There is a psychoanalytic model commonly called the five stages of death. It divides the process of coming to terms with an extreme situation into five stages.

Sadly, upon learning that a passing Counterintelligence Command agent had robbed them of their entire vacation, the students were experiencing this advanced innovation from Earth firsthand.

First came denial.

“No. This isn’t real. How could this possibly be real? Hehe, of course... In the hospital all vacation? Hehehe... Honestly, what an imagination I have.”

During her first week in the hospital, Isabelle laughed brightly and gently shook her head. The ceiling had certainly been unfamiliar on her first day, and it remained unfamiliar as that first week drew to a close. When were the familiar ceiling tiles of her lovely mansion going to appear up there?

Isabelle’s smile faded within the first week.

The second stage: anger.

“How could anyone... I—I peeled apples every single day when he was hospitalized and put them right in his mouth!! He puts me in the hospital, and he hasn’t... come to visit... even once?!!”

From that point onward, no one attempted to enter Isabelle’s room except the priests who came to care for her. The anger of a knight who had just crossed the threshold into superhuman strength could sometimes produce physical effects. Killing intent alone could kill a person.

Sadly, this was as far as Isabelle got. Her anger never progressed to “bargaining” before the vacation ended.

The first to reach “bargaining” was Esidisi.

“Dear Father. I am doing well. I’m in the hospital with a few broken bones, but the Saint is such a gentle soul. Oh, if you’re wondering how I ended up like this, it’s nothing serious. I was simply a victim of domestic violence. My husband’s merciless abuse sent me to the emergency room. But I’m all right. I shall overcome this through the power of love. Don’t worry, but do come and visit at least once. I’ll stop here. Your loving Esidisi.”

Muttering darkly, Esidisi stamped the wax on her envelope. A few days later, Einar received her letter by express dispatch and summoned Morde to ask what had happened.

“Oh, I hear Ivan put them through some training. Apparently he shut them up in the mountains and let some orcs loose...”

“Orcs? How many?”

“About thirty, as I understand it, Boss.”

“Against Eshi alone?”

“No. Oscar, Elpihera, and Isabelle were with her.”

Einar quietly set down the letter and smiled fondly.

“That brings back memories. I had days like that too. Haha... Such peaceful times. A mere thirty orcs. Did you know? On the first battlefield I fought on alongside Maximilien, the orcs’ basic unit was three hundred strong.”

“Ah, yes. Those were the days. Kids these days just don’t...”

“Thank goodness Ivan’s looking after them. They might have gone completely soft otherwise. Good for them.”

“Yes, Boss.”

One could say Esidisi had chosen the wrong party for her “bargaining” stage. She had forgotten that warriors of Droan did not bargain. (She should have bargained with the Saint instead.)

Afterward, she sent several more unanswered letters home, trembling in lonely fury.

But the elf, whose thoughts ran along different tracks from those of foolish humans, had long since moved beyond that stage.

The fourth stage: depression. At this stage, Elpihera had her attendant fill one side of her hospital room with books. Most concerned training methods for different breeds of dog.

“The latest scholarly conclusion is that most behavioral problems in dogs are their owners’ fault.”

“Yes, Miss Grikencos.”

“In other words, if a dog bites someone, pees everywhere, or invites its owner into the mountains and throws them in front of thirty orcs, that’s actually the owner’s fault.”

“... I... I see? A dog does that?”

“Mhm. Apparently those things rarely happen if you manage their stress by walking them often, preparing their meals yourself, and playing fetch or tug-of-war together. That was this book’s conclusion.”

“... Aha.”

Elpihera’s attendant nodded lifelessly. For days now, she had been muttering, “Yes, it’s my fault. I was wrong. That’s no way to raise a dog. There’s no such thing as a bad dog.”

The subject was perfectly wholesome, yet a strange chill hung in the air, and the attendant found themselves casting a warming spell without thinking. Unlike Kallion, Krasilof apparently had rather chilly summers.

And finally, as vacation neared its end, and their discharge dates approached, all three reached the final stage together. Unfortunately, rather than “acceptance,” they had returned to “anger.”

“You’re taking so looong... mister.”

Anger at the man who had never once come to visit.

“At this rate, I’ll be an old woman before you get here, you know?”

Along with the conclusion that they needed a concrete alternative.

* * *

PAT, PITTER-PAT.

It always seemed to rain at times like these. Ivan stood in the rain, remembering films from his now-hazy days as Kim Seonwoo. It was a Hollywood cliché: whenever the protagonist stood before a gravestone, the skies were gray and rain fell.

