Ch.123123. Fake

“Do you have a moment?”

“Wah! Professor Erika!”

Professor Per Petra exclaims dramatically upon seeing Erika Bright enter the laboratory. She waves her prosthetic arm, which she had been fiddling with, to greet Erika.

“Hello! G-good morning!”

“Yes, it is. I’m sorry, but could I speak with Professor Deus for a moment?”

At Erika’s gentle request, Professor Per immediately rushes out, her pink hair fluttering behind her.

“How is it possible that when someone runs, you hear sloshing instead of footsteps?”

Findenai, who was brewing tea beside me, sticks out his tongue while looking at Professor Per’s formidable chest. When I glare at him in annoyance, he shrugs, takes out tobacco from his pocket, and puts it in his mouth.

“I’m going out for a smoke.”

Findenai had quit smoking but started again soon after. Even though I gave him tobacco, he deliberately doesn’t smoke it—perhaps he didn’t like it much?

“I-I’ll be going too.”

Owen, who had been helping Professor Per, also makes a fuss as he leaves. Ever since learning that Erika is my fiancée, he seems to have developed an obsession with not disturbing our time together.

“What’s the matter?”

I don’t have any lectures today, so I wasn’t particularly busy as I planned to do research with the Dark Spiritmaster using equipment I had ordered previously. But the urgency flowing from Erika’s expression envelops me.

“Aria has been absent from classes without notice.”

“…”

My brow furrows involuntarily at those words.

Aria absent?

She knows I prefer students to act like proper students, so she tries her best to remain one.

That’s the only reason she stays at the Academy where there’s nothing left for her to learn.

“I noticed something was off when she didn’t come to my class. After checking, I found she hasn’t attended any classes since your Monday lecture.”

If it were an ordinary student skipping class, I would have just let it be.

Many students skip classes, simply want to play, or oversleep.

Given the dormitory lifestyle and the system where students choose their own lectures, such incidents happen due to the high level of autonomy.

But Aria wouldn’t miss class for such trivial impulses.

“I should go check on her.”

I needed to visit the dormitory.

“I’ll come with you. Since it’s the women’s dormitory, a female professor should accompany you.”

Erika volunteered to come along as if she had been waiting for this, and we headed to the women’s dormitory together.

Despite it being 10 AM, there were still many students in the dormitory.

Since lecture times vary for each student, some schedule all their classes in the afternoon or create a day with no classes at all.

The female students weren’t particularly pleased to see me, a male professor, enter, but with Erika sticking close to me, they simply greeted us and moved on.

“You wouldn’t have made it without me, right?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

Without Erika, I would have been stopped multiple times before reaching Aria’s door, wasting quite a bit of time.

Knock knock.

“Aria? Are you in there?”

Erika asks while knocking. But with no response from inside, I glanced at the Dark Spiritmaster beside me.

The Dark Spiritmaster, utilizing his ghostly nature, poked just his head through the door.

And then.

[D-D-Deus?! I don’t know what’s happening here…]

The Dark Spiritmaster calls out dramatically. I immediately surrounded myself with mana and forced my way through the doorknob.

There was Aria, floating in the air with her legs crossed.

A posture of meditation commonly found in martial arts novels. Throughout the room, mana was violently lashing like a whip, rejecting our approach.

“W-what’s going on?”

Erika looked at me seeking answers, but I too was puzzled about what intention Aria had for behaving this way.

As the mana began to leak outside the room, I thought we should stop her, but…

Perhaps sensing our presence?

Aria deliberately began to gradually withdraw the mana back into herself, and soon after, everything calmed down as she slowly descended to the floor.

“Professor?”

Aria opens her eyes with a flash and looks at me, tilting her head. Without even glancing at Erika beside me.

“What brings you here?”

Aria’s expression suggested she genuinely didn’t know what the problem was. Since she doesn’t lie to me, it seemed she didn’t understand the issue.

“I heard you’ve been absent from classes for two days now.”

“What?!”

Aria is startled, her eyes widening as she asks Erika if it’s true. Sighing, Erika nods.

“Yes, your grades are in serious trouble now.”

Thinking it wasn’t a big deal after all, Erika speaks somewhat lightly, and Aria scratches her head while muttering to herself.

“Has it been that long? It felt like only 30 minutes passed.”

“Sigh, Aria. What exactly were you doing?”

What could she have been doing to perceive two days as just 30 minutes, and what was that mana flow lashing around just now?

An explanation was needed.

“Ah, that. I felt something strange with my body. I’ve been having frequent headaches lately, so I was trying to purify the mana inside me and some bodily waste.”

Is such a thing possible?

