Don't Feed the Professor! - Chapter 71

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

“Yikes.”
Mallo muttered under his breath.
Even so, the screen within the translucent display kept advancing.
[A performance that defies prediction.]
Crackle.
[That will set your heart racing…….]
Crackle-pop.
[Overwhelming cinematic―.]
A silver sports car tearing through the frame in an impossible arc, a smartphone launching exaggerated flares, the latest gaming console—and more.
A television playing ads on infinite loop. I’d known his taste for a while now, but this was almost obscene in its materialism.
“Lee Yuri.”
Tap-tap. Mallo nudged my shoulder with his fingertip.
“Hm……?”
His finger pointed down at my feet.
“Oh.”
Only then did I realize I’d been stepping on something that looked like a tiny remote control.
“Oh, sorry…….”
I picked up the remote and handed it over. Mallo pressed a button, cutting off the erratic flashing on the screen. The display transformed into a transparent glass panel.
“……But why is a remote control just lying around here?”
“Couldn’t decide where to put it.”
Only then could I take a proper look around.
Fundamentally it was a static, subdued office done in wood tones. But something…… was off. There was far too much of it.
Countless screens, all manner of audio equipment, unidentifiable machinery and unopened boxes.
Half of the panel wall lit by soft indirect lighting was obscured by boxes of various sizes.
“This way.”
As we turned into the corridor beyond the wall, my assessment only deepened. Could Mallo possibly be some sort of god of material desire?
“You didn’t purchase all this yourself?”
“No, these are gifts.”
……From whom?
“Watch out.”
Mallo’s hand came to rest on my shoulder. I ducked in alarm at the whirring sound, and a drone passed just over my head.
“Your tastes must be quite well-known, Professor?”
“That’s what we call confirmation bias.”
“Reading too much into it? But you wouldn’t stack things up like this if you didn’t actually enjoy them.”
“Fair point.”
The corridor opened into a spacious room with some breathing space in the middle.
“Sit wherever you like.”
I settled onto a cream-colored sofa and looked around.
This had to be a basement, yet light filtered in through the skylight overhead, and the air and humidity felt pleasant.
Save for the clutter, it was an ordinary reception room. Though I wasn’t entirely sure, it felt as though I’d been invited to the professor’s actual office.
“The lack of time to organize is genuine. This place has been empty for quite a while, actually.”
Mallo spoke while searching through the shelves.
Empty for a while?
Right—this is Mallo’s ‘research lab,’ after all. Not his home.
Why had I blindly assumed he’d been living at Gwangryun University the whole time? Like a kindergartener thinking the teacher lives at school.
Mallo continued.
“Recently I’ve had reason to venture outside the school. Apparently word got around—people have been sending all sorts of things.”
Ah, so it’s more like tributes. The way Gwon Tae-hyeon had once presented a skateboard.
I looked back at the boxes stacked throughout the corridor. Some of them must be quite valuable. If I took a few and sold them, I could make a tidy sum.
“……When you receive something, what then?”
“What do you mean?”
“Those things. When you get them—is that the end of it?”
Mallo shrugged.
“I told you. Tributes are always sustenance.”
“But everyone who gives gifts or tributes must be hoping for something in return, right?”
“They probably are. But the professor here isn’t a service center.”
Lord.
“Still, what if the gift was something you really loved?”
Mallo pretended to think for a moment, then answered.
“I’d say thank you.”
“…….”
It was the sort of answer one might expect from him, but it stirred an odd sense of unease. It drove home the reality that he was the one in the position of choice.
A conversation with Momo at Welcome Mart came back to me.
〈You can draw a being’s affection by offering it tribute, and demand favor in return. Whether it accepts is uncertain, and even if it does, you’ll have to pay a corresponding price.〉
The Fortress must be full of people desperate to grasp at any straw.
They go to all that trouble to reach a being, and the only answer that comes back is ‘thank you.’ Wouldn’t that be rather disappointing?
I asked.
“Have you ever been to the outside world, Professor?”
“If by ‘outside’ you mean the world you came from, then no.”
“But you like things that come from there. Don’t you want to go see them directly?”
“You can see plenty without having to go in person……. Or to put it more precisely…….”
Mallo wore a thoughtful expression for a moment, then went on.
“Even if I did go, I wouldn’t be able to stay long.”
“What?”
“Your people dissolve if they stay in the Fortress too long, right? Because you can’t sustain a single sense of self.”
“Right, that’s true.”
“But if I went to your world……, um, what did the apocalypticists call it…….”
“Apocalypticists……?”
I realized Mallo was dragging out his words not because he’d forgotten the word, but because he didn’t want to tell me.
“Either way, I can’t go. And I shouldn’t interfere.”
“But just being with me is already interfering, isn’t it?”
Mallo only smiled silently.
So the conclusion was that it would be bad if Mallo came to the human world.
“Then what about affection?”
“Hm?”
“If you became fond of a human, wouldn’t that inevitably lead to interference, and then…….”
“I don’t know. Actually, I don’t like calling it that.”
“Not calling what…… ‘affection’? Why?”
“Humans leave tributes to beings and think of it as a fair ‘transaction.’ But whether that being even understands such concepts is another matter entirely.”
“Then…….”
“It’s absurd from the start—luring a beast with bait and then demanding it pay a price. From the beast’s eyes, humans and tributes probably look much the same.”
“So you’re saying it would……eat humans? Really?”
Your eyes got huge, Mallo said with a playful smile.
Come to think of it, I’d had a similar conversation with Momo. Humans’ instability draws the attention of greater beings. Affection is hard to earn but easy to lose in a heartbeat.
To them, humans are nothing more than a brief diversion.
Perhaps because I’d been infected by Freya’s melancholy, I’d grown emotionally fragile lately.
Suddenly I recalled how recklessly I’d behaved in front of Mallo. That was only possible if I was certain he wouldn’t hurt me.
With Mallo, I felt safe. Before a being who compared himself to a beast.
“You look like you have many questions.”
“……I do.”
Yet I didn’t ask them hastily. One thing I’d learned in this short semester was that to get the right answer, you had to ask the right question.
I looked at Mallo. He stood before the bookcase, looking back at me. Sunlight pouring through the skylight illuminated his forehead.
Where had I seen eyes like that before?
“Um, Professor.”
“Yes?”
I drew in a small breath. And I asked the question I’d held back for so long.
“Am I……being favored by you?”
“…….”
“Don’t tell me to stop worrying about it now. If it had come to that, I wouldn’t have asked.”
Anxious, I rushed my words out.
Mallo looked at me and asked.
“Would you like that to be true?”
“……Again.”
A question answered with a question.
In the end, the only conclusion I could reach on my own was this: Mallo had no need to manipulate or control me.
I was already swaying of my own accord, wasn’t I?
I was completely…….
“Now that I think about it.”
“Yes?”
“I had something I wanted to give you.”
Mallo approached and placed something on the coffee table beside me.
A paper envelope no larger than a single fingertip.
“……What is it?”
“Two weeks from now, on Thursday, go to Hojeong Station. Director Lee Chae-eun from Rescue Team C will be waiting there instead of the team leader. Take this—don’t open it—just bring it with you.”
“……?”
“When you mention my name, she’ll take care of the rest. She’ll clear your debts and, if you want, authorize witness protection for you.”
“What are you talking about right now?”
I stared blankly at him, and Mallo tilted his head to look at me.
And he spoke quietly.
“Go back, Lee Yuri. You have no reason to stay here anymore.”

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