The Magic Academy's Physicist-Chapter 15: Passed Like A Dog (1)

Two days after the admissions test.

While I was thinking about the general theory of ‘Flare’, it passed midnight. I felt nauseous at the thought of having to see Professor Hasfeldt’s face again tomorrow.

I shut the door to the lab and hurried to the shed. The outside was pitch black but it didn’t seem that dark because of the stardust that littered the sky.

Sometimes when I walked while looking up at the sky, it brought back old memories.

When we were young, my older sister (noona) would tell me the names of stars in the heavens as she recited, ‘Since I’m going to Mars–’. I had asked her if she wanted to become an astronaut but that wasn’t it; she just wanted to change the world.

I still didn’t understand her eccentric thought process. Still, there was no doubt that my sister had been the one to show me the path of science.

When I lowered my head, the memories melted away and reality took their place. Before me, my sweet home was awaiting its wretched owner.

I pulled the handle of the shed and went inside.

After taking out the crumpled admission ticket from my hip sack and tossing it onto the paulownia wood desk, I laid down on the straw. A magic paper with an incomplete Flare was in my hand.

[(Incomplete) Ultimate Fire Magic ─ Flare]

It wasn’t a magic that had been constructed yet based on the short script in the hardcover that had been with me since I fell into this world. Hence, I needed to independently research from this point on.

“I can’t do this.”

There was a huge wall between copying a scroll that someone had already made and fabricating one for a new magic.

The former only involved memorization and technical skills, whereas the latter required comprehensive thinking and creativity, as well as intuition built from studying other things to even attempt it.

No matter how much experience I had gained from having gone through Spartan working conditions under Hasfeldt, this was a problem that could only be solved by racking my brain. It wasn’t like the transistor where I had prior knowledge so this could take longer.

[Here lies the path to the Fourth State and the Fifth State of the Sun.]

This was all that was written in the book. I needed to get a clue from here.

The keywords here were ‘Sun’ and ‘the Fourth State’.

Contextually, the Fourth State seemed to be pointing to plasma. Considering the relation to a star, I wondered if Flare was a magic related to nuclear fusion.

“No, that might be going too far....”

If I looked at the refrain, there could be something more after it. I needed to explore the possibilities from as many angles as possible.

If Flare was a nuclear reaction based magic, then my research on this world’s version of the Eightfold Way that I had done for the exams might be helpful.

Huh. Then if I dig deeper into the Eightfold Way, maybe I can research Flare?

It was more than worth trying. If I approach it from this angle, then I could show her my research on the Eightfold Way when Hasfeldt asked about the progress and get away with it.......

Knock knock knock.

“I’m coming in.”

Holy shit. Speak of the devil.

My heart started to palpitate from Hasfeldt’s unexpected appearance.

The way she just barged in at early hours was exactly like my old faculty advisor. The shitty part.

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In cases like this, one needed to stay calm. Then the next step was to respond to the target in the most composed voice possible and persuade them to go on their way. I forced my dry lips apart.

“You’re back? Was everything okay.......”

“Flare.”

“Sorry?”

“The assignment I gave you three months ago to complete. How much progress have you made?”

I couldn’t lie to this person so I told the truth.

“I haven’t finished it yet.”

“You’ve been declining lately. No matter. Show me what you have done so far.”

I pulled out the dummy scroll I made and handed it to her.

If I could quantify the amount of effort put into this scroll, it’d be about two day’s worth since the research had actually started right after the exams.

This one was no more than applying the Eightfold Way to the basic circuit that Hasfeldt had already constructed.

Professor Hasfeldt hummed thoughtfully as she looked at it this way and that.

I can’t believe it’s working.

The way Hasfeldt leisurely circled around the shed while lost in thought was a sight to behold.

It wasn’t to say that I was blinded by her beauty. I was simply baffled by a Duchess personally gracing this humble abode at this hour and doing something like this.

“It isn’t bad but it’s worse than usual. Have you been researching this properly?”

“Of course.”

For about forty hours.

Seeing her ruminate over the phony scroll, it seemed that I would get away with it today.

That was when Hasfeldt suddenly stopped in front of my desk while she was pacing.

“What’s this?”

She straightened out a crumpled paper that was on the desk and swayed it back and forth.

Wait. Wait a sec.

What had I left on my desk?

“An admission ticket.”

“Ah.”

I’m fucked.

“You took the admissions test behind my back?”

A voice like lightning struck my ears. When I nodded without a word, Professor Hasfeldt made a complex face.

One could read many things from a face but it was hard to parse every emotion when they blended together. While Hasfeldt seemed afraid in some ways, she also explicitly showed her disdain.

I could guess where the whirlpool of emotions was coming from.

Her quietly burning eyes turned towards me.

“You applied for the Academy without consulting me. Have you forgotten your status?”

Her words made something boil within my chest.

Be patient. This wasn’t the time. I could decide on whether to teabag1 in victory or not after the exam results.

“Who paid the application fee? Surely you weren’t putting aside the money I gave you for food?”

“... I did. It was with the money you gave me.”

“.......”

Professor Hasfeldt was struck speechless by my response.

I was completely lying about using food money for the application fee. It had actually been paid with the money that Professor Heerlein provided.

But I made that judgment so as to not trouble my teacher who was trying to rescue me from this pit. And as a person-to-person, I didn’t wish to ruin their relationship either since Hasfeldt and Professor Heerlein had been friends for a long time.

This was the last consideration I was willing to give. Any more than that, I wouldn’t.

