<933 – Rolling Oknodie (1)>
Alex found himself bound by an invisible chain of binding magic around his neck.
“Did it really have to be this kind of binding magic?”
“It was a special request from Titosso! They’ve become so capable on their own lately, but I missed those days when newbies would rely on me. I was so happy to oblige after such a long time, you know?”
“Ha. What are you, my grandma? The youngest one here and spouting nonsense.”
“Hmph. There’s nothing to gain by getting on my bad side. To say such things, you must have some serious resolve!”
“…Would you accept an apology now, if I offered one?”
Alex couldn’t escape the thought that he was getting screwed over.
Oknodie’s meaningful grin seemed to say, “I’m about to mess you up now,” and was truly a little demon personified.
Even someone as sheltered as him in the Research Dimension could guess through the bits of information he had obtained in that brief time how exceptional Oknodie was and how much everyone relied on this celebrity.
The Academy held the principle that the more famous you were, the higher your combat power; in terms of popularity, Alex had just poked the nest of the most terrifying trap imaginable.
“Given your reflection, I’ll forgive you for the first day. I’ll be reading genealogy books tonight, so for today, just quietly follow me!”
“That’s simple enough.”
This was a foolish thought, one made without knowing that Oknodie had no intention of walking on two legs.
With a sudden surge and the chains yanking at his neck, Alex gasped and struggled, flailing his legs in resistance.
Indeed, the leap of a master was impressive.
But, still, his physical abilities weren’t to be underestimated either.
Among the monsters, he was a strong contender, aside from Titosso, and he had no doubt he could keep pace with anyone at such a quick speed.
“There’s no ground, no ground!!”
If Oknodie was bouncing on his two feet, that would be the case.
Being dragged along by Oknodie, who was leaping and bounding as if in mid-air, meant that he had to step on the same platforms before they disappeared.
However, Oknodie’s jumping mechanics had a very narrow hitbox.
Like rhythm games that evaluate you as poor, bad, good, great, or perfect, if you missed the perfect moment with Oknodie’s platforms, you were destined to flounder endlessly.
The moment Alex missed the timing of the sudden acceleration, he found himself trapped in a never-ending cycle of choking chains.
“Cough, cough!”
“Oh, are you a graduate or a dropout, Senior?”
“G-graduate…”
“Aha. Then I guess I can speed things up!”
Using the thrusts of the platform he created while pulling Alex along, Oknodie began to implement ‘rolling.’
Just being dragged was painful enough, but with the chains twisting around his neck and his vision spinning in all directions, Alex realized that even a monster would die if it couldn’t breathe.
Usually, mana users could store oxygen in their mana or breathe underwater, but Alex was in a state of pain that was draining all of his remaining mana.
As soon as the mana he was using for protection ran out, Oknodie dodged, but he collided with an obstacle he couldn’t avoid, resulting in more injuries.
“Tada! We’ve arrived!”
As Oknodie burst through the door of the floating classroom, a student already inside screamed while pointing at Alex.
“Is that person going to die?!”
“We need to call the instructor…!”
“Oh, this guy is fine! He’s a graduate!”
“A graduate?! Wait, then what about the chain around his neck?”
“I got a request from Titosso! They wanted me to teach him a lesson, so I put this collar on!”
The third-years quickly accepted that Oknodie had simply done his thing by dragging a graduate around in tatters, but they were horrified that their gentle Titosso had asked to torment someone to this extent.
“How did that graduate offend Titosso so much?”
“Well, I guess he went against Titosso’s feelings?”
“!!!”
“He also said some things Titosso didn’t want to hear!”
“Oh my god.”
“Titosso has gone dark.”
“Speaking of which, did you hear? Titosso has been going around without light stands.”
“They said there’s no light at all.”
“He’s probably gone so deep into dark mana that his very core has been tainted.”
The third-years trembled at the cruelty of Oknodie, who had even led their gentle friend to the dark side.
While the chaos he caused on campus could at least justify sealing off the Death Zone, this was purely evil!
