NOVEL NEXT Chapter 717
<717 – Poor Child (17)>
Seoguyeon’s stories of legendary seniors were shocking and frightening, but there seemed to be something oddly perplexing about them for Titosso.
– How long has the semester been going on, and you still haven’t noticed? Monsters appear in the dormitory field every week, there are dungeon gimmicks and safe zones, yet you haven’t realized that this is a dungeon? How have you survived this long?
In the Adventure Department Random Dormitory Dungeon, Kkamang the Kkamagwi Suin had explored with Titosso, seeking help from Oknodie!
Also known as the [Mirror Dungeon], Shapeshifters would trap reckless adventurers or lower-year students inside mirrors and impersonate them.
They’ve even boldly penetrated into the depths of that space, using only the light from a light stand, running into Oknodie who was playing around with Mirror Nodies.
– The one who solves this assignment first is the real Oknodie!
– Hey! You should be able to handle that yourself. Titosso is no longer a first year, right?
– You’re being way too childish! Titosso is still cute, but I’m a little disappointed right now.
Titosso fell into a status ailment of confusion.
– How can this be! Neither the real nor the fake is solving the assignment, this way I can’t tell them apart!
The Mirror Dungeon Boss was so flawlessly identical that distinguishing between the real and the fake was almost impossible!
However, it turned out the method to find them was surprisingly simple.
– …I think we just need to shine the light normally.
– They both react?!
– …That’s because it’s blinding.
The King of Shapeshifters, who should have been overwhelming their original, turned out surprisingly pathetic when they needed to escape the dungeon.
As they tormented with an appropriate brightness, trying to test who the real Oknodie was, the Throne Nodie got angry and threw +5 enhanced goblets, high-grade magic stones, and diamonds.
Not to be outdone, the Hidden Nodie, who was hidden behind the throne, also threw out +5 enhanced durians and a forced action scroll that made them doodle on their assignments like paper airplanes.
Their actions were just as similar.
Recalling that Oknodie had thrown a lot of paper airplanes with [Observation], it wasn’t difficult to find the original.
‘After that, I don’t know what the Throne Nodie has been doing, but the one I met back then was such a dangerous being!’
Was it because their memories were sealed that they were still intact, or was it that Oknodie and the Fourth-Year seniors defeated the invading Throne Nodie?
“Oh right! I heard from Saintess Yufi at the snack party she held for the Saintess Association, that Ishtar and Oknodie dropped by near the dormitory dungeon boss room every week!”
It wasn’t a given that the dungeon boss invading the dormitory was necessarily the Throne Nodie.
However, it was hard to match the one that caused the Undead Fourth-Year’s demise with that Throne Nodie.
“Not all seniors are necessarily strong, huh!”
Just having a bit of mana doesn’t mean you can become complacent.
Time to train hard!
Titosso secretly vowed.
In fact, it was a timely resolution for her.
Especially because Titosso had an absurd amount of mana.
If her mana continued to balloon recklessly this way, the side effects of excessive mana crushing the main organs of humans that the Undead Fourth-Year seniors experience might occur to her too.
No matter how much she enhanced the light stand and increased mana consumption, the world’s light stands are finite, and her uncontrolled growth of mana showed no signs of slowing down.
One day, Titosso could very well end up having to deal with her power like the seniors, facing a mana overdose situation just as they’d had.
“So how about the [Undead Instructors] or [Undead Coach]? Do they also have the same weakness?”
“If it was a Fourth-Year instructor who took a leave of absence because they personally experienced it and couldn’t find an answer, then they might. But those who haven’t experienced it yet or are lingering post-graduation would be different.”
Of course, there were no outstanding talents like that in the 7th layer.
“You’re right about that. Students, even I’m not in the Adventure Department, so I don’t even have to worry about suffering in the Random Dormitory Dungeon. So I can confidently say, there’s no memory to trigger your [Release].”
“Indeed. You must be a former instructor? Probably someone who died from a misfortunate accident during classroom practice.”
“Correct. So throw away that useless mental destruction handbook and show me your skills. I shall test you on how extraordinary the realm of Fourth-Year graduation that I could never challenge in my lifetime is, built on the hell of Catacombs.”
Seoguyeon’s legendary senior masters nodded to each other, putting away the Fourth-Year mental destruction handbook and pulled out a new instructional version for instructors.
“Question 9. Professor Artemis’ beauty class exposes ‘specimens’ to all manners of absurd environments to maintain beauty under extreme conditions, but do you know what happens to instructors who fail to restore the contaminated specimens before the next class?”
