It's the first weekend since the Academy semester began.
But I couldn't rest, because once a person starts resting, they want to keep resting.
Moreover, today I planned to visit Professor Radvisin, who taught the Ether Attribute Enhancement lecture.
'He's incredibly talkative, so he's definitely going to eat up a lot of my time.'
So I woke up at dawn and ate breakfast alone early in the morning.
Afterward, I headed straight to the personal training grounds, did some light physical training, and practiced using the whip.
Whenever I got tired, I leaned against the wall and read through the various study materials I had brought with me to the Academy.
Then, once my stamina recovered, I got back up and trained again, repeating the process.
—Beep, beep, beep.
As I immersed myself in training, the Ether alarm clock emitted an electronic tone, announcing that it was 9:30.
I had arrived around 5:30, so four hours had already passed.
I had completed today's target training time, so it was time to meet Professor Radvisin.
'First, a shower.'
Renting a personal training ground at Valhalla Academy cost a considerable amount of money.
Since Karvaldr came from a wealthy family, he received a generous ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) allowance to maintain appearances, so it wasn't a burden.
But the original protagonist, Reisir, couldn't use a personal training ground because he couldn't ask his guardian for the money.
Even if his guardian had offered to pay the rental fee, he probably would have refused, saying it was unnecessary since there was a public training ground.
'As if it's unnecessary.'
The personal training grounds were well worth the expensive price.
Unlike the public training grounds, where Ether usage was restricted for safety reasons since many students trained there together, these facilities were equipped with Ether Engineering technology designed to absorb shock, allowing unrestricted Ether usage.
You could even secretly refine your hidden techniques here.
And that wasn't all.
Every personal training ground came fully equipped with a shower, and there was a laundry service on the first floor of the Training Tower.
If you placed your sweat-soaked clothes and towels into the basket and handed them over, they would be washed, ironed, and delivered to the front of your dorm room early the next morning.
'At this point, how could anyone call it unnecessary?'
Thinking once again that money really was a wonderful thing, I took off my training clothes, tossed them into the laundry basket, and stepped into the shower.
After thoroughly washing up, I changed into the Academy uniform I had brought with me.
Since I was going to ask a professor for help, dressing properly as a student seemed appropriate.
"Is it ten already...? I suppose visiting a research lab at this hour isn't too rude."
I checked the time again while absentmindedly touching my still damp hair.
The thought did briefly cross my mind whether it was acceptable to barge into a research lab at ten in the morning on a weekend rather than a weekday.
But if he was already in the lab, then that meant he was working anyway, so it was probably fine.
'Besides, Professor Radvisin himself said that his lab is always open to students.'
After locking the training ground with the key I had received when renting it and dropping off the laundry, I left the Training Tower and headed toward the research building.
As expected, Professor Radvisin was a man of his word.
The moment I knocked on the door to his laboratory, a voice immediately called for me to come in.
And when I opened the door and stepped inside, he looked at me and said this.
"From now on, you can just come in without knocking."
How desperately did he need someone to talk to in order to say something like that?
Expecting an endless storm of chatter, I stood stiffly near the door in nervous anticipation, but the professor simply gestured for me to come closer.
So I approached him.
Then he handed me a thick stack of research papers.
"Read these, compile them, and organize them for me."
"Pardon...?"
"There's an empty seat over there. Sit there and work. You can use the writing utensils here."
"Ah... yes..."
I thought he had invited students to visit freely because he wanted people to talk to, but apparently he had just wanted to share the workload.
Did I have to finish the tasks he assigned before I could ask questions or request help?
I had assumed I would merely need to listen to the professor talk and occasionally respond, but a far greater ordeal than expected had descended upon me.
'But how exactly am I supposed to compile and organize research papers...?'
As diligent readers who had made it this far would already know, I had never even attended university.
Naturally, I had never done anything remotely like this before.
It felt awkward, but asking how to do it would have been even more awkward.
'I'm literally wearing the school uniform right now. I'm even wearing the red necktie that marks me as a first-year student. And despite that, the professor assigned me this task. Which means that in this world, compiling and organizing research materials must be considered a basic skill for children of noble families.'
The papers were filled with specialized terminology I didn't understand.
Still, since there were many of them, I figured I would naturally begin to understand some of the terminology as I read through them.
And by carefully following the context, I should be able to identify the important sections.
'But what exactly am I supposed to organize? Since he asked me to compile them, they must all share some kind of common topic...'
First, I decided to skim through the tables of contents and introductions to identify the major keywords.
If I still couldn't understand the common theme after reading all of them, I planned to give up and ask the professor directly.
Thankfully, that wasn't necessary.
Once I began writing down and organizing the keywords from each paper, the answer quickly became obvious.
'Is Professor Radvisin planning to make the relationship between Ether colors and attributes the subject of his next thesis?'
Ah, of all things to research.
I couldn't help sighing.
I already knew there was no answer to this problem.
