novelraw Chapter 100 : Chapter 100
Chapter 100 : Chapter 100
Chapter 100: Parent-Teacher Conference (1)
Abel recalled an old memory.
For instance, the time he taught the second hero.
Two fishing rods were cast into the great sea.
It was the world where Abel had reincarnated for the second time. A world where four of the five continents had sunk into the sea, and only one small continent was left alive. It was there that Abel had met his second disciple.
“Um, Teacher Abel……”
“Speak, hero.”
Abel and his second disciple were fishing.
If they caught a fish, they planned to eat it and then leave. To the place where they would fight the final battle with the Demon King.
“There's something I've always been curious about, can I ask?”
“Of course.”
The second disciple was a boy with a passive personality.
Having become a hero at too young an age, he was destined to be tormented and then defeated.
“I, Abel Argento, am always prepared to give you teachings, hero. I will answer whatever you ask.”
“……Why do you always speak like that?”
“Is there a problem with the way I speak?”
Abel tilted his head.
“It's very……, like a madman.”
“Indeed, you are a smart hero. I, Abel Argento, am an undeniable madman.”
“……I'll stop talking now.”
“No, hero. We must talk more. The relationship between a teacher and a disciple is renewed through conversation.”
Let me tell you a story, he said.
Abel whispered in a small voice.
“It is a story about my first disciple.”
He had realized through his first disciple.
That he should not use the wrong teaching method. He should not have pretended to be his disciple's enemy. No teacher had the right to stimulate hatred, sadness, or resentment to make them grow. He should have been a place for his disciple to lean on as a teacher, but he had only leaned on his disciple as a teacher. He had just passed on the impatience born of his grudge against the Demon King to his disciple.
“I regret it.”
In the end, all the misunderstandings were resolved, and he had parted with his first disciple with a smile, but, that too was just a favor he had received. His first disciple had forgiven Abel.
“That is why, hero. I wanted to be your support. A teacher you could always rely on.”
“……It's foolish.”
The second disciple chuckled.
He gripped the fishing rod and continued.
“Teacher Abel, I will speak as your disciple. You were clumsy this time too. A teacher who just wants to be a support is not right. You never once scolded me, Teacher.”
“I have no reason to scold you, hero……”
“There must have been. If there wasn't, there would be no reason for me to be your disciple. I would have done well on my own.”
But thank you, he said.
The second disciple muttered.
“Thanks to you, Teacher, I'm no longer afraid of the sea.”
“That's a relief.”
It was because the sea made up most of the world.
The monsters of the world where Abel had reincarnated for the second time were active in the sea. The second disciple's mother had been captured by a monster and had drowned, and his father had thrown himself into the sea and died. And so, the second disciple had always been afraid of the sea. Abel had taught him fishing to correct that tendency.
“Teacher Abel.”
Suddenly, the second disciple asked.
“What kind of person is the real you, not the pretentious you right now?”
“My appearance at that time is……”
Abel had a faint smile.
The fishing rod swayed, and the sea surface also swayed greatly.
Abel was the same. Abel's figure on the surface of the water was shaking fiercely.
“……something I can only show to the dead.”
* * *
Cia-Harphe Academy, Abel's office.
Fabien tilted his head and stared at Abel. After dusting off the little dust and straightening the wrinkles on Abel's formal clothes, he had been wandering around and watching him for two hours. For two hours, Abel had not moved. He was just sitting facing the round table and blinking his eyes.
‘Is he lost in thought again?’
Fabien had been watching Abel from a close distance.
Abel's lifestyle had similarities to that of a golem. Just as a golem sometimes stops operating and arranges its memory device, Abel would also stop and get lost in thought. If a normal person slept at night, Abel spent the night lost in thought.
[Professor Argento.]
Thump, thump.
Fabien tapped the round table with the back of his hand.
[The parent-teacher conference will be starting soon.]
Silence.
[Professor Argento?]
“……I'm listening.”
Abel said in a quiet tone.
Fabien bowed his head slightly and stepped back.
Abel, who had woken up from his thoughts, began to move.
At CIAR, a parent-teacher conference was held at the end of each semester.
There were two agendas. One was a confirmation process regarding the student's life. This was a formal agenda, so it was not important. What was important was the other agenda. Whether to approve the practical evaluation. The reason the parent-teacher conference was held at the end of the semester was because of this.
‘Demian's mother and Roberta's father have agreed to attend…….’
Abel checked the documents on the round table.
He scanned the piece of paper that indicated the attendance of the parent-teacher conference.
‘Monika and Ernst are…….’
A parent-teacher conference for Monika was impossible in the first place. It wasn't necessary either. Monika was Abel's top disciple.
The problem was Ernst. After the death of the Countess of Tresckow, the checks against Ernst within the family had become apparent. It was an inevitable thing since he had been designated as the heir through the will. There would be no family member to act as Ernst's guardian.
Suddenly, knock, knock.
The sound of someone knocking on the office door.
“Come in.”
