Chapter 213: Private Qingteng High School In-Class Q&A Session (Patreon)

Drip. Drip.

Black liquid dripped from its neck.

Lin sucked in a sharp breath and instinctively stepped back half a pace.

"Wh-what is that thing?" His voice was shaking.

Yukino's face turned deathly pale.

Shido Makoto reacted fastest. He yanked the other two back into the Student Council Room and shut the door.

"It's a teacher," Shido Makoto said.

"The ones we met in the gymnasium were athletic specialty students. Now the patrol period is over and class time has started, so the teacher has come out."

Yukino agreed. "Lingering is forbidden during the patrol period, so the corridor belongs to the monsters. Now the class bell has rung, the corridor rules have vanished and the classroom rules have restarted. That's why this teacher appeared."

