I Need the True Ending to Graduate - Chapter 63

【 Ruby 】

After sending the survey to Jeran Ennessy, I spent each day waiting for his reply.

It was the first time since the early part of the game, when I was trying to secure an academic advisor, that I had ever waited so desperately for someone’s letter.

‘Come to think of it, I was waiting for Jeran Ennessy’s letter back then too.’

At that time, I didn’t even know that Jeran Ennessy was a capture target, and I was also waiting for replies from four other professors, so the situation might’ve been a bit different. Still, the fact remained: I was anxiously waiting for a response.

But I couldn’t spend the entire day doing nothing, staring at the door with my neck stretched out, wondering when a letter would arrive.

In just a month, I had a conference presentation coming up, and I had to design a magic circle—something I’d never done in my entire life.

So I decided that his reply would come eventually, and instead of worrying, I should do my own work. I needed to find a way to force the game’s system to help me design the magic circle.

‘Once I figure out how to do that, I can write my thesis easily with the system’s help.’

Then I wouldn’t have to spend days sitting in the library reading research papers that refused to go into my head, nor suffer in front of a typewriter, screaming every time I made a typo.

All I’d need to do was focus on raising the capture targets’ affection, and I wouldn’t have to tremble with fear that Lucia’s brilliant, sparkling life would gain even a single scratch.

With dreams of graduating effortlessly, I was feeling triumphant, but that plan didn’t last long.

Because I kept getting distracted, wondering if the letter would come or not, I couldn’t focus on anything.

Even when I sat at my desk, I found myself waiting for Jeran Ennessy’s reply, and whenever I heard footsteps outside the door, I involuntarily turned to look.

My mind was so restless that focusing was simply impossible.

‘This won’t do. In this state, I can’t get anything done.’

After just one day, I abandoned the original plan and decided to work on something relatively easy and simple until his reply arrived.

I decided to correct the parts Jeran Ennessy had pointed out when he saw my previous presentation materials.

‘He said there were a few typos, and that I forgot to cite some of the references I used….’

Retracing my memory, I sat at my desk, flipping through the presentation papers to find the sections I needed to fix.

But something was wrong.

It was definitely the presentation I had written, but there were sentences I had never written before. Not just one or two lines, but entire paragraphs had been changed.

When I checked other pages, some had a few sentences altered, while others had entire pages rewritten.

“…What is this?”

I had typed this thing for a full week while crying. Every time I made a typo, I tore at my hair, so I remembered clearly which sentences and which words I had written on each page.

No matter how I looked at it, this wasn’t my writing.

‘And it’s way too well written….’

I might be clueless about the field itself, but I could at least judge the quality of writing. This was far superior to mine, and every sentence carried a depth of intellect I could never produce.

“Did I mix this up with someone else’s?”

But it had been sitting right on top of the book Jeran Ennessy had given me, and there was no way it had gotten mixed with anything else. I hadn’t even organized my papers in the first place.

Just in case, I flipped back to the first page and checked the title and my name, but they were written exactly as I had put them.

There was no way someone else had swapped it out, because I’d spent all of yesterday holed up in the dorm, waiting for word from Jeran Ennessy. There was absolutely no chance anyone had touched my things.

While I sat there blinking in confusion, a thought suddenly flashed through my mind.

‘Could this be the game system’s doing?’

There was no way to explain what had happened except that.

When Evan Bell asked for my dorm address, it had interfered by forcibly moving my mouth and vocal cords. This time, it had interfered by forcibly correcting the writing I’d done.

In other words, if I struggled to write a terrible draft, the game system would automatically smooth out the sentences to sound like something Lucia would have written.

There was no way it would just overlook the mess I’d originally written, yet he’d only pointed out a few typos and some missing footnote citations. I knew it was strange.

Late as it was, I nodded as I finally accepted Jeran Ennessy’s evaluation, but at the same time, I felt a bit regretful.

“If you were going to convert it like this, you should’ve moved my fingers from the start while I was writing. Then I wouldn’t have had to sit in front of the typewriter, tearing my hair out and crying….”

I quietly grumbled at the system by myself, but the game system gave no response.