At the same time as Abel spoke, the door opened, and,
“Hello? You must be Professor Argento.”
A woman with a gentle smile appeared.
“It seems I'm the first to arrive.”
Beatrice von Farenheit.
Demian's mother stood facing the round table.
“Nice to meet you, I am Abel Argento.”
“Nice to meet you. Demian seems to like you very much, Professor. He sometimes shouts in his sleep, asking to play sword fighting?”
“……Demian wants a real fight, not a game.”
Beatrice's appearance was extremely neat.
For the wife of a prestigious noble family, she seemed to have a simple taste. She avoided overly flamboyant attire and emphasized comfort by wearing clothes of a light color.
That was why it was even more noticeable. There was a burn mark on one side of Beatrice's face. The reddish, scarred skin was wrinkled, but Beatrice didn't seem to mind at all.
“Oh, hello!”
Next, Roberta's father arrived.
“You must be Professor Argento. Nice to meet you. My daughter is a bit mischievous, isn't she?”
Curtis Emerson Sinclair.
Roberta's father sat down at the round table.
“Not at all. I am Abel Argento.”
“No need to be so formal. A man should be honest. I know my daughter's personality better than anyone.”
“I think Roberta should be more mischievous.”
Curtis was a man who seemed to be good at calculations.
His appearance was rough, as if he had a magnanimous personality, but his slightly open eyes seemed to be filled with numbers. In the first place, his eyes had been moving busily since the moment he entered the office.
The office is too bare. Why is that golem standing in such a human-like posture? While having such thoughts, his gaze had naturally tilted. Towards the burn mark of Beatrice, who was standing politely.
Jut.
Curtis's lips protruded, and,
“Oh my, does it bother you?”
Beatrice asked in a bright tone.
“What does?”
“My burn mark.”
“I didn't even know there was a burn mark. Now that I see it, it's quite an eyesore. Who are you?”
“Beatrice von Farenheit. Demian's mother.”
“Ah……”
I made a mistake.
To think that she was the wife of the Farenheit family.
Curtis thought so. He hadn't expected it because of Beatrice's simple attire.
“I, I apologize for not recognizing you. I was rude. To sit down first when Mrs. Farenheit is here……”
“It's just tiring to worry about the order of sitting. You seem to have a lot of thoughts, Mr. Sinclair.”
Beatrice sat down at the round table.
Then she propped her chin on her hand and opened her mouth.
“It's a wound I got while trying to save my younger siblings. There was a big fire at my house when I was young.”
“Ah ha……, I see. That's really wonderful. It's a very wonderful scar.”
“I think so too. My husband also fell in love with this scar and proposed to me.”
How amazing.
Abel thought, scratching the back of his neck.
Curtis was struggling and trying to change the subject, but Beatrice didn't seem to want to let him go. Regardless, Abel rummaged through the documents. After arranging the documents containing the students' daily lives,
“Everyone, please calm down. We will now begin the conference.”
The moment he was about to open his mouth in an indifferent tone,
“Wait, Professor Argento.”
An old gentleman in a fedora entered the office.
Thump, thump. While tapping the floor with his cane.
“Were you planning on starting without me? That's disappointing.”
Abel tilted his head.
The old gentleman spoke as if they were acquainted, but he was a man who was not in Abel's memory. A member of the Tresckow family? That was too unfamiliar. He should have seen the faces of the family members at the count's funeral.
He did feel an aristocratic air. On one side of his elegantly wrinkled face, a neatly trimmed mustache was elaborately shaped. He was an old man who was more like a scholar than a noble, and who had an aristocratic atmosphere for a scholar.
“I'm sorry.”
Abel said in a silent tone.
“I was under the impression that only the guardians of Roberta and Demian would be attending. May I ask for your name?”
“That's really disappointing. You didn't even know my face?”
The old gentleman laughed hollowly, then,
“Well. It makes sense. I don't go out much.”
Christophe Jean-Jacques Saint-Sharma.
He uttered a name that no one had expected.
“I am the owner of the museum you have destroyed three times. We finally meet face to face.”
“……I see.”
Abel's eyes trembled slightly.
“I apologize for not recognizing you, Your Highness. I also apologize for destroying the museum……, the Upanishads Museum.”
Curtis and Beatrice were also flustered.
Sharma, who walks on the waves, the beginning and end of imperial philosophy. To think that the head of the Sharma family was here. He was a person who rarely showed himself, so rumors of his death would spread every few years.
“You probably didn't come to hold me responsible for the museum, did you?”
Meanwhile, Abel asked with a tense expression, and,
“Of course not.”
Christophe waved his arm and laughed.
“Didn't you pay for it through the Duke of Orléans? He gave me quite a generous amount. I'll use it to buy some good works of art. Above all, a museum whose ceiling has collapsed three times by one person, it's so poetic.”
The reason I came here is just……, he said.
Christophe muttered, stroking his mustache.
“to be the guardian of Ernst von Tresckow.”