Deadline Is Raining in the Status Window - Chapter 22

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com

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Could this be a major character who appeared under a different name? But I memorized all the characters. Regardless of the three thousand episodes or whatever, I’d binged through “Dawn’s Repentance” multiple times. I even remembered that stalker girl who appeared briefly in Heinrich’s arc—there was no way I could forget a character significant enough to impact the story.
More importantly, what was the Department Head Professor’s name? If I knew it, wouldn’t something come to mind?
With that thought, I scanned the Professor’s Office for a nameplate. There was none. More than a week had passed since my enrollment—I couldn’t very well ask the Department Head Professor’s name now.
What should I do?
“!”
Right, there was a way. I still had the basic etiquette of a civilized person. He’d even mentioned stopping by once I became a fourth-year student, and the atmosphere suggested asking for a business card wouldn’t be strange at all.
I’d get a business card and confirm the name!
I extended both hands and bowed deeply at the waist.
“What are you doing?”
“I was wondering if I might obtain your business card.”
“Ah. I see. One moment.”
Perhaps interpreting my gesture as a promise to visit if I changed my mind, the professor busily rummaged through his desk drawer while my nape went cold as ice.
This cursed automatic combat assessment skill, “Beast’s Charisma,” seemed to have a function that gauged the magnitude of power difference between my opponent and me through the stiffness of my neck and waist.
That’s why with Leina I could only manage a greeting, with the Academy Headmaster I could nod slightly, and with Hubert, the Serpent King’s son, I could bow respectfully enough.
But bowing to the Department Head Professor, my waist bent lower than it did for Hubert.
This Department Head Professor before my eyes was a greater monster than Hubert, whom the protagonist’s fully-grown party had barely defeated after fighting for two days and nights straight.
Out of desperation, I tried kneeling. My knees buckled. I tried pressing my forehead down. My forehead touched the ground.
…I’m genuinely terrified right now. I think I might cry.
“You don’t need to kneel just to receive a business card.”
“No, sir. I wish to kneel.”
“Very well. I understand.”
I gratefully accepted the business card the Department Head Professor bestowed upon me, rose while keeping my back bent, and shuffled backward in quick steps to open the door.
“A peculiar student indeed.”
“Reflex.”
“Reflex?”
“Absolute reflex.”
Don’t put yourself in the same category as the most terrifying person I’ve met since arriving here. My skin crawled so badly I scratched my arms and fled the Professor’s Office area like a coward.
Only after I’d safely entered the Dormitory grounds did I examine the business card at ease. It read: Imperial Crowell Academy, Department of Magic, Department Head Professor Common Professor.
“…”
It’s completely a pseudonym! What possessed the Academy to hire such a suspicious character?! Is the Academy Headmaster insane?!
I almost tore the card to shreds, but then feared retaliation if the Department Head Professor found out, so I carefully placed it in my pocket instead. Once I returned to my room, I’d laminate it and store it somewhere safe. I had an ominous premonition that my life would be in danger if I didn’t treat the business card with proper respect.
Well, I suppose… living in this world, there could be a professor whose actual name is Professor. I’m walking around with two biochips implanted in me anyway.
It’s possible. Such cases must exist! Perhaps his parents yearned for an ordinary life! The surname—well, it must be a family profession passed down through generations. Why, aren’t there many people who use their occupation as a surname? Baker, Taylor, and so forth.
I decided to think positively and returned to my room. Leina was thrilled, asking if I was serving detention with her too, so I insisted I was a free person—which made her incredibly dejected.

