Chapter 11

Chapter 11: Opening a Course (3)

22/40.

That was the enrollment in my course after the additional registration period.

"Yay! We're not getting cancelled now, right?"

Lee Yeeun, having protected her TA position, was visibly thrilled. This girl, worrying about me and all.

The effect of switching to absolute evaluation was immediate. Getting 22 people to sign up for a course like this was impressive. Then again, 2 of them were people I'd strong-armed into it, so the number who'd walked in voluntarily was 20.

"Assuming the students don't switch out after orientation."

"Oh, come on. No matter how weird the orientation is, surely more than 13 won't drop out? You worry too much."

I started jotting down the specific course details on the whiteboard in front of me, and Lee Yeeun eyed them closely.

Each practicum would be graded in parties of 5 or 6. Clear within 20 minutes: A+. Every 3 minutes beyond 20: A, B+, B... down to D. Fail to clear: F. For 6-person parties, A+ threshold was 18 minutes; all other criteria the same.

"20 minutes? Professor, do you have specific dungeons in mind?"

"Starting from the first: the Pale Monkey Forest, Slime Burrow, Queen Spider Nest, Giant Crab Wasp, and finally, Werewolf Range. How's that?"

A perfect plan, if I do say so myself.

I'd handpicked dungeons rated Hard or above among the beginner-tier dungeons in the game. The last one—clearing Werewolf Range with a 5-person party in 20 minutes—was no easy feat even for seasoned veterans.

On the flip side, all these dungeons were well-known in this world too, with data readily available from the Hero Association database. Getting dungeon data would be simple, so researching proper strategies in advance shouldn't be difficult either.

If anyone seriously followed my course, they'd become the kind of talent every guild wanted.

I looked at Lee Yeeun, silently begging for praise. But why was she looking at me like that?

"Ha, haha... there it is. The course where more than 13 people will definitely drop after orientation."

Lee Yeeun grabbed the whiteboard eraser and scrubbed the board clean. I worked hard on that......

"What are you doing?"

"Do I even need to explain? How does clearing Werewolf Range in under 20 minutes make any sense?!"

Why not? I did it every time in the game.

When I looked at her with a "what's the problem" face, Lee Yeeun let out a shriek.

"Your sense of scale is broken! Even if you assembled an all-star team of this semester's graduates, they couldn't clear it in 20 minutes!"

"Well, none of you have ever learned dungeon raiding from me."

"No! Please, Professor, reconsider!"

Apparently, I'd been overestimating Lee Yeeun. She was a researcher, not a combatant—and not a playable character, at that.

"Miss Yeeun, how about a bet?"

"A bet?"

"Ask the students directly. What they think of my course's evaluation criteria. Loser buys lunch."

At that, Lee Yeeun laughed heartily. The laugh of someone certain of victory.

"You're on. I'm eating something expensive today."

Obviously, that wasn't going to happen.

My goal wasn't to teach nobodies.

If the party meant to clear the main story couldn't handle even this much, we had a problem. Surely An Seri would confidently declare that it was easy.

...There was a time I actually thought that.

***

"I don't think we were meant to be. I'll pass on 'that item.'"

An Seri had come to the faculty office at my summons.

The moment she heard my course's evaluation criteria, she laid into me with scathing criticism without a moment's hesitation.

This wasn't how it was supposed to go.

"Did I misjudge you, Miss Seri? Backing down over something this trivial."

I'd calculated that the prideful An Seri would bristle at my words. But instead of getting angry, her face betrayed panic.

"I... I didn't expect you thought that highly of me, Professor. But still, this isn't right. How could anyone take a class like that?"

Her voice was as resolute as a judge passing sentence.

I couldn't understand it. In my gameplay experience, early-game An Seri would've crushed these dungeons in 7 minutes. Werewolf Range took almost 9, but still.

Was it the lack of real combat experience? She might not have found her footing yet.

"Don't worry. I'll provide thorough guidance."

"Argh— did you forget what I said before? Stop thinking from your standards and think from the students' perspective. If you say that during orientation, everyone's going to drop the course."

"See? I told you everyone thinks the same way."

Lee Yeeun puffed up triumphantly, as if to say I told you so.

I didn't want to agree, but I had no rebuttal.

The girl who'd come with An Seri whispered behind her hand.

"Is that hard?"

"Hard would be putting it mildly. If you gathered five Park Seohus, they could barely manage it."

"Eeeek!"

Seo Dayun.

The girl I'd asked An Seri to bring to the course.

Pretty brown bob-length hair and large eyes. If An Seri was a glamorous flower like a rose, Seo Dayun was a humble flower like a dandelion. And yet, standing next to An Seri, her presence wasn't overshadowed.

If Lee Yeeun was a genius of magical theory, Seo Dayun was the ultimate weapon of combat magic. Every playable character was an overflowing talent, but among them, Seo Dayun was the most special.

However, due to her brutally difficult early game, without player intervention, she was guaranteed to die. Keeping Seo Dayun close and getting her to the late game was an absolute necessity.

"Th-then maybe I should reconsider taking the course too......"

