Chapter 316
Simon and Kamibarez returned to Keyzen through teleportation.
Students who had arrived earlier were standing in line, waiting for their evaluations, and Simon and Kamibarez also stood at the back.
Everyone worked hard.
From the look of their appearances, not a single person was in perfect shape.
The students, who had returned after fierce battles, brought with them various corpses of poisonous-type monsters.
Dead poison toads, giant moths, spiders, and even an enormous water snake.
Especially because of the centipede monster that the students right in front of them had brought, Kamibarez, frightened, hid behind Simon.
The line moved quickly, and soon it was the turn of the people ahead of them.
When Belya and the assistant instructors saw the centipede monster they had brought, they couldn't help but exclaim in surprise.
"It's huge!"
Other students gathered around to watch.
"Hey, nice job! How did you catch that?"
In response to Belya's question, the male student answered.
"First, we made the monster spit out its poison and then ran away. In the meantime, another teammate collected the poison and made an antidote, and with that, we won."
"Smart thinking, well done."
The assistant instructors were checking the antidote. Dropping both the centipede's poison and the antidote onto paper, they observed, then whispered to Belya.
"Mhm! The antidote's fine too. If the video review shows no problems, a minimum of an A is certain."
"Thank you!!"
The male and female students hugged each other in excitement. Then, realizing what they were doing, they quickly pulled apart, blushing.
Belya let out a laugh that said she'd seen it all before.
"Such little things doing all that. Don't you two wander off, go straight to your dorms, got it?"
"Ah, we won't!"
Laughter filled the area here and there. The students, having received their first-ever A grades, left, and envious gazes followed them.
"Next!"
The head assistant flipped through the file in her hands.
"Student Simon Follentia and student Kamibarez Ursula… huh!"
When Simon dragged in a pair of Desert Scorpions, one in each hand, the place erupted in commotion.
Not only the assistant instructors but even Belya, who had been sitting, shot up from her seat.
"What kind of Desert Scorpions are this big?"
"And they caught two of them!"
The reaction wasn't bad. It seemed they had caught ones that were much bigger and stronger than Belya had anticipated.
"Isn't this their normal size?"
Simon asked.
"Normally, they're about half this size. You didn't get hurt catching these, did you?"
"Well… we almost died."
Simon said it with a relaxed smile, but Kamibarez beside him closed her eyes as if even recalling that moment was terrifying.
The assistants lifted the pincers and tails to examine them. Though now reduced to remains, one could imagine how massive the Desert Scorpions had been.
Some assistants approached with tools to extract the venom, moving cautiously lest any splash onto them. Seeing this, Belya rose to her feet.
"Enough. I'll taste it myself."
She licked the venom clinging to the Desert Scorpion's remains.
Next, she took the antidote Kamibarez had prepared, dipped her finger into it, touched it to her tongue, and swallowed with a smacking sound.
"Oh! Nicely made!"
"Thank you, Professor!"
Kamibarez said, bowing her head.
There was no kit in this world more reliable for checking poison than Belya's tongue.
She bared her jagged triangular teeth in a wide grin.
"Good work, both of you. A+."
"Waaah!"
Simon and Kamibarez shouted with joy and hugged each other, while the assistants looked on with expressions that said, Here they go again.
"…Sis."
one assistant glanced at the head assistant.
"Yeah. If I assign the next performance evaluation in male–female pairs, I'm not human."
The head assistant let out a sigh, her side aching.
Still, seeing the two genuinely happy, she smiled warmly.
"Well done! Return the necklaces and head in!"
"Yes!"
* * *
Proudly having secured the highest grade, Simon and Kamibarez decided not to go straight to the dorms but to wait a bit for Maelyn and Dick.
Maelyn and Toto, for all the fuss they had made, still received a decent grade of B+.
"…Toto?"
But in just half a day, Toto was staggering around, looking almost skeletal.
"Si, Simon."
Toto, barely alive, spoke to Simon in a dying voice.
"How did you manage to survive with Maelyn all this time? It's impossible…"
"Hey!!"
Maelyn's face flushed red as she stomped and shouted.
"You were talking behind my back again, weren't you?!"
At the sight of Maelyn's face, Toto curled up like a rabbit in front of a predator.
Simon asked with a laugh,
"Isn't Maelyn nice?"
"S-she's nice, but… she's the kind who… works you to death…"
"R-really? She never did that to me."
Toto began to say That's because you— but shut his mouth when Maelyn, who had run up from behind, flicked his head with a sharp knuckle strike.
Dick and Katherine's team also came out. Their grade was C+, about mid-tier.
Katherine was complaining to her teammates about how hard it was, but Dick was stretching with a big smile.
"Ah~ that was fun! I wish we could do performance evaluations like this all the time!"
The students, hearing Toto and Katherine's reactions, shook their heads.
"Simon and Kami were the seals holding that team together."
"Totally."
"If only they hadn't left Team 7."
"Do you have a death wish?!!"
Maelyn, face bright red, rushed to punish them.
Laughter rang out again.
* * *
Thus, the Toxicology performance evaluation ended without incident.
After a good night's rest, Simon, early in the morning, entered the library with a textbook in hand.
Recently, he had developed the habit of waking up early. Going into the library when few people were around was a refreshing change.
"Alright."
