Ch.360360 – The Professor’s Hospitality

<360 – The Professor’s Hospitality>

The lower class students, now freed from the ghost, expressed their gratitude enthusiastically.

“Thank you so much. Oknodie, if it weren’t for you, we’d still be tormented by that ghost!”

“What were you experiencing in there?”

“It made us relive the most horrific experiences of our lives. It was truly traumatic!”

“That ghost got off easy just having its limbs cut off. We should have sliced it into sashimi.”

“And what made it twice as scary was Skeleton Instructor suggesting in every gap that we could escape safely if we became skeletons like him!”

“…I was just trying to help in my own way.”

Zaku selectively expressed indignation while ignoring the Skeleton Instructor.

Just imagining repeating the hell of his childhood—wandering battlefields and scavenging for military rations—made him shudder. These students had been forced to relive such terrible pasts.

Thinking that his close friend Morb must have experienced something similar made him feel quite sick.

“You all have strong mental fortitude. It’s impressive how your expressions haven’t crumbled after experiencing such horrors.”

Perhaps it was because they were skilled enough to be accepted into the world’s finest educational institution, despite being in the lower class?

Although they had grown somewhat pale, their spirits weren’t greatly damaged, they could still converse normally, and both their bodies and minds were relatively intact.

“What do you mean we look fine? We feel terrible inside!”

“My stomach is still churning.”

“Do you have any idea how it feels to personally experience the horrifying sight of rice soaked in sweet and sour sauce?”

…These guys’ most horrific life experience was that kind of weird food?

‘They’ve lived such enviably easy lives.’

Since this wasn’t something to say to hostages who had just escaped, Zaku turned the conversation to Morb.

“Morb, did you also experience rice soaked in sweet and sour sauce?”

“No. I saw myself being abandoned by Oknodie, who said it was a waste of time to spend it on a dull-witted dunce like you.”

“That’s quite a nightmare befitting you…”

“After that, the Chairman appeared and turned Oknodie into a demon lord who slaughtered humans like insects, and I had to watch helplessly. Ugh… if only I had more power, Oknodie wouldn’t have become such a cruel child. She could have walked a more righteous path…!”

What kind of failed hero’s dream did this guy have?

Unlike the absurdity of these two, the Skeleton Instructor got up quite normally and approached Oknodie.

“So what do you plan to do with this ghost now?”

“I’m taking it with me, of course! That was my intention from the beginning.”

“Hooh. As expected of a student Professor Sadaco has her eye on. You recognize ghosts with high necromantic value, don’t you?”

Can capturing it for copying purposes also be considered of necromantic value?

Oknodie pondered briefly, then stopped pondering.

She was going to capture it anyway, so what did it matter?

Stealthily.

Rolling.

While everyone else was focused on the hostages and Oknodie was busy chattering away, the hook ghost rolled its body through the gap in the open space.

This human is terrifying.

I’ve never encountered an item with such severe curses that I couldn’t copy it.

I’ll be killed.

I need to escape from here right now.

Oknodie’s small foot stomped firmly on the ghost’s back, which was filled with desperation.

“Kwet”

With a strength uncharacteristic of a child, the hook ghost was stopped in its tracks, unable to move.

“I said I’d lift the curse, but who said you could escape? I have so many things to copy. I absolutely can’t let you go!”

Kiiing.

The ghost made a cute sound like a cornered animal, begging for mercy.

Having nearly died just from one attempt at copying, how could it survive having to copy such things repeatedly? Even multiple lives wouldn’t be enough!

“Pff pff. A veteran player wouldn’t bother making a separate strategy guide in the first place. The body remembers all the truly important information, right? This was a trap made for cursing!”

Fortunately, Oknodie wasn’t planning to inflict such cruel torture.

“First, please copy Morb’s armor! You were already making plenty of them, right?”

Morb’s armor has considerable value.

As the item’s value increases, so does its value as a cursed item, making it desirable even for ghosts.

Thud.

Seeing the cursed armor that popped out from the other side of the unique dimension, Morb sensed an instinctive foreboding.

“O-Oknodie. What are you planning to do with the copied armor?”

“Hmm? When you have two identical armors, you obviously need to enhance them!”

“I was just starting to get used to it!?”

“That’s why it’s even better! Just as you’re getting used to the weight, increasing the intensity makes the burden on your body even more delicious, right? And once you start learning the mana cultivation technique, you’ll be able to endure it better.”

