The Magic Academy's Physicist-Chapter 124: What Are You Doing Here, Sis? (4)

Chapter 124: What Are You Doing Here, Sis? (4)

If a person holding a knife threatened to kill you, how should you react?

At the least, a sane person would try to get away first. And if they were a proper citizen, they would immediately call the police.

“I’m sorry, sis, but I won’t be able to walk home with you today.”

Rosemary also fit into that category. As soon as the end-of-class bell rang, she quickly got up and ran out, forgetting that she was a lady. They were graceless steps.

“What’s wrong with Lady Blanton?”

“She’s probably tired from fighting with me and went for a drink.”

“I don’t think that’s it, Freyr.”

She probably went to go tell her colleagues about this.

Even with the teleportation circle, it would take a while to get to the Demon Castle. If my guess was right, then I wasn’t going to get spied on with Scope for the next few hours.

It was a perfect chance. I’d be a dumbass not to act now.

“You two head back to the dorms first. I have to talk with the teacher.”

“Alright, take care.”

“Bring me back a can of beer!”

“Freyr, you can drink in the dorms.”

“... Really?”

Freyr was carried off like a sack by Lotte. Demands to be let down echoed in the hallways.

Now all that was left was to get to the Cultural Center as quickly as possible and check two things.

One was why Miss Heerlein had called me to the basement of the Center, and the other was to see if Vermel was there.

If Vermel wasn’t there either.... well.

[What will you do?]

I’ll find him later and fuck him up.

[.......]

As I engaged in meaningless chatter with the hardcover, I arrived at the Cultural Center before I knew it.

When I stepped into the basement, the damp and musty air hit my nose. Face scrunching, I went into the meeting room.

–or I tried to.

Click.

The fuck, why was it locked?

“Is it not here?”

Not to be boasting, but the memory of a Golden-Eyed was unrivaled by any other race. So given that, it couldn’t be worse than a goldfish.

Right? It couldn’t be.

I knocked on the door in case someone had deliberately locked it from the inside. Knock knock knock.

Knock knock knock.

Knock knock.

Knock.

Bam bam bam!

- Who is it...?

“Open the door.”

- Excuse me, I’m asking who this is.

It was a voice I didn’t know. She seemed to be female, but not around my age.

I could hear the voice shaking minutely. Was I being too forceful? I didn’t think I was.

[Master, is something bothering you lately? Why are you so sensitive at times....]

“Hmm.”

When I came to my senses, I had the staff in my left hand. I was sure that I was knocking gently with my hand but I was like this before I knew it.

Was it because I had a lot of stress? Smirking, I shoved the caliper back into subspace.

“I’m Aether, a first year undergraduate. I’ve been asked by Miss Heerlein....”

Foll𝑜w current novℯls on ƒrēewebnoѵёl.cσm.

- Then please say the password.

Password?

There wasn’t anything like that.

“I didn’t hear about a password.”

- No, there definitely is one.

“... White elephant1?”

- Incorrect.

“Can I break the door open?”

Maybe they panicked at the last question because I heard noises like a retriever going wild from within. It went quiet for a moment, then someone’s else’s voice drifted through the door.

It was a familiar voice.

- Apologies. The password isn’t necessary, so can you tell me the name of three regions that you know of?

My thoughts slowed for a moment at the random question, but I soon realized what it meant and answered calmly.

Seoul, Busan, Daejeon. I listed three major cities in the country as they came to mind, then the iron door swung open like I’d cried ‘open sesame’.

I saw the face of the man who came out and took out my staff again.

“Ah, wait a sec.......”

So that’s where you were.

**Lately, I was getting the feeling that I had developed anger management issues.

It wasn’t that I was being angry outright, but before I even realized, I was bashing someone over the head with my staff.

“Wait! I can explain everything so put that thing away!”

The staff I swung without thinking went straight for the top of Vermel’s head. Vermel blocked my staff with his World Tree-looking staff. The way he was struggling looked pitiful.

“This fucking game...!”

Oh yeah, that’s right. He did say that this game wasn’t your average difficulty.

Feeling guilty, I scratched my head and loosened my grip on the staff. Vermel was heaving like he’d climbed Mount Seorak.

“Sure, do explain why you dropped out of school and are squirreling away in here.”

The two of us sat in the inner section of the basement. A few ‘coworkers’ who’d seen my shenanigans were wary, but Vermel was able to put them at ease. I pulled out a handkerchief from my pocket and handed it to the guy breaking out in cold sweat.

Wiping his perspiring face, Vermel began to explain.

No, there didn’t even need to be an explanation, because everything made sense with a single sentence.

“Rosemary tried to kill me over the break.”

“... What did you do?”

“I stopped Miss Heerlein from going to the north more than ten times, okay? So then she invited me to the palace.”

Wow, that was a bit scary.

“She held a banquet there....”

“And?”

“She poisoned my food.”

“What poison.”

“... Beryllium.”

“Ha, seriously.”

