episode_0021

“About two hours left. Anyone awake during that time will fight me again.”

Hearing Professor Alicia’s terrible words, I closed my eyes again.

“Loki, I know you’re awake.”

Of course, someone with Professor Alicia’s skill would know I was awake just by hearing my breathing. Even knowing that, I pretended to be unconscious.

*I’m still unconscious. So don’t touch me.*

“Oh? So you won’t get up?”

Thud thud.

Perhaps it was because my other senses were heightened from having my eyes closed, but I could vividly hear Professor Alicia’s footsteps.

*The Devil Instructor-nim wouldn’t just pass by.*

Feeling an ominous premonition, I opened my eyes and watched what Professor Alicia was doing.

Anyway, because of the mask, Professor Alicia couldn’t tell if my eyes were open or closed.

Seeing what Professor Alicia was doing, I jumped up and threw my body forward.

Bang!

“Gasp! Isn’t it dangerous to suddenly throw a desk!”

“As expected, you were awake.”

Professor Alicia had lifted a desk and thrown it at me. If I hadn’t gotten up, I would have taken the desk squarely.

“Awake? What a hurtful thing to say. My body instinctively reacted and dodged when it sensed danger.”

Since I was already up, I looked around. I wondered how much fighting had gone on while I was unconscious; the desks I had thrown to the front were now scattered all over the classroom.

Among the scattered desks, hardly any were intact. Most were shattered or split in half, and some were even burning.

“It seems it would be better to move the desks outside before fighting next time.”

Professor Alicia also looked around and, seemingly thinking the same thing as me, agreed with my words.

“Indeed.”

Professor Alicia, who was gathering the scattered desks to one side of the classroom, seemed to recall something and asked me,

“You won’t be able to throw desks next time. Will that be alright?”

“It’s fine! There are still many things in the classroom I can use!”

If there was truly nothing left to throw, I could always put broken desks into my sub-dimension and throw them later.

“That was impressive skill; where did you learn to set traps?”

“Thank you for the compliment. I didn’t learn it separately; I taught myself.”

Thanks to my characteristic, Maker’s Touch, making traps was easy as long as I had materials.

What was difficult was taking a long time to get a feel for where, when, and how to install the traps effectively.

If I hadn’t learned how to fight from Duke Adelien, it would have taken me a long time to install the traps even after making them.

I surveyed the classroom once and then asked Professor Alicia, who hadn’t shed a single drop of sweat.

“Is this classroom an artifact?”

“Yes.”

As expected. Objects like desks were shattered, but parts like the floor and walls looked fine. Even the wall, which had been caved in when Kuran was slammed into it, had returned to normal.

“Do you have any more questions?”

“No! None at all now. Shall I help you clean the classroom until the others wake up?”

“Don’t talk nonsense. Attack quickly before I come for you.”

Tsk. I tried to naturally bypass it, but it seems it won’t work.

The other students, except for me, were still unconscious. If another student had been awake, I could have at least bought time to set traps.

“I don’t really want to fight in a place with no audience, but…!”

Swish.

While speaking, I suddenly pulled out a dagger and threw it at Professor Alicia. The dagger flew in a straight line towards Professor Alicia.

Thud.

Of course, Professor Alicia easily caught the dagger. Seeing that, I raised both hands as if surrendering and said,

“If I surrender, do I not have to fight?”

“Are you truly curious and asking that?”

“Haha, of course not. But isn’t there always a ‘what if’?”

“Haa… I felt this since I first saw you, but you talk too much—.”

Professor Alicia couldn’t finish her sentence. A dagger suddenly dropped from above. She barely managed to dodge the falling dagger.

“Don’t you think that was a waste, even for you, Professor-nim?”

“Did you throw that when you raised both hands earlier?”

“Ding ding ding, correct answer! Professor-nim noticed it right away.”

I spoke leisurely, but there were no traps set, and it was obvious she would catch the dagger if I threw it myself.

*In the end, I have no choice but to fight directly.*

I lunged at Professor Alicia and swung my staff. Professor Alicia had been fighting non-stop, but she dodged my staff as if she weren’t tired at all.