“Nobody is allowed to mock Titosso.”
“Or you’ll end up like that.”
“The fact that he ended up that way on the way to school means… he was dragged here while still chained by Oknodie?”
“No wonder he looks like that…”
“If you don’t want to be punished like Alex, be careful…”
Oknodie grew gloomy at the conversation among the students.
“Senior Alex… it seems I’m being left out. Nobody wants to walk to school with me. Hmph…”
“Cough, cough… you little… just you wait…”
“Classes haven’t even started yet, and you’re already exhausted? Drink this and pull through!”
A dark mana tonic, thick with dark magic, was shoved into Alex’s mouth, making him tremble.
As the colossal surge of dark mana flowed through his body, his monster cells quivered with joy, writhing inside him, distorting his human form into various monstrous shapes.
The students could barely scream and fell back, tumbling over their chairs, seemingly in a fit.
“Oknodie! What did you feed him?!”
“Huh? Just a drink to boost him up! As you can see, he’s quite healthy!”
The instructor, who was guarding the classroom, shook his head frantically.
“I will absolutely not drink that! That wicked girl. There’s no way I’m drinking anything you give me!!”
“That’s too much… I’m just trying to be nice!”
The startled students picked up the fallen chairs, sitting at the ends of the seats far away from Oknodie, while Alex took more than five minutes before he regained his senses and his human form.
“Everyone’s gathered. Let’s start the lecture… hmm? What’s that? Not a student? Oknodie, what have you brought?”
“I registered him as a pet!”
“…A pet? That looks a whole lot like a person to me.”
“Right? That’s why I had trouble. Titosso told me to teach him a lesson, but if I didn’t keep him by my side all day, he’d run away in no time. And I couldn’t just take him into the classroom. So I used the system that allows monsters to be registered as pets if I show dominance, and I submitted the registration form!”
“……Monster?”
“Oh, professors don’t know about monsters! The goal of monstrology is to maximize the potential of monsters, creating beings beyond beastmen and monsters, and since Senior Alex voluntarily reformed his body, 94% of it is made up of monster cells, meaning he’s technically a monster!”
“What? Professor Buzhaar?”
“Professor Buzhaar is infamous for consuming and growing by swallowing countless monsters in his Research Dimension. This place is kind of a goldmine. If you implant monster cells into fragile newbies, they become strong and endure better; it’s almost as stylish as putting lasers and hand cannons on them! Want me to introduce you to a good cell?”
Professor Diemon blinked, then picked up chalk, heading to the blackboard to scrawl some notes.
“Self-study.”
“Today, just kill time. I’ll upload the lecture content later. I’ve got an urgent matter to attend to, so I’ll be taking my leave.”
Seeing the professor vanish through a dimensional gate, the TA couldn’t help but feel dumbfounded while carrying the class supplies.
“What the hell, I went through so much trouble to get this for the class.”
“What is that, TA?”
“Boom Worm. A parasitic explosive monster that bursts and eats the corpses of other monsters once it matures.”
The students sighed in relief.
They didn’t have to deal with such a terrifying parasite after all.
But the TA felt displeasure seeing the students so openly happy.
“Don’t worry. I know how much it sucks to miss out on proper learning opportunities. I’ll strongly suggest to the professor to assign you all a project where you can record the scene of a boom worm bursting inside a shell monster!”
“Why would you do that?! We don’t want such things!”
“Your grading workload will increase too, you know?”
“But it makes me feel good. Also… I sell bugs I catch for 100,000 points each. Go gather them yourself if you want them!”
Alex felt a bit unfair watching that.
“See? I’m not the only one with a bad personality. Can’t we just cut me some slack?”
“That’s not up to me; it’s Titosso’s decision! Anyway, since it’s self-study, I’m bored. Do you want to train your defensive skills? I’ve got some attack skills here that need leveling up. Oh, you don’t have to worry about getting hurt; no harm, no foul since taking hits can level up penetrating ability!”
Alex realized his only chance to escape this hell was to be rescued by Professor Buzhaar and the TA.
