Drumming his hands on a nearby table, Noel's gaze casually surveyed everyone in the classroom, a smile tugging at the edge of his lips.
"So, what do you think is the most efficient way to destroy a country based on this? Note that my words may or may not be complete."
Noel's finger extended slowly, as if the motion alone carved the question into the air. It hovered over a boy sitting near the edge of the classroom—someone who seemed less like a student, more like a shadow waiting to dissolve.
"You. Over there. What is your name?"
His fingers pointed to a certain boy in the classroom who had disinterestedly brushed off the class from the start. Noel expected him to brush him off coldly, or at least retort with some kind of retarded reply that would increase his blood pressure.
Yet the boy merely blinked in detachment, his voice emotionless, as he flipped over a page of his book that spoke volumes on politics, as if the question thrown to him was quite casual.
His lips moved efficiently, his voice not betraying an ounce of hesitation as if the answer was incredibly obvious.
He ignored the first question, answering the latter with sheer confidence, a hint of arrogance laced.
"You kill the emperor. Without the head, the body falls."
Noel's eyebrow arched with a hint of amusement, humming silently at the answer. He left his position as he strolled slowly around the room, his footsteps echoing on clean, polished red and green tiled flooring.
Walking towards a large open balcony that was the size of a large room, he gazed at the beautiful red moon, the red light blissfully bestowing him with a train of complex thought, his eyes observing the ethereal planet in clear admiration.
He smiled in response to the question as he felt the three eyes boring on his back.
"Mhm... quite a classic answer. Remove the symbol of authority, and chaos supposedly follows. But tell me, did the country collapse, or did only the man?" he said, turning to the boy who was coldly staring at him back, as if he was looking at a fool.
Noel didn't flinch under the judging gaze, his lips parting once more.
"What if the emperor truly died? The only thing that would happen is that his son would take the position. Or perhaps a relative. Or someone else entirely. Sure, you could corrupt that individual, but even so, the country, with or without an empire, would still be there."
"Whether the country fell to another kingdom, got ascended by another man or woman, the result would remain."
Noel chuckled in amusement, nodding his head in acknowledgement at the answer.
Now, they landed on a girl who was shyly looking at him. Tegmine.
"Then how about you, my dearest student?" Upon hearing herself being called, Tegmine flustered before she looked at the floor in front of her.
She fidgeted with her feet for a few moments before her voice came out... hesitantly.
She pouted as she sucked in a bit of air, and out, playing with her genuinely beautiful hair that gleamed like a perfected sculpture under the combination of the light in the room and the blood-red light of the moon.
"Y-yes, teacher!"
She stood up, her face still red as she slightly puffed out her chest as if gathering her courage, her voice slightly trembling.
"I... I think the king. I... if we destroy the structure of rule... the feudal ties, the bloodlines that hold order together. Maybe... disorder will just happen...?" She asked in half doubt, avoiding eye contact.
Noel spun the marker thoughtfully between his fingers as he seriously considered her statement, strolling slowly towards the small pond placed inside the room. The room truly had a beautiful, and intricate design that he dared not to lie about.
Especially the blood red channels that flowed at the end until the red pond, surrounded by intricately carved minerals.
"Strike the spine, and the body collapses... but is a beast truly dead if it still twitches and spasms without one? Or is that... a different kind of life?"
He placed the marker in his pocket as he kneeled, observing the red liquid, before he brought his right hand and scooped a bit of an amount. He leaned closer to his hand as if trying to smell it, before he wrinkled his nose in displeasure, slowly releasing the rest of the liquid.
Her lips thinned, uncertainty flickering behind her poised façade, and she resumed her seat, her eyes darting nervously to her teacher who had begun to stand up.
A third voice interrupted, sharp, merciless.
"Break the people. Shatter their unity and will. A civil war will undo what no invading army ever could."
Noel's head turned to meet a pair of narrowed blood eyes, as if looks could kill.
He would have died a million times.
A slow smile spread across Noel's face, shadows deepening in his dark, pitch-black eyes, as his two hands contacted each other, giving slow, deliberate claps.
"Ah, to turn the hands of the clock against each other... excellent. The machine unwinds itself."
He let his gaze linger on them, savoring the moment, before turning to the board, walking until he stood before it.
PLUCK!
He took the cap off the marker. With deliberate strokes, he wrote beneath their answers:
"The Emperor. The King. The People."
Underneath, a thick line, and then, in bold, sprawling script:
All Correct answers. All Wrong answers.
He faced the class fully now, the flicker of a secret hidden behind his unreadable expression.
Confusion was etched upon Tegmine as her small mind struggled to grasp the visible paradox in the words written on the board. Bellatrix meanwhile was calm, yet a hint of anger was seen in her narrowed eyes as if challenging him to contradict her.
The boy, who Noel had no idea what his name was, deciding to call him 'Boy X,' was utterly disinterested in the topic as a whole.
"You are all correct. But all incorrect."
Noel dragged a seat to where he was, before he carefully patted it twice to make sure it was clean, before he carefully sat on it, crossing his legs together.
"How? Because each of you attacked the vessel—but never the source. You shattered the illusion, yes, but not the light that cast it."
His voice dropped to a whisper, almost reverent.
"A country is not merely land, armies, or rulers. It is built on reality—on the fragile, collective benchmark of what people agree to believe is real."
He tapped the board with slow intent.
"Break that fragile pact... and you do not simply destroy a nation. You erase it from existence."
The room grew heavier, silence thickened—as if the walls themselves held their breath.
"Reality is not a fixed law, but a tapestry woven from shared delusions. Pull the threads, make them question their truths, their gods, their histories... and the entire world they know unravels."
