Chapter 278 – Horseman of Death (4)
A professor who doesn’t treat research students——graduate students?
‘Fuck?’
What the hell is that! My neurons fired sparks, causing cognitive dissonance.
“Deeeee?”
It feels like an artificial intelligence that has been given contradictory propositions. I wouldn’t have been this surprised if Dana showed up one morning with big breasts.
“Didn’t Miss Dana tell you? Ulster research doesn’t pay. It’s to the point where I can’t even provide meals to the research students working under me, so I just work like a solo field job.
When I was startled, Hyromain awkwardly put her hand to her cheek.
“I feel sorry for not being able to pay the research students who work with me on time. After the research funding was divided and distributed, there was no money to spend on research.”
“What… Say… ?”
Did he even split his salary and share it?
It is truly a series of culture shocks. It was so absurd that I even thought that it might be a phrase. But if that’s a lie, why bother with that?
Thinking about it that way, I could clearly see some of Hi Romain’s equipment and clothes. And, in the eyes of others, it was absurd to lie that the evaluation would only be reduced.
A professor who doesn’t have lab slaves!
Hi Romain’s words were the same as saying that he was the only office worker and that he was running a small business and that he didn’t even have an office.
It’s understandable why she’s taken aback by the fact that she’s her professor.
‘Oh, no. Still, it’s too early to believe 100%.’
I was comforting myself.
She was a little taken aback by the contradictory existence she hadn’t even thought of as a professor without graduate students. There is no way to find out if it is true or not. You have to maintain a vigilant posture.
‘What if only Kingchi was real?’
How should we treat a professor and a non-professor?
It was the same chaos that the protagonist of a mafia picaresque revenge would hold her own at gunpoint in front of a good-natured yakuza or mafia.
Damn, do you mean a yakuza who doesn’t touch pachinko and Japanese porn? What is the difference between a criminal organization that does not commit crimes and a social gathering for the director of a kindergarten?
“Ah, I see. Let’s get on I’ve been holding the injured person for a long time.”
Confused for a moment, I sent High Romain to the carriage. The baby unicorn watched us as if it were wary, then went in front of the wagon.
─Hook. Dana shakes off her hand and stabs me in the side.
“Hey, husband. It was fortunate that I was calm, but why did you put up with it?”
“… Watch for a while There may be good professors, bad professors, professors who can’t research, professors who are kind, and so on.”
“You bastard is bullshit.”
Dana whispered in my ear. It was a curse so small that Hi Romain couldn’t hear it. It’s so good to hear our eyes swearing. I want to record it and listen to it while sleeping.
Haha. Haha! Look at my wagon! It’s scary that the luggage inside will spill while running, leaving aside the repair cost!”
Victoire, whose mental state was sober, laughed like a madman. The cause is a broken wagon.
It’s like seeing Azoshi, a logistics delivery truck, with giblets on the side of his truck. That’ll only bring tears. I’m going to have a fucking daytime drink.
Hi Lo Main then rolled up her sleeves. It’s not a metaphor, but I really rolled up my sleeves.
“If that’s the case, I’ll cast a spell on the windshield. In a few hours, it will block the wind from entering the wagon and protect the luggage.”
A black tattoo appeared on her arm as she said so.
What the fuck Did that lady fly around before she became a professor?
A dick like Iljin, an intelligent person who is good at studying? She was Sifal’s scary older sister. I think I’ll smell cigarettes in my fucking house.
“Whoops. This is a Pictish tattoo. It is a spell that engraves magic spells on the body. I carved a spell on the windshield.”
─Chack-champ! As if realizing I was thinking that, Hyromain slapped his forearm.
“Thanks to her, I won’t be cold even riding her horse in the winter. She said she would learn this. She spent three years in northern Britannia. It was very difficult to be recognized by the Pict tribe!”
Her Ulster culture was proudly described as High Maine, on the subject of her own low ratings. Whoever saw her would think she was an Ulster.
‘It’s a Pict tattoo.’
I’m sure the Ulsterians had a culture of tattooing. I can’t even remember when I heard this.
‘Come to think of it, even Dana doesn’t memorize spells when using magic.’
I know that she doesn’t have tattoos on her skin because I’ve seen her naked inside, but remembering the old days, I whispered to Dana.
“… Sister. Is something like that popular in your hometown?”
“When you become an adult, carve it into your body. I didn’t like that, so I left with only a few bases for magic.”
“Hmm.”
Our wives, the more you dig into the past, the more there is no end to it. I was startled, exhausted, and drained of energy.
‘I didn’t expect Ulster’s tattoo culture to be so intertwined with my wife’s.’
Sticking out my tongue, I got into the wagon that had been sealed with witchcraft.
There was nothing to see, but there was no wind blowing from the empty hole. The unicorn and Victoire’s horse-drawn carriage ran comfortably.
By the way, I found out about this later, but it seems that Veronica knew roughly about Dana’s magic.
Come to think of it, when I saw Dana’s magic for the first time in the ghost town, I wonder what Pict’s copy magic (Pingere) muttered.
It was a day when I realized that there are still many cultures in the world that even I, an archaeologist, do not know about.
It was after arriving in the village that the realization came to an end.
“Outsiders are not allowed to enter our town!!”
What else is this?
***
“Are you saying you can’t let me into the village?”
─Burr. Victoire asked, shivering in the night air.
At his question, the villager holding the spear—a woman, probably a village vigilante—glared fiercely.
“Yes. I’m sorry to have come a long way, but for the time being, we cannot accommodate people from other places in our village. If you sneak in, I’ll beat you up and kick you out.”
