Professor Weird’s teaching assistants and graduates from her research lab had bad luck in many ways.

“Did you hear that the first-year Oknodie ate stones?”

“Haha. What a peculiar kid.”

Oknodie, a new student from class 981. Eating magic stones raised their stats. This shocking fact reached Professor Weird.

“Didn’t eating granite improve your fire resistance?”

“Professor, that’s not how it works! A person doesn’t eat stones to become a stone golem!”

“Ordinary people wouldn’t, sure. But you’re a practitioner of Nature Magic, studying Natural Magic, right? I believe you can embody the grace and value of nature in your body.”

“No, damn it! It’s still a stone! People can’t eat stones!!”

“Well, as a backup, you could drink a fire resistance potion and then train by jumping into magma. Would you prefer to eat the stone or jump in?”

“Help me! I can’t continue this class…”

“Oh? Seems like it’s quite windy today.”

With her nonchalant remark, a fierce wind that was hard to keep one’s eyes open blew into the face of the fourth-year student.

“Graaaaauuugh!”

“What? What did you say?”

“Quitting…”

As Professor Weird tilted her head, a bolt from the blue struck and hit the fourth-year’s torso repeatedly.

Professor Weird feigned shock, extending a leaf to cover her chest, pretending to be surprised at the squirming student puffing out white steam.

“Oh dear. Are you alright? It seems today’s weather isn’t too good. Perhaps Nature is angry with such an un-nature-like statement.”

“Ugh…”

“I’ll inform the other professors that you’ve sustained an injury during class and can’t follow the regular curriculum. For now, let’s have you enter the rapid recovery capsule in the research lab. Don’t worry. I’ll help you engrave the healing magic into your granite properly and make you swallow it.”

Watching their classmate, who resisted eating stones, being put into the capsule in such a miserable state made the other students tear up, realizing their unavoidable fate.

“Why are you all crying?”

“I’m just so moved at the thought of receiving Nature’s grace in this body…”

“That’s a truly admirable mindset. It pleases me greatly that my teachings over the past four years haven’t been in vain. Now, open your mouth.”

“Ugh… Professor… this big thing won’t fit… I can’t take it… it hurts too much…”

“In that case, you can activate a compression magic to store the seeds and plants. It’s good to develop a habit of eating nature in its original form, but you need to eat according to your capabilities or your esophagus will be harmed.”

They wouldn’t be in this situation if they simply didn’t eat stones. The teaching assistants held back tears while internally cursing.

“Why on earth did Professor Weird suddenly go crazy and insist we eat stones? Sure, she told us to eat compressed mushrooms before, but this stone eating nonsense is a first.”

“Could it be that her insanity has finally seeped to the marrow, causing her to lose her human heart completely?”

“No, it’s not that… It’s because of that crazy first-year, Oknodie, who eats stones!”

The fourth-years, having discovered the source of Professor Weird’s lunacy, made a rare and enormous decision to take action against a first-year student.

“That kid has crossed the line.”

“I heard they even drink bat blood these days?”

“Mom… I don’t want to drink blood… Help me…”

“Apparently, there’s a friend named Kasia who deals with electricity. I might end up strapped to an electric chair.”

“Wait, hold on a second. Why is this kid enrolled in 13 different classes?”

“What if the professor sees the first-year and intimidates us to take more classes based on their example?”

“Alright, before the next semester starts, let’s take care of this Oknodie.”

In the second semester of the year 981, they had already started planning and executing the assassination of Oknodie.

“The chances for a fourth-year to approach a first-year are few. We must avoid the watchful eyes of the instructors as well as the dorm supervisor, who has professor-level skills.”

“In that case, leave it to me. I heard the dorm supervisor is named Elizaveta and went mad after her pet stone, named Elizaveta, went missing. If I spread false information that Elizaveta has been found, she’ll drop everything and disappear somewhere.”

One of the fourth-years, trained to deal with numerous royals and nobles in the Administration Department, skillfully executed an information operation and sent the dorm supervisor away to the distance.

