NOVEL NEXT Chapter 67
<67 - Poor-Looking Child>
A cruel dryad, lost in the charms of a tree fairy, clueless about the human heart.
A heartless demon who divides the expansive blackboard into five sections, completing five pages of notes in less than a minute and then erasing them all. Whoosh!
Even more horrifying, starting the second round of notes on the erased blackboard, gifting students with despair in a hellish nightmare of note-taking.
Professor Weird’s reputation plunged into the abyss in an instant.
Students trembled with betrayal.
“Those professors from the Empire aren’t just calling us primitive creepers for no reason!”
“Ugh, I didn’t mean to become curious about nature magic!”
“If only the silky leaves under the professor’s chest hadn’t tempted me, I wouldn’t have attended this lecture from the start!”
Students spilled their wrath, realizing the harsh realities of regional discrimination.
Poor students, who learned the terrifying power of beauty tricks, were saved by Dorothy’s outstretched hand.
“Hey, you guys took the third-period lecture today, right? I have pages 1-3 and 2-3 for sale, each for 10 points. Want to buy?”
Tears of gratitude streamed down the students’ faces.
“I’ll buy! Please let me buy!”
“Where did you get such a gem?”
“I had Oknodie take care of the sales for me. I didn’t take the notes myself.”
Students, who had poured their energy into note-taking, finally sighed in relief.
Starting from the next lecture, they formed a strategy to partition note-taking by regions, ensuring they wouldn’t suffer the same fate again.
It was essential to acquire those notes from today’s lecture, which they couldn’t take due to the unprecedented incident.
“Thanks! I owe you one. Those Empire folks would never share their notes with us even after finishing!”
“Totally agree.”
“But how did Oknodie manage to pick just pages 1-3 and 2-3? Is it because she’s the top student and naturally smart?”
“Not sure.”
Dorothy was also curious about this secret.
So, when she returned to the dormitory, she decided to step out of her usual habit of hiding in her room and knocked on Oknodie’s door.
“Oknodie has a full schedule until the fifth period.”
“Fifth period…? There was a class at that late hour?”
“It’s a night class. I heard from the instructor that it’s prepared for nocturnal students. But, who are you?”
“I’m Dorothy, a classmate who owes you since the entrance exam. I live in Room 120.”
“Oknodie has a lot of friends, huh? I knew it but…”
Hestia couldn’t hide her bitterness.
“You’re Hestia, living next door to Oknodie, right?”
“That’s right.”
“How is it? Being in the same group as Oknodie?”
This wasn’t the question Hestia wanted to ask, but curiosity couldn’t be helped.
Being in the same group with the prodigious Oknodie, who shone brightly from the entrance exam, naturally raised Dorothy’s interest, having indirectly experienced her brilliance in the “Fundamentals and Understanding of Mana Usage” class.
“For now, I feel small.”
“Just as I thought, huh? She’s just incredible.”
“I actually feel sorry for her.”
“Eh? You feel sorry for Oknodie? Why?”
The youngest student and the top student, shattering all records for youngest achievements—if she’s pitiful, someone ordinary like Hestia must be a third-world refugee of some kind.
“Didn’t you notice? That girl always strives for perfection beyond compare, no matter what she does.”
“Isn’t it natural since she’s the top student?”
“Not at all. Oknodie is only 11 years old.”
“She’s bold for her age, but early education isn’t rare. Kids can be a tad mature.”
“You must not have seen. Oknodie used assassination techniques in her duel against Lotto the Empire Fighter and pointed out the Northern Grand Duchess’s backer during Professor Plato’s class.”
“…That’s a bit odd.”
“Do you feel the hint of early education? This indicates a strong possibility that Oknodie could be an assassin. Following behind the frost mage with the determination of connecting with her own death is abnormal.”
Hestia saw Oknodie’s obsession with perfect results as a bad habit born from a harmful environment.
“That must be it. If you can’t achieve results, you get beaten, and if you’re not the best, you can’t survive. It makes sense if she grew up in such a brutal environment.”
“That’s child abuse!”
“Do you think they’d care about that for a child raised as an assassin in a heartless noble family? Once you work in mercenary jobs and handle dirty work for a noble house, you’d understand.”
Hestia is a formidable warrior by her own merit.
Therefore, she joined a mission with numerous named mercenaries from the guild and had performed a group task witnessing the darkness of the noble families.
A colossal underground facility.
Children imprisoned, shackled by necklaces.
Among them, some trained as porters, some as sex slaves, and others as assassins in a horrifying child abuse facility.
A gruesome sight she would never want to recall again.
“Wait a minute. So, Oknodie’s ability to cooperate comes from having experienced that?”