“Oh, no. Old lady. This is Victoire. Victoire, the salt peddler. Don’t you remember?”
“I know your face, but I can’t. It’s also because of the people behind you, but I can’t let you in, even if you’re alone.”
A vigilante woman who speaks sternly.
We arrived at the village of Flusmirror and were happy at the thought of warming up, so we were cut at the entrance.
Do I have to sleep on a cold winter night with the village fence right in front of me? Well, there are all kinds of shit like this.
“I can’t. It is immovable.”
Victoire, who had eaten pakkou, returned lonely.
Only one of us had the experience of visiting this village, but even those who recognized his face refused to let us in. Even late at night, I observed the torchlit village.
‘Boundaries are tight. What happened?’
And it didn’t seem like it was going to be a problem that could be solved by suspecting an outsider. Because we got apologetic looks from the vigilantes who kicked us out.
Maybe a blanket and warm water would be handed out.
Of course, it would be a blink of an eye for those eyes to change to those of suspicion if he flinched around here.
‘Compared to the level of the village, it’s on the fence, but it’s not noisy inside the village.’
The shady, closed communities of rural towns did not appear to be hiding crime. I averted my eyes from the town.
“Could you please? There’s a forest nearby, so let’s go there and avoid the wind. Cover the gaps in the wagon with a blanket.”
“Okay. I guess so.”
Victoire replied rubbing his forearms. It’s a pity that we couldn’t go to sleep overnight, but the destination was a forest anyway. Victoire will go to Romania tomorrow via here.
‘The problem is High Romain.’
I got into the carriage again. The middle-aged female professor was yawning, perhaps exhausted from recovering from her wounds.
“Professor? It looks like you have to cross the forest to go further east from here, but is the village of Ulster people beyond the forest?”
“Haaaaa… Oh yes If you go beyond the Flusmirror Forest, you will come to another plain, and it is nearby.”
If so, it seemed that he would break up with Hi Romain tomorrow.
‘I guess I’ll have no choice but to ask that professor to at least listen to what he’s talking about.’
So I roughly explained the situation to the waiting party. Everyone was disappointed to hear that they couldn’t enter the village, but no complaints came out.
I closed the door of the tent-like wagon and went to the driver’s seat. It was because he had to keep an eye on the broken-horned unicorn so he wouldn’t do anything stupid.
“Hey!”
As Victoire relaxed and whipped, the carriage moved toward a forest.
The lantern on the carriage only illuminated two to three meters ahead like a lantern. It wasn’t common for wagons to run at night, so it was a bit of a different experience.
Victoire muttered, wrapped in a blanket like a teddy bear.
“Seriously, what kind of English was this?”
“I do not know. It’s probably an injury case caused by something out of town. My guess is that, in all likelihood, someone died.”
“Sah, you mean murder case?”
“Yes.”
I said, looking at the shadow of the horse shaking every time the wagon wheels rattled.
“There was no fuss inside the village, but as outsiders, we were very wary. That means the incident has happened and enough time has passed for people to calm down.”
Of course, this is a story when they are victims. Victoire picked up his words and served them while babbling.
“It might not have been a murder case, right?”
“If you look at the alert level, it’s a case of minimal injury or theft. But theft is out of the question. Theft is more likely to be initiated and suspected by an insider than an outsider. Above all, there is no reason to kick out a new outsider today.”
Who in the village has what and how much.
Such information would have been better known to the inhabitants of the village. They probably wouldn’t have put us on the line of suspicion when we appeared today.
“If you narrow it down to injury or murder, their reaction is a bit odd. Even if a person dies, the inn receives guests. That is a vigilance that comes only when the culprit is not caught and everyone in the village has a clear alibi.”
“Are you sure that the person who caused the incident was an outsider?”
A voice came from the carriage. It was franc.
“Uh. Even if they are gathered together in a church or something, incidents continue to occur, and the victim’s condition is not normal. In the case of the latter, it would be a method of killing that would be impossible with the power of the villagers.”
Like tearing a person in half with superhuman strength, or hanging them from the top of a tree overnight, or something like that.
I don’t know, but it must have been such a horror that the people in that village thought that this was something the guys in my neighborhood couldn’t do.
“Mr. Nord has a good brain! I was surprised!”
Hi Romain clapped as if admiring. I clenched my chin without excitement.
“Nope. I appreciate the compliment, but I am rather worried.”
“Yeah?”
“Suspicion of people means that monsters did not show what they did… Then, are there any blades or human touch left in the victim’s wounds?
The people living in the remote corners of the other world were quick to deal with the monsters around the village. It is the same reason that we can recognize the kind of animal that ruined the rice fields just by looking at the footprints in our parents’ house.
Besides, their lives are at stake.
Is it the work of the monsters that often cause harm around town? Then it was only natural to find out.
‘And if it was a monster, he would have asked us to get rid of it.’
No, no. Even if it’s a monster you don’t know well, if it looks like the monster did it, it wouldn’t make sense to just let me go, dressed like an adventurer.
“It seems like a human being, but superhuman strength that is impossible for ordinary people. The alibi of villagers who are presumed to be outsiders. Who would the villagers suspect in this situation?”
The perfect match is close by. I glared at the approaching forest as if I was seeing something ominous.
“… No way?”
And it was when Hi Romain muttered that.
─Weeeee!
Hearing the sound of flying and cutting through the wind, I loosened my posture and put my fingers on the bracelet. But it didn’t pull out. Because the arrow was pierced far ahead of our wagon.
“Huh!!”
Victoire hastily stopped the carriage. I got up from the driver’s seat and looked toward the forest.
Red-haired warriors with tattoos on their bodies were aiming their bows here.
