"Don't... please don't hate me..."
"...Pfft." Rimuru suddenly laughed. He lifted Eler up, watching her trademark silver hair spill down like a white waterfall, and said softly, "Eler, there's something I want you to remember."
"You're the first student I ever took on, and the only student I can cherish right now."
"As the student who'll inherit my legacy someday, you can make mistakes and get into trouble. But I hope you won't do it for... a ridiculous reason like griffin eggs tasting good."
"Mm..." Eler's legs kicked twice as she dangled in the air. She looked at Rimuru with a slightly bewildered expression. His words were still a little too difficult for her to understand, but that didn't stop her from catching some of them.
Like "cherish"!
"So... you won't hate me, teacher... right?"
"Of course not."
"Then, then, then!" Eler's eyes lit up. "Does that mean I don't have to go to that scary place anymore?"
"As long as something like today doesn't happen again."
"Mm... I promise!"
"Speaking of which, it's dinnertime. What do you want to eat tonight, Eler?"
"Can I have anything?"
"Mm. It's a reward for not making a fuss in the punishment room."
"Then!" Eler was back to her usual liveliness. She eagerly threw herself into Rimuru's arms and said, "I want griffin eggs!"
"..."
My friend's been reminding me that chapters on Ci Mao should be about 2,000 words, since updating frequency matters a lot. But, well... I'm just used to writing chapters of four or five thousand words. Probably because of my habits from Qidian. Yeah, I guess some of you can tell my writing style leans that way--
Now that I've signed a contract, I wanted to ask: do you prefer 2,000-word chapters or 4,000-word chapters?
In the end, Rimuru kept his promise as a teacher. With Liddell's help and her connections, Aoko's threats, and a massive hit to his own wallet, he bought a griffin egg from Gaiusling, barely managing to preserve his dignity as a teacher.
When the little girl held out the half-eaten griffin egg to him with an adorable smile...
He nearly fell in love with his cute little disciple--
In truth, Rimuru wasn't very interested in the thing. Sure, it tasted good, but what attracted mages most was the way it replenished vitality and mana. Eating one even gave you a feeling similar to replenishing your mana?
But for a Phantasmal Species like Rimuru, it really wasn't that appealing... Compared to an egg, he was much more interested in stewed griffin... Unfortunately, whether it was because of their contract or something else, Gaiusling refused to sell Rimuru a young griffin. He said that even if he did sell anything, it would only be feathers and claw tips. Giving Rimuru an egg had already put him under tremendous pressure.
Rimuru was a little disappointed.
He couldn't touch a living griffin, and he didn't know how long it would take for one to die of old age--so he had no choice but to give up on eating griffin and turn his attention back to preparing his lectures and studying his own abilities.
A week later--the students had already been selected and enrolled, and Rimuru had received his appointments: first-rank lecturer in Magic Circuit specialties for the Department of General Fundamentals, third-rank lecturer in the risks of magecraft contamination, professor of transformation magecraft specializing in water, one of the five fundamental attributes, and an authoritative professor on the imaginary attribute.
Of course, those were his main titles. Besides them, he also had a dozen or so honorary positions, like guest professor in the Witch specialty of transformation for plant studies, honorary professor in Fairy Tale Magecraft research, and honorary professor of the development history of Phantasmal Species for animal studies, along with all sorts of other things. He'd gotten every one of them by schmoozing and networking all over the place that week!
It was worth mentioning that, so he could one day take the Academic City of Sura from the Department of Modern Magecraft and give it to the queen—or keep it for himself—with complete legitimacy, he'd even volunteered to become a professor in the Department of Modern Magecraft. It was the first time in nearly a century that anyone had volunteered to teach that subject...
"So, based on the characteristics of transformation in magecraft attributes, we can conclude..." Rimuru closed his textbook, smiled, and casually tossed it aside. Wuyin instantly transformed into a stand to catch the book and followed alongside him. Then Rimuru gave his final conclusion: "All right, that's enough for today. Theoretical knowledge of magecraft won't help you very much, in truth."
Rimuru held out his hand. A wisp of water vapor began to rise, turning into a thick fog that enveloped the whole classroom like a fairyland. "But putting it into practice uses up a lot of materials and mana, and can also lead to unpredictable dangers. So understanding transformation and learning to control your mana are actually very important for a mage."
