Chapter 13

Benjamin Nolan, the Monstrology professor at Krangbuiyer Academy.

He had once been a boy full of dreams and hope.

‘I’ll wipe out all the monsters myself!’

Young Benjamin, who awakened as a mage at fifteen, declared boldly.

Thanks to his considerable talent, he always maintained top rankings at the academy.

Everyone praised his brilliant abilities, and Benjamin himself believed he would surely become a hero of this era.

But that belief shattered when he faced a ‘real monster’ for the first time.

“Aagh!”

“W-What the hell!”

“Why is that here…!”

It was the first practical training.

This was definitely an area where only rank 4 monsters appeared.

“Kraaaah—!”

Benjamin saw a dragon there.

“Everyone, run!”

What is happening…?

He couldn’t think straight. He couldn’t even hear the instructor’s voice telling them to flee.

He just stood there like a fool.

“Aaagh!”

Harvey’s neck was bitten off.

“P-Please, save…!”

Cassandra’s waist was crushed.

“A-Ahh, no!”

Lewis’s entire body was set ablaze.

‘Why…?’

They were friends who had been laughing and chatting together just moments ago.

They were the ones who had been puffing out their chests, saying that after this training, they’d practically be real knights.

But a single rank 1 monster killed them all.

“Benjamin!”

Someone shoved Benjamin aside.

It was the only surviving training instructor.

And in that moment, a sharp dragon’s talon grazed Benjamin’s forehead. Blood streamed down past his eye.

He was still alive.

“You go down and request backup!”

The instructor raised his sword toward the dragon.

In truth, he would clearly die before the Monster Knight Order arrived.

The dragon was counted among the highest of rank 1 monsters. It was not something that could be handled by a single person.

Nevertheless, he chose to stay. Because he had to buy time for even one surviving student to escape.

He could not abandon his duty as an educator, his responsibility as a senior awakened individual.

“Hurry!”

Benjamin knew that truth well.

He wasn’t going to request backup—he was running to survive.

‘Ah.’

Even so, Benjamin ran.

Because he didn’t want to die like them.

When the Monster Knight Order arrived some time later, the instructor was no longer a living person.

Looking at his corpse, not a single part of which was intact, Benjamin thought.

‘So the weak die.’

After that day, Benjamin researched Monstrology like a madman. His single-minded goal was to find and eliminate the weakness of every monster, by any means necessary.

By the time he became a Monstrology doctor and an academy professor, he had already lost several students. They were mostly students whose abilities fell short of their efforts.

‘In the end, only the strong survive.’

Benjamin finally accepted reality. No matter how well you knew a monster’s weakness, it was meaningless if you weren’t ‘strong.’

From then on, he strictly distinguished between students with potential and those without, and taught accordingly. He didn’t care if it was called favoritism.

He no longer wanted to lose students, nor did he want to give hope to weak ones.

He continued his role as a professor while cleverly concealing that fact. His own abilities weren’t bad, so there was no problem.

“I’d like you to take charge of Class F.”

That is, until the academy chancellor noticed the truth.

He was reluctant, but for now, he accepted the chancellor’s request.

His teaching philosophy wouldn’t change anyway.

“You’re a mess.”

Honestly, he had no expectations.

When he first saw the class, they all looked like nothing but kids destined to die. Even for Class F, how could there not be a single usable one?

Even in the test he pushed them into, they were all terrible. They didn’t even show the will to desperately survive. If this had been real combat, they would have died one after another.

He was repeating a boring test with no more expectations, when—

“Agh! Don’t come closer—!”

One student shouted urgently and fired arrows wildly. But not a single one hit the monster.

Tsk tsk, Benjamin clicked his tongue.

He thought this would end like all the others—and then.

‘Hm?’

The student, now alone in an instant, stared down the monster charging at her with unwavering eyes.

The girl who had been busy running just moments ago didn’t even blink until the monster was right in front of her, mouth wide open.

And then…

“Kraaaah—!”

She drove an arrow into the monster’s mouth.

It was the single-horned hound’s weakness—the root of its tongue.

‘No way…!’

Did she aim for this from the very beginning?

The single-horned hound was known for ramming opponents with its horn, the hardest part of its body, but it also had a grotesque habit.

