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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Chaos
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I quickly turned off the equipment and rushed to Han Min-ha, who had collapsed on the floor.
As the video suddenly cut off, the students began to remove their headsets in confusion.
“What? What happened?”
“Huh? What’s wrong with her?”
Kneeling beside Han Min-ha, who had fallen forward, I carefully removed her headset.
Fortunately, she didn’t seem to have injured her head thanks to the headset.
However, external injuries weren’t the problem.
Pale and drenched in sweat, Han Min-ha convulsed.
“Is there a teaching assistant outside? Come in here!”
“What’s wrong, Professor?”
The teaching assistant waiting outside rushed in.
“We have a medical emergency. Quickly, to the infirmary… Oh no!”
Han Min-ha was clenching her jaw, and it looked like she might bite her tongue, so I instinctively offered my forearm.
With surprising force, Han Min-ha bit down on my arm.
Her teeth tore through my coat and shirt, sinking into my flesh.
Perhaps this was the strength of a hero training academy enrollee.
I, who had never been bitten by anything, not even a dog, momentarily thought I would rather be stabbed with a knife.
The pain was intense.
Blood flowed down my arm, dripping onto the floor.
The reason I hadn’t used a barrier was because if she bit down on a solid barrier with that kind of force, her teeth would shatter.
The students recoiled in horror at the sight.
“Assistant, go get some help quickly.”
“Y… Yes, Professor…! Just wait a moment!”
The teaching assistant ran outside.
“Professor… shouldn’t we do something…?”
One of the students asked in a trembling voice, fear was evident in their eyes.
“No. It’s best not to touch her while she’s convulsing. I only did this because I was afraid she would bite her tongue.”
Fortunately, the tension in Han Min-ha’s jaw began to ease, so I carefully pulled my arm away.
I turned her head to the side and loosened the front of her uniform so she could breathe more easily.
Only then did I understand why she always walked around hunched over.
Her breasts were… incredibly large.
How could she even walk around with those…?
No, wait.
What kind of thoughts were these for a professor to have about a student?
I took off my coat and pressed on my bleeding arm as I waited. Soon, the safety officers from the evaluation site arrived.
“Professor, are you alright?”
“It’s not me, it’s this student. She collapsed during the evaluation and started convulsing. She seems to be a bit better now.”
As they transferred Han Min-ha onto a stretcher, a safety officer pointed at my arm.
“How did you get that injury?”
“She was about to bite her tongue, so I put my arm in her mouth in the heat of the moment.”
“Oh dear. Come with us. It needs to be disinfected, or it could get seriously infected.”
“I’m still in the middle of the evaluation, so just some basic first aid will do. I’ll visit the infirmary after I’m finished.”
The safety officers cleaned the wound with saline, applied a dressing, and wrapped it tightly with a bandage.
“You must come. Don’t put it off and end up having to go to a hospital later.”
“Understood. Please take good care of that student.”
After the safety officers left, I resumed the evaluation.
Of course, considering the unexpected incident, I gave this group some extra points.
It was an evaluation of their mental strength, and they shouldn’t be penalized for an unforeseen circumstance that wasn’t their fault.
That being said, it hurt like hell.
If I hadn’t been wearing a coat, a chunk of my flesh would have been ripped off.
I needed to finish the evaluation quickly and go to the infirmary.
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The academy had a facility so large it felt inappropriate to call it an infirmary. It was more of a hospital.
The eight-story infirmary boasted facilities and equipment comparable to any general hospital.
The medical staff were all from university hospitals, with the surgical department especially regarded as top-notch.
That was because this wasn’t an ordinary high school; it was an academy for training heroes to fight villains.
Therefore, fractures were treated as minor scratches, and serious accidents were commonplace.
I passed the parked ambulances and entered the emergency room.
Since it was the beginning of the semester, before classes had properly started, the emergency room was quiet.
The nurses at the desk, seeing me, jumped up from their seats in a flurry.
“Hello, Professor Kyo! What brings you here? Are you injured?”
“Hello. I have a small injury here.”
I showed them the tattered sleeve of my coat, prompting the nurses to come around the desk.
“What is this…? Were you bitten by a monster?”
“A freshman.”
“A freshman…? A person did this…? Please come this way.”
I sat on an empty bed, and the emergency room doctor came over and examined my arm.
The doctor in charge of the emergency room was a surgeon around my age named Choi Sung-joon.
The infirmary staff called him the “Emergency Room Director.”
There was no such official position, but it was used for convenience.
Choi Sung-joon examined my arm and muttered to himself.
“Judging by the marks, it does look like a human bite… but why is your coat in this state?”
“She bit through my coat.”
“Excuse me…?”
I explained the situation, and Choi Sung-joon nodded in understanding.
“You’re talking about the student who was brought in earlier.”
“How is she doing?”
Instead of answering, Choi Sung-joon looked towards a certain part of the emergency room.
Following his gaze, I saw Han Min-ha lying asleep on a bed.
