are they bringing up the Holy War class!’

Roan frowned at the students’ absurd misunderstanding.

Demona, who was listening beside him, chimed in.

“Professor, Roan’s family is—”

“Ah, right, it was destroyed.”

—…….

The students who were badmouthing Roan just a moment ago had no choice but to shut their mouths this time.

‘This fellow is really…!’

Since he wasn’t the real Roan Darc anyway, it didn’t really matter, but having someone constantly mention ‘destroyed’ right beside him could only be annoying.

As Roan glared at him with a murderous look, Demona flinched and made an excuse.

“It wasn’t me, the professor said it…”

In any case.

Uli climbed onto Roan’s holy power source and spoke.

“How did you make it?”

“……By chance?”

Roan didn’t want to reply to the professor in such a manner either, but he had nothing else to say.

It’s not like he could say he pushed the Abyss—an advanced attribute, let alone standard black mana—to the limit and it just worked.

However, Uli interpreted it in a slightly different way.

“Right, you can’t just talk about your family’s secret easily. Though I think I generally understand it.”

What do you understand?

The words ‘Does she know it’s black mana?’ rose to the tip of Roan’s tongue, but such things weren’t important right now.

“No, it’s not like that—”

“I’ll give you 100 Talents, so sell it to me.”

‘Is this professor completely shameless?’

Roan was speechless at the sight of Uli shamelessly lowballing the price.

After calling it a Super Holy Power Source herself, only 100 Talents?

Furthermore, even the incomplete first sample of the Super Holy Power Source that would be developed later fetched a huge sum of 50 gold coins at an auction.

The cases were different, but 100 Talents was out of the question.

“Then, 3,000.”

—Whoa, she said 3,000!

Since Roan remained silent, the price immediately jumped 30-fold!

Roan clicked his tongue inwardly.

To think a professor who threw her conscience into holy relics…!

If she was going to do this, what was the point of the initial 100 Talents?

Setting aside his annoyance, Roan thought for a moment but ultimately shook his head.

“I’m sorry, but regardless of the price, this item is too lacking to sell to you, Professor.”

“No, if you weren’t going to sell it, why did you make it during class!”

Uli yelled in frustration.

‘Because it was class time!’

Roan wanted to retort like that in his heart as well.

What kind of student would make a holy power source with the intention of selling it to their professor!

Besides, the discomfort of passing a black mana source to a professor was holding Roan back, no matter what.

Just then, Uli let out a deep sigh and raised the price again.

“Fine, 10,000 Talents. I can’t go any higher than that.”

“Since you put it that way, I have no choice. I will give it to you out of respect for you, Professor, not because of the Talents.”

The sum was simply too large to refuse.

‘I didn’t expect it to go up to 10,000.’

Discomfort or not, this was a massive profit!

It was obvious that Uli wouldn’t even research it properly and would just bundle and sell it inside some random holy relic anyway.

As Roan replied with a smirk, the students gasped in shock.

—Th-That persistent fellow!

—Did he just negotiate with the professor?

So what if they swore at him.

For reference, the Talents Ihern had gathered over four years was 10,000.

Why wouldn’t he sell it.

Envy and jealousy were merely the domain of losers.

‘To rip off Uli, if this were the game, I would have unlocked an achievement.’

Roan was inwardly satisfied.

“Out of respect? So you’re giving it to me for free?”

Meanwhile, Uli asked with a shred of expectation, but

“I will spend the 10,000 Talents you gave me wisely.”

“Tsk!”

It was out of the question.

Tap, tap—

Just then, Demona nudged Roan’s arm and spoke.

“Roan, by any chance, my fine…”

“You just clean the restrooms.”

Roan replied with a cold expression, as if he had never smiled.

***

“Okay, anyway, it’s a deal!”

Uli suddenly produced a single high-denomination bill of 10,000 Talents from her cheek pouch, grabbed Roan’s holy power source, and ran off in a hurry.

The problem was that the place she ran to wasn’t the workbench inside the lecture hall.

Slam—!

It was completely outside the lecture room.

—…….

The students fell into a collective silence.

Then they gradually began to buzz.

—So, the professor just ran outside instead of lecturing, right?

—…Didn’t she not lecture originally anyway?

—Huh?

Perhaps the situation hadn’t changed all that much.

Since Uli didn’t seem to have any intention of lecturing in the first place anyway.

Demona asked Roan.

“For Professor Timothy, Assistant Joy conducted the class instead. Doesn’t Professor Uli have an assistant?”

Roan replied as if it were absurd.

“Would she?”

“Ah.”

For some reason, not to mention Demona, even the other students around nodded uselessly.

They had instinctively realized that Uli was a professor who went a step further than Timothy.

Creak—

Roan packed his textbook into his bag and stood up.

