[21st Round] Mathematics & Art
“To track down the queens hiding somewhere on this planet, we need their belongings. His Majesty left his home empty-handed, so we need to find all these things I heard are called Chaos Artifacts here.”
“Ah! Those!”
There was a moment when I had the bright idea of collecting Chaos Artifacts to move between dimensions.
However, after Fugitive Senior abducted me due to the “Brave” power they contained, the Chaos Artifacts were deemed dangerous, causing me to abandon my plan.
But I knew a way to find them.
Pop!
A beautiful married elf jumped out of my shadow.
Shadow A.
She diligently searched for those items as well to meet her pathetic husband, the Elf King, so she knew a lot about them.
“Sure. I didn’t waste time. But I didn’t think they would be used that way.”
“Good. Tell me where they are. I’ll do the rest myself.”
“Hmm? Yourself?”
“Yes.”
I really regretted entrusting a task to my companions back in my first round.
They not only didn’t solve the problems but, on the contrary, made the situation worse. There was only one creature I could rely on.
“Mollan?”
The great creature swayed as it peered out of my wife’s breasts.
“Take good care of Master Mollan, Ssosia.”
This task was important enough to be prioritized.
If I were to ask Master Mollan for it, all my problems would instantly be solved, but that would be blasphemous.
Lowly beings like me should never dare request God to do our bidding.
“Hey, husband? As your first wife, I try to think positively, but Mollan still isn’t the only one you can rely on.”
“I have entrusted you with the most important task. And that already means a lot.”
“Means a lot… Oh! How you love to complicate things. Okay! Hit the road, hubby! Leave everything else to your first wife.”
“Mollan~”
Even though she was cowardly, I could trust her with him.
I looked back at Shadow A.
“So, where are they?”
“There’s five in the Northern Continent, seven in the Central, five in the South, four in the East, five in the West, two in the Sea of Death, and three in my desert refuge on the Southern Continent. If you add the artifacts that I couldn’t track or are damaged, there will be even more of them.”
“Oh, that’s a bit too much.”
Not counting Teacher Morals, there were eight teachers that Fugitive Senior wanted to get his hands on.
However, the number of Chaos Artifacts reported by Shadow A far exceeded that number.
Shadow A provided an explanation.
“Many were killed by the Demon Lord’s attack. His wives that survived became teachers, and the rest reincarnated somewhere in the world of Fantasy, forgetting everything about them and taking on an entirely different look.”
“You mean that among these artifacts, there are also those that belonged to wives who didn’t become teachers?”
“Yes.”
Shadow A began detailing where those objects were.
It wasn’t difficult to remember, but there were many of them. It would probably take me several days to find them.
But that wasn’t all.
With the help of the Chaos Artifacts, I’d need to track down the teachers. This task would take even longer.
Did Red realize that too?
Because while listening to Shadow A’s explanations, she intervened.
“We will act separately, Hero.”
“Do what you want.”
“If you succeed in capturing another queen, bring her here. Then my people will take care of her as before.”
“Okay.”
Fshuh!
Red, spreading her wings, soared into the sky.
Vampires, demons, and angels, who had wings and flight-related skills, followed her.
Here it was, the globalization of the Universe.
Even without the stupid teaching of “good and evil,” which was done at the Fantasy Institution, society was doing great.
Race, gender, appearance, nationality…
Only savages would fight each other because they were different.
Elves, gnomes, humans, and androids who remained on the ground started setting up a temporary camp.
FSHUH!
Opening my wings of the righteous hero, I flew south.
“Why did you start at the south, Drug Hero?”
“That’s what the universe told me to do.”
The President of the Universe would always try to get me out of trouble and direct me on the right path.
Narrowing the space from time to time, I quickly crossed the Central Continent and arrived at the Southern Continent.
The reason why I decided to start from the farthest continent was simple.
“Drug Hero! Something is burning there!”
“I see it.”
Shadow A’s hideout was in an oasis of the once desolate Southern Continent.
However, after transitioning to the 5th curriculum, green forests, meadows, and civilizations appeared here instead of deserts.
Because of that, I no longer knew the exact location of her shelter. However, clouds of gray smoke rising high into the sky pointed itself out to me.
▶ Surprise: What’s going on there?
‘Nothing important, Trainee Teacher.’
That was evidence that Fugitive Senior wasn’t the only one spying on me.
The teachers eavesdropped on the conversation between Red and me, allowing them to react in advance.
This was the result.
Shadow A’s hideout, which contained three Chaos Artifacts, was attacked.
Even without visual confirmation, I could smell them.
“It’s their stench!”
The insidious faculty members’ foul smell.
The sense of justice that had remained dormant in my right hand awakened once more!
From the moment I discovered them, the battle was already over. The difference in our strength was so great that it would’ve been a shame to call it a fight.
