First Move, Checkmate: How Will You Respond?

Seeing Hennie work so hard for him, Victor couldn’t help but walk up to her.

Hennie looked up alertly as she noticed a figure approaching her.

“Professor Victor?”

Recognizing the person, she stood up flustered and greeted him, pushing up the glasses on her nose bridge.

Victor broke his usual poker face for once and asked her considerately:

“Aren’t you tired?”

He knew Hennie’s job was arranged by the academy, but her level of knowledge was clearly good enough to be a new professor at the Royal Academy of Magic.

Having such a talented person as his teaching assistant, whether it would bring him bad publicity or not, his conscience wouldn’t feel at ease.

“Not at all!”

But Hennie shook her head firmly, with determination.

“It’s my honor to prepare lectures for the professor!”

A silly but somewhat adorable girl.

If it was the Victor from before, he probably would have exploited this little lamb until there was nothing left.

Squeezing every last bit of gain from her, then discarding her when she was of no more use.

That was the kind of person Victor was.

If it benefited him, he would cling onto it tightly.

In fact, with Veega around, he didn’t need an assistant to help prepare his course content at all.

With no one else around, Victor decided to let this silly little lamb off.

He considered his tone and said as coolly as he could in Victor’s aloof manner:

“You don’t have to write my speeches for me anymore.”

Hearing this, Hennie was stunned. Her body swayed unsteadily, unable to stand firmly.

She thought she must have made some mistake that was so serious it made Professor Victor want to fire her.

“Professor, I can spend more time improving your speeches…”

Tears involuntarily welled up in her eyes. Hennie’s voice trembled as she pleaded Victor not to abandon her.

“Please don’t abandon me, I can definitely do a good job as your assistant!”

Victor’s brows furrowed slightly. He didn’t expect Hennie to react this way. He just wanted her to rest sooner and make full use of her talents independently at the Academy of Magic.

But all she could think of was hoping Professor Victor would give her a chance to correct her mistakes, so she could stay at the academy as his assistant.

It was as if… she was about to lose her job.

Veega fluttered her wings and whispered in his ear:

“Why do you think so?”

“This child is still just a magic apprentice, she hasn’t even entered the realm of a mage yet.”

Then Victor realized. Looking at Hennie before him, he felt regret for her talent.

If this was in the game, a magic apprentice would be around levels 1-9.

In other words, a complete newbie.

The Royal Academy of Magic never kept idlers. To become a professor here, the basic requirement was being a mage first.

Only then would the academy consider the mage’s teaching abilities.

No matter how outstanding Hennie’s knowledge was – even able to prepare lectures for the academy’s most gifted class of students. As long as she hadn’t become a mage, she didn’t qualify to be a professor.

From Hennie’s perspective, Victor understood how hurtful his previous words were.

Hennie was just an assistant. If even he no longer needed her, there would only be two outcomes waiting for her.

Wait for the next professor’s assistant position to open up.

Leave the Royal Academy of Magic and become unemployed.

Once she lost her job, no one would criticize the academy, they would only think it was due to her own incompetence that she got fired.

She was so knowledgeable and dedicated her whole life to learning, yet in the end couldn’t even find another place that would take her in.

But Victor wouldn’t comfort her, because he was an infamous petty villain.

So all he said was: “Alright, I take back what I said earlier. Hennie, you’ve done very well, you made no mistakes.”

“I will continue to use you, until you are completely worn out.”

“So until then, don’t tire yourself out.”

Hennie was very happy and nodded excitedly.

“Professor! I won’t fail your expectations!”

Victor wondered why the very capable Hennie was willing to be a mere teaching assistant.

So he asked her about it.

Not expecting Victor to actually ask about her experiences, Hennie was a bit surprised, and her eyes flashed a moment of gloominess, but she still answered calmly:

“I graduated from the Royal Academy of Magic, but by graduation, I still hadn’t become a 1st-rank mage. So I stayed at the academy and volunteered to be an assistant.”

The rest of the story was obvious then.

The other professors naturally kept assistants they favored by their side, while she had the capability but no talent, so she was naturally overlooked.

It wasn’t until the academy hired a new professor, Victor, that she finally had a chance to work under this infamously talented mage.

After hearing her explanation, Victor nodded and patted her shoulder:

“Work hard. Since the academy allowed you to stay, they definitely won’t shortchange you.”

“I’m new here, would you mind giving me a tour of the academy?”

Hearing his request, Hennie hurriedly tidied the things on the table and agreed nervously.

“Having just arrived at the school, I haven’t had a chance to look around yet. Take this chance to have a good look.”

Victor said this, but he was very clear in his heart.

In the game, he didn’t know how many times he had been here already. He even knew about the secret garden behind the Principal’s office.

He only said this to avoid tiring her out with writing for him.

Especially writing lectures in front of him, it gave him a sense of wrongdoing.

Work that was supposed to be his responsibility, yet he needed someone else’s full help with it.

Of course, along with the wrongdoing, it also felt damn great.

Who didn’t enjoy slacking off?

