<827 – Unknown Trouble (2)>
In fact, once you become a veteran player, most lectures are just reviews, and events are merely opportunities to level up quickly.
You attend a few lectures, quickly input the correct answers to earn points and rewards, and when you’ve squeezed out all the benefits, you just wander around the academy and outside, breaking events, using the points accumulated to buy attendance days, and then you only need to take the tests during the events.
Of course, your dependency on lectures isn’t that high unless you’re dealing with a random lecture like Professor Destroyer, whose content changes every session, or Professors like Sadako, whose lecture content has not been fully excavated yet, and Bronze, whose lecture is quite tough even if you know the material.
“You have all learned a lot at the Academy. In your first year, you learned about the body, in your second year, mana, in your third year, environmental adaptation, and in your fourth year, dimensional adaptation. This process has been about increasing the cards you can handle.”
“And now, one more thing will be added. Mental training. Normally, most students wouldn’t even get to this point, but as the chosen talents, you have been designated as special management targets by us professors, and we will ensure to help you train while you sleep!”
Before the high tension of Professor Lilith of Demonology, the students couldn’t hide their low tension from another world.
“Professor… Can’t we skip the special class?”
“I’ll just go back to the upper class.”
“I’m not even in the upper class!”
One professor turned to the last shout from Titosso, smiling kindly.
“You’ve said it well. You are all in different years and belong to different classes. We selected only those with sufficient growth potential. So, trust in the insight of us professors. You are talents who can follow the special class curriculum.”
“Who needs that! If I have to listen to this at night, my night-owl self will lose time to do assignments!!”
The Third-Year Four Kings, Deadcat Senior, voiced his complaints.
Of course, the professors were having none of it.
“Haha. You were worried that sleep learning would steal your night assignment time?”
“Exactly!! You act all gentle, but the moment you hit the nail on the head, you play innocent while revealing your true intentions just like a lecture!”
If he were a malignant professor, he could certainly pull that off. After all, by the third year, students typically get used to the professors’ patterns.
But not every professor was malignant.
“To address those concerns, sleep lectures have time ratios that vary greatly. Since this is the mental realm and not a planetary system, the laws of time are entirely at the discretion of the master of this mental realm.”
“That’s a lie… If the professor isn’t trash, how can they do a lecture boycott… This isn’t reality…”
Deadcat Senior, who was planning to seek liberation from trash professors with the power of the student council, lost the will to resist in the face of brutal reality.
“It seems we cannot avoid night lectures after all. Should we start reapplying for the special class?”
Astarot, the quick-adapting transfer student, swallowed down the discomfort and asked.
“No need to do that.”
“So everyone has to take the common required lecture?”
“Haha. You don’t have to apply hard. We will find you lectures that suit your aptitude.”
They’re certainly positive professors, but the idea that professors will take care of it is quite frightening.
Nothing is scarier than a professor with both skill and character who constantly throws impossible trials at you rather than a malignant professor who only nitpicks without skill.
Having learned that through years of graduate student experience, my hands trembled in fear.
“Since Myung So is here, wouldn’t they be kind professors? Is there really a need to be this tense?”
“Ishtar. There are kind professors, but that kindness may not be received as kindness by the students…”
“Do you know something?”
Seeing is believing.
Experiencing once is far better than saying it a hundred times.
“Now, let’s start your specialized aptitude tests. Anyway, no one will pass all aptitudes, so only we will know the information.”
The professor’s ominous words coincided with the start of the test.
*
Goo goo.
Goo goo.
As I jolted awake to the bell recorded on the magic watch, it was time to go for my morning jog.
As I blinked my messy eyes, something felt very off.
Am I… dreaming?
To check whether I was in a dream or reality, I went through a Reality Check procedure.
I bent my finger back to my hand and, being naturally flexible, it bent without a hitch.
I took out an unbalanced top from my backpack and spun it, showing no signs of toppling due to its functional benefits.
The situation where I was too good to function as a test!
I even pulled out a knife and cut my palm, causing droplets of blood to form.
