The Magic Academy's Physicist-Chapter 70: End-of-class Celebration

Chapter 70: End-of-class Celebration

Freyr, there’s a land in the Elankaya Mountains that only the Golden-Eyed know.

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I told you once during the entrance exams. Do you remember?

** The night air tasted like alcohol.

The night market was festive and bright with lights, returning to life from its downhill journey after the havoc of the Black Death. Festivities marking the end of the first semester were centered around the students of Tilette Academy.

Mid-June. It was about time for summer but the night air was rather chilly.

The ground was adequately dry and the sky was clear without a speck of cloud. The variable stars speckled the black canvas like white dots, adding to the highlight of this district.

Yeah.

It was the perfect night to plan something big.

I leisurely crossed the marketplace and felt drunk just from walking these streets.

When I entered the pub, a bunch of students were gathered in their own groups and clinking beer mugs.

“Hey, we’re here, over here!”

Amongst them, I saw rather familiar faces. Right, it wouldn’t do for the brat to be absent from a drinking party. I sat down next to Freyr and ordered a 500 mL beer.

The cool and refreshing taste of a barely drink.

I didn’t enjoy drinking nor was I good at it, but this was an exception. There was a sweetness to the beer as it went down with the paired meat dish.

I could feel my cheeks gradually turning red. This body was just as weak to alcohol as my old one.

Starting to hiccup, I looked around and spotted the transmigrator glaring at me from a different table.

Good, all cards were gathered.

“So, what are you guys planning to do during the break?”

I threw my friends a topic.

“Go back home, obviously. Accommodations are too expensive here!”

“Same, I’ll be going and helping out my parents.”

The students with family homes in rural areas all had similar thoughts. Understandably, since there wasn’t a reason to stay at school if you weren’t going to take summer classes.

“What about you? Aren’t you going back to your hometown?”

“I do want to.”

“Where’s your place?”

Come to think of it, I didn’t actually know where the owner of this body originated from. Did the original Aether even have parents or siblings in the first place? If that was the case, then that was its own problem.

“She’s Golden-Eyed so probably not from the Empire.”

“Then a transfer like Horde?”

“... Something like that?”

Since I came entirely from another world.

“What country did you grow up in? Kaurelia? Or where the beastkin live?”

“She would’ve lived in the Elankaya Mountains being a Golden-Eyed and all. Come to think of it, was there a country over there, too?”

One by one, they tilted their heads in question. The Elankayas were a massive terrain encompassing the Empire, the country of beastkin, and the Demonic Lands so one’s nationality depended on which area they lived.

If the original Aether had lived in the land controlled by the beastkin, then she would’ve been a citizen of the Beastkin Confederation. But if she’d been in no-man’s land where the Magic Beasts roamed, then she’d have been stateless.

“Where is it if not the Empire?”

“It must be the beastkin nation, no?”

“It could be Kaurelia.”

“Or there may be a city-state there that we don’t know about!”

“Like an ancient polis?”

Everyone seemed to be getting drunk because they started getting outright curious about my origins. It was almost time. I poked Freyr who had been drinking like a fish.

She let out a weird ‘uwah’ sound. After blinking a bit, she lifted her head.

Alright, I’ll do it. The brat nodded carelessly and detached the mug from her mouth.

“Daehanminguk.”

Four syllables.

Everyone’s gazes zoomed in on Freyr. The brat moved her throat and finished off the rest of her beer.

“Daehan... what?”

“Aether told me once a long time ago that she was from somewhere called Daehanminguk.”

It wasn’t weird for Freyr to know my original nationality.

I’d told her offhandedly during entrance exams, not thinking much of it at the time, but it had actually laid the groundwork for this moment. As soon as Freyr spoke, I glanced over at the other table.

Vermel, who had been drinking fine from his glass, started choking and beating his chest. His friends thought he’d swallowed some mixed liquor wrong and laughed at him.

“Is that a country established by the Golden-Eyed?”

“It must be!”

Our friends looked at me once more, to which I shrugged my shoulders.

Since there wasn’t anything more to say, the topic naturally moved onto something else. Because this was a table full of girls, they mostly talked about things like dating and cosmetics. The only thing I could do in the meantime was respond to what the others were saying.

Time passed quick as we sat there chatting away. It was already after midnight, late enough to be considered early morning.

My head was fuzzy since I hadn’t drunk this much in a while, but I knew my limits so I didn’t black out at least. The others also began losing it one by one.

“Urgh.”

