The Trial II

Inside the spacious lecture hall, hundreds of vermilion desks and chairs rose tier by tier from the center outward, like the audience seating in a grand theater.

On the podium at the center of the classroom, the old professor Gerben kept lowering his head and coughing. Flecks of saliva occasionally flew from between his fingers, landing on the podium and in the air around him.

Over a hundred people sat scattered sparsely in the seats below. They were some of this year's new students.

Dim yellow light streamed in through the floor-to-ceiling windows on the right, stretching everyone's shadows into long, slender shapes across the gray wall on the left.

"Now then, what you are holding in your hands are all the majors the school is offering this year. Read the requirements carefully, then fill out your application.

"Remember, as long as you meet the requirements and your grades are suitable, your application will be approved. Therefore, you may only write down one major." Gerben spoke slowly as he reminded them.

Yet most of the students below failed to react to his words.

"Are you fucking kidding us? Or does today happen to be April Fool's Day, and you're planning to play some malicious joke on us?" A student stood up angrily, waving the application form in his hand.

"Every single major listed here looks completely unreliable. I remember Miskatonic University specialized in medicine and history, didn't it!? Can someone tell me what the hell Mystic Rune Studies and Fell Energy Research Structure are supposed to be?"

"And what the hell is Energy Trajectory Prediction? Are you sure you're not showing me the table of contents of some science-fiction novel?" Other students rose to their feet in dissatisfaction as well.

Protests continued to ring out. One student after another stood