"Hold on!"

Lee Yeeun blocked the two from leaving. Her reaction was more desperate than mine, the professor.

"Can you please think about dropping a little longer? Once the class actually starts, I'm sure he'll change the criteria to something more realistic."

"What are you talking about? Why would I......"

The moment I met Lee Yeeun's eyes, my mouth clamped shut on its own. Her gaze alone could kill a man. I was genuinely scared.

An Seri and Seo Dayun exchanged glances and nodded. An Seri spoke for both of them.

"Well, as long as the class is conducted reasonably, we don't mind."

"Really? Thank you!"

Having to beg students to take my course was a strange feeling for a professor. What kind of K-university was this? Oh right, this was another world. Being another world, the university was weird too.

Anyway, "reasonable class," she says. Wasn't this reasonable enough?

I couldn't understand why they were making such a fuss.

I didn't agree, but right now I was in no position to argue. No choice.

"Miss Seri, Miss Dayun. Thank you for cooperating. I'll revise it in a direction you'll find satisfactory."

"Then I'll really see you in class this time."

"G-goodbye......"

The two said their farewells and left.

It was unexpected that Seo Dayun had come along. I'd only called for An Seri. It seemed clear from context that An Seri had brought her, but had they already gotten close enough to exchange contact info?

Seo Dayun lacked social skills, and An Seri didn't spare a glance for anyone she couldn't use. I'd assumed they'd never become friends, but I was wrong.

Not that their friendship was bad for me. If anything, it was fortunate they were getting along.

"Then shall we start preparing too?"

"Preparing for what?"

"We need to find out what a 'reasonable class' looks like."

***

The first dungeon for my course: the Pale Monkey Forest.

To be precise, it wasn't "Pale Monkey" "Forest." It was "Pale" "Monkey Forest." The name came from the color of the leaves being pale—that is, sky-blue. If that was the case, they should've just called it Sky-Blue Monkey Forest.

"Professor, should we start from here?"

"Yes, I'm counting on you today."

"Yes! I'll show you my best."

What I'd ultimately come up with was to personally take students into the dungeon and time how long it took.

They were all 3rd and 4th-year students. I'd assembled a party exclusively from students ranked in the top 10 of their entire year. By dangling the community service hours they needed for graduation, I'd gathered a solid group. Lee Yeeun's help was instrumental in that.

"Hi, Yeeun-sunbae."

"It's not sunbae anymore—it's Assistant Yeeun. Call me Assistant Yeeun."

"What, that doesn't suit you at all."

"Is this the mouth that's running?"

"Ow ow! That hurts!"

Lee Yeeun had insisted that there was no way freshmen taking my course could outperform these upperclassmen.

Of course, this year's freshmen had the narrative setup of being the best in Florian's history, so that wasn't quite accurate—but I couldn't dismiss upperclassmen who'd spent years at the academy. I'd just set their record as the A+ benchmark.

"Let's wrap this up quick and go eat."

"Okay!"

The confidence befitting top students.

The dungeon's welcome committee was aggressive from the start. The resident monsters—two-tailed monkeys—weren't individually powerful. But their numbers made them tricky to deal with.

"Haaah!"

While the warrior drew aggro at the front, the mage prepared a spell from the rear. Area-of-effect magic was an excellent tool against multiple enemies. But the matchup was bad.

─Screeeech!

The monkeys, having spotted the spell, scattered in a flash. The mage panicked.

"Wh-what?"

Unable to tell where to aim anymore, the spell was fired at the densest cluster of monkeys. It caught a few, but the return was poor for the spell's cost.

The student in the center began calling shots.

"Calm down! They're fast on their feet, but they're nothing special. Just pick them off one by one! No rush!"

There's a saying: seeing one thing tells you ten.

I didn't need to see any more. I'd already gotten a rough estimate. This party's level, how many minutes the clear would take, and so on.

To get straight to the conclusion: I'd been operating under a monumental delusion.

My clear times from playing Florian Rhapsody? Those were records built after grinding myself half to death until the experience piled up. What were my times on my first playthrough?

I must have died roughly a hundred times before seeing my first ending. That made me someone who'd been reborn a hundred times. But these kids only had one life.

That's right.

Right now, these kids were no different from me on my first playthrough—a complete newbie picking up the game for the first time.

"Professor! All done!"

"31 minutes 13 seconds! Aren't we pretty fast?"

Fast, my ass. You newbie bastards. At that rate, you'd all be dead before the mid-game storyline even started.

"How was it, Professor? They're pretty good, right? And still, by your standards, they'd only get a C+. Something's clearly wrong, isn't it?"

"Yeah. Something's fucking wrong alright."

It wasn't that these kids were especially bad.

It was fair to assume the freshmen—the playable characters—were newbies too. The fact that I had to raise such newbies to save the world was wrong no matter how you looked at it.

Oblivious to how I felt, Lee Yeeun and the party members were celebrating how well they'd done. Watching them made me want to explode. Maybe my entire plan was rotten from the root.

Today, more than any other day, I wanted a drink. A strong one.