"At the very least, if you can generate water directly from mana like I can, you'll save quite a bit of money, won't you?"
Rimuru glanced over the students in the tiered lecture hall, who had started packing up their notes. He spotted a girl with her hand raised high and smiled. "Put your hand down, Christina. I've seen you. If you have a question, you can come find me in my office anytime, or just ask me directly. I don't like slowing everyone down by answering individual questions in class."
"Well then, I'll see you all next week, everyone. Or perhaps in the next class. Let me check... Students from the Department of General Fundamentals, you don't need to leave after class. We'll stay in this classroom..." Rimuru gave Christina one last warm smile, then headed for the classroom door and walked out.
Only then did the classroom erupt into excited discussion--
Including Christina, who had just raised her hand.
"Professor Rimuru is so gentle and cute!" The girl sitting beside her blushed and sighed dreamily before looking at her notes. "But there's something about Professor Rimuru's theory that feels... well..."
"Very straightforward and modern?" Christina said with a smile. "I noticed that a while ago. Most professors like using technical terms, but Professor Rimuru prefers to explain things with practical examples. And a lot of his examples and uses for magecraft lean toward modern applications."
"Yeah... At least other mages wouldn't take money into consideration, would they?" A boy passing by overheard them and stopped. "I heard Professor Rimuru comes from a major family, too, but he's really down-to-earth..."
"I've heard his title before. I think he's some kind of lord," Christina said, clearly having done some research on Professor Rimuru.
"He's the Fairy Tale Lord." A cold, aloof voice interrupted their conversation.
They turned around. A gray-white-haired boy with a distinctly icy air about him looked back at them. "And instead of gossiping about the professor here... have you managed to master transformation practice for your attributes?"
"...Hey, you're pretty full of yourself. Have you mastered it?" The boy who'd spoken earlier immediately bristled and retorted.
The gray-white-haired boy merely shot him a cold look. He casually pressed down on the cup in front of Christina, and in an instant, the water inside turned into hard ice, radiating a bone-chilling cold.
"...Th-that's amazing..." The girl beside Christina was momentarily stunned and instinctively looked up. But the boy had already left, leaving only a parting remark: "Christina, right? If you want to go see Professor Rimuru, I suggest you hurry. Otherwise... you might not get a turn, and you'll have to fight some kid for it--"
"Eh?! F-fight?"
The boy wasn't just talking. In a mere week, Rimuru had gained such a reputation for water magecraft that he'd almost completely eclipsed everyone else.
Some people had even started making the kind of ridiculous claims that would only appear in a later era: other people's water magecraft was just magecraft, but Professor Rimuru's water magecraft was art.
It couldn't be helped. Compared to the other mages, who focused more on practical theory and tradition, Rimuru had hundreds of books from his previous life in his head, along with all kinds of imaginative water-based techniques. He could talk endlessly about even something as simple as a high-pressure water jet.
Your magecraft might be stronger than mine, but it definitely won't be cooler!
As a teacher in the Department of General Fundamentals, a former expert in marketing who had been forced to study business and marketing theory since childhood, and a miserable high-achiever who'd even been made to study customer psychology on top of finance, Rimuru knew exactly how to reach these eager, inexperienced young mages!
Rimuru knew that even if he didn't go home, the story—and his goal of saving the Human Order—meant his era would inevitably begin after the Seventh Holy Grail War. By then, if he succeeded, he could establish himself as a Magician. But he wasn't satisfied with that--
In A Certain Magical Index World, which was said to be one of the three great fictional settings alongside the Nasuverse, there was a guy named Aleister who'd used his own magical theories to influence two-thirds of the world's magicians!
So why couldn't he?!
Seven years from now, aside from Lords and Color Rank mages at the top of the pyramid, the main pillar of the mage world would surely be the young people of today!
These mages, still a little green, hadn't settled on their own principles yet!
Ordinary businessmen focused on the present, catering to their current customers... But great businessmen observed the next era and the changes in users over the next ten years. The really impressive ones even changed their customers' habits in their own way!
They made them adapt to their vision!