Whoosh.

“Do you remember the entrance ceremony?”

“Of course, I remember!”

How could I forget the day I first met the main characters from Croaca?

Whoosh. Swish.

“I observed all of your fighting at that time.”

“My handsome face wouldn’t have been captured on the monitor screen. Professor-nim, don’t you also think I’m better looking in person?”

Swish.

“The students in the special class are the ones I personally selected after watching you fight.”

Professor Alicia didn’t answer my previous question.

Commonly, silence means affirmation, so Professor Alicia must also think I’m handsome in person.

*A face even dragons acknowledged. That’s me.*

Swish. Swish.

“I had two criteria for selecting special class students. What do you think they were?”

“…..”

I continued to swing my staff without answering.

“One was having a special ability that was difficult for others to teach, and the other was for the students who showed frustrated expressions when you, Lucas, and Clara fought the golems.”

Professor Alicia only dodged without attacking me.

“Indeed, the students who showed frustrated expressions grew much stronger within a week.”

I pushed off the ground and backed away, widening the distance between myself and Professor Alicia.

“Lucas and Clara also grew stronger, seemingly stimulated by someone.”

“…..”

“But the one who grew the strongest in that short time is you, Loki. What exactly happened during that week?”

What happened, you ask? I kept fighting the Emperor. The reason I grew the strongest is probably because of the ‘Clown’s Mask’ I’m wearing.

Since I kept wearing this and fighting the Emperor, my proficiency in Shadow Step and swordsmanship must have increased a lot.

“Other students don’t seem to have noticed yet, but your weakness is simpler than you think.”

Professor Alicia’s next words pierced me like a dagger.

“Stamina. You know it best yourself.”

The reason I deliberately widened the distance from Professor Alicia, who wasn’t attacking, and the reason I didn’t answer her words, was precisely because my stamina was bottoming out.

Students who engage in close combat would have trained their stamina from a very young age. Unless you’re a mage, nothing is as important as stamina in a fight.

But I’m different. Before coming here, I was just an ordinary person, except for being incredibly handsome.

I only had six months to increase my stamina after arriving here. Although I could increase my stamina quickly with the Clown’s Mask, it was still not enough.

“Furthermore, your movements seem to consume a lot of stamina too.”

Shadow Step consumed too much stamina for the amount of movement it provided. During the entrance ceremony, all the magical beasts were weak, so stamina consumption wasn’t high. When fighting the golems, I only focused on dodging.

“Is that why you tried to fight with traps as much as possible?”

As Professor Alicia said, I couldn’t swing my staff for long anyway, so I tried to end it with traps as much as possible.

“Wow~ To notice that, as expected, academy professors are truly different.”

Thanks to my characteristic, Poker Face, my declining stamina doesn’t show externally.

Including Professor Alicia, a total of three people have noticed my lack of stamina so far.

The other two are the Emperor and Duke Adelien, and their commonality is that they all fought me for a long time.

“Still, since your weakness is stamina, it shouldn’t be difficult to overcome.”

Overcoming the stamina problem wasn’t difficult. I just had to train my stamina.

“It’s not difficult, but it will take a long time. But who am I? I also have a separate way to increase my stamina.”

The way to overcome it was the elixir I received from the Emperor. The elixir’s effects included increasing stamina.

I originally intended to drink it right away, but I didn’t due to the Emperor’s advice.

*It would be more effective to drink it after building up some stamina on your own, rather than drinking it now.*

According to the Emperor, assuming my stamina increased at the current rate, it would be best to drink it in about a month.

“Oh? A separate way to increase stamina? What is it?”

Even though I felt like I was dying from exhaustion, I brought my index finger to my lips and said,

“That’s a secret.”

No matter how hard it is, I must say that line.

Professor Alicia spoke to me, who was sitting and resting after saying a satisfying line.

“By the way, who gave you permission to rest? The only time you can rest is when you’re unconscious.”

I recalled why Professor Alicia was called the Devil Instructor-nim in Croaca.

“So, get hit and pass out.”

I woke up two hours later.