In the world of 《NaSE》, there certainly were cases where Ether colors harmonized with their attributes, such as fire attribute Ether appearing reddish or water attribute Ether appearing bluish.
But there were far more cases where they didn't match, especially when the attributes were conceptual in nature.
Why?
Because Senna, the author of 《NaSE》, had written the setting that way.
Even among people using the exact same water attribute Ether, one person's Ether might be blue, another's pale green, and there had even been someone whose Ether was orange.
Naturally, readers had raised questions about this in the comments.
And the original author had replied...
[ senna : For main and supporting characters, I usually try to give them colors that suit their abilities. But if the color overlaps with another character, or if I can't think of a suitable one, I print out a color wheel and spin a roulette wheel I made myself. Extras get assigned through roulette from the start. ]
That had been the answer.
If the very author who created this world determined Ether colors by spinning a roulette wheel, then there was no way any meaningful correlation could exist.
That was why I couldn't help sighing the moment I figured out Professor Radvisin's thesis topic.
'The research conducted by scholars in a world built on randomly improvised settings is just an endless sequence of futile efforts...!'
Since I myself had improvised settings countless times before, I felt both guilty and reflective.
And I came to the firm conclusion that I should absolutely never become either a professor or a scholar.
At that moment, a being entered the laboratory that solidified that decision even further.
"Gwooooh..."
A male student with dark circles hanging all the way down to his cheekbones shuffled inside while making zombie-like noises.
I recognized him immediately as a master's program research student.
His necktie color made it obvious.
At Valhalla Academy, students from first through fifth year wore neckties colored red, blue, green, yellow, and orange respectively.
The current fifth-years wearing orange ties would graduate this year, meaning next year's freshmen would wear orange as well.
The freshmen after that would wear yellow, then green, then blue, and so on.
Research students, however, wore neckties based on their degree program regardless of enrollment year.
Navy blue for master's students.
Purple for doctoral students.
That's right.
The neckties at Valhalla Academy were rainbow-colored.
"Huh? Uh oh..."
The master's student stared at me in confusion for a moment before suddenly looking at me with pity.
Then he lightly patted my shoulder and walked over to a desk piled high with books and documents.
'What was that just now?'
That inexplicable pity left me bewildered, but this wasn't the time to dwell on it.
I still had a long way to go.
I hadn't even begun reading the main contents of the papers yet, let alone organizing them.
So I set aside my questions and continued reading through the papers the professor had handed me, focusing specifically on the sections discussing Ether color.
'I know this is ultimately pointless... but what else can I do after being told to do it?'
As I read through countless theories and forced hypotheses attempting to explain Ether colors that inherently had no rules or patterns, I began feeling pity for the professors who had written them.
So many people had devoted themselves to recording utterly futile efforts.
So why was Professor Radvisin following the same path?
'Do scholars continue chasing meaningless dreams because they believe that if they dig deeply enough, they'll eventually uncover the truth?'
Just as I was beginning to question whether it was truly right for someone like me, who already knew the truth, to help Professor Radvisin in his futile efforts—
Another person entered the laboratory.
"Ughhh..."
This time it was a female doctoral research student wearing a purple necktie.
Like the previous student, she shuffled in while making zombie noises, and if I exaggerated a little, the dark circles beneath her eyes practically reached her chin.
The lives of research students really must be miserable.
And after surviving all that suffering, what awaited them was more research devoted to forcing nonexistent meaning out of patterns generated by a random roulette wheel.
At that moment, I firmly decided that I would never become a research student.
"Huh? Uh, woooh..."
After seeing my face, the doctoral student tilted her head for a moment before quickly adopting an expression that seemed to say, 'Well, not my problem.'
Then she sat down at the messiest desk in the laboratory and buried herself beneath documents.
Both the master's student and the doctoral student accepted my presence here surprisingly quickly.
Apparently this wasn't the first time Professor Radvisin had made an ordinary student organize research papers.
"Newcomer, could you make some coffee? If you don't know how to use the Ether espresso machine, try opening the drawer of that desk over there. There should be a manual inside."
"Ughh..."
"Guh, guh..."
After Radvisin, the only person in the room still speaking like a human, finished talking, the two research students added their own zombie-like noises.
I assumed they were asking for coffee too.
Looking around the laboratory, I quickly spotted an espresso machine neatly placed in one corner.
'They have something like this here...? If I'd known, I would've bought one ages ago. I've been wasting time making hand-drip coffee all this time for nothing.'
There was no need to look at the manual.
The Ether espresso machine was structurally identical to the home espresso machine from my previous world.
In fact, I had made coffee using a machine like this the very day before I got possessed.
I had just learned something useful, and it was about time I got some caffeine into my own system anyway.
So I willingly brewed enough espresso for four people, planning to make my own as well.
"Should I just serve the espresso as it is?"
"I'll take an iced americano."
"Ah, aaah..."
"Aaaah..."
I turned the freshly brewed espresso into four iced americanos.
For the record, I got the ice from an Ether mini ice maker, though at this point, nothing about this world surprised me anymore.
