22 Terrible professor

Noah tucked his gourd away in its hiding place beneath the sink and headed out of his room, making for his room in building G. He reached it just before midday and stepped into the dusty room.

It was empty, which didn't surprise him much. Time was still a bit of a rough concept to him, but Noah was pretty certain there was still some time left until the class was meant to start. Considering his students had barely even bothered to show up last time, he didn't get the feeling that they planned on getting here early.

That was fine with him. He still wasn't sure exactly what he was meant to be teaching them. There hadn't been a lesson plan in all the papers that Vermil had kept around on his desk, but the exam that Moxie had mentioned very likely had something to do with it.

Noah settled down to wait. He watched the sun crawl across the sky through the dirty window, his eyes tracing the rays of light as they danced through the dim room. He flipped through Vermil's book, mostly just to take a cursory glance at the other Runes in it and see if he'd missed anything too important.

Feet scuffed against stone. Noah looked up, closing his book with a snap as Isabel stepped into the classroom. She looked mildly surprised to see him sitting in front of the chalkboard.

Todd followed her in, covering a yawn. He flopped down at a desk in the back of the class without saying a word.

"Welcome back," Noah said, rising to his feet. "I forgot to ask this last time around, but why are there only two of you?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Isabel asked.

"Shouldn't I have more students?"

"Do you not remember?"

"Just humor me."

"It's just us," Isabel said with a shrug. "Nobody else got saddled with you. We're just unlucky."

Small class sizes. More like a mentorship or an apprenticeship than a proper professor, but I had some friends in higher academia that only taught classes of a few kids. I think. It's been so long I can hardly remember.

"Well, that's lovely," Noah said with a sigh. "We'll get around to them when the time comes, I suppose. How did the homework I assigned you go?"

"Didn't do it," Todd said promptly. "It doesn't matter in the end. Magic is magic, who cares how it works?"

Noah just looked to Isabel.

She cleared her throat. "I thought about it. A bit."

"And?"

"I don't know," Isabel admitted. "I couldn't really think of what Runes really are beyond what we already discussed. They're… just Runes. Can't you just say?"

"Nope," Noah replied, stretching his hands over his head. "I don't know either."

Isabel and Todd stared at him.

"What?" Noah asked. "I told you already. If it was easy, then we'd have the answer. I don't think most mages you run into are going to have that answer. It's something we have to determine for ourselves."

"Then what was the point of wasting our time by telling us to think about it?" Isabel demanded, crossing her arms.

"It was to make you think," Noah replied. "We're going to move on to a slightly different topic today. Are you aware of what happens in a month?"

Both Todd and Isabel paled a few shades and glanced away, avoiding his gaze. Todd looked down at his hands, suddenly finding them the most fascinating things he'd seen in years.

"Yes," Isabel said. "The test, right?"

"The test," Noah confirmed with a nod.

"We'll have everything together before it starts," Todd said, lowering his voice. "Don't worry about it, man. It won't be a problem."

Noah's eyes narrowed. Something about the way Todd had spoken didn't sit right with him. He'd seen that shifty look in students eyes before, and it was never a sign of anything good.

"What exactly do you mean by that?" Noah asked.

Todd pressed his lips together. "You know. So we don't have to do it."

"What? How do you plan to pass the test if you don't do it?"

Isabel stared at Noah like he'd grown a horn between his eyes. "Because we aren't going to do it. That's the whole point, isn't it? You haven't taught us anything aside from one class the day before yesterday, but you can't make us all fail the exam or Arbitage will be breathing down your neck. So…"

"You want me to just lie and say you passed?"

"Well, that's literally what you told us we'd be doing when the semester started," Todd said dryly. "I'm not sure why we'd think anything else. As I said, we'll get the materials you need to justify the effort it'll take you to fake the results."

A bribe. Vermil was going to make them bribe him to not take an exam? Every time I learn more about this guy, the more of a scumbag I realize he was.

Noah leaned against the chalkboard and sighed. "Plans have changed. We're not doing that."

Isabel and Todd both shot to their feet.

"What? You're actually going to make us take it?" Isabel asked, aghast. "We can't!"

"Why not?" Noah asked.

"That test ends up seriously injuring students that actually have good teachers," Todd said. "How do you think we're going to each kill a powerful monster when we don't even have that to back us up? We'll die. Literally."

"Remind me of what you're required to do to pass it again?" Noah asked.

"We've got to kill a Slasher," Isabel said. "Seriously, you don't even know what the test covers. How do you expect us to pass it? We're both just going to get killed and you'll be at fault."

Noah let out a relieved sigh. For a moment, he'd thought the test was actually going to be hunting a dozen of the monsters or something even more ridiculous.

"Just that? You can do that no problem," Noah said. "It's just a Slasher. A good hit to their neck takes them out, and their movements are really predictable. They're fast, but if you get the jump on them and work together, I can't imagine it would be that impossible."