Chapter 38
13:05
A faceless teacher appeared in the classroom.
Max had broken the teacher's rule, and as punishment one of his arms was fractured.
"……."
Max was breaking out in a cold sweat.
The pain was awful.
The situation was awful too.
But.
He couldn't scream or even cry out.
He recalled Yuben's strategy guide.
If you follow the rules, you won't be harmed.
If you follow the rules, you can keep moving forward.
Thinking back to the time in Maharaubara,
back then there were no rules or anything.
They had just been forced to take it one-sidedly.
At least this dungeon gives him room to breathe, doesn't it?
Doesn't it keep insisting that there is a way to survive?
He shouldn't stop thinking.
He had to figure out the rules somehow and get through this safely.
"Huuu, hooou, huuu……."
Luka, sitting beside him, did not look well.
Was she scared? She seemed quite shaken.
Understandable.
Her arm had broken the moment they reached Area 2.
Even Max never wanted to experience the pain of a broken bone again.
Having already known that pain, she must have found that presence even more terrifying.
The one good thing was.
-Max. Since the communication spell is still working, I'll consider you alive for now. If you can't speak right now, please cough once. If even that isn't possible, press your uvula once.
That perceptive Denrid had kept talking to him the whole time.
"There are a lot of absentees today. Are Max and Luka the only ones here…."
Fortunately, the teacher seemed unaware of the existence of communication magic.
Max pressed firmly on his uvula.
-From now on, YES means press your uvula. Don't press it for NO. I'll give you 10 seconds to answer… If you agree, press your uvula once. Agreement confirmed.
-Is the minion that appeared in the classroom a student? No? Then is it a professor? Correct.
Of course.
It was questionable whether he could derive any meaningful result without being able to communicate properly with Denrid, though.
-I think there's a high chance you're in class, but is that correct? Confirmed. It's hard to judge your situation with just YES or NO, but if I can somehow figure things out from Max's voice and help you, I will. Stay calm at all times.
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13:20
The teacher wrote something on the blackboard.
【■◈＠◆□◎●】
Unfortunately, he couldn't read it.
The teacher's writing looked like a kind of doodle.
Even more so.
"This problem is, you know, the male killer has one huge meat cleaver, and the length of the big knife 'allometrically grows' with the width of the dead victim. Got it? To estimate the length of a large victim from the width of the meat cleaver, I measured cleavers of various sizes and the lengths of large skulls to secure multiple order statistics. Then, if you analyze it by placing the values corresponding to the widths of the flesh pieces and the lengths of the large bones on the x- and y-axes of the graph, in the same way as the asdfjlkasdjfoia graph……."
What on earth is he even saying?
It feels like watching an unrealistic scene you would only ever see in a dream.
Listening to that voice makes his mind go blank.
And Luka was the same.
"Huuu, hooou, huuu……."
Luka's face went deathly pale.
Her breathing had been irregular for a while now.
Anxiety had caused her to hyperventilate.
She kept trying to take deep breaths.
But there was no way she would calm down properly.
'The only thing I can do right now is…. '
To avoid getting warned,
she had to pretend to listen to class diligently, like a model student.
That was all he could do.
"Luka?"
Luka's body flinched.
With her breathing unsteady, she brought her trembling hands together on her knees and managed a slight nod.
"Answer the teacher's questions."
"Y-yes, te, teacher, huu……."
"About the problem the teacher just explained, why don't you stand up, Luka, and tell me the answer?"
"The, the answer?"
Luka froze in place.
'The answer?'
After that bizarre nonsense the bastard had just spewed,
there couldn't possibly be an answer.
Luka stays motionless.
She had no choice but to stay still.
Her mind seemed to have gone completely blank.
What was she supposed to say in this situation?
What could she do so her bones wouldn't break?
Max didn't know that either.
"Could it be that Luka wasn't paying attention to the teacher's class?"
At the very least, Luka's 'doing nothing' didn't seem to be the right answer.
"이개씨발좆같은년이앞에서열심히설명을해도알아처듣지를않네아아아아아아아아아아아아아아아아아아아아아아아아아아아아아아아아아아아아아아아아아아아아아아아아아악!!"
Crack!
Luka's already broken arm broke once more.
"꺄아아아아아아아아아아아아아아아아아아아아아아아아아아아아아아아아악!!"
"내가얼마나우스우면그럴까내수업이그렇게재미가없나나는너희들을위해항상열심히노력하는선생님인데너희가그러면씨발진짜나보고어쩌라는건데에에에에에에에에에에에에아아아아악!!"
Screams and shrieks mingled together.
Luka, driven half-mad by the terrible pain, rolled around on the floor.
The dust stuck to the floor clung to her body, but she didn't care.
"That's a warning."
"Aaaahhhaaaahhaaa……."
"If you don't sit down right now, that's another warning. 10, 9, 8, 7…."
Luka, who had been crying and spouting incomprehensible babble,
finally pulled herself together and barely sat in her chair.
Max couldn't bear to watch this cruel scene with his eyes open.
"I'll start the class again. This time, please focus on my voice."
