Episode 738

One of the few advantages of Einrogard is that you can see such rare monsters. Hahaha!”

Professor Bendozol, oblivious to the students’ changing expressions, continued excitedly.

No matter how angry he was a moment ago, whenever monsters came up, he became happy again.

The students glanced at each other, unsure of who should speak up first.

“Now then, shall we all go meet the Nightmarejack?”

“Professor.”

Lee Han raised his hand and called. Professor Bendozol, noticing this, openly showed his displeasure.

“What? Don’t tell me you don’t want to meet it? How many chances do small fry like you get to meet a treasure like Nightmarejack??”

“Here…”

Lee Han took a sparrow monster out of his coat pocket.

The Nightmarejack, still quivering from being poisoned, shook violently.

“……”

Professor Bendozol was so shocked he couldn’t even answer. He just blinked and stared at the trembling Nightmarejack.

Nillia whispered with a hint of anticipation.

-What if he just collapses from a heart attack?

But Professor Bendozol barely managed to withstand the shock.

“N-no… Impossible! Who would… Nightmarejack! You! You took out Nightmarejack!”

“Professor! Wardanaz didn’t do it!”

Seeing the professor’s demonic face, the friends quickly lied.

They were afraid the professor might attack Lee Han if they left things alone.

Of course, professors had attacked Lee Han before, but no point in adding to their numbers.

“Think about it! How could Wardanaz defeat a Nightmarejack!”

“We’re just sophomores!”

Even as the students protested, they seemed confident their lies were pretty convincing.

It really was odd for a second-year student to defeat a Nightmarejack and bring it like this.

Unfortunately, Professor Bendozol had seen Lee Han since winter break.

“Silence! What other sophomore in the Empire is like that?!”

“……”

Lee Han was dumbfounded.

Well, it was true he’d taken the Nightmarejack down himself but…

‘Isn’t this a bit much?’

“I should’ve known, since you arrived first without being targeted by evil spirits! That you’d kill Nightmarejack!”

“It’s not dead yet…”

“Boohoo, I’m sorry! It’s my fault! My fault!”

Ignoring the students, Professor Bendozol shed marble-like tears as he cried out to Nightmarejack.

He snatched Nightmarejack from Lee Han’s hand and began inspecting its condition.

“Wait. This poison…?”

Lee Han finally told the truth since he had no choice.

“Actually, my pet basilisk bit it.”

“Really? Well, that can’t be helped then.”

Professor Bendozol nodded as if it was just the natural order of things.

The students looked at the professor as if he were crazy.

“Don’t worry too much.”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“I wasn’t talking to you, but to the basilisk!”

As the professor shouted, the basilisk hissed in displeasure.

It judged the professor as a threat to its master.

Like a desperate wizard witnessing the sky collapse, Professor Bendozol shouted hastily,

“I’m not your master’s enemy, really!”

But the basilisk kept hissing.

Professor Bendozol glared tearfully at Lee Han.

He was burning with rage.

“My… You’re my cherished student!”

“??”

“Who do you think I mean! You!”

The professor almost whispered in anger. The basilisk, overhearing, reacted again.

Professor Bendozol ground his teeth at Lee Han, who still didn’t get it. Now was the time to endure.

“You… you’re my beloved student. Haha.”

-……

“Look, look at this. Haha. We’re close.”

Though he wanted nothing to do with filthy humans, Professor Bendozol held back and awkwardly put his arm around his student.

Even then, the basilisk eyed him with suspicion.

“Professor, how long are we going to do this?”

“Until the basilisk is satisfied!”

The professor growled.

Unfazed, Lee Han pressed further. If you didn’t secure these kinds of guarantees, you couldn’t survive as an Einrogard student.

“Then why don’t we all gather and depart together for the next class?”

“…You, you…!”

Professor Bendozol was appalled by this wicked student’s suggestion.

Just like a true human, he was diabolically cunning!

As the basilisk started hissing again, the professor quickly conceded.

“Fine! We’ll all gather together!”

“And how about giving advance notice of which animal we’re going to meet?”

“You s… fine!”

“Haha. We’re friends.”

Lee Han and Professor Bendozol awkwardly linked arms and forced a smile. Only then did the basilisk drop its guard and become quiet.

• * *

After managing to neutralize the baby basilisk’s venom using a few elixirs and spells, Professor Bendozol let out a sigh.

Luckily, the venom was from a not-fully-grown basilisk, and Nightmarejack itself was such a strong monster.

If Nightmarejack weren’t a creature born where all sorts of nightmares and spiritual energy clump together, it couldn’t have withstood such deadly poison.

‘How can this cute little guy’s venom be so strong even though it’s not fully grown?’

Professor Bendozol looked wistfully at Lee Han’s sleeve. Lee Han, annoyed, hid his sleeve.

“Nightmarejack has recovered a bit, so let’s begin the lecture.”

“…Ah! That’s right, this was a class?”

“I was starting to wonder why we were sitting here like this.”

The students realized it was class time at last and took out their notes.

Professor Bendozol gently placed the Nightmarejack on the ground.

“One of the most beautiful aspects of the Nightmarejack is its jewel-like eyes. Looking at these eyes, living things fall under a powerful illusion spell…”

When hunting Nightmarejacks, beware the eyes. It’s born with powerful illusion magic. Danger!