I wondered if it had shrunk back after I blew up at it last time over the Karl Evenhart incident.

‘Even the game system doesn’t like being cursed at by the player, huh.’

Well, just as there’s no person who likes being cursed at, there must be no system that likes it either.

I suddenly felt bad about the time I’d pointed a finger at it and spewed a bucketful of curses, but there was nothing I could do. No matter how I thought about it, that was something you couldn’t not curse at.

As I dug up the memory I’d tried to bury, the anger I’d felt back then began creeping up again.

I took a deep breath to calm myself. Then I decided to forget what had already happened and focus on the problem in front of me.

‘Anyway, now I know that if I write something, the system will automatically convert it. The only question left is how I’m going to use that to freeload off the system for designing a magic circle….’

I wondered what Jeran Ennessy was thinking as he read the survey I’d sent him.

Had he been terribly disappointed to learn that his one and only disciple was a pervert?

Even so, it had been his suggestion to begin with, and he was the one who’d put in those bizarre questions, so I’d done nothing wrong.

“Yeah. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

I muttered this to myself. It was some extreme self-justification, but if I didn’t, I couldn’t cut off the spiral of thoughts.

In that chaotic mess of distractions, I corrected the parts Jeran Ennessy had pointed out in my presentation materials, and I racked my brain over how to exploit the game system to make it do the work of designing the magic circle for me.

Of course, that line of thought didn’t last, and most of the time I just wondered whether a letter had arrived from Jeran Ennessy, when it would finally come, and waited with the same feeling as someone watching their number get closer on a ticket at the bank.

It was on the third day of wasting time like that.

At last, a letter arrived from him.

And inside, without any greeting or anything else, there was just a single sentence.

[Please come to my lab by 8 p.m. tomorrow.]

***

After preparing myself in both body and mind, I left the dorm at the appointed time.

It had definitely gotten warmer, but it had rained at dawn, and with the sun already set, the breeze blowing by was chilly. I was glad I’d put on a jacket.

The campus after dark was eerily quiet. There were hardly any people walking around, and it was rare to see anyone moving in a tight-knit group.

Sometimes a passerby brushed past me, but no one seemed particularly interested in me. It didn’t look like I’d run into any annoying trouble or get dragged into some random fight on the street.

Everything was dark, as if a curtain had fallen over the surroundings. In the middle of it, only the soft orange glow of the streetlamps lit the area in a lonely halo.

The scenery I’d grown used to from walking this path every day felt strangely unfamiliar now that it was buried under the night.

There were few people around, and with every building looking old and antique, the nighttime atmosphere only made the place feel even eerie.

Lights were on in the buildings I passed, but perhaps because no one was inside, they gave off an even more ominous feeling.

‘School buildings without students are really scary.’

A chill ran down my spine for no reason, and I pulled my jacket tighter around myself as I quickened my pace.

When I entered the building where Jeran Ennessy’s lab was located, all sound vanished at once, and a deep silence greeted me.

While walking across campus, I could at least hear the sound of wind or leaves rustling, but here, it felt completely empty, as if nothing existed.

‘Is there really no one in this building?’

Of course, if we were going to have sex, choosing a time when no one was around was the right thing to do. There was no way we could do something like that in broad daylight while people were constantly coming and going.

But even with that considered, the silence here felt excessive, giving the place a strangely chilling atmosphere that made me tense without realizing it.

‘I don’t know why, but it feels like I’ve come somewhere I shouldn’t be.’

Carefully, I made my way toward Jeran Ennessy’s lab.

The long hallway was as silent as a grave, just like it was during the day.

Most of the professors who used the same floor seemed to have gone home, leaving their doors firmly shut and their lights turned off. Only Jeran Ennessy’s lab had its lights on, waiting for me.

‘Finally….’

The moment I had both yearned for and feared had arrived.

After taking a deep breath, I walked through the dark hallway and stopped in front of Jeran Ennessy’s lab door. With a hand damp with sweat, I curled my fingers into a fist and knocked.

Knock, knock.

“Come in.”

At his permission from beyond the door, I quietly turned the doorknob and stepped inside.