Chapter 19
The curse masked as Tannian’s fortune-telling was deeply branded on me. There was a possibility it could be wrong, and since my fate wasn’t particularly good anyway, I planned to brush it off lightly. But in the corner of my mind, the mark of the curse persisted, screaming “I exist, you bastard!” The candidate for a saint cursed? Truly a sign of the end times.
In the end, I couldn’t get a proper night’s sleep, tossing and turning with anxiety. It’s the first time my heart has raced like this since I faced Kagan and Keshik’s cavalry charge head-on. That Tannian bastard—could he really be seeking revenge for my advice to Erich? No way, it couldn’t be that.
Anyway, Tannian’s antics meant I could say goodbye to a restful sleep that night, and the effects lingered into the morning.
“Ugh, how annoying.”
While wandering around the club room, I accidentally slammed my shin against a table leg. The shock caused the leg to wobble. Usually, such mishaps don’t happen, but it’s all Tannian’s fault; how dare he debuff a tutor!
Thankfully, it wasn’t a desk I frequently used, and since it wobbled due to the impact, I figured I could fix it with some brute force. But I was reminded once more that meddling in someone else’s area of expertise isn’t wise.
“This isn’t working.”
The four-legged desk had devolved into a three-legged one. Zhuge Liang once said the three-legged form is essential, but isn’t that actually the most beautiful configuration?
As I gazed blankly at the precariously standing three-legged desk, I caught a glimpse of the vice principal passing by the hallway window, followed by the sound of a knock at the door. What was going on this early? It probably wasn’t anything good.
“Yes, come in.”
I put down the table leg I had been holding and invited him in, the vice principal cautiously opening the door. His eyes were slightly shaking. Ah, I could guess—I was probably about to hear some bad news. Tannian’s curse flashed in my mind again, but I tried to suppress it.
“I didn’t expect a visitor so early in the morning. If I had known, I would have prepared at least some tea.”
Despite being a foreboding visitor, nonetheless, he was still a guest. I greeted him with a smile, but the vice principal couldn’t control his trembling eyes, wiping sweat from his brow with a handkerchief. He barely managed to respond to my greeting, and after calming down a bit, he opened his mouth cautiously.
“Mr. Prosecutor… about the plan you submitted the other day…”
“The plan? Did something happen?”
The day before, during club time, Louise had suggested we all go outside the Academy for a picnic, so I wrote a reasonable plan and submitted it. Even if it was technically outside the Academy, it was just a small hill beyond the castle walls, a distance easily manageable.
Since I intended to lead the outing myself, I didn’t foresee any issues when I submitted it. But the vice principal showing up this early in the morning indicated something definitely went wrong.
He sighed softly, continuing hesitantly, “A dungeon has appeared near the picnic site.”
“What?”
Fuck, why did that appear?
The Academy’s internal artifact detected the formation of a dungeon. Sure, it was called a dungeon, but it wasn’t the grand kind where you stomp through a gate, beat up monsters, and collect treasures.
When I first learned that dungeons existed in this world, I thought it might be a bizarre hybrid of a romance and hunter genre, and I shouted “status window!” alone in my room. Of course, nothing happened—an embarrassing chapter from long ago.
In any case, the dungeon in this world is generally explained as being formed by concentrated mana creating distortion in the surrounding area. Each year, scholars propose other causes in their papers, but the core idea remains a mana issue.
I was initially intrigued by the idea of dungeons existing within a romance-fantasy world, so I looked it up, but quickly lost interest. Since I didn’t read the original novel, I had no idea why the author included them. But hearing about a dungeon at this moment gave rise to a thought.
“This is a crisis waiting to explode.”
Compared to dungeons in other places, this one might be safer, but it still housed harmful beings thoroughly disconnected from the local ecosystem. Worse, there wasn’t any fencing to mark the entrance; you could wander in unwittingly while just strolling around.
And now a dungeon had materialized practically in the vicinity of the pastry club’s picnic destination. That massive pitfall was hard to miss!
“Fuck.”
A tutor leading important folks into a picnic near a dungeon? That’s not just crazy; that’s downright reckless! At this stage, I was perilously close to becoming that reckless fool myself.
“Don’t local governors manage dungeons? If they just released the accumulated mana, a dungeon shouldn’t materialize,” I stated.
