Villainous Instructor at the Academy
Chapter 151: Maze of mayhem

Chapter 151: Maze of mayhem

By the time we got back to the academy grounds, I regretted two things: letting Felix talk too much, and not pushing him into a fountain when I had the chance.

"Well, I think we should do something traditional," Felix said, puffing out his chest like an idea was about to fall out. "Like... a haunted house! Every festival needs one!"

I stared at him. "Felix. You’re already living proof of a failed summoning ritual. We don’t need to replicate it."

"I’m serious!"

"That’s the problem."

We’d barely reached the dorm entrance when we saw them—Mira, Wallace, and Leo—clustered around a table like a cabal of over-caffeinated goblins. Which, knowing Wallace, was a real possibility.

"There you are!" Mira waved us over, her grin wicked. "Just in time. We’re submitting the festival proposal."

"Oh no," Felix muttered. "They’ve already started scheming."

"You say that like you aren’t about to get dragged in feet first," I said, elbowing him forward.

Wallace slapped down a parchment like it was a war map. "We present: Class C’s festival attraction—The Maze of Mayhem."

Leo crossed his arms. "It’s half illusion trap, half combat trial, and one hundred percent designed to make people scream."

"It sounds like something the disciplinary committee will shut down in three seconds," I said flatly.

"Exactly!" Mira beamed. "That’s why we’re disguising it as a ’team-building attraction.’"

"...You’ve already forged the forms, haven’t you?"

"Preemptively, yes."

I sighed and looked at Felix, who looked like a man walking into his own execution. "Congratulations. You’re the poster child for this disaster."

"Why me?!"

"Because no one looks more like a tragic survivor of a comedy act than you."

Wallace handed Felix a helmet shaped like a crying goblin. "You’ll be our guide through the maze. Screaming is optional. Panic is encouraged."

Mira gave a thumbs-up. "And I’m working on the cursed fog effects!"

Leo nodded solemnly. "I’ve volunteered to trigger the illusion traps. Mainly because Wallace already tried them on me."

Felix turned to me with wild eyes. "Professor, you have to stop this."

I patted his shoulder. "Felix. My dear, unfortunate disappointment—I support this chaos wholeheartedly."

He groaned. "I knew asking you for help was a mistake."

"I told you that on day one," I said. "Now get your goblin helmet. You have nightmares to prepare."

The courtyard looked like a war zone.

Half-built wooden walls teetered at odd angles. Fog crystals sputtered erratically like a drunk spirit coughing up smoke. Wallace was upside down in a pile of rope traps, Leo was tangled in illusion tags, and Felix—bless his clumsy soul—was currently being carried away by a malfunctioning animated skeleton that Mira insisted was "part of the aesthetic."

I stood with a cup of tea, watching the chaos unfold like a noble inspecting a battlefield of absolute incompetence.

"Leo," I called, "I didn’t know you were applying to become abstract art."

He grunted, limbs sticking out in the wrong directions from the tangled mess. "It’s part of the testing phase."

"Oh? Is the phase called ’failure’ or ’flailing’?"

Wallace popped his head out of a crate. "Professor! Good news! The fog crystal finally stabilized!"

BOOM.

He vanished in a puff of gray smoke.

"Correction," I said dryly. "Wallace has now joined the spirit world. Send him my regards."

Mira cackled from her perch on the roof. "This is going great!"

"For a disaster documentary," I muttered.

Felix stumbled over, the skeleton still clinging to his back. "Professor! It won’t let go! It thinks I’m its master!"

I took a long sip of tea. "I can see why. You both share the same dead expression."

"Help me!"

"Have you considered speaking to it in bone language? Perhaps cry in Morse code."

"I—what does that even mean?!"

I ignored him and turned toward Mira. "How’s the illusion calibration?"

She gave me a thumbs-up. "I’ve added surprise screams, hallucinations, and a room that makes people think they’re being watched."

"...You mean like an average Monday in the academy dorms?"

"Exactly!"

Felix tripped again and landed face-first into a bucket of fake blood. The skeleton politely dusted him off.

"I am surrounded by idiots," I sighed, arms crossed.

"You say that every week," Leo said from the ground, trying to crawl free from the illusion tags.

"Because it keeps being true, Leo."

Wallace reappeared, soot-covered and blinking. "Professor, we’re ahead of schedule!"

"No. You’re ahead of sanity."

The best part?

This wasn’t even the main event yet.

Day one of the "test run."

A term I now understand to mean watching a group of teenagers run face-first into their own traps while I sip tea and judge them from a distance.

"Alright," I said, perched on a crate with a good view of the disaster about to unfold. "Class C, into the beast’s mouth you go. Try not to die. It’d reflect poorly on my paperwork."

Julien cracked his knuckles. "This’ll be easy."

He immediately walked into a fog wall, screamed, and ran out the other side soaked in what looked like goat’s milk.

"...And that," I said, sipping my tea, "was the fastest failure in academy history."

Felix hesitated at the entrance. "Are we sure it’s safe?"

"No," I said flatly.

"But—"

"Get in there, Dorne. If something explodes, you have my permission to cry."

He whimpered and disappeared inside.

The walls of the maze shifted subtly, thanks to Mira’s illusions. Somewhere, someone screamed. Probably Leo.

Wallace sat beside me with a notepad, recording every malfunction. "So far, we have four bruises, three psychic traumas, and one ego shattered."

"Make that two," I said, pointing at Garrick walking out holding his own shoes.

"What happened?" Wallace asked.

"I lost a duel... to a door," Garrick muttered.

"I always suspected architecture would be your downfall," I mused.

Inside, the laughter and chaos escalated.

Mira’s illusions were too effective. One corner had them convinced they were being chased by a giant chicken. Another had them stuck in an endless loop of Felix’s motivational speeches—true horror.

Julien stumbled out again, his hair singed. "The mist slapped me."

"Did you insult it?" I asked.

"...No?"

"Liar."

By the end of the trial, the class emerged looking like they’d survived a demon war. Mud, illusion residue, mild curses, and bruised pride clung to them like awards.

I stood and clapped once.

"Congratulations. You’ve all proven conclusively that if you were ever put in charge of a dungeon, the adventurers wouldn’t die. They’d just leave from sheer secondhand embarrassment."

Julien coughed. "It’s not that bad..."

"The fake dragon choked on a smoke bomb."

"...Okay, maybe a little bad."

Felix crawled up to me, still trembling. "Professor... how’d we do?"

I looked down at him. He looked up at me with hope.

I patted his shoulder.

"You passed," I said.

"Really?!"

"You passed the threshold of stupidity I didn’t think was humanly possible."

He fell over.

I smiled and turned to the rest. "Get some rest. Tomorrow we fix this carnival of shame. And if anyone breathes the word ’chicken’ again, I will personally make you spar with the fog wall."

They groaned, dragging themselves off to the dorms.

And I sipped my tea, smug.

Progress.

Chaotic, idiotic progress.

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