It’s an Academic Fact That Rankers Are Model Students – Chapter 195

Chapter 195: Troublemaker (2)

Waaaaaaaah―!

Below the Scroll Department’s tree, students are seen brawling in a chaotic mess.

Frankel, looking down at them, heaves a deep sigh.

“Haaa…”

Frankel, the head of the Scroll Department.

For him, the current situation was nothing short of a headache.

The commotion, which only intensified with time and showed no signs of abating.

Today marked the last day of the festival, and regular classes were to resume from tomorrow. What was he to do then?

Thud.

As Frankel closed the soundproof window, the roar from below subsided instantly.

He then turned and sat down at his desk, but his troubles were far from over.

A mountain of letters piled high on the department head’s desk.

All of them were from 『Don’t be scared, don’t be shy, it’s the ‘Conversations with the Department Head’ mailbox~♣』.

Usually, he would receive one letter a day, if that. But ever since that Edict fellow caused a stir with the Scroll Department and Kyung-joon, dozens of letters arrived daily.

“……Well, I suppose I should at least read them.”

Thinking it would be the same old content, Frankel started checking the letters one by one.

This was, after all, his duty as the department head.

First, the first letter.

『To the esteemed Head of the Department of Scroll and Scroll Programming. I am a student from another department who wishes to transfer to the Department of Scroll and Scroll Programming. However, my transfer approval has been pending for weeks now, and despite being from another department, I am writing this letter directly. If you are reading this, please, please consider me, Louis Martin, the fourth son of the Martin family, student ID 76, for transfer to the Department of Scroll and Scroll Programming…』

Thump.

Frankel closed the letter and tossed it aside.

“Department of Scroll and Scroll Programming…… Why is it so long? It’s tiresome even to say.”

Frankel thought he had made a mistake in naming the department, though it was he who had named it.

Anyway, this letter was a transfer request.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t approve it.

“If I’m not mistaken, this makes it the 107th one. I should be happy, but……”

With this letter, the number of transfer applications to the Scroll Department had reached 107.

If it were just three or four, he would have readily approved them, but over a hundred transfers were a different story.

Each department had a set number of professors and a limit on the number of students they could manage. It was impossible to accept nearly 100 new students without increasing the faculty.

He could force it, but then the other departments would surely complain about their students being poached.

And since all these applicants were eager to learn scroll programming, there was not a single professor or graduate instructor in the department who truly understood scroll programming.

The only possibility was Ezeri Capirus, Frankel’s former master’s student, but she had already been scouted by Arc-en-Ciel and was now far away in the capital.

“Haa……”

Frankel sighed deeply once more and opened the second letter.

『When does the scroll programming class startㅡㅡ? Hurry up and start it. Is the department head slacking off?』

Another letter urging him to start the scroll programming class, something he saw dozens of times a day.

They were now so brazen as to drop even the basic courtesy of formal language.

“You little…… Do you think the department head is a pushover? Back in my day, you’d have your fingers broken for sending something like this!”

Rip! Rip!

Frankel angrily tore the disrespectful letter to shreds and threw it in the trash.

He moved on to the third, fourth, fifth…… endless letters.

『Department Head! When will Kyung-joon-nim grace us as a professor?! If you’ve seen the letters we’ve sent, surely he should be here by today……!』

『I want to get close to senior Edict, but he keeps going on about Kyung-joon-nim, Kyung-joon-nim, it’s driving me crazy.』

『I think I get it…… the level of scroll programming…… It’s so hard I want to die.』

『Scroll programming is murder to me.』

『My girlfriend dumped me today. I wonder why. Was it because I wasn’t good enough? What was I lacking…… I really liked her…… I loved her so much……』

.

.

.

“Argh! Will you all stop bothering me?! ‘Conversations with the Department Head’ mailbox is not your emotional dumping ground?!”

Swooosh!

Frankel, unable to contain his frustration as department head any longer, swept the letters off his desk in a fit of rage.

Stomp! Stomp!