I let out a chuckle in disbelief. She had basically given chocolate to a puppy.

“And do you know what else?”

My fellow Korean continued to tell the whole story. As I listened and inwardly counted, there were five assassination attempts at the palace alone.

They were methods that showed how they tried to make it a natural or accidental death somehow. I wondered if it really was the same Rosemary who’d followed me around saying ‘sis’.

“She might seem like a cute kid to her own kind, but to humans or elves, she’s just a monster. She’s the commander who ruined three nations in an instant and massacred the dwarves....”

To summarize Vermel’s story:

1. If he hadn’t withdrawn, he would’ve instantly died at Rosemary’s hands.

Yet he couldn’t leave Tilette right away because of me.

“I’m really sorry that I couldn’t tell you ahead of time. I’ll make sure to do so next time so.... Please stay here.”

Well, this wasn’t a situation I could be angry about.

Even if I was betrayed, I’d just feel a little peeved. But for Vermel, the moment he was backstabbed he’d be tap dancing in front of the Goddess2.

This difference may have been why I had been taking it easy. Maybe I was angry at him because I was the only one who was complacent.

Although I was in a Golden-Eyed’s body, I never strayed from a human mindset. So I needed to think as much like a human as possible–to stop the world from ending, and to not leave anyone here with grudges.

To get back to my world.

“Today’s meeting will be led by Duke Argana. We have about thirty minutes until then.”

There was no time to waste. We talked about what we couldn’t finish because of Angelica.

The first thing I had to talk about was Akasha, obviously. And about how she’d reflected in that mirror that Rosemary had made me stand in front of. She was ominous in many ways.

However.

“Akasha? I don’t remember there being someone like that.”

“What?”

At the unexpected response, my throat caught like I’d eaten a potato3.

“You said you saw her during the break?”

“Yeah.”

“Then it may be a dummy data made by the Goddess because you were supposed to have left here by that point.”

“.......”

So it happened because I didn’t drop out?

“Fucking game, seriously.”

“I told you.”

Was it a copy bug or what?

After that, thirty minutes flew by as we came up with and modified some plans. And out of those, the most useful thing we talked about was the mirror that Rosemary left.

“That’s the ‘Inner Mirror’.”

“Inner Mirror?”

“To put it simply, it’s a mirror that lets you talk with yourself.... I don’t know how the original owner inside of you is doing, but it’s best not to go near it carelessly.”

After saying that, Vermel sighed in relief, and an awkward silence settled over us at the same time.

Vermel stared into space with urgent eyes, then let out an even heavier sigh.

“It’s still okay.”

I didn’t know exactly what he was saying, but I could take a guess.

It seemed that as soon as my blood pressure exceeded 180 mm Hg, the world would end even against my will.

“Is everyone gathered? Then let us begin.”

Just then, people dressed elegantly in formal wear came into the basement. There were a few faces that I recognized.

The very first to enter was the leader of the conspiracy, Duke Argana. He was the father of Shadiel Argana who was the head of the Student Council’s disciplinary committee.

Then followed Chairman Robespierre, Miss Heerlein, and others. One of them pointed at me and Vermel.

“Who are they?”

“You saw them last time and you’ve already forgotten? They’re Aether and Vermel Horde.”

“Hmm.”

A man with a beard like urchin spines came this way, then looked each of us over.

“The elf I remember because I saw him the other day. Who’s this girl?”

“Do you not know the Golden-Eyed girl?”

“I do. I’m asking what she’s doing here.”

[What is this person? What an ass.]

He’s a type I’d see often in the lab. There was a way to deal with someone like this. If you kept your head down and your mouth shut, they left you alone.

And if you did this, there would even be people coming to your defense.

“What do you mean? Do you not know that she is the one who developed Flare? She will play a technically important role in this conspiracy.”

“Flare? Ah, that’s right. Then is it this girl who stole Hasfeldt’s efforts?”

“... What do you mean?”

“Why are you all feigning ignorance? I heard that there was a bitch who stole the Hasfeldt family’s research in a day!”

Should I smack him?

... was what I was thinking when Vermel tugged at me.

‘You can’t kill him right now.’

What the hell was this guy saying now.

I mean, to be honest, I did think about smacking him, but I wasn’t going to beat him into a bloody pulp. Sure I might’ve been backstabbed a lot by the secular world but I wasn’t that mean. I knew how to distinguish between business and personal!

But my lips twisted at the whisper that followed.

‘He’s Rosemary’s minion. He’s grating you on purpose so don’t mess with him.’

Oho.

Footnotes

1. Raw is 계륵 which means chicken ribs. It's nothing substantial/useful but as it's still meat, it's hard to give it away to anyone else2. Just some way of saying he would be dead, I suppose3. In Korea, the expression 'like I ate potatoes/sweet potatoes' is a common metaphor  for feeling frustrated (or in this case, throat caught) because of the way they suck up moisture and make you feel stuffed therefore adding a kind of pressure