Professor Bard had arrived in the Narcissus Principality several days ago.
Royal Law University had gone on break in mid-April. Once classes resumed on May 1, the third semester would be devoted entirely to internships, experiments, credential examinations, and exams.
It was now exam season for the second semester, and the period of formal instruction had ended.
—As for trivial matters like exams and grading papers, he could simply find a teaching assistant among the students. The university could not control him anyway.
Although Iver could no longer return to serve as his teaching assistant... Iver had inspired Professor Bard's thinking. When Iver had gone abroad to study in the Theocracy and, on the very first day, somehow become a cardinal bishop, Professor Bard had perceptively found his second teaching assistant in advance.
Even then, Professor Bard had already sensed that Iver probably would not return to teach.
He had originally planned to travel to Stibnite at the end of the second semester, in mid-April.
Stibnite's archaeological system was highly favorable to foreign archaeologists like him.
Whether he worked as a hired archaeologist or conducted sponsored archaeology, either arrangement would do. After all, he was not going there to resell antiquities. He merely wanted to return and write a paper. With official authorization from Stibnite, no one would worry that he had falsified his research. He was not a Stibnite native himself, so there was no reason for anyone to lie on his behalf. It was simply a matter of mutual benefit.
Queen Isabel's orders suited him perfectly as well.
Originally, he had only wanted to excavate a ruin from the Constant Self era. In truth, that would at most mean excavating elven ruins and possibly encountering guardians such as magical beasts or undead.
But when he heard that someone