novelraw Chapter 121: Invitation
Chapter 121: Invitation
"Student Isabel, student Jasmine, please go to the professor's office of the Magic Academy right now. Teacher Fisher is looking for the two of you regarding some matters."
When the student union cadre of the Dormitory Association found Isabel, Jasmine, and Milika below the Teaching Building, they had only just been dismissed from class.
"Ah, okay. We will go immediately."
The two who were called both stared blankly slightly, and then coinciding without prior agreement revealed a tiny bit of panicked meaning.
Isabel was because she copied Jasmine's assignment over the weekend and then handed the assignment up; being suddenly called by name now, she had extremely good reasons to suspect Professor Fisher had discovered her little actions.
Even as a princess, this kind of behavior of being suddenly singled out by name by the teacher to go to the office still made her heartbeat abruptly accelerate at this second, exactly like the engine of a steam machine roaring up.
But facing others outside she still remained that calm appearance. After smilingly answering the schoolmate who came to notify them, that schoolmate then left. At the instant that schoolmate left, her gentle expression couldn't hold up anymore, turning extremely flustered and panicked.
Finished finished finished finished.
Previously during the Gothrin Festival she already knew Professor Fisher's relationship with her own elder sister was unusual. And ordinarily her elder sister was the one who was strictest with her. If by chance... if by chance Professor Fisher offered up the entire matter of her copying assignments over to her elder sister, wouldn't she not even be able to return home?
When the time comes definitively older brother and father would also entirely know!Had I known earlier I wouldn't have copied the assignment. But on the weekend older brother met with the ministers of the New Party, holding a banquet within the Golden Palace; I had to prepare for the banquet, that's why I had no method to write the assignment ah!
That assignment was so hard, assigned on Thursday and needing to be handed in on Monday; how could I manage to do it out!
Isabel wore a bitter face, cold sweat madly popping out from her forehead. Turning her head, she nevertheless discovered Jasmine's expression was also extremely nervous.
She carefully pursed her lips, both hands covering her own chest, bearing an appearance of difficulty breathing.
Different from Isabel who was worried because of copying assignments, Jasmine was afraid the matter of her being a Whale-kin was exposed. If by chance the matter of her being a demi-human was exposed...
She cast a glance at the roommates beside her, not even daring to imagine what the consequences of exposure would be like.
"You guys truly are...! Isabel, I reminded you early on not to copy assignments right, Teacher Fisher definitely spoke about this matter during class!"
Milika was the one who understood Fisher the most among the three. As early as the weekend when Isabel returned from the Golden Palace wanting to copy Jasmine's assignment, she had reminded Isabel. But seeing she truly hadn't written it and had to hand it in tomorrow, there was simply no way.
"But... but there truly were matters at home... I just didn't make it in time to write..."
Isabel pitifully looked at Milika. That appearance made Milika sigh.
Before outsiders Isabel was precisely that gentle and poised princess; only before familiar people would she reveal her cute and childish side. Compared to a princess, Milika and Jasmine more so treated her as interacting with a familiar intimate friend.
Now that a matter sprouted up of course they could only face it. Deciding promptly, Milika stroked her chin and said,
"According to my understanding of Teacher Fisher, he definitely saw that you Isabel copied the assignment. The reason he called the two of you over is wanting to criticize you a bit. Without a second thought this assignment is definitely zero points. The crucial point lies in properly apologizing to Teacher Fisher safeguarding it won't be committed again. Moreover Isabel you are a princess, Teacher won't make things too difficult for you."
Finished speaking, because Milika revealed Teacher Fisher's information for the sake of friends, she somewhat guiltily emphasized again,
"But, next time! You truly cannot copy assignments anymore. Next time Teacher Fisher might just hand you over to the Dean's office, you know?"
Isabel bitterly nodded her head. Conversely it was Jasmine who, realizing after the fact that Teacher Fisher wasn't looking for her for the sake of that night's matters, breathed a sigh of relief.
And then, waiting until that breath was relaxed, she again, similarly to Isabel, sank into panic regarding the copying assignment disturbance, belonging to one wave not settling down before another wave arose again.
But uncomfortable as it was, they still had to go.
"You guys hurry up and go. I won't go this time... avoiding Teacher Fisher knowing I'm behind giving you plans and strategies. Remember, properly apologizing is absolutely no problem!"
"Alright..."
Isabel and Jasmine wore bitter faces walking toward the direction of the faculty office. After passing through a good several Teaching Buildings, they finally saw the faculty office of the Magic Academy within the building at the furthest back.
When they pushed open the door to enter, arriving at the doorway of Fisher's office, his office door was currently open, revealing the situation inside.
"Mr. Fisher is certain about participating in this Volunteer Teaching correct?"
"Yes, the main theme is exactly ethics right."
"Alright. Roughly starting next week we will successively notify all professors of the specific times and locations; please pay attention to check and receive mail when the time comes."
"Alright, many thanks."
Fisher prepared to rise to send off the teacher from the Dean's office. Following which, immediately upon standing up he saw those young girls standing outside the door, constrained exactly like two small animals.
