Chapter 17

Chapter 17

Chapter 17. You’ve Got to Be Kidding

The magic-stone lights embedded in the ceiling.

The dynamic, beautiful statues.

And even paintings large enough to leave one’s mouth hanging open.

Every single one was extraordinary.

But Kawin walked past all of them.

Tesca Academy, an institution that trained mages.

Naturally, the building was filled with magic.

Anything stained was immediately treated with ‘Cleanse,’ while the surfaces of the paintings were covered in tiny magical shields.

Perhaps those very traits of a magic academy had clouded Kawin’s eyes.

Pause.

After walking for quite some time, Kawin’s feet stopped.

He had already taken off his shoes and socks, leaving his feet bare.

‘Here.’

The place Kawin stopped was none other than the exact center of the red carpet.

Looking back, there had been more than one strange thing about it.

The grand auditorium was where every student in the Academy gathered.

From freshmen to graduating students, there were easily five hundred of them.

Even the faintest footprint should have been inevitable.

Yet this red carpet had never been stained in the slightest.

‘I should’ve looked more carefully.’

Was this what they meant by the darkest place being beneath the lamp?

He had assumed the carpet stayed clean because it had a shield spell like the paintings on the walls.

But now he realized that wasn’t it.

Swipe.

Kawin bent down and ran his palm across the red carpet.

There was no shield placed here by another mage.

In other words, the red carpet was protecting itself from damage.

Just like Archmage Dharma’s grimoire,

which had radiated its own light for hundreds of years.

Thump.

The moment suspicion became certainty.

Kawin’s heart began pounding violently.

Thump! Thump!

Even sprinting until he was gasping for breath might have felt calmer than this.

Slowly.

Very carefully.

Kawin slid the sole of his foot across the carpet.

At a glance, the red carpet looked smooth as silk.

But if Kawin was right, it couldn’t be completely smooth.

Slide. Slide.

Moving like this while rubbing his feet along the floor made him feel like a bipedal snake.

Naturally, he couldn’t move quickly.

It was an unbearably slow and tedious process, but Kawin silently continued his work(?).

Patience.

For someone who had lived without sight, patience had been a lifelong companion.

Hours passed, but Kawin repeated the same movement.

From the circular starting point in the center of the grand auditorium, the red carpet stretched all the way down the corridor.

Then, at some point during the monotonous process,

Pause.

The corner of Kawin’s mouth slowly rose.

“Found it.”

At last.

At one spot along the carpet, hidden like a buried gem,

there was a bump that stimulated the sole of his foot.

Two across.

Three rows vertically.

There was no need to explain what that pattern meant.

“Haha. I found it.”

A red carpet hundreds of students casually walked over.

The professors were no different.

Even Headmaster Dorothy knew it was the grimoire handed over by the empire, yet,

‘Nobody could decipher it.’

Kawin was the only person in this world who knew the Braille system.

And that Braille was the language that contained the very foundation of magic.

A grimoire only I can read.

After Archmage Dharma’s, Kawin had discovered another grimoire.

Slide. Slide.

Braille dots appeared at regular intervals.

Reading with the soles of his feet instead of his fingers felt strangely different.

It took longer to decipher, but Kawin didn’t hate the tedious process at all.

It reminded him of the fresh excitement he had felt when first learning Braille.

‘I never thought I’d feel that again here.’

As he decoded the grimoire, the corners of Kawin’s mouth rose higher and higher.

With time, he grew more skilled.

And the first sentence of the grimoire he finally deciphered was,

[You motherfucking bastards!]

Despite the gravity of the situation,

Kawin couldn’t suppress his laughter.

‘Why are all these grimoires like this?’

Archmage Dharma’s grimoire had been the same.

Its very first line had also been profanity.

At this point, did every grimoire begin with foul language?

With that ridiculous thought, Kawin continued reading the Braille.

[You mortals who can’t even live a hundred years dare imprison a primordial being?]

[I won’t let this go! You damned bastards!]

[No! I was wrong! I’ll do whatever you say, so let me out of here!]

[I’ll tear off your limbs and feed them to werewolves!]

[I will never forgive you!]

[But maybe I could forgive you if you let me out?]

[Hehehe! I’m right here and nobody knows!]

[Are you insane? What lunatic thought of making a grimoire out of a carpet?]

“...What is this?”

A hollow voice escaped Kawin.

Every time he deciphered another sentence, the emotions of the grimoire’s owner changed wildly.

To put it kindly, they seemed innocent and carefree.

To put it less kindly...

‘No. Stop getting distracted. Focus.’

Following this emotional flow might make his own mind strange too.

Kawin calmed himself and focused on deciphering it.

The qualification required to obtain a grimoire.

Was to decipher its contents to the very end.

“Uh...?”

Following the red carpet, Kawin finally reached the main hall.

His closed eyes trembled violently.

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

Headmaster Dorothy of Tesca Academy.

Dorothy had definitely said it.

She could give him a hint, but not the method.

Only now did Kawin fully understand what she meant.

“I have to follow all of this... to the very end?”

He had never once wondered,

where the red carpet actually ended.

Following the stairs, the red carpet reached the second floor and split like branches toward several different rooms.

And every single owner of those rooms was,

‘A professor.’

* * *

“...Kawin. You’re acting a little weird today.”

Breakfast time at Tesca Academy.

Walther, sitting across from him, set down his fork.

“Am I?”