“Question 35: Professor Weird’s advanced botany class sets an assignment to plant gemstone saplings and harvest top-grade gems within a month. If the professor retrieves the trees that failed to produce top-grade gems to cover the costs of the gemstone sapling’s purchase, what kind of fertilizer will he use?”
The tales of the vanished instructors and the increasing specimens.
The urban legend of instructors buried under fertilizer, sending for help.
While it might sound like a cliché instructor tale they might’ve heard once, the reality of it became clear when one instructor was particularly flustered by a specific case.
“Question 205. Demonology Professor Diemon instructs his students to research and practice ten methods to kill the demons trapped in the portrait. Just who catches all those demons anyway?!”
“No way!! Our professor said he placed a memory-erasing spell on us so we wouldn’t disturb his vacation. He’s definitely not the type to get deceived and tossed into the Demon Realm so that demons could be captured and sent home as part of a vacation!!!”
“Oh dear. He was a poor plaything of Professor Diemon.”
“I’m not a plaything of the professor!! If he truly tricked me, he wouldn’t even have to pay points for annual leave allowances!!!”
“Did you really… forget that the special fieldwork allowance in dangerous areas is over twenty times that of annual leave allowances?”
“?!”
“Ha, I didn’t think of Professor Diemon like that. He’s truly a demonic professor in every sense. Speaking of, is that why the instructor changes so frequently? It’s not about making sure they gain diverse experiences, but because they all got weeded out in the Demon Realm?”
The Undead Instructor, shocked by betrayal from the professor, shoved past the students and ran off.
Seoguyeon’s legendary seniors shook their heads, stopping the students who attempted to retaliate.
The Undead instructor showed no interest in the students and vanished towards the surface of the Catacombs.
“I feel like I understand. That’s a case of going insane from betrayal by a professor, going to die twice by himself.”
Even the lazy Deadcat, unconcerned with others, could guess whom the Undead instructor was heading to meet.
As the [Undead Fourth-Year] and [Undead Instructor] were disintegrated before their eyes, the [Undead Teaching Assistant] quietly prepared new scrolls, locking eyes with Seoguyeon’s legendary seniors.
“This way down is this way.”
“Should I give you a bundle of cursed healing wraps that boost mana recovery speed?”
“Why would I refuse a gift? Hey, you guys take some too.”
“Where do we wrap that?”
Titosso’s innocent question made the seniors chuckle.
“Wrap it around your chest, then it won’t overlap with high-grade gear and will fit perfectly.”
“Oh! I’ve heard that before! Female knights or fighters wrap bandages to avoid interference in movement, right? So that’s what they use it for?”
“Well, that’s one way to look at it…”
As the male seniors coughed to avert their eyes, the female seniors’ gazes swiftly began to scour the breasts of the female students.
‘Fighters would surely make good use of it.’
Hestia and Lotto, being professions that relied heavily on their physicality, would likely benefit greatly from wrapping it.
‘And magicians might see a swift mana recovery effect due to using their body parts as mana storage.’
Nodding affirmatively as they glanced at Rosgini and Irene.
‘3rd-year top students are certainly reliable.’
The nods of approval sped up as they looked at Mandela Castera, thinking it would be incredibly effective.
Yet, when their gaze abruptly shifted toward Deadcat standing nearby, it slowed down dramatically.
‘…Right, the Suin have mana directed to physical features that humans lack, so maybe their tails and animal ears have absorbed all the flesh and mana.’
As they tried to affirm this thought, when they finally reached Titosso and Jiang, collective silence fell.
“Wrap it around your forehead while studying.”
“If I go into my chuunibyou phase, I can wrap it around my wrist too.”
“It sure seems like we’re the only ones with different wrap areas!”
As Titosso protested and Jiang expressed dissatisfaction, the seniors hurriedly fled toward the 8th layer.
Then they flipped the 7th layer boss room’s floor upside down and tumbled about.
[Numbers’ Sarcophagus]
Great sarcophagi floated in the sky, trailing into the 7th tier boss room.
As one of the sarcophagus lids opened, even Jiang, who had been happily observing the seniors’ retreat, gasped in shock.
“Geh Geh Geh! Who’s this? Aren’t these our model students? The fact that they came all the way down here of their own volition when it’s not even lecture time means they want to become skeletons today, right?”
The emergence of the sarcophagus containing the previous Skull Instructors helped deduce the identities of the ones appearing now.
It was the Skull Instructors.
All that were contained in that sarcophagus.
A staggering twenty former Skull Instructors sprang out, breaking open the sarcophagi, causing even Seoguyeon’s legendary seniors to lose their nonchalance and become tense.