༺ What Are You Doing Here? ༻
[Ultimate Fire Magic ‘Chaser Flow’ has been learned.]
[The following changes have been made to the paper reviewing progress]
[Fire Magic : 836 obtained → 837 obtained(Out of 1048 total)]
“Uuuuhh….”
I stayed up all night. My temples were throbbing from using my brain for half the day. Yawns kept coming out.
Still, it was rather doable. I was used to pulling all-nighters from before.
All-nighters were a kind of habit that I had long before meeting Professor Hasfeldt. To take a trip down memory lane…. Yeah. It was since preparing for high school entrance examinations.
Things needed to get done even if I was tired. That was traditionally what a slave was. I shook off any more thoughts and pulled out the broom I always used from the public storage.
As usual, the day started with a morning clean. The reason being that there couldn’t be a single leaf left on the path that our lovely…. shitty professor took to school.
“Haaahm.”
I was sleepy. I was sleepy as fuck. The blurriness in my eyes was like wearing glasses with the wrong prescription.
I sat on a nearby bench hugging the broom. I pretended to sweep the area while I was sitting. But. It wasn’t really working. My body wasn’t listening because it was tired.
“……!”
The sound of footsteps awoke my senses. I jumped up from the bench in reflex.
Instincts were never wrong. Gold hair flowed before my eyes.
“…….”
“It’s a wonderful day, Professor.”
“Did you doze off?”
“Yes.”
“… How foolishly confident.”
Because lying to you would cost me more than my wrist.
“Did you finish everything that I assigned you yesterday?”
“Yes, here it is.”
The corner of Professor Hasfeldt’s eyes twitched as she took the thirty sheets of scrolls from me.
Her face seemed more exhausted than usual. Was it due to a lack of sleep or not putting on makeup? Her face looked rather haggard. From the way her eye lid was twitching occasionally, she must be magnesium-deficient. The golden strings of her hair looked rough as well.
“There… is no problem. It’s good work.”
More than that, her voice sounded a bit toned down from her usual.
“Just follow me today. The lab doesn’t need to be cleaned.”
“I haven’t finished here yet.”
“This is enough. Be quiet and come with me.”
“…….”
I chased after Professor Hasfeldt with hurried steps.
**
It took me a while to realize. Hasfeldt was acting rather strange today.
The sun was high in the sky yet I hadn’t been nagged once. Usually, she would’ve been going crazy like ‘You can’t even do this?’ and ‘Why don’t you get it?’. But today, she still hadn’t thrown a single tantrum.
“Professor, we need more enamel. Should I get some from outside?”
“It’s fine. I’ll borrow some from another prof so rest for a bit.”
What is this…? Did she eat something wrong? I felt a chill down my spine from the sense that things were off for some reason.
People changed when they were about to die. Or maybe I grew on her? It was honestly hard to tell. I had difficulty reading another woman’s mind.
Even while my mind was busy trying to figure things out, my hands never ceased moving. I spent the time working on a different scroll or organizing the desk.
Soon, Hasfeldt, who had left the room, came back in and closed the door. She had a bunch of copper wires in one hand and a plate in the other.
What is this now? Was she going to crack that plate over my head?
“Come here for a bit.”
“What is this?”
“I received it from my colleague.”
Of course. It was just food. My way of thinking must have gotten aggressive because I was tired.
There was a Mont Blanc and two slices of spinach quiche on a hyacinth-patterned plate. The Mont Blanc had a sheen as if it was brushed with honey and the quiche had balsamic dressing on it. Did one usually eat quiche with balsamic…?
“You haven’t had lunch.”
Hasfeldt pulled out a chair and pushed the plate towards me. It meant to go sit over there.
I felt like I was struck with a staff rather than a plate. Within seconds, I calculated all the possibilities and came up with a few hypotheses in my brain.
The most likely one was ‘The Last Meal’ scenario. An evil scheme of forming me into a quality product before selling me back into the slave market. Like a homeowner fixing up the house’s interior before putting it up for sale, Hasfeldt intended to get rid of me when I was at my peak state.
Why wouldn’t she, since she spent over a thousand gold to buy me? For that amount, one could purchase a high elf that never left the Grand Forest.
I felt bad for Hasfeldt for dishing out that much money just because I knew a bit of math…….
“What are you doing? Don’t just stand there.”
“…Excuse me.”
“I’ve already eaten so it’s fine. Eat.”
I sat on the chair reverently. The sleepiness was forced away. I was more rational than ever before at this moment. I decided on the most appropriate response according to the wisdom I had gained over time.
“Professor.”
“What is it?”
“I believe it’s inappropriate to dine in the lab.”
I continued as I looked around.
“It’s fine if it’s a scroll with a coating, but raw magic paper cannot have any contamination since it’s like a wafer containing a semiconductor. Besides that, there are lots of other sensitive testing equipment here. As you have once told me, the act of eating in such a place is inconsistent with the behavior and dignity of a researcher.”
Including the years of being an undergraduate intern, I’ve slaved in the labs for over ten years. The basic rules that should be followed in a lab setting were engraved in me. That was why Hasfeldt never scolded me on my behavior in research.
Hunger could be dealt with later. Moreover, I wasn’t craving sugar after the chocolate incident yesterday.
Hasfeldt stared at me with wide eyes. It was an expression that seemed the most unbecoming of her out of all the ones I’ve seen recently.
“…That’s right. You know well. That saves me from having to retrain you.”
