<921 - Titosso's Exam (2)>
When a professor at the academy retires, dies, or is otherwise unable to fulfill their duties, the research lab is closed, and assets are reclaimed by the administration.
However, Gift Academy missed the timing to close Professor Sadako’s research lab for several reasons.
First of all, the damage from the weekly event was enormous.
Several buildings, including the lecture building, suffered nearly total loss.
“The building is in such shambles that the automatic recovery function won’t even activate! While we hold onto the remaining mana of the building, you need to hurry and pull out the storage blueprints!”
“Thank goodness Professor Mahabharata has taken over the point reconciliation duties; otherwise, we might have had to start rebuilding from scratch manually.”
“We’re really thankful both above and below.”
Thanks to this, all extra instructors who should have been deployed for administrative tasks were now sent to the construction site, leaving much-needed work behind.
“… So where do we hold our lecture?”
“The principal said to figure it out ourselves?”
“Then can you at least take care of the lecture room change request?”
“Well… the administrative tasks are paralyzed, so we can’t take any requests.”
“So we can’t change the lecture room? Should we call off classes this week and schedule extra lectures instead?”
“They said that due to recent resurrections, it’s impossible to implement the special class style of soul extraction. Because of the above reason, supplementary lecture requests can’t be processed.”
“Are you telling me that the students who attended my class can’t even overcome the weekly event and are dying like that?!”
The professors found themselves in a quandary.
“So what are we supposed to do when we can’t change rooms or call classes off and are told to lecture in a non-existent classroom?”
“The principal mentioned that professors who can’t hold lectures would face disadvantages in their evaluations.”
“… Isn’t this just a way to mess with the students while also bringing professor discipline back in line!! Dammit, call all our students, get them to work on building restoration. No, we don’t even need to restore everything. Just put our classroom back together!”
Thanks to this, floating classrooms appeared in the ruins between fallen buildings.
As the power of mana desperately held together classrooms that should have fallen, it was a fantastic show of professor trickery, but this week’s lectures consisted mostly of shortened sessions, which didn’t garner much student enthusiasm.
It wasn’t exactly easy keeping one’s sanity and holding on in a floating classroom where the floor sometimes shook, and any slight misstep could send bags, textbooks, desks, and chairs crashing to the ground.
“While the professors struggle like this, the students sit around like they’re royalty, enjoying the lectures? This is a topsy-turvy world!”
The cause was primarily the professors’ rashness, yet it was a test that divided both students and professors equally.
The real question was, what to do with the totally used-up classrooms after this lecture was over?
“The temporary lecture room isn’t needed anymore? Jaku, what do we do with this?”
“We either wait until the building is restored and settle it there or just leave it abandoned?”
“What about the demolition regulations?”
“I just heard that the storage room where the regulations are kept got destroyed by the tsunami. So, we can’t check any relevant regulations.”
“I guess throwing it away won’t get us into trouble with the principal!”
The professors hurriedly got rid of the now useless classrooms.
With mana injection cut off, the floating classrooms began to plummet to the ground, as expected.
In the construction site below, instructors had to scream and unleash defensive magic or scramble to safety.
“How many more lectures do we have today?”
“Professor Chaton’s summoning food studies lecture ends in 30 minutes, and Professor Timebringer’s time travel lecture is set to end in an hour.”
“Alright, then let’s work for just 30 minutes and evacuate… Wait, what?! The lecture building up top! It’s falling!”
“AHHHHHH!”
“You said we have 30 minutes, you jerk!!”
“I didn’t know they would shorten the lecture!”
Since there was no coordination between professors and instructors, the construction site became a chaos of screams, collisions, damage and rebuilding, overtime, and despair.
While the teaching assistants and graduate students who had joined the excitement of ditching classrooms faced a barrage of complaints from the professors, they locked eyes.
“Professor. Wait, no?”
“Am I really gonna take that crap?”
Thus, all the professor’s lackeys were sent to the construction site, which further reduced the specialized manpower needed to close Professor Sadako’s research lab.
