Cardboard Houses Do Not Tear

110 – Defective Repair Work

The graduate student spoke up and kindly explained.

A month ago, after the heavy rain, water leaked all over the building, so they had to do repair work.

“Ah. That’s right.”

‘Only then did I remember what had happened’ I shook my head.

They started talking about a month ago.

“At that time, there was an uproar. Mysteriously, only our graduate school was leaking water.”

“Didn’t you say there was a leak somewhere in the lab?”

Then, the man with the sleevelet on his arm spoke again.

“That’s our lab, and I filled it up myself.”

“Crazy.”

An all-weather slave who even blocks the plumbing. I’ve never done anything like that.

This bizarre gang of smokers belonged to different labs.

The attention of the slaves was drawn to the one who showed him that there was a floor beneath the floor, and his face rotted away from receiving unwanted pity.

“It’s all thanks to the great Professor Thewynn Jackson, who created the ‘Rapid Reward’ spell. Damn it, I should’ve hidden that I knew how to use magic somehow.”

After showing off his talent for irony, he shook his hands.

Perhaps that man would have been treated the same as an archeology major who knows how to handle CAD after being caught with magic.

Those who are like life at 9:00 p.M. Drinking and then rushing to the museum and fiddling with CAD files.

“Come to think of it, Tom knew how to use low-level magic.”

“Knowledge is power. There are professors who can treat low-level wizards for pennies.”

“By the way, Professor Jackson is amazing.”

When his name came up, the graduate students spat out a word or two.

“That professor is amazing.”

“A person who is different from studying life magic that others don’t think of.”

Seeing that Tom, the man wearing a sleeveless shirt, also nodded, it seems that he is a person of character among professors.

In the meantime, one person expressed a question.

“But how can such novel spells come out so easily? Perhaps-“

“What by any chance?”

When Tom stopped talking, he just evaded it.

“Don’t make fun of things you don’t know, we just have to accept the benefits of reward magic and graduate.”

As Tom smoked again, he added a word.

“It’s a problem that we, who have no relationship to the benefit, use it.”

He devoted himself to smoking a chain-smoker again. He might be because he wants to mix the bullsh*t he’s been through into his acting.

He talked after that, but nothing more was heard.

At most, the only advice was, ‘You are in the field of magic, so if you ever leak into the lab, don’t tell the professor and go directly to the university facility management’.

That was pretty practical advice.

***

Back on the bench, he told the two of them a story he had just heard.

Those dying faces were the result of being made in a month, and the only big thing that overlapped during that time was the repair work.

After hearing what I said, the young lady said in a tone of astonishment.

“It seems absurd that people from not one lab, but several, all got tired a month ago. Did the graduate students do the renovations themselves?”

“Looking at those faces, it looks like I haven’t slept in almost months.”

Prianian turned his slightly languid face to me.

“By the way, Mr. G-House seems to be concerned about the repair work, too.”

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“Do you see that?”

“How many times have I seen Mr. G-House?”

She smiled the same way as her sneaky smile.

Because Priianian’s guess was correct.

‘Obviously there is a connection between the renovation work and the unknown fatigue.’

If something happens at almost the same timing, it’s well worth investigating.

So I suggested the next destination.

“I’d like to visit a place that is in charge of renovation work.”

***

“Where are you from?”

A pretty hard-looking female employee looked us up and down and said.

The combination of a rather brightly dressed prianian and me dressed in a somewhat dull outfit seemed quite unfamiliar.

I said grimly.

“I’m from the Breeze House.”

“Oh, you’re a graduate student. You’re not here to get supplies.”

The female employee who looked at me with pity for a moment asked me about my business.

As I said before, while I hesitated, Prianian spoke kindly.

“There’s a place where we were doing renovation work because it rained a month ago.”

“Yes, yes.”

“Could you tell me where the repair was done at that time?”

“Ah. Is the water leaking somewhere? Is it a missing place? I should have caught everything at that time…”

Then the employee stood up and took out a piece of paper from the drawer and showed it to me.

Seeing that they didn’t even ask why, it seems like this kind of thing is familiar.

“This is the place I did at least a month ago during the refurbishment.”

Written in scrawled handwriting, the pay list was divided into four parts.

-Professor Philip’s lab. (It is said that he repaired it himself!)

-The fourth compartment of the women’s bathroom on the second floor.

-The washroom on the left on the 1st floor.

-The ceiling of the diagonal window on the right side of classroom room 209.

“Oh.”

“By the way, it’s only been a month and I didn’t know there were places that needed repairs already. Is the magic still incomplete…?”

Raising her head at the female employee’s muttering, she shut her mouth.

Prianian asked with a curious expression.

“Did you use magic for this maintenance? Don’t you usually replace parts? It’s amazing.”

It was a very ordinary question.

Because no one cares whether you use gold-lacquered pipe or plain pipe for your plumbing repairs.

Maybe that’s why, the female employee nodded her head, wondering if it would be okay if I told her.

