The Academy’s Professor is Overpowered!

“I feel a little lost at times.”

I rested my elbows on the table and sighed.

“There is progress, yes. Each day passes and I feel closer to where I wanted to be, in some way. Even if it takes a long time, I will get there, yes. I am sure. But, I sometimes wonder… worry… no, I fear…”

My head hung low. The purple cloth on the table and its mystical embroideries that were no less puzzling than the scribbles of a toddler only made me speak more. Or maybe it was the coin that I had put down.

The shadows cast on the tents moved even if I didn’t. The flickering flames of the candle held that ability.

“You fear…?”

“I fear that I will forget. When the destination is behind me, will I remember the steps I climbed? The hurdles I crossed? The hands… that stayed behind to push me forward?”

“Yes… I see, you are afraid.”

I nodded.

“I am sure I can be a good professor who gets along with his students, but the process of it feels far too fulfilling to fear forgetting.”

The woman with the crooked nose and more wrinkles on her face than the hair on her head waved her hands around. She grabbed a handful of powder from god knows where and tossed it on the candle.

Orange, green, yellow, red, the color of the light changed with our every breath.

“You fear forgetting!” The woman said. “I have just the thing for you.”

It was here.

The moment of truth had come.

The woman reached below the table and slammed down a small, black box.

“It is this! Believe it or not, for the cheap price of two hundred gold, you can… stop time itself.”

I narrowed my gaze.

“What? Tell me my future or give me some skill or something?”

“What?” The woman tilted her head at my words.

“What?” I followed. “Are you not a shaman?”

The woman suddenly ran a hand down her face and the wrinkles all started to peel off, only to reveal a youthful look beneath. Her head which looked like a despondent field was suddenly full of hair.

“I am no shaman! Do you believe in stuff like that, professor?”

I was stumped.

“Who are you then?”

Two more heads popped in from behind the tents. Young kids that I had seen walking around on the campus many times before. All three of them looked to be Grad Students.

“We are students of the academy, of course,” said one.

“This is a booth we made to test our startup. That box, we call it Dodak.”

I had been walking around the school grounds for a light stroll when the sight of a curious little tent tucked away under the shade of a tree grabbed my interest.

A fortune-teller somehow being inside the academy was impossible. So I thought it was finally my time. I had been another-worlded for far too long to go without a cheat item or a skill, it should have been my chance!

But it was just some students. Damn it, I should have thought this through.

Sighing, I looked at the box again.

“This thing… Dodak was it. What do you mean it stops time?”

The air of mystique that they had set up was completely gone, but the three kids’ excitement and claims were enough mystery for this cramped tent.

One of the three, a dwarf, grinned and slapped a long, thin sheet on the table. It was something I had seen only in movies a long, long time back. Film used for photography.

They were blurry, small, and astonishingly low quality, which was somehow still better than videos on a certain site at 144p.

Admiration was due, and I was surely impressed. I had seen magic supplementing long distances with the help of an innovative spell that allowed long-distance video calls during the war. It was strictly a military gadget to be used by the Freedom Alliance.

But images, cameras like this, were pretty interesting.

“You don’t seem very impressed…” the elf boy complained.

“No, I am. It is very impressive, how does it work?”

The kids smiled and got to explaining the mechanics of the camera. It was very primitive, to my surprise. As soon as one pressed the shutter, it would open the block on the lens and the image would then pass through it to get burned on the film behind it.

I had to hold it still for thirty seconds to let the exposure settle in. After that, they would take the film from me and then dip it in a solution made of their ‘secret’ alchemic formulas and hand it back to me, with the images developed.

I wanted to talk about the logistical nightmare it would be to have to do this every time someone wanted to take images, but that wouldn’t be good for students.

I also wanted to tell them how the military had probably not just squashed their invention long back, but had, quite literally, crushed it to bits with their video technology. It was only a matter of time before they’d start making images too, much better than these. But that wouldn’t be good to talk to them about either.

Instead, I decided to speak on something else.

“Two hundred gold? That’s my yearly salary in this place. Who can even pay that much here?”

The kids all looked away.

“We didn’t think that far…”

“It’s still in the test phase.”

“It’s revolutionary…”

No one was going to buy it. No one would be interested just yet.

***

Soft sunlight kissed the grounds of the Glorious Glorenstein Academy. Under the rustling leaves, I made my way back to the dorms with a new black box in my hands.

A few days had passed since I said goodbye to Mundus.

Even though it was quite the incident, the world kept spinning. A few rumors had spread through the city. Mundus’ being a demiurge, and the handling of the case by Gladwin and the other civil servants.

They reported me as someone who had discovered it and dutifully informed the authorities. Or at least that was the public perception.

It wasn’t the first time this had happened. I expected it, welcomed it even.

There were no signs of any other demiurge around, the security had been tightened a notch, and the people who were affected by the demiurge were all given treatment.

Glorenstein was peaceful again. It felt a little ironic to say so, but it was the truth.

Once more, my thoughts had become those of the students. It was the best this way.

“Oh?”

On my way back, I noticed a girl with silver hair staring at a tree. The aloof girl, a priestess of the Lunar faith, was blankly staring at some leaves.

It was rare to see her outside in the early morning. The timing was great too, angle and everything.

I silenced my feet and stopped myself from talking to her. Slowly, I bought the item I had just purchased to the front and aimed the lens at her.

With a click, the shutter flipped to the side and the camera started working its magic.

A magic that would eventually make me lose two hundred gold.