Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Possession (2)

"We will now begin the inauguration ceremony for Florian Academy professors. First, we will observe the national salute. Please rise from your seats and face the flag."

"To the national flag......"

"......"

Inside the spacious auditorium, hundreds of people in suits had gathered.

Unremarkable-looking elderly men, a woman with a striking appearance, a hulking muscular man—at a glance, they seemed to have nothing in common.

No.

That's how it would look to ordinary people.

But what if you weren't ordinary—what if you were an Awakened?

You'd be terrified the moment you set foot in this place.

Awakened who had reached a certain level unconsciously radiated mana from their bodies.

Everyone gathered here was a professor affiliated with Florian Academy. The vast majority were proven powerhouses.

Having even one such person in front of you would make your body tense on its own—so what about hundreds?

As a result, the air inside the auditorium felt so heavy I could barely breathe.

"Will the newly appointed professors please come up to the stage in order."

The moment the emcee finished speaking, the people seated in my row stood up. I took the cue and rose with them, following behind.

"That good-looking one, isn't he pretty young?"

"Early twenties? Even being generous, he looks mid-twenties—and he's already a professor? Can't be someone who came up through field experience."

"Ho ho, a professor in their twenties at Florian of all places... Seems like a capable fellow, no?"

Could you please say that stuff where the person in question can't hear you?

It was praise about me, sure, but I hadn't achieved a single thing myself. At best, I'd customized a character?

The excessive expectations felt like they were crushing my shoulders.

"Those whose names are called shall step forward."

The one who spoke was a small girl.

Her height barely cleared 140 centimeters, and her long pink hair reached all the way to her feet. Her snow-white eyes held something mystical about them, and the plain-colored dress she wore gave off not a dull impression, but an antique one.

Her casual, commanding tone was unthinkable coming from a little girl, yet the people receiving it took it as perfectly natural.

Ryu Jeonga, Chancellor of Florian Academy.

Her true identity was a witch who had lived for 150 years.

The chancellor handed out appointment letters one by one, each accompanied by a brief word of encouragement.

My name was called last.

"Cha Eunwoo."

No matter how many times I heard it, the name was embarrassing.

Cha Eunwoo. My name was Cha Eunwoo.......

My face burned, but I barely managed a poker face and walked up to the chancellor.

"Here."

Standing before her, I understood for certain.

The others had been impressive, but this person was on a different dimension entirely.

The pressure radiating from her body made it impossible to keep my head straight. It made sense that she wasn't just any character—she was consistently ranked among the strongest in the setting all the way through the endgame.

"Youth is a fine thing. Child, I look forward to what you will achieve."

Getting told this by a kid two heads shorter than me stirred an odd feeling.

"I'll work diligently to improve."

"Good. Build as fine a life as you can. Life is short, and it passes in a blink."

Coming from a witch who'd lived 150 years, those words carried real weight.

I received my appointment letter just like the others. The text inside was an utterly unremarkable boilerplate statement.

The professors who'd received their letters returned to their seats, and the remaining proceedings moved along quickly.

"This concludes all scheduled events."

The bewildering inauguration was finally over.

The professors who rose from their seats began clustering in groups of twos and threes with people they already knew. A professor who appeared to be from the same department invited me to join them.

"I'm sorry, but I really do have an urgent appointment. I'll have to excuse myself early."

Perhaps the sight of the newest professor ducking out didn't look good—I could hear murmuring behind me.

It couldn't be helped.

You needed to actually know something to make small talk. If I'd gone along, my lack of substance would've been exposed and the situation would've spiraled out of control.

Afraid someone might try to stop me, I hurried out of the auditorium.

***

A few days ago, I'd been hit by a truck.

More precisely, a truck driven by some lunatic had come plowing into the bus stop where I'd been standing.

It was the kind of thing that made your common sense pack its bags and leave, but up to that point—okay, fine. There could always be one maniac out there drunk-driving in broad daylight.

But the place I woke up after dying was inside the game Florian Rhapsody.

And I'd become the customization character I'd created—Cha Eunwoo.

This was something utterly beyond the realm of common sense.

"How the hell did things end up like this......"

Cha Eunwoo, professor at Florian Academy.

At first, I absolutely couldn't accept it, but a few days' time was enough to change a person's perception.

In the end, I had no choice but to compromise with reality and accept that I'd become Cha Eunwoo.

Inside the faculty office, I muttered while staring at the mirror.

"Handsome, I'll give it that."

If I spun the positive-thinking wheel a little, it wasn't all bad.

A handsome face, a respectable career and social standing as a professor—these were things the original me couldn't have dreamed of.

The only problem was that this world was going to end before long.

In the original game story, it was the player's job to stop the destruction, but unfortunately, this world had no player.

Wasn't I the player?

If it were moving a mouse and tapping a keyboard in front of a computer, I was confident. But picking up a sword and fighting monsters was an entirely different matter.

What good did it do to know every strategy? How was a shut-in civilian who'd spent his entire life in his room supposed to slay monsters?

On top of that, the character I'd built was a doomed build stuffed with nothing but garbage talents. I'd botched the very first step.

If I'd known it would come to this, I'd have loaded it up with all the best talents—but what was the point of regrets now?

Couldn't someone else play the hero in my place? I could tell them every strategy there was.

The moment that thought crossed my mind, an idea shot through my head like lightning.

Someone to play the hero in my place? Now that I thought about it, I had plenty.

"The playable characters! They're all students, and I'm a professor."

This could definitely work. My Cha Eunwoo was a talentless dumpster-fire build, but Florian's students were different.

Depending on how things went, those kids could die in an instant—or survive to the very end and become the player's companions.

Fortunately, I knew the best possible choices they needed to make.

And the title of professor was the perfect position to push those choices on them.