The teacher's incomprehensible questioning continued after that.
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13:40
『♪─♪─♪』
『Ding—dong—dang─♪dong—ding—♪』
『Ding—dong—dang… dang… dang….』
The teacher disappeared after saying they'd see each other again next time.
Max received 1 warning.
Luka received 3 warnings.
Luka's right arm was now twisted and swollen so grotesquely that it didn't seem like it could ever return to its original shape.
It was grotesquely bent and swollen.
Luka slumped weakly from the chair to the floor.
Max checked Luka's condition.
Fortunately, Luka was conscious.
"Aaaahhh, it huuuurts……."
"Luka."
Her mental state looked completely shattered as well.
Max let out a sigh.
-Max, are you alive!?
"Yeah."
-I'm sorry. There's not much I can do to help…
"Shall we gather for a bit, rest, and discuss what just happened? Judging from when he appeared, it doesn't seem like the teacher will show up again right away."
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14:40
4th-floor classroom.
The group had safely regrouped.
"Ugh, my arm……. We need to hurry and get a healing potion."
"Uuugh……."
While Denrid checked Luka's condition, Jack and Max discussed the teacher.
"He's the same as the bitch who confiscated our stuff back then. Only he's wearing a suit, he's taller, and, uh, what do you call it when someone's mood swings all over the place?"
"Mania?"
"Yeah. He was pretty emotionally volatile, like someone with mania. Of course, I don't know if 'emotional swings' really fits a teacher who doesn't even look human, though."
Jack crossed his arms.
"If you make a racket, he'll break some part of your body and issue a warning, and the same if you can't answer a question during class?"
"Yeah. The class itself was totally impossible to understand. It didn't feel like he was teaching some subject or anything; it was just him going on and on with utter bullshit……."
"Hmm."
Jack looked at Max with skeptical eyes.
What was with that look?
"No matter how little education I have, I can tell whether this is normal teaching or not."
"Sorry for the misunderstanding. Is your arm okay?"
"Don't worry about pointless things. We need to figure out that teacher's rules first. Got any ideas?"
Rules.
To put it in a word more fitting for a dungeon expert: a walkthrough.
"Hmm… bring in the Archmage?"
"Why?"
"…If they're that smart, wouldn't they be able to figure something out on their own?"
"Knowledge and wisdom are different. And that's not a method we can use in this situation."
"I really don't know. For now, don't talk in class. Focus on the lesson. Sit in your seat? If the warning stacks build up enough, do you die?"
Denrid quietly said this to Jack and Max.
"When you meet him again next time and he asks another question, just say anything."
"Huh?"
"That teacher went ahead and asked a question with an answer that can't even be worked out, right? Which means if you think about it the other way around, saying the answer to the problem isn't the correct answer. Let's think about every possibility of what you can do to the teacher during class. They say even a wrong answer is still a kind of answer."
That made sense.
Max was impressed, stroking his chin.
"Are you a genius?"
"I'm a mage for a reason."
"Thank you for the compliment. But this is bad. I'm already starting to get thirsty…."
"Once we get a mana stone, I'll buy you an ice-cold beer. Just hang in there."
"Hey, Max. Buy me wine, not beer."
"Do you think I have your money?"
"In the slums, other people's money is my money."
"Unbelievable."
The mood was still normal, at least for now.
But.
Luka hadn't uttered a single word besides groans since earlier.
Neither water nor food was certain for now.
They couldn't afford to drag this out any longer.
'We have to get to the faculty office somehow.'
It wasn't just Max.
Everyone must have been thinking the same thing.
***
Psych Ward Chief Patient : Living as a cripple vs. dying
ㄴShoutingYeah : I'd prefer the former, but for someone who makes a living through physical labor, the latter might be better.
ㄴShoutingYeah : So what now for that guy... he can't go monster hunting anymore...
ㄴPsych Ward Chief Patient : He chose the dungeon himself, so he has to endure it with sheer grit. High risk, high reward, yeah.
ㄴPsych Ward Chief Patient : The dungeon master doesn't go easy on people based on who they are. Once you've come in, you're just another intruder.
Anonymous Butcher : The key question is how the intruders treat the injured...
Anonymous Butcher : If they do care, exploration speed will slow down even more, and the advantage will shift to the newbie.
ㄴSkeleton Bones : But right now there's neither water nor food, so I don't know... wouldn't they just leave him alone?
ㄴSkeleton Bones : Looking at it this way, honestly, I think keeping him alive would be more efficient from the dungeon master's perspective lol.
ㄴSkeleton Bones : Looks like his mentality's shattered too, which means the chance he'll cause trouble goes up, yeah.
I lay on Mallangi and stared at the monitor.
They're coordinating better than I expected, huh?
In my dungeon, these guys feel like they're practically the first ones.
Orange★ : You're not thinking anything weird, are you?
ㄴNewbie: : Of course not, haha;;
Well, that's how it went.
Unfortunately.
Since those guys are intruders who came to steal my life with malicious intent.
Because it's the dungeon master's duty to lead them straight to hell with full force.