“When its wings beat, it summons the evil ghosts inside! The way its color changes when the light hits its feathers is truly beautiful!”

Beware of the evil spirits that pour out when it flaps its wings. Prepare methods to deal with spirits.

“If it remains in the forest for a long time, more and more ghost monsters will appear, which is part of its process in preparing to lay eggs! If the forest is left alone, this cute creature will devour all those ghosts and turn them into eggs!”

If a Nightmarejack settles in a forest, eradicate it as soon as possible…

The students listened to Professor Bendozol intently.

To survive in Einrogard, you had to know all about dangerous monsters.

If you didn’t even know how to run away, where they showed up… you wouldn’t last long.

Usually only hunters took such a deep interest in prey, but Professor Bendozol was the exception.

“Looks like it’s sleepy. Let’s take a short break.”

Professor Bendozol gently draped an improvised magic blanket made of twined leaves over the Nightmarejack.

The blanket was enchanted to restore stamina.

As the professor approached, Lee Han quietly turned the page of his notes.

If Professor Bendozol saw the page about ‘how to hunt Nightmarejacks,’ he might have a heart attack.

“How much are you taking care of your unicorn?”

“Sorry?”

“I mean your unicorn! Unicorn!”

“I visit every two or three days, I think…”

“T-t-two! Three days!!”

Seeing Professor Bendozol’s heart attack face again, Priest Nigisor beside him looked puzzled.

Was it the number of days that frightened him?

“You should visit at least five times a day, you curse… precious student!”

“Impossible. I can’t even visit the griffon that often.”

Despite all the professor’s fuss, Lee Han wasn’t fazed.

If he always did as professors told him, he would have had to master curse magic his first year.

“Don’t make excuses! You definitely have some free time. Show me your class schedule!”

Lee Han hesitantly showed his schedule.

Even with Professor Bendozol, it didn’t seem like he could squeeze any more out of him, but he was still a professor.

He might spot something Lee Han had missed.

“……”

But contrary to expectations, Professor Bendozol couldn’t answer right away and held his head, groaning.

Like a complex puzzle, the schedule permitted no gaps.

“This free time… damn it, club stuff. Then this one… griffon again… and this… damn, damn!! Why do you take so many classes!!”

The students behind Lee Han nodded absentmindedly. Luckily, Lee Han didn’t notice.

“What’s this ‘gardening’ thing? Is that class?”

“It’s not a class, I just look after Professor Thunderstep’s hut.”

“Then I’ll do it. Go visit your unicorn at that time!”

“Uh, I mean, I guess that’s fine, but… are you sure?”

It would be quite startling for Professor Thunderstep to have another professor show up to do chores instead.

“What! What’s the problem!”

“No problem. If you wish, Professor, by all means.”

“This ‘Finding the Evil Beaver’—what’s that?”

“Ah, I must have written it wrong. That’s going to Verdus Professor’s workshop to do prep work.”

“Is that a class?”

“Would that be a class?”

“Then I’ll do that too. Go visit your unicorn at that time!”

“!”

For the first time, Lee Han felt a bit of affection for Professor Bendozol.

He was even willing to visit Professor Verdus instead!

“If you wish, Professor…”

Bendozol did his best to scrape up every little free bit of time in the schedule, squeezing out anything that could be reassigned.

‘Was I really doing this much extra work?’

Even Lee Han was surprised as each item came up.

He hadn’t realized it was so much.

After finally securing unicorn time, Professor Bendozol tossed the schedule and stood up.

“Now. Next is how to befriend a Nightmarejack.”

“Befriending, sir?”

“I really don’t want to be friends with it…”

Professor Bendozol ignored the complaints with a face like granite.

“Even with dangerous, savage monsters, just fighting mindlessly is foolish! A mage should assess things flexibly in any situation. Learning how to become friends with monsters means understanding them the best.”

“That would help in hunting, too.”

At the White Tiger Tower student’s reply, Professor Bendozol glared as if to set him on fire. The student hid behind his notebook in fright.

“The best way to make friends with a Nightmarejack is transformation magic. Luckily, there are several animals it feels comfortable with. By next lesson, learn to transform into one of them! You don’t have to do it perfectly, but you need to turn at least an arm!”

“Professor, I don’t specialize in transformation magic…”

Professor Bendozol replied with a nonchalant look.

“And what do you want me to do about it? Figure it out. Get a potion or a spell scroll or something. That’s also part of a mage’s abilities!”

“……”

Having figured Professor Bendozol out, students stopped asking pointless questions and consulted each other.

“Small insect monsters, bird monsters… They say even snakes work surprisingly well. It feels comfortable around those.”

“Better to go snake than insect.”

“Ugh, I hate both.”

‘Basilisk probably doesn’t count, right?’

Thinking over what animal to transform into, Lee Han pondered.

The second-circle spell -Low-grade Transformation- they learned last year turned part of one’s body into animal form.

Having learned that spell, Lee Han figured he wouldn’t have much trouble meeting Professor Bendozol’s demand.

“Arm, become a beast’s foreleg.”

Since it had been a while, Lee Han tested the spell briefly to check.

Poof!

At the sight of his student’s arm turning into a basilisk’s head, Professor Bendozol seriously considered just letting this one pass.

For the Nightmarejack’s safety, that might really be necessary.