“Do you not recall the conversation we had when I purchased you before you were sold to a lecher? That I’d keep you from becoming a plaything so you should make yourself worth a thousand gold.”

Alright, I see how it is.

You’re still saying things like that, and won’t say what should be said.

If she wasn’t going to say it, then I will.

“Professor.”

“Yes?”

“It’s already been three months.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s been three months since you’ve hid the fact that you’re trading me off to the palace.”

“......!”

Professor Hasfeldt’s eyes narrowed at my words. She was desperately trying to hide it but being human, she couldn’t completely conceal that she was shaken.

“You’ve been hounding me to research Flare so why did you also decide to hand me over to the palace? It should’ve been one or the other.”

“H-how did you know?”

“I saw the letter on your desk. The Second Prince born of the legitimate wife is an absolute miscreant, I hear. You were secretly trying to sell me off to such a person yet what’s this? You do something like that and then, what, you tell me that you’ll keep me from becoming someone’s plaything so I should make it worth your money?”

I couldn’t let go of the resentment in my heart that easily. How many people in modern society have had to keep quiet about poor, unjust treatment because they were the underdogs? That was the worldly ways of the weak.

I, too, had behaved that way in most situations and that mindset didn’t change even after coming to this world.

— Just quit if it’s too much. You only get one life so you should live it freely.

If it had been my sister, she might have thrown her resignation letter at Hasfeldt’s face and filmed this world’s version of The Slave Hunters2.

And I shared that blood. Professor Hasfeldt raised her voice at my unrestrained remark.

“How dare you call the Prince a miscreant, that’s blasphemy!”

“That went too far, I admit. It’s unfair to judge someone based on rumors without even meeting them. But in that sense, you’re the worst of them all, Professor. Slave or not, you don’t know the basics of human relationships.”

Hasfeldt clenched her teeth with a grit. Hysteria gauge was at ninety percent; she was going to erupt.

I knew I’d really be in deep trouble if I went any further than this but whatever I did from this point on didn’t change the fact that the situation was irrevocable.

Then I should say what I needed to.

Feeling like Caesar crossing the Rubicon3, I stared right into Hasfeldt’s eyes.

“I’ve put up with most everything. Those deadlines you told me to meet, the mana stones you told me to collect from the Beasts in the mountains, I did them all without complaint.”

I thought of those things as beneficial in some way even though they had been hard work. Thanks to laboring under Hasfeldt, I had learned the gist of Fire Magic within a short time as well as scroll fabrication and alchemy. It had been somewhat doable since I thought of this as my second run through graduate school.

“But don’t you think it’s inhumane to pull something like this without warning?”

There had been professors like this even in my original world.

Such as the bastard who gave an assignment to finish for the next day, or the asshole who ignored all emails and told us our finals schedule the day of the test through the TA.

They were the type of people that I couldn’t stand and Professor Hasfeldt had become such a person within these past few months.

I had absolutely zero patience left for this kind of bullshit.

I snapped at her.

“If you hadn’t made the stupid decision to sell me off to the Imperials, I wouldn’t have applied for the admissions test.”

“S-stupid? Did you just call me stupid?”

Hasfeldt’s expression was one of immense shock. It’d be quite the blow hearing such criticism from her assistant who had done everything that was asked without complaint for the past three years.

It was obvious even to a third party that Hasfeldt’s mind ceased functioning. She pursed her lips a few times before letting out raw words that were barely refined.

“Do you even know how the Empire withstood the Beasts’ attacks all these years? It’s the well-being of the Imperials that keeps the Empire alive so don’t make judgments based on fragments. And your opinion in the trading of a slave isn’t import.... No, that’s enough of that. Anyway, did you neglect your research on Flare because of the exams?”

Glowering at Hasfeldt, I answered.

“Yes.”

I did it.

Hey sis, I’ll be going on ahead. Remember, it’s two fried chickens and a Bavarian beer from Germany for my grave, okay?

Since it already came to this, I was going to say what I want before I die.

“So you should have decided on one or the other if you wanted to work me like a dog, Imperials be damned. You know how taxing it is to research magic. You’re in a position to know better than anyone the challenges of R&D, yet you buy me under the false assumption that ‘all Golden-Eyed are subservient’ and now you tell me to ‘complete an Ultimate Magic within a few days before going off to be the Prince’s servant’? Even a stupid dog born with loyalty coded into their DNA wouldn’t follow a shitty master like this─!!”

I didn’t know what words came out of my mouth. It must have been mixed with a few expletives judging from the way Hasfeldt yanked on my wrist after not saying anything for a while.

“Follow me.”

Her voice had become utterly dark. Did a rain cloud have to sit in your throat for it to be that deep?

Like a bull going to the slaughter, I was helplessly dragged off by Hasfeldt.

We weren’t heading to her personal lab nor the back mountains of the Academy where I thought would be my grave.

Hasfeldt took me to her private residence. Once she locked the door of the mansion, she spoke in a chilling tone.

“Wait here and don’t even think about running away.”

Even if she said that, I had nowhere to run. The emotion called ‘fear’ crept up my spine.

I could hear the compression and release of sprucewood stairs from the second floor banister. And there was also the chord of something jangling digging into my ears.

The latter especially was a familiar sound that I instinctively recognized.

“If you don’t wish to wreck your life any further, put this on obediently.”

Professor Hasfeldt held a metal collar in her hand.

1. Originates from a sexual act but used in online games to taunt the opponent after they've died2. A K-drama about runaway slaves and those who hunt them (obviously)3. A metaphor for making an irrevocable decision; Julius Caesar crossed this river and started a civil war in Rome