"Alright. This is it."

With that, the direction was set. I'd gather as many playable characters as I could.

Assemble the most talented characters and form a party. A Galácticos squad, or better yet, the Avengers. Just imagining it made my heart swell.

"Let's see. Who should I recruit first?"

The first name that popped into my head.

Class valedictorian, Park Seohu.

The strongest playable character in Florian Rhapsody, acknowledged by every player and even the developers. Lowest difficulty. First in overall rankings for both early-game specs and late-game potential.

Park Seohu was, quite literally, the character for beginners. Though it was still so brutally hard that most players quit anyway.

Park Seohu's Talent of the Sword Saint was the most overpowered talent in the game, and his rapid growth speed combined with 99 potential in Strength and Vitality was extraordinary.

His personality was the good-natured, justice-driven shonen protagonist type, so he'd be easy to handle too.

But there was a risk factor in taking Park Seohu as a disciple.

"What if I get involved and end up ruining the kid?"

True to form for Park Seohu, who'd been blessed with every good element in the game, the opportunities available to him were equally special.

Jo Seongung—ranked 4th in the hero rankings during his active days and the academy's finest professor—was Park Seohu's assigned advisor.

Park Seohu had been born into an ordinary family and had never received formal swordsmanship training before enrollment.

Yet he possessed enough talent to enter as valedictorian, and after studying under Jo Seongung, it was like a tiger sprouting wings.

Thanks to that, when playing any character other than Park Seohu, taking the top spot was nothing but a pipe dream.

In the early game, it was all about mechanical skill before strategy even mattered—how were you supposed to beat that monster?

I'd better give up on Park Seohu. No matter which character you played, the odds of Park Seohu surviving to the final stretch were over seventy percent.

And pulling more than his own weight was a given on top of that.

He was someone who could handle things on his own, so I'd just leave him to Jo Seongung.

Besides, someone who'd never even held a sword couldn't possibly teach better than Jo Seongung.

"The ones who'll manage fine on their own in the early game are covered. Let's see... no backing, bad grades, the type who just keels over if you leave them alone, but if you keep them alive to the late game, they pay off big time......"

I hummed to myself and jotted things down on paper one by one as they came to mind.

It reminded me of the days when I used to write walkthrough guides. Drawing on those memories, I gradually filled the blank page.

Before a few hours had passed, the paper was packed with writing.

That should be enough thinking about the kids. Now it was time to think about myself.

Playing the role of professor wasn't going to be easy.

This was South Korea's top educational institution. It wasn't a place where an unprepared amateur could fake being a professor.

Come to think of it, how did I even become a professor?

With garbage talents and every stat at 10, there was no way I'd retired from active duty as a hero.

The chancellor and Professor Jo Seongung had key stats in the high 90s, and even setting aside the freaks of nature, everyone here had been somebody during their active years. At minimum, their key stats would be in the high 80s.

If I wasn't a retired hero, then I'd most likely become a professor through published research—what they called a theory-type.

"Being a theory-type is rough."

Most students attending the academy aimed to become heroes.

Generally, theory-type professors were people who'd pivoted to research because they lacked the ability for fieldwork.

Among heroes—especially the younger ones—the belief that strength was everything ran deep.

Veteran heroes who'd seen real combat understood how important scholarly research was, but students would almost certainly look down on me for being a theory-type professor, nine times out of ten.

And if I were in their shoes, I'd have looked down on theory-type professors too.

Why would future S-rank and A-rank heroes seriously listen to someone at D-rank level at best?

In one ear, out the other—that was the natural response.

There was only one way to change that perception.

"I need to prove my worth."

What I had was information about events that were going to happen—and the solutions to deal with them.

I needed to use that to earn the students' recognition.

And if I could raise my own ability alongside that, it'd be the cherry on top.

Using the talent I'd picked: Mentor.

───────────────

▼ Mentor

: Teaching others is the best method of study. Grow alongside those you help grow.

───────────────

"Now that things have turned out this way, there's actually something to work with."

In the game, a professor's influence on students would've been limited, but in reality, it was different.

Didn't they say a good mentor could change the course of a life?

Depending on how I played it, this could become a jackpot ability—or I might not even break even.

Knock, knock.

The sound of knocking pulled me from my thoughts.

Who is it? Probably one of the fellow professors.

"Come in."

The moment I gave permission, the door opened.

The person who entered was the senior professor who'd invited me to join the group at the inauguration ceremony.

"Professor Cha, have you been well?"

"I've been so nervous I could barely sleep."

"Such modesty from Florian's youngest professor."

I was the youngest professor here? That made the pressure even worse.

"I was just lucky."

"Yes, lucky indeed. A professor with no published papers on record. If a paper isn't in the records, it was either so brilliant it became classified, or so terrible it was scrapped. Our Professor Cha is the former, I assume?"

Those were pointed words with real bite behind them.

What have you accomplished to become a professor? Aren't you a nepotism hire?—that was the underlying interrogation.

Of course, since it was true, I had nothing to refute.

Published papers, my ass. I'd become a professor purely on the back of a game's character settings. I'd never written a paper in my life.

"I suppose time will tell. I'd like to hear why you're here."

"Impatient, aren't we. I came because there's a student I'd like to introduce. Yeeun, come on in."

As if I didn't already have enough on my mind—what was he scheming now? Honestly, it was annoying.

It took less than a few seconds for that thought to evaporate completely.

"N-nice to meet you, Professor! My name is Lee Yeeun."

Lee Yeeun.

A supporting character from the game, and as of the story's starting point—meaning right now—she was a graduate.

She wasn't a playable character, but since she was a named character in the game, I remembered her entire storyline.

I had a rough idea of why she was here.

If things went the way I was thinking, this was an incredible opportunity.