Chapter 30
A Night of Counting Stars (4)
Oswald was a freshman in the Department of Magic.
Like most elves.
Judging by the racial distribution at Saint Yansk University, most elves were concentrated in the Department of Magic and the College of Music.
One could attribute that to the lazy racial tendency that made them dislike physical exertion in the first place.
In the middle of the morning, while classes were in full swing, Ivan and Yevgeny were making their way toward the Department of Magic.
“Big Brother, I’ve been thinking.”
“For some strange reason, this world doesn’t have paladins, does it?”
This fellow no longer appeared to have any intention of hiding the fact that he was a transmigrator.
“I mean, this world is already different from the original story for both you and me. In a world with gods, divine spells, and knights, shouldn’t holy knights exist as a matter of common sense?”
“Why would a priest need to carry a weapon?”
Ivan knew that the very concept of a holy knight was closer to fantasy than reality.
On Earth, the warriors known as holy knights had been knights who fought for their religious convictions during the Crusades. Strictly speaking, they had not been priests because they had never been ordained.
They had also been remarkably secular.
That did not mean there had never been ordained priests who fought as knights.
However, such people could not truly be called knights.
They were simply armed warrior-monks.
This world was no different.
In this premodern era, priests were fundamentally members of an extraordinary elite.
They had to accumulate a broad range of knowledge comparable to that required of modern legal professionals.
On top of that, after taking the three vows of ordination—poverty, chastity, and obedience—and receiving divine spells from a god, they had even less reason to engage in physical combat.
Why would they bother when they could strike harder than most knights with a single smiting spell without even leaving their seats?
Why would an ordained priest ever need to go out on the front lines in the first place?
And there was one more reason.
The greatest of them all.
In a world where personified gods genuinely existed, the authority wielded by priests was beyond imagination.
That was because a person lacking in character could not use divine spells.
In other words, every priest in this world was fundamentally good.
Amazingly, that was genuinely true.
Because this was accepted as common knowledge, priests enjoyed immense social respect.
The only period during which they had strapped on swords and personally entered the battlefield had been the Demon War, and even then, they had never truly been deployed on the foremost front lines.
The very idea of a knight who used divine spells was therefore bound to remain nothing more than a fantasy.
After listening to this kind lesson from a headmaster with thirty years of experience in another world, Yevgeny clapped his hands together.
“Then I’m the first one?”
“...What?”
“Ever since I applied to the Department of Theology, I’ve gained divine-spell slots! There aren’t many spells I can use yet, but it’s still possible, isn’t it?”
Yevgeny also possessed a specialized passive called Sword Mastery.
In other words, his aptitude for swordsmanship was superior to that of ordinary people.
“So I’m a priest who can use divine spells and is also good with a sword... Isn’t that exactly what a holy knight is? Wow, Big Brother. I think I’m the founder of the paladin progression path.”
He was not entirely wrong.
Ivan nodded, then fell briefly into thought.
Divine-spell slots...?
“Can you learn other types of spells as well?”
“It’s possible, but the experience-point cost is so high that I haven’t tried it. Life is all about choosing where to focus, isn’t it?”
Divinity, magic, and swordsmanship.
He could learn all three?
Ivan narrowed his eyes as he looked at Yevgeny.
A conversation from the past flashed through his mind.
It’s always useful to learn everything! Except magic. That was seriously too difficult.
It would be a little inconvenient if the Hero couldn’t use magic.
Ahaha, I told you I’m in the Department of Knighthood!
It had been a passing conversation with Isabel.
Being the Hero’s daughter did not necessarily mean that she would become the next Hero.
But what if he considered Maximilien’s case?
He can use divinity, magic, and swordsmanship, and he is also a transmigrator.
Could this fellow be the Hero?
Ivan looked down at Yevgeny with a complicated expression.
Yevgeny walked beside him, chuckling with the obsequious smile of a court sycophant.
“When I become a paladin, there’s something I’ve always wanted to say. You know—‘Deus vult! God wills it!’ Ah, that would be incredible.”
Ivan, who had momentarily been reminded of Maximilien, shook his head.
A world in which this fellow was the Hero did not seem necessary.
Ivan and Yevgeny soon arrived at the Department of Magic’s lecture building.
Oswald, who was in the middle of class, suddenly shuddered as a chilling sensation ran down the back of his neck.
An intense gaze.
It contained something almost like murderous intent—
No, something even denser.
Greed.
It was Evelyn Rustpitz.
The treasured granddaughter of the chairman of the Privy Council and the young lady of the ducal House of Lustfitz was glaring at him.
Oswald ground his teeth.
What the hell am I supposed to do about it...?
He was a normal man in his twenties.
In other words, he had never read the genre commonly grouped under the label of “female-oriented romantic fantasy featuring villainesses.”
Therefore, he possessed absolutely no information about this novel.
Putting aside the question of why he had suddenly been transmigrated into a novel of which he had not even read thirty chapters—
He now had to survive in a world whose story he knew nothing about, without so much as a transmigration bonus.
I should have at least read some regret-obsession novels!
He felt like collapsing to the ground and wailing.
It was not as though he had never read novels belonging to that category.
However, those clichés were enjoyable only when they remained inside fiction.
When the heroine regretted her actions, fell into despair, and obsessively fixated on the protagonist, the cold reality of twenty-first-century South Korea had another name for it.
Stalking.
It was a form of dating violence serious enough to make police officers drag the perpetrator away while shouting at him.
In any case, the present situation—
That is, the reason Evelyn was glaring at him—
Had begun because Oswald had accidentally bumped into a female student in the corridor and smiled while telling her that it was all right.
What the hell was I supposed to do? Slap her across the face?
