The Magic Academy's Physicist-Chapter 75: Secret Meeting Continued

Chapter 75: Secret Meeting Continued

<Darkest Academia>

A VR fantasy game set in an arcane punk world.

Vermel, Kim Sunghyun, was a veteran of veterans who’d played this game for close to ten years.

He didn’t know how much time he invested into it once he became engrossed in this world. By the time he came to his senses and looked back, it had already become a part of his life.

With every play, there was a different kind of ecstasy upon reaching the end of the main scenario. Each path was novel, and the fact that you could change the characters’ minds or their life and death situation by making certain choices at each stage was fascinating.

It had updated frequently, too, with every new DLC release being enjoyable.

[DLC : Body of Steel, Heart of Human]

Until that stupid fucking DLC.

─ Is this supposed to be beatable?

While reminiscing, he heard someone approaching from a distance. Vermel snapped out of his thoughts and stood up.

The door opened with a Creeeak.

A black-haired, gold-eyed girl entered. The sunlight trying to slip through the crack disappeared when she closed the door.

Complete darkness fell upon them. Vermel quickly poured oil into the lantern that he prepared beforehand and lit it. The flame starting to dance within the glass lamp cleared away their shadows.

“... Sit here.”

Aether nodded her greeting then sat down on the chair.

The elves who were known as the chosen species of Elementals, and the Golden-Eyed who were the complete opposite of them in terms of thaumaturgy.

Originally, there wasn’t a scene in the game where these two races came together like this.

So that was how he finally knew.

That this world wasn’t a game, and that the strategies he learned through playing might not work perfectly.

The main storyline should be the same. For example, the resurrection of the Demon King was a fixed event that couldn’t be prevented even if one knew about it and took measures.

Nonetheless, the characters here reacted differently from what he’d expected. Professor Hasfeldt, for one, and this girl.

For a while, Aether just quietly looked around. As soon as she opened her mouth, the lantern light wavered once.

“So it’s just us.”

─ So, we’re the only ones.

Vermel’s shoulders shook automatically.

The sentence that had him swearing again and again while playing that last DLC.

It was one of the fixed lines Aether said in the final Chapter when you failed to stop her Corruption. Vermel patted his chest and just managed to steady his pulse.

The uranium-colored eyes roamed all over the place. She seemed to be thinking something as her gaze went back and forth between the ceiling and walls. Vermel took that time to check the System Window.

SYSTEM : The probability of the world ending is currently 55%.SYSTEM : No one is currently directing a specific emotion towards you.Fortunately, there wasn’t anything of concern.

“Faraday cage....”

The girl smirked as she finished exploring her surroundings. There was a playfulness in the way she stretched her lips. It was an expression she’d shown him the most for the past month after emotionlessness.

Vermel recalled Aether’s behavior on their way back from being awarded by the chairman.

The question about whether there was a Magic Beast who could see from afar or not. And to that he answered ‘Yes’.

To earn some trust, it was time for him to elaborate on that answer.

“Rosemary.”

“Hm?”

“This is how to stop the Fourth Brigade Commander of the Demon King Army from spying. If you cover all surfaces with metal like this, then she can’t use enhanced vision.”

At that, Aether leaned forward with an exclamation, indicating interest.

But there was something left to do before they got down to business.

Vermel tore a piece from his notebook and wrote his name, then handed it to her. It was a paper with the three characters of his real name. Having received this poor excuse of a name card, Aether smirked and began writing her own name on the other side.

The name card was given with two hands. Vermel accepted it with both of his.

Reading the three characters of Aether’s actual name, Vermel’s mouth also twisted upwards.

It was certain.

This person was from his hometown.

It had been twenty years since the Goddess had dropped him into Ahrens continent for leaving a stingy review about the DLC.

Many things had happened since then.

At first, he’d been excited to be in the world that was the setting of the game he loved. Being able to vividly encounter and talk to the characters he’d only seen through VR had felt surreal.

He’d established bonds with the elves in Kaurelia over a long time and in the end swore to protect the world from the Demon King. At least, he’d believed at the time that it would be doable since he knew the future.

But as time passed, he found himself limited in another way.

