Ivan stood at the lectern, scanning the many pairs of bored eyes fixed on him, one by one. Quite a few of these students had also attended his lecture on demon ecology. Their intention to coast through the semester on five-credit general education electives was painfully obvious.

What mattered was not the students’ thoughts, plans, or willingness. Twenty-first-century education pursued “universal education.” That meant providing an equitable education system for everyone, regardless of the quality of the students.

This uncivilized world, too, needed to be introduced to the beautiful culture of modern civilization. As Earth’s representative, it was his rightful duty.

“In this course, you will learn survival skills.”

He glanced at the few students who flinched (participants in the summer vacation camp) and continued.

“The most important concept in survival is choosing your priorities and focusing on them. Another way to put this is ‘giving things up.’ You must choose what directly contributes to your survival and give up everything else.”

Ivan turned and began writing on the board.

[Resources, body, comrades.]

“When exposed to a hostile environment, an individual must give up the following things, in this order, to survive. Resources: the items currently in your possession. Keep what is essential to sustaining life and discard unnecessary things one by one as you search for a safe area.”

“Your body. This is the last personal asset you can expend, only after exhausting all your resources. In practice, it should be the very last thing you sacrifice.”

“Comrades. A group with missing limbs has better odds of survival than a lone individual with all four limbs intact. If we consider survival a task, dividing responsibilities maximizes the efficiency of every job involved.”

Turning his back to the board, Ivan faced the students again. They looked somewhat appalled.

Naturally, in a peaceful world, terms like “survival skills” and “comrades” might be difficult to accept. But considering what lay ahead, this course was essential.

Ivan gave a brief nod and spoke.

“During the last war, a soldier’s average survival time after entering demon territory was seventeen minutes. In this class, you will learn how to turn those seventeen minutes into seventeen days. Any questions?”

The students kept their mouths shut. Most were thinking much the same thing.

Did they really need to take this class?

But five credits... for a general education elective... and pass/fail grading was so tempting...

“If there are no questions, that concludes the course introduction. Come dressed for ease of movement next week.”

Before leaving, Ivan calmly surveyed the students’ faces one last time.

'Forty-seven students overlap with the first lecture.'

* * *

[Human Anatomy and Mana]

Finishing his writing on the board, Ivan addressed the students.

“There are mages, knights, and priests here, so I will not elaborate on mana. Anyone unable to use mana should not take this course.”

He spoke while looking at the students from the College of Fine Arts and the College of Music. Of course, almost everyone present was a noble, and manipulating mana was merely a basic accomplishment for the nobility, so no one objected.

He nodded in satisfaction and continued.

“The human body consists of a skeleton, muscles, tendons connecting the skeletal muscles, a network of nerves, and blood vessels. With sufficient training, you can channel mana into each of these components to produce different effects.”

He drew a simple diagram of a forearm on the board.

“Depending on how it is used, mana can replace every one of these types of components. In other words, even if your muscles are severed, your bones destroyed, or your nerves cease to function, you can continue physical activity by regulating your mana.”

The students looked aghast. It was inevitable. In this uncivilized, premodern society, anatomy was still a virtually primitive discipline. (It was not.)

“In this class, you will learn to use mana to replace the functions of your various body parts. From fractures to nerve damage, and ultimately, rescuing yourself from cardiac arrest.”

“Cardiac... arrest...?”

One student let out a stunned groan.

“In this class, theory will be supplemented only through what you internalize in practice. Feeling the structure of the human body for yourselves is more conducive to learning than looking at a diagram. By the end of this five-month course, you will be able to continue fighting even with broken arms and legs.”

The students’ murmuring grew louder. Was this guy insane?

Ivan paid no attention to such minor noise. He was a rational man. Those who would not take the course were welcome to leave. There was never enough time to teach.

Besides, narrowing down the “suspect pool” would help this operation.

“Any questions?”

“Um... how exactly will the... practical lessons work?”

“Good question.”

Ivan nodded silently and looked at the student with her hand raised. She was a slight young woman, trembling as she stared at him.

“We will use proven drugs to control sensation in specific body parts, then train you to restore their function through mana. The Saint will be present throughout every procedure, and we will only use drugs with no lasting side effects.”

Perfectly safe, and beneficial, too. Ivan felt a private swell of pride as a civilized man. In the twenty-first century, accounting for student safety when designing a curriculum was common sense.

The students of this fantasy world could not contain their admiration for Earth’s systematic education.

“Is this guy actually insane?”

“What do we do about this class? Just drop it?”

“But it’s five credits just for showing up...”

“What are the priests doing? Why haven’t they hauled him away?”

Listening to the murmurs, Ivan nodded quietly.

“If there are no further questions, that is all for today. See you next week. We will begin with the right arm, so wear something with sleeves that roll up easily. Yevgeny Novikov Karamzin. Follow me to my office.”

“Y-yes, Bo—no, I mean, Professor?!”

The moment Ivan left the classroom, confusion erupted among the students.

* * *

Ever since the “Kallion aerial battleship” incident, Ivan had had the personal details of every enrolled Jansk University student committed to memory.

Taking attendance was therefore unnecessary. By comparing the names registered for each course with the identities of those seated before him, he could easily work out who was absent.

'Around twenty-three students attending all three classes, then.'

Ivan pondered as he scanned the enrollment lists.

This was why he had gone to the trouble of offering three courses. Identifying a “suspect pool” within a given group required at least three classification criteria.

There was always a demon or a demon mole infiltrating the classes attended by academy protagonists.

That was perfectly obvious common sense. There was a reason the protagonists’ classes were always caught up in terrorist attacks. A spy was sitting in the classroom from the outset.

Preparing three courses worth five credits each was a trivial effort compared with the rewards.

Think of it as the instructor’s version of what even HermiXne had been doing since elementary school. Unfortunately, this world had no necklaces that turned back time, so Ivan had to employ a more realistic method.

Reducing his leisure time (including sleep) to the absolute minimum. This, too, was a basic survival skill. It was not difficult if one made full use of “choosing priorities and focusing on them.”

And so, at last, Ivan had managed to herd all the protagonists into one place and engineer the perfect trap.

'Isabelle, Oscar, Elpihera, Esidisi.'

He had succeeded in getting all these students into all three courses.

That was why he had made the course content identical to the previous vacation’s training camp. He had made his classes sufficiently attractive to these students.

Classes they would find easy because they had already experienced the material, worth a total of fifteen credits to boot? A university freshman could make no other choice. (In Kim Seonwoo’s opinion.)

And.

'Eugene, Oswald, Yuri.'

Getting these three into the same classes was easy, too. He merely had to order them. (Personal wishes did not matter. This was an opportunity to take such useful classes free of charge.)

Now, “protagonists” from different departments had all gathered in one place. Under these conditions, a demon mole was certain to infiltrate.

There would never be another opportunity like this.

And there were three such courses. Overlap between two courses was perfectly ordinary, but anyone attending three general education electives unrelated to their major was bound to be suspicious.

He had given them a bit of a scare during orientation to weed out as many false positives as possible, while also designing the syllabus to bring every student taking his courses to a “useful level of training.”

So they could respond whenever war or an extraordinary situation arose. So they could navigate the “standard academy events” with minimal losses of personnel.

A trained agent never devised an operation with just one objective. This was a universal truth.

And.

“What about that one?”

“Human, Boss!”

“Mm.”

He had a cheat code for identifying races on his side: the Status window.

Eugene rubbed his palms together with a sly grin.

“So you’ll excuse me from the practical lessons, right?”

“Did I promise you that?”

“Huh?”