Sitting in his favorite spot, surrounded by bookshelves, Simon opened Bahil's curse textbook.
He had already learned the Curse of Numbness, Indolence, and the Curse of Hostility, Hostile. Now, if he learned just two more, he could use Compellonia.
Simon pulled out his quill to study the next curse at that moment.
'Ugh.'
Someone Simon didn't particularly want to run into appeared in the library.
He quickly lowered his posture, lifted a book upright, and used it to hide his face.
'…Professor Walter.'
Walter, who had come to the library, was surrounded by a group of female students, chatting.
Walter had become a professor on the recommendation of Sillage, replacing him while Sillage carried out an important mission. He led his classes so skillfully, it was hard to believe he was a new professor.
Especially with his leaf-colored brown hair, chiseled face, ideally fitting horn-rimmed glasses, gentle voice, and friendly manner.
As could be seen from the reactions of the female students speaking with him now, he approached students more warmly than any other professor in the school, building strong trust with them.
'Hmm.'
Of course, Simon was suspicious of him in many ways, but he tried not to show it.
After all, he had received Cloud, developed by Sillage, through him, and had even been offered the position of his direct disciple.
'Maybe I'm just being too sensitive.'
"You're up and working quite early in the morning."
Simon turned around with a start.
Before he knew it, Walter had left the group of female students and was standing right behind him.
"…Ah, hello, Professor."
Simon forced a smile as he greeted him.
"Your heartbeat is quick and irregular."
Walter said with a gentle smile.
"If I startled you, I apologize."
"N-no, it's fine."
Simon quickly regained his composure.
To maintain a calm front with this man, did he even have to control his heartbeat?
"How's Cloud doing these days?"
"It's good."
Simon also replied with a soft smile like Walter's.
His gaze briefly flicked to the fountain pen tucked into the front of Walter's suit before quickly returning to his face.
"Thanks to this technology, I was able to get a good score on the BMAT as well."
"Haha! I'm glad to hear it. Thanks to the performance of our Special Admission No. 1 student, I can hold my head up among the professors too."
His voice dropped to a subtle tone.
"Have you thought about my proposal?"
It seemed he was referring to the direct disciple offer. Simon shook his head.
"I'm sorry. My answer hasn't changed yet."
"I see."
Walter lightly placed a hand on Simon's shoulder.
"Study hard, I'll see you in class."
As he walked away at a leisurely pace, he suddenly turned around.
"I've prepared a lot for today's lecture, so it'll be fun."
Wherever he went, Simon could see various students striking up friendly conversation with him.
Simon, after staring at Walter's back for a moment, lowered his gaze and returned his focus to studying Katarology.
* * *
The first class of the morning was Haematology.
As always, the four members of Team 7 were gathered, chatting together.
"The Haematology performance evaluation worries me the most."
Maelyn sighed deeply, propping her chin on her hand.
"Black magic related to the heart just feels too vague, doesn't it?"
Simon and Kamibarez nodded, while Dick chuckled and folded his arms.
"Can't we do something like this? Magic that makes a cold heart! So you don't get scared no matter what horror story you hear…"
"Please, run it through your brain before you speak."
Maelyn spoke with a bored expression, and Dick smacked his lips in displeasure.
"By the way, you know you've been a little prickly since the Toxicology performance evaluation, right?"
She immediately made an offended face.
"Hey! What? This is how I usually am!"
"See? You're getting mad again."
Dick turned his head slightly.
"On the other hand, look at these two. What happened for you to get so close?"
He was looking at Simon and Kamibarez, sitting side by side.
Kamibarez had been leaning slightly toward Simon, but at his words, she quickly straightened her posture.
'…If I'd gone with Simon, an A+ would have been guaranteed!'
Maelyn was about to growl and add another comment when Walter entered the lecture hall.
The students quickly straightened their postures, and Walter, holding the attendance sheet, spoke.
"Class A! Let's take attendance, shall we?"
In his gentle voice, he called each student by name, one by one.
"Karell Oxara."
"Yees~"
"Claudia Menzies."
"Yes."
"Hector Moore."
"Yes."
There was a slight difference between the way the female and male students answered.
After finishing attendance, Walter scanned the students.
"With all the performance evaluation bombs from each subject, it's been tough, hasn't it?"
This time, every student answered in unison, "Yes!!!"
"I can't give you direct help, but at least for Haematology, I want to ease your burden a bit."
At that, one female student shouted,
"Professor, your performance evaluations are hard too!"
"That's right!"
"Hahahaha!"
Walter laughed out loud, and the other students laughed along.
A class with such a friendly, joking atmosphere was unique to Walter.
"Don't worry too much. Just keep up with the lessons and you'll be fine."
Walter spoke gently.
"Today, we'll learn a special technique related to the heart. Can anyone explain the importance of the heart from the perspective of Haematology?"
Several answers came at once—blood supply, circulation of blood, maintenance of the Core, and so on.
Walter nodded.
"The heart, which distributes blood and Darkness throughout the body, is the most important organ in the human body. Many necromancers have continued to study how to draw out this hidden power of the heart."
Walter took something from the lectern.
"One such result is the item you're looking at now."
Simon's eyes widened.
'A… syringe?'
A rather suspicious object had appeared.
Surely, he didn't plan on using that on the students?