Chapter 63

Chapter 63

Indeed, it was a world where nothing was there in vain.

Creak─

When Roan opened the door and went inside, the interior was empty.

It was clear that, at least, the professor had not arrived yet.

“Hmm…….”

Roan was still wondering about the identity of the professor.

‘Maybe, given Harden’s personality, he might really have me self-study?’

Even for Akerandir, isn’t it a bit strange to bring in a non-existent professor on the very same day?

It was not like he could just kidnap one from somewhere.

Just as he thought that.

Shooo─

“Kyahhh───!”

A portal suddenly opened on the ceiling of Room 101, and a person fell right through.

“!!!!”

Even Roan could not help but be startled this time.

At the same time, he drew up the abyss from all over his body, preparing for battle.

‘Is it an attack by a black mage?’

Under the circumstances, there were plenty of reasons for black mages to attack inside Akerandir, so it was the most plausible guess.

‘……No, it must be an attack by a wicked heretic!’

However, after realizing that he was also a black mage, Roan stealthily corrected his thoughts.

If it were a real black mage’s attack, he planned to immediately persuade them to escape together instead of fighting.

Where else would a black mage enter Akerandir unless they had nowhere else to make a drastic choice?

“Uwah! Where is this, where? I can’t see! Uwahhh!”

“…….”

However, for someone who had come to attack, her movements were extremely clumsy.

Judging by how she wore a black robe, she seemed to be an outsider.

But the robe’s hood was tangled, preventing her from even seeing ahead as she merely flailed her arms.

“……Who are you?”

In the end, Roan carefully spoke while maintaining the abyss.

“Hieee! An inquisitor! You are definitely an inquisitor, aren’t you! How dare you! Hurry up and undo these restraints! I have lived a good life! ……Probably!”

At this, the mysterious robed woman thrashed even more, moving away from Roan.

Roan did not know where to start correcting her misunderstanding.

In the first place, he was not an inquisitor, nor had he summoned her, and above all, the thing hindering her movement was her own tangled robe.

In the end, Roan made a choice.

‘Let’s quiet her down first!’

Thwack─

Roan picked up a wooden plank rolling around nearby and forcefully struck the area assumed to be the back of her head.

“Ahk! As expected, the inquis…….”

Crack─!

She spoke while reaching out her arms as if resentful, but lost consciousness at the subsequent strike.

‘Should I go outside and report this?’

Roan seriously agonized over the unconscious woman in front of him.

Considering her talk about inquisitors, she was definitely a black mage at least, so wouldn’t he be able to get at least some Talents out of this?

‘Hmm, I didn’t think I would hit a woman.’

Such a thought came to him late, but it was already done.

It was her fault for suddenly appearing in the first place!

Fortunately, seeing that the robe rose and fell slightly, it seemed she had not crossed the point of no return yet.

‘……If something goes wrong, I’ll talk to Harden.’

At that moment.

“Eh? What is going on here?”

As if speaking of the devil, Harden slid in and asked with a face that seemed to say he was witnessing the most absurd thing.

“It was self-defense.”

Roan claimed it was not his fault first, without giving any explanation.

A suspicious person was running wild in front of him, so if this wasn’t self-defense, what was?

As a black mage, Roan needed to prove his innocence all the more.

However, Harden did not care about Roan’s desperate feelings and remained dumbfounded.

“……Does it make sense that you knocked out the professor?”

“Excuse me?”

Now, Roan was the same.

Roan looked back and forth between the woman collapsed on the floor and Harden.

“Are you saying that someone who is supposed to be the dark attribute professor was knocked out by two blows from a wooden plank?”

“……So you did hit her with a wooden plank. Twice, even. And a woman at that.”

“The last part is…….”

Roan was about to express more of his unfairness but held back.

That was not what was important right now.

Even if she were a professor, it was a problem.

There shouldn’t be anyone that weak among the current dark attribute users.

Then Harden clicked his tongue, raised her body with holy magic, and quickly untangled the messy robe.

Soon, the woman’s face was revealed.

Pointy ears, features that seemed to glow even in the dark, and bright green hair.

‘An elf?’

Surprisingly, she was an elf, a very rare minority race.

They were a race so rare that there were no elves even among the playable characters.

‘An elf who uses the dark attribute exists?’

Roan racked his brain, searching his memory.

Meanwhile, as Harden’s holy power flowed into the woman, she soon opened her eyes.

Her dim gaze met Roan’s.

“Ugh, who……?”

“Who are you……?”

An awkward first greeting between professor and student was exchanged.

The woman spoke, holding the back of her throbbing head.

“I saw some portrait, and then teleported…… I remember someone hitting the back of my head, though.”

“Ah, yes. A stranger attacked, so I chased them off.”

Roan lied without blinking an eye.

He couldn’t very well say, ‘I hit you twice without knowing’ now that he knew she was the professor, could he?

Harden glared at Roan with a contemptuous gaze.

At any rate, the woman, completely unaware of this fact, smiled faintly in gratitude and introduced herself.

“Ah, I see. Thank you so much. I am the High Elf Taedi Ashwood.”

“Ta, Taedi Ashwood?!”

Roan was shocked upon hearing her name.

Taedi Ashwood.

A High Elf, royalty even rarer among the rare elves.

“Oh, you know of her?”

Harden asked, looking quite surprised.

But Roan checked again, unconcerned.

“Are you not the Lord of the Dead Forest?”

Among the High Elves, Taedi was almost the only one whose name was known to the public.

This was because she had left the Angolda Great Forest, where elves lived, to reside in the ‘Dead Forest’ in the north of the empire and work to revive that forest.

