It’s an Academic Fact That Rankers Are Model Students – Chapter 252

Chapter 252: Ice Bird and Kyung-joon

After a brief exchange of stories.

“Just to confirm, is that Zero you’re talking about this Ice Bird?”

Ding.

[Unique skill 『Mysterious Taming』 ]

[Displaying information window for 『Zero』.]

Whoosh.

Kyung-joon used his skill to display an information window and handed it over to the Fairy King and the Seventh Princess.

“It’s not Zero, it’s Anivia!”

“Anyway, is that her?”

“Ugh…”

Snatch.

The Seventh Princess snatched the information window that Kyung-joon had sent.

As soon as she saw the 3D image displayed on the information window, the Seventh Princess raised her voice.

“That’s her! The lightning-shaped feather on her head! Anyone can tell it’s our Anivia! You stole her, didn’t you?! You criminal!”

“Steal is a bit harsh. I thought it was a gift, like the wings you gave me before.”

“A gift?! How can you say that after seeing the words 『My Beloved Anivia』 engraved on the back of the royal family crest necklace around her neck?!”

The Seventh Princess turned the necklace on Anivia’s 3D image to show it.

“Aha. So that was the previous owner’s necklace.”

“Previous owner?! Grrr! You keep saying that…! Mmm?! Mmm!”

“Now, now, calm down, little one.”

the Fairy King hugged the Seventh Princess again and stopped her from raging.

Kyung-joon spoke to the mother and daughter in a voice that sounded like he understood.

“Anyway, I understand. Zero is safe in our territory, so I’ll send her right over when we get there. That’s it, right?”

It seemed like the current situation would be resolved with this.

Considering how he ended up being detained, it seemed like it was the Seventh Princess, not the Fairy King, who caused the commotion.

If he returned Anivia to her original owner, the Seventh Princess, the Fairy King would take care of the rest.

Or so he thought.

“Later is not okay! It has to be today!”

The Seventh Princess strongly opposed.

“Mom might die tomorrow…! Because you took her away without permission, Zero… no, Anivia might end up like this without even having a last conversation with Mom! Waaah!”

The Seventh Princess suddenly burst into tears, unable to contain her frustration.

Kyung-joon’s eyes widened slightly.

“Mom is dying? Is the Fairy King-nim too?”

Too?

the Fairy King felt something strange from Kyung-joon’s words.

“No, not me, but my Ice Bird. Anivia’s mother.”

“Aha.”

The mom the Seventh Princess was talking about wasn’t her mom, the Fairy King, but Anivia’s mom.

“Then we can have someone take her through the Warp Gate. If I send a letter with them, Kingyear will let them into the territory and hand over the Ice Bird.”

Kyung-joon came up with the most plausible alternative.

“That might be a little difficult.”

However, the Fairy King shook her head and said.

“Our Fael Alliance’s Thanksgiving is from this week to the end of next week, so the Warp Gate is fully booked. You can’t use it unless you’ve made a reservation in advance. We could use the royal family’s exclusive airship, but considering the time…”

“Isn’t there a royal Warp Gate or something? Or the Fairy King-nim’s spatial magic.”

“I’ve already used the emergency command authority for the Arc-en-Ciel incident, so I can’t use it again. In the end, we’ll have to go through the process with the Elders’ Council, and that would officially confirm your accusation of stealing national treasures, Kyung-joon, which would make your future activities much more troublesome.”

“Hmm… It really is one thing after another…”

Kyung-joon pondered with his chin on his hand.

It’s not like there’s no way at all.

If Kyung-joon pushed a little harder, the Fairy King would definitely listen to him over the Seventh Princess.

After all, Kyung-joon was the descendant of Huma that the the Fairy King had been waiting for for so long, and she vaguely sensed that Kyung-joon was in a very urgent situation.

“Sigh… Little one. It can’t be helped. Anivia’s mother has endured well so far, so let’s trust her a little longer and wait. If we send someone separately, we should be able to bring Anivia back within a week.”

“Sob! Sob! What if Mamavia dies within that week…! Just thinking about her passing away in a faraway land without even saying goodbye to Mom is tearing my heart apart…! Waaah!”

“Little one…”

The still young Seventh Princess cried even more sadly.

Kyung-joon couldn’t bring himself to speak at her sorrowful appearance.

‘Mamavia… Anivia… Pfft…’

Honestly.

He wasn’t really trying to get emotionally invested in someone else’s death or the death of their relative.

They were strangers after all, and it was even more so since the subject was a game character, not even a real person, but a monster.

However.

