Attendance… plz…)
….
"It's not actually that complex," Rimuru said, tilting his head as he watched her struggle. "Even if you ignore the subtext, you shouldn't call him moronic, Aoko."
"Think about it. All it took was a name change to fix a relationship and turn a past failure into a success. If the result is a win, it doesn't matter if the method looks stupid to bystanders."
"There's a reason Kayneth is known as a man who inevitably succeeds. It's not luck. His logic is entirely results-oriented. He's willing to discard almost any other option if it means securing the 'win'."
"If my rejection was a failure… then look at the scoreboard now. He maneuvered it until he succeeded. Didn't he?"
Rimuru exhaled, feeling a sudden wave of admiration.
Since arriving at the Clock Tower, he'd realized something: none of these professors were simple.
Kayneth specifically, if you stripped away the limitations of his era and the rigid, traditional mindset of a magus ingrained in him since birth, was a terrifyingly competent individual.
He wasn't someone who should have been wiped out in a mere Holy Grail War.
The man's instinct for opportunity and his grasp on the mechanics of success were maxed out.
If Rimuru didn't have the Great Sage accelerating his own logical processing to supercomputer levels, he wasn't sure he could outmaneuver someone like that.
It was a pity.
Kayneth lost because he played by the rules of a traditional mage. He lost because he ran into Emiya Kiritsugu, a man who brought modern tactical nihilism to a magic fight.
"Come to think of it… Kayneth's Origin might literally be 'Success' or something," Rimuru mused.
He glanced back at Aoko. She looked dizzy. His explanation had clearly done nothing but scramble her brain further.
Rimuru sighed, the sound heavy with the disappointment of a teacher failing a student.
Explaining nuance to a human stick of dynamite whose only magical solution is 'make it explode'... I guess I'm the real idiot here.
Rimuru didn't waste any more time trying to enlighten Aoko. He had a sneaking suspicion that prolonged exposure to her confusion might be contagious, lowering his own IQ.
So, he shooed her away and dove back into the ocean of knowledge.
Politics aside, this world's magic theory was actually quite fascinating…
There was less than a week left before the semester began.
When that deadline hit, Rimuru wouldn't just be a lecturer handling the flood of wide-eyed freshmen needing their five years of general education.
No, he was a Professor now.
That meant guest lectures in specialized academic cities and, worse, the dreaded "selection phase" where students would vie for spots in his main classroom.
To be honest, Rimuru had been kind of hyped about it at first.
Then reality set in. He realized that in this specific timeline, there were barely any familiar "plot characters" old enough to actually teach.
His enthusiasm nosedived. Now, he didn't really care who walked through his door.
Besides, look at the roster of disciples he'd already locked in:
Erol, the five-year-old silver-haired witch.
Reines, who was currently a literal infant.
And Tohsaka Sakura… who hadn't even been born yet.
Tch.
Every single one of them was a headache waiting to happen.
But could he say he didn't have students? That wasn't right either.
In the world of magi, a mentor usually only takes on an apprentice to inherit their Magic Crest. The average limit for "true" disciples was around three.
Any more than that, and you were either trying to start a civil war within your own lineage or you were planning to have them slaughter each other in a battle royale.
Unless Rimuru wanted his students to branch off and found entirely new factions, he had effectively maxed out his slots.
Sure, raising disciples from childhood wasn't inherently a problem, but…
Forget it. Let's just hope the general student body has some promise.
Rimuru sighed, staring blankly at the wall. "I mean, I'm a Professor now. Is it too much to ask for a couple of cute female assistants to brighten up the place?"
"Although May might take offense to that…" he thought, before steeling himself. "But! A true warrior never bows to tyranny! I will not be silenced!"
[Notice: Slimes do not possess a biological gender. If you truly wish to…]
"Shut up! Zip it!"
…
Yes, Slimes were genderless. Rimuru knew that. But he firmly believed that a person's essence wasn't defined by their body, but by their soul.
"And the essence of my soul," Rimuru muttered to the empty room, "is one hundred percent, red-blooded, steel-straight male."
[Observation: However, without the secretion of testosterone and related hormones… even if you mimic the necessary organs, you would be unable to achieve an erection… correct?]
"…"
Rimuru fell silent.
He quietly picked up a book and buried his face in it.
Suddenly… he really wanted to cry.
…
Evening came. Just as Rimuru finished organizing his notes and was preparing to clock out, a gale of perfume and panic stormed into the room.
May, her twin pink ponytails whipping through the air, slammed into the desk beside him, looking frantic.
"Bad news! Rimuru, Aoko exploded again!"
"Exploded?" Rimuru blinked, then shrugged, looking unimpressed. "She's a human-shaped intercontinental ballistic missile. Isn't her exploding just a natural phenomenon? Seriously, the Dean should just slap a Sealing Designation on her and be done with it…"
Let her blow up London for all he cared. The world couldn't stop her anyway. She was a Magician; common sense didn't apply.
"It's not that!" May grabbed Rimuru's hand and started dragging him toward the door. "The problem is that this time, she blew up the hunting grounds with Erol!"
"Erol?"
Wait. Isn't that my precious apprentice I was just thinking about?
Rimuru froze, then bolted upright.
"Holy shit!!"
….
+10 chapters on my p@tr3on: Kazuma_trash
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