It really was similar to the meditation techniques from martial arts novels. I remember there was no such skill in the game, just simple resting.

“I’m sorry. I’ll go to class right away.”

Aria frantically tidies her disheveled hair and, while watching my reaction, immediately gathers her notebook and tries to leave.

In the end, it seemed like nothing serious, so Erika and I wait for Aria outside the door.

As Aria, having hastily packed her things, comes out and passes by us…

A dense killing intent stabbed toward me and Erika. In an instant, her right hand, infused with fighting spirit, aimed precisely for my neck.

BANG!

“Ugh!”

[I-I saved you!]

If the Dark Spiritmaster hadn’t pushed me using mana, I would have ended up like Erika, who was now pinned against the wall with her neck grabbed.

Aria, who had tried to subdue both me and Erika simultaneously, exhales heavily from the corner of her mouth.

As she restrains the struggling Erika, she glares at me with fighting spirit and hostility.

“Who are you?”

“What are you talking about?”

At the unexpected question, I furrowed my brow while trying to find a way to save Erika.

One wrong move and Erika’s neck could be broken by Aria’s hand.

Despite the sudden situation, I remained calm and asked calmly, knowing that panicking or agitating her would be dangerous, but…

Aria’s words were enough to confuse me.

“Where’s the professor?! How dare you disguise yourself as the professor in front of me? Do you have more than one life?”

“Calm down, Aria. I don’t understand what you’re saying, but it’s me. Deus Verdi.”

I make a blue flame burn on my palm. The flame of a spiritmaster.

I hoped this flame, which only a spiritmaster could create, would serve as proof that I am who I say I am, but…

Aria grits her teeth with a disgusted sneer.

“Seeing you’re a Black Mage, you must be Dante? Are you here for revenge? I warned you, touch the professor and I’ll kill you all.”

The heavy killing intent of the returnee spreading throughout the corridor made it dizzying just to stand.

“Get a grip. How could a Black Mage from Dante logically infiltrate the Academy?”

“How would I know? But you just did it.”

Aria’s grip tightens. The more she did so, the more Erika struggled.

Pretending to struggle, Erika positions her palm directly in front of Aria.

Golden light pours out.

Aria’s body floats up and flies away, breaking through another room’s door behind her and then shattering a window as she’s pushed outside.

Not just a simple light magic, but a restraining magic mixed with elemental spirits.

“Huff! Huff!”

Erika was gasping for breath while clutching her neck, and I patted her shoulder once to say well done before immediately chasing after Aria.

Similarly, I jump out the window and land easily with mana surrounding my body.

Despite taking Erika’s magic head-on, Aria had only momentarily blurred vision and quickly regained her senses.

“Aria, are you coming to your senses?”

At my words, Aria grits her teeth and responds with continued hostility.

“I told you to stop pretending to be the professor.”

“Sigh, I am the real Deus. The Shinwoo Kim you know.”

I don’t particularly like mentioning my original name in this body, but I needed to give Aria something to believe in.

She suddenly thought I was someone else.

“Fine, I’ll admit you look similar. I don’t know how you know the professor’s real name, but you’re definitely a fake.”

A dull shock spreads through my head. I felt like I had seen exactly the same reaction as Aria’s somewhere before.

A moment of contemplation.

My mind, to my own surprise, quickly spat out an answer.

“Could it be…”

SCREECH!

Aria’s left foot slides across the ground, widening her stance. Without a sword, she takes a stance as if planning to face me with martial arts.

“You do know that the act you’re putting on will cost you your life, right?”

“Aria.”

“Shut up. I get that you look similar, but you’re not the professor.”

“Listen to me carefully now.”

Why had she changed like this?

Though not yet certain, the symptoms were almost identical to what I knew.

This wasn’t knowledge from the game, nor common sense learned in this continent.

Knowledge from Earth.

Was it from a simple trivia book I read before?

Or something I saw on a TV program?

Or perhaps something someone told me that I’m now coincidentally remembering?

Anyway.

“I suspect you’re experiencing symptoms similar to Capgras syndrome.”

Capgras syndrome.

A condition where one believes a person close to them has been replaced by an identical-looking ‘different’ person.

They look at family members and believe they are impostors in disguise, and in severe cases, even consider their own reflection in the mirror to be someone else.

“You’re saying I’m sick?”

Looking at me with suspicious eyes, I take a deep breath and carefully continue.

“It’s okay, stay calm and take deep breaths. I’ll help you.”

For some reason not yet clear, Aria is currently suffering from Capgras syndrome.

So I tried to calm her down as much as possible, but…

“Hmph.”

Aria raises the corner of her mouth and clenches her fist tightly.

“You really do talk like the professor.”