“It’s nothing serious. Simply put, she fainted from the shock. She woke up a while ago, but we told her to rest, so she fell asleep.”
“That’s a relief.”
It was simply due to her weak mental state.
I was incredibly relieved that it wasn’t anything serious.
I was glad Han Min-ha wasn’t injured, but the relief I felt that the quest wouldn’t be disrupted was much greater.
It might seem selfish, but there was nothing I could do about it.
Choi Sung-joon looked at my wound again and said,
“Why didn’t you use a barrier?”
“I was afraid it would damage her teeth.”
“Ah, right… Hmm… Let’s see. This needs a few stitches.”
He called a nurse to disinfect the wound and prepare for sutures.
I had thought stitches were unnecessary for a bite, but the wound, now clean after disinfection, was much larger than I had thought.
It was no wonder they had mistaken it for a monster bite.
Choi Sung-joon put on latex gloves and injected a few stinging anesthetic shots into my arm.
As the area around the wound became numb, he began to suture the wound without hesitation.
“All done, Professor. Come back every day for disinfection. Otherwise, it could get infected.”
“Coming every day is a bit difficult. If you could give me some disinfectant and bandages, I can take care of it myself.”
“Is that so? Then I’ll give you plenty. But, Professor,”
Choi Sung-joon asked suspiciously,
“Why aren’t you coughing?”
“Do I have to cough?”
“Not necessarily, but it’s strange to see you so quiet when you’re usually coughing all the time. You’re not secretly brewing some unknown tree roots or something, are you? Those things…”
“Haha, no.”
I chuckled lightly, and Choi Sung-joon gave me the usual advice about keeping the wound dry and clean before leaving.
While the nurses were preparing the disinfectant and bandages, I glanced over and saw that Han Min-ha had woken up and was staring blankly at the ceiling.
I got off the bed and slowly approached her.
Stopping at a safe distance, I called out to her softly.
“Student Han Min-ha.”
Han Min-ha, who had been looking at the ceiling, looked at me and sat up in surprise.
“Professor…?”
“Are you alright?”
“I’m fine…”
Ah, I had to return her handkerchief.
But when I checked my pockets, it wasn’t there.
I must have left it in the lab.
Han Min-ha’s gaze lingered on my bandaged arm.
“Your arm, Professor…”
“I got injured. It’s nothing serious.”
She seemed to have no memory of what happened during the convulsion.
Since she hadn’t bitten my arm intentionally, there was no need to bring it up and make her feel worse.
“I was worried, but I’m glad to see you’re alright.”
“I’m sorry. The evaluation became a mess because of me…”
“No, it’s not your fault. The other members of your group continued with the evaluation. And I adjusted the scores considering the circumstances, so you don’t need to feel guilty.”
“Thank you.”
“Unfortunately, I had to give you a failing grade, student Han Min-ha. I couldn’t do anything else with the other students watching.”
“No, it’s my fault for not being able to endure it…”
Han Min-ha mumbled, her head hung low as if she were a great sinner.
“But don’t be too discouraged. Even if you didn’t do well on the basic evaluation, there will be plenty of opportunities to make up for it later.”
There were many opportunities to make up for it.
Just not many who could seize those opportunities.
I looked towards the nurses.
After confirming that we were far enough away, I quietly spoke.
“Since it happened during my evaluation, I bear some responsibility. So I’ll help you as much as I can.”
“Thank you, Professor.”
“Then take care, and I’ll see you in class.”
“Goodbye.”
As I turned to leave, Han Min-ha called out to me.
“Um, excuse me, Professor.”
“Yes?”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Go ahead.”
“That video from earlier…”
Han Min-ha asked in a dry, strained voice.
“Was that… real footage…?”
“Yes. It was footage taken by senior heroes while fighting villains.”
“What happened to the heroes in the video…?”
“Most of them died. Those were recordings recovered from their bodycams after their deaths. Of course, some of the heroes in the videos are still alive and active.”
“Ah…”
Han Min-ha’s lips trembled slightly.
“Just in case you’re worried, let me tell you something. The videos were carefully selected to be as stimulating as possible to measure your mental strength. So, naturally, the survival rate of the heroes in the videos would be low, right? That’s why. The overall survival rate of heroes registered with the Administration isn’t that low.”
“I understand.”
“Don’t worry too much, student Han Min-ha. I’ll help you so you won’t become the protagonist of one of those videos.”
“Thank you, Professor.”
My words weren’t empty promises.
If one mastered defensive techniques to the extreme, they could block almost any attack from a villain.
It was just that there hadn’t been a hero who could maintain such a calm mental state in battle.
I couldn’t guarantee that Han Min-ha, who had fainted just from watching a video, could reach that level, but I intended to help her as much as possible.
If I could increase her survival rate, becoming an S-Rank wouldn’t be that difficult.
I will help you, Han Min-ha.
To fulfill the quest of making you an S-Rank, escape this frail body, and return to my original world.
But for that, you needed to stay in the academy.
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