That was why Rimuru worked so hard to teach in every department he could, giving as many students as possible the chance to know him. He didn't need every student to like him. He just needed all of them to know there was a professor like him, and that they could choose him if they wanted!
His style wouldn't suit every mage, but it was enough for the mages who liked it to be able to find him!
Rimuru believed that, in the future, this would become... a very interesting achievement and a force no one could afford to ignore!
Just like now: whenever Rimuru finished class and planned to return to his office, quite a few students would walk back with him, hoping for some guidance-- "Hmm... strange. No students today?"
Rimuru stepped out of the classroom and froze when he noticed there were no students. But he soon realized what that meant--there could only be one reason there were no students...
"Teacher!!" A happy cry came from nearby. Eler, a silver-haired dumpling in a black Gothic-style coat, came rushing over with an excited expression.
"Just as I thought..." Rimuru opened his arms with a laugh. The next moment, the little dumpling had rushed into his embrace--her little head burrowing against him!
It had to be said: once Rimuru started getting busy, he had less time to spend with Eler. And this little girl seemed to have gotten into trouble everywhere in the past because her Witch bloodline left her with too much energy. She was playful, but she couldn't stand being lonely, either. Ever since she'd met Rimuru, a teacher with plenty of time to spend with her, she'd grown more and more attached to him. Even being locked in a dark room by Rimuru hadn't scared her off. If anything, she'd become even clingier--
This made Liddell terribly jealous, but she could only laugh helplessly and admit that Rimuru's appearance did make him easy for children to like, and his personality was gentle, too.
But after Rimuru started teaching, especially once he'd taken on so many positions, he had to devote every bit of his attention to guiding students in order to build his reputation and uphold his standards. Eler was left to suffer through the heartache of not being able to find her teacher day after day.
Then one day, she started her own adventure, "Eler's Great Adventure," in search of her teacher. When she wandered into one of the Clock Tower's lecture halls... she discovered a whole new world!
Thanks to Liddell's and Rimuru's reputations, she could roam almost freely around the academy. Not only did no professor stop her, they even thoughtfully pointed her toward Rimuru's office!
And there were lots of people around her teacher who were even weaker than her, and would play with her!!!
The little tyrant Eler had arrived!!
At first, the new students who were bullied went to complain to their older classmates.
But once the older students learned she was Rimuru's personal disciple, they doted on her to the extreme... they practically treated Eler like their own little sister, all so she'd put in a good word for them with Rimuru and convince him to take them on as students--positions similar to research assistants and graduate students.
Did people really think everyone at the Clock Tower was a bookworm pursuing the truth, with no social skills?
On the contrary, with so many mage families and so much bloodline discrimination and competition, there was plenty of interaction between families, and the heirs all had their own factions. The more senior the students were, the better they understood the unique social conventions between mages--
The society of mages was still a society. No one could escape that.
That was something Rimuru liked about the place. At least his social studies hadn't gone to waste, right?
This time, Rimuru soon noticed that the one who'd brought Eler to see him wasn't some older student. It was Liddell. She laughed as she watched Eler cling to Rimuru, then looked at him helplessly. "I don't have class today. I'd planned to spend some time with her, but she insisted on coming to find you."
"Is that so?" Rimuru chuckled. "She didn't come to find me. I bet she was planning to bully my students again, wasn't she?"
"I wasn't!" Eler raised her little fist and denied it earnestly. "I wouldn't bully them! They can't even understand the simple theory of characteristics you just explained..."
"Sure sounds like you understand it..." Rimuru said with a laugh, tapping her on the head.
"I do understand it..." Eler froze at his words. With a loud, unhappy cry, she jumped out of Rimuru's arms and looked at him reproachfully. "Teacher really does think I'm stupid, waah!"
"..." Seeing the little girl's dejected expression, Rimuru froze. "You understand it?"
"She does." Liddell watched the two of them interact with a smile and spoke softly. "Eler has a very high concentration of Witch blood and a great talent for magecraft. And all the content in the Department of General Fundamentals is child's play for her."