She moved the plate to a cool area. That didn’t mean I didn’t get to eat the delicious-looking food. After finishing the work, I ran out like a dog as soon as I was told that I could eat in the break room outside.
I set down the plate on the break room table. The yellowish texture of the Mont Blanc, the chewiness of the Gruyère cheese in the quiche…. Damn it, why did they put balsamic on it? It was ruining the flavor.
Wait, this wasn’t what was important. I fell into contemplation while having lunch and snacks.
Anyhow, Hasfeldt was in a weird state. She didn’t usually offer again once something like this was put away…….
Sure enough. Hasfeldt’s unusual behavior continued the next day.
For example, she went out instead of me when ingredients were low or arrived first at the corridor where we always met to tell me that I didn’t need to sweep the place anymore.
As if she was trying to suck up to me.
Well, no, the overall intensity of labor increased.
The morning cleaning period turned into research hours, and dinner time got pushed back. The routines spent with Hasfeldt increased.
When something was needed, Hasfeldt started to go out instead of me. Mana stones included, when the magic elements needed for circuits ran out she immediately went and got them from a nearby lab.
“You finished quicker than expected.”
This was the story behind completing scroll fabrication in three days when it normally would’ve taken a week. Would’ve been nice if it had been like this from the beginning, no?
“I’ll do it, so take a break.”
Three hundred sheets of ‘Light Arrow’ scrolls and fifty sheets of ‘Chaser Flow’ scrolls completed. The time it would take for her to deliver the supply to the Knight Order and return would be about an hour.
Today’s lunch was a chicken breast salad sprinkled with peppermint. The flavor when eating the asparagus and tomato together was comfortable.
On the other hand, having this kind of food for two days in a row was troubling in a way. The effects of gaslighting were no joke. Or it could be because my stomach was finally comfortable after three years.
Whump.
As I was eating the chicken and vegetables in the break room, Professor Hasfeldt slid a grocery basket towards me.
“You’re going to the market?”
“I’ve gotten information that a top-grade mana stone has come in. The afternoon will be a bit busy.”
This happened occasionally. Using me as a porter.
Hasfeldt didn’t go to the market often so she made big purchases at once instead. Even on the day she brought me, she bought so many things on the way that I thought my arms would fall off.
“Are you ready?”
“Yes, Professor.”
We each got ready and left through the school’s gate.
The Academy also had something like a campus street, which was called a ‘daehak-ro’ in the university back in my world. Many stores stood along the paved street and made money off of the students and staff.
It wasn’t a sight familiar to someone like me. I didn’t really go out to make purchases and ordered packages to be delivered whenever I wanted something. That was probably why the stores lined along either side of the street felt awkward to me.
Of course, there was another reason.
“Greetings, Duchess!”
“What are you doing…! Hurry and get out of her way!”
The market was crowded with people but when Hasfeldt and I passed through, the people stepped aside on their own. She was literally a human ambulance.
Isn’t this a nuisance…?
It was strange, come to think of it. Someone with the title of Duchess would normally order their servant instead of personally making the trip to buy something. Furthermore, this was a place mainly used by commoners and lower-class nobles.
If nothing else, apart from treating me harshly I knew that this person wasn’t concerned with the status system. She didn’t say things like, ‘You lowly slave!’ like those wicked nobles in novels, at least.
How long had I walked lost in thought? One by one, my load started to increase.
“Five thousand sheets of magic paper and three hundred packs of mana grass from the Grand Forest, correct? Please sign here.”
Ah. Crap. My shoulders were going to break.
“This is the last place.”
My lips stretched upwards at that.
The three-hour long torture was finally coming to an end!
“Oh my! If it isn’t Professor Hasfeldt! Thank you always for your patronage!”
“I heard you have top-grade mana stones so I came to see them.”
“Of course! They’re from the calamity-level beasts defeated in the northern war. They’re quite expensive.”
“That won’t matter.”
“Keuuuu, as expected! Then I’ll be right back with the product.”
I let down my load for the moment and took interest in what the merchant was going to bring out.
He carried a rather large jewelry case in his hands. It was a design that electronic engineering majors would’ve liked.
The case opened with a click. Hasfeldt and I gazed into the case intensely.
Then in the next moment, my breath caught.
“Hooo….”
It was a black rectangular parallelepiped mana stone. The bottom had three long and thin needles attached to it.
“It is said to be top-grade, but in all respects, it was obtained from defeating a powerful Magic Beast. No one knows yet how useful it will be.”
“I see. It’ll be worth researching.”
“According to the mage in the battlefront who performed the autopsy, the needles here correspond to a letter of the alphabet in the official language. In this case, let’s see…. ‘P’, ‘N’, and then ‘P’ again, they said. I don’t know what these exactly mean.”
My heart started to beat quickly.
Was it because something that shouldn’t exist in this era appeared before me?
“Assistant, your kind are from the northern mountains. Do you know what kind of mana stone this is?”
I chose to stay quiet for a moment at Hasfeldt’s question.
It wasn’t because I didn’t know how it could be used. Rather, I was confident that no one in this world knew the principles of it better than me.
The inventor was a physicist, after all. What physics student wouldn’t have learned the principles of how this mana stone works?
“It’s alright to say it if you do not know.”
“No, I do.”
I looked into Professor Hasfeldt’s eyes. And I clearly enunciated the three syllables one by one.
Transistor.
“That’s no ordinary mana stone.”
