Villainous Instructor at the Academy
Chapter 162: Idiots in forest

Chapter 162: Idiots in forest

Morning broke over the Virescent Woods with all the tenderness of a hammer to the face.

Birds chirped.

Bugs buzzed.

Class C, meanwhile, was engaged in the noble art of panicking over breakfast.

"Who took my rations?!" Julien barked, rifling through his pack.

"You mean these?" Wallace said innocently, holding up a crumpled packet. "It looked expired, so I thought I’d test it."

"You WHAT?!"

"I’m still alive, aren’t I?"

"That’s debatable!" Mira hissed, rubbing her temples like she had a migraine coming.

Meanwhile, Garrick was boiling water in a battered pot Wallace had salvaged—because apparently, surviving without a kettle was unthinkable.

Leo was chewing on dried jerky with the haunted eyes of a man who’d already accepted gastrointestinal doom.

Felix... was trying to be responsible.

Naturally, this made him the target of all my attention.

I sauntered over and clapped Felix on the shoulder so hard he nearly dropped his tin cup.

"Good work, Felix," I said, voice dripping with false warmth. "You’re the glue holding this tragic wreck together."

"T-Thank you, Professor," he stammered.

I leaned in, voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper.

"Too bad glue melts under heat."

His face paled impressively.

After breakfast—if you could call that grim affair "breakfast"—I gathered them all in the clearing.

"Alright, maggots," I announced, hands on my hips. "Today marks the beginning of your official survival training."

The groans were immediate.

I smiled like a shark.

"Objective: Stay alive.

Rules: No crying, no begging, no selling each other to wolves.

Bonus points if you manage not to set yourselves on fire."

Leo visibly recoiled.

"Wait—wait, why would fire even be—"

Wallace’s kettle caught a rogue spark from the campfire and whooshed into a fireball.

I stared at it.

Class C stared at it.

Wallace flailed around trying to smother it with his cloak.

"...See?" I said, deadpan. "You’re already on track to fail."

___

The Tasks of the Day:

Foraging for edible plants.

Building shelter.

Avoiding ’natural hazards.’

Basic defensive exercises.

___

Simple, right?

Wrong.

I assigned Garrick and Leo to gather edible plants.

Fifteen minutes later, they returned proudly carrying a bundle of glowroot.

"Professor, we found something!" Garrick said.

I raised an eyebrow.

Glowroot was mildly hallucinogenic if eaten raw.

"Congratulations," I said flatly. "You’ve secured front-row tickets to Lizard Ballet in your brain."

Leo dropped his bundle like it had bitten him.

Garrick just looked confused.

I put Mira, Wallace, and Julien on constructing a shelter.

Mira, being theoretical about everything, immediately started lecturing them about structural integrity.

Wallace built what could only be described as a goblin nest.

Julien decided to "improvise" by propping sticks against a tree.

The result collapsed spectacularly when a bird landed on it.

"A masterpiece," I declared solemnly. "Truly, a monument to human hubris."

Mira threatened to throw a rock at me.

I accepted the compliment.

For the grand finale, I taught them basic defensive positioning.

Keyword: taught.

Whether they learned anything was questionable.

When I simulated a surprise attack by throwing a stick into the middle of camp, Julien tripped over Garrick, Leo shrieked and tackled Mira (who bit him), Wallace swung his kettle like a flail, and Felix simply froze.

A tableau of perfect failure.

I slow-clapped.

"Bravo. At this rate, wild rabbits will overthrow you by dusk."

___

End of Day Summary:

Minor burns: 3

Emotional trauma: Universal

Progress: Technically existent

Pride: Nowhere to be found

___

That night, as they huddled around the campfire nursing their various bruises and egos, I sat back against a tree, arms behind my head, grinning into the starlit canopy.

It was chaos.

It was beautiful.

It was progress.

After all, nothing built character quite like abject suffering under a sarcastic tyrant.

And they still had a long, long way to go.

Morning rolled in again like a lazy drunkard falling down a hill.

The campfire had long since died, the tents (if you could call them that) were sagging like depressed noodles, and Class C was already in the middle of a heated debate over whose fault last night’s disaster had been.

