Chapter 738
“One of Einroguard’s few merits is exactly this—the chance to see rare monsters like these. Hahaha!”
Professor Bendozol kept talking excitedly, not even noticing the students’ expressions changing.
No matter how angry the professor had been just moments earlier, the instant the topic turned to monsters, all that fury vanished into happiness.
The students looked at one another, unsure who should be the first to say anything.
“Now then. Shall we all go meet the Nightmare Sparrow?”
“Professor.”
Lee Han raised a hand and called out. Professor Bendozol immediately turned and made no effort to hide the displeasure on the professor’s face.
“What? Don’t tell me you don’t want to meet it. How often does a worthless human like you get the chance to encounter a precious monster like a Nightmare Sparrow??”
“Here…”
Lee Han pulled a sparrow-like monster out of his coat pocket.
It was the Nightmare Sparrow, still trembling from the poison running through its body.
“……”
Professor Bendozol was so shocked that the professor could not even respond. All the professor did was stare at the shivering Nightmare Sparrow, blinking helplessly.
At the sight, Nillia whispered in a voice tinged with anticipation.
“Is the professor about to drop dead of a heart attack?”
But Professor Bendozol barely managed to overcome the shock.
“N-no… no… no way! Who did this to the Nightmare Sparrow?! You! Y-you did this to the Nightmare Sparrow?!”
“Professor! Wardanaz didn’t do it!”
The moment they saw the murderous look on the professor’s face, Lee Han’s friends started lying at once.
They had the uneasy feeling that if they left things alone, the professor might actually attack Lee Han.
Of course, this would not have been the first professor to attack him, but there was no real need to increase that number.
“Think about it! How could Wardanaz possibly take down a Nightmare Sparrow?!”
“We’re only second-years!”
As they shouted, the students seemed to grow more confident, apparently deciding that their lie sounded pretty convincing.
And honestly, it did sound strange—a second-year student bringing in a Nightmare Sparrow ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) after defeating it like this.
Unfortunately, Professor Bendozol had known Lee Han since winter break.
“Shut up! What second-year in the Empire looks like that?!”
“……”
Lee Han was dumbfounded.
It was true that he had taken down the Nightmare Sparrow, but still…
Isn’t that a little much?
“I should’ve realized it the moment you got here first without falling for the evil spirits! I should’ve known you’d kill the Nightmare Sparrow!”
“It’s not dead yet…”
“Ugh… I’m sorry! This is my fault! My fault!”
Ignoring the students completely, Professor Bendozol burst into jewel-like tears and cried out to the Nightmare Sparrow.
Then the professor snatched it straight out of Lee Han’s hands and began checking its condition.
“Wait. This poison is…?”
In the end, Lee Han had no choice but to tell the truth.
“My basilisk bit it.”
“Is that so? Then nothing can be done.”
Professor Bendozol nodded as if this were simply the unavoidable order of nature.
The students stared at the professor the way they might stare at a lunatic.
“Don’t worry too much about it.”
“Yes. Thank you.”
“I wasn’t talking to you, I was talking to the basilisk!”
At the professor’s shout, the basilisk let out an offended hiss.
It had decided the professor was an enemy threatening its master.
Professor Bendozol cried out in panic, like a mage who had just seen the sky collapse.
“I’m not your master’s enemy!”
The basilisk went right on hissing.
With tears in the professor’s eyes, Professor Bendozol glared at Lee Han.
The professor was furious beyond reason.
“I… I’m a cherished mentor!”
“??”
“Who else would I mean?! You, of course!”
The professor whispered the words furiously. The basilisk must have caught the tone, because it reacted again.
Professor Bendozol ground the professor’s teeth at the sight of Lee Han being this oblivious. Right now, restraint was necessary.
“Y-you are my cherished student. Ha ha.”
-……
“There. See? Ha ha. We’re close.”
Though clearly unwilling to touch such a filthy member of the human race, Professor Bendozol forced the issue and slung an arm around the student’s shoulders like they were on good terms.
Even after seeing that, the basilisk still looked suspicious.
“Professor. How long do we have to keep doing this?”
