780
After hearing this, Klein looked at the Outer Deity before him again and felt as though he had eaten one of Frank's poisonous mushrooms.
He really wanted to wash his face with cold water to clear his head and spirituality, but all around him was briny seawater filled with mud and sand.
"...Why don't you go yourself?"
Klein wanted to be as serious and vigilant as he had been earlier, but inexplicably, he felt as though his emotions were slipping out of his control. He could not feel vigilant; he even felt relaxed-he suspected this was also the Outer Deity's influence, the power of some unknown pathway.
The Outer Deity before him spread his hands.
"This is an assessment I set for him. To put it more simply... in terms you can understand, it's the written entrance examination for his doctorate. If he can't complete this project, he doesn't count as my student yet."
"The whole reason I train them is to watch them face a fatal crisis ordained by fate at some point in their future."
"Whether they succeed or fail and die, either outcome is an answer that satisfies me."
Klein wanted to make a sarcastic remark, but found himself at a loss for words.
Making your students do projects, then having them die if they do poorly-it's not so much strange as a sign that your doctoral students must have suffered eight lifetimes of rotten luck to end up with you. But if their doctoral supervisor is an Outer Deity, it doesn't seem strange anymore.
Klein increasingly felt that Great Old Ones were a form of life he simply could not fathom. Just as that "Hidden Sage, Demon of Knowledge" had said that one day a Great Old One had become him, and the Seven Lights