The Magic Academy's Physicist
Chapter 242: Unification (6)

Chapter 242: Unification (6)

0% Even if one was a High Elf, there were certain people that you couldn’t look down on as long as you were an undergrad at the academy.

Even being a child of the president was no exception.

“P-professor...?”

Going up against someone like that could not only ruin one’s college life but also their entire career.

“A professor? You?”

Rike stepped back as she freaked out, her face one of utter disbelief.

The human in front of her calmly closed and opened her eyes. Does it look like I’m lying to you?–was what it seemed like she was saying even without opening her mouth.

Gulp. Rike’s throat shifted.

“Y-you’re lying. How can you be a professor when you look about my age! If you’re going to lie, why don’t you come up with something more believable?”

The woman still didn’t say anything. The longer she didn’t speak, it was Rike who grew more desperate.

If it was the normal Rike, she would’ve jeered and said ‘don’t be ridiculous’ when someone her age said she was a professor.

But she couldn’t right now.

Rike was under some kind of invisible force, and her spine twinged like she had some large sandbag sitting on her head.

“Does it seem like I’m lying?”

The woman said calmly, her speech having changed respectful at some point.

Her attitude had become more polite, but all that did was make her more anxious.

Rike snuck a glance at Yufiel. The one she had been picking on just a moment ago had a concerning look on her face.

Not all High Elves were on the same side. The Rothschilds and Vierbeins didn’t get along, and even after democratization, the two were in different political parties so it was normal for them to be apprehensive of each other from birth.

They were taught thoroughly to become a leader from a young age, and because of that, most High Elves were strong-willed and weren’t very good at relenting.

As far as Rike knew, Yufiel could be just as fierce if she wanted to.

However.

“Uh, um.......”

Yufiel mumbled, then gave up.

An uncharacteristic display of weakness for her.

Yufiel’s attitude proved one thing.

That the female human in front of her held a higher position than her here at Iliad.

Badump, badump, badump, badump.

Her heart beat wildly.

“...D-do you have proof that you’re a professor?”

No matter how much she thought about it, she just couldn’t believe that some green bitch like her was a faculty member of a prestigious school.

Humans aged quicker than elves, even. If she looked like this, then she should be a graduate student at most.

But why.

Why...!

“Come to room 208 in the Atilles Hall.”

Why was this her response?

It was beyond unexpected.

“Miss Rike Rothschild.”

“Y-yehes?!”

She bit her tongue at the sudden calling of her name, making her tear up slightly.

“Your eyes are also red. They’re like carnelians freshly dug up from a mine.”

“Ah, well, um......”

“Miss Rike, are you interested in Fire Magic Theory by any chance?”

“Uh, uh, ah....”

“I’m always looking for undergrad interns so you can come to my lab whenever you have time. For your information, my office hours are from now until three.”

Rike’s world turned white like a field on a snowy day.

She got the shivers with every word that the woman spoke.

These weren’t words or actions that could come from an undergraduate or graduate student.

“Y-your name is...?”

“Asteya Heisenberg.”

“Heisen.......”

There descended a silence colder than a cold snap.

It was a family she had never even heard of, but Rike couldn’t look down on the woman or anything.

Wasn’t Asteya Heisenberg the professor assigned to the gifted class? She remembered her homeroom teacher praising her for how quickly she worked and how smart she was.

She had heard that she was young, but...

“Miss....”

Yufiel tugged lightly on the woman’s clothes.

“I’m fine, so....”

That was it.

That Yufiel.

That nerd who was desperate to go to grad school, that Yufiel Vierbein who was desperate to be noticed by an intelligent professor.

That prideful High Elf who didn’t bow to just anyone, was calling the woman in front of her ‘Miss’ and acting submissive!

“E-e-e-excuse me......!”

Rike ducked her head and pulled out a handkerchief.

“I didn’t realize you were a professor. I’m sorry! I’m so sorry...!”

After wiping Asteya’s shoes until they were squeaky clean, she took her group and made a run for it.

Rike fled like a basilisk lizard walking on water, looking back again and again while trying her best to get out of the professor’s line of sight.

“I’m screwed, I’m screwed, I’m screwed...!”

“Haa, haa...! What’s wrong...?”

“Don’t you get it? I won’t be able to go to law school like this!”

Her goal was to follow in her grandfather’s footsteps and become the Attorney General. In order to do that, she first had to go to law school.

Law schools looked at one’s academic background, credits, and the aptitude test. There were a lot of other qualifications that she needed besides that, but first the test and credits were the most important.

