30 Years Have Passed Since the Prologue Chapter 30

Chapter 30: The Night of Counting Stars (4)

Oswald is a Magic Faculty new student. As most Elves are.

Viewed by St. Yansk University’s racial distribution, most Elves were concentrated in the Magic Faculty and the College of Music. One might well call it the fault of an indolent racial trait that doesn’t favor physical work to begin with.

On a morning with classes in full swing, Ivan and Yujin were making their way toward the Magic Faculty.

“Big brother, I’ve been giving it some thought.”

“Hm.”

“Strangely, this world has no Paladins, does it?”

This fellow now seemed to have no intention whatsoever of hiding that he was a possessor.

“See, for you and me both this is a different world from the original, but in a world that has gods and divine spells and knights, isn’t it common sense for there to be Holy Knights?”

“Does a priest need to take up a weapon at all.”

Ivan knew that the very post of Holy Knight is closer to fantasy.

On Earth a holy knight was a case of knights setting out for religious conviction during the Crusades, so strictly speaking they are not priests. They received no ordination. (And they were exceedingly worldly besides.)

That isn’t to say there were no cases of ordained priests operating as knights. But in that case they cannot be called knights. They’re simply armed warrior-monks.

It’s no different in this world. A pre-modern priest here is fundamentally an enormous elite. They must accumulate knowledge as diverse as that of modern legal professionals.

On top of that, once they take the three vows of ordination, poverty, chastity, obedience, and receive divine spells from a god besides, there’s even less need for physical work.

When a single Smite from a seated position can hit harder than a decent knight, why bother……?

When an ordained priest has no occasion to go to the front line at all, why on earth……?

And on top of that, one greatest reason more.

In a world where a personal god actually exists, the authority a priest holds surpasses imagination. Because divine spells cannot be used if one’s character is lacking.

Which is to say, every priest in this world is fundamentally good. Astonishingly, that was truly so. And since such common sense was pervasive, priests all received tremendous social respect.

Accordingly, the only occasion for them to strap on a blade and go to the front themselves was during the demonfolk war, and even then they were never deployed to the true forward line.

A knight who uses divine spells cannot help but be a fantasy in itself.

Yujin, listening to the kindly instruction of the orphanage director with 30 years of other-world seniority, clapped his hands with a tak and said:

“Then I’d be the first?”

“……What?”

“After applying to the Theology Faculty I got a divine spell slot! There aren’t many spells I can use yet, but at least it’s possible, right?”

And Yujin has a specialized passive called “Sword Mastery.” Which is to say, his grounding in swordsmanship is superior to others’.

“Then a priest who uses divine spells and is also good with a blade…… isn’t that a Holy Knight? Wow, big brother. I might be the founder of the Holy Knight tech tree.”

It wasn’t an incorrect statement. Ivan nodded and sank into thought for a moment.

A divine spell slot……?

“Can you learn other spells too, by chance?”

“It’s possible, but the experience point consumption is far too severe so I haven’t tried. Life is about selection and concentration, isn’t it?”

Divine, magic, swordsmanship. He can master all 3 kinds of technique?

Ivan narrowed his eyes and looked at Yujin. A past conversation flitted through his mind.

It’s good to learn anything! Except magic. That one really was too hard. It’s a bit of a problem if a Hero can’t use magic. Ahaha, I said I’m in the Knight Faculty!

A conversation had in passing with Isabelle.

The Hero’s daughter doesn’t necessarily become the Hero, but what if one examines it against Maximilien’s case?

Able to use divine, magic, and swordsmanship all at once, and a possessor at the same time.

Is this fellow the Hero?

Ivan looked down at Yujin with a complicated expression. Yujin was walking along laughing heh heh like a sycophant.

“Once I become a Holy Knight there’s a line I’ve always wanted to try. You know, Deus Vult (God wills it)! Kyah.”

Ivan, who had been drawing a parallel to Maximilien, ended up shaking his head. A world in which this fellow is the Hero seemed unnecessary.

Ivan and Yujin soon arrived at the Magic Faculty lecture building.

***

Oswald, in the middle of a class, hunched his body as he felt an eerie chill run down his nape.

An intense gaze. Almost killing intent, no, something thicker than that, laden with greed……

It’s Evelyn Rustfitz. The Privy Chairman’s precious treasure, the young lady of the Rustfitz Duke Family, was glaring at him.

Oswald ground his teeth with a grind.

What is it you want from me……!

He was a normal adult male in his 20s. Which is to say, he had never seen the so-called “female-oriented romance fantasy” lumped together as villainess stories.

Which meant he possessed no information whatsoever about this novel.

Setting aside why he had gone and been dropped wholesale into a novel he hadn’t even read 30 chapters of.

A situation of having to survive in a world he knows nothing of, without so much as a possession privilege.

I should have read a regret-ruin-obsession story!

He felt like beating the ground and wailing. It wasn’t that he’d never read novels grouped under regret-ruin-obsession, but that’s a cliché one can enjoy only when it’s a novel.

The situation of a heroine feeling regret, ruin, and obsession toward the protagonist is called this within the harsh reality of 21st-century Korea:

Stalking. This is dating violence severe enough that the police officers say this bastard.

In any case, this present situation.

That is, as to how the situation of Evelyn glaring at him came about—

—it had happened because Oswald, walking a corridor, had smiled and said it was fine to one female student he’d accidentally bumped into……!

No, fuck, was I supposed to slap her instead?