My head was hanging in there but the body wasn’t holding up.

Under the guise of grabbing the leftover beer from the adjacent table, I nodded towards Vermel. Then when our eyes met, I nodded even harder.

It didn’t seem like this kid was that quick at catching onto things. He got up at last after I gave him a look.

“... I’m going to catch some fresh air.”

“Same.”

Flailing my arms like I wasn’t in control of my faculties, I nudged Vermel in the back. The alcohol drenched tables on either side let out different exclamations. Clearing my thoughts, I pushed the transmigrator again like I was chasing him out.

And so, Vermel and I stood in a dark alleyway and had a smoke, the bitter scent seeping into the lungs. Whether it was due to drinking, the outdoor air felt a bit chillier.

“You....”

“Doesn’t your mouth feel empty?”

Swaying from drunkenness, I leaned against the wall then dug through the pockets of my robe. I pulled out two candies wrapped in silver plastic.

“Which one do you want?”

One was red candy and the other was blue.

“.......”

Vermel narrowed his eyes as if contemplating then took the candy that looked strawberry-flavored.

“I’m heading in first.”

It could be a different kind of challenge from here on. With a deep breath, I returned to my seat.

And as expected, the girls who’d probably been making weird assumptions whistled as soon as they saw me, their already red faces reddening even more.

“What’s this, what’s happening between you two?”

“There’ve been rumors that you guys have a thing. Is it true?”

This was something I had to deal with. I grabbed my throbbing temporal and shook my head.

“Ah, I’m so jealous! I want to meet a guy like that, too!”

“What, elves should marry other elves.”

“I’m just saying!”

Again with the dating talk. It had nothing to do with me as I promised undying love to Halli Galli’s1 ‘Fundamentals of Physics’ but they were apparently on fire from the alcohol in them and used me as the subject of their gossip.

I protested, knowing that this wasn’t going to be easy.

“Says who? We weren’t even that close?”

“Oh, so you’re going to feign ignorance? Haven’t there been a few things happening with him lately?”

What.

“Were you not even aware of the rumors going around the school? You’ve been hanging out together every break!”

“Buhllshiet.”

“Ahaha! She’s slurring!”

“Hey, stop putting up walls and accept it already. You’ve been sneaking glances at him since a couple weeks ago, no?”

Uh, no, reading his expressions is something I’ve done from time to time.

“And most importantly, you stuck right next to him while walking down the hallways after being commended by the chairman.”

Wow, someone caught that, eh.

“The hell you sayin’, I maintained an appropriate distance.”

“So you’re admitting that you were close together!”

My ears were going to fall off from all the squealing and clapping. The only ones not reacting with them were Freyr and Lotte. Lotte scolded me about no dating in the school like she was a part of the Student Council and Freyr just continued sipping on her drink with half-mast eyes as if the alcohol had broken through her blood-brain barrier.

“Isn’t this the perfect set-up for a romance novel? The handsome top elf student and the only Golden-Eyed in the state as the second place! There might be a big one coming from the literature club eventually.”

Their continued misunderstanding was killing me but this, too, shall pass. After a time of perseverance, Vermel re-entered. I then went back outside after an appropriate wait to clear my head some.

It was nice hearing the sound of soles against the ground. I slipped back into the alleyway where we’d smoked earlier and checked the floor.

[내일]2

[동아리]3

I took another stick from inside my robe and lit it. A whitish haze rose up in front of my eyes..

Tap tap–I flicked off the ashes and watched the stars in the sky with a faint smile. As I stared absentmindedly, the mana grass was almost done.

I put out the stub completely by rubbing it out. The Korean letters that had been scratched into the dirt lost their shape and became unrecognizable along with the ashes of mana grass.

“Who wants to go for round twoooooo!”

“... You mean this wasn’t?”

“I think I’m gonna throw up.......”

I didn’t know when they’d paid but my friends were now tumbling out of the pub. Popping the blue candy into my mouth, the one leftover after giving one to Vermel, I joined the group with Lotte and Freyr.

It was the kind of dawn that had me craving hangover soup4.

This content is taken from fгee𝑤ebɳoveɭ.cøm.

**SYSTEM : The probability of the world ending is currently 55%. Footnotes

1. Koreans' nickname for Halliday, likely after the game2. Tomorrow3. Club4. A kind of soup eaten to beat one's hangover. Usually made of beef broth and contains vegetables and meat. Can be spicy. (And it's delicious even when you're not hungover.)