Rike’s major was Fire Magic, and Asteya, too, specialized in Fire Magic Theory.

“What if I end up having her? If I get a 4.0, I’m done for.... No, maybe it can even be a 3.0? But I stepped on her foot.... She might even give me a 1.0....”

If she took the semester off or used her family’s power, she could avoid seeing Asteya.

But there wasn’t enough time for her to take a leave. There was an age limit for prosecutors, so she had to move up quickly before being pressured to resign if she wanted to become the General.

And she couldn’t use the Rothschild’s authority, either. Currently, the country was undergoing reformations and renovations because of those damned Beasts. If things went wrong, they could be labeled as Beasts and the entire family could be ruined.

In the end, neither way would work.

That meant she would have to go see Asteya at least once.

After that fiasco, there was no way that she would give her a 4.5.

“What if I fail? How would I face my parents? Everyone’s going to think I’m stupid. I might be removed from the family register! Ah, aghh, arghhh...!” 아아악...!”

“Rike, pull yourself together!”

Another elf who couldn’t stand by and watch patted Rike on the back. Rike, gasping like she was having a nightmare, collapsed just like that onto a nearby bench.

Yufiel made a triumphant face. Aether watched her from the side, then slowly sat down on the gazebo.

It was currently the fall season. Being an autumn sky, it was high, blue, and clear.

As she was looking up at it, Yufiel sat next to her and bowed her head.

“Thank you, Miss.”

“Not at all.”

Yufiel smiled awkwardly yet kindly, innocent like when she had first met Lotte. Aether lifted the corners of her mouth and put on a façade.

And so it began.

“As your homeroom teacher, I’d like to know a bit about what happened.”

She naturally started the conversation, and Yufiel happily spilled everything like a fish that took the bait.

But as Aether was listening, she couldn’t keep up the pretense.

“I suffer from a disease called ‘Mana Depletion Syndrome’, so I naturally can’t store that much magic elements in my body. So no matter how hard I try, I can’t use spells higher than Advanced.”

Nevertheless, the girl still tried.

She tried and tried, and entered Iliad on a scholarship.

“I studied hard afterwards, too. If I can’t do combat, then I would at least learn the theories.”

Aether unknowingly felt sympathy.

Because she herself had been like Yufiel a thousand years ago.

─You are lacking in combat so just focus on theoretical research. Once the theory is perfect, there will come a day that you will be able to wipe out the battlefield with a single puff of mana grass.

What the Demon King had said to her before he became the Demon King.

She had taken those words and began constructing Elec Magic–discovered magnets on the seashores, discovered electricity by rubbing cloth over glass.

And she kept discovering, and discovering, and discovering, then brought it all together theoretically and created the first four fundamental equations.

It was also from that point that the Golden-Eyed founded the Demon Army and rebelled against the Goddess.

“Rike has been bullying me or the Golden-Eyed named Leninya, walking a fine line to prevent us from studying.”

“The two of you must have been good at studying.”

Yufiel smiled wryly, but also looked embarrassed at the same time.

“So this time she’s trying to get at you about the World Tree.”

“Yes, she will.”

“Why is that?”

“Because our family watches over the World Tree.”

According to Yufiel, there were currently ten members of parliament in her family, and her uncle was the chairman of the National Assembly.

“Rike is right in some ways, because if there aren’t any problems, the budget gets approved quickly on our end.”

“Huuh.”

“I mean, what elf would object to increasing the funds for managing the World Tree?”

The World Tree was the national tree of the elves. The Elementals. The source of their strength. And the Goddess itself.

No matter what, they couldn’t lose the sacred tree. They couldn’t let the Demon Army take the Lodestone embedded in the knothole, and also stop them from burning it.

The other three Lodestones were all taken. If they couldn’t protect the World Tree, the Demon King would resurrect and the world would enter into the Dark Ages.

Currently, Märcherm–the capital of Kaurelia–was the last defense of Ahrens continent.

“I also heard some things in passing from my family.”

The Demon Army was soon going to attack. They observed seismic waves at the Khfunelle observatory not long ago and found strange waveforms, etc.

“What do you mean ‘strange waveforms’?”

“They estimated that it was coming from up in the Elankaya Mountains. Experts say that the Demon Army was testing a terrible magic.......”

Yufiel kept going.

“According to the results of the analysis, one blast of that magic and the World Tree will just vanish.”

“No way, as if magic like that exists.”

“Yes, right...?”

This... wasn’t going to be easy.