Ch.7676 – The Iron Man’s Lecture

# 76 – The Iron Man’s Lecture

I’m glad I decided to step out just in case someone actually visited the hidden room.

‘Wow. I almost got caught in my lie!’

I said I’d be waiting there every day, but how betrayed would Hestia feel if I wasn’t there the day she arrived at the hidden room?

Even worse, Zhang was with her too, so they would have figured out everything—that I actually attended the fifth period lecture with them, and that Hestia had been talking to someone else.

Fortunately, I managed to prevent that Hestia-turning-evil flag.

“There’s a reason my master highly praised this academy as a must-visit for assassins. I wonder how strong assassins who graduate from here can become…”

“I’m terrified of becoming a sophomore.”

Zhang and Hestia’s eyes looked completely dead, but it must be because they stayed up so late!

“Feel free to come play here just the two of you from now on!”

“Isn’t Oknodie coming?”

“I’ve memorized everything already!”

Hestia looked around at the strips of paper in the room.

On the opposite wall, she could see strips numbered up to a thousand.

“Oknodie, you’re really smart, huh?”

“He’s the top student. Of course he is.”

“Sigh. We’ll have to take them with us to memorize.”

Oknodie immediately waved his hand.

“Ah, that won’t work. If the strips leave the secret room, they’ll burn up and disappear on their own.”

You can only succeed by passing the memorization check with game functions or memorizing with your real brain.

“Training to go without sleep was something I hated even when I was first learning…”

“Looks like we won’t be getting any sleep for a while…”

* *

Thanks to visiting the double-sided strip room last night and establishing my alibi, I successfully deceived the two of them.

Looking at their exhausted eyes at Professor Platton’s outdoor training ground, they seem too tired from memorizing all night to even think about being suspicious.

‘But wasn’t Professor Platton’s second lecture supposed to be in the mountains?’

Thursday, first period.

Professor Platton, who should be destroying students’ legs with his “Advanced Physical Training” lecture from the fresh morning, had for some reason brought the students to a riverbank connected to the mountains.

The students were delighted, thinking the lecture had been replaced with light jogging, but Professor Platton was definitely not that kind of person.

-More than half of the students returning on two functioning legs? My education has been lacking!

A professor who blames himself as if he’s committed a grave sin whenever students build up enough strength to endure his lectures out of spite!

Of course, the next lecture would be an extremely brutal physical threshing machine that no one could finish standing.

‘His lecture being just jogging? That’s impossible no matter how I think about it.’

Sure enough, Professor Platton revealed his true colors as soon as they arrived at the river.

“Now, has everyone had enough rest?”

“…Professor. It’s only been 30 seconds since we arrived.”

“What does that have to do with rest? Didn’t you already warm up with light jogging?”

“…!!”

Honer from the FriedChicken family let out a sigh like a hero sensing his tragic fate.

A deep gloom fell over the faces of all advanced class students, both from the frontier and the empire.

However, considering the fate awaiting them, it was questionable whether “deep gloom” was an adequate description.

“First, let me ask you. Have you ever heard of the Iron Man Triathlon?”

Arcadia hesitantly raised her hand.

“It’s the proud culture of our Florence Kingdom, competing in swimming, horseback riding, and running.”

“Half correct. If taking other countries’ cultures and mixing them to make them your own can be called culture!”

“…”

“Don’t worry. I’m someone who calls that culture. Everyone who just laughed loses 5 points. You should at least know the professor’s home country.”

The imperial advanced class students who had laughed at Arcadia all made faces like they’d eaten something foul.

The unremarkable Florence Kingdom, despite being a maritime nation, had few talented people, so mentioning you were from there would typically earn you comments like “That country that gets raided by pirates when they’re bored?”

Who would have thought that such a country would produce a crazy professor who put his soul into a healthy body with an obsession for healthy minds!

“Hehe.”

Arcadia felt good for no reason.

Now she could brag about Florence Kingdom as the country where Professor Platton was born.

‘Can that really be considered something to brag about…?’

From my perspective watching from the side, I tilted my head in doubt, but I shouldn’t rain on her parade.

There’s going to be plenty of cold water splashed soon anyway.

“Actually, the Iron Man Triathlon is a comprehensive training course I developed by combining suitable events to become a true iron man before enrolling in the academy.”

