"Impossible... What magic did you use?"
Redina asked, her face full of disbelief.
"Ah, this is just divine magic combined with regular healing magic."
"What!?" Once again, the professors were shocked.
"What's wrong? This is basic stuff."
"Basic my ass! This is incredible. Nobody knows of something like divine magic and healing magic being able to restore a body that's lost its shape entirely."
"Professor Redina's right. The fact that you can use basic Divine magic is already shocking enough, considering your race is Demon. It's common knowledge that demons absolutely hate divine magic." Rachel added.
"And also, how is it even possible for healing magic, which is supposed to just heal, to instead create and rebuild a body that's already lost its form."
One of the professors backed up Roman's point.
"Yeah, that's clearly strange. What exactly did you do?"
Ard just scratched his head, sweat forming on his cheek as he struggled to figure out how to explain it.
"Well... Professor Roman is right, but the basic premise is wrong. I didn't make healing magic able to 'create and rebuild,' this is just a combination. And also, this isn't healing magic."
"What do you mean?"
"I call this Recovery. It's similar to healing magic, but it's clearly different. Recovery is another branch of healing magic."
"I used divine magic because Recovery magic alone wasn't enough. So I released divine magic and let it seep into the flesh, since it carries life energy and has a healing property too, then after that I used Recovery."
"Simply put, this is something impossible without divine magic. But if you have divine magic, and then Recovery, which is a branch of healing magic, I can reconstruct and restore body parts that are severely damaged."
"That's insane. Is this some kind of regeneration?" one of the professors asked.
"No. That's clearly different. Regeneration and healing aren't the same thing. Regeneration grows tissue or body parts, while Healing cures wounds and illnesses."
To simplify, it goes like this:
Healing magic is for curing minor to moderate wounds and illnesses.
Regeneration magic is for naturally growing body tissue.
Recovery magic is for restoring a body to its previous condition by reconstructing lost structure. The effect won't be significant, or won't even work at all, without life energy present.
Divine magic is for supplying life energy and a purifying property that lets Recovery work, or work effectively, even in extreme states of damage.
"No matter how you look at it, that's still insane. If this got spread around, wouldn't it be a huge breakthrough?" one of the male professors said, practically buzzing with excitement.
Ard understood where he was coming from, he got it completely. But he had zero intention of spreading this knowledge.
"Honestly, that's impossible. I won't allow it."
"Why not? This could be a huge help, a revolution in magic."
Ard raised his hand to the side. The space beside him rippled like the surface of water. A dimensional gap, about the width of an arm, opened up, and he reached his hand into it. A moment later, he pulled out a cloth and used it to cover the body of the flesh lump, now shaped like a human again.
'Still disgusting as hell.'
"It's true that my discovery of Recovery magic could help people, but it'd also come back to bite me."
Ard thought through a scenario where a war broke out and never ended, simply because his recovery magic kept reconstructing soldiers' missing limbs over and over. And then, because of that endless war, countless lives, including innocent ones, would end up as casualties.
Ard honestly didn't care if that actually happened. But it would happen because of magic he himself had created.
"The first reason is I'd feel guilty about it. The second reason is it'd be a pain to have to present it to everyone. And the main reason, the real one, is that I probably wouldn't get to live in peace and laze around anymore."
"Haha..." The professors could only laugh bitterly. "Classic Professor Ard."
"Your discovery of Recovery magic is shocking enough, but what's even more shocking is that you can use Divine magic despite being a Demon." Rachel said, jotting something down in a notebook.
Ard scratched the back of his head again.
"Forget about that, I'm more shocked that Claire actually managed to behead this guy."
"True. Even though she didn't use her full strength, and there was that incident where she got ambushed and ended up hurt, Claire still managed to behead this man's body."
"Claire. She's a smart girl. On top of that, she's hardworking and strong too."
"Oh~ Professor Ard. Have you and Claire made up?~" Celi smiled, nudging Ard's stomach with her elbow, clearly trying to tease him.
