The Academy Regressor is Obsessed

Asel told the two that he was going to meet his group members and got up from his seat. Since the assignment would start in just two days, it seemed good to meet them today when there were no classes. The two seemed to have similar thoughts, as they sent Asel off and then dispersed to meet their own group members.

‘The location is… roughly outside the Academy building.’

Asel looked around while moving according to the arrow drawn on the paper.

It seemed the explanation sessions for other departments had ended too, as students holding papers were actively roaming the Academy grounds. Among them were groups already gathering all their members to discuss, and some who were openly disappointed upon seeing their group members.

“…Ah, shit. Why are they all non-combat insects except for me? How am I supposed to solve requests with this?”
“W-well… we could at least gather herbs, right? I’m from the alchemy department, so I know herbs well…”
“As if we could get high grades with that. Huh? We’ll easily take the top spot, damn it.”

It was natural for voices of discontent to arise since the group members were randomly selected. But what could they do? From the start, luck was also an important factor in group assignments. It’s an unfair system where even if you’re good, there’s nothing you can do if your team is all subpar. That’s why it’s the assignment method professors like the most.

Occasionally there are people who somehow manage to solve it alone even when all group members are useless, but such cases are extremely rare. Usually, most sink together due to teammates dragging them down.

‘I hope that’s not me at least.’

Asel thought this as he completely left the Academy building.

As he came out onto the street, the arrow started pointing towards a certain café. He entered the café without hesitation. The door opened with a jingle, and the employee making drinks spoke to him with a bright expression.

“Welcome! Are you here for the group assignment?”

She spoke as if she already knew everything, and guided Asel, who nodded with a disgruntled expression.

“Those gathered for the assignment are in there. You must order at least one drink when you sit down.”
“Yes. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, have a pleasant time!”

The employee said with a bright expression and focused back on making drinks. Asel entered the bustling inner part of the café and stepped into the space the employee had guided him to. A space extremely quiet unlike the noisy outside. They had divided the seats like rooms so that conversations inside couldn’t be heard from outside.

‘Was this the reason for choosing this place?’

He had wondered why they gathered in such a place when there were other good locations. It seemed they had chosen a fairly good place in their own way.

Asel took out the paper and moved his steps briskly towards the room the arrow was pointing to. As he stood in front of the room, the arrow blinked at short intervals. It meant right in front. He put away the paper and knocked on the door.

There was no answer. Instead, someone flung the door open.

“Oh my, who do we have here?”

The first thing that caught his eye when the door opened was twitching golden fox ears. Asel unconsciously muttered while looking at the soft ears swaying back and forth.

“A beastkin?”
“Hehe, what’s with that reaction? Is it your first time seeing a beastkin?”

She was a girl with impressive golden fox ears and hair, a tail, and captivating eyes. She swished her large tail gently and smiled brightly.

“Are you from Group 2?”

Then she took out a paper indicating the leader of Group 2 from her chest. Asel also came to his senses and showed his paper while nodding.

“So you were the leader.”
“As it happens, that’s how it turned out. More importantly, it’s a bit awkward to talk here, so please come inside. Everyone except you is already gathered.”
“Which department are you from?”

Asel asked as he followed her into the room. The girl answered while puffing her cheeks in a sulky manner.

“That’s something to do during self-introductions, Mr. Top of the Magical Studies Department. So just sit down for now.”

She went behind Asel’s back and pushed him towards an empty seat. Asel thought about activating his shield to block it, but he just let himself be pushed as she wanted. Perhaps due to the beastkin’s unique strength, Asel’s body moved smoothly as she desired.

“Sit down.”

She pulled out a soft chair and gently seated Asel on it. Asel sat down with a calm expression and met the gazes of two people looking at him with dumbfounded expressions.

One was a magician, and one was a spearman. Asel opened his mouth while staring straight into the magician’s eyes.

“An elemental magician.”
“…!”
“There’s elemental mana unique to spirits mixed in your magical power. Judging by the aura… earth-based? Although the magician themselves can’t use magic other than elemental formulas, it seems the bond with the spirit is good, so it shouldn’t be a big problem.”
“…Can you tell such things because you’re the top of the magical studies department?”
“It’s just a trivial skill.”

The elemental magician smiled bitterly at Asel’s answer. He summoned the spirit he had contracted with and carefully placed it on top of his head.

A low-level spirit made of earth. A lizard-shaped spirit with consciousness but not overgrown settles on his head, flicking its tongue.

“Warren Brundel. As you said, I’m a magician who has mastered elemental formulas. I’m honored to meet the disciple of Aperture.”
“You’re praising me too much.”