I flicked my finger lightly.
[Darkness]
At the same moment, dark matter made my vicinity tremble.
“Kha?!”
“Ph?!”
A man and a woman, presumably teachers, screamed as they fell to the ground.
Looking up, their eyes widened when they saw my righteous smile.
I decided to skip the greeting.
Fshuk! Fshuk! Fshuk!
I fired spikes from my wings of the righteous hero and ripped open the belly of the male teacher on the right.
His innards immediately fell out.
“Th-this is…”
“Art Teacher!” The woman teacher on the left screamed in tears.
‘I see, then this man currently admiring his insides is an art teacher.’
And what did the woman specialize in?
“Hi.”
My greeting was a little late, but I also showered her with spikes.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
However, she swung her thin-bladed silver rapier and deflected all of them.
She wasn’t fast enough for me to catch up with her, but she showed exceptional efficiency with minimal movement.
I didn’t really care, though.
As soon as I snapped my finger again, dark matter shook the space.
No matter how agile and fast she was, she couldn’t handle an attack over such a large area.
But she struck the rapier blade in her hand with her fingertips, causing a strange vibration.
BZZZZZ!
It neutralized the spatial distortion of my dark matter, which came as a surprise to me.
“I am a teacher of mathematics. I can calculate all phenomena in nature using numbers, and I am also the creator of the magic points that measure combat power. Student Kang Han Soo, I have calculated that the probability of you being defeated is 67.4%.”
“Really now? Math teacher, what are the chances of you escaping successfully from me?”
“Well…” She couldn’t answer.
Underneath her glasses, I saw how her pupils trembled like the surface of a lake during a typhoon.
“Do you need a calculator?”
“No! No! Something’s wrong here! Your combat power is too much of an anomaly! The Demon Lord’s essence is divided between dimensions, so your strength shouldn’t be that high! No, more than that, why is its value continuing to grow endlessly…”
SKRRR!
Her glasses that measured my combat power cracked, causing her to scream.
How ridiculous.
She stopped my dark matter but hurt herself by calculating the odds.
“So, what’s the probability?”
“Kh! We must wait! My calculations aren’t over yet! I cannot work with an infinite number!”
Clap!
The math teacher sat down on the ashes of the ruins, muttering something to herself.
“Hey, this is no time to rest.”
“This must be some form of devilry…”
“Math teacher. It looks like the math problems first introduced in Curriculum 5 are too hard. I’ll help you solve this one with an easy-to-understand mathematical formula. First, multiply your 4th and 5th lumbar vertebrae, round off the value, and calculate the differential.”
“What?”
“You’ll get it.”
“What… Huh?!”
The math teacher screamed desperately as she tried to stand with both hands on the ground.
Blood-filled tears flowed from her eyes, blinded by shards of glass.
She seemed to have solved the problem correctly.
“It’s not that difficult, but it can be a little painful.”
“Ugh!”
“Even a simple addition or subtraction involving one’s vertebrae is painful, after all.”
“You’re crazy! You’re—”
Fshuh!
I righteously punished her for being unable to adjust to the standards of the new curriculum and for her jealousy of an intelligent student.
I threw her into the Demon Vault.
Based on the memories extracted from the Chaos Artifacts, that lover of accurate calculations was also one of Fugitive Senior’s ex-wives.
Was it luck?
‘I love you, President of the Universe.’
I was told to move further south.
Oh! Before that…
“P-please help me, student Kang Han Soo. I followed her simply because Math Teacher asked me to go with her. As the very person who teaches the importance of beauty to the heroes, I don’t tolerate violence…”
Crunch!
I struck my wings of the righteous hero between the noisy Art Teacher’s 6th and 7th cervical vertebrae.
So silly.
“If only he kept his mouth shut, I would have beautifully taken care of his lumbar spine.”
Teaching the importance of beauty?
Many locals were ignored or attacked by the heroes simply because they were ugly.
Teachers like him would only create more arrogant heroes that would sell their souls for a beautiful pelvis.
▶ Question: Cadet Kang Han Soo, if this is wrong, what kind of beauty should we strive for in the future?
‘Good question, beautiful Trainee Teacher!’
Morality and ethics were well suited to her, who immediately pinpointed the core and essence of each matter, but I thought she could also take the math teacher’s place.
▶ Recognition: Unfortunately, I am weak in math. So what kind of beauty should we pursue?
Inner beauty!
▷ Concern: I hope she didn’t die because of your crazy math formula, junior.
‘Haha! Don’t worry, Fugitive Senior!’
I was weak in statistics but confident in my calculations.
I hadn’t done any calculations in the past 200 years, though, so I might’ve messed something up. Overall, it should be fine.
▷ Fear: Hey!
“Let’s go further south!”
I was looking forward to what academic subjects were lying in wait for me, the MAX-Class Righteous Hero.