"Wait, what happened? Did Ard confess his feelings to a student and get rejected, and now they're at odds?!" Tristan asked, his face practically dripping with curiosity.
"...!" The vein on Ard's forehead made a reappearance.
"I'll handle this flesh man myself. Lutra."
"Yes, Young master." Lutra hurried over with a handkerchief for Ard. Ard took it and used it to wipe the bloodstains off his hands. It was Tristan's blood, who was now thoroughly beaten up and being laughed at by Celi.
"How will you deal with him?"
"Ah... I'll leave that to Lutra."
"W-w-what!? M-me?" Lutra's face went pale, sweat trickling down.
"What? You want to refuse?" Ard smirked at Lutra.
Lutra wanted to refuse, but he couldn't. Ard knew full well there was no way Lutra would refuse. With an annoyed expression, Lutra answered.
"N-no. I. Will. Follow. Your. Orders." He clenched his jaw so hard his cheeks looked tense.
'Once this is over, I'm submitting my resignation letter.'
Meanwhile, Ard just smirked wickedly, savoring the moment. He could finally get back at Lutra for piling extra work onto him.
'There's no way I'm letting this go, Lutra. Because of you I got stuck with extra work, so you're getting extra work too.'
"Alright. We'll head back then, the sun's already up, and honestly everyone's exhausted." Rachel said, adjusting her glasses with a finger.
The professors finally dispersed and went their separate ways to rest.
Ard ordered Lutra, who was still seething, to take the flesh man to 'that' place for interrogation.
Reluctantly, Lutra agreed to Ard's order and left, dragging the flesh man's legs behind him.
The whole way there, Lutra kept muttering curses at Ard, and since Ard's senses were finely honed, he could hear every single one of them.
Instead of getting angry, Ard just chuckled, clearly amused watching Lutra.
While Ard was chuckling, watching Lutra's back grow smaller in the distance.
Elisha wrapped her arms tightly around Ard's waist. Ard was obviously caught off guard by it.
"H-headmistress." With an awkward, strained laugh, Ard tried to pry Elisha's arms off, but just as he expected, her strength was honestly terrifying.
"Lin."
"W-what?"
"Call me Lin."
"H-headmistress. You seem unwell." Ard turned to look at Elisha. The moment he saw her face, his brow furrowed, shocked and confused.
"Headmistress! Your eyes... Your eyes!"
"Hmm? What about my eyes?"
"They've turned black!" Ard's voice rose a little, laced with worry. Yeah, that was because Elisha's eyes, which used to be golden yellow, had turned black. What worried Ard even more was that those eyes looked exactly like eyes he'd seen somewhere before.
Ard felt a strange mix of nostalgia and worry. Elisha's eyes were black like there was no light left in them at all, like the eyes of someone who'd been through so much, despair, sadness, anger, fear, over and over again, again and again.
"Hmm~ I don't know what you mean. What matters is you call me Lin." Elisha just hugged Ard tighter instead.
"No, no! This could be dangerous, and also why would I even call you Lin?!" Ard was genuinely worried, but there was that nostalgic feeling again the moment he said Lin.
"Because that's what you've always called me, from the very start." Elisha smiled with her lips, but not with her eyes.
"What do you mean by that?" Ard grew even more worried, sweat pouring down nonstop.
Ignoring what Ard said, Elisha just hugged him again.
"I'm truly grateful, you haven't changed at all. In this time too, I'll do everything I can to save you."
Ard's eyes went wide hearing Elisha's words. He didn't know why he felt this way, a mix of nostalgia, sadness, happiness, and fear, all at once.
All those emotions crashing down on him at once left Ard completely lost. But right as he was caught in that confusion, Elisha passed out in his arms.
"H-headmistress...."
"Hey, wake up." Ard shook her body gently.
"Hey, this isn't funny."
"Elisha!"
"ELISHAAA!!!"
* * *