Barring severe psychopathy, nobody commits such an act. However thickly slathered in arrogance Elves may be, they possess no such culture.

Because they believe arrogance is simply another aspect of being aristocratic. Which is to say, they don’t commit such vulgar acts. So Oswald had in fact responded sensibly even within Elf society……!

But our Miss Evelyn, who had transcended the range of Elf character, did not seem to see it that way.

“Now, the class was a bit dull, wasn’t it? It can’t be helped, everyone. Wake up the student dozing over there, rest for 10 minutes, and shall we carry on?”

When the professor on the dais spoke with a warm smile, students rose stretching here and there across the lecture hall.

Oswald likewise rose naturally and headed for the corridor, evading Evelyn, who was still glaring as though she’d kill him.

Very carefully, so as not to bump into a female student this time.

“Grab him.”

“Yes, big brother!”

Walking the corridor, Oswald ended up bumping into a group of possessors instead of a female student.

***

Oswald’s impression of them was simple. A madman-and-lunatic duo.

Indeed the young madman, the black-haired human youth incessantly rubbing his palms with a sycophant’s face, said this the moment he saw him:

“Oh, a pleasure! Mister Eastbelphen! I’m Yevgeny, called Kim Yu-jin in Korea. And this is Ivan, I don’t know his Korean name, but he’s Korean!”

“……?”

“We came knowing you’re a possessor. Don’t you need help?”

“……???”

Around what chapter would this event have appeared? At least within the chapters he’d read no other possessor had appeared……

The Genius Mage the Villainess Obsesses Over, which Oswald had read, was not this sort of content. Of course, it hadn’t had this strange Russian setting either.

While he was momentarily engulfed in confusion, the old man introduced as Ivan opened his mouth.

“I know you’re startled. But you, and we as well, need one another’s help. Could you spare a moment.” “Ah, yes…… but how did you know about me……?”

What is a possessor’s greatest characteristic. Naturally, concealing the fact of possession.

Possession is, put bluntly, the act of seizing the body of the person who lived there before. What happens if one enters a body whose family and relatives are alive and well?

At best it’s human experimentation; at worst it’s a crisis of having one’s neck lopped off as the enemy of somebody’s son (or daughter).

This is a fact already proven by Korea’s countless possession-story clichés. Because to family and relatives a possessor is nothing but an enemy.

Therefore Oswald, after learning of the possession and spending sufficient time in despair, thoroughly concealed his identity.

So it should have been perfect……?

“It wasn’t Elf-like.”

“Pardon……?”

“There’s almost no case of an Elf using polite speech.”

Excepting a being of the Saintess’s standing, a nation’s king, or those of equivalent rank, an Elf doesn’t use honorifics even in official correspondence. Because long-lived species are generally like that to begin with.

Yet this fellow had gone and collected his admission documents from the admissions office using polite speech, no less. The instant Ivan heard this, he could not help but call to mind the word “possessor” before the thought “a courteous and good Elf.”

Because there can be no such proposition in the world as a courteous and good Elf.

Having pinned down the possessor all too naturally, Ivan had been watching Oswald with an underline drawn beneath his name.

An Elf who, having bumped into a human classmate while chatting with friends at a corridor corner, smiles and says it’s fine……?

Such a thing cannot exist.

Isn’t a monkey’s field of vision also to the front? Are you perhaps a herbivore? Can’t you see forward? Don’t misunderstand, vegetarians have value worth respecting too.

Isn’t this exactly the sort of thing an ordinary Elf would offer a discourteous human……?

Listening to Ivan’s explanation, Oswald’s expression hardened by degrees.

What on earth is this old codger saying……?

Is this racism? Feeling in another world, and as an Elf no less, an emotion he’d never felt on Earth made his mind complicated……

“So what was the story you saw?”

“Ah, for reference, mine was The Northern Grand Duke Family’s Good-for-Nothing Sword Genius!”

“……Mine was The Genius Mage the Villainess Obsesses Over……”

“Oh, regret-ruin-obsession. Seems you were possessed at least after 2021?”

“It was May of ’23.”

“Ohh……!”

Ignoring Yujin, who was chattering and laying out his personal circumstances, Oswald turned to Ivan.

“Are there more possessors, by chance?”

“Probably.”

Ivan nodded heavily.

“Let’s head to the Knight Faculty.”

***

Yuri went pale as she looked at the 3 men blocking her way.

A suspicious gardener with a towel around his neck, and a Golden Sun rubbing his palms beside him with a sycophant’s smile, and on top of that—

“Hello? I’m Oswald of the Magic Faculty. Same 1st year. My major is Mind Sorcery, mm. That is to say, the mental school.”

A squinty-eyed character who unabashedly announced that he uses hypnosis magic had been added.

“You’re a possessor, right? I hear you seem to be Korean. Kyah, at this rate it feels like we ought to form a Seoul hometown association or something?”

The Golden Sun laughed heh heh and extended a hand.

“Hiiiik!!”

Yuri’s vision went black!

***

Knight Faculty top of class, Yuri Frank.

Yevgeny Novikov Karamzin, who studies swordsmanship alongside the Theology Faculty.

Magic Faculty, Mind Sorcery major, Oswald Eastbelphen.

And on top of that Ivan Petrovich. Annihilation Corps scouting party.

Ivan surveyed the possessors gathered in the small club room and thought.

Isn’t this a Hero’s Party composition……?