Chapter 122
『Translator: RainTL』
༺ The Good, the Crazy and the Bizarre (5) ༻
After swallowing the Sun, I gained the Extreme Yang Constitution and the blessing of the sun. Because of the overflowing abundance of Yang energy, I became excessively healthy.
“Fuu~”
That in turn meant that my body was an elixir and a cure for those with a constitution that was on the opposite side of the spectrum to mine.
- Zzzzzz…
Proving that was the living jiangshi with the Extreme Yin Constitution. Even though the Hua Ran sisters had always been very unhesitant and daring when it came to physical contact, it was becoming increasingly worse.
Before, it was mainly just Ran that was actively teasing and rubbing her body on mine but these days, Hua was also doing the same.
It had already been a week since Hua Ran had been sleeping on my bed every night.
“Wake up, buddy.”
I tickled her chin to wake her up, to which she responded by growling like a cat. Fortunately, she wasn’t the type to go into a deep sleep so soon, she slowly opened her eyes.
“...”
“You woke up.”
“Move.”
She was very mean. Even though she always cuddled close at night and rubbed her cheeks on my body, whenever I touched her she—
- Bam!
“Uahkk…!”
Hua Ran suddenly threw a punch to my chest and it was immensely painful.
“...”
She, with her unkempt hair behind her, glared at me with a cold gaze in her eyes.
“What was that for?”
“...You touched me.”
“It was just a light touch on your chin…”
“In your sleep.”
“Huh?”
I felt my hair stand on end. What did I do in my sleep? The only thing I remembered touching was her hair, which I touched for only a bit while she was using my arm as a pillow!
“For real?”
- Nod.
“W, where?”
“...Not telling you.”
“Huh? No, you need to tell me what I did at the very least!”
“I… never told you before but… you have a bad sleeping habit.”
“It’s my first time hearing that! This is defamation!”
Dear god. Where the hell did I touch??
****
After the morning quarrel with Hua Ran, I took a quick shower and headed down the corridor of the 2nd floor.
On the other side of the corridor were the rooms for the princesses but I couldn’t feel any presence from those rooms. Judging from that, I assumed that they had woken up already.
Estelle the Saintess probably went to the campus chapel for a morning prayer and Miru would have gone to her laboratory. I didn’t see her last night, so she might have spent the whole night there.
In any case, I was walking down the corridor in the opposite direction, at the last room that was occupied by the siblings Ren and Ron.
- Knock knock!
………
………
I knocked on the door but the room was still quiet.
“Still sleeping, huh.”
- Ca-lank!
“I’m coming in.”
What I saw immediately after entering the room were the siblings sleeping on their beds. Their honey-blonde-colored hair was shining brightly like gold from the sunlight seeping in through the curtains.
“Oi, twins. It’s time to wake up.”
- Grhh…
They didn’t seem to wake up so I shook them by their shoulders but what I heard in response was the same old repertoire of comments.
“Hmm nya… oraboni. Five more minutes…”
“Bro… Just… three more minutes for mee…”
“Haah, you morons. It’s this late in the morning and you’re still sleeping? Get up right now.”
“Hiiingg…”
I could understand why they were so exhausted. These days, they were more enthusiastic than ever and were probably dead tired from the intense training last night. I wasn’t sure whether the growing phase of beastmen worked the same way as that of humans, but all in all, it was normal for kids to have some type of backlash the next morning after a late sleep.
However, they had to wake up early today, because the freshmen students had Alchemy for their first session.
I couldn’t let them be just because they lacked the will to wake up.
“I will give you a choice. Who wants to wash first?”
“.........Ron.”
“Reeen… You go first.”
The two of them urged the other to go first. In times like this, they weren’t considerate of each other despite being very close siblings.
“You gooo…”
“I’m sleepy…”
“Okay. Yesterday it was Ron first, so today, it’s your turn to go first Ren.”
‘Hiiing,’ she complained but I immediately lifted her up into the air and carried her all the way to the basin.
“Hurry up. Let’s brush brush.”
“Ughh… Oraboniii. I hate bamboo salt…”
“No. We are not using the strawberry toothpaste. You swallow it every time.”
“Eeeek…”
“If you really don't like bamboo salt, we can use mint inste…”
“No.”
Ren immediately cut me off. But like… what’s wrong with mint? I couldn’t understand.
In any case, I squeezed the bamboo salt-flavored toothpaste onto the toothbrush and brought it to her lips. Ren, who couldn’t even open her eyes, slowly opened her mouth.
“Say ‘Ahh–’”
“Ahhh….”
