The Returning Lecturer

Paul sat with his good friend Nero in the second-to-last row of the classroom.

That was the unspoken ranking of the apprentices by strength.

Nero was beside him, muttering again, "I hope I'll be the lucky one chosen today." Paul didn't hear a word.

He knew that Thor wasn't an uncommon name, but it wasn't unique, either.

But the first time he'd heard the name, for some reason he'd thought of the passenger Thor from the airship—the one he'd interrogated, who had remained perfectly calm.

Yet at the time, Thor had clearly been an ordinary person. Even the airship's detection equipment hadn't found anything unusual about him.

Could this new lecturer really be the same person as the passenger who had left such a deep impression on Paul?

Just as Paul was wrestling with the question, the corridor suddenly fell silent.

"The mentor's here!"

The tiered classroom went quiet at once.

Everyone's eyes lit up.

But when the door opened and they saw the mentor who entered, they all stared wide-eyed, looking utterly confused.

"What are you staring at? Disappointed it isn't Wizard Thor?"

The person who had walked in was the class's original mentor.

His face was grim as his gaze swept across the room. He seemed to be in a very bad mood, and anyone he caught acting up right now would get a thorough thrashing.

The apprentices quickly wiped the disappointment and surprise from their faces and sat up straight.

But not all the apprentices were afraid of their mentor.

An apprentice in the back row frowned in obvious disappointment. "Can't Mentor Thor come today?"

The Wizard at the lectern twitched at the corner of his mouth. "He's already been recruited by the Academy of Knowledge. You can stop hoping for him to—"

"Knock, knock, knock!"

A