Dungeons typically formed from stagnant mana, so local governors and lords across the Empire carry the responsibility for dungeon prevention within their jurisdictions. It’s not much of a task to wave a magic artifact made at the Tower to disperse stagnant mana.
The vice principal, appearing troubled, responded, “The local governor overseeing the area near the Academy was recently recalled. The successor hasn’t arrived yet, and it appeared in that gap.”
“Ah.”
That’s when a small memory fluttered back into my mind.
“Get that bastard who fiddled with the road budget.”
On the day I arrived at the Academy, I had vaguely instructed the senior manager to take care of it. So the successor hadn’t come yet. I didn’t anticipate that my small act would come back to bite me like this.
“Then I’ll take care of it. Thanks for the heads-up.”
It wasn’t intentional, but since it stemmed from my actions, I should manage it as well.
Fortunately, there was still enough time before the picnic, and considering this was a freshly-formed dungeon, the level of danger ought to be lower, making it less daunting. Cancelling the picnic was out of the question, so I just had to stir things up a bit and come back. The dungeon itself wasn’t dangerous as long as I handled the harmful creatures inside.
“If you handle it, we would truly appreciate it. Thank you in advance.”
The relief seemed to wash over the vice principal upon hearing I would tackle it myself. He must have known the governor’s recall was a job from the Prosecutor’s Office. I was just thankful he wasn’t glaring at me; I’d feel guilty if I had to arrest him for blasphemy.
Whether he was aware of it or not, his gaze turned to the three-legged desk behind me. Ah, that thing…
“There seems to be a damaged item. I’ll have it replaced with a better one.”
I didn’t feel the need to mention that I was the one who wrecked it.
*
Leaving the club during meeting hours felt uneasy, so I decided to take care of the issue while the members were trapped in class under the pretext of ‘studying.’ It’s rare for the tutor to go through this trouble for the members. I wonder if they realize all that I endure on their behalf.
In times like this, I’m genuinely grateful there are classes. Occasionally, I think that if lessons ran from zero period until evening studies like back in my old life, I could avoid all this fuss. But that might turn the entire nobility against me.
“It’s really right next door.”
Upon reaching the place the vice principal described, I spotted the dungeon nestled within a forest quite near our designated picnic spot. Having identified it as a dungeon, I could easily recognize it; otherwise, it would have seemed an ordinary forest. The thought of innocently wandering around here gave me chills.
Seeing the dungeon made my dreadful luck all the more apparent. A dungeon sprouted while I was at the Academy, and I ended up being the one tasked to deal with it.
Moreover, since the dungeon formed clearly outside of Academy grounds within the Empire’s territory, I couldn’t even dispatch forces from the allied countries for assistance, not to mention there was already a surplus of work on the remaining academy guards.
“What kind of luck is this?”
I muttered in frustration, but no one could hear me. It’s rare for someone in an executive manager role to be directly on-site executing tasks. I might literally be the first director in the Empire’s history to do so; if not, that would be an even bigger issue.
If only I had at least one minion who could be useful in situations like this, it wouldn’t be such a hassle. Sometimes I wish the 2nd Manager would be around.
…No, thinking more clearly, he’s definitely not the one to be here. I must be losing my mind. Even if the sky were to fall, I don’t want that guy.
“That son of a bitch.”
With the 2nd Manager’s face fresh in my mind—one that reminds me of my vow to stand alone—I shifted my steps toward the dungeon.
Not surprisingly, the inside of the recently formed dungeon didn’t display anything particularly eye-catching. The trees were denser, and the animals moving about were a bit larger? One impressive sight was a rabbit devouring a squirrel.
Naturally, if any of those critters so much as nicked one of my six members, my career as a civil servant would come to a disastrous end. I fervently hoped that in the next life, they’d be reborn in an ecosystem devoid of dungeons.
Yet, to my surprise, not many threatening creatures were visible. No matter how newly formed a dungeon, there should be at least one beast capable of threatening a village. Surely, the rabbit I just dealt with wasn’t a top-tier one, at minimum a bear or lion ought to be present.
As if responding to my thoughts, something with black fur emerged from the bushes.
—ROOAARR!
Oh.
Yes, something like that.
The bear that suddenly appeared charged toward me, standing on two legs and swinging its massive right paw straight at my head.
Looks like this guy knows how to say hello. I kind of like him.
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