◇ ◆ ◇

During the weekend, I ditched Reina and roamed the mountains with unbridled enthusiasm, acquiring the Gathering skill at level 1 while harvesting wild herbs. After procuring fresh venison for the Cafeteria staff through their request, I obtained the Hunting skill at level 1.
Years of diligent effort bore fruit. While fern fronds were the primary focus, my experience harvesting horsehair crabs and oysters in Ilam had accumulated into valuable knowledge. The hunting experience came from taking children on outings and capturing wild boars caught in traps.
The experience points from unexpected developments—captured through unconventional means—were all funneled into poison resistance and ice projectile mastery. Poison resistance reaching level 5 was fortunate, but the problem remained: I had no way of knowing at what potency level the poison would cease to affect me.
It wasn’t as though I had access to poison supplies. My only option seemed to be sneaking into the Academic Science Building and indiscriminately testing whatever I could find.
While I deliberated over this dilemma, the female student I’d seen before—the one who’d sacrificed her vision behind a curtain of bangs—entered the practical magic training grounds. It appeared she’d finally abandoned that peculiar habit.
The girl had mustered the courage to cut her bangs, though she’d done it herself and the result was decidedly crooked. While it looked ridiculous to outsiders, the mages paid it no mind. After all, those who’d overlooked her vision-obscuring hairstyle certainly wouldn’t concern themselves with uneven bangs.
So I should ignore it too. Because I am, after all, a mage.
I’d intended to blend in with the others, but the female student spotted me and bounded over, waving enthusiastically.
“H-hey, Evan Laef! Hi!”
Hello, Little Shiny Stalker. How did you learn my name?
As I asked with suspicion, the girl hesitated and rolled her eyes upward before producing a plausible answer.
“Th-the attendance roster! Y-you know, when they c-call out names.”
An eighty percent probability of a lie. But I simply nodded without pressing further. The greeting was complete; there was no need for additional conversation.
“S-so, I cut my bangs. How do they look?”
So you were planning to engage in small talk.
I studied the girl’s face carefully, examining her bangs. They were indeed crooked. If Heinrich saw this, he’d be stressed again. That man was so particular about symmetry that he wore watches on both wrists.
“They look terrible.”
“T-terrible…”
“What did you cut them with?”
“S-scissors!”
Little Shiny Stalker produced a pair of scissors from her hip bag, their blades wickedly sharp. Where on earth had she obtained such a thing? They looked even more professional than the five-million-won shears I’d seen during my salon apprenticeship days.
“Let me borrow those for a moment.”
“O-okay.”
I had Little Shiny Stalker close her eyes, then grasped her bangs and trimmed them with practiced strokes. Since we were outdoors, I didn’t worry about cleanup, and I wanted at least to achieve symmetry.
Even without Heinrich’s level of fastidiousness, staring at those stepped bangs continuously bothered me.
“Done. From now on, cut along this line.”
“Th-thank you.”
I wanted to show her my handiwork, but unfortunately there was no mirror here. As Little Shiny Stalker touched her bangs, Reina—that crazy bastard—suddenly hurled a fireball, which I deflected.
“You insane fool, you singed me!”
“Who told you to stand there?!”
That fighting dog causes trouble everywhere. The male student Reina had picked a fight with cried out as the tips of his prized shimmering, wavy blonde hair caught fire, shooting light from his hands.
I’d thought he was throwing something physical with his hand-gun gesture, but those tiny spike-like projectiles were laser beams.
A thin, small beam of light pierced through the building, and the tiny fracture continued endlessly—terrifying. The male student himself seemed uninterested in fighting, apparently having chosen a career path related to gem cutting.
“Class begins, you damn brats.”
The Practical Magic Professor—a senior alumnus of the Academy’s mages, and the kind instructor who’d decided the first class required mental preparation from everyone and simply canceled it—arrived at the training grounds accompanied by the Department Head Professor.
“Don’t mind him. The Department Head Professor said he was bored and wanted to observe.”
“Bored Department Head Professor, Common Professor.”
He’s actually using that name. I wasn’t the only one unsettled by the Department Head Professor’s uncommonness. The first-year students murmured among themselves—”Is that a pseudonym?” “Can you teach under a pseudonym?”—and Little Shiny Stalker beside me joined in.
“Wh-what an unusual professor…”
Honestly, looking at you lot, I can surmise you’re just grown-up versions of yourselves. Nothing particularly noteworthy about that. The only thing noteworthy would be power sufficient to make me kneel and crack my skull.
“The career counseling with the priests you lot came here seeking is only held at the end of first year. We instituted this policy because too many students would pay the fee, get their counseling, and disappear.”
“Tsk.”
“Tch.”
Hearing the scattered clicking of tongues throughout the room, it seemed there really were quite a few who’d planned to pay the hundred million and bolt after getting their career guidance.
In the world of 【Twilight’s Repentance】, there existed only one god—the Creator Deity who brought all things into existence and governed the destiny of everything. People typically called this being simply “the god” or “the god of destiny.” The Temple of Destiny was the place that revered this god of destiny, and those who worked in the temple were priests of destiny.
In other works, priests might heal illnesses or wield divine power, but the priests here were different. Since the god they served was both the Creator and the god of destiny, they divined people’s fates.
Not in the sense of seeing the future directly. Rather, they consulted the god of destiny to determine whether an individual possessed the potential to awaken certain skills and how much growth potential they held, then provided guidance on their path forward.
Since the mana stone bio-chip served as the connection channel to the god of destiny, any priest needed the ability to examine mana stones and possess a skill to reveal an individual’s potential. The more accurate and detailed this assessment, the higher rank the priest achieved.
The Academy invited high-ranking priests of destiny to conduct career assessments at the end of each academic year to support student development. Since priests of the highest ranks couldn’t be hired for counseling even with money, one could say the students of the Magic Department and Combat Techniques Department endured this prison-like existence and continued their lives at the Academy precisely for this opportunity.
“Those of you who’ve fooled around before know this already, but if you overuse your skills, you’ll cough up blood.”
I already knew that. I nodded, and the Little Shiny Stalker beside me also nodded. So you looked introverted but were actually reckless as hell.
“I’ll distribute counter tokens to each of you. Check one every time you cast a spell, and keep going until you’re vomiting blood. Begin.”
I understood the intention behind assessing students’ limits, but soon enough the training grounds would reek of blood.
“….”
The training ground’s soil had an oddly reddish tint—surely it wasn’t from the blood of all those who’d passed through here until now.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com

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