“Until the basilisk stops being suspicious!”
The professor growled.
Lee Han, ignoring the tone completely, calmly pressed for more. At moments like this, an Einroguard student had to seize whatever advantage was available if the student wanted to survive.
“Then how about having everyone gather first before heading out for the next lecture?”
“…Y-you…!”
At the suggestion from this wicked disciple, Professor Bendozol stared in horror.
As befitted the human race, the boy was vicious to the core.
Just as the basilisk was about to start hissing again, the professor hurriedly accepted.
“Fine! Everyone gathers first!”
“And how about telling us in advance what animal we’re going to see?”
“You little— … Fine!”
“Ha ha. We’re close.”
Lee Han and Professor Bendozol stood there with arms over each other’s shoulders, smiling stiffly. Only then did the basilisk ease its guard and quiet down.
*****
Using several elixirs and spells on hand, Professor Bendozol barely managed to detoxify the baby basilisk’s poison and finally let out a sigh.
Fortunately, it had been the poison of a young basilisk that had not fully matured yet, and the Nightmare Sparrow itself was an exceptionally powerful monster.
If it had not been a creature born from a place where nightmares and incorporeal beings were densely condensed, it would have been hard-pressed to withstand such lethal venom.
This cute little thing isn’t even fully grown yet, so why is the poison this strong?
With a gaze full of yearning, Professor Bendozol looked toward Lee Han’s sleeve. Lee Han immediately hid it with obvious displeasure.
“The Nightmare Sparrow has recovered a little, so I’ll begin the lecture.”
“…Huh! Right. This was class, wasn’t it?”
“For a second, I was wondering why we were even standing around here.”
Only then did the students remember this was lecture time and hurriedly pulled out their books.
Carefully setting the Nightmare Sparrow down on the ground, Professor Bendozol began.
“One of the most beautiful things about this monster is its jewel-like eyes. The moment living creatures meet those eyes, they’re struck by a powerful illusion spell…”
When hunting a Nightmare Sparrow, beware its eyes. It possesses innate illusion magic. Dangerous!
“When it beats its wings, it spews out the evil spirits dwelling inside it! And the way those colors shimmer when light strikes them is truly beautiful!”
Beware the evil spirits released when the Nightmare Sparrow beats its wings. Prepare means of dealing with evil spirits.
“If one of these settles in a forest for a long time, the number of incorporeal monsters keeps increasing. That too is part of the process by which it prepares to lay a new egg! If you leave the forest alone long enough, this adorable little thing will devour every last one of those increased spirit creatures and turn them into an egg!”
If a Nightmare Sparrow settles in a forest, exterminate it as quickly as possible…
The students listened to Professor Bendozol’s lecture with utmost seriousness.
To survive at Einroguard, they had to be knowledgeable about all manner of dangerous monsters.
At the very least, any student who failed to learn how to run from them, avoid them, and identify where they came from was unlikely to last long.
Ordinarily, few people studied prey as deeply and obsessively as a hunter did, but Professor Bendozol was one of those rare exceptions.
“It seems sleepy. Let’s give it a short rest.”
Professor Bendozol gently draped a temporary magical blanket woven from leaves over the Nightmare Sparrow.
It was a blanket enchanted to help restore stamina.
When the professor approached, Lee Han quietly flipped the page in his notes.
If Professor Bendozol happened to see the section titled how to hunt a Nightmare Sparrow, that really might cause a heart attack.
“How often are you checking on the unicorn?”
“Pardon?”
“The unicorn! The unicorn!”
“I think I go see it once every two or three days…”
“T-two days! Th-three days!!”
Professor Bendozol looked as if another heart attack were coming on, and Priest Nigisor, standing nearby, looked puzzled.
Was the professor somehow afraid of dates?
“You should be visiting at least five times a day, you curse— …cherished student!!”
“That’s impossible. I can’t even visit the griffin that often.”
No matter how much the professor raged, Lee Han did not budge.
After all, if he had actually done everything a professor told him to do, he would have had to master word-of-command magic back in first year.
“Don’t make excuses! You obviously have spare time somewhere. Hand over your class schedule!”