I handed the toothbrush over to her hands, wrapped my hand over her’s and moved it with her to help brush her teeth. It would be great if this became a habit for her, but because of all the time she spent as an orphan in the slums, it was hard to get her into the habit of brushing her teeth.
How good would it be if she finally grew up both mentally and physically…?
‘Wait, maybe that’s not that good.’
The original Ren and Ron were like disciples of Dun Scaith, the King’s Subject, and served as mid-bosses of the game. There, Ren was an incredibly busty lady with a super-dynamic body line while Ron was a bulky and muscular man.
Thinking of what they would turn out to be like in the future made me a bit sad.
Was this the mind of a parent? Hoping for their kids to stay cute all the time without growing up…?
Looking back, I also remembered my mom telling me off all the time after I became an adult, saying, ‘Ehew, look at you now! You’re as big as a mountain and not cute at all!’
“Now now now. When you’re done brushing, you need to rinse your mouth. Don’t forget to spit it out on the basin, and here’s your cup.”
“Uunn…”
Ren slurped the water from the cup. Soon, she gargled her mouth more and more as her eyes turned bigger and bigger.
“Ptui…”
“Good job. Let’s wash your face now.”
Wetting my hand with water, I wiped her face including her eyes. After that, she shook her head left and right to get the water off like a puppy drenched in water.
“I can… do the rest by myself, boss.”
“Alright. You can finish up. I’ll go wake Ron up.”
“......Okay.”
The morning was the same as always.
****
I was invited to the chairman’s office for lunch. It was in the middle of the meal when the chairman opened ‘his’ mouth.
“Mages from the Tower of Mages have visited our Academy.”
Hearing the words of Chairman Eriu, or rather, my master, I replied with a grin.
“Ah~. Those chauvinists of the Tower, huh. So they finally started moving their heavy bums.”
Lady Josephine lifted her glasses and raised a question in response.
“Is there something you know about the Tower, Student Korin?”
“Well, I do know a few more than others.”
The two of them knew of me as Tates Valtazar’s disciple, and I was using that to my advantage to explain the things I knew about the future by framing them as a part of Valtazar’s plan.
“And what do they claim it’s for?”
“To use the research materials of Merkarva Great Library and a career survey of the students of the Magic Department.”
One might question if those were enough to justify the movement of the Tower of Mages, but the two mentioned topics were actually more important than one might imagine.
“And which research materials specifically are they after?”
“Apparently they are looking for old grimoires and magic books.”
Merkarva Great Library had the greatest number of books worldwide, including sealed taboo books and unknown grimoires.
Those were the books that Master Erin gathered by traveling all across the world for over a thousand years. She was also in possession of books from time immemorial including the ones about the history before the intrusion of Goidels, as well as traces of the Sky Titans which preceded the era of Danaans, so it was easy to see just how valuable the Great Library was.
The second reason for their visit - the career survey of students was also an important topic for the Tower of Mages.
“It seems that they are still lacking new recruits.”
The Tower used to be the one in charge of educating and nurturing mages. To be exact, it was more accurate to say that they had been monopolizing it.
Before the appearance of guardian academies and the Alliance, the Tower of Mages used to be the only one that had the right to teach magic.
Being the one and only education facility for mages across the entire continent, it was natural for everyone with innate talent to flock to the Tower.
The monopoly of magic consequently led to severe harmful consequences.
It resulted in an unfair treatment of mages; old mages exploited the young and low-grade mages weren’t even allowed the chance to learn due to the prevalent elitist mindset of the Tower.
However, ever since the appearance of academies, the Tower started to lose its peerless and unrivaled fame.
The Tower of Mages was full of professors exploiting their students’ articles and their work, whereas the Academy was fair and equal to everyone.
Besides, due to academies like the Merkarva Academy having more research materials than the Tower, it became more commonplace for rising talents of magic to set their careers post-graduation to being academy professors.
Thus, the Tower of Mages and the Academy became enemies because of their conflict of interest.
“If I remember correctly, wasn’t there also a war against the Academy 80 years ago? I read the story of you, Lady… I mean, Professor Josephine, from a textbook.”
“Kuhum… It’s an old story. And besides, I wasn’t the only one there.”
Josephine replied while glancing at the chairman. Lady Josephine was the living proof of history as well, but even she fell short when compared to my master, who was like history itself.
“Tates Valtazar… and I were also there.”
Witch Hunt of the Old Faith.
My master opposed them, which resulted in the Tower of Mages, who hated the Academy and viewed demi-humans as test subjects, to join the war on the side of the Old Faith.
Master, plus Lady Josephine who used to be a young witch back then, and Tates Valtazar.
The three of them fought together and crushed the Templar Knights of the Old Faith and the Tower of Mages. That was the historical event, which was often referred to as the war or revolution of witches.