Hennie took him around the academy tirelessly, introducing each building in detail.

The gardens, lawns, training grounds.

Victor nodded along, although these were places as familiar as his own backyard.

When they reached the Hall of Sorcery, he stopped.

This was where players dueled and practiced to improve their magic proficiency.

But right now, noises that sounded like students arguing could be heard from inside.

Victor’s brows furrowed. He suddenly understood how the principal who liked patrolling the corridors to check rowdy classes felt.

Naughty kids had to be disciplined, naughty students even more so.

So he pushed open the door and entered…

…

Erica was in an extremely bad mood.

Wanting to teach Victor a lesson, she ended up being lectured by him instead.

Even her most beloved hairclip was gone.

It was a gift from her mother that she had slipped into the crack of the teleportation circle.

To get back the hairclip, Erica deliberately came to the Hall of Sorcery to practice teleportation magic, trying to undo whatever Victor did to her teleportation circle.

But apparently she couldn’t do it.

After repeated explosions from the circles, she grabbed her golden hair in frustration, as if having a breakdown.

“Ugh, why did it fail again!”

The increasingly restless Erica made a big mistake.

During practice, she didn’t deactivate her teleportation magic, and due to her negligence, the location of the teleport portal fell right in the middle of the Hall of Sorcery.

A student dressed in academy uniform happened to step into her circle.

The circle activated automatically, a peculiar red light lit up…

Whoosh!

After a strong flash of red light, that student disappeared!

Erica watched with her own eyes as the student vanished from her circle.

“Jack? Jack!?”

“Damn it, he got teleported away by someone!”

The few male and female youths accompanying him had drastic changes in expression.

While a flash of panic went through Erica’s eyes. She made a terrible mistake!

“Crap! He got teleported to another dimension!?”

She anxiously operated her magic, trying to retrieve the unlucky fellow.

But no matter how she tried to communicate, the teleportation circle didn’t respond at all!

That unlucky student, just like her unlucky hairclip, was gone without a trace.

The scene now was so similar to what happened in class back then?

At this point, everyone noticed the panicked Erica frantically using her magic.

The teleportation circle in the middle came from the same source as her magical energy.

And today, word had just gotten out that Erica learned teleportation magic.

In that instant, the students in the Hall of Sorcery were infuriated!

“Erica Duquois!”

“It was you! You teleported Jack away!”

“You did it on purpose!”

There were two main factions among the academy’s students – the nobles, and the commoners.

The nobles and commoners never got along. In their eyes, these kids who got in through exams would often end up as dogs working for their families in the future.

There were inevitable clashes between the nobles and commoners, but since this was the Royal Academy of Magic, strength and ability were what mattered.

So while there were conflicts, things wouldn’t easily escalate.

But now, in the commoners’ eyes, Erica Duquois, the top genius of the noble faction and young lady of a duke family, had unambiguously humiliated them with her actions.

Noble families usually didn’t come to the Hall of Sorcery. After a day of studies at the academy, they would often return home to continue lessons under their family’s private magic tutors.

Only commoner students who got in with average grades would come to the Hall of Sorcery and persistently practice.

If their family circumstances prevented them from surpassing others, they could only use the path of magic to surpass the nobles.

But no one expected that, coincidentally, the unhappy Erica wanted to try retrieving her hairclip.

And so caused this huge mistake.

At this point, no one cared about the truth anymore. The commoner students just wanted an outlet to vent all their pent-up grievances.

“Erica, you need to apologize for what you’ve done!”

“Apologize! And bring Jack back!”

Standing alone there, Erica couldn’t defend herself in the face of everyone’s condemnation, only lowering her head silently.

She could only keep trying to teleport the missing student back.

But amidst the students’ verbal attacks, her mind grew even more chaotic, unable to calm down even if she wanted to.

All she could retort irritably was: “I can’t do it!”

“It was a mistake with my magic, I don’t know how to save him either!”

But this angered the commoner students even more.

“You caused our friend to disappear, yet you won’t even apologize?”

“The nobility are ruthless, they finally reveal their incompatible fangs!”

“Your lives as nobles are lives, what about us then? What do you take us for!”

Erica bit her lip and stayed silent, head lowered.

Her fists unconsciously clenched a little tighter as resentment welled up inside her.

Victor! Where exactly am I inferior to you!

Things you can easily accomplish, I should be able to as well!

She understood she shouldn’t resent others, but after meeting Victor, she realized she couldn’t do it.

Victor was better than her in every way, whether it was knowledge or magical talent.

That was talent that made even her family endlessly praise him.

Once the seeds of jealousy were planted in her heart, they became very difficult to uproot.

“Have nothing better to do?”

An abrupt, cold voice sounded from the entrance. The evening sun shining in illuminated Erica’s exquisite, peerless face, giving it a bloody glow.

Leaning against the doorway, Victor had a strange crow perched on his shoulder.

He had his hands in his coat pockets, with an arrogant gaze as if everyone else were beneath his notice.

“If you want to write self-reflections, then keep arguing right in front of me.”