NOVEL NEXT Chapter 794
<794 - How to Prevent the Corruption of Professors (5)>
In the dark, damp underground, the light stand of Titosso emitted a glow, revealing the girls’ gloomy faces.
“What are we going to do now?”
As someone sniffled, the sound of swallowing tears settled the somber mood. They had all become refugees before they could rescue the professors.
Occasionally, a thunderous noise shook the ground, and piles of dirt crumbled in, adding a spoonful of fear to the eerie quiet. Suddenly, one person spoke up after deep contemplation.
“Wait a minute. I remember something that struck me while hearing about Arcadia earlier.”
“What is it, Isabel?”
“I also have a vague memory from my excavation activities with the Esornia Expedition Team regarding the [Golden Trader] of ancient civilization.”
The Golden Trader.
He was one of the infamous three great evils of an era.
“The Golden Trader is one of the three great evils recorded in ancient civilization, which sought to establish a system to dominate the world with gold. According to ancient records, he was developing a great weapon to dominate humanity. I can’t believe they’re searching for traces of him in Goblin World…”
“Wait a second. Does that have anything to do with the [Golden Magical Girl Avalon], who was a candidate for the Foundation’s next chief scholarship student?”
“That sounds suspicious.”
“Suspicious indeed…”
“Suspicious, right?!”
Everyone nodded in agreement, clearly troubled by the title of ‘Gold.’
Just when they were already suspicious, a definite testimony came in.
“Oh! I just remembered! There’s a record that says the name of the Golden Trader is Avalon!”
Isabel’s statement confirmed it.
“The Foundation, which collects the mysteries of the Middle Realm, has resurrected the ancient three great evils! It must be a wicked scheme to kidnap the professors and force them to succumb to extreme conditions, making them accept as their subordinates!”
“Eh? That’s strange… The Goblin Warrior was created by Oknodie and me after sweating together all night, not the Foundation!”
“Hey, Titosso… I get what you’re trying to say, but that’s an odd way to put it, don’t you think?”
At that time, Oknodie was definitely at odds with the Director.
In fact, recalling the help given by Oknodie’s avatars in subsequent battles, it was clear he had no intention of assisting the Director as a Goblin Warrior.
“Of course, the Avalon recorded in history is a man, not a woman. There’s that difference of the uncle instead of a girl…”
Isabel’s hesitant addition gradually unraveled the escalating speculation like a balloon popping.
“Seriously?”
“That’s completely different.”
“What a case of unfortunate naming coincidence…”
Amidst the students lamenting with deflated expressions, glares of blame were also directed at Isabel for causing unnecessary excitement.
In a tough and scary environment, did they want to engage in such miserable jokes?
Feeling a bit wronged, Isabel proposed a new hypothesis to back up her opinion.
“But the Foundation has technology to extract human souls. In reality, every time Oknodie’s weak true self revives, his soul gets ripped apart, transforming him back into that broken child we all know.”
“Gasp?”
“That…makes sense!”
“My expectations have skyrocketed!!”
“Truly, Oknodie is the vice-leader of the Esornia Expedition Team. His ability to toy with our emotions is phenomenal!!”
Suddenly, among the students undergoing a mood flip, one added a serious face to lend credibility to the speculation.
“Oknodie has had his soul ripped apart so many times that he has become devoid of common sense. Then, the reason the Golden Magical Girl Avalon made the wrong choice of becoming a professor’s assistant is…?”
“Because he lacks common sense!”
“Well done, Ishtar. That was a sharp inference!”
“Though if he had common sense, he wouldn’t be a professor’s assistant, right?”
“Then what about the assistants in our academy?”
“They must be Foundation scholarship students. Souls torn apart too.”
“Ah, I see!”
“It’s hard to imagine that there could be sane individuals acting as professors’ assistants without being torn apart!”
Among Class 981’s female students, the notion that professors’ assistants were pitiable seniors who unwittingly engaged in this nonsensical action due to the absence of common sense became widely accepted.
Initially, they wondered what on earth led them to do such things, but after speculating about the reasons, they felt these seniors had become doubly pitiful.
“Are assistants really that pathetic?”
The speaker was Kasia.
Though her status as a fused life form strictly limited her external activities, the suspension of academy schedules allowed her a temporary taste of freedom.
Having lived as a fused life form merged with elemental spirits while being dragged into a laboratory, assistants or instructors were nothing but troublesome figures to Kasia.
“I’m fine with assistants. But there’s still a contradiction.”
“What contradiction?”
“The Foundation hatched a wicked scheme to kidnap professors and force them to submit, with Avalon being the one picked as the executor. But the Goblin Warrior, which threw the professors into danger, was said to be created by Oknodie and Titosso?”
“Ah.”
Regardless of the understanding of Avalon, questions about the situation itself still remained.
“What difference does it make to know that? We’re trapped underground. Just waiting for a rescue team to arrive like the professors.”
Yufi, the Saintess of the Warrior Party, with her cynical and realistic tendencies, pointed out, and everyone poked at the dirt piles on the ground with their fingers, wearing downcast faces.
The overwhelming despair had brought on a condition resembling collective regression to childhood, making it no surprise if they started playing in the dirt.
“Yufi, you’re wrong.”
Ishtar disliked this gloomy atmosphere.
