NOVEL NEXT Chapter 834
<834 - Simma (1)>
It’s rare for a new character to be unlikable.
Most new characters come with new events that I actually like.
But sometimes, a character appears with a completely absurd event attached right off the bat.
Take the slave trader, for example.
The slave trader shows up around students from struggling or vulnerable backgrounds, and there’s a high chance they’ll take one character’s future as collateral to lend money.
If the player fails to progress that character’s favorability event in time, they’ll end up dropping out of the academy without a clue, becoming the loyal subordinate or slave of the slave trader.
Even if you rescue them later, if they’ve already been branded with irreversible marks like murder or slave marking, their mental state becomes shattered, their growth cap decreases, or they might even spiral into a corruption route.
There are nasty players who intentionally enter the corruption route to expand the limits of pathetic characters, but as a fundamentalist player like me, who doesn’t care for such minor growth when players are stronger than NPCs, I ignore that route completely.
“What are you looking at?”
“Nothing at all!”
Seeing Sing, it all felt like an ancient story.
Anyway, my wariness towards Witch Kalizahar was very high.
She wasn’t just a simple extra character like Titosso.
She was actually the principal’s disciple.
Her background setting was exceptionally extraordinary.
Naturally, her personality was bad, and her actions were utterly wicked.
The event related to it, [Reading the Future], seemed suspicious to me.
“I have doubts about the priority!”
What if she’s not a grateful person reading ominous futures, but an NPC that generates a bad future as soon as she appears and reads it out loud?
It’s a scheme that gives a disease while also providing a remedy.
She secretly slips me into a dilemma and then shows up with a cough-cough, offering help while snatching up the favorability and rewards. Such a despicable type!
“Do you happen to take high-grade items in exchange for avoiding the future?”
“Do you really think I’d take some snot-covered item from a kid like you after all the years I’ve lived?”
Witch Kalizahar seemed taken aback, but I wasn’t easily fooled.
Once you enter the assistant route, which is almost like a graduate student, professors sometimes emerge claiming they would save you from your never-ending assistant life.
Once you clear related quests and receive help?
– From today onward, you’ll work under me.
You end up being a slave with just the master changing.
In the end, it was just the professors fighting over the assistant.
Ah!
Assistant snatching war?
In a flash, an astonishing strategy popped into my mind.
“Professors will get into a fierce fight over wanting to have me!”
Then I would go back unscathed, and as the professors fought among themselves, they’d die, forgetting how they thought to deal with me!
“Thank you, grandmother!”
Leaving the astonished Witch Kalizahar behind, I prepared to sow discord among the professors.
“The fiery temper is a disaster waiting to happen. That peculiar disciple, said to have shaken the continent, finally came back to the Middle Realm, and she’s even wilder than the rumors.”
But this witch, who was seriously focused on her movement speed, effortlessly matched the pace of a veteran player just with her broom.
“In my day, if some mysterious old man showed up at the Academy, we were terrified of what they could possibly do, we wouldn’t even dare look them in the eye. Now it’s all so easy, tsk tsk.”
And she didn’t even stop with the annoying scolding!
I did sharp turns, slammed on brakes, and mixed in stunt flying and dimensional jumps, but I just couldn’t shake her off.
“Focus, kid!”
The witch suddenly began throwing curses like crazy.
Unlike me, who was unfolding a movement spell with my body, she could just comfortably tag along on her enchanted broom, executing a sneaky ambush.
I quickly pulled out paper airplanes from my bag to mimic the curse induction spell inscribed on the witch’s stone and threw them wildly.
[Cursed Against Rolling]
[Cursed Against Dimensional Jumping]
[Cursed Against Illusion]
I braced myself against all sorts of curses while the paper airplanes stumbled clumsily to the ground.
Suddenly, cursed paper airplanes began dropping all over the academy, but I had no time to worry about that as a sharp curse appeared right before me.
“Eek!”
Thud!
Without a moment to evade, I took the curse head-on.