“Mother…! Please save her! Save Mamavia! Your magic is the best in the Fael Alliance! Aunt Teina! Yes, Aunt Teina can definitely…!”

“Little one. Even the greatest wizard, even the most devout priest, cannot stop a death ordained by the divine.”

A death ordained by the divine.

An unavoidable death that must be accepted.

Kyung-joon’s heart trembled at those words.

It was as if he was being told to accept his own impending death.

He couldn’t just stand there and listen.

“Come to think of it, I haven’t researched immortal creatures like phoenixes or Ice Birds, which are similar to delomel… This could be a new breakthrough……”

He wanted to rebel against the fate that dictated he would die.

Because if he didn’t, it felt like he would accept the same fate.

Step.

Kyung-joon walked closer to the Seventh Princess.

“Huh……?”

The Seventh Princess looked up at Kyung-joon with tear-stained eyes.

Pat, pat.

Kyung-joon patted the little Seventh Princess’s head as if to comfort himself.

The Seventh Princess, caught completely off guard, just made a puzzled expression with her tear-stained face.

“Why would she die?”

Kyung-joon spoke in a voice that showed he had already made up his mind.

“Then take me to Mamavia. I’ll let her live a long life after seeing her daughter’s face.”

🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷

Wooong.

Kyung-joon was diagnosing the sick Ice Bird.

The surroundings were messy with papers covered in metaphysical formulas.

These were the traces of Kyung-joon having to calculate everything himself because Teemo was currently out of order.

Groan.

Kyung-joon removed his hand from Mamavia’s body, which was barely breathing.

“That’s a relief.”

Wiping the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve, he continued.

“As an Ice Bird, I’ll need to do more research, but I think I can reincarnate her as a phoenix right now.”

The Ice Bird, a mutation of the phoenix.

Unlike the phoenix, which burns itself to be reborn when it’s time to die, the Ice Bird simply freezes.

However, by applying Kyung-joon’s theory of genetic manacology, he could turn the Ice Bird, a mutation that couldn’t express fire attribute factors, back into a phoenix.

“But if she’s reborn as a phoenix, she’ll lose most of her previous memories and be like a newborn chick, right? The memories of 700 years spent together in the royal palace will also disappear, and if that happens, Mamavia’s existence will be no different from death…”

Kyung-joon said so and placed his hand on Mamavia’s forehead again.

And he began to channel mana.

It was a completely different kind of mana from the one he used for diagnosis.

This wasn’t for diagnosis, but for treatment.

[Kyung-joon and Teina’s joint research skill 『Eternal Telomere』 ]

Eternal Telomere, a magic that activates the telomeres of cells with mana to prevent their death.

It could prevent aging itself, beyond simple healing.

Wooong.

Mamavia’s face, which had been gasping for breath as if she would die soon, relaxed a little.

“It’s not perfectly researched yet, so it’s only a temporary extension of time, but let’s study it. I needed this kind of research anyway.”

“T, Then… does that mean Mom can live without dying?”

“I can’t be sure, but yes.”

“Sob! Mom…!”

The Seventh Princess hugged the much more comfortable Mamavia and cried with joy.

the Fairy King watched the touching scene with a warm gaze, while Kyung-joon continued to write down formulas on paper.

“But isn’t that your mom?”

Mother and Mom.

It was a strange situation where there were two mothers.

“I was busy with my royal duties and couldn’t take good care of my youngest. Mamavia filled that void. She was called by a different name 700 years ago, but now, whether it’s her other sisters or me, that name has stuck. Anyway, to my youngest, Mamavia is not just Anivia’s mother, but like her own mother.”

“Aha.”

Now he understood why the Seventh Princess had been crying and making a fuss.

For a while.

After the Seventh Princess’s sea of tears subsided.

“Th… uh, um…”

The Seventh Princess stood awkwardly in front of Kyung-joon, fidgeting and not knowing what to do.

She seemed to be struggling with how to address him.

“Kyung-joon.”

Kyung-joon kindly provided his name.

“Oh… yes. Kyung-joon, no, K, Kyung-joon-nim…”

Perhaps remembering how she had acted arrogantly towards Kyung-joon at first and cried in front of him, the Seventh Princess blushed with embarrassment.

“Sigh.”

And then, as if she had made up her mind.

As she had learned in her princess lessons, she slightly lifted her dress and bowed gracefully and sincerely.

“I’m truly sorry for my rudeness earlier.”

“Yes.”

“And… thank you so much for helping us in the end.”

“Yes.”

“…So?”

“Yes.”

Kyung-joon, focused on his calculations, responded curtly to the Seventh Princess’s apology and gratitude.

