The Genius Tamer of the Academy

Chapter 102

Squeak!

In the end, the rat ended up in my hands.

“…How did you do that?”

Natalie’s voice trembled as she spoke. Perhaps because she grew up in a wealthy family, the sight she had just witnessed was quite shocking for her.

No, now it looks like I grew up in a household where this sort of thing was common.

This is ridiculous; this is my first time actually doing something like this too.

The method I used was one typically employed when disposing of lab rats. If you grip the rat’s neck firmly and pull its tail hard, it snaps its spinal cord, killing it instantly. But I decided to spare Natalie the gruesome details.

“Ugh.”

So instead of looking at me like that, how about we just cook it?

You guys were the ones who wanted to eat it, after all.

“Nice job.”

“I didn’t expect you to be good at catching rats too.”

Seymour took the limp rat from me, marveling at this new side of me.

Among us, Seymour was the one least squeamish about this sort of thing, so he took charge of preparing the rat. Although, not five minutes later, he came back asking for my help.

Is this what I spent six years learning anatomy for?

“All done.”

Professor, I’m using your teachings well in another world. Haha, I’m using them to eat rats.

I wonder what kind of expression you’d make if you knew.

Luckily, the actual cooking was left to Won.

“Do you think we can eat this?”

“We went through all this trouble to catch it; we better be able to.”

Won blinked in surprise at my calm response.

“Have you… eaten this before?”

As if that were even possible.

Judging by my adept movements earlier, Won seemed to be concocting some sort of melodramatic backstory in his head.

Maybe he imagined a tale of Han Siha, abandoned by his family, wandering the streets and forced to eat rats to survive—a tragic hero.

Perhaps he even wondered if that was why I’d been so dark and brooding back in my first year.

Won nudged Natalie, lowering his voice.

“For someone who grew up in a noble family, he’s been through a lot.”

“Yeah. He really is amazing.”

“It just goes to show you that there’s more to people than meets the eye. And when he caught that rat….”

“I can hear you, you know.”

I clicked my tongue, cutting off their conversation.

“Who wants to try it first?”

I handed the first piece of rat meat to Won, who had been making all those wild guesses. Won grimaced but took it and ate it.

Chewing…

Won’s face went cold.

“…It’s not bad.”

Yeah, it’s definitely bad.

From his expression, I could tell he just wanted to share the misery of the terrible taste he’d just experienced.

“I’m not eating it!”

“You guys are really picky, huh? You won’t have any food left by tomorrow.”

Seymour, looking annoyed, shoved a piece of the meat into his mouth.

“Ah, damn….”

The fact that Seymour, who had been pretty quiet since joining the magic department, was cursing under his breath spoke volumes about the taste.

It was a flavor that made you want to swear.

I knew this would happen.

Even Bear Grylls, who enthusiastically described this as an excellent source of energy, isn’t a normal person.

Maybe it’s people like him who should be dropped into fantasy worlds, not someone like me who grew up comfortably in civilization.

But, for better or worse, we all ended up gnawing on the meat.

The night had grown dark, so there was no more time to scavenge for food, and as Seymour pointed out, it would be hard to survive until tomorrow otherwise.

While the smell and appearance of the meat were off-putting, it wasn’t bad enough to be considered dire.

Natalie, despite being the most enthusiastic eater, made a fuss after finishing.

“It was the worst thing I’ve ever tasted.”

“For something so bad, you ate it pretty well.”

“…!”

“Maybe you secretly like this kind of thing? Should I catch you some bugs next? Oh, look, over there!”

“Kyaaaah!”

Thud.

Natalie instinctively cast an air shield, knocking me backward.

Even if you’re a genius magician, you can’t just use magic like that because you’re scared of bugs….

“Sure, why not? It’s not like it’s a waste.”

“Hah.”

Did I just see Natalie, usually so sweet and lively, give me a cold look?

She just cursed at me with her eyes.

Before I could get whacked by another shield, I decided to defuse the situation.

“Don’t worry, I was just kidding. Even though I can catch animals, I’m not great with insects. That’s not really my specialty.”

“That’s a relief!”

“Yeah, it is. And as for this guy… may he rest in peace.”

“Ugh, goodbye.”

In the end, we finished the rat and even held a little funeral for it.

Is this normal? I feel like I’m losing my mind.

“At least we managed to get some food.”

I mumbled tiredly as I stood up. The sky, which had been a dusky gray earlier, was now pitch black.

Since Basilus went with her, I wasn’t too worried, but I couldn’t help but be concerned since Adela hadn’t returned yet.

“Why isn’t Adela back yet?”

“She said she was just going to explore the area a bit.”

She had mentioned using her terrain detection skills to find a potential shelter for the week, so I let her go. But I didn’t think she’d still be out this late at night.

“Nothing’s happened to her, right?”

“Should I go look for her?”

“…You?”

Seymour scratched his head as he made the suggestion.

After feeding him and giving him a warm place to sleep, now he wants to go out…?

You want to go?

“Seriously, I think I’d be good at it.”

Seymour added quickly, sensing my skepticism, but honestly, it wasn’t safe for me to go out alone without Basilus. Who knows what dangers might be lurking, and without Adela’s terrain detection skills, I could easily get lost.

Actually, more than anything else, getting lost was the biggest problem.

I’m bad with directions.

“I’ll go instead.”

Just as Seymour was about to get ready to head out,

“Hey! Adela!”