“But then I’ll have to constantly run the mana cultivation technique to endure it!?”

“Then I guess you’ll have to do that!”

Zaku approached the depressed-looking Morb, who seemed ready to dig a hole and crawl into it, and whispered in his ear.

“Didn’t you say it yourself? What would happen to Oknodie if you don’t grow stronger.”

“!”

“It’s up to you.”

Morb gritted his teeth and nodded.

“I’m ready. Enhance it.”

Was Morb’s determination unexpected?

The child who had been so intimidating toward the ghost approached with sparkling eyes and grabbed his hand firmly.

With flushed cheeks, Oknodie vigorously shook his hand up and down and exclaimed:

“Wonderful! For a mere lower class extra who might not even exist in the original work to show such enthusiasm—honestly, I’m moved! Instruments, exercise, training—the beginner phase is always the hardest, but you’re following along so diligently. It really makes teaching worthwhile!”

“C-close. You’re too close, Oknodie.”

Unlike Morb, who was uncomfortable with the proximity, Oknodie moved even closer and pulled at his collar.

As he involuntarily lowered his posture and bowed his head from the force, Oknodie cupped her hands around his ear and whispered:

“They say when cursed items are enhanced, they can prevent the overlapping wear of other cursed items. That might automatically cancel the bikini armor too!”

“…!!”

“Hehe. So keep working hard with your training. I may not be as good as Professor Ferguson from the Production Department, but I do know how to enhance items, so I’ll give you a +1 enhancement for free!”

Morb felt relief but also realized something terrifying.

If the hook ghost copied cursed items, wouldn’t it copy not only the armor but also the bikini armor with its equipment-removal curse?

Looking closely, he could see several bikini armors buried among the mountain of copied items from the other dimension.

‘I’m truly thankful it wasn’t discovered!’

As embarrassed as he was by the bikini armor pressing against his skin under his regular armor, Morb gained a different kind of desperation.

He would definitely train hard to build a physical spec that could endure high-level weight-cursed armor and automatically cancel the bikini armor!

* * *

While the event for Morb, Zaku, and the lower class students ended with their rescue, my event was just beginning.

“I’d like to negotiate with Professor Sadaco. Would you come with me, Instructor?”

“Gegelgel. Just say the word if you want to become a skeleton while you’re at it.”

There’s no such “while you’re at it,” Instructor.

“Is this about the ghost?”

“Yes. I need to use the copier sparingly so it lasts a long time.”

“Professor Sadaco is indeed the expert in this field.”

Given that she even raises cursed pet trees, is there anything about curses this professor doesn’t know?

To prevent the ghost from dying outright from a curse that she knew how to cast but not how to lift, she needed the professor’s help right away.

Was the mythic-grade curse too strong?

Next time, she should lower the grade to legendary-level curses.

“It’s here.”

The place the Skeleton Instructor guided her to was the Catacombs—a massive underground cemetery located in a deep subterranean pit even more remote than the previous open space, where no sunlight reached.

It was where the bodies of students, professors, and staff who had died at the Academy were buried, or where various monsters and heroes’ corpses from all regions were kept for practice purposes.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

As soon as the Skeleton Instructor infused his magic into the wall torches, all the doors of the Catacombs opened simultaneously.

Dozens of layers of doors opened at once, revealing tombs containing bodies from areas with low access rights to those with high access rights—a sight that was quite overwhelming.

Whooooosh.

From the depths beyond the door, where even darkness feared to tread, came an eerie wind along with the presence of the dead that any living being would instinctively avoid.

“Oh. Our professor is in quite good condition. Allowing access all the way to the 38th gate of the Catacombs—you should know you’re very lucky.”

“What happens if the professor is in bad condition?”

“At the very least, I wouldn’t go in there.”

“…”

Maybe I’m a little scared to go in there?

“Don’t be such a coward. She only sucks the vitality from the living instead of extracting the energy from the dead. Gegelgel!”

“But I’m alive! I have tons of vitality!”

As they were having this foolish conversation, the entrance door began to shake violently on its own.

“Is the professor urging me to come in quickly now?”

“I suppose so? If it were me, I’d make you wait about 60 more seconds.”

“Why?”

“Because I’d have one more skeleton colleague.”

Now I’m more scared not to go in!

Before Professor Sadaco got angrier, she hurriedly ran into the Catacombs.