“Ugh! Fine! Just keep doing your thing! Then please excuse me! Hmph!”

The Seventh Princess puffed out her cheeks like a pufferfish and flapped her wings wildly as she stormed off.

Scratch, scratch.

In the room where the sick mother Ice Bird was sleeping soundly, only the sound of Kyung-joon’s pen could be heard.

“You seem to be in a hurry. Are you sure you’re alright?”

the Fairy King, who hadn’t left yet, asked Kyung-joon.

“Yes. It’s urgent, but…”

Kyung-joon didn’t take his eyes off the formula.

“It’s not entirely unrelated to what I’m doing now.”

It wasn’t unrelated.

Rather, Kyung-joon felt that this research fit perfectly with his current situation.

Mamavia and Kyung-joon.

Mamavia was dying because the ‘telomeres’ of her genes, which controlled aging, were getting shorter.

Kyung-joon’s telomeres were too active, giving his cells incredible power while simultaneously becoming cancerous.

In other words, it was a matter of dying of old age or not aging but dying from cancer spreading throughout the body.

The basic mechanism was the same, but the direction was the opposite for Kyung-joon and Mamavia.

Of course, there was no way the the Fairy King would know or understand even if he explained it to her.

“…What in the world is going on with you?”

But the Fairy King, with her characteristic experience, caught on to one thing.

“I haven’t known you for that long, but you seem different from usual. You seem to be in a hurry, with no time to spare. As if you’ve been given a terminal diagnosis.”

“Haha. Do I look that way?”

“And that’s how Huma always was. He would act like it was nothing, even when it came to the most important things, especially those related to his own life. Yes, just like you right now. You’re trying to hide it with indifference, seriousness, and sometimes even playfulness and cheerfulness… but I can’t help but sense the anxiety.”

And that wasn’t all.

The aura of pitch black she had felt for a brief moment earlier, the first time in nearly 700 years.

And the feeling of Huma’s presence that had disappeared at that very moment.

The fact that he had said “the Fairy King-nim too?” when he heard that Mamavia was dying.

And the way he was trying to change the fate of the Ice Bird, whose death was imminent.

Each and every one of these things made the Fairy King make all sorts of guesses.

“Tell me. What happened, and what kind of extreme situation are you in right now?”

the Fairy King asked with a genuinely worried expression, an expression that said she truly wanted to help.

“Haha.”

Scratch, scratch.

In response, Kyung-joon just chuckled emptily and continued writing down the formula.

Thud.

Suddenly, Kyung-joon stopped writing.

“Have you ever seen this before, 700 years ago?”

“This is…”

He showed the Fairy King the crystal ball, Teemo, which was now visible to others.

And he also showed her a status window…

[Secrets of the World]

▶Descendant, you have finally come this far.

▶Reach the depths of the Fairy-Elven Alliance, within the device in the abyss. Once you arrive, refer to 『C:\Users\Huma\Documents\Eastern Crowned Warbler\If_the_successor_is_an_otherworlder.txt』.

▶Quest Type: Emergency

▶Quest Grade: Mythical

“Once I’m done with the Ice Bird, could you help me with this quest?”

the Fairy King, looking at the quest window Kyung-joon shared, opened her eyes wide as if she had a guess.

Then, with a firm nod and a resolute expression, she opened her mouth again.

“Yes. Whether the treatment succeeds or fails, I will use my authority to take you there.”

The abyss of the Fairy-Elven Alliance.

Within the Eastern Crowned Warbler folder there, lies the clue to solving everything.

🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷

A week has passed.

It has also been a week since Kyung-joon last logged out.

He has been receiving nutrients intravenously for his meals in reality, and his waste has been taken care of by the automatic toilet in AngerManagementVodka’s workshop.

During that time, Kyung-joon had not left Mamavia’s room for even a single step.

The surroundings were covered in numbers, symbols, and unrecognizable drawings.

Hundreds of such papers were scattered about, and it seemed like there were thousands more piled up.

Buzz.

And now, he was even using the ceiling as a notepad, flying around with the Fly skill.

Scratch, scratch, scratch.

How much force was he putting into his hand as he wrote down the formulas?

The sound was like he was scraping away at the ceiling.

And then.

Snap!

The pen finally broke, unable to withstand the intense force.

At the same time, his hand slipped, and the broken pen fell to the floor.

Thud.

“It’s okay.”

The Seventh Princess approached and picked up the pen.

In her arms, the Ice Bird Zero, whom she had brought from the Study Territory for the day, was sleeping soundly.

“That’s enough, Kyung-joon-nim.”

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