Lee Han pulled out the schedule, half doubtful.
Even for Professor Bendozol, it did not seem possible to squeeze anything more out of it—but then again, this was still a professor.
Maybe Professor Bendozol could spot something Lee Han could not.
“……”
Contrary to expectations, however, Professor Bendozol could not answer at once and instead groaned, clutching the professor’s head.
Like some impossibly complex puzzle, the schedule left no opening whatsoever.
“This empty slot is… damn it, a club. Then this empty slot is… the griffin… this slot is… damn it, damn it!! Why are you taking so many classes?!”
A few students standing behind Lee Han nodded without thinking. Fortunately, Lee Han did not notice.
“What’s this garden maintenance? Is that a class?”
“It’s not a class. I’m just taking care of Professor Thunderwalk’s hut.”
“Then I’ll do that. Use that time to go see the unicorn!”
“…Uh, it would be possible, but are you sure you’d be all right with that?”
From Professor Thunderwalk’s point of view, that would be an extremely bewildering development.
Another professor showing up at the hut to do odd jobs.
“What?! What now?!”
“Nothing. If you truly want to, Professor, I’d be happy to let you have it.”
“And what is this, ‘Go Find the Evil Beaver’?”
“Ah. I must’ve written that wrong. It means going to Professor Verdus’s workshop to prepare materials and do preliminary work.”
“Is it a class?”
“Does that sound like a class to you?”
“Then I’ll do that too. Use that time to go see the unicorn!”
“!”
For the first time, Lee Han felt a slight surge of goodwill toward Professor Bendozol.
The professor was willing to go deal with Professor Verdus in his place!
“If that’s what you want, Professor…”
Professor Bendozol scraped together every last sliver of free time on the schedule.
Anything that looked like replaceable drudge work got pulled out as aggressively as possible.
Wait. Was I really doing this much work?
Even Lee Han was startled each time another item came up.
He had not realized there were this many.
At last, after barely securing some extra time for the unicorn, Professor Bendozol flung the schedule aside and stood up.
“Now then. Next is how to become friendly with the Nightmare Sparrow.”
“H-how to become friendly?”
“I don’t want to become friendly with it…”
With a face like granite, Professor Bendozol ignored the students’ complaints.
“Even when dealing with dangerous, savage monsters, it is foolish to choose fighting as the only option! A mage must be able to judge flexibly in any situation. Learning how to befriend a monster means understanding that monster more deeply than anyone else.”
“I see. That would also help more when hunting it.”
At that answer from a White Tiger Tower student, Professor Bendozol fixed the student with a stare that looked ready to burn the student alive. Terrified, the student hid behind a notebook.
“The best way to befriend a Nightmare Sparrow is transformation magic. Fortunately, there are several animals this creature feels a degree of familiarity toward. By next class, learn how to transform into one of those animals! Even if you can’t do it completely, at the very least you must be able to transform an arm!”
“Professor, I don’t major in transformation magic.”
At the student’s question, Professor Bendozol answered blandly.
“So what? Figure it out. Get a potion or get a scroll. That too is part of a mage’s ability!”
“……”
By now, the students had a solid grasp of how the professor operated, so instead of asking useless questions, they started discussing it among themselves.
“Small insect-type monsters, bird-type monsters… apparently serpent-type monsters also work surprisingly well? It seems to feel familiarity toward them.”
“A snake sounds better than an insect.”
“Ugh. I hate both.”
Basilisk is probably out, right?
As he thought together with the others about what animal to transform into, Lee Han considered the matter inwardly.
The second-circle spell he had learned last year, <Low-Grade Transformation>, was a spell that altered part of the body.
Since he already knew the spell, preparing something that matched Professor Bendozol’s demand did not seem especially difficult.
“Arm, become the foreleg of a beast.”
Since it had been a while since he last used the spell, Lee Han cast it lightly, just to check.
POOF!
At the sight of the student’s arm turning into a basilisk’s head, Professor Bendozol briefly wondered whether it might be better to just exempt that one outright.
For the Nightmare Sparrow’s safety, that really might be the right call.