However, there was one more reason why she was famous.

As Roan seemed to know her, Taedi smiled more deeply.

“Thank you for calling me that. Usually, I am called the disgrace of the High Elves.”

The disgrace of the High Elves.

Taedi was indeed a High Elf who was also a black mage, well-versed in black magic.

Roan looked at Harden with wide eyes.

“A black mage right now……?”

He did not finish his sentence, but the meaning was clear.

Was he in his right mind to invite a black mage into Akerandir?

Even unlike Belec, Taedi had not even converted.

In other words, she was a ‘real’ black mage.

Harden burst into laughter.

“What’s the problem since you are here too? I specifically called her as a professor for you.”

A black mage professor for a black mage student!

It was a perfectly reasonable logic, but considering this was Akerandir, it was impossible to establish in the first place.

Of course, Roan had also thought, very briefly, that he might learn black magic here.

“Well…… I actually expected the lich in the school to come as the professor.”

But that was strictly within a common-sense range.

……Putting aside whether learning black magic at the Holy Academy was common sense in the first place.

Meanwhile, hearing Roan’s words, Harden flew into a rage.

“What! A lich! What would you learn from such a wicked bastard! Look at how you’re acting after being coddled! Who do you think you’re looking at! Did I look like a principal who would set up a mere lich as a professor for a student!”

He looked as if his honor as an educator had truly been insulted.

“…….”

Roan kept his mouth shut.

‘What’s the difference?’

No matter how he thought about it, that seemed more normal than bringing in a new black mage from the outside.

Meanwhile, Taedi, who was quietly listening to the conversation between the two, asked in bewilderment.

“……? A professor, what does that mean? No, more importantly, where is this? For some reason, I feel chilly, and my mana is unusual.”

As she spoke, she wrapped her arms around her body.

Roan could grasp how the situation had unfolded just from that.

Surely, just as he had done in the library, Harden must have sneakily hidden a portrait of himself near Taedi’s residence and summoned her.

‘Isn’t he a total thug?’

Yet he had shamelessly told Roan that he had ‘invited’ her for him.

Did he not know the meaning of invitation?

Harden gestured with his chin toward Taedi, as if telling Roan to explain it himself.

Roan let out a deep sigh and spoke.

“This is Akerandir.”

“?!!!?!?!!”

Naturally, Taedi was shocked, unable to even open her mouth.

The four major places in the Empire that no sane black mage should ever approach.

They were the Holy Imperial Palace, the Curia, the Central Holy Knights, and Akerandir.

It was no wonder she was surprised, having been suddenly summoned to one of those places.

“And this person is the principal, the Holy Spirit Harden.”

“Uh, uwa, ueee, heuuu…….”

Subsequently, when she realized Harden’s existence, she was about to lose consciousness again.

Of course, Harden, as if it were ridiculous, used holy magic to hold her consciousness.

“Oh God, what on earth did I do wrong…….”

A very rare scene of a black mage seeking God!

It had to be called a natural human response when life hung in the balance.

Who would have known that they would wake up in front of the continent’s supreme Holy Spirit just because they looked at a portrait once?

Roan sincerely worried about Taedi.

Regrettably, there was still one more thing left for her to be surprised about.

“Um…… and you, Lady Taedi, have been invited as my professor.”

“A-A professor? Not a teaching aid?”

It was indeed a common-sense question.

Harden snorted and spoke.

“This kid is also a black mage.”

Then, for some reason, Taedi’s expression, which looked as if she were about to pass away at any moment, became relaxed.

“……Ah, sleep paralysis. Of course. My body isn’t moving well either─”

And then she lost consciousness again immediately.

Harden muttered in embarrassment.

“The faint-prevention holy magic is active, though?”

“……Are you asking because you are truly curious?”

Roan could somehow understand Taedi’s feelings.

In the first place, wasn’t that the normal reaction of a black mage who entered Akerandir and met Harden?

Instead of struggling like Roan to survive by any means.

“It’s not like someone is going to eat her. Tsk, tsk, because they are so weak, those black mages can’t even hold their heads high in the Empire.”

“I don’t think that’s the issue.”

Roan was truly dumbfounded.

In the first place, Taedi was not a black mage who fell behind anywhere.

She was at least one of the strongest among existing black mages.

If this place were not holy ground.

If she had not been summoned in an instant.

If she had not happened to be bound by her own robe.

It meant she was not a character of a level to be absurdly knocked out by two blows from a wooden plank.

However, since the opponent was a 5,000-year-old Holy Spirit who was originally supposed to obtain divinity, she had no choice but to be in that state.

……If there was a black mage who was confident in front of Harden, the Empire would have already been destroyed or cut in half.

However, Harden did not pay attention to Roan’s valid point.

“Tsk, she’s weaker than I thought. At any rate, try to get along, you two who are similar. I’ll set up a barrier before I go, so don’t worry about being caught.”

“What do you mean by two who are similar?”

“Isn’t it similar that the only thing you are good at is black magic? Though you are much better in terms of talent.”

“…….”

For some reason, it was annoying, but there was no room to refute.

Roan’s other stats were just mediocre, around the average, except for his black magic talent.

Taedi also had no talent at all in fields other than black magic.

Spirit magic, archery, and motor skills, which could be called the basics of an elf, were all below average!

Harden smiled brightly, looking very pleased with Roan who could not say anything.

“Ah, and tell that fellow there’s no professor salary for her. It’s a punishment for a black mage daring to enter Akerandir.”

“……?”

Roan’s mouth fell open.

‘I-Is that right?’

Didn’t he summon her in the first place?