Asel answered with a chuckle. Warren continued speaking with a serious expression.

“I saw you using magic during the entrance exam. The sight of you dropping high-level magic against Lord Fernan is still vivid in my eyes. You must be around the same age as me, but I feel respect for the fact that you’ve already reached that level.”
“Hey hey, is he that good?”

The spearman who had been silent until now cut in at Warren’s words. Warren frowned and growled softly.

“I’m speaking, aren’t I? Don’t interrupt.”
“Ha, your attitude is so different? Is this a magician cartel? If you act like this, I can’t cooperate either.”
“Both of you, stop it.”

The fox-eared girl sighed deeply and said to the two who had started glaring at each other. She looked at Asel with an awkward smile.

“I’m sorry. They said they had a conflict during the entrance exam. It seems that resentment is still lingering.”
“Conflict? That wasn’t a conflict, it was one-sided plunder. This bastard took advantage of our party being exhausted and ran away with the backpack containing the core!”
“Is it a problem to plunder in an exam where plundering is allowed? You’re just squawking for no reason. Are all magicians this vindictive? Or is it just you?”
“You son of a bitch!”

Warren shouted as he sprang up from his seat. The spirit sitting on top of his head resonated with Warren’s emotions and glared. The spearman smiled while facing that sticky magical power head-on.

The conversation after that continued with content blaming each other. Although the girl kept trying to stop them, the argument showed no signs of ending.

It seemed like they would just keep fighting all day if left alone. Asel sighed deeply and leaned back against the backrest.

He quite likes watching fights themselves. However, that should be in the form of duels testing each other’s skills. Such simple verbal fights just blaming each other only make the viewer feel unpleasant.

It’s the same now.

He’s been quietly waiting, thinking they would stop after a while, but as time passes, they act more like they’re about to pounce on each other. The situation where they don’t listen even when the girl mediates.

‘This group assignment is ruined.’

Asel thought inwardly and sighed deeply. He had hoped it wouldn’t be like this, but to think such a mess would happen from the very first group assignment. He openly showed his displeasure and drew magical power into the air.

The formless magical power splits into two branches. Asel swung the divided magical power simultaneously and made them collide.

Bzzzzzzzzzt!!

A huge roaring sound filled the inside of the room. Warren and the spearman who had been noisily arguing suddenly stopped talking, and the girl looked at Asel while covering her ears with her hands. Asel met the gazes of the three and muttered lowly.

“As far as I know, the self-introductions aren’t over yet.”
“……”
“The spearman and the leader. I’d like to know your names, specialties, and departments. So it’ll be easier to choose which request to take.”

A tone and behavior as if he were the leader himself. But no one could argue against that.

Warren and the spearman were intimidated by the overwhelming pressure felt from Asel’s magical power, and the girl’s eyes sparkled as if she had discovered a treasure.

She opened her mouth while her black eyes bloomed fully.

“I’m Saya from the magical engineering department. I’m running a small merchant group, and I can use a bit of magic tricks.”
“Magic tricks?”
“Yes. I’m specialized in disruption like hypnosis or illusions. Although I’m from a non-combat department, I’m not to the extent that I can’t fight at all.”

It was welcome news. Asel didn’t know much about magic tricks, but judging by how she spoke about it herself, it seemed she had her own methods. With this, it didn’t seem like there would be much problem even if they took on high-difficulty requests.

Asel thought this and turned his head towards the spearman. He met Asel’s gaze and glared, but soon backed down in terms of pressure.

“…Quill. I use a spear, and I’m a former mercenary. I can definitely take on the vanguard.”
“Good.”

Asel nodded and leaned his upper body slightly forward.

“I’m Asel. I’m a magician, and I mainly use lightning formulas and flame formulas. I can handle other types of magic to some extent as well.”
“…You mean you’re a multi-attribute holder?”
“That’s right.”
“You’re crazy. It’s my first time seeing one in person.”

Warren muttered this while staring intently at Asel. Asel lightly received his gaze and spoke while looking at Saya.

“This should be enough, right?”

Saya didn’t ask what he meant. There are things you can know without needing to hear them explicitly.

Clearly, he had organized the situation in place of herself, the leader, so from now on, it meant for her to lead the situation.

It was what she wanted. Saya smiled brightly and expressed her gratitude to him.

She opened her mouth while taking in each of her group members with her eyes.