I was caught off guard by the fast attack speed that could only be expected from a professor and fumbled in response, leading to this mishap.
[You failed the curse resistance check.]
[You are affected by [Curse of Walking Straight].]
[You can only use [Walking] while moving from now on.]
Saving time and raising functions while wildly zipping around, I longed for the neatly straight and slow pace I used to have.
After taking one step, I gasped for breath.
With two steps, my entire body felt itchy.
After three steps, all the formulas for function stat increases and experience points bubbled up in my mind like froth.
“Please lift it!”
“No way, kid. Thinking you could live life easily just because you’re cute? Hehehe. As a witch with a twisted personality, I can’t help but feel frustrated without messing with beauties. So just enjoy walking slowly for about a hundred thousand steps.”
Witch Kalizahar put a curse in place that could only be lifted after walking a hundred thousand steps while she rode her staff and took off smoothly.
Forget about scheming against the professors, I was too busy walking around to lift the curse.
*
The benevolent professors were blooming with laughter.
“Haha. Just hurting or killing a student increases experience points. What an enjoyable yet miserable thing.”
“Could you please call it Spirit Body instead? It sounds problematic like the memoirs of a psychopathic lunatic.”
Even Myung So’s complaints were casually ignored as the professors lounged at the campus cafe, enjoying a refreshing break after a long time.
“Giving proper education to capable students has never been a problem for raising related functions, but Oknodie’s potential increase is exceptionally large.”
“Exactly! I’m not sure where they stocked so much fire-related functions, but with each time they burn a soul, it’s like we’re getting months’ worth of function experience points all at once.”
“Please just say Spirit Body! The cashier is too scared to look us in the eye!”
Myung So’s moaning faded away, overshadowed by the engrossed professors crammed into conversation.
“It’s good we got a function vending machine that spits out experience points with just a tap, but it seems Oknodie might be a bit broken.”
“What do you mean by that? Our vending machine, I mean our student, breaking down?”
The professors, viewing the students as function experience vending machines, felt a chill run through them as they saw the terrified cashier bolt for the exit.
“Oknodie is supposedly walking through the campus with a curse.”
“What?!”
“What’s the problem with that?”
Professors who knew Oknodie were flabbergasted while those who didn’t were confused.
“That kid doesn’t waste a second and rolls around campus like a blazing wheel, causing chaos everywhere.”
“Why on earth is that happening while they have perfectly good legs to walk on?”
“Just brushing past someone sends them slamming into the wall. The reason is obvious; they’re scaring the other students. They’re the Dark Princess, after all.”
The professors began to feel that a little prejudice towards Oknodie might be justified.
Honestly, it’s hard to find any student who can torment a Spirit Body to this degree with such intensity.
If it came to pure mental power in a one-on-one match, only professors at the top level, like Professor Bronze, would stand a chance against Oknodie.
In the end, they won thanks to the sheer numbers, unable to defeat a monumental student, so it’s only natural experience points would drop significantly.
Thanks to that, every night became enjoyable, thrilling, new, and filled with anticipation.
“Today, I’ve prepared a tailored electric trap for this student… But seeing how downcast they look, I feel somewhat guilty to use a lethal electric trap.”
The third-year student who was about to enter the cafe backed away with wide eyes, as if witnessing masked bank robbers conspiring.
Myung So, resigned to everything, clasped his hands and began chanting a mantra.
“Now, let’s see how downcast this kid really is and decide what kind of torment to inflict.”
The professors gathered to ponder how to encourage this wondrous function experience point vending machine and followed Oknodie around the campus.
They realized, upon seeing Oknodie walk languidly at the pace of an ordinary person without attending lectures, that the kid seemed to be in some serious dilemma.
Having lost all motivation for their studies and direction, they kept repeating the act of walking, which began at high noon, showing no signs of ending even as the sun set.
“What a pity indeed.”
“Massive mana breakdown.”
“That kid got hit with Simma!”
Heavy guilt surfaced on the professors’ faces.