"Child's play...?" Rimuru blinked, a little dazed. If the Clock Tower was a university, the five years of education in the Department of General Fundamentals were more like a foundational curriculum designed specifically for people who had just become mages. It covered all the knowledge and elements from first grade through high school. Some of it, like the theory of characteristics Rimuru had just discussed, was already at the level of introductory university calculus!
And you're telling me this five-year-old understands all of it?!
Is this kid a genius? She's a monster!
"Why is that so strange? Witches and Phantasmal Species inherit their techniques, so you shouldn't be surprised." Liddell chuckled. "When you first came to my house, you were only four, and you could already cast basic magecraft freely."
"Compared to you, Eler's still a little behind. So far, she only knows the simplest form of Mana Burst..."
Mana Burst isn't simple, either... Just look at the future Artoria Pendragon, who could kill gods and Buddhas with Mana Burst alone...
Rimuru grumbled inwardly. He lifted Eler again as her legs kicked wildly, and then a thought struck him.
"In that case... Eler... does that mean you could... attend class with the other students?"
At that, Eler, who'd been kicking her legs with a smug look on her face, froze--her little face turning to stone.
"...Eh?!"
When the classes and disciples had settled into a routine and his own abilities were steadily developing, Rimuru found himself unable to properly study his predation ability in public. He could only submit an application to leave and turn his attention to his... assets.
It couldn't be helped. As the last heir of the Tempest Family, Rimuru couldn't just take Liddell's money and live off her for the rest of his life...
So, after thinking it over, he decided to return to his family home in Edinburgh and sell off some of the family's remaining assets. Then... perhaps he couldn't earn patent fees in magecraft on the same scale as the major families, but he believed that, in the future world of capital, even Liddell's Achelotte would have to bow before his financial empire!
At the same time, he hoped he could use this to test his own strength and gain a better understanding of the truth of this world--
The Nasuverse was a world of many parallel worlds. Rimuru had been raised on scientific education in his previous life, learning that there was a universe outside Earth, and... well, a good kid didn't know what lay beyond the universe. He couldn't understand how worlds were structured.
That meant the path home would be especially difficult.
Putting aside so-called scientific truths and combining what Rimuru had learned about various settings in his spare time in his previous life, the rules of every world were different. And so, each world had developed its own science, magic, or a worldview that mixed the two. From a macroscopic perspective... the universe was naturally a product contained within a world. So here was the problem: if Rimuru really crossed a world barrier and reached another universe, how could he find Earth in an "infinite" universe? How could he quickly confirm that this was his home universe?
These were all problems even the Great Sage couldn't solve for now. It had simply told him...
"If you reach the level of a god by then, I believe you'll be able to learn everything you need to know about that universe through All of Creation the moment you enter it."
That left Rimuru feeling helpless. If becoming a god were that easy, why would he need you?!!
But despite saying that, Rimuru still obediently followed the Great Sage's advice and planned to find a few Dead Apostles to dissect and study.
Half a month later, Rimuru held the little card issued by the Department of Law confirming his appointment as a Sealing Designation Enforcer. He turned it over with interest, opened the car door, and climbed into a silver car. It was a gift from Liddell for becoming a full professor--
But just as he'd gotten the engine started and was about to drive, an arm slowly rose from the back seat, holding a silver handgun.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you." Rimuru's hand paused. With a faint smile, he shifted into reverse and said, "You won't be able to kill me, just like last time. And if you provoke the Clock Tower again, the Lords might all take action... In that case, even I won't be able to protect you."
"Emiya Kiritsugu."
Rimuru looked in the rearview mirror. His golden eyes met the man's deep, lifeless gaze.
With the Great Sage constantly scanning the area around him with its mana detection, nothing could escape Rimuru's senses. So he'd already noticed the man before getting into the car.
"..." The other man fell silent and simply kept his finger on the trigger.
"Why are you so fixated on me?" Rimuru said with a slight smile, then pressed hard on the gas pedal. Honestly, everything about the car was great, except... Rimuru was too short to drive it comfortably. Since he didn't want Emiya Kiritsugu to discover anything unusual about him or how fluid his body could be, he hadn't partially transformed himself into liquid to stretch his body.
"There are plenty of people in this world who still need you to save them, aren't there? Is putting yourself in danger just to kill me really like you?"
Before you continue