The Extra Works Hard - Chapter 4

“Forgive me for being late. For arriving late I…”

“It’s alright, Nathan.”

“Are you settled in?”

There were two people in the room. The first person to open his mouth was a gentleman. He was the owner of the voice he heard from outside the door. And Nathan knew who it was. Because he was exactly as he was described in the novel.

Professor Michael. A person with the title of Archmage as the dean of the Magic Department in Aurora Academy. The man had a very attractive face. He had the kind of face that once one saw him, they would never forget. In particular, it was difficult to compare his golden eyes to those of a human. It was because he had longitudinally diverged pupils resembling reptiles. He had long, lemon-colored hair that fell down to his waist and hung loosely in a sloppy tie, and he wore a thick, colorfully embroidered navy blue robe. In his right hand was a staff woven from branches and set on his head with a yellow jewel the size of a child’s face, and in his left-hand something like a root of grass.

And the person leaning at an angle on the table next to it was also vaguely familiar to Nathan. With her short red hair, beautifully tanned skin, and slightly drooping, greenery glitter eyes. Muscles were placed on the tall body without excessive muscle mass. And she was wearing a sword around his waist.

“It’s Finver’s fault since he didn’t do his job properly. Obviously, I was telling him about it. When Nathan arrived by train, I told him to help him along.”

“Ah, that was it.”

“Yes Michael, but why are you scared?”

“Ha, Pavan. What did I do?”

Nathan clasped his hands in front of him. After all, Professor Pavan was right in front of him. Both Professor Michael and Professor Pavan appeared from the very beginning of  “Hazard Erasmus”. Professor Pavan was an excellent swordswomen and was in charge of the Swordsmanship Department. She was also the teacher who taught Hazard there. As a result, Pavan appeared more frequently than expected even after the academy arc.

She was a ferocious and moral knight. After becoming a knight in the royal family even as a woman, she decided to retire early at a young age and became a professor at Aurora Academy. Of course, the author mentioned the incident insignificantly, but the author indirectly conveyed that Hazard was involved in the cause.

T/N: Not exactly sure if Pavan is a woman or a man. If anyone knows please leave a comment down below. Until then I will assume they are female.

“Yes, I heard the news.”

Professor Pavan spoke suddenly, and Nathan flinched. Nathan looked at Pavan with trembling pupils. Once again, even though he had the same red hair as hers and green eyes, the aura was completely different.

What more news? Wasn’t it Professor Michael who called him? He glanced at Professor Michael to see that he had his back turned and was doing something else.

“I was also very surprised to hear the news. Of course, others were surprised. I was startled by the news of Melchieldog under the world…”

“It was. It was in the article, and it was noisy for a while.”

“Is that so…?”

Nathan frowned and replied. Because of the tension, the end of the speech was raised without him knowing, but it seemed that the two of them did not notice. Or maybe they were pretending to be like that. Professor Pavan grabbed Nathan’s hand. Her scarred hands were about the same size as Nathan’s, but in many ways, they were stronger.. healthier in comparison to Nathan’s thin and fragile hands. A warm hand wrapped around his cold hand.

“The work of Baron Norbert was very unfortunate. God is too much… How much heartache did you go through because of this…”

Her casual pat was gentle. Her words were full of worry and regret. But still, Nathan couldn’t keep up with the conversation. Not knowing anything, his head was already pure white, but as he listened to conversations he couldn’t even keep up with the flow, he became more and more a blank slate. They didn’t know what the silent Nathan was thinking about, Professor Pavan held Nathan’s hand strongly.

“Nevertheless, Nathan, you are safe now, so don’t fret.”

‘Are you..?’ Nathan read unknown anxiety in the context of the conversation. His heart was pounding and his stomach felt nauseous.

“Yeah, did your family’s funeral go well?”

“Ah…”

Nathan closed his eyes and opened them slowly. At that moment, the sentences of the conversation he had heard so far were coming together in his mind.

Baron Norbert.