“Phew. This isn’t a dream!”
Finally relieved, I cast a recovery magic, only to suddenly hear Ishtar’s teary voice.
“You… were doing that every time you woke up?”
“Gasp. Ishtar, you’re awake?”
“Answer first. Were you so numb from the foundation’s abuse that you couldn’t even feel pain, so you hurt yourself to feel alive?”
“Oh come on. It’s not like that! I just thought I was dreaming a bit long and checked for nightmares!”
I honestly told her I did a nightmare check because of last night’s incident and, oddly enough, tears began to spill from Ishtar.
“Escaping from the chairman and the foundation to live a happy life is a lavish life that would never be given in reality, so it feels more like a nightmare.”
“Gasp. Was I that kind of child?”
“I never thought like that! Every day is enjoyable…”
“What does Oknodie know about Oknodie!”
What is this nonsense?
If I don’t know myself, who will?!
Briefly flabbergasted, realization dawned on me.
Is this that moment where the official author says, “You don’t know the settings, huh?!”
Wow. I’m experiencing this from the perspective of the person involved.
How fascinating!
“Oknodie, who has no proper common sense due to abuse, didn’t know their feelings properly. From now on, I’ll teach you more things.”
“Really? Thank you!”
I remembered advice from long ago that if the conversation stalled, saying thank you would steer the flow, and astonishingly, Ishtar calmed down quickly.
Watching Ishtar prepare to go out, I realized the power of that remarkably useful advice.
“By the way, Ishtar, do you remember anything from last night?”
“Last night? Us sleeping together?”
“What happened next?”
“After that… Oh. The special class.”
Ishtar’s face hardened.
“Right, I definitely entered the special class. The professors said they would test us. But why can’t I remember what happened next?”
“That’s because you lost memories due to the shock of the spirit body dying!”
“What?! The professor killed me once?!!”
Uh-oh. That might be a bit shocking for a newbie on their first trip through life.
Considering Ishtar’s shock, I should provide a kinder explanation here.
“Originally, even if the spirit body dies, unless it’s a level of shock where the soul itself evaporates into nothingness, you can be revived! Sometimes the spirit returns to a state before damage occurred, causing memories accumulated during that period to vanish!”
“A person’s soul has such hidden power? That’s… the experience of being the successor of the foundation’s chief scholarship student, undergoing torture and suffering so horrifying it twists the soul and mind…”
“…Exactly!”
Certainly, Dad in the afterlife would want to see his daughter living valiantly rather than floundering in distress.
Thanks to dumping the bothersome explanation on the foundation again today, I managed to escape from the predicament.
“Haha. Just like my child, that’s a very wise solution.”
“Haha. I really commend it.”
Imaginary Dads smiled kindly as they praised me.
The simulation in my mind was quite satisfactory.
From now on, I must work hard to owe the foundation!
“This relates to medical knowledge as well. You don’t have to experience mental death; even if damage accumulates in the brain, it can lead to recent memory loss, like dementia. This process also results in the brain returning memories from recent times back to earlier points due to damage recovery!”
“Cough… The foundation even induces youthful dementia…!”
I redirected the flow of Ishtar’s anger, which was going in an absurd direction.
“But how far back do you remember?”
“Only until before the exam. But… wait a second. If that’s true, does that mean I died once in the special class lecture yesterday…?”
“Correct?”
“Then how do I overcome the same exam without knowing what I faced?”
“You’ll die again until your spirit grows stronger and you overcome the trials you couldn’t surpass before!”
Ishtar’s complexion went pale.
“Then if the professors mean business, I could lose my memories every night and have no clue what I learned, what tests I took, and my memories keep resetting?”
“Wow, Ishtar, you’re totally smart! That’s the answer!”
In simple terms, this means that every night, an unknown trouble begins.
But what’s troubling is that my memory also got cut off.
Where did my memories go?
Why death?
What kind of unknown trouble did I endure?
It wasn’t just Ishtar who was shocked; I felt uneasy too.
