## Chapter 372 – Ahit…!! Tentacle-Tachi…!! (1)
“Professor… Unni…!! This!!”
Marie, who hurriedly stood up from her seat and momentarily hesitated to use the honorific, changed her word choice and brought the magic tool floating in the air to show Eloise.
“Magical power stabilization, confirmed.
It was an unusually radical flow…
It stopped as if by magic…”
As Eloise looked back and forth between the crystal ball on the table and the parchments floating in the air, tilting her head, Vivian was glancing at her suspiciously.
‘You… you’re a mage…? A professor…?’
“So? Does that mean we can go back now?”
Still, Eloise seemed confident that she could give Vivian a satisfactory answer, nodding confidently and pulling the parchment with the list of things to do in front of her.
“Yes. And when we get out…
We need to add a safety device to the gate for magical power fluctuations.
We’ll probably be able to make an emergency escape.”
“So, it’s impossible to stabilize the dungeon’s magical power itself…”
“That’s right. The dungeon itself is a massive product of magical power.
More than that… this dungeon fluctuation is strange no matter how I think about it.
It’s as if the magical power was artificially… no, is it…?
I’m not sure, so don’t worry about it too much.
In the first place, that’s impossible anyway.”
“Hmm…?”
Vivian, wearing an uneasy expression at Eloise’s incomprehensible words, nodded and turned around at Eloise’s gesture of clapping her hands lightly to change the atmosphere.
“Anyway!! The fact that we can finally get out hasn’t changed!!”
“That’s true.
That’s good.
Then get back to work.”
But at that moment, Vivian was startled and turned around as Eloise grabbed her wrist as she turned away.
Seeing Eloise’s somehow impatient expression, Vivian was momentarily flustered and tried to pull her hand away from her.
“Shall we start preparing to go back?
Actually, I… I have something to do, so I have to go back…
I’m a bit in a hurry?”
“Ah!!”
“What’s wrong, Marie?”
In the meantime, Marie seemed to be pondering something next to her, and as if she had recalled something she had temporarily forgotten while calculating the magical power fluctuation phenomenon, she shouted loudly in an uncharacteristically urgent tone.
“That…!! It’s strong…!!”
“Strong? What’s strong…? Magical power?”
“The semester starts!!
The semester is starting!
Today must be the first day…!!
Attendance…!!”
“What did you say…!?”
The academy, which had temporarily declared a recess due to the dungeon problem and devoted itself to relief efforts, couldn’t just keep resting forever.
Vivian’s face also hardened as she glared at Marie, whose words, which could not be ignored, had come out of the mouth of Marie, a model student representing the Department of Magical Design.
Marie, who had been hiding that she was a student, belatedly covered her mouth, trying to somehow resolve her slip of the tongue.
But before that, Vivian’s mind was also dyed white, and she grabbed Eloise’s hand, which had been holding her, in return.
“The semester starts, what does that mean…!?
Wasn’t the opening of St. Flansina Academy later than this?”
“Ah… that’s… it was originally later than this…
But they said they couldn’t postpone the students’ studies too much…
The faculty meeting made a decision and announced it…
That’s today… but why do you… Hiiiik!!”
“What time is it!?”
“Ah… that’s…!!”
“Quickly!!”
“It’s morning now…
There’s about half an hour left…
Uh… Ma… Madam?”
“Quickly!! Open!! Open the gate!!”
“Hiiiik!! Wh… why are you doing this…!?”
“Get everyone out and close it for a while!!
You… you said you were late too!! Let’s do it quickly!!”
“Ah… yes… yes, yes!!”
Seeing Vivian urging them on with an expression that seemed as urgent as theirs, Eloise and Marie, who had turned pale, ran out and prepared to open the gate.
The time left for them now was half an hour.
No one among them was unaware that this 30 minutes would be a time like war for them.
That’s because…
“Quickly…!!”
“Run…!!”
After quickly driving the residents of the back alley, who were cheering at the news that they could finally get out, to the outside.
After entrusting the remaining cleanup to the Jebi Faction, they each parted ways to go to their respective destinations.
Normally, they would have enjoyed the original world they had finally returned to, and thought of taking a good rest after suffering in the dungeon.
But the trap of magical power fluctuation instability was causing a fatal result that was more than just a disconnection from the world.
That was a very simple and trivial, but ridiculous, forgetfulness that they didn’t even realize the time was passing.
“Qu… Queen!! Where are you go…!!”
“Can you get back to the lair on your own?
I’ll tell him separately!!
Lanie!! Run!!”
“Queen…!!”
Henia and the others, at a loss for what to do, stamped their feet behind Vivian and Lanie, who seemed to be returning to the lair together, as they dashed towards the academy like light.
Vivian and Lanie were running quickly, exchanging urgent conversations with each other.
“What about Aurora!?”
“Hek!! Hek!!
Ah… wouldn’t she have gone on her own?”
“Th… that’s right, right? Then run quickly!!
Our attendance scores are getting dangerous!!”
In the case of Vivian and Lanie, due to Floraz’s work and the things related to the back alley, they ate lateness and absence like meals.
Now, if they made a mistake, they were on the verge of crossing the river that they shouldn’t cross, which was failing a grade.
So, especially recently, they had been desperately coordinating their schedules to avoid being absent.
When the academy was closed due to the dungeon situation, they were relieved that the burden of absence was reduced even a little, and they let out a sigh of relief.
“But!! Vivian-nim…!! What about our appearance now!!”