Namely, biting and toying with opponents that appeared ‘much weaker than itself.’

‘Then even shooting arrows wildly while running away…’

Was to appear weaker than the monster!

Goosebumps ran all over Benjamin’s body. The scar carved into his forehead from that day stung.

For this single opportunity, that girl had endured and endured. And she had actually succeeded at her insane plan.

“Hah, hah…”

Innate intelligence and combat sense.

The control to hide her own strength.

And the tenacity to survive.

“…Excellent.”

He had no choice but to acknowledge it.

That girl was a ‘genius.’

* * *

‘Damn, I really thought I was going to die!’

If I hadn’t remembered that part from the original at that moment, I would have been eaten without a doubt.

Even though it was a fake monster, being judged incapacitated still felt awful. If it had been real, I would have been at least half-dead.

‘More importantly, the homeroom professor’s reaction is…’

He liked it way more than I expected?

Actually, I was a bit flustered. Sure, I was the first among the groups to defeat it, but that was purely luck. And until the final attack, I’d been busy wasting arrows while running away.

‘He’s staring at me really intensely.’

Ah, it’s hot.

I guess this is what they mean when they say someone’s gaze could burn you.

Considering his standards were top entrant and valedictorian level, this was excessive interest.

Thanks to that, the remaining two groups’ tests fizzled out.

Theodore, who was in the last group, held out quite a while, but not enough to draw Benjamin’s attention. His interest was already entirely focused on me.

Sorry about that, protagonist.

“Since today is the first day, let’s end it here.”

At the homeroom professor’s words, the class finally relaxed and slumped. But his words weren’t over.

“You were all truly pathetic. I question how you even passed this place with skills like that.”

“……”

“Except for exactly one person.”

No way.

I raised my head, which I’d lowered from exhaustion, and looked at the homeroom professor. But he was also looking at me.

When our eyes unintentionally met, he singled me out.

“Name.”

“Ah, I’m Lucy Saint.”

When I blurted out Lucy’s name, the homeroom professor repeated it a couple of times. Then he smiled—uncharacteristically—and said.

“I’ll be watching you.”

Leaving behind a line that was extremely fantasy-master-like, he slipped away alone. Was that magic? Mages really do look cool.

Once the homeroom professor disappeared, the class finally began murmuring.

Everyone must have a lot to say about today. After all, they’d been caught up in a crazy test on the first day of school that required defeating a rank 3 monster.

‘But why are they looking at me?’

The class kept glancing at me. Among them, the three who had been in my group were especially bright-eyed.

I seemed to have become… something like the hope of Class F.

As I was worrying about how to navigate this burdensome atmosphere, Theodore conveniently approached me.

“Lucy, today—”

“You’re saying it was really hard? And you want to go rest quickly?”

“Huh? No, you were awesome—”

“Me too! Let’s hurry and go rest, shall we?”

Being treated like the hope of the class really doesn’t suit me.

Sure, I’m destined to become the graduation valedictorian eventually, but that’s not now. Besides, this incident was too luck-dependent to receive those ‘Ooh!’ looks.

And so we hurriedly escaped the training hall. After that, I kindly walked Theodore—who had somehow ended up following me—to the front of his dormitory.

‘Today… you were really amazing, Lucy.’

He sure knew how to say embarrassing things.

Still, having impressed the protagonist made my shoulders puff up for no reason.

“Haaah…”

Finally back at the dormitory, I collapsed onto the bed from exhaustion. After enrollment, the dormitory operated on a one-person-per-room basis, so it was a perfectly acceptable thing to do.

As expected, S-rank skills really did drain too much mana.

I’d only used it once, and my strength drained away this much.

It was a good thing I’d raised my mana from E+ to D- before enrolling—otherwise, I would have embarrassingly collapsed like last time. One experience like that was enough.

“Ah, I need to change clothes…”

My eyes kept fluttering shut.

What was tomorrow’s class again? Come to think of it, I needed to check the quest reward too, and I should start using those points soon…

And then, without realizing it, I slipped into sleep.

Until that moment, I had no idea.

Just what kind of treatment Lucy Saint would receive starting tomorrow.