Academy’s Undercover Professor-Novel - Chapter 85

ACADEMY’S UNDERCOVER PROFESSOR

[Translator – Alice]

[Proofreader – ilafy]

Chapter 85 – Spiritology Class (1)

Elisa, who was staring intensely at Ludger’s exam questions, continued exclaim in surprise.

“Hmmm? Heeh. This, probably…”

After she mumbled something that couldn’t be understood, she soon closed her lips, picked up a pen, and began to answer the questions.

Watching the scene, Wilford quietly backed away.

It was unusual to see Elisa, the principal, immersed in something like that, so he didn’t want to disturb her.

If it was with her abilities, she would finish everything in less than five minutes anyway.

But Wilford’s prediction was wrong.

It was because Elisa showed no sign of stopping even after five minutes had passed.

10 minutes…

15 minutes…

20 minutes passed like that.

Even then, Elisa focused on the questions and endlessly moving the pen point as if she was possessed by something.

‘Has she ever clung to a question this long?’

Wilford was inwardly flustered by such an unexpected situation.

Elisa would always write down the answers to the questions on the spot while looking at the exam questions submitted every semester.

It was some kind of evaluation for the professors who worked in Sören.

And the evaluation was made entirely by Elisa herself, the principal.

Elisa preferred to solve the exam questions that the professors submitted by herself.

She was also a great scholarly wizard.

A new method of questioning that she wasn’t familiar with was a pleasant experience for her to even look at.

Sometimes, in the case of low-difficulty questions, there were cases where she scanned them only by eye and did not solve the questions herself.

But usually, when she went into solving the questions, most of them took less than five minutes.

The same went for the 4th and 5th-year exam papers, which had high difficulty levels.

Even the difficult questions that made the students’ heads throb did not impress her.

Was that why?

Elisa was feeling bored those days.

So when she saw a rare, interesting thing, she would become completely immersed in it.

Just like she was at the moment.

Srrt. Skrrt.

Elisa recalled her old sensations after a really long time.

When she’d still learned things while doing research about an unknown study called magic.

She experienced that old sense of accomplishment and pleasure when she finally succeeded in conquering the questions, even though she felt at a loss by the knowledge she had never seen before.

30 minutes.

—That was how long Elisa took to solve Ludger’s exam questions.

It took her 30 minutes when she was usually able to go through an exam in five because Ludger’s questions required diversity of thinking and she wanted to savor the sensation.

Of course, it would have still taken at least 15 to 20 minutes if she had done her best to solve the questions as quickly as possible.

“It’s surprising.”

“Are you finally done?”

Wilford, who was waiting quietly, asked in a surprised voice.

“Sorry for making you wait.”

“Hoho. It’s nothing. I’m rather glad because it’s been a long time since I’ve seen Your Honor so motivated.”

“Well, that’s true.”

Elisa didn’t necessarily deny that she had been immersed in the questions.

Even when she thought about it again, she thought they were quite good questions.

While it only required a solid basis of knowledge, those questions were not buried only in foundations and instead required a diversity of ideas with a flexible mindset.

There were many traps in the questions while she was solving them, and it made her feel happy rather than annoyed.

“It’s really surprising. To think that those were questions created by a new professor. I’d like to have other professors solve these questions as well.”

“Are they that interesting?”

“Professor Ludger is such a boring person that I thought he would just submit the exam questions at an average level.”

Elisha shrugged her shoulders while letting out a sigh.

“I was wrong.”

Come to think of it, Ludger had shown magic beyond basic common sense.

Wasn’t the Source Code spell that he demonstrated to the students in his first class like that, too?

A spell that could make the spellcasting technique happen at an unbelievably fast speed and that made it possible to cast magic at a high speed.

A spell that created a spell…

It was a magic that people with ordinary ideas wouldn’t even try to come up with and create.

“The questions were flawless.”

“If compared to Professor Chris’s exam questions?”

“It’s incomparable. Chris’s were questions that required serious research to study as a method to brag about his own knowledge. Putting them on the same line is an insult to one side.”

Chris Benimore had tried to prove that he was superior to Ludger Chelysie with his exam.

It was to tell Ludger, who was in charge of the same spellcasting class, that he knew more and knew better.

—That was how he fought a childish fight like a child.

