The Principle of a Philosopher by Eternal Fool “Asley”

>

“Hmm, it’s finally time to wrap up.
Is there anything else you need?”

“I’ve got six more Ogres to go.”

“What? Are Ogre hunts the only requests you’ve taken?”

“Lately, there’s been a lot of them around here… and I came across some Ogre Fighters the other day, too.”

“Isn’t that a B-ranked… did you defeat them?”

“Of course I did.
Anyway, Ogre Archetypes do act in groups in some rare cases, so I suppose we should keep our guards up.”

“…Wait.
Was there any literature published on that subject?”

Oh crap.
I forgot I haven’t made my Ogre Archetype Deconstruction Textbook public to the world yet.

“Er — I haven’t announced it yet.”

“You researched it yourself? Even if it’s focused on one Archetype, wouldn’t you need at least a few months to a year to gather more concrete information?”

“That’s why I still don’t have everything down yet.
In this case, I’ve only seen it a handful of times.”

“Hmm… Anyway, isn’t it about time you got your results? You said you might be promoted to Rank B, didn’t you?”

“I think it’ll be announced later tonight.”

What she referred to was the Rank-up Evaluation.

Up to Rank C, it was generally decided by the number of requests one has fulfilled, but several other factors were evaluated for promotion to Rank B and above.

I had cleared the qualifying number of requests yesterday and had reported to Duncan.
With that, my record had been put under evaluation, the process of which should be done by now or later tonight.

C-ranked adventures were considered veterans, B-ranks were the top class, and A was… the top of the top.
With that level of prestige on my profile, I would be authorized to investigate newly-discovered dungeons and accept requests of that sort too.

“If you were Rank B, you could accept requests from the Nation or the University and reap greater benefits from them too.
Some jobs even pay ten-thousand Gold as the base reward.”

“That’s exactly why I’m aiming to be promoted.
It things go well, I won’t have to abuse my physical body as much.”

“Now you have to deal with this, the Student Council and your regular classes… That’s quite a heavy workload.”

“Well, I reckon I can graduate just fine, so I don’t foresee the University being much of an issue.

“Right, no wonder people are out for your head.”

Things sure have changed from the old days.
At the Magic University now, one only had to attend a reasonable amount of lectures and receive the required credits to advance to the next school year and eventually graduate.
Perhaps at some point, students who failed the eight exams numbered too many, resulting the previous system to be amended.
If only I’d been born in this day and age, maybe I would… Well, no, then I wouldn’t have met Pochi, Lina, and Baladd.

Reid, Ryan, and the townsfolk too…

Ever since I had left town, I had contacted Ryan a few times.
Since Ryan didn’t use magic nor magecraft, it could only be done through my Telepathic Communication.
We had decided on a schedule of once every two weeks.

And of course, he had been greatly pleased to hear of Lina’s admission to the University.

We had also discussed how the rest of the world didn’t seem to acknowledge Faltown’s existence.
We still had no idea why and how, but I had proposed that the sooner we figure it out, the better.

With that in mind, getting myself into the Student Council might not be all doom and gloom.

Besides, we may very well find some leads on our ultimate goals, the Familiar Chalice and the Devil King’s C.h.e.s.tpocket.

Not long after we had left town for the Magic University, we had obtained some information regarding the Familiar’s Chalice.

Apparently, it was a festival held every few years at Regalia, the Royal Capital.
Requirements for participation were that the master must be an adventurer at Rank A or higher, the Familiar must be Level 80 or higher and an entrance fee of 100,000 Gold must be paid.
Achieving those criteria was only a matter of time for us, so there should be no issue.

On the other hand, we’ve found absolutely nothing regarding the Devil King’s C.h.e.s.tpocket so far.
I had even asked Irene and Trace, but the most they knew was just the name.

Perhaps there had been an information blockade.

It didn’t seem like Irene was lying, either.
This meant the information was most likely unknown even to the Six Archmages… The Nation may have had a hand in this matter, after all.

Of course, this didn’t rule out the possibility of Irene telling lies to me, the latter hypothesis was more proper one to come up with, so to speak.

Furthermore, what concerned me above all else was the Devil King’s resurrection.
The Divine Messenger… He had told me to devote myself to my studies, but I held a fair bit of doubt whether or not I’m on the right track.
Besides, since He had given me instructions, wouldn’t that mean that I had to do something about the Devil King, too?

I had heard a long time ago that there may some close connections between the Devil King’s C.h.e.s.tpocket and the Devil King himself.
But with how things are right now, I suppose there’s nothing I can do but deal with my duties at hand.

“Now, let’s hurry and take down the Ogres!”

“Bah… so busy…”

I heaved a deep… and by that, I mean bottomless deep, sigh.

Index