“ESDIE Vice Chancellor. How will we proceed with closing the research lab of the recently ascended Professor Sadako?”
Due to ESDIE actually receiving this information directly, there was a chance to intervene. However, it was especially tough to fill the void left by Mahabharata right after this disaster.
“Just put up a no-entry tape. This isn’t the time to worry about that nonsense. A rift has formed in the dimensional storage where Professor Robert Elahim keeps the god-level monsters, and it looks like a gold-plated monster is about to escape worldwide. Fix the barriers before I send the remaining semester off chasing escaped monsters!”
Thanks to this, the catacombs of Professor Sadako had only the tape wound around it as a mere formality of closure.
With lost undead students subtly forming a resurrection queue, there was no time to concern ourselves with a single research lab.
If the perfect moment for some good old research lab theft presented itself, it was now.
“Hehe. Let’s break in!”
“Oknodie, use your inside voice.”
“Ah, sorry!”
“… Your voice.”
“… Sorry.”
Thus, Oknodie and Jiang covered the Titosso’s light stand with a cloak of invisibility.
The light stand gleamed brightly even beyond the cloak.
Oknodie pulled out a light-blocking curtain to cover it within the cloak.
The light stand still sparkled even through the curtain and cloak.
“… Let’s just go like this!”
“… Is it okay we won’t get caught?”
“… There are ghosts in the catacombs anyway!”
“… Good point?”
Thus, Titosso’s over-bright light issue was handled without incident.
“Ugh, guys, I’m sorry. I’ve had to wipe out so many undead while acting as a human lighthouse that my output increased and I can’t reduce it!”
“It’s okay. There are many items in Professor Sadako’s lab that summon darkness; maybe we can find a fix!”
While they didn’t notice when peacefully drinking milk tea, Titosso was actually experiencing the side effects from excessive functionality.
Though not the type of issue that the director Papa worried about, it ultimately meant that a test was needed for Titosso’s day-to-day life.
‘Titosso was unproblematic when away from the light stand, so it wasn’t a complete runaway!’
Oknodie brainstormed several ideas.
One was to show a fake light stand and control the overflowing mana on his own.
Another was to coat passive functions to diffuse mana even without light.
The best option would be for Titosso to master mana control and smoothly release the residual mana, but Oknodie scratched out that option in his mental notebook.
If that were possible, Titosso would have been a special class student much earlier.
[Hush! Everyone hide!]
During the journey of the academy’s shortest trio as they boldly descended into the catacombs, a challenge awaited them.
The energy of a massive warrior previously believed abandoned was detected descending.
[It’s a professor level!]
At Oknodie’s words, Jiang and Titosso held their breath.
Jiang pointed at Titosso’s light.
Until now, they walked easily since there was no one watching them, but there was a serious risk of being spotted.
After much contemplation, Oknodie proposed a solution.
[… Is this the best we can do?]
[But we’re hidden, right?]
The solution was unbelievably simple.
Jiang was perched on the light stand, enveloping it within Jiang’s shadow realm.
Thanks to this, suspiciously pitch-black darkness materialized in the air, though the area sticking out beyond the cloak was neatly groomed by Oknodie like a hairstylist.
Thud thud thud thud.
The ominous sound of something heavy approaching slowed down.
“Do you need something, Professor?”
“No. I think it’s just my imagination. There’s a lot of hair. Hurry it up.”
As the footsteps faded away, Titosso finally spoke.
Oknodie swiftly clamped a hand over his mouth.
The startled Titosso nearly let out a scream, but fortunately, it was magically silenced.
“??”
Oknodie’s face was unusually tense, and he silenced his own mouth with a finger.
After some time had passed.
“It was indeed just my imagination. Let’s move.”
“?!”
They managed to escape the professor’s trap designed to sniff out hidden entities.
This time, Titosso let a sigh of relief, realizing that Oknodie’s palm was still pressed over his mouth, trapping his voice with magic.
That fearsome, nameless professor had set traps not once, but twice!
