The Demon Prince goes to the Academy
chapter-52

The Victory Festival began after the triumphal army, who returned from their long journey after winning the Demon World War, entered the capital.

If they actually marched all the way back from there, it would have taken a lot longer, but the time actually got reduced as they used super-large warp gates located at the outpost on the borders of the Darklands. I was in Temple right now so I wasn’t too sure, but they must be pretty busy preparing for the return of triumphal army.

Of course, I didn’t describe every single day of their Academy life in huge detail. If I did, this would be more like a fantasy-style diary. Would that even be a novel then? I roughly wrote down when and what happened, but I mostly just put it as: “Each day passed like a flicker until it was time for the Victory Festival”. That was how I wrote it.

Up until now, I lived in these blank times and went through all sorts of events that didn’t happen in my novel, but still existed in this world, so now it was time for the Victory Festival.

“Originally, Temple was supposed to close down for the duration of the Festival, but this is not applicable to you guys. As you know, Temple’s tuition fee is quite high. So, if the school were to close down for more than a month, not only would that disrupt the flow of education, but there would be various complaints from students as well.”

Did they think there was a single student who’d hate some vacation time? It was the parents who’d hand their asses to them.

If the school, one spent a huge amount of money on, decided to close down for a month, they would have paid that tuition for nothing.

And strictly speaking, I was kind of on the side of the parents, so I could sympathize. If Temple just decided to close its doors for a whole month, I’d think they were thieves as well.

“Siiiiiiiiiiiiiigh….”

The kids, especially the ones who liked to play like No. 8 Kono Lint, let out a deep sigh. Regardless whether they were part of Royal Class or not, they were just like any other kid. Everyone would get a little excited when they heard news about the school closing down for a month, so I could see everyone’s mood literally dropping to the floor.

Hey, you little bastards. Listen to what people have to say until the end.

“Nevertheless, the victory in the Demon World War is the most memorable of all events written down in the history of mankind. Therefore, Temple will be closed for about one week, which is already unusual enough.”

They couldn’t give us a month off, but they decided to close Temple for a whole week.

“Ooooooh!”

Mr. Epinhauser’s calm words heated up the atmosphere again.

Bertus didn’t seem to be so enthused about this. As a member of the Imperial Family, he’d have a lot of work to do during this huge festival serving as a Victory Ceremony. Rather it might be quicker than one might thought though.

However, among my classmates, Ellen’s mood seemed rather subdued. She didn’t seem much different from usual, but now after I gained more experience with the stone Buddha, I could somewhat read her current mood.

The reason was obvious.

To Ellen this Victory Festival would just be something to commemorate the death of her older brother, who eventually died fighting the Demon King.

“Ooooh, hell yeeeeeaaaaah!”

Of course, Kono Lint kicked up a fuss after hearing Mr. Epinhauser’s words. Dismissing that rowdy guy, Mr. Epinhauser delivered an additional message to us.

“That would mean that you have to leave this Friday and come back two weeks later on Monday. If you want to return to your parents’ house, please report to me. I will give you permission.”

No matter how talented they were, there were some among the kids who were actually homesick. Given that it was a nearly 10-day-long break, those that live further away would be able to return home.

Some of the children’s eyes lit up at these words.

“Don’t get too excited. The break will start next week, so please attend class properly.”

What he meant was: “Don’t think about causing any trouble just because you’re excited”. Everyone would get slightly excited about the prospects of a break. No matter how problematic they were, in the end they were all just children. Looking at them like that, they were all pretty cute.

And out of all of them who seemed to be the most problematic?

“He, he, he….”

Ten days. I wasn’t going to let anyone keep watching me.

I was going to go back to Eleris after such a long time.

It had been just too long since I last saw Eleris.

I could sympathize with the parents, but right now I was just a student. A break was nice after all.

“Number 11.”

Then Mr. Epinhauser called me.

“Yes?”

Now, just by him calling me, I could feel a chill running down my spine. Wha, what else did I do wrong? No, but didn’t he accept my apology?

Worrying about what I did wrong before knowing what the teacher actually wanted was a typical problem child’s way of thinking, so I felt pretty pathetic about myself.

Yeah well.

Wasn’t I more or less already a super-delinquent who even beat his senior in a fight?

“You are excused from class today. Come with me.”

……Did I really cause some trouble?

* * *

Fortunately, I didn’t actually cause any trouble.

It seemed like I already passed the point of no return when I started worrying about what I might have done wrong without actually remembering having done anything wrong.

Mr. Epinhauser took me to the outdoor swimming pool of our class building.

“He’ll be here soon.”

He sat there with me on a nearby bench and waited, although the teacher didn’t tell me who we were waiting for.

