Ch.273273 – Reversal of Perception

<273 – Reversal of Perception>

The Academy has far more instructors than students realize.

To assist professors with their classes?

If needed, teaching assistants would suffice.

Unless professors personally brought numerous instructors, they typically don’t require many.

Then is it to create jobs so upper-class students can easily earn points?

While that aspect exists, it’s not the whole reason.

Those involved know why there are so many instructors.

“If the transparent orbs containing vision magic break, your salary breaks too. Exercise extreme caution to prevent breakage.”

“Yes…”

To spread Dragon Principal’s <Vision Orbs> throughout the Academy by attaching them to body parts or floating them in surrounding spaces!

In essence, they’re mobile CCTVs.

Since the Dragon Principal, who showed interest in countless things, lost interest just as quickly, most vision orbs were monitored by Professor <Mahabharata>, the Guardian assisting the Dragon Principal and Year Head, along with a dedicated surveillance team—simply because the Principal thought it would be wasteful to discard the orbs he’d created.

“First-year Zigoku’s bullets destroyed three windows. Property damage: -15 points.”

“First-year Ishtar rescued 12 kidnapped students. Requesting calculation of per-person allocation points for the entire organization.”

“Wouldn’t 50 be enough?”

“Understood. Rescue bonus: +600 points. Leader bonus: additional +600 points for Ishtar personally.”

“Senior Magdonardo threw a junior who provoked him into a dimensional gate. Underclassman violence: -500 points. According to regulations, if he fails to return on his own within an hour, a rescue team will be dispatched to the identified coordinates, and costs will be charged.”

A real-time manual point measurement department established to witness everything from illegal dumping to property damage and campus violence, providing feedback through points!

Not only was the number of administrative staff considerable, but there were also many instructors in the field monitoring students.

“Today the seniors are relatively well-behaved, which puts me in a good mood. I still get headaches thinking about last week’s incident when some idiot opened a gate to the spirit realm instead of the demon realm while practicing dimensional transfer explosions.”

The staff who had monitored that incident trembled at Mahabharata’s words.

Witnessing a continent-flipping disaster unfold before your eyes makes you wonder why humans only have one heart—having a spare would be nice.

Compared to that, the first-years’ silkworm extermination commotion was truly small, quaint, and adorable.

“Next week, I need to convince the Principal to designate a Plant Friendship Week to appease the thoroughly angered plant spirits.”

“Professor Mahabharata, what happens if you fail to convince him?”

“Plant-type monsters would attack the Academy due to the massive supply of negative energy from plant spirits. If that’s prevented, plants across the continent would transform into plant monsters and rampage out of spite.”

“…Will the Principal cooperate?”

“Honestly, he absolutely won’t. He’d probably say something like, ‘That looks more fun, should I add fuel to the fire?'”

Mahabharata essentially safeguards the peace of the Academy, students, and the world!

While her attention was focused on devising ways to persuade the Principal, one of the instructors’ vision orbs captured a bizarre scene.

“Um, senior.”

“What? Did Oknodie successfully exterminate the silkworm queen? If she also rescued the students the hero missed in the fifth layer, about 6000 points should be right.”

“No, Oknodie is forming an alliance with the silkworm queen. Do you know how many points to award for establishing friendly relations with different species?”

“…What nonsense is that?”

A veteran controller who had been eavesdropping on Professor Mahabharata’s conversation assigned Oknodie’s video feed to his personal mana board screen.

For some reason, silkworms who normally swooped down from trees when they spotted shiny metal weapons, shouting “I’ll take this!” before grabbing them and disappearing, were now circling around Oknodie, giving three cheers.

“…What bizarre thing has this kid done now?”

* *

Rescuing the lighting equipment kidnapped by monsters.

…It would have been better if they were people.

Irene finally felt her enrollment at the Academy was worthwhile.

Her goal was to gain power from the Academy to save the harsh northern people who suffered constant demon invasions.

Though it was lighting equipment rather than people, the moment Oknodie began rescue operations, Irene saw the possibility that the North might also receive salvation from her.

“Oknodie really cares about her friends. She’s determined to advance deep into a dangerous monster habitat just for lighting equipment.”

“Of course! Titosoga without lighting equipment isn’t Titosoga!”

“What if it had been someone else’s lighting equipment, not Titosoga’s?”

“Hmm… I’d still go get it? Then I could give Titosoga a +2 lighting equipment!”

“+2…?”

“Oh, you don’t need to know about equipment being enhanced every time you collect pairs of the same item!”

So that’s possible at the Academy too.

In the North, where weapons were so scarce they used crudely carved wooden spears, such things were unheard of.

It must be a luxurious culture passed down only in the wealthy Empire.

She felt Oknodie didn’t want to share this with her, the Northern Grand Duchess.

While feeling more grateful for Oknodie’s thoughtfulness, she couldn’t help but continue her questions.

“What if Titosoga was kidnapped instead of the lighting equipment?”

“I’d rescue him!”

“What about someone completely unrelated, neither lighting equipment nor Titosoga?”

For the first time, Oknodie paused before answering and fell into contemplation.

“If there’s a quest, I’d rescue them?”

“…And if there’s no request or reward from anyone. Then what?”

“If I’m not busy, I might help out? But if they’re too annoying, I’d leave them.”