Isabel stood in front. Jasmine meanwhile carefully hid behind her back, looking inside the office both curiously and fearfully.
Although she wasn't human, her fear regarding the matter of being invited to the office by the teacher didn't come any lesser than Isabel's.
"Come in."
Showing little expression, Fisher cast a glance at the two of them. Bitingly cold opening of his mouth caused Isabel to practically be squeezed in by the Jasmine behind her.
"Professor Fisher..."
The two of them voiced a greeting. Fisher didn't reply, conversely signaling for the two of them to sit in front of the office desk. Fisher brought over a cup of coffee, and then placed two assignment sheets before them. Isabel very quickly saw that massive pile of little circles on her own assignment and also that big zero egg right at the start; she almost didn't faint over.
Jasmine looked at her own full-mark assignment. Not knowing why, she also concurrently pursed her lips.
"This is last week's assignment. A total of three major problems. The line of thought for the two of you was roughly exactly the same across all three problems. Now I want to ask the two of you a bit, was there any behavior of plagiarism between you."
Eh?
It seemed Teacher Fisher still was unable to confirm whether she copied Jasmine's assignment?
Hearing Fisher's words, he seemingly also didn't have confirmed evidence verifying she copied Jasmine's assignment, so that was why he came over to inquire herself?
Isabel subconsciously wanted to open her mouth to say she didn't plagiarize. But turning her head to cast a glance at Jasmine, and again recalling Milika's words, she pursed her lips, lowering her head to open her mouth saying,
"Yes. I... I copied Jasmine's assignment. Furthermore it was me who took the initiative to request Jasmine pass the assignment to me. All of this is entirely my fault."
"It wasn't, Teacher Fisher, it was me..."
Jasmine also wanted to open her mouth to explain, yet Fisher raised his hand to stop her from continuing to speak.
He nodded, looking at Isabel, opening his mouth saying,
"Very good. Then according to what I said during the first class, your assignment this time is judged as plagiarism. You will reap zero marks and be recorded a warning once. Should there be a next time, you will inevitably fail this class. Do you have objections?"
"No... I don't."
Fisher pointed at her assignment,
"The third problem, on the elaboration of the worldview of magical essence. Within the entire class only Jasmine and your line of thought was identical. But, when I was designing the third problem, the magical data every student received possessed subtle differences. Your Sub Ring count was 101, her Sub Ring count was 107. The data you used however was identical as hers."
The moment Fisher's words came out, Isabel then knew that previously when he inquired whether she plagiarized, he was fishing for law enforcement. Fisher definitely pulled her and Jasmine over under the circumstances of having confirmed evidence. If she had just now said she didn't plagiarize, I'm afraid it just wouldn't be as simple as a warning.
"Tell me now, why didn't you carefully finish my assignment, but went to copy Jasmine's?"
"Apologies, Professor Fisher. My elder brother hosted an extremely important banquet on the weekend. I had to go participate, thereby delaying the completion of the assignment..."
Fisher's fingers tapped the tabletop. The elder brother Isabel referred to ought to be exactly Dexter Gothrin, namely the eldest son of the currently reigning King Godlin IX. About seven years older than Elizabeth, he was the Imperial Prince with the most possibility of succeeding the throne among the several children.
Because of the reasons of Godlin IX's body, the customary matters of the King now were basically handed over to this prince. Right now Schwari was immediately about to visit Naris. During this important moment, the banquet he hosted to entertain New Party officials definitely had relation to this matter.
One could roughly guess, the Prince was aiming to hand over complete authority of handling this matter to the New Party.
In politics he skewed toward the New Party, yet concurrently maintained a certain degree of ambiguity with the Gryphon Party. This was a technique every king knew.
Within Fisher's heart silently flashed traces of contemplation, subsequently acknowledging Isabel's explanation,
"I understand. But this time is the final time. Should there be any next time, you will inevitably be punished according to the measures I spoke of previously. Alright, you can leave."
"Thank you Professor Fisher!"
Jasmine and Isabel simultaneously breathed a sigh of relief. They were immediately about to rise to give Fisher a greeting, but the Fisher behind them unexpectedly suddenly opened his mouth,
"Wait, I meant student Isabel can leave. Jasmine you stay here a bit first. I have some matters to speak with you about."
"Ji..."
That young girl who just stood up was immediately frightened by this sentence of Fisher's into emitting a flustered chirp so soft it couldn't be heard clearly. She cast a glance at Fisher, very quickly sitting down flusteredly again, wearing an at-a-loss appearance.
Isabel quietly pinched Jasmine's shoulder a bit, signaling she would wait for her right outside, and then retreated out of this office.
Waiting until only Fisher and Jasmine were in the office, only then did Fisher for the very first time meticulously size up the young girl before his eyes.
The young girl before his eyes always loved wearing loose dresses currently not very popular in Saint-Nazareth. And underneath that dress were a pair of over-the-knee white long socks and little black leather shoes. Her sitting posture was conservative, her two feet reservedly placed together. Her two hands also subconsciously rested in front of her own lower abdomen; the skin on her face also slightly reddened flush.