"Make use of illegal drugs, alcohol, whatever you can. Make use of every tool possible. Your goal? To make every single citizen, baby, child, man, woman, elder, every single human being in that country doubt if they are real or not."
Noel turned gently to Tegmine, whose eyes reflected the flicker of new understanding, her eyes practically gleaming in awe at the new understanding.
Even Boy X had raised his eyes from the book for the first time, his interest caught.
"Not by killing the emperor."
Then to the noble girl.
"Not by toppling the king."
And finally, to the cute little girl.
"Not even by dividing the people."
He let out a low chuckle, as if the idea amused him.
"But by destroying the idea—the idealism—that they were ever real in the first place. Society is fragile, and believe me, it's more fragile than you could ever think."
He moved to the board once more, writing a single word, encircling it with deliberate care:
Idealism.
His smile returned, soft but chilling.
"You want to ruin a nation in thirty-two days?"
"Kill its idealism. Make them doubt their gods, their history, their purpose, their symbols. Turn the divine into the mundane, the heroic into the fools. Break the benchmark of belief itself."
He paused, letting the words sink into the silence.
"And when there's nothing left to believe in..."
His voice lowered, almost a prophecy.
"They will burn their own country for warmth."
Stepping back from the board, the shadows in his eyes seemed to deepen.
"That," he said softly, "is the true spell of destruction."
Silence prevailed over the room. One minute passed. Two. Three. Outwardly, Noel was presenting himself as a mysterious, and knowledgeable man, with complete confidence. However, inwardly, he was anything but.
Truth be told, Noel did not have much time to prepare. According to Mr. Steve... cough... he meant according to Mr. Nothing, he was supposedly supposed to be their politics teacher. Yet, he had antagonized the devil god's daughter herself.
Well, if it was up to such an extent, it would have been fine. But currently, he had no idea if he had said anything paradoxical, and if he would be pointed out to be no more than a clown in the cloth of a teacher.
His whole class was not based on a book he had read here.
Rather, it was based on a book he had read back on earth. At least before he kicked the bucket.
As such, he hoped to take a breather and get a chance to prepare more for the next class. Even though he was quite uneasy at the lack of time, it wasn't enough to call it panic.
He still had to try to convince himself that he wasn't on some hallucinogenic drug that was in the woman's cigarette that she had offered him.
Sigh... I should have known better than to trust a bitch.
Well, what could he say? Life on earth was shit. At least he could spend his last moments dreaming of being a teacher. Although it was weird to say the least.
His thoughts could wait for later. After all, he has all the time in the world. Or at least he thinks he does.
Adjusting his monocle, he turned to the classroom, giving a light bow.
"Any questions, everyone?"
A sigh of relief flowed from the mouth of the poor man, as he was about to give his farewells to the class so he could take a chance to be with himself, but he was stopped shortly.
BANG!
Noel narrowed his eyes, adjusting his golden monocle as he observed the responsible individual before him for the sudden bang.
An excited expression filled with awe overtook the face of a certain girl, as she intently stared at Noel. Her usual nervousness had completely dissipated as if it were never there, yet she shyly twirled her hair nonetheless as he watched her half-liddedly.
"Yes, miss Tegmine?" He asked, as he adjusted the university robe that he had custom ordered in the three hours he was left. Somehow, a delivery man had seen the design, quickly went to a certain factory, and came as quickly as he went, proving the great efficiency of the Devil dimension.
He had made Noel hold the bridge of his nose, as he sighed in disbelief at the power a hallucinogenic drug could hold.
"... Um..."
With patience, Noel tapped his fingers against a table, maintaining his habit of deep ponder as he did.
"..... What are drugs and alcohol... ?"
Noel's tapping paused, his expression cracking for the first time. His eyes slowly shifted to Bellatrix who had a snarl across her face, yet, she seemed as clueless as they could come. Boy X was also busy, but Noel could sense an air of interest shifting in his direction.
Slowly and calmly, Noel exhaled out, as he massaged his forehead before he adjusted his monocle. Then, with the same smile, he glanced at the three of them simultaneously as he brought out a parchment of paper.
His odd pen that was designed in the shape of grotesque dark red tree roots scribbled on the paper, before Noel settled it down, and handed a sheet to every person. He walked towards the door that led out of the room calmly, before he gave one last glance, a smile still adorning his face.
"That will be your homework for next week." He was about to leave before he stopped, as if he had suddenly remembered something.
"Oh, I forgot to mention this, but you also have a quiz next week on my curriculum! I'll be talking much more in the upcoming week, so you better study well."
Saying that, he left the room, not before closing the door.
The classroom door clicked shut, the echo lingering in the thick silence.
Tegmine's hands clenched her skirt, heart pounding like a wild drum. She swallowed hard, cheeks burning—not from the moonlight, but from the weight of the things Noel said.
Her voice was barely more than a whisper, trembling like a leaf in the wind.
"Did… did anyone else feel like he wasn't really talking about countries anymore?"
Her eyes flicked nervously toward Bellatrix, who was staring coldly at the cracked floor, lips pressed tight. Tegmine felt a flush of embarrassment but pressed on.
"Like… he's talking about us. Not just politics or history. Like everything we believe in… could just be a lie."
She bit her lip and looked down at her hands, twisting them together.
"I don't know if that's scary or… freeing. But I can't stop thinking about it."
Bellatrix scoffed softly but didn't contradict her. She was already forming a plan in mind on investigating the strange man her father had brought to teach them, since it was very likely that her father wouldn't utter a word about him.
That was how he treated all his tools.
Boy X closed his book with a soft thud, eyes unreadable.
Tegmine dared a glance toward the glowing crack beneath their feet—and felt the room grow colder, as if the walls themselves were waiting for an answer none of them had.