Frankel stomped across the department head’s office, now littered with scattered letters, and grabbed a bottle of liquor he had stashed away in a high drawer.

Glug, glug, glug.

Returning to his seat, he poured himself a generous amount of alcohol, almost as if he were trying to drown his sorrows.

“Gulp, gulp, gulp……! Ah! That hits the spot!”

Clang!

Frankel roughly set down the silver-rimmed liquor glass.

The desk shook, and a partially concealed letter caught his eye.

『Allowing Ezeri Capirus to be scouted by the Grand Magic Tower Arc-en-Ciel seems to be a grave mistake for the department, as Those Who Tear Paper suggests. While it may be difficult to bring her back, we must secure Kyung-joon-nim, the creator of scroll programming, for the Magic University……』

A sensible letter arguing that even if they lost Ezeri, they must keep Kyung-joon at the Magic University.

Naturally, Frankel, the head of the Scroll Department, was well aware of this.

However, knowing and doing were two different things.

“Haa…… The Grand Magic Tower is offering tens of billions to scout talent. What good is a measly department head like me going to do to stop them……?”

The Magic University might be a place of learning, but it couldn’t compete with the might of the Magic Towers, the true centers of magical technology.

Of course, some argued that only universities could pursue pure academic research.

But those were just empty words now.

As magical research became more sophisticated, even simple theoretical verification required vast capital and manpower. Universities, unable to keep up in terms of scale, had long become mere stepping stones to the Magic Towers.

All the truly groundbreaking research that would shape the future of the Fairy-Elven Alliance was conducted in the Magic Towers.

“No, it’s not even that they took over. Universities were never equipped to handle that kind of magical research in the first place…… Sigh.”

Glug, glug.

Frankel poured himself another glass of liquor to relieve his stress.

In a way, Frankel was the one in the most pitiful situation.

He bore the responsibility of resolving the current chaos as department head, on top of his existing duties as a professor.

“Haa…… In the end, Ezeri was scouted by Arc-en-Ciel straight out of her master’s without even pursuing a doctorate, and all the students applying to the graduate program only want to study scroll programming……”

Of course, the right thing to do as department head would be to take charge and rally everyone with a cry of 『Let’s reclaim the glory of scroll magic!』…

“……But I can’t do that. I’m the only one who’ll suffer.”

There was a reason why Frankel couldn’t do that.

Gulp, gulp, gulp!

As Frankel downed another glass of liquor along with his complaints……

Woong. Woong.

Suddenly, something like a heat haze began to shimmer in the middle of his office.

“Hmm……?”

Frankel rubbed his eyes, thinking he had drunk too much.

But the haze didn’t disappear; it only grew stronger.

Wooonngg!

Then, space itself began to distort.

“W, What the?!”

Thud!

Frankel scrambled back from the suddenly warping space, knocking over his chair.

“S, Spatial magic?! How is this possible without a Warp Gate……!”

Wooonngg!

Someone who could warp to any place at any time without a Warp Gate.

“C, Could it be…!”

As far as Frankel knew, there was only one such person in the entire Fairy-Elven Alliance.

700 years ago.

When the Demon King and the demons threatened to rule the world, seven heroes rose to stop them and sealed the Demon King away.

They were called the Seven Heroes because each bore one of the seven duties in sealing the Demon King.

Among them, the one who had undertaken the sixth duty, the one who provided the sealing mana.

Only the 『Fairy King』 could wield spatial magic.

Crackle!

“Gah……!”

As space tore open, a blinding light of mana erupted, impossible to look at directly.

If Frankel hadn’t been an elf, blessed by mana, but an ordinary human, he would have immediately succumbed to mana poisoning and mana radiation exposure.

Fizzle……

The light subsided, and Frankel’s vision gradually returned.

At the same time, Frankel knelt and bowed his head in respect.

“Fairy King…… To what do I owe the honor of your presence in this humble place……?”

“I am not him.”

“Huh?”

At the words that he wasn’t the Fairy King, Frankel quickly raised his head.