That he couldn’t blend in with the people here on a fundamental level.

Because basically, they came from different civilizations, worlds, and mindsets.

He was originally human, so that could’ve been why he hadn’t been able to fully embrace the elves’ concept of time or their culture.

It was to the point that he thought his life was better here at Tilette in some ways. Not that he could consider the humans of Ahrens continent and the homosapiens of Earth to be the exact same species.

So in the end, he never fully erased the nostalgia of his life on Earth.

He was lonely, being the only one who knew the future.

There were more than a few disasters coming, so it frustrated him having no one to confide in.

Aether was someone he met from his homeland while in this state. Although she was a monster who’d broken several of his VR consoles in the DLC, it was merely a shell of her. He finally realized in this moment that the core was a completely different person.

Vermel felt confident and relieved at the same time. He turned off the System Window.

The translucent screen vanished, and in its place was the black-haired, gold-eyed girl who was watching him with a relaxed gaze.

“Can I start?”

They both knew.

That he, and Aether, had lots to say.

Th𝓮 most uptodate nov𝑒ls are publish𝒆d on ƒreewebηoveℓ.com.

It was going to take all night to catch up.

**The end of classes didn’t mean we had to clear out of our dorms right away.

The Academy granted a stay period of a week to accommodate the students who came from out of town. During this time, the servants of noble households would come and work busily.

It was the same with the Saliere family. A few servants from that household were occupying my room to pack Lotte’s things.

The only things I had were toiletry and a few books. I already established myself in the capital so I wasn’t going to be leaving here, anyway.

The clubroom was still open during this time. It was locked technically, but I could let myself in whenever I wanted because Lorewell had lent me a spare key since I used it the most.

I began using this place to meet secretly with the transmigrator. No one would be coming since it was the break, and it was a good place in many ways for plotting purposes.

After dodging the maids in the dorm, I went to the clubroom and found Vermel and Freyr waiting.

“Hey!”

Why is she here.

“Aren’t you going to pack up?”

“I already did!”

“Still, why are you here?”

“Because I’m bored!”

Then why wasn’t she leaving. As I gave her an unimpressed look, the brat raised her head and responded to something that wasn’t asked.

“I’m waiting until Lotte is ready!”

“They live in the same region, apparently. That’s probably why she’s waiting for her.”

Vermel was the one who explained further.

“Huh? Did I tell you that...?”

“Last time when we were drinking.”

“Aha!”

That probably wasn’t true. It would just be that he knew from all the information he had about Freyr.

Vermel started helping me out in ways like this, as limited as it was outside our meeting room because of that Rosemary or whatsit.

“Oh yeah, Lotte was calling for you.”

“She isn’t going to make me work again, is she?”

“Go help out if you’re going to get a ride from her.”

“Aghh.”

Hopping down from a chair taller than her, Freyr left the room grumbling.

The room closed with a Thunk. And as usual, we went into the meeting room off to the one side.

“Let’s continue from where we left off yesterday.”

Vermel sat down with a sigh and took out his thick notebook.

One lantern, one notebook. It felt like an interrogation room.

After checking if the quill was working, Vermel spoke.

“So you came here before becoming Prof Klais Hasfeldt’s slave?”

“Yeah, I thought I’d die from having to do graduate school again.”

“... And you didn’t notice anything unusual while you were with her? Like being overly obsessed with Flare or something.”

“I probably already mentioned it last time. She was a Flare-obsessed bitch... person. I think.”

“That’s because of you.”

“That’s not fair.”

Talking about her after a long time automatically raised my blood pressure.

I told him about the chairman bringing me to a basement where nobles were gathered and being asked to join their rebellion and how they said Professor Hasfeldt was missing. Vermel was currently finding a way to clean up this mess.

“They’re probably right about Hasfeldt being taken captive. If she’s dead, there’s a way to confirm that.”

“So Miss Heerlein said she was going to the northern front. Should we try to stop her?”

“Yeah, we have to at least until the finals. If nothing much happens, then Klais is going to stay alive until next year even if she’s caught by the beasts, but....”

Vermel took a breath, then continued with serious eyes.

“If Meriga goes to the north now, she’s going to die.”