“Is that important now…!? Failing a grade!!
It’s enough to go down a grade once!!
I’m going to go straight to the training ground shower as soon as we arrive!!
I have to wash in 10 minutes!! Got it?”
“Ehhh…!! I have to dry my hair too…!!”
“Tell Nemea to suck it up!!
If you have the energy to talk, run faster!!”
The fact that the semester opening date, which they hadn’t checked for a while, thinking it would be later, was today.
They were running towards the academy as if their feet were on fire.
In a disheveled state, not having been able to wash properly for several weeks.
‘I was going to spend the whole day rolling around with him…
The student council presidents and the chairman… why did they set the opening date like this?
I will never… never forget it!! I’ll curse them all semester long!!’
But Vivian and her group were in a better situation.
“Ma… makeup!! Ah ah!!
I have to wash first!!
Sniff sniff… eugh… I… I must smell.”
“Professor…!! Do you have powder!?”
“Here, take it!! What to do!! I’m late!!
Being late from the first day…!!”
Their appearance now was literally that of beggars.
Fortunately, Vivian and Lanie were usually wearing Nemea instead of clothes, so the waste products such as sweat and dead skin cells from their bodies were swallowed by Nemea.
So, there was no particular reason for their bodies to smell, and they only had to wash away the inorganic substances that Nemea couldn’t eat, such as dirt and dust.
It was fortunate that the mage teacher and student went into the dungeon with at least a few sets of clothes, but even so, they had been enduring by wearing the same clothes for several weeks, and now they were in this state.
Of course, there had to be a hole for water to come out in that dungeon.
In the first place, it was more efficient to fetch water through the dungeon gate, so they had been supplying water entirely in that way, but after the gate was blocked…
Instead, rivers and streams were sometimes created as the terrain changed, but it was not possible to stably supply water because of the distance and the threat of monsters.
There was some food to eat, but there was no way there would be water to wash with when there was not enough water to drink.
“I can’t do this!! Quickly… to my lab!!”
The only thing they could do was hide their faces and pass through the school gate, and they were running into her office in the work building, led by Eloise.
While Marie, panting heavily, grabbed her knees and caught her breath.
“Haaat… Heuaaaat… Professor… nim… could it be!?”
Eloise, who also didn’t look very good, with even the blood draining from her already pale face, held out her two hands, where a blue light was rising.
“I’ll do a magical power cleansing…!!”
“Pro… Professor…!! That’s…
You don’t use that on people!!”
“What else can I do!!
It’s the first day of the semester…
To stand in front of the students in this state!!
As an educator, I can’t allow such a disgrace…!!”
“Professor Eloise…
Ugh… please adjust it well…”
“Of course. Gulp…
You can trust me.
Hoo… I can do it…
That’s right… I can do it…”
“Professor…!?”
That day, inside the 4th floor laboratory window of the general building, there were rumors that there were splashing waves and raging typhoons.
And no matter who was doing what inside, hot flashes were overflowing to the outside of the window.
Believe it or not, their first attendance on the first day of the semester seemed to be ending somehow safely.
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And at the same time.
The light of the return magic tool held in Leah’s hand faded faintly, and a familiar landscape came into view.
My sweet home.
To be exact, now that I can return to my true self.
Having returned triumphantly with dozens of elves behind me, I was finally relieved that I could take a breather, and I was thinking of introducing the new house through Leah.
‘Leah. Let’s unpack first… Leah…?’
Seeing Leah, who was staring blankly ahead without answering my call, I was trying to attract her attention by wiggling my short legs towards her.
When I realized that the emotion lingering on her blank face was shock, I felt that something was terribly wrong, and I didn’t want to look back for some reason.
“Na… Husband… that…”
“Eungeut… Eukheuk… Eu… Geueu…”
My house, as always, was full of the moans of females.
However, instead of smiling pleasantly while hanging from the tentacles in various poses, the women were just drooping as if they didn’t even have the strength to move.
I couldn’t help but realize what a great disaster had happened in our sweet home while I was away.
“Eu… Beeeet… Ukeueut…”
Fina, with her long ears completely drooping and dark circles under her eyes as if she had two pupils, was completely exhausted.
It didn’t seem like there was a problem with her health itself, but looking at her powerless expression, I could tell that her condition was being pushed to the limit.
“Hing… It… Ju… Inim…”
And Aurora, with her head bowed at an angle where her face couldn’t be seen, was intermittently trembling all over her body, calling me weakly in a voice that I didn’t know whether she was just calling or begging.
On top of that, even the human women who had been brought in a while ago were hanging from the tentacles in a state of being half-fainted.
Seeing the women hanging from the tentacles like Christmas tree decorations, with almost no reaction, and their whole body holes being mercilessly poked by the tentacles,
Above all, looking at that bizarre phenomenon, which felt strange no matter how many times I looked at it, that there seemed to be even more people than there were originally.
The inside of my head was becoming very, extremely, and dizzyingly complicated.
“Ah…!! I, I know that!!
They’re praying to the new World Tree-nim, right?”
“Is it a period of intensive prayer now?
Wow… it looks very strict…
As expected of the new World Tree-nim!!”
Looking at the sparkling eyes of the cheerful Riel and the serious Yurne, who were admiring me in the meantime.
As my legs were gently placed on top of the carapace, Fina’s powerless telepathy was echoing in my mind.
‘Are… are you back…?
Save… meee… I can’t do it anymoreee….♡’
‘I’m screwed……’
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