But Ludger wasn’t like that.

He didn’t care about Chris Benimore in the first place. Without even responding to Chris’s childish fight, he’d just done the best he could.

In the end, could it even be seen as a fight?

“If I ask Chris to solve this, his expression would be quite impressive.”

Elisa smiled mischievously like a child while imagining what would soon happen.

Wilford shook his head at the scene.

Ludger put the exam papers together into his suitcase.

As long as he finished the exam as the first batter, he just had to take it easy and give scores for the rest of the exam period.

‘It’s actually a question that I have painstakingly thought about, but I’m curious about the answers that the students wrote down.’

Did the students who usually took the class seriously get good results?

What kind of an extraordinarily wrong answer would have been given by the students who did not study properly?

As a professor, it was also true that there were such peculiar expectations.

Although it was a false identity, Ludger felt that his nature was to do this work.

On his way back to his accommodation, Ludger found students gathered in front of him.

‘Why are they outside during the exam period? Ah. Was it a practical exam?’

There were about fifty students.

The person leading the students along with her assistants was also quite familiar to Ludger.

The first thing he saw was pink hair that was shining under the bright sunlight.

A professor who was kind to everyone and always smiled, like a fairy tale princess…

—Selena.

‘It must be an exam for the Spirit Study class.’

Selena was in charge of Spirit specialization in the summoning class.

Spirits were the embodiment of the natural energy that existed in mother nature.

Spiritology was the study of borrowing power through communication with such spirits.

As a result, the theoretical part was all about the history of spirits, and in fact, most of the Spirit Studies were practical classes.

From calling spirits to having a contract with them, to communicating with spirits and using their power.

It was still the beginning of the semester, so even if it was an exam, she wouldn’t give them anything too difficult.

‘There’s no spirits around the students either. Was the first exam to sign a contract with the Spirit?’

Since there were only a limited number of people who could learn Spiritology, the exam itself focused on absolute evaluation rather than relative evaluation.

Even if they were decent students, they would be able to get passing grades if they succeeded in signing a contract with a lower-level spirit.

Just as he was thinking so, Selena also noticed Ludger getting closer to her.

“Ah, Professor Ludger!”

Their distance narrowed at some point.

Selena greeted him with a bright smile.

“Are you finished with the exam? Come to think of it, it was the first exam you administered, right?”

“Yes. I just finished up with everything and was on my way home.”

“Ah. So that’s why. I’m just starting my exam.”

“Is it a Spiritology exam?”

“Yes. Do you want to take a look around?”

‘I’m alright.’

Ludger, who was about to say so, could not refuse her when she was staring so eagerly at him.

—Because Selena was looking at Ludger with an intense gaze as if she was sending an SOS signal.

‘Is she nervous?’

Ludger seemed to understand why she’d asked him to go with her.

It would also be the first exam for Selena. As a professor, they would not realize it yet, but evaluating students itself was burdensome and nerve-wracking.

As a result, she asked Ludger, who had already completed his exam, for help.

Ludger wasn’t in charge of Spiritology, so he couldn’t really help her.

‘It’s also true that I’d feel relieved if I at least had a fellow colleague who was also a new professor nearby.’

If it had been a usual occasion, he could have easily overlooked it as a matter for others.

Or he could have made an excuse for being busy with grading the students.

But they had been eating and talking together so far, wouldn’t it be too cold for him to refuse her there?

‘No matter how this is a fake identity, as long as I’m a professor, it’s not good to be hated by my own colleagues.’

He had already turned hostile to aristocratic factional professors, Chris Benimore included.

But how could he easily reject Selena’s request when she had a good impression among the students and other professors as well?

If he did so, it wouldn’t be strange if he lost the reputation that he had been working hard to build.

‘To be honest, I don’t mind ignoring such a reputation.’

The important thing was that he also had some help from Selena, so he couldn’t ignore her request.

Still, thanks to her approaching him first, he was able to talk to other professors.

“Sure.”

Selena’s expression noticeably brightened when Ludger nodded his head.

The students watched the two of them with strange gazes.

“What? Professor Ludger is coming?”

“More than that, what’s the relationship between the two? No way, are they dating?”

“You think so? It’s because both of them are newly appointed professors. It’s just a colleague relationship.”