As expected, this child’s view of human life is quite ruthless.

She would definitely save a friend.

She would consider helping an acquaintance.

For unrelated people, she wouldn’t care unless they piqued her interest or she had nothing better to do.

Having learned what she wanted to know, Irene’s expression darkened.

Currently, the northern people were unrelated humans who wouldn’t interest Oknodie, and considering the attention she would receive from the Foundation and Academy professors after graduation, she wouldn’t be free either.

So far, the possibility of Oknodie joining her to save the North was virtually non-existent.

Somehow, she needed to win Oknodie’s favor, improve her perception of northerners, and find something to draw Oknodie to the harsh northern lands.

If she couldn’t find it during her studies, she would have no choice but to rely on the unreliable hero or the Grand Duke’s son from the Western Return, incurring a great debt.

‘How fortunate.’

Unlike her dire circumstances, the kidnapped students could be rescued from cocoons while crying for help, simply because Titosoga’s lighting equipment had been taken.

“Hmm. The viscosity isn’t bad. It could help develop unique skills.”

Zhang, who cut open cocoons with a dagger to extract students, showed interest in the empty cocoons.

It was clear they had excessive firepower, from Hestia who menacingly swung her hammer to drive away silkworms, to Sing who didn’t even consider drawing his sword.

Monster habitats typically have a high chance of extremely powerful boss monsters appearing, but they also had Oknodie, who was extremely powerful compared to typical first-years.

There was no reason to be tense.

“If we’ve rescued everyone… should I freeze them all?”

“No! What if the lighting equipment freezes and breaks?”

Oknodie, who valued the lighting equipment more than people, prohibited Irene from deploying wide-area magic.

Fortunately, they didn’t need to worry about finding the lighting equipment by cutting open all cocoons.

Silkworms were gathered around a particularly shiny, large cocoon.

“Tsu-tsu-tsu.”

The silkworms requested help from their boss monster leader.

The large cocoon split in half, and the <Silkworm Queen>, with more elaborate patterns than ordinary silkworms, gently fluttered down to the ground.

When the Silkworm Queen raised the lighting equipment high, <red lighting that heightens morale> turned on.

“Tsu-tsu-tsu.”

“Tsu-tsu-tsu.”

The silkworms’ wing-fluttering doubled in speed as their morale heightened!

“They’re as excited as primitive humans discovering fire.”

Zhang’s honest observation seemed quite cute, but if they all sprayed <paralyzing powder> and engaged in close combat, preventing them from holding their breath, it would become troublesome.

“Oknodie. If we’re going to fight, we need to strike first.”

“Hmm. Wait a moment! Moths are naturally attracted to street lamps… In that case!”

Oknodie chuckled as if struck by some bizarre idea.

She approached the Silkworm Queen and shouted.

“Silkworm! Do you know that the light from that equipment will eventually fade?”

“Tsu-tsu-tsu?!”

“If you return the lighting equipment, I’ll help you get many more shining lights!”

“Tsu-tsu-tsu…”

“Look, if you do this, you can create more lights!”

When she attached a mana sticker with lighting formula to a nearby fish tank, the entire tank emitted a blue light, creating a dreamy atmosphere like the deep sea.

“Tsu-tsu-tsu!”

“Tsu-tsu-tsu!”

Excited silkworms gathered around the fish tank, fluttering their wings slowly like jellyfish, circling the area.

Seemingly as satisfied as her subordinates, the Silkworm Queen willingly handed the lighting equipment to Oknodie.

“That’s ingenious. Negotiating with monsters like that—only a child’s innocent perspective could conceive of such a thing.”

Irene silently agreed with Hestia’s sincere admiration.

In the North, monsters were either killed or forcibly eaten as precious food.

Peacefully exchanging what each side wanted with monsters—she had never considered the possibility or necessity.

“I can regularly infuse mana to help the lights last longer. In exchange, help us freely gather materials in the forest!”

“Tsu-tsu-tsu.”

“Hehe. What a good queen. She says they’ll leave us alone as long as we don’t attack the silkworms first!”

Setting aside how they were communicating, a peace treaty with monsters was established almost instantly.

‘…Perhaps what the North needs most isn’t resources or talent, but negotiation skills to make monsters that interfere with the war against demons into non-enemies.’

Irene’s determination to win Oknodie’s favor grew stronger.

“But don’t let just anyone in—only people from our organization!”

“Tsu-tsu-tsu?”

“Don’t kidnap and eat other people, but make them infuse mana into the formulas, then suck out their mana and chase them away. That way, the formulas will last longer, and humans won’t exterminate you!”

“Tsu-tsu-tsu!”

“How to recognize our people? Those with black cloth tied around their forearms are our people!”

…Teaching them to use people as mana shuttles was a bit much, but it wouldn’t affect their organization members—only other organizations’ members or upperclassmen.

It was a wise decision, not only protecting their material gathering location but also eliminating the worry of additional extermination by seniors, instructors, or professors due to casualties.

From next year’s 982nd batch of first-years, those not chosen by Oknodie to join <The Organization That Plays With Oknodie> would unknowingly become mana shuttles when gathering materials, but that was the juniors’ problem, not theirs.

“Want some iced tea?”

“I love cold things!”

The mutual attraction between Oknodie and Irene progressed smoothly along with the rescue of the lighting equipment.