I woke up to the dulcet sounds of teenagers arguing like fishmongers over a single rotten trout.

Ah, mornings.

"Alright, shut it, you whimpering peacocks," I said, pushing myself off the tree trunk with a yawn. "Today’s theme is Basic Hunting and Tracking."

Felix immediately blanched.

Julien pumped a fist into the air.

Leo looked ready to fake a sudden terminal illness.

Wallace pulled out a homemade crossbow from his bag, which should have been alarming, but somehow just felt... inevitable.

Mira was polishing a knife with the cold focus of a woman prepared to stab reality itself.

Garrick was flexing.

I clapped my hands together.

"Good! You’re all idiots, but enthusiastic idiots. That’s the first step."

___

The Grand Hunt Plan:

Find something edible.

Catch it without dying.

Return it to camp.

Try not to set the forest on fire in the process.

___

"Professor, uh, what exactly are we hunting?" Felix asked nervously.

I turned toward him with a grin that made Leo physically recoil.

"Rabbits."

Everyone sighed in relief.

"Carnivorous rabbits," I added, just to see the color drain from their faces.

I wasn’t technically lying.

The Forestback Rabbits in these woods were aggressive little monsters when provoked.

Perfect for training.

We set off in two groups: Garrick, Leo, and Wallace in one.

Julien, Mira, and Felix in the other.

I floated between them, supervising, mocking, and ensuring no one got disemboweled before lunch.

Wallace immediately tried to set a trap involving a bent sapling, a net, and—confusingly—a loaf of hardtack bread.

It snapped shut and flung Leo into a bush.

"New plan," Wallace declared solemnly. "Less physics."

Meanwhile, Julien was leading his group with the confidence of a man who had absolutely no idea where he was going but refused to admit it.

Felix was trying to track footprints.

Mira was absolutely carrying the team.

Literally.

She dragged Felix back by the collar when he nearly walked into a wasp nest.

Leo’s group finally spotted a Forestback Rabbit.

It was gnawing a tree.

Not on roots.

On the actual trunk.

Leo threw a rock at it.

The rabbit turned, stared at him with the cold, murderous gaze of a tiny warlord, and charged.

Leo screamed like a boiling kettle and ran.

Wallace fired his crossbow.

He missed.

The rabbit bit Garrick’s boot and hung on like a furry vice.

Garrick ran in circles waving his leg, yelling, "GET IT OFF GET IT OFF!"

From the sidelines, I watched with mild approval.

Natural selection was clearly doing its best, but I wasn’t going to let these disasters-in-training die just yet.

I casually knocked the rabbit off with a stone, picked it up by the scruff, and tossed it into a sack.

"One captured," I said, deadpan. "At this rate, you’ll be lucky to capture your own dignity."

Julien’s group had a more... diplomatic approach.

They tried to bait a rabbit with some foraged berries.

It almost worked.

Until Felix sneezed.

The rabbit bolted.

Mira threw her knife.

It missed the rabbit.

It didn’t miss Julien’s hat.

Silence.

Felix looked like he wanted to dissolve into the ground.

Julien picked up his hat, now stylishly ventilated, and turned to Mira with a hollow look.

"...You owe me a drink."

By the time the sun dipped low, they had captured two rabbits, sprained a wrist (Leo, naturally), and invented at least five new types of failure.

I sat them all around the fire that evening, inspecting the rabbits tied to a makeshift spit.

They looked ragged.

Broken.

But also... weirdly proud.

"Congratulations," I said, voice solemn. "You’ve achieved the minimum standard expected of sapient beings."

Wallace raised his hand.

"Professor, does that mean we’re not completely hopeless?"

I thought about it.

"No," I said. "But now, at least, you’re hopeless with potential."

The fire crackled.

The stars spread wide above us.

The forest buzzed with life, and in that strange, aching moment between exhaustion and peace, I realized—

They were getting better.

Slowly.

Painfully.

Chaotically.

But better.

And that...

was exactly what I needed.

Because the real trials hadn’t even started yet.

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