“Ah, right. You liked Professor Selena, right?”

“Wh-what?! Of course not!”

Selena, who gained her courage while the students were talking among themselves, opened her mouth.

“Kids. The exam will start soon, so let’s all move! We should finish it fast!”

“Yes.”

The students were busy following Selena’s orders.

Selena took the lead, followed by Ludger and the students behind him.

They soon arrived at the entrance of the ‘Forest of Fantasy Dreams,’ one of the three great forests within Sören.

It was a huge sea of trees with spirits, animals, and other ecosystems in it.

The Forest of Fantasy Dreams was a forest with the largest scale among the other three forests in Sören.

It had a danger level of three, and ordinary people were prohibited from accessing it.

However, compared to the other two forests with danger levels of two or higher, the Forest of Fantasy Dreams was relatively safe, and it would not be a big problem as long as they were at the entrance and not a deep part of the forest.

‘I think this is a safe space because it’s often used as an examination ground.’

Burned traces made by human hands were seen here and there.

There were even no trespassing signs or guidelines along the road.

Ludger raised his head and looked up at the endlessly soaring trees.

The trees, with their large roots and pillar-like trunks, rose high toward the sky.

The trees seemed to be over 10m tall.

Even though they hadn’t fully entered the forest yet, he thought that the inside of the Forest of Fantasy Dreams would be dense enough to remind him of the Amazon.

‘Is that the Spirit of Light?’

There was something floating in the air that scattered a subtle light among the trees.

Sure enough, perhaps because the Forest of Fantasy Dreams was full of vitality, the spirits could easily be seen from the entrance of the forest.

It would be easy for the students who were still inexperienced in Spiritology to sign contracts with the spirits there.

“According to the prior announcement, this exam is to sign a contract with a spirit. You can use your magic to communicate with the spirits and become friends with them.”

Selena went into action.

She closed her eyes and casted her spell.

A warm light of mana flared around Selena.

The students exclaimed in astonishment.

“Oooh.”

“Whoa. That’s the power of a spirit professor.”

Spirits that were hiding throughout the forest appeared one by one in response to Selena’s magic.

Some curious spirits flew into the air and wandered around Selena.

In an instant, Selena’s surroundings were filled with charming spirits.

The students couldn’t shut their mouths at the beautiful sight that made it seem like she was a princess of the forest.

Selena, opening her eyes, smiled tenderly at the charming spirits that filled her surroundings and soon reached out to a spirit that was similar to a white cotton ball.

“Hello?”

Beep!

The white cotton ball accepted Selena’s greeting.

It was a natural communion with the Spirit of Light and a contract that followed it.

Ludger also watched the scene silently.

“Hehe. Everyone saw it right? It’s not hard. You just have to do it like me.”

Maybe it was because they were encouraged by her words.

The students immediately tried to communicate with the spirits by casting their mana.

One, two…

Small spirits gathered around the students.

“Whoa! I made it!”

“Oh, my. It’s very cute.”

“Hello?”

There were shouts of joy from students everywhere.

The scene of the spirits and students gathering was quite pleasing to Ludger.

He didn’t want to disturb them, so Ludger stood a distance away from the students.

“Do you want to try it, Professor Ludger?” Selena approached Ludger and asked.

When he was about to ask how the students’ exam went, he shook his head when he saw about three assistants working hard in guiding them.

“Thanks for the offer, but I’ll refuse.”

“Pardon? Why?”

“I’m not very welcomed by the spirits.”

“Pardon? Eei, no way. Spirits are so nice! Let me introduce you to a cute spirit! It’s the Spirit of Light that I signed a contract with just now, and I named it Pongpong!”

Selena said so while holding out a white ball of cotton on her palm to Ludger.

But soon she had no choice but to widen her eyes.

“Oh? Pongpong?”

The white spirit of light on her palm trembled.

“Po-Pongpong? Why are you like that? Wh-what was…?”

Selena immediately recognized what was wrong with the spirit.

‘The spirit is scared?’

It wasn’t only Pongpong.

The other spirits who roamed the forest didn’t even approach Ludger.

At Selena’s confused expression, Ludger replied as if he was used to it.

“That’s why, didn’t I tell you?”

“O-oh?”

“The spirits don’t like me very much.”