Chapter 3
“…Sigh. Are you really sure you won't regret this?”
Dana, who had been silently staring at the ceiling, asked with a troubled look on her face.
“With someone like you, getting a doctorate would be a piece of cake. You could stay here, succeed spectacularly, and even stick it to Yerna.”
Her repeated attempts to persuade me made me waver a little.
Dana wasn't worried solely because her workload would increase after I left. She was probably also worried that I might get myself killed, after we'd been friends for three years.
But this was the time for me to be stubborn.
“I could get a doctorate.”
“What?”
“But how many years would it take? Seven? Eight? Even if I rushed, it would take six years at least, wouldn't it?”
It took two years just to go from a Master's Bronze Badge to a Silver Badge. I needed at least six years to earn a doctorate.
“No, six years is actually the absolute minimum. Normally, it takes more than eight years even if things go well.”
Even the most brilliant scholar couldn't write a groundbreaking paper overflowing with creativity every single day.
Normally, scholars kept digging into questions that arose during their research, then compiled the points where they eventually realized, ‘Oh, fuck?’ and published them as papers.
And the paper Yerna stole was the culmination of all the ‘Oh, fuck?’ moments I'd gathered over three years of research.
She had stolen the full fruits of three years of work, just like some WoW-style fucking bitch who backstabbed her students. At this point, it wouldn't be surprising if earning my doctorate took more than eight years.
“Ten years in total to a doctorate is too long. But for a field archaeologist, that timeline can be shortened considerably depending on the results.”
If I had planned to make a lifelong living here, I never would have chosen something like fieldwork.
Nor was I going to live on exploitative passion pay while going from a master's degree to a doctorate. Since I was paid regularly, I would've quietly stayed at the university.
But my goal wasn't to live in this other world.
Someday, I would find a way back to Earth.
My current title and degree were merely transitional steps toward that goal. Aside from my translation ability, certifications and career experience in another world's foreign languages would mean jack shit even if I took them back to Earth.
“I've told you a few times, haven't I? My dream is to make the technology recovered from a ruin my own and research it someday.”
“Yeah. I think I heard you mention it once or twice before.”
Dana nodded. It was something I'd occasionally told her and Yerna since the days we were slaves.
In this world, landowners weren't allowed to claim ownership of things obtained from ruins and dungeons.
Even if a ruin were discovered in my front yard, I couldn't demand that the things other people took from it be handed over because they belonged to me. This was a world where even the state couldn't take artifacts or money away from adventurers who excavated them.
In other words, if I acquired the technology or artifacts of an ancient civilization from some ruin, they would belong entirely to me.
“More precisely, didn't you say you were looking for a legacy related to teleportation?”
“I'm impressed you remembered. That's right—teleportation.”
More precisely, it was dimensional travel, but they amounted to the same thing, so I described it that way publicly. I didn't want to seem suspicious by going around talking about dimensional travel.
The technology of ancient civilizations was far more advanced than modern technology.
Because I'd often encountered historical records from the past, I could say that with certainty.
Unlike the present, where teleportation was the sole preserve of a few outstanding mages, there were records stating that devices or structures resembling warp gates had existed in the past.
There was a fairly good chance that the technology or tools I needed to return to Earth were buried in some ruin.
“As a master's student, it's hard to get a foot in national projects. And I don't have enough money to conduct personal research with a team. I don't even know how many years it would take to get permission for a personal expedition.”
Even if I cut the doctorate down to six years, adding the three and a half years I'd already spent made ten fucking years.
Wow! Ten whole years wasted in another world! Five tours in the military!
Besides, even if I wasted ten years earning a degree, that would only put me at the starting line of the process of barely getting home. After earning the degree, it could take another ten years each to find a ruin and research it.
Twenty to thirty years in total.
At that rate, I'd be fifty by the time I returned home. I didn't want to make it back to Earth only to spend my days bouncing between part-time jobs and die at an age when everyone else was considering retirement.
“So, I have to do both at once to save time. While looking for the ruin that will help me achieve my goal, I'll submit artifacts or write papers and aim for a doctorate.”