In the distance, I saw what looked like flames—probably Basilus’ fire breath.

* * *

“Why did it take you so long?”

“And what’s with all the stuff you brought?”

Huffing and puffing, Adela returned, carrying fish in both hands.

She had been walking for so long that most of the fish in her pockets were already knocked out.

“I caught them by bashing them with rocks.”

Ah, so they were already knocked out from the start.

Adela, still catching her breath, continued speaking.

“I found a valley further ahead. I thought we might run out of food, so I caught some fish.”

If only she had come a bit earlier! We wouldn’t have had to eat that disgusting rat!

It tasted so awful!

Ugh…

Adela noticed the burnt smell in the air and wrinkled her nose as she asked, “But what did you guys eat while I was gone?”

“Oh, we’ve got a little left. You can have as much as you want.”

“Meat…?”

“It’s a rat.”

“I think I’ll pass.”

Adela answered swiftly, clearly preferring not to eat the rat when there were fish available. Eating rats when there’s fish around is a disservice to all fish everywhere.

“Basilus was a big help. He caught it well and even started the fire.”

“Kuoo!”

Basilus puffed up with pride, tapping one of the fish with his paw.

“Oh, are you hungry?” Natalie, treating the dragon with utmost respect, crouched down to meet Basilus’ eyes.

Adela promptly brought everyone back to reality with a sharp fact. “He probably ate more than you on the way back.”

“Oh.”

“Kuoo…”

So, Basilus wasn’t just fooling around in front of me—he had been looking out for himself in front of Adela too. He was clearly making sure to get his fill wherever possible.

“That’s good to hear. We need to keep him well-fed; he’s got work to do tomorrow too.”

“Uwu?”

I patted Basilus on the head as I spoke, my words making him tilt his head in confusion. He seemed to sense something was off, but didn’t react further.

“We shouldn’t have to worry about food for a while.”

Adela nodded as she continued, but despite the reassuring words, her eyes betrayed unease.

What was this?

Had she seen something?

I racked my brain, trying to recall anything from the original novel *The Genius of the Academy*, but nothing came to mind.

It seemed like she was reluctant to discuss it openly, so I decided to preempt the conversation.

“Hey….”

“Should we step aside for a bit?”

Nod.

Adela, her face dark, stood up and followed me.

* * *

“It was really tough getting back.”

“You looked like you were struggling. The terrain’s difficult, and with no light…”

“That’s not why it was hard. I got lost.”

Adela’s bitter confession made my shoulders tense up.

Lost? She got lost?

For someone like me, a notorious directionally challenged person, that might be normal.

Yeah, I’m the kind of person who got lost on a campus I’d attended for six years.

But Adela? That didn’t make sense.

While her skills were still developing, Adela’s terrain detection abilities had grown significantly over the past six months.

She was smart, and once she’d seen a place, she didn’t forget it. While terrain that all looked the same to me would stand out distinctly to her, almost like she was seeing a detailed map.

That’s why my expression turned serious.

“You got lost?”

“It was strange. I barely found my way back.”

“You used your ability, right?”

Adela nodded and let out a heavy sigh. From her perspective, the situation was deeply unsettling.

She hadn’t ventured that far, yet when she used her ability to find her way back, she realized she had traveled much farther than expected.

“And here, we’re a lot further from where we started this morning. So far that I couldn’t even detect it.”

“That far…? We did walk quite a bit.”

But it didn’t feel that far.

I’d thought we might have been walking in circles, seeing similar terrain repeatedly.

But wait a minute.

“We couldn’t have just been walking in circles.”

“What?”

“Adela, didn’t you notice anything strange earlier in the day?”

Adela’s expression hardened.

“I couldn’t keep my terrain detection ability on all the time.”

Still, she would have been subconsciously aware of her surroundings. The fact that she didn’t notice they were walking in circles was strange.

Something was seriously off, just as Adela said.

Or maybe she had been tracking the terrain correctly all along.

Her terrain detection hadn’t shown anything unusual, so she hadn’t noticed.

If that’s the case…

There’s only one explanation.

“Illusion magic.”

“What?”

“What else could it be?”

This had to be illusion magic. Ignoring Adela’s puzzled look, I frantically searched through our supplies.

“Han Siha! What are you looking for?”

It should be here—please let it be here.

But why wasn’t it?

“Damn it. This is messed up!”

I thought only the food and water were missing, but the tracking stone was gone too.

In the original novel, the academy provided a tracking stone for the students’ safety, so I assumed we’d have one too.

“We don’t have a tracking stone.”

“What’s that? Should we have one?”

“Under normal circumstances, we would.”

Kassan wouldn’t have had the guts to deliberately remove something like that just to mess with us; it probably got taken out with the supplies when he was tampering with them. Either way, we were screwed.

Without the stone, if anything happened, it would take the academy longer to find us.

What was supposed to be a survival camping trip might turn into an actual life-or-death struggle.

“Guess it was a good thing we ate that rat.”

We might end up eating something worse.

Cursing, I scowled.

Illusion magic doesn’t just naturally occur like a mirage, and it certainly wasn’t some surprise event designed by the academy for the camping trip.

Adela might hold out hope that this was just a test, but I wasn’t so sure.

“Who did I piss off this time?”

“…What?”

I’ve made quite a few enemies, but this was definitely the work of one of them.

“Well, this is bad.”

Looks like our survival adventure just got a lot more complicated.

“Adela, we need to prepare.”

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