The afterimage of the light still lingered, making it difficult to discern the newcomer’s identity, but it was clear that the one who had teleported was not the Fairy King.

Because the figure he had glimpsed was not a fairy, but an elf.

As his vision fully cleared, Frankel identified the newcomer and bowed his head once more.

“Supreme Elder. It’s been a while.”

“Indeed, it has been a long time, Frankel.”

The one who had teleported was not the Fairy King, but the second-in-command, Supreme Elder.

He continued to look down at the bowing Frankel with a solemn expression.

“Heh heh.”

Larev suddenly let out a chuckle, as if trying to suppress his amusement.

“Pfft.”

Frankel, still kneeling on one knee, did the same.

“Hahaha!”

“Ahahaha!”

Finally, both of them burst into laughter.

Larev, regaining his composure first, helped the kneeling Frankel to his feet.

Then, as if overjoyed, they embraced each other tightly, patting each other’s shoulders and backs like comrades reunited after a long war.

Releasing their manly embrace, they shook hands and spoke in unison.

“It’s been about a hundred years, hasn’t it? You’ve aged, my friend. You’ve become quite the old man.”

“Look who’s talking. Becoming the Supreme Elder has turned you into a grandpa!”

“Haha! You rascal.”

The Supreme Elder and Frankel, the head of the Scroll Department.

They were the closest of friends.

🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷

“Here’s some tea brewed with Tree of Memory leaves.”

“Thank you. My head always feels fuzzy after riding the Fairy King’s teleportation.”

Frankel returned to using formal language, while Larev spoke casually.

Larev had told him to drop the formalities, but given their current positions, it was only appropriate.

As Larev waited for the tea to steep, he asked Frankel,

“I hear you’ve been quite busy these days.”

“As if you didn’t know, Elder.”

“Haha, true enough. The humans are always complaining about a lack of piety and trying to pass ridiculous laws like the Canton Region Church Quota System, while the beastkin alliance keeps sending illegal immigrants our way. I just finished arguing with the elders about building a wall to stop them. I doubt anyone’s paying attention to what’s happening at the Magic University right now.”

“Haha, and I’m sure you had nothing to do with that.”

“Heh heh. Your sharp eyes haven’t dulled one bit. Well, whatever the case, thanks to you, I got a bit of a breather.”

The reason why Frankel, the head of the Scroll Department, hadn’t intervened in the current situation at school.

It was a direct order from Larev, the Supreme Elder.

『Keep otherworlder Kyung-joon out of the spotlight as much as possible.』

Therefore, Frankel used his authority as department head to suppress public awareness of “scroll programming.”

He had intended to ask Ezeri to do the same, but……

“……Arc-en-Ciel. Somehow, they caught wind of it.”

The Grand Magic Tower 『Arc-en-Ciel』, known as the origin and master of scroll magic, had somehow obtained the information and scouted Ezeri.

And that had become a huge topic, leading to the current situation.

Of course, no one had anticipated that things would escalate to this extent, with Scrollpia, Those Who Tear Paper, and all the rest.

“I should have been more careful……”

“No, no. Chin up. Arc-en-Ciel is a different beast altogether. They may be mocked as a tower clinging to relics of the past, but they are still a Grand Magic Tower.”

It was almost certain that a professor connected to Arc-en-Ciel had leaked the information during Ezeri’s qualifying exams.

“I apologize for my negligence.”

“They likely meant no harm. Perhaps they grew impatient with your constant deferrals and rejections for support and decided to take matters into their own hands.”

That professor must have recognized the immense value of Kyung-joon and his scroll programming.

Frustrated by the department head’s inaction despite such groundbreaking research, they had leaked the information.

“I believe it’s sufficiently brewed now.”

Sip.

Larev closed his eyes, taking a few sips of the tea as if to calm his mind and gather his thoughts.

Then, he set down his cup carefully and opened his eyes.

With a grave expression, he said to Frankel,

“The Fairy King has sent a message, delivered by the Seventh Princess’s Ice bird.”

The message, in this case, referred to a letter addressed to Kyung-joon.

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