“…Is it really that urgent? Even if you follow your plan, it's not as if you'll get results in a day or two.”
Dana muttered as if she couldn't understand me.
To other people, it probably seemed as if I were being chased by time. Since that was true, I couldn't exactly deny it.
“It's less about urgency and more about efficiency. Don't worry. I'm not planning to act impatiently.”
I wasn't planning to rush into some insanely dangerous ruin the moment I became an adventurer. I had no interest in pulling some idiotic stunt and dying at twenty-eight, with my whole future ahead of me, just to get there ten years early.
I planned to take my time as an adventurer, build up my strength, and carry out my plans gradually.
“Ah. Speaking of which, I just remembered another reason.”
“What is it?”
“It's simple. Whether during my research or afterward, I need the strength to protect myself and stay alive.”
Let's suppose there's a scientist with technology that makes every existing missile look like a fucking joke.
That scientist could cooperate with an enemy nation and turn all our missiles into obsolete, old-fashioned fireworks, or abuse the technology and cause enormous harm to the international community.
Even on twenty-first-century Earth, if something like that happened, there would inevitably be forces trying to win that scientist over or kill them.
It's the same in this primitive other world.
The moment I finish my research and start shouting Yahoo! I'm going home! with my arms raised, the graduate student I've been working to death will probably stab me in the back, steal my research results, and run off.
“There are betrayals even a powerful backer can't stop. I can't have my papers stolen twice.”
“Tsk… I can't really argue with that.”
Even Dana didn't seem to think my idea was an overreaction.
Even if I had someone as fucking powerful as royalty backing me, it would still be dangerous.
When the danger of leaving my research unattended became greater than the danger of antagonizing my backer, I would become a target for other-world assassins aiming for my back.
“In the end, becoming a field archaeologist is an advantage in every way—for my survival and my goal alike.”
I don't believe I won't be able to return to Earth. It will take time, but there is definitely a way.
Earth and the other world allow travel in both directions.
‘I'm not certain, but there is evidence.’
Vikings. Valhalla. Odin. Thor. Loki.
Don't those names sound familiar? And I don't mean from Marvel movies.
That's right. Norse mythology.
This world had numerous gods and divine beings whose names and stories were familiar even on Earth.
My translation ability wasn't what made this world's gods' names come out that way in translation. Their pronunciations and detailed concepts were completely identical.
That was proof that a way to travel from this other world to Earth existed.
It was proof that people from this world had spread this world's mythology to Earth's Germanic peoples thousands of years ago.
Otherwise, fuck, surely the gods of this world—
(Other-world god A: “Fuck, stories about other-worlders are fucking hilarious.”)
(Other-world god B: “God of thunder? That's fucking cool! I'll be Thor!”)
(Other-world god C: “The goddess of beauty, Freyja? That's me, right?”)
They surely couldn't have pulled that kind of bullshit.
The idea that the gods had renamed themselves after hearing stories told by a former Earthling made no sense. That hypothesis was far too implausible.
‘In the first place, this world's human history is longer than ours.’
So it made more sense that someone from this world had crossed over to Earth and spread this world's mythology there, back when Earth's mythological system was still taking shape.
And conversely, there had to be a way to travel from Earth to this other world as well.
I was living proof of that, even if it had been entirely against my will.
If there were no way for an Earthling to come to this other world, my very presence here would make no sense.
“No matter how difficult it is, I can't help it. If it has to be done, then it has to be done.”
I didn't know whether dimensional travel was an accidental natural phenomenon or a reproducible technology governed by some proper law.
But at the very least, two-way travel between Earth ↔ the other world was absolutely not a dream.
I also had a mother and father waiting for me on Earth.
So I couldn't spend my days aimlessly fooling around in this world. Whether I could return or not, finding a way to do so was something I had to accomplish here.
“…Sigh. All right. Trying to persuade you any further would be pointless.”
After hearing me out, Dana sighed and ordered more beer.
In this other world, beer was sold in enormous mugs holding 2,000 cc as the standard serving.
Ordering another beer like that was proof of how exhausted she was. I couldn't help feeling sorry about it.