There was no water in the outdoor pool. The weather was still too cold after all.

Swimming lessons were also part of the P.E. classes, however not until summer.

Come to think of it, this set-up was rather weird.

If one used a mana stone powered water heating system in an indoor pool, we’d be able to have swimming lessons, even in winter, right? However, here in Temple, which recieved huge amounts of capuital, we still depended on the weather whether we would have swimming lessons or not?

This was a set-up hole which stemmed from my weird delusion that swimming lessons were a summer thing in school.

……I should have thought about that a little more. Wouldn’t I end up in a much worse situation, because I set up so many improbable things? I’m an idiot.

No, now I got curious again.

This was obviously a weird situation. It was clear that mana stone powered water heating systems were a known concept as there were shower facilities in which one could shower with hot water.

However, I was stupid and created this bizarre situation of hot showers existing but no indoor pools. This world created some sort of probability for parts I did not include, but this strange part wasn’t corrected. That was because I, the author, explicitly wrote that.

I wrote that Temple didn’t have swimming lessons outside of summer, so it was as such.

However, this world had the technology to make indoor swimming pools and a way to provide hot water, so one was able to swim in winter.

It was already unlikely enough that Temple, which swam in money, didn’t have an indoor swimming pool, but as I, a braindead, second-rate author, wrote it like that, this was now the reality I was confronted with.

One could say that it was just a swimming pool so I shouldn’t care, but I was about to go crazy, because I kept on thinking that this unpredictable situation happened because of me. It felt like my dark history was being played out before me in real time.

That was what I was curious about.

What would otherwise not have been possible had become reality because of my description, but did this situation also get its plausibility supplemented?

Did a plausible explanation get added to this highly improbable situation that my setting error created?

“Teacher.”

“Speak.”

I didn’t know why, but I felt like the teacher might know. Although not enough for the setting to collapse, it was definitely lacking. Was there any convincing reason for this?

“It’s possible to take hot showers in Temple, so wouldn’t it be possible to have swimming lessons in winter if we build an indoor pool and fill it with hot water?”

Were there any other writers who’d asked their own characters about their own novel’s settings like this?

No matter how hard I thought about it, this was just completely different from your usual ‘Getting Transported into your own Novel’ kind of deal. Usually, the main characters in these types of stories were the writers of the novel they got transported into and they were able to remember every detail of their own settings or they were readers who read the novel and knew absolutely everything about the book.

While I got sent into that novel I only vaguely wrote, and rather than knowing everything, I, the writer, went in with nearly no knowledge. Among the things I should know were even a lot of things I didn’t even remember.

Knowing the future in a slice-of-life novel had no merit whatsoever, in the first place! What was the point of knowing what Ludwig and Delphine Izadra chatted about over dinner? Then they got all excited, gathered all their friends and had a snack party. How could I even use that?!

There weren’t that many military incidents in a slice-of-life, so even if the writer entered, there wasn’t much he could do…. Of course, I knew about the gates, but that was a rather disgraceful thing to remember.

So, for the parts that were not described, rather than the creator just knowing, it would be faster to ask one of their creations about the situation unfolding before them.

As soon as I arrived at the main stage, the Capital, I wondered just where the hell I landed. I couldn’t even recognize a lot of things that appeared because of my writing.

Phew.

If the creation myth was true, God might have watched the humans making airplanes, wondering what they were supposed to be. He might have thought something like: “What the hell? You’re not made to fly!”. This was already far beyond the scope of my imagination.

Anyway.

“I suppose so.”

The teacher answered that the possibility of a heated pool existing was there.

“But why don’t we have one here?”

It wasn’t like Temple had no money and having one wouldn’t be disadvantageous. Mr. Epinhauser just stared at me. What was the matter? Why was he staring at me like that?

“Temple’s water supply is incomparable even to other cities. However, maintaining a large swimming pool all year round at every single educational facility would be rather costly. There’s also the issue with the water use itself.”

So the reason was made out to be a problem with the water supply, huh? Obviously, installing and maintaining indoor pools in all of Temple’s many schools would cost a lot of money..

I wondered if only the Royal Class could maybe have an indoor pool, but it didn’t seem to have been implemented.

“So, Temple’s swimming pools do not draw water from said water supply, but use rainwater collected in summer, a time when it rains frequently. Magic is used to purify the water.”

Swimming lessons were held in summer because of the lacking water supply, not because of the weather or temperature. Perhaps there was a water reservoir designated to collect rainwater for the swimming pools. It probably didn’t directly get collected in the outdoor swimming pool.