No one short of a genuine psychopath would do such a thing.
No matter how thoroughly elves were coated in arrogance, their culture did not encourage that kind of behavior.
They believed arrogance to be merely another facet of nobility.
In other words, they would not engage in anything so vulgar.
Therefore, even by the standards of elven society, Oswald’s response had been perfectly reasonable.
However, Miss Evelyn, whose personality exceeded even the acceptable limits of elven conduct, did not appear to agree.
“All right, the lesson was a little boring, wasn’t it? It cannot be helped. Everyone, wake up the student sleeping over there. Shall we take a ten-minute break before continuing?”
The professor on the platform spoke with a warm smile.
Students throughout the classroom stood and stretched.
Oswald also rose naturally and headed toward the corridor, trying to escape Evelyn, who was still glaring at him as though she wanted him dead.
This time, he moved with exceptional caution so that he would not accidentally collide with another female student.
“Grab him.”
“Yes, Big Brother!”
While walking through the corridor, Oswald ended up colliding not with a female student, but with a group of transmigrators.
Oswald’s first impression of them was simple.
A madman and an insane maniac. What a charming duo.
The younger madman, a black-haired human youth who kept rubbing his palms together with the face of an obsequious courtier, immediately spoke upon seeing him.
“Oh, what a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Eastbelpen! My name is Yevgeny, though I was called Kim Eugene in Korea. This gentleman here is Ivan. I don’t know his Korean name, but he’s Korean!”
“...?”
“We know that you are a transmigrator. Do you not require assistance?”
“...???”
Around which chapter was an event like this supposed to occur?
At the very least, no other transmigrators had appeared in the chapters he had read.
The Genius Mage Obsessed Over by the Villainess, the novel Oswald remembered, had not contained anything like this.
Then again, it had not taken place in this bizarre Russian-style setting either.
While he stood there in confusion, the old man who had introduced himself as Ivan spoke.
“I understand that you are surprised. However, you need our help, and we need yours. Can you spare us a little time?”
“Ah, yes... But how did you know about me...?”
What was the defining characteristic of a transmigrator?
Naturally, it was concealing the fact of one’s transmigration.
To put it bluntly, transmigration meant stealing the body of someone who had previously lived there.
What would happen if one entered a body whose family and relatives were still alive?
At best, one might be subjected to human experimentation.
At worst, one might have one’s neck cut clean off as the murderer of someone’s son—or daughter.
This was a fact already proven through countless Korean transmigration novels.
From the perspective of the original person’s family and relatives, the transmigrator could only be regarded as an enemy.
Therefore, after realizing that he had transmigrated and spending an adequate amount of time in despair, Oswald had thoroughly concealed his identity.
It should have been perfect.
“Elves do not behave like you.”
“Excuse me...?”
“Elves almost never speak politely.”
With the exception of figures such as saints, monarchs, or those of equivalent status, elves did not use honorific language.
They did not even employ respectful speech in official correspondence.
That was simply how most long-lived races behaved.
Yet this fellow had gone to the admissions administration office and requested his enrollment documents using extremely polite speech.
The moment Ivan heard this story, the word “transmigrator” came to mind before the concept of a “polite and kind elf.”
That was because the proposition that a polite and kind elf might exist was fundamentally impossible.
Having identified the transmigrator with absurd ease, Ivan underlined Oswald’s name and began observing him.
An elf who smiled and said it was all right after accidentally bumping into a human classmate chatting with friends around a corridor corner?
Such a thing could not exist.
Even monkeys have forward-facing vision, don’t they? Are you an herbivore? Can’t you see what’s in front of you? Don’t misunderstand me. Vegetarians deserve respect as well.
Was that not the sort of remark an ordinary elf would make to a rude human?
As Oswald listened to Ivan’s explanation, his expression gradually stiffened.
What in the world was this old man talking about?
Was this racial discrimination?
Experiencing an emotion he had never even felt on Earth, and experiencing it in another world while inhabiting an elf’s body, left him with complicated feelings.
“So, what story did you read?”
“For reference, mine was The Rogue Swordsmanship Genius of the Northern Duke’s House!”
“...Mine was The Genius Mage Obsessed Over by the Villainess.”
“Oh, a regret-and-obsession novel. You must have been transmigrated sometime after 2021, then?”
“It was May 2023.”
“Oh...!”
Ignoring Yevgeny, who was chattering away and freely disclosing his entire personal history, Oswald turned toward Ivan.
“Are there more transmigrators?”
“Probably.”
Yevgeny nodded gravely.
“Let us go to the Department of Knighthood.”
Yuri turned pale as she looked at the three men blocking her path.
There was a suspicious gardener with a towel wrapped around his neck.
Next to him was a blond delinquent with the ingratiating smile of a treacherous courtier, rubbing his palms together.
“Hello. My name is Oswald, and I’m from the Department of Magic. I’m also a first-year student. My major is mind sorcery. Um... in other words, mental magic.”
And now a narrow-eyed character had joined them, casually admitting that he used hypnotic magic.
“You’re a transmigrator too, aren’t you? I heard you seem to be Korean. Wow, at this rate, it feels like we should form some kind of Seoul natives’ association.”
The blond delinquent grinned and extended his hand.
“Eeeek!”
Yuri’s vision went dark.
......
Yuri Frank, the top student in the Department of Knighthood.
Yevgeny Novikov Karamzin, who studied both theology and swordsmanship.
Oswald Eastbelpen of the Department of Magic, specializing in mind sorcery.
And Ivan Petrovich, a former scout from the Extermination Unit.
Ivan looked around at the transmigrators gathered inside the small clubroom and thought:
Isn’t this the exact composition of a Hero’s party...?