“Originally, I would have made you run for a month to thoroughly learn just running, but after seeing the last lecture, I was greatly moved and changed my mind.”

“With one in five students able to squeeze their physical strength to the limit, how could I limit you to just running!”

One in five?

Considering the advanced class has about 40 students, that means more than eight succeeded in the last lecture.

It was a number that should have been impossible, but seeing Son Ocheon snorting beside me and Dorothy looking proud, I realized.

These people who wouldn’t have even been accepted into the academy, let alone the advanced class, got in thanks to me!

“So today’s lecture is swimming. Students who swim across this river will immediately complete the lecture.”

“Conversely, students who fail to cross the river by the end of the lecture will all receive weekend supplementary education!”

The students screamed.

“Supplementary education? How could you do something so terrible!”

“Isn’t the weekend for hunting with friends or going to taverns to drink?!”

“Then when will we have our weekend tea party?!”

In this surprisingly comfortable fantasy world with a five-day work week, weekend supplementary education was no different from weekend slave labor.

Among the students expressing their outrage, Hestia and Zhang glanced at me.

So you saw that too?

130-1: First-year students with good grades don’t have to attend supplementary education.

130-2: From the second year, some professors summon ‘all students’ on weekends under the pretext of supplementary education to teach content they couldn’t cover during regular hours.

The professors’ vicious supplementary education that doesn’t allow students a free weekend!

From the perspective of someone who knows this fate is unavoidable in the second year, their struggles to avoid the immediate supplementary education seem meaningless and pitiful.

“Quiet! What do I care about hunting or tea parties? The practical has already begun. Those who know how to swim, enter the water immediately. Those who don’t, gather in front of me.”

Students whose faces were not just gloomy but who actually had to enter the water.

Not many students boldly jumped into the river.

“Nyanya! This is water torture, nya!”

“The Wall-Breaking Thunder God Church’s nun outfit has chain mail under the banner. If I enter the river, I’ll sink…”

“Oh damn. I hate getting my fur wet. Isn’t forcing a monkey beastkin to enter water racial discrimination?”

As the students grumbled, Arcadia stepped forward, covering her mouth with one hand and laughing.

“Hoho. Swimming is nothing for me, a princess of the maritime nation of Florence.”

“Arcadia. Let’s wait a bit before going in!”

“Di? Are you afraid of water?”

“That’s not it, it’s because of that person!”

“Ah. The Northern Grand Duchess…”

Northern Grand Duchess Irene, who had demonstrated her tremendous skill by blocking everyone’s path with a massive ice wall during the last advanced physical training lecture.

She was powerful enough that few could match her even on flat ground, and now she was facing water.

Splash-crack!

As soon as she lightly stepped on the water’s surface, the river froze with a cracking sound!

The river surface froze like a midwinter ice sheet—anyone caught swimming would experience the terror of getting stuck or trapped under the ice with nowhere to go.

“That’s a bit much.”

“Last time, Oknodie followed the Northern Grand Duchess, right?”

“Should we try that too?”

Irene crossed the river overwhelmingly easily, like she had first place in the bag.

Spearman Honer, who stepped onto the ice behind her, screamed “Aaack!” and fell into the water.

“Thin ice?!”

“I’m not stupid. I won’t allow free rides twice.”

She had made sure to leave only enough ice for herself to cross while melting and breaking the ice behind her!

It was a surefire way to maintain first place, though a bit underhanded—if crossing the river by means other than swimming were allowed.

Professor Platton dipped his hand into a washbasin and flicked it, causing the river water to surge and push Irene back to the entrance.

“?!?!”

Irene was pushed back to the entrance without understanding what happened.

“I said to cross by ‘swimming.’ Cheating is not allowed!”

“Wow, what a fair competition!”

“This might actually be doable!”

The naive students noted the fairness of the lecture.

But the cunning students focused on the washbasin.

“What was that just now??”

“The water in the washbasin rose, but why did the river water rise with it?”

“Don’t tell me… the professor can make the river water move exactly like the water in his washbasin?”

“…Is he planning to prevent everyone from crossing the river?”

“For what purpose?”

“Because it’s fun?”

“Hahaha, no way.”

“Right?”

“…”

“…That was definitely a joke, right?”

Listening to the other students’ conversation, I thought to myself.

I don’t think it’s a joke!