“First of all, our goal is to create a magical tool, since I’m the only non-combat department student and I’m from magical engineering, we have no choice. Thanks to this, we can’t take easy requests like herb gathering.”
“Doesn’t that not matter? With this composition, most requests should be…”
“Yes. Fortunately, since our group members’ combat power is quite substantial, we can easily handle requests like subjugating magical beasts. This means it won’t be too difficult to obtain the materials needed for creating a magical tool.”

Saya said this while taking out a magical engineering blueprint from the backpack she had put on the floor and placing it on the table.

“So, I plan to make a machine that requires many materials but has definite performance to match. It’s called a ‘Blood Copier’. It’s a magical engineering machine that can copy and transfuse the blood of the target no matter whose blood is put in. Since it’s often used on battlefields, the blueprint is already widely distributed. I have experience making it too.”
“What materials are needed?”
“We can just buy metals with money from solving requests, and it seems we just need to decide how to get the important materials, self-regenerating factor and refined doppelganger blood.”

As soon as Saya finished speaking, she turned her backpack upside down on the table. Request papers instantly tumbled onto the table, and she neatly sorted out only the necessary ones.

“For the self-regenerating factor, it’s 40 gold coins based on market price. Doppelganger blood is 10 gold coins. If we’re talking about refined blood, it’s 20 gold coins.”
“Fucking expensive.”

Quill grumbled. Asel agreed with his words.

He had never hunted magical beasts before. As a result, he knew nothing about the prices of by-products from hunting magical beasts. From his perspective, the prices of the materials Saya mentioned were beyond imagination.

The requests that flow into the Academy are much less dangerous than those received by mercenaries or hunters. This is because only requests that are not so dangerous are brought in for the safety of students.

But because of that, the amount of compensation received for solving requests isn’t that much either. To buy those things with that small amount of compensation, they would have to solve dozens of requests.

“We absolutely can’t do it within 2 weeks.”

Warren said. He continued speaking while staring at Saya.

“A total of 60 gold coins. Unless we can use our own money, there’s not enough time to purchase with just the compensation received from solving requests. It’s impossible.”
“That would be the case if we were trying to collect gold coins.”

Saya answered with a bright smile.

“So I was thinking we should go doppelganger hunting.”

She smoothly pulled out a small piece of paper that had been hidden among the request papers.

A shabbier paper than the other request papers. It wasn’t because of wear and tear. It was made with low-quality paper from the start. Asel narrowed his eyes and read the contents of the request.

[Recently, more and more residents are reporting seeing dead villagers moving around just as they were when alive. According to the testimonies of those who have conversed with them, they were unable to communicate properly and often exhibited strange behaviors like repeating the same words or suddenly shouting and running away.]

[And those who had conversations with them started suffering from high fevers after a week. Eventually, people even started dying. My wife died like that too. Now my son has also caught the fever.]

[Please. Please solve the strange phenomenon in our village. As compensation, I will give you 5 gold coins and a dagger that has been passed down in our village for generations. Please, please help us.]

“The compensation is low.”

Quill said as soon as he finished reading the request.

“What can we do with 5 gold coins? We can’t even buy doppelganger blood.”
“Of course. But we plan to focus on hunting doppelgangers, not the compensation.”
“…Hunting doppelgangers?”
“Yes. The content of the request, it’s clearly the work of doppelgangers, isn’t it? Dead people returning in their previous form, people getting sick and dying after encountering them, deteriorated thinking ability making proper conversation and communication impossible. These are all characteristics of doppelgangers.”

Saya seductively smiled and waved the request paper.

“We’ll buy metals with the request compensation, and directly hunt and extract doppelganger blood. While we’re at it, if we extract a large amount and sell it, we should be able to buy the self-regenerating substance too. Since I can refine blood, if we take some time to refine and sell it, we might be able to earn even more.”
“…You came up with this plan right after confirming the group members today?”

Warren muttered in a disgruntled voice. Saya chuckled and nodded.

“Instantaneous judgment and improvisation are essential virtues for a merchant. So, does anyone have any other plans?”

There was no answer. Saya put the request paper back into her backpack with a smiling face.

“Then let’s set out in two days. The sooner the better. And Asel?”
“…?”
“Let’s go shopping together tomorrow for items needed for the request. Since we’re going magical beast hunting, I think it’s most important to hear a magician’s opinion. Can you come with me?”

Asel thought for a moment, then nodded. There was no reason to refuse.

“Alright.”
“Great. When do your classes end tomorrow?”
“3 PM. You?”
“Mine end at 2 PM. I’ll go first and wait for you. Is that okay?”
“Don’t wait too long.”
“Okay~”

Saya answered, elongating the end of her words.

The corners of her eyes curved into crescents.