“Hey, dorm supervisor! Where are you going leaving the kids behind? You should be at the dorm!”

“I received information that Elizaveta was eaten by a stone golem on Rocky Mountain. I have to save my baby!!”

“What the hell, a kid got eaten?”

“Crazy.”

“I don’t know what it is, but this is no ordinary situation. We need to go help the dorm supervisor quickly. Request support!”

The experienced instructors, who knew that Elizaveta was just a pet stone and had no interest in their unprofitable security duties, were deep into a game of poker in the lounge.

“Hey, did you hear what the new instructors said?”

“They mentioned the kids were stuck in an adhesive spell while secretly escaping from the dorm, and they might request rescue?”

“They’re saying a kid got taken by a golem and they’re rushing to rescue it. It’s a total emergency!”

“Crazy! Rocky Mountain is off-limits to first-years, how did they get in?!”

The new instructors’ blunder of expressing a “kid” instead of “stone” led to misunderstandings among the senior instructors, and thus, even the senior instructors dashed out of the dorm collectively to provide support for the stone rescue mission.

This couldn’t have been more fortunate for the fourth-years belonging to Professor Weird’s research lab.

[Mind Link]

[Stop. There’s a shadow stirring ahead.]

[Is it the secret guard protecting the dorm?]

[The professor who manipulates shadows… It’s not Professor Bronze.]

[It’s not Professor Shorns’ curse either.]

[It’s just ordinary stealth. Moreover, that silhouette bears a crescent bow. They are [Elven Assassins].]

Heaven was also on their side. Taking advantage of the void they created, random Elven Assassins rushed towards the dorm building.

Their target was none other than Oknodie’s dorm room.

If those Elven Assassins were to successfully assassinate Oknodie, they wouldn’t have to lift a finger—just blowing their noses would suffice.

Even if they failed, perhaps they could finish the job while Oknodie is exhausted.

As the fourth-years held their breath in calculated judgment, the Elven Assassins disarmed the alarm spell on the window and used daggers to cut through the glass.

[Conditional Spell Activation]

[Slow]

[Sensory Deprivation]

[Petrification’s Curse]

[Shield]

[Inescapable]

[Force Seal]

[A curse that returns all curses to the caster within 60 seconds if the intruder performs a solution spell; if not, the curse will be amplified tenfold.]

“…!!”

The Elven Assassins were suddenly struck with a barrage of status effects, frantically trying to break the shield or hurry to cast spells, but none succeeded and they all turned to stone from running out of time.

[Auto Item Collecting Backpack]

[Automatic Collecting Hand]

A hand reached in from the shattered window, attempting to sweep the statues inside the shield into the backpack, but upon identifying them as [Living Beings], it could not collect them, so it pulled out a hammer from the backpack to shatter the statues into pieces for collection.

The hand showed such meticulousness by regenerating the window and gently closing it.

Observing the tidied event scene, leaving not a single trace of the intruders, they realized.

[How can a first-year pull this off…?]

[This looks like a magician’s workshop. Someone’s definitely going to have a bad day.]

For an assassination aimed at a first-year, the level of defense was overwhelmingly burdensome, forcing them to hold back tears and retreat once again.

[Wait. I’ve already mapped the internal structure with the clairvoyance spell. Oknodie is alone, sleeping in bed. We just need to let in the Dreamflower.]

[…Stop it. You’ve already died once, so think carefully about my words.]

[On what basis?]

[According to prior investigations, there’s a Mandragora called ‘Goo’ in his room. You didn’t detect it. Your clairvoyance shows only the illusions Oknodie presented.]

[…]

The room full of countless traps set by Oknodie! In the end, they were completely disheartened about assassinating Oknodie.

Even this was a stroke of luck for them.

“Did you enjoy your night out?”

Back at the research lab. Professor Weird, standing in the dark lab, greeted them with a wide smile.

“Huh! Normally, the professor wouldn’t be in the lab and would be out somewhere having fun while leaving the assistants locked up in here! And this is under the [Curse that Prevents Lying]!!”

