"This school's curriculum was still far too packed."
"The students had all lost their smiles."
"I had to reform their curriculum."
Dekan hurried between rows of magical equipment, carrying a toolbox filled with all kinds of tools commonly used in Magic Engineering.
Though the tools were distinctly Demon Realm in design, they were mostly functional.
He had borrowed them from the classrooms Baron Batchelor had attacked earlier.
Cornelia followed him, helping carry heavy things from time to time.
The two of them were in the school's broadcasting room, piling the demons' bodies off to one side as they carefully "repaired" the equipment.
Of course, they hadn't killed these demons.
They were the ones Baron Batchelor had slaughtered earlier while he was berserk.
If it had been the two of them, they certainly wouldn't have let the demons die so easily. They would have made the most of the demons' remaining value.
The rooms Dekan had lured Baron Batchelor into destroying hadn't been chosen at random.
He'd targeted the Demon Workshop first, followed by the broadcasting room.
After Batchel had wrecked those two rooms, Dekan had him destroy a third, less important classroom nearby.
Once Baron Batchelor had fulfilled his purpose, Dekan and Cornelia had immediately ransacked all three rooms.
Then they brought all the materials and tools they needed to the broadcasting room.
There was enough to make the modifications Dekan wanted.
Without a doubt, the biggest obstacle to their happy school life was the dean patrolling the corridors.
When they'd encountered The Dean earlier, Cornelia had been certain she was no match for him and had no chance of resisting.
Based on their estimates, teachers like Baron Batchelor were probably fifth-tier, while elite staff like The Dean might be sixth-tier.
It would be quite difficult for Dekan and Cornelia to take The Dean out.
But they had no need to challenge him in the first place.
After all, he didn't have anything valuable they could steal.
He didn't even give them exploration progress!
He was a completely useless elite monster!
But The Dean had one weakness—
He could only attack students during class! The moment the dismissal bell rang, he would stop chasing them, no matter what.
So as long as Dekan took control of the broadcasting room and could play the class announcement music whenever he wanted,
The Dean would no longer be a threat to them.
"Cornelia, could you unlock this for me?"
Dekan seemed to have run into a small problem.
He stepped aside and motioned for her to open the small cabinet in front of them.
"Sure."
Cornelia hurried over to the cabinet and grabbed the lock.
Then she wrenched it open, accompanied by the sound of snapping metal.
"No matter how many times I watch you pick a lock, I still think it's awesome."
Dekan finally couldn't resist commenting.
"Right?"
Cornelia agreed.
After all, it was one of her signature skills.
She was much better at it than those scouts.
"But we still have to be careful. Otherwise, the Royal Capital's constables will keep an eye on us when we get back."
Dekan said.
He was glad Cornelia was his teammate.
Making enemies with someone who could unlock things in an instant was genuinely terrifying.
He probably wouldn't be able to sleep peacefully at night anymore.
It took Engineer Dekan and his little assistant Cornelia an hour and a half to finish modifying the broadcasting room.
Now they were sitting leisurely at the control console, a pile of demon corpses behind them.
They looked just like a pair of bandits who had seized control of a command center.
They could control when the class and dismissal music played, change the music itself, or broadcast announcements to the whole school.
The main reason the work had taken so long was that Dekan had made a magic ring that could be carried around and used to control the broadcasting room remotely.
Even after leaving the room, they could make the class or dismissal bell ring whenever they needed.
After all, if they simply turned off the class bell, there would be far too many Demon Students in the corridors, and that would be a nuisance.
And if the principal returned to school, he would notice something was wrong and come to inspect the equipment.
So unless they ran into The Dean, Dekan would try not to alter the class schedule too much.
"Come to think of it, doesn't my clearance now match the principal's?"
Dekan said to himself.
"I feel like you're the acting principal now."
Cornelia nodded in agreement.
"This school's looking more and more promising. I can't wait to go swimming in the principal's office."
Dekan had been getting a little tired after working in the broadcasting room all morning, but the thought of that perked him right up.
"Then we'll go back to the Cooking Classroom first and grab some iced drinks and snacks."
Cornelia was looking forward to it too.
"I hope the principal's office has beach loungers. If not, we can look for regular ones in the other classrooms."
"Sounds good. By the way, where are we going to get swimsuits?"
"That's easy. We'll just alter our uniforms. I'll turn your uniform top into a crop top, mine into a beach shirt, and cut our long pants into shorts. That way, we won't have to change back and forth."
Dekan picked up a pair of scissors borrowed from the Demon Workshop and waved them around.
Their Demon Academy uniforms had been provided by the Shadow World anyway, so it didn't matter how much they altered them.
"You're a genius!"
Cornelia had realized that Dekan was a true prodigy of the Alchemy Academy.
He was good at modifying magical devices, repairing equipment, and sewing.
Cornelia even suspected that Dekan knew how to make Magic Cards.
She'd never seen him make one, and she'd never asked him about it.
But she could tell from the effects of those Underworld cards that their creator had to be a very Dekan sort of person.
Which meant there was a good chance it was Dekan himself.
"..."
Dekan seemed to sense that Cornelia was thinking something less than polite about him.
But he didn't say anything, because he was kind-hearted.
He cleared his throat twice and said, "Let's clear a few more rooms, then get ready for our pool party..."
As soon as he finished speaking, Dekan furrowed his brows.
"What's wrong?"
Cornelia asked.
"One of the other challengers has been exposed."
Dekan had been checking their mission progress when he noticed that Objective 3 had changed.
[Objective 3: No more than 3 infiltrators identified as human. Currently, 5/6 remain undiscovered.]
"This is a bit of a headache. We're one teammate down, so we've got even more work to do."
Dekan rubbed his temples.
He'd only wanted to enjoy a pool party in the principal's office.
That was all.
He hadn't expected this Shadow World to make him work overtime for his teammates, too.
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