“In any case, they will be visiting very shortly. Student Korin, could you explain why you had been wanting us to keep a close eye on the Old Faith and the Tower of Mages?”
“It’s very straightforward, Professor. Both the Old Faith and the Tower of Mages have connections with Valtazar.”
“Does that mean… the 2nd Princess is also…?”
“Yes.”
Miruam Elizabeth El Rath - the 2nd Princess of the kingdom. Her biggest supporters were the Old Faith and the Tower of Mages.
Many things had changed already compared to the original storyline. What kind of role would Princess Miru play in this Tower of Mages incident?
Only time will tell.
“Chairman. Please leave the visitors from the Tower of Mages to me.”
“Do you have a plan in mind?”
“Huhuhu… I have e~verything planned out already.”
………
……
…
“I wonder what his plan is?”
“...Who knows.”
Despite giving him permission, Josephine was still skeptical about Korin.
“Whatever the case, he is Tates Valtazar’s disciple. We must keep an eye out for him.”
“I, don’t think we… need to?”
“Chairman?”
For some reason, Erin’s avatar showed a rather strange response. When Josephine turned around with questioning eyes, Chairman Eriu gave an empty cough for a change of mood.
“Let’s leave it to him, and… trust him, and his goodwill.”
“...?”
Josephine was puzzled by Eriu, who seemed to have changed slightly during the holiday.
****
There were 50 visitors from the Tower of Mages in total, but there were 3 named characters in the mix.
“Did I not tell you to bring 13-7?! Go right now and do not come back before you find it!”
“M, my apologies, Master!”
First off was the elder of the Red Magic Cult, Admelech.
He was an old boomer and the leader of those using fire magic, who had an equally fiery personality and a short temper.
“When… can we start using the laboratory?”
“It will take some time, sir. Apparently it’s because the demonic beast we requested was a semi-Unique Grade…”
“Then prepare the test subjects… that I can use until then. Do not… waste my time.”
Elder Morushtan of the Black Magic Cult.
As expected of the bigshot of black magic and necromancy, he was a gloomy wizard wearing a robe.
The last one to watch out for was Adelene of Gold, the collaborator of Tates Valtazar and one of the key characters of this incident, who was also a great mage who would later appear as a final boss along with Princess Miruam.
But unlike the two aforementioned elders, the name ‘Adelene’ was nowhere to be found on the visitor list. In the first place, Adelene was someone who covered their face with a mask so no one knew who it really was.
It was certain that Adelene was someone among those 50 mages but…
“Oi, little brat. When are you going to complete what I commanded you to do?”
Before that, I had to care for this boomer of a man, Admelech.
“Ah, it will be here shortly. Alicia went running for it so she should be back very soon.”
“How pathetically slow… If this was the Tower, you would have been expelled by now.”
“Haha… I’m sorry sir. What would you like to do for the tour? We should be able to book a spot at one of the amazing restaurants of the city, Creamcycle!”
“You carefree fool! We are researchers of the path of magic! Do you think we are here to visit restaurants? This is why the pathetic brats of the Academy are so… Tch.”
They were just here for a disguise and yet were pretending to be busy. Well, looking at them reading through a mountain of books and articles did make them seem like scholars who were actually here for research.
“Oi you! You little low-grade mage over there! Come here and write this formula down! One mistake and you bet I will squeeze your mana heart dry!”
“Ah, yes… yes sir!”
Lark, who was here to fill up his volunteer time, unfortunately became the slave of the mages of the Tower. Because of his internship at the Tower of Mages last year, he needed to leave a good impression of himself, hence his hard work.
But… unfortunately for him, the Tower of Mages was due to evaporate into nothing at the end of this scenario.
Perhaps I should recommend Lark a better place for employment.
In any case, my job was to guide the visiting mages and look after their needs. They would be at the Academy during the day, and stay the night at a hotel somewhere inside the city.
“You little knight over there. Come here and move these experimental kits.”
“Yeah. What other role will you heavy knights serve apart from physical labor like this?”
It was nothing new but the guys from the Tower of Mages were insolent and rude. A guy that looked like a Grade 3 mage was trying to move me around with a single gesture.
Did he know I was a Grade 1 Knight? He probably didn’t, because these elitist mages of the Tower weren’t interested in anything apart from their research.
“Oi, be careful! It’s a valuable treasure that worthless trash like you will never be able to afford in your life!”
“Haha…”
“It’s not funny. This is a command given personally by Lord Admelech.”
This fucker.
Do I know you? Why was he talking down on me the whole time?
The next evening.
“Uhp… uhp uhp!”
I kidnapped that mage.