“Indeed. So, shall we ask the lying-free assistants where they’ve just been?”

“We tried to measure Oknodie’s assassination angle, but it looked too tough, so we ran away!!”

“I see. It’s a clever strategy for the prey to preemptively eliminate the young predator in nature.”

Professor Weird nodded, affirming the justification of their actions.

“A-are you forgiving us? For recognizing the inevitable reasons we had to do this to survive…?”

“What? There’s no way I could do that. The only reason you’re currently alive is that if the research subject changes, it adds to the hassle of completing and submitting the thesis.”

“…”

“Of course, if anything were to happen to Oknodie or, God forbid, if he dies, then we would have to create a new cemetery.”

“……”

“Just remember one thing. If Oknodie gets hurt, you’ll also get hurt; if Oknodie dies, you’ll die. You must never forget that you are the research subjects experiencing everything Oknodie goes through.”

A longstanding memory surged back along with one of the burned thesis pages from the destructive ray. The teaching assistants quickly understood the reason.

“The smell that wafted from where that destructive ray passed just now…”

“It’s definitely the scent of the tracing fragrance engraved in Oknodie’s [Backpack Backpack].”

“Oknodie’s heartbeat is over 150 and the watch on his wrist is ringing.”

“The random food menu that Oknodie summons if he doesn’t eat for over 12 hours is also flashing on the spinning button!”

“Is Oknodie inside? Is he starving for more than 12 hours while his heartbeat is in chaos?”

Oknodie was in a crisis.

“If one original thesis page got burnt, do you think Professor Weird would forgive us?”

“No way. Not without some solid credit.”

With the thesis burning, they were also placed in danger.

The only way for them to survive due to the burnt thesis was one.

“Maybe if we claimed that we couldn’t protect the thesis because we were rescuing Oknodie, Professor Weird would forgive us?”

“Exactly that method!”

“We can’t just sit back and wait outside. We need to get in there and rescue Oknodie immediately…!”

The teaching assistants sowed bomb seeds in Magical Territory Area 2, causing them to explode upon growth and rushed in through the gaping hole. It was a simultaneous shocking appearance that startled both the graduated students using them and the fleeing Oknodie.

For Don Nemuoja, it was a long-awaited chance to escape through that very gaping hole.

“Wait, but what if Professor Weird becomes suspicious that we saved Oknodie without any danger?”

“…We have to create some danger!”

“Let’s make use of that guy.”

Don Nemuoja realized, from the greedy gazes of the teaching assistants who looked at him as a treasure, that they had no fear of him at all. How absurd it was for assistant teacher subordinates to seek to pull down someone who surpasses even the continent’s top ten thieves and warriors.

“Are you out of your mind? Even if you all teamed up, you wouldn’t reach even a quarter of my combat power. What gives you the courage to talk like that?”

“If one page of the thesis burned, we wouldn’t care if everything else burned as well.”

As the seeds sown by the assistants reached the Golden Colossus, it began to grow vigorously.

The freshly created Golden Realm closed up again as the depleted energy of the destructive ray was recharged as well.

“What the hell?!”

Startled, Don Nemuoja suddenly felt an unidentifiable power surging through his body.

The cause lay in [Divine Herb], which had rooted itself in his shoulder, supplying him with strength.

“Fight to a scale even the professor would recognize!”

“You’re now a monster on the level of the Demon King’s Four Kings!”

“Get stronger and charge ahead!”

“Shut up! Why would I let myself be used like that… ugh?!”

“If you don’t exert your power, I’ll infinitely supply energy until your body bursts and explodes!”

Don Nemuoja found himself in a situation where his [Devouring Armor] was unrestrainedly absorbing the power handed off by the assistants, and now he felt he could explode entirely if he didn’t pour out that excess power.

In the same predicament was the Golden Colossus, leading to an unavoidable clash between the Golden Colossus developed by the assistants and the Don Nemuoja they managed to empower.