“Cooperate?”
Dorothy shared what had happened in the lecture.
Professor Weird’s insane notes and Oknodie expertly noting down only the most valuable parts.
She gazed at the blackboard with eyes that felt nothing, as if having been through such trials many times that they had become numb.
“Let’s treat Oknodie well.”
“Yeah. We should.”
Though Hestia and Dorothy had never really interacted before, they bonded over their shared sympathy for Oknodie, connecting on that common link of feeling sorry for her.
Though Hestia’s efforts to improve her social relations differed from what Oknodie had intended, as long as they reached their destination, it was all good.
At least the chances of her flipping out and becoming a mass murderer had diminished significantly.
—
Meanwhile, while Dorothy was earnestly selling her notes to other students for points, Oknodie arrived at the Knight Department outdoor classroom to attend the Wednesday 4th-period lecture “Mastery of Ranged Weapons.”
“My arms still ache.”
“I pulled the bow too hard.”
“I should’ve gone with spear throwing.”
“Isn’t it great to have a pistol? Just pull the trigger and it’s done.”
“So you’re really going to attend class with that red-haired maniac?”
“Uh, that’s a bit much.”
“I’m scared I might get shot next to him.”
Lower class students, with fewer credits to complete than upper-class students, generally had brighter expressions.
Just having a slightly looser schedule suffering under a wide variety of eccentric professors was enough to keep their spirits high and their mental health intact.
“Young talents of the continent, today’s class will also be divided by main weapons and we will practice accordingly.”
The responses of the archer group students upon seeing Oknodie split precisely into three.
“Hey, Oknodie!”
“Are you going to use a longbow today?”
“Wow, I can’t believe she can pull that with those thin arms.”
Admiring her strength honestly were the Group A students.
“Oh wow.”
“Right. Oknodie was here.”
“Doesn’t it feel like something’s going to hit us?”
Group B students, afraid of her growing notoriety, started to shrink back.
“…But she’s just a kid. Not someone to be alarmed by. Not in this mastery of ranged weapons class.”
“Scholar’s right. There’s nothing to fear from her.”
“No matter how good Oknodie is, she can’t beat Scholar in archery!”
Descendant of a legendary archer.
She was a supporting character famous for archery among the imperial students, often filling the “ADC” role in the academy.
The last third group consisted of her followers around Scholar.
“Those guys sure are cocky, huh?”
“How dare they speak as if challenging Oknodie.”
“Oknodie, say something back.”
But Oknodie felt no concern about that at all.
“What? I don’t really mind? My main specialty isn’t archery. I’m not even that great at it. Hehe.”
“Are you kidding?! Anyone can see how good you are!”
“Exactly. It’s not something a typical 11-year-old can do, drawing a bow meant for adults and hitting targets accurately!”
For some reason, the Group A students grew angry at her words.
‘How can we possibly defeat someone who was born to shoot a bow?’
In any game, a ranged specialist excels at using ranged weapons.
Though there are occasionally popular “landmine” characters whose hit rates are dismal, the Scholar they knew was certainly not one of them.
“Now, I will explain the skills we will master today.”
Before the instructor’s explanation could even begin, thoughts wandered off into other realms.
“Well, since it’s the second lecture, it can’t be anything too difficult.”
If the first lesson was about hitting stationary targets, the second lesson involved hitting moving targets.
Oknodie was confident in her skills, but she also didn’t see this as a moment to shine.
In a quick shooting contest or a long-distance match, she had no chance of winning against the tier-one ADC like Scholar, nor did she have any reason to compete.
“The archery department’s average skill is quite high, so we’ve decided to advance the progress intended for the fourth lecture.”
“Excuse me??”
“It’s nothing to worry about. We’re just going to have a light obstacle course while competing to hit as many targets as possible.”
“Wow. We get to see who sets the better record, Oknodie or Scholar.”
“They say the score weighting is only 10%, so just treat it like shooting practice and have fun.”
But this sudden exam placed at 10% weight due to moving the schedule left everybody shocked—a fiery situation that also caught the students’ eyes.
“Why would you do this?!”
“We’re still beginners!”
The instructor scratched his head as he looked at them.
“Professor Evening Shooter said that exceptional young archers like you can get ahead of the schedule.”
“That’s wrong! Just look at Oknodie’s arms. Do you think she can properly draw a bow with those thin arms?”
“Look at her height. She’ll trip over the obstacles and start crying!”
“Doesn’t Oknodie look pitiful at all?”
“……..”
These guys who were suddenly using her as an excuse were the same ones who just moments ago cheered them on.
“I’m fine!”
I somehow raised my hand boldly to stamp my approval on the instructor.