The very head of the Foundation, which threatened humanity’s safety, had been defeated.
Hope had returned to humanity.
And yet, in this era of newfound hope, their classmates were dismally stirring up dirt in a strange dimension.
As a warrior, this mood was unacceptable.
If this peace had been purchased at the cost of a child’s Papa, shouldn’t they cherish it more and endure it without easily collapsing?
“If, say, Oknodie planned to reverse-dominate the professors using the Director, what then?”
The new perspective suggested by the warrior breathed life into the hopes that were crumbling.
“Kasia, as far as I know, Oknodie is reviving the Kingdom of Troy and even bought the secret research facility where you were created, stopping all illegal experiments. Am I right?”
This was a move to raise Kasia’s favorability and eliminate negative events, yet to the person benefiting from it, it was simply an earnest act of friendship.
Even Kasia, who had raised objections, nodded with a softer expression, causing the Oknodie conspiracy theory to gain significant support among the classmates.
“Wow… Then Oknodie must’ve figured that if the professors were taken, the weakened ones could be overcome by Ishtar while we could leisurely retrieve the rest. It’s a grand plan!”
“Oknodie is an amazing strategist! I saw all of it painted on the canvas of the soul!”
Titosso’s bright exclamation didn’t offer much help, yet the thought that all this was Oknodie’s grand plan made the chaotic students feel like Oknodie was right there beside them.
“Surely Oknodie must have thought, ‘If it’s us, we can succeed!'”
“If Oknodie’s got a plan, then it’s definitely worth a shot!”
Gaining confidence, the students changed their strategy.
“Let’s find the professors who are hiding somewhere underground.”
“We didn’t come to Gehenna to escape. It’s part of the bigger picture to locate the hidden professors!”
“Isn’t that just mental victory?”
“What if Oknodie predicted that we would have a mental victory? Isn’t that part of Oknodie’s grand scheme too?”
“Get a grip. That’s delusional.”
Anyway, the underground exploration of Goblin World, where the students reclaimed their hope and courage, was just beginning.
*
At the same time, hidden in the shadows of the academy from which the female students had fled, Sing expressed concern.
“Oknodie, is it really okay to send all the female students to Goblin World?”
“Ah, Sing, now you’re a girl too, wanting to mingle, but regretting the fearful act of not being able to because your identity might be revealed?”
“Not at all! I’m a man. Right now… it’s just easier to attend lectures while in female form, and it helps me maintain the fourth stage of the royal domain in female form, that’s all. I absolutely do not want to be a female student!”
“Uh-huh, I understand that feeling! Suddenly being a woman feels embarrassing, and wearing a skirt can be bothersome with the wind blowing in between my legs. Plus, I can’t sit comfortably without being scolded by Arcadia for my posture!”
Sing felt a bit touched.
Oknodie, the female student, understood his position so well, being a man using a woman’s body.
Such empathetic remarks pinpointing the discomfort accurately made him feel reaffirmed about how much Oknodie valued himself.
But that was that, and this was this.
He couldn’t shake off the impression that the crisis faced by the female students seemed very serious.
“They’re okay with that!”
“Are you saying it’s fine when professors are facing danger?”
“Titosso is, after all, the creator of the Goblin Warrior.”
The one who painted the canvas of souls is practically the creator of souls.
Moreover, the goblins in Goblin World had been birthed in droves by Titosso.
Just seeing Titosso might make them instinctively realize she is their creator and kneel, or burst into tears upon witnessing her.
“But no creation will harm the creator!”
Of course, this thought dissolved into the dust by the time a human exterminating long-range sniper system specializing in targeting professor-level fighters had settled in.
There needs to be visibility for a touch of emotion; no one knew about Titosso’s circumstances while being blasted at from unseen places by the human extermination cannons.
“Due to certain reasons, Titosso might be attacked by other elements before grabbing the attention of Goblin Warriors.”
“That may be so, but as long as we don’t go underground, it should be alright!”
“Underground? Why?”
“Titosso shines a lot!”
“She shines exceptionally bright.”
“When she’s glimmering, it’s easy to see her from afar, right?”
“It’s so bright you can feel the light even with your eyes closed. My mana sensing organ might completely dull out.”
“If you venture underground with such a brightness and get hit by an earthquake spell before you can even be seen, you could end up buried alive before you know it, and that would be a problem. But the timid Titosso wouldn’t dare go underground, right? She’s attended so many lectures by Professor Sadako!”
At any moment, skeletons reach their bony hands from below, and zombies shove their decaying flesh in their faces.
After several lectures like that, developing a hellish phobia wouldn’t be weird at all.
“That’s why I believe Titosso will safely catch the eyes of Goblin Warriors, negotiate amicably, and then rescue the remaining professors!”
In Oknodie’s thoughts, there was a misunderstanding; one had to consider that Titosso’s courage had grown through numerous experiences.
Certainly, Titosso, who originally had a fear of the underworld, had now reduced her phobia enough to stride into the dark boldly with a light stand instead of shambling backward.
The result was…
*
Boom! The ground roared like thunder, and dirt heaps began pouring down.
“Ahhh, it’s an earthquake!”
“Activate the magic barrier! Block the ceiling!”
“Above is the human extermination cannon, and below is an earthquake! Is this hell?!”
The girls’ struggle to survive in the cruel Goblin World was just entering its first day.