I hadn’t set up where the water supply was supposed to be or from which source it drew water, but I thought it was taken from the Irine river, in other words, from the Han River. It would be possible to maintain a swimming pool with that water.

However, I had a feeling that there would be water usage problems. There were several schools at Temple and if they all kept on changing the pools’ water, other places might just get a few drops. It wasn’t about the total amount of water available, but the usage of said water.

Anyway, although the Capital was similar to Seoul, it didn’t have its water supply facilities.

There would also be huge costs to use that gigantic amount of water. It wasn’t like we could draw the water directly from the river, after all.

It was also unreasonable to create water using ice or water magic. The amount they had to summon would be enormous.

Anyway, they just used rainwater. To purify it they either used magic tools or purification magic.

“Then why don’t we keep on purifying the water even in winter?”

“No matter how much one were to use purification magic on it, if you were to swim in the same water all year round, you wouldn’t want to step into that water anymore.”

“Ah, I see.”

Yeah, that was true. Regardless of whether it was harmless or not, it would be rather disgusting. So, in the end, it was possible to heat up the water with mana stones, but the reason for not having swimming lessons in winter wasn’t about the fact that it was cold, but that it didn’t rain. And indoor pools didn’t exist, because they could gather a bit more rain water with outdoor ones to save money. If it didn’t rain, the pool couldn’t be filled with water, so we had to use the water from the water supply. Mr. Epinhauser said that process would be expensive, but he didn’t say it was impossible to operate such a swimming pool with the Imperial Capital’s water supply.

One way or another, the amount of water used was a problem and Temple was looking to save their money.

Anyway.

There definitely was a reason for every strange thing I set up.

Who was it? Who was the guy who worked his brain instead of me? It made me want to go to that person and bow to them.

“Why are you curious about that?”

Mr. Epinhauser posed a question back at me, as if he didn’t understand my sudden curiosity.

I just wanted to verify how that person cleaned my ass for me.

I couldn’t possibly tell him that.

“Ah, well…. I was just curious. Why was the swimming pool outside? Why couldn’t we have swimming lessons in winter? That kind of stuff.”

“Do you want to have swimming lessons in the winter, is that why?”

“What? Ah, sure…. That would be good.”

Why were you asking me that, dude? Mr Epinhauser looked at me silently, then turned his head.

“…Yes, you don’t seem to have any impure intentions.”

“…Impure intentions?”

Why would I have impure intentions asking for swimming lessons to be held in the winter?

Ah.

No way.

“Teacher, did you think I was asking something like that because I wanted to see my female classmates in their swimsuits?”

You punk. That was 100% what he thought.

When he was staring at me earlier, he probably wanted to check if my eyes held any sort of lust in them. He let it go because that didn’t seem to be the case.

Mr. Epinhauser avoided my gaze at my straight forward remark.

Was that guy flustered right now?

“Teacher, I admit that I’m a problem child, but I’m definitely not that kind of guy. I’m as innocent as can be.”

Okay!

I’m from a completely different race! I like women like Eleris! Yeah!

No. Wouldn’t that actually be even more problematic in this worldview. If demons and among them the undead were my preference, wouldn’t I get hanged or something, no matter how much they are similar to humans. Would I be a necrophiliac then? But I was a demon as well, so there was no problem with that, right?

Weren’t the undead also demons?

Come to think of it, I didn’t even know where the demons originated from.

“The moment I cast such doubt on a student, I as a teacher would be more…. Ehem.”

“……”

Do you know what your eyes look like, you punk?

I was only thinking about a set-up error!

…The moment I decided on that setting I probably thought something like“Swimming has to be done in summer★!” Or something like that…. I knew that I wasn’t exactly a clean guy. But I wasn’t thinking about that! At least not now!

Mr. Epinhauser didn’t even directly respond to my words, as if he had nothing to say about this.

He still had his poker face on, but his internal embarrassment was apparent. Yes, he was human too, after all.

He had to be human.

“Well, she’s here. Listen well to the class.”

After seeing someone coming from afar, Mr. Epinhauser fled from this place. It felt like he was actually running away. Did that punk really do that?

Still, seeing Mr. Epinhauser panic like that made me feel content. He wasn’t such a scary person after all.

.……I knew, because I set up his character like that in the first place, but it was kind of funny poking at that person and see them embarrassed. I also knew that he wasn’t a really bad person.

By the way, what did he mean with: “listen well to the class”?

What kind of class was this, for me to have to skip all of Monday’s classes?

When I saw the person who was approaching me, I instantly knew what kind of class it would be.

It was a teacher in charge of the supernatural power classes of the first years in Royal Class.

The same person that asked me why I was taking supernatural power classes even though I had no supernatural power.

It was Ms. Rollendria.