This Novel is not my Chapter 68: Qualification (8)

This was not the ti to engage in a bickering argunt with Reisir. Especially when the subject was irrelevant to the original topic.

So, I refrained from responding to Reisir's words.

Instead, I spoke the words I wanted to say to Skati while pretending to address him.

"Anyway, Professor Skati has already stepped onto the judgnt stand, received a community service sentence, and is carrying it out, isn't she? She does so very diligently, even though soone of her ability could hide her appearance and presence without anyone knowing."

Skati could have gone into hiding after killing the guild leader.

But she cut off his head and placed it on the judgnt stand.

And by providing the Imperial Family with information about the Assassination Guild she belonged to, she dismantled that organization.

It was an act akin to avenging the countless people killed by the assassins there, and saving the lives of countless others who might have been killed in the future.

She could have demanded leniency by citing such rits.

Skati willingly placed herself on the judgnt stand as well.

The expression 'subli' probably wouldn't suit her, an assassin.

But even so, I think Skati deserves to be respected.

"Professor Skati is already being punished, and the professors have no right to punish her. No, given her past act of murder, they likely aren't even imposing private sanctions."

"...If not that, then what?"

The emotions visible on Reisir's face were quite complex.

While his brows were furrowed as if he found everything utterly displeasing, the eyes beneath them were directed at favorably.

He looked sowhat resigned, yet I also sensed an inexplicable expectation.

'Seeing how he's throwing in appropriate interjections so the conversation can flow naturally, it seems he's grasped my intention and playing along, but...'

At this rate, won't Karvaldr's image beco excessively glorified in Reisir's mind?

Anxiety struck , but I couldn't stop what I was doing now.

It was already too late for that.

"Since scholar-type professors have no reason to involve themselves with Professor Skati, the ones bullying her are probably combat-line professors. But isn't the skill they've polished their whole lives also a ans of killing people?"

There may be people who developed their martial prowess to protect themselves and their loved ones.

But that was just an idealistic notion.

If we got down to fundantals, the goal of combat techniques lay in efficiently harming the opponent.

"To beco a professor at Valhalla Academy, one must possess the appropriate skills, for which actual combat experience is essential. One also needs to build honor, for which accomplishnts are necessary. Whether they killed enemy soldiers in war, hunted down and killed criminals, or engaged in life-and-death duels by mutual agreent for so reason... not all, but the majority would have experience killing people."

So might argue that assassination cannot be equated with that.

But no matter what justifiable excuse is offered, isn't the weight of a human life the sa?

Yet if they criticize Skati for killing people, shouldn't we view it as them forgetting the weight of the lives they themselves took?

If so, they have even less right to despise Skati.

"They went through such an arduous process, beating out countless competitors just to barely beco professors. But then a criminal who suddenly appeared obtained professor qualifications effortlessly, so they must have been angry. But they couldn't rebel against the Imperial Family that sent that criminal to the academy, so they took it out on Professor Skati, didn't they?"

"Yeah, that could be it."

"Even if, by chance, the perpetrators referred to Professor Skati's past, it would only be to justify their own actions. I dare predict that behavior which began as venting anger has long since degenerated into amusent."

Perpetrators were always like that.

They began enjoying seeing others suffer and submit more and more, continuously escalating the intensity of the bullying for greater amusent.

As if addicted to it.

"That sort of thing can't even be called private sanction. It's re harassnt. Whatever cri Professor Skati committed in the past, there is no reason she should endure that bullying. Moreover, since her past self was likely nothing more than a tool, this is even more true."

This should be enough discussion about how the perpetrators were not legitimate judges.

Now, I would begin speaking to alleviate Skati's guilt.

"You've seen Professor Skati's face too, so you know she is quite young. Considering that age, tell . What level is her skill as an assassin?"

"Considering her age... it's truly unbelievable. Even if her talent is exceptional, it makes you wonder whether it's possible to accumulate that much skill."

"Despite her young age, can I interpret that to an she underwent training for a very long ti and was deployed to actual missions countless tis?"

"Yeah... that's probably it."

Thanks to Reisir vouching for Skati's skills, bringing up the topic beca much easier.

Otherwise, I would have had to use Duke Hard's na and claim I heard from my father that she was the successor to the Assassination Guild leader.

It was a relief I didn't have to fabricate such a lie.

"That must an she underwent training to beco an assassin at such a young age that she lacked proper judgnt, and began assassination work under the coercion of adults. Was she kidnapped by an assassin who recognized her talent when she was young? Or perhaps they took in orphans and raised them as assassins, and Professor Skati was among them? Or maybe an assassin killed her parents on request, saw the child left behind, and took her in to raise..."