"Does Professor Fisher have any other matters?"
Her tentative, soft words made Fisher briefly forget she was a demi-human race. At least from the outward appearance right now, Fisher didn't see any single flaw.
But he still remembered the young girl's soft words within the Natatorium that night. She once called out the name "Ramastia". That was to say, she also came from the Southern Ocean, an ocean-based demi-human race believing in this [God of a Hundred Faces].
The last time hearing this name came from Reinar aboard the ship, that tiny little Crabman Race.
"Your assignment was finished extremely well. On many problems it far surpassed the schoolmates of your period."
Fisher casually pointed at her clean and tidy interface, saying, "Especially on the elaboration regarding the essence of magic within the third problem. This is still the very first time I've seen this kind of viewpoint. Even I feel it's extremely miraculous; so it turns out magic can be explained like this."
Within her third problem, she viewed magic as a connecting bridge. Wholly different from how regular people viewed magic as tools to pry the World's Echo, she comprehended the several parts of magic as the various parts of a bridge. The orientation of the bridge, the body of the bridge, and the foundation of the bridge were exactly the various constituent components of a Magic Crest.
Fisher guessed, this was possibly the perspective from which demi-humans within the ocean viewed magic. Although Jasmine had already whitewashed it utilizing text, it nevertheless still exposed the differing worldview she possessed as a Whale-kin.
"Ah... I, I also read the works of many predecessors... and then, and then merely thought like this..."
She somewhat nervously explained, terrified of Fisher discovering some clues from within.
But Fisher seemingly entirely didn't think toward that direction. He smiled, saying,
"Don't be nervous. This is a good thing, illustrating you possess extremely outstanding vision and magic talent. But even if it's like this, I also must criticize the matter of you lending out assignments. You cannot do it like this next time, understood?"
"Yes!"
Hearing Fisher's warning, she was scared into sitting her body straight, raising her voice a bit speaking like so.
But seeing Fisher reveal an amazed expression because of her sudden loud-voiced answer, she again with a flushed reddened face covered her own mouth, repeating once softly again,
"Yes..."
Fisher recovered from his amazement, expressing no harm indicating,
"It's like this. My assignments have extremely many parts needing to be graded. I ordinarily still have other matters keeping me busy. So I had thoughts of looking for a student teaching assistant, normally responsible for helping me grade assignments and prepare for Tutorial Courses. During Tutorial Courses, it requires you to explain the assignments and the doubts produced during curriculums for the schoolmates."
"Of course, this is not asking you to help in vain. I will strictly pay you remuneration according to the salary standards for teaching assistants, and can additionally teach you some magic and demi-human knowledge... I remember, during the start of the semester, the single and only person within the entire university who submitted an elective application letter to the demi-human race knowledge curriculum I opened was only you."
Arriving here, Fisher's true purpose was then revealed out.
He seemingly truly caught fancy on Jasmine's magic talent, wanting to further instruct her magic knowledge, while concurrently also being able to relieve the pressure of him grading assignments a bit. After all, this kind of matter was very common no matter in the Royal Academy and Saint-Nazareth University. For example Milika was precisely running for election for Laofang's literature teaching assistant, helping her grade ordinary assignments.
However, Fisher's true purpose was actually wanting to borrow this opportunity to preemptively tie down this Whale-kin not easily encountered. He wanted to comprehend the entirety of Whale-kins, including how she disguised herself into a human, and for what purpose did she come ashore.
These secrets hidden at the bottom of her heart couldn't be wrung out using ordinary methods. He needed an excuse to increase the probability of her exposing flaws, and the reason of teaching assistant was exactly just right.
"Eh... eh? But... but I..."
Jasmine instinctively wanted to refuse. She wasn't the kind of person who liked to show her face in public. The moment there were many people she couldn't even speak clearly. When at the bottom of the sea everyone generally didn't talk much, all entirely resting within Ocean Trenches. She was the one most lively; now having come ashore arriving beside humans, she conversely was made shy by their passion.
But deep in her heart, she also wanted to accept this invitation.
Because she was extremely interested toward everything of humans. She felt humans were both friendly and uniquely creative, having created extremely many beautiful things, including their magic, architecture, opera... most most importantly, those delicious foods!
"What's wrong? Are you afraid of giving class before schoolmates?"
"Ah, that... mm."
Red in the face she nodded her head, evidently hit on the mark by Fisher's words.
"Mm, then the matter of the Tutorial Courses can be delayed for the moment. But I feel you also ought to exercise abilities in this aspect a bit."
He collected their assignments back into the bag packaging assignments. It was unknown whether he thought of something, but he suddenly said,
"The lack in oral expression has the possibility of making you lose the opportunities to express your own genuine thoughts and feelings. Although at the time perhaps feeling it is nothing, but in the end, they will all turn into regrets, remaining within your heart for an entire lifetime. This is a sentence of sincere advice... alright, what is your decision like, can you tell me?"
But Jasmine however raised her head because of this simple single sentence. She seemingly was moved by Fisher's language. Passing a good several seconds of silence, only then did she nod as if struggling, replying,
"Mm!"