Lafia asked with a puzzled look.

“Where are you going, Roan?”

“Hm? Since class is over, I should go grab some food.”

Although it was a bit early for lunchtime, sightseeing in the commercial district was fun in its own way.

He didn’t care at all about the vanished Professor Uli.

In the first place, Uli’s class was an event-like occurrence whose execution was decided by random probability despite being a class.

Once the professor left, that was the end of it.

At that, the other students also began to stand up stealthily, following Roan.

If only it had ended there.

Creeping—

The students gradually gathered toward Roan.

They had just witnessed him receiving 10,000 Talents, an amount that would exceed the combined Talents of all the freshmen.

Seeing that, Roan clicked his tongue.

‘What shameless rascals!’

When they had badmouthed him at every turn in small groups, trying to act close now!

Although they were called Holy Empire Academy students, they were practically nothing but snobbish thugs.

As Roan glanced at the front of the crowd, coincidentally, Trian, the hippopotamus beastman, stood there.

Flinch—!

Meeting Roan’s fierce gaze, Trian dripped a bit of the red sweat characteristic of hippopotamuses.

‘I-I was just trying to leave…!’

Why did Roan’s seat have to be so close to the back door, of all places.

He truly had no greed for Talents.

Hadn’t he suffered severely after picking a fight for no reason last time?

…Strictly speaking, he hadn’t suffered any direct damage himself, but that actually made it even scarier.

The image of Roan orchestrating a brutal beating through his friends, despite a child of the Wychronon family taking Trian’s side, still appeared occasionally in Trian’s dreams.

Even if he wanted to get some crumbs, he had to cling to someone he could communicate with.

The current Trian wouldn’t believe it even if Roan offered Talents for free.

Meanwhile, unaware of that fact, Roan’s thoughts were slightly different.

‘That guy still hasn’t fixed his habit.’

To Roan, Trian was nothing but a potential school violence perpetrator!

He thought Trian had come to his senses after crying and fleeing last time, but it seemed he hadn’t.

Isn’t there a long-standing quote saying that villains can’t be reformed?

‘Anyway, being too nice is a problem too.’

Roan felt deeply that he had to show his power properly now.

“…Come at me if you’re confident.”

Although he didn’t particularly want to draw attention,

one had to show it clearly when showing it off.

Roan turned toward Trian, preparing to manifest the Abyss in both hands.

Even if it was simple physical enhancement, getting hit with the Abyss would hurt quite a bit.

—Gasp! T-Trian and Darc are about to fight!

—Trian! Show him!

—10,000 Talents!

The students instantly distanced themselves from the two, forming a circle.

Most were cheering for Trian, while Roan’s friends were flustered, not understanding what was suddenly happening.

Trian grew even more panicked as the atmosphere was suddenly steered toward a confrontation between Roan and himself.

‘W-What should I do?’

What kind of freshman tries to fight a classmate while radiating such a beast-like aura!

Looking at his appearance, one might mistake it for a once-in-a-lifetime battle against a black mage.

Furthermore, the suspicious gray holy power gathered in Roan’s hands.

‘Is he… not a freshman?’

Just then,

Step—

Suddenly, someone intervened between the two.

A slender build with soft, curly blonde hair.

It was Demona Wychronon.

“You insolent, insect-like scoundrels!”

Demona scanned the freshmen with dignified eyes and shouted this.

It was a voice overflowing with spirit, more than enough to overwhelm the crowd.

“If you also have a sense of responsibility to lead the empire, and a sense of pride in learning the divinity of the Lord God Hiloa, look at your own state!”

‘Is this guy actually smart?’

Roan looked at Demona’s back with newfound eyes.

In the game, he was always a commercial district loafer, and since his whereabouts couldn’t even be found after returning to his family upon graduation, Roan hadn’t paid much attention, but.

Was there some hidden story?

“To lose your minds over a mere piece of Talent paper… Tsk, tsk. If you have mouths, speak up. Is that truly the behavior of proud subjects!”

—Wychronon’s words are correct.

—Hiloa always emphasized frugality and contentment…

The freshmen, completely suppressed by Demona, began to disperse.

And at the front of them was Trian, fleeing in a hurry while sweating red sweat.

“S-Sorry!”

He had no intention of picking a fight anyway, but let’s run while Demona gave an excuse!

In an instant, most of the students left.

Demona turned to Roan and grinned happily.

His appearance made one wonder when he had ever shouted so majestically.

“How was it? Did I do well?”

“Yeah.”

Roan also nodded readily this time.

Rather than causing a commotion by clashing with Trian for no reason, it was much better for Demona to step forward.

Since, even if he drew attention, there was nothing strange about it as long as he was a Wychronon.

“So buy me food!”

“…….”