“I feel terrible, you know. Just like you said, things will be harder after I leave, and instead of helping, I've only given you something pointless to worry about.”
“Oh, enough. It's still better than leaving without saying anything.”
Dana gulped down the beer brought by the bar owner's daughter, then sulkily chided me.
“It's not as if you lack the ability. When it looks like you can do something, you should dream big. Honestly, compared to me, who's just wasting time at the university, you're the impressive one.”
“Why are you putting it like that? If you said pursuing a doctorate at Carmine University was a waste of time, failed undergraduates would beat you to death before you even made it home tonight.”
“Hehe. Even if that happened, I could throw you to them as bait and run.”
“What a shame. This bodyguard only works for as much as the drinks cost.”
“Really? Then have another. You ought to drink as much as your life is worth.”
“Heh heh. Look how smart our big sis is. So damn logical.”
I accepted half of the 2,000-cc mug as my share.
How many beers had I had today? I'd drunk two earlier, making 4,000 cc. Adding this mug put me at 5,000 cc.
Roughly five or six bottles of beer?
“A hangover is guaranteed tomorrow.”
The cheaper the booze, the nastier the hangover.
I should buy some herbs for a hangover remedy so my head wouldn't split open.
***
A week after I told Dana I was going to become an adventurer.
I visited a university professor's office with an application to become a field archaeologist.
“I didn't know you had set your sights on excavating ruins.”
Professor Brammathon, a linguist, said that as he looked over the application I'd brought.
“Yes. I've only recently become interested in it.”
Professor Brammathon nodded gravely at my answer.
He was the sort of professor you'd picture if gym rats were told to imagine a Greek philosopher capable of a 1,000-kilo powerlifting total.
He was also a linguist who doubled as a Gold-class adventurer.
Rumor had it that he traveled around smashing his way through every ruin and dungeon he could find with his muscular limbs in search of languages used by ancient civilizations.
Since Yerna had fled, the archaeology department's supervising professor had disappeared, so I had no choice but to submit my application to a professor in a related department.
“If I'd known you planned to enter that field, I would have trained you much more thoroughly. What a shame.”
“Ha, ha, ha. So it seems.”
‘Don't give me that crap. If I'd received one-on-one personal training from you, I'd have died of overwork before escaping slavery.’
I answered Professor Brammathon's terrible words only in my head.
Carmine University, under the shitty philosophy that ‘healthy knowledge dwells in a healthy body,’ forced its affiliated research students and slaves to jog and exercise every morning.
Because we had to squeeze maximum efficiency out of limited time, the schedule was even harder than the military.
The fact that professors were never forced to do it reeked of absurdity, and Professor Brammathon was the one put in charge of the physical training.
And on days when work came down, research-student slaves whose default setting was three all-nighters in a row had to work out until they met that man's standards? Fuck, was he trying to kill someone?
“The basic strength exercises I've been doing every day are enough for me.”
They called it basic strength training, but judging from my own experience with it, anything described as basic was a goddamn lie.
A full course of muscle torture that wrung my entire body dry in two hours was considered basic exercise!
If that was basic, what did advanced exercise involve—crushing iron with one's bare grip? Professor Brammathon probably could do that, too.
“Whether you have someone to guide you or not makes quite a difference. Keep that in mind, and don't skip it—repeat the exercises whenever you have time between your adventuring activities.”
“Yes, of course. Since the exercises embody Professor Brammathon's philosophy, I'm sure they'll be a great help to me in the future.”
It was the exercise that had turned me from a beanpole into an other-world macho man in three years. It was fucking brutal to practice, but even I had to admit it worked.
I never imagined that, after all the times I'd heard meathead arithmetic only in internet stories and laughed at it, I'd actually experience it myself.
Fucking nineteen is followed by twenty, not ‘one more.’ No wonder they say liberal-arts people can't count.
“Yes. You should be able to start at Iron class.”
Professor Brammathon, once again dead serious, slammed his stamp onto the field-archaeologist certificate I'd brought him.
I fought down my urge to grin from ear to ear and carefully tucked the paper away.
Done.
With this, I could live as an adventurer from then on while keeping my degree.
And I could do it while receiving a regular salary and research funding!