‘Nathan Norbert’ as a character was unfamiliar to him, but Baron Norbert had been mentioned in the novel before. And for bad reasons.

In all conflicts, there was always a sign or clues that it would happen before it actually happened. For example, let’s say that one day, the railing that had been in good shape suddenly broke. But it most likely didn’t really break all of a sudden. Maybe it was due to aging little by little over a long period of time, or it could be that small incontinence occurred due to some strong impact before that, and it was broken by even a small force.

This was the case with Baron Norbert. It was the first sign to hint at future events in the world of “Hazard Erasmus”. Baron Norbert’s area was located a bit far from the rest of the central city. The population was small, the economy was not affluent, and it was underdeveloped, so it took three days to get to the neighboring village.

The incident took place after Aurora Academy went on winter break. Every year around this time, the subjugation of monsters took place everywhere, and that was no different in Baron Norbert’s fief. In the original case, the usual number of guards would have been sufficient. Although it was a small estate, it was still baronial in its own way, so there were quite a few skilled knights. However, somehow, the number of monsters that appeared this year was greater than ever before, and they were unusually strong.

It didn’t take long for the small estate to become a waste. The baron’s only son went to the Viscount Lasilla in the neighboring village to ask for help, but when they arrived at Baron Norbert’s fief with reinforcements, only a few people had survived. The main character, Hazard, heard the news through a newspaper article. But that was it. Hazard only realized much later that what happened in Baron Norbert was a sign and the beginning of an ominous omen.

…that’s how it went. The work of Baron Norbert was just a story that had to happen for what was to come. A story that was only mentioned in a few lines. But for the owner of this body, it was not a story that would end in just a few seemingly insignificant lines.

Nathan remembered the dreary gloom he had seen in the train. He remembered the wrinkled corners of his eyes and the tears across his cheek. When he woke up, ‘Nathan’ was crying silently.

Somehow, his heart was pounding.

“I thought it would be okay for you to rest a little longer. The academy is a school that allows you to graduate on your own terms, so if you want to take a leave of absence right now, you can tell me.”

“Oh, no, no.”

Nathan hurriedly shook his head. He himself had to be there at the academy. He knew nothing and had no one to turn to. He really had nowhere to go once he left this academy. Even if he knew the contents of the novel, there was no way he could survive on his own.

Let’s entertain the ‘Nathan’ thing for a moment. He didn’t know if ‘he’ had a good funeral for ‘his’ family. ‘He’ returned to the academy, and ‘he’ wasn’t himself, even though ‘he’ actually thought he was going to quit the academy.

“I want to be in the academy.”

His voice trembled involuntarily. His eyes are contorted as if crying. But no more tears flowed from the corners of his dry eyes. Nathan wanted to cry in many ways. He didn’t know how he got to this place. He wanted someone to let him know. He just started the train journey he had been looking forward to. He was just traveling in the form of escapism!

“…right. I know.”

Professor Pavan said in a calm tone. Then she squeezed the hand she had been holding tight once more and released it.

“Come on, drink this. It is a herbal tea with a calming effect.”

“Thank you…”

Nathan took the teacup that Professor Michael had offered. A pleasant scent tickled the tip of his nose. The three of them drank tea for a while. No words were spoken, but Nathan guessed that the two of them were only talking to each other without him knowing it. It was written in the original novel that if two people were capable of using their magical powers, they could communicate mentally, so maybe it was.

The tea was sweet. It felt really relaxing. It was then that Nathan began to feel a little more comfortable that he started to look around. The inside of the room was really shaped like a wizard would use it. Various herbs and flowers were hanging from the ceiling. It wasn’t electricity that lit up the room like he was used to, but a light that could be turned on and off by magic. Various medicine bottles were lined up, and thick books were piled up. On one side of the desk, a quill was moving alone and writing down all on its own.

There was a blackboard right in front of where Nathan was standing, full of incomprehensible symbols and letters. What looked like a magic circle was drawn between the dense letters without any spaces, and the sentence below it was barely readable.