Even in the original work, the path through which Skati entered the Assassination Guild was never revealed.

Because Skati herself, who would have had to explain it to the protagonist, didn't know either.

Her earliest mory was being locked in a secret room with countless other children, undergoing repeated training to kill people.

"She wouldn't have beco an assassin because she wanted to. It was simply taken for granted that she would beco one, and she grew up in an environnt where she had no choice but to believe that was her only purpose. I suspect she naturally beca an assassin."

"......"

At so point, the look of displeasure had completely vanished from Reisir's face.

Was it because he learned that Skati had an unfortunate past?

That was a good thing. Just as important as instilling in Skati the will to escape the bullying was preventing her relationship with Reisir from diverging from the original work.

"Even so, she realized on her own that taking others' lives is wrong, and decided to leave that profession."

I continued speaking while eting Reisir's eyes directly.

"So..."

Even if others criticize Skati without knowing any of the circumstances, you, the protagonist of this world, at least—

"—Shouldn't you rightly find her pitiful and admirable?"

I saw his golden monocular eye tremble greatly, revealing his agitation.

The wedge seed to have been driven in properly.

With that reaction, it was safe to assu that when he t Skati in a dungeon later, there wouldn't be any antagonism between them.

Relieved, I took my eyes off Reisir and looked around the lecture room once again.

Skati's figure was still nowhere to be seen.

'Surely she hasn't already left the lecture room, and Reisir and I were just acting pointlessly because of a misunderstanding...?'

Should I ask her to send so kind of signal if she's listening to our conversation?

While I seriously contemplated that, Reisir suddenly asked a question.

"By the way, how have the professors been bullying her? Surely, as professors, they wouldn't have gathered in a group to physically assault her, right?"

"I don't think they would have done that either. After all, ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) isn't her specialty concealnt? Naturally, the perpetrators would have aid for ntal harm rather than physical pain."

"...Huh?"

"The type of bullying that's hardest to endure differs from person to person. In Professor Skati's case, after enduring all sorts of brutal training as an assassin, physical pain might have been easier for her to withstand."

Seeing Reisir react with bewildernt, I added an explanation, wondering if he was perhaps underestimating ntal suffering.

Even so, Reisir's expression didn't change.

Because the explanation I had just given was nothing more than an unnecessary comnt, irrelevant because I was barking up the wrong tree.

"No, no. Not because of that... Why are you speaking as if you're guessing? Didn't you say it's a confird fact that she's being bullied by the other professors? Didn't you imply you fully understood how she was being bullied?"

"I deliberately avoided digging into the details. Although it seems she no longer considers her disciple... still, if I knew those details, wouldn't that damage her pride as a professor?"

Actually, there was one more reason.

If I knew the exact kind of bullying Skati had suffered,

I felt I would unconsciously compare it to my own experiences and asure her suffering by subjective standards.

I could never claim to have completed the investigation simply because I didn't want to continue it.

"What I do know is that, in the past, soone harbored malice and exposed Professor Skati's status as a criminal, and that only professors could have done such a thing."

"I understand that there is soone among the professors who dislikes her. But isn't an educator's criminal record sothing that should obviously be revealed? Isn't hiding it actually the bad thing?"

"Yes, it isn't sothing that should be hidden. So what is malicious is not the act of exposing it itself, but the timing."

I suspected that Skati at the ti hadn't intentionally hidden it, but had rely obeyed orders from the higher-ups not to say anything.

This was slightly off-topic and rely speculation without evidence.

So I decided to skip over it without ntioning it.

"If that fact had beco known at the beginning of the sester, things wouldn't have escalated this far. If students disliked having a criminal as a professor, they could simply apply to change lectures. Professor Skati would have regarded it as her karma and calmly accepted it. But what if it happened after the lecture was already well underway and she had grown attached to her students?"

"...She would have been hurt by the students' sudden change in attitude?"

"I suppose so."

"Even so?"

"......?"

Soone else here had suddenly changed as well.

For so reason, Reisir's expression abruptly turned icy and rigid.

Just as I wondered what was wrong with him, his lips slowly parted.

"Even so, she hurt you in exactly the sa way?"

It wasn't difficult to understand what his words implied.

And Skati seed to understand as well.

I was beginning to suspect she truly had been hiding sowhere in here, considering there had been no sign of her the entire ti.

"Ah......"

Along with a sigh, a human figure appeared from a shadow where there had clearly been nothing monts before.