“Yes. I used Professor Jackson’s recently invented spell, ‘Quick Repair’.”

Professor Jackson and magical maintenance.

I asked the female employee.

“It’s interesting. What principle do you use?”

Then a deep voice came from behind.

“It goes through its own array of mana created using a simple element creation magic, and finally puts it into a letter to create a spell. Just like all life magic does.”

Suddenly, the female employee’s face brightened.

For some reason, Prianian’s expression turned cold, but the staff was looking over my shoulder.

When I turned around, there was a man with a rather stout body.

The middle-aged, who gave off the impression of a CEO rather than a wizard, was dressed in a suitably tight shirt and pants instead of a robe or baggy clothes.

From the look on the female employee’s face before turning around, it was clear that Professor Terwin Jackson was probably the one who created the ‘rapid repair’ magic.

“You can omit the detailed proportions or things like that. You are not a mage.”

He gave me a slave necklace with a pretty grim smile.

“How about it, would you like to come to graduate school if you are interested? By the way, my name is-“

I shook my head and declined the offer.

“I’m sorry, but I’m not worth it, Professor Jackson.”

Then Professor Jackson made a surprised gesture.

“Gee. You knew me. I’m not that great.”

“What are you talking about, Professor Jackson!”

The female employee, who must have been a huge fan of his, began to explain Professor Jackson instead.

“Everyone in the university knows that you are a person who is devoted to life magic that others have not studied well, yet consistently produces results!”

“Thanks, Methyl.”

He replied with a polite smile.

I could hear the female employee sighing with joy from behind, but only a cold atmosphere flowed from the prianian next to me.

“By the way, if you’re not rude, could you tell me what happened to the facility management office?”

“Until it becomes rude.”

Professor Jackson’s reason for saying that was simple.

“I came to see how effective my magic was.”

“If it’s magic.”

“Rapid Reward. It’s the most recent spell I’ve ever created. I used it the last time it rained.”

When he said that, his face was filled with anticipation and pride.

“I heard that you don’t usually reveal your research results. You’re amazing.”

“It’s too much, magic is meant to be widely used, and I just need my name known to others.”

Professor Jackson’s expression turned warm as he spoke with such humility.

If we say that it looks like a farmer who has had a good harvest trying to check his harvest, would that be a more accurate expression?

“By the way, who’s next to you?”

He raised his hand and pointed at Prianian.

Then, right next to me, something warm began to cling to me.

Prianian crossed his arms over my right arm and greeted me calmly.

“This is Prianian.”

“Professor Jackson.”

After she finished speaking, her scent rushed from her.

As the scent lingered in his nose, my heart felt somehow heavy.

Not knowing that, she said in a tone that seemed rather determined.

“Then we’ll go in.”

Jackson nodded and pointed me to the location of his lab.

He even added the words to come if you need help.

After saying hello like that, I heard the professor’s cheerful voice behind me.

“Of course, when you come, don’t forget to prepare your graduate school application.”

Then, the strength that had crossed your arms went into it more. As if not to go.

“Ms. Priyanian. It hurts.”

The blue eyes looked at me for a moment.

“I know.”

Her arm loosened slightly.

But Priyanian didn’t let go of her arms over me for a while.

***

After returning to Breeze Baram Hall.

Having achieved some success, we decided to take a look at the places we had heard about earlier.

If there were any other clues, that was all we could do right now.

In this way, our clothes were full of sweat and dust after touring all three places except for Professor Philip’s laboratory.

“After.”

I wiped my face up and said.

“You’d better wash up in the bathroom first. After that, let’s decide what to do.”

So, we headed to the washroom on the first floor that we saw earlier when we went to see Professor Jenton.

It was long past lunchtime, smelling of toothpaste, and instead of water, the washroom had only sunlight.

The walls on all four sides, made of bricks, seemed to be old, and the whitewashed gaps were almost pitch black.

While I was washing my arms and legs like that,

The young lady who finished washing her face the fastest among us pointed somewhere and said.

“Isn’t there something strange over there?”

“What is it?”

“Hey. I can’t say anything, but it’s kind of awkward.”

Prianian walked towards it and called me after a while.

“Mr. G-House.”

She pointed to the slightly shaded gap between the sink and the wall.

“The color of the whitewash over there seems to be a bit different.”

The whitewash, about the size of two bricks, was slightly brighter.

In a place exquisitely hidden in the shadows, I couldn’t have noticed the difference if it wasn’t for the prianian’s sharp eye.

The young lady quietly muttered behind my back.

“You paid for the juice.”

Even in college, I can carry around a few blades.

I took out my dagger and stuck it into the gap.

Perhaps the whitening was slightly wrong, the dagger easily widened the gap.

Let’s go around and take out the bricks like that.

I could see a small dimly between the pipes.

At first glance, it seemed unusual.

On the discovery of a strange object that shouldn’t be between the walls, I uttered only one word.

“Look at this, there was a glitch in the repair work.”