“Yeah. One minute you’re snickering, the next you’re sighing like the earth is collapsing. What’s going on?”

“What it looks like. Something good and something difficult happened at the same time.”

“Something good and something difficult?”

Walther thought for a moment, then slapped his palm.

“I got it! The good thing is that classes were canceled yesterday so you got to rest, and the hard thing is that classes start again today, right? I feel the same way.”

“...”

Kawin stared quietly at Walther.

Then pointed his index finger at Walther’s chest.

“Exactly right.”

“Haha. I’ve always been perceptive!”

Kawin grinned and continued eating.

Naturally, Walther was completely wrong.

There was only one reason Kawin kept laughing and sighing.

The Academy’s grimoire.

‘The red carpet splits into several paths. And each one leads to a professor’s room.’

Naturally, entering a professor’s room without permission was strictly forbidden.

They probably contained confidential research and secret techniques.

Could he sneak inside without being caught?

Kawin shook his head.

Tesca Academy’s professors were all at least Third-Circle mages.

They would certainly notice traces of an intruder.

Especially someone like Professor Valeria, whose magic involved illusions. There was a real risk of being caught in a trap.

To move freely through the professors’ rooms, for long periods of time, and even...

‘Barefoot.’

A bitter edge crept into Kawin’s smile.

He reached a conclusion.

This wasn’t something he could solve with tricks.

If he wanted to examine all the Braille on the red carpet, there was only one orthodox method.

And that method was called ‘permission.’

“Walther. You said you know a lot about the Academy’s history too, right?”

“Mm. Of course.”

“Has there ever been a senior who received access permission from every professor?”

“What?”

Walther’s thick eyebrows jumped.

“That’s impossible. Getting even one professor to like you is harder than plucking a star from the sky. How could anyone get permission from all of them?”

“So it really is difficult.”

“Forget current students. I doubt there’s ever been a graduate who did that. There’s no real reason to, either. Access permission is just a preliminary step toward becoming a professor’s direct disciple. Normally, you pick one professor whose magic suits yours and focus on them.”

“That makes sense.”

“Why are you asking all of a sudden?”

“I just wondered after getting permission from Professor Oracle.”

“Haha. Getting access on the very first day of Challenges is already incredible. But to get permission from every professor, you’d have to stand out in every single subject they teach. If someone actually accomplished that, you could safely call them the greatest genius in Tesca Academy’s history.”

“Thanks for explaining.”

Kawin nodded.

The greatest genius in the Academy’s history.

He had no particular interest in that.

Good grades didn’t mean more scholarship money, and he had no desire to graduate early.

‘Actually, that would be a problem. If I graduate before finding the grimoire, I’ll be forced to leave.’

Now that every subject had held its first class,

Kawin had no particular intention of becoming an outstanding student.

But he had changed his mind.

‘I’ll become one. The greatest genius in the Academy’s history.’

He would win the favor of every professor and obtain their access permission.

A professor could have only one direct disciple, but students could receive access permission from multiple professors.

Once he could enter freely, he would read the Braille on the red carpet inside every professor’s room.

‘Barefoot.’

Kawin imagined himself barging into a professor’s office after throwing off his shoes and socks.

He was quietly chuckling while cutting into his steak when,

“Kawin! Kawin!”

A clear but urgent voice rang out from far away.

A voice he had already grown familiar with.

The owner was the seventh princess of the Illumina Empire.

Frasel Illuma.

“There you are. I’ve been looking everywhere.”

Frasel was panting hard enough for her shoulders to rise and fall.

A high-ranking princess had run straight here to find him, so every nearby gaze instantly gathered on them.

“Let’s do that thing! That thing!”

Frasel shouted excitedly at Kawin.

Walther’s mouth dropped open beside him, while Kawin struggled to stay calm.

“What’s going on? You’ve never come to the dining hall before.”

“Mm. I didn’t come to eat. I came to do that with you, Kawin!”

“So... can you calmly tell me what ‘that’ is?”

“S-sorry. When I’m in a hurry, I have trouble remembering words.”

Frasel scratched the forehead of her cat mask, then suddenly clapped.

“Challenge! Right! I came to have a Challenge! We couldn’t do it yesterday because classes were canceled.”

“Ah.”

Kawin brightened.

He had no reason to refuse.

“A Challenge is always welcome. But I was still eating.”

“Okay. I’ll sit here and wait until you’re done.”

Crack.

The sound of stone splitting could be heard.

It came from Walther, who had frozen with his fork still in hand.

‘Can’t blame him.’

Regardless of how little status mattered inside the Academy,

a princess had run to a dining hall she never visited, all for Kawin, and was willing to wait until he finished eating.

That was far too submissive for royalty.

And she wasn’t even sitting in a chair—she was hugging her knees while looking up at him!

But Walther’s shocks weren’t over.

“Kawin. Sorry to bother you while you’re eating, but can I ask one favor?”

“Go ahead.”

“During the Challenge, can you hit my face a lot? Like last time! Much more than before!”

“...I never actually hit your face. Back then...”

“Anything is fine! I just need you to beat up my face!”

Walther finally set his fork down.

He turned with utterly vacant eyes.

“Kawin. Somehow, every time I’m around you, I feel my common sense collapsing.”

Kawin smiled bitterly and swallowed his last bite of steak.

He had no idea why Frasel was acting like this.

But what he needed to do now was obvious.

“Walther. Can you be our witness?”

“Of... course!”

Right now, he needed to get stronger.