In truth, it often rained in Prizhenkaya this time of year. These were the last showers at the start of autumn. After this, it would be snow.

“What are you doing out here looking so forlorn without an umbrella, sir?”

“Dmitry.”

Ivan glanced at the umbrella extended over his head, then lowered his gaze again. Raindrops struck the gravestone. The national cemetery for the war dead, occupying one section of Prizhenkaya’s central park, lay hushed beneath a thick veil of mist.

[Ivan Petrovich]

[1236 - 1268]

All of the Extermination Unit’s fallen were buried in an unnamed burial ground within Counterintelligence Command. All of them, including those whose bodies could not be recovered.

They left no names on gravestones. An Extermination Unit agent’s records were erased upon their death in action. Even their families did not know their achievements, so the only proof they had existed lay in their comrades’ memories.

Thus, the fact that Ivan had been left even this gravestone when he faked his death owed much to the help of many people.

Ever since, he had visited his own grave once a year, on his official date of death. Not to mourn himself, but those who had died. Guilt at surviving alone tangled with a sense of sin at being the only one whose name remained.

His grave, with its empty coffin, was the only place for those who had died back then. Only one name remained here, but beneath that empty coffin below, the names of the seven hundred or so agents who had served alongside him were written tightly together.

This was hypocrisy.

Ivan stood there for a long time, looking down at the rain pouring onto the gravestone.

“I received the report, sir. You brought it to a proper close. You ought to smile.”

CLICK, CLICK.

Flint struck behind him.

HISS.

Soon cigarette smoke gave off its acrid scent. Beside Ivan, Dmitry took out a half-crumpled cigarette pack.

“Would you like one?”

“I quit.”

“These fellows haven’t yet.”

At those words, Ivan quietly looked down at the cigarettes. Standard military issue, bearing Krasilof’s seal. Harsh, bitter, foul-tasting, with a strong rank odor.

Cigarettes were poison to an agent. On infiltration missions, a lit cigarette was far too visible, while the smoke clung to the body for a long time, posing a threat when facing demons with keen noses.

Yet they were also the agents’ sole comfort. Surviving for years in enemy territory without seeing even their own kind, much less their families, struggling against death, the agents had nothing else to console them.

Alcohol severely impaired physical responsiveness. Agents never drank during operations. But in secured areas, cigarettes remained their sole solace.

That was why every agent back then had a cigarette between their lips. Not just the agents, in fact, but every soldier. It was a war they could not endure without those little sticks.

Ivan drew a cigarette from Dmitry’s hand and put it between his lips.

CLICK.

A lighter approached his face deferentially. Dmitry respectfully cupped the flame in a gloved hand and brought it to Ivan’s lips.

HISS.

Cigarette smoke seared Ivan’s lungs.

He breathed out. Pale smoke mingled with the mist and disappeared.

The sensation of nicotine seeping into his brain was almost dizzying. The cheap, rank tobacco burned, giving off harsh smoke. Ivan took two more deep drags, then exhaled deeply and set the cigarette on a corner of the gravestone.

HISS.

Soaked by the rain, the cigarette soon went out with a pale wisp of smoke.

An incense offering that lasted barely an instant. Ivan followed the final thread of smoke from the cigarette into the sky, then pressed at his eyes for a moment in the rain.

A few seconds later, he lowered his head again. When he spoke, his voice was as dry as before.

“Anything to report?”

“Yes, sir. Count Valika reports that the ‘suppression of the rebels’ in Andgrund is complete. He was grumbling about how slowly negotiations with the General Secretary were going.”

“Besides the obvious.”

“The Count wants to see you.”

“Count Valika?”

“Probably Grand Duke Volonovin. You expected him to catch on, didn’t you?”

One of Krasilof’s three dukes, commander of the Northern First Corps and military governor of the northern demon territories. Marshal Volonovin. Ivan nodded, turning the old name over in his mind as though opening an old file.

“What else?”

“They’ve excavated Aviditas’s floating island. As initially agreed, all proceeds from the negotiations with Andgrund go to the Northern Second Corps, while Aviditas’s floating island goes to Counterintelligence Command... Are you sure about this? The treasures that lizard collected can’t be ordinary things.”

“I don’t need them. Sell whatever can be sold. Burn anything that can’t be converted to cash.”

“Yes, sir.”

Naturally, all wealth acquired by agents during operations went into the royal treasury. But for the treasury of one of the Seven Dragon Generals, even “astronomical” was no exaggeration of its worth.

These beings had ruled entire peoples. Their treasure vaults held layer upon layer of all the riches a people could possess throughout its history.

In Aviditas’s case, he had been the leader of the necromancers. Most of his countless treasures would be tainted and unusable, but even what remained would be enough to establish an entire battalion.

Ivan gave a small shake of his head. He did not need wealth. The orphanage’s operating costs were fully funded, and the treasury could cover his operational expenses. Beyond that, what meaning would money hold for him personally?

“Lastly, um. The Princess said something strange.”

“What?”

“You’re becoming... a professor...?”

“Mm.”

“You’re going to teach people? Students, at that? Really?”

“Mm.”

“Not just the children of the Hero’s Party, but regular students too, throughout the semester? You?”

“Mm.”

“Oh, this is baaad... Is there room left in the cemetery...? Perhaps I should ask...”

From the tournament hosted by the Princess to the war in Andgrund, far too much of Ivan’s activity had already become public knowledge.

Only a few people had realized he was “that Ivan from back then.” Ivan Petrovich was simply too common a name. But his public identity now made it impossible for him to work undercover. He had made far too spectacular a display of himself.

Then he ought to make use of it. Now that his name carried so much weight, he should use it in the most rational way possible.

“It occurred to me that I should prepare.”

Because this game’s difficulty design seemed a little strange.

* * *

On his first day back in the country, Ivan sat at his desk, opened his notebook, and sank into thought. Reviewing the stages he had arranged chronologically since the “tutorial” event began left him with an uneasy feeling.

The attack on the field exercise. In that stage, most of the playable characters would inevitably have died without outside help.

But he could set that aside. Enrique had been nearby, so the stage’s clear condition had probably been nothing more than holding out for a set length of time.

The underground assault on Prizhenkaya immediately afterward. Aside from the boss, that stage’s design had also “seemed” reasonably fair.

The trouble began after that. The “Academy’s Chamber of Secrets” boss Ivan had dealt with was off the scale. Although it had been sealed away and stripped of every power except its divinity, that situation had come about through a series of coincidences.

The dwarves had happened to strip away the seal’s outer layer. Elizaveta had happened to detect it. And Ivan had happened to be there to break the seal and enter.

What would have happened without Ivan’s involvement? The boss, steadily amassing power beneath Prizhenkaya, would probably have appeared late in the story and burned the entire city to the ground.

Even if he had simply dealt with a late-game boss early, didn’t that mean Prizhenkaya was originally supposed to suffer damage on the scale of the whole city burning?

‘And now, the civil war in Andgrund.’

Without Ivan, Enrique would never have intervened in Andgrund’s civil war alone. Given the circumstances, the General Secretary would have lost, and the anti-human dwarves would have unified the underground city.

Then they would have fully restored Aviditas’s power and begun taking control of northern Krasilof alongside a new “Dragon General,” one who might even have acquired divinity. At that point, the Northern Corps could never stop them.

By chance, before the civil war ended, Ivan—who happened to have killed Aviditas before—had intervened and cut away the foundation for the late-game story.

But if the story had followed its original timeline... Krasilof would inevitably have fallen at that point. It would have lost Prizhenkaya and its northern bases.

And Krasilof’s fall would inevitably deal a devastating blow to the northern United Kingdoms. It would mean the collapse of the last bastion defending the northern front’s borders.

‘If this sort of thing is happening all across the United Kingdoms.’

Ivan looked gravely down at the map of the United Kingdoms. Three fronts: north, west, and south. Every sea apart from the Kallion archipelago. The other nations bordering demon territory.

Would these states retain the capacity to endure a second great war? No. There was no chance.

Every indicator pointed to a new war. Ivan was a rational man; he did not assess situations through hope.

When there was clear circumstantial evidence, Ivan reached for an axe and a pistol rather than persuasion or rationalization. These circumstances plainly resembled the signs of an imminent war, and war was not something he could wage alone.

After this sound chain of reasoning, Ivan became a professor at Jansk University.

Fortunately, Elizaveta wholeheartedly supported his views. Not the part about war, but the part about becoming a university professor. (A dean’s authority could rein in a professor’s curriculum, whereas a Princess’s authority had difficulty reining in an Extermination Unit agent’s operational plans.)

And so, three general-education courses open to all majors were added to the second-semester curriculum for first-year students at St. Jansk University. Thanks to the dean’s full support, they offered a ridiculous number of credits, yet were announced as being graded solely on a P/F basis. Perfect courses.

* * *

“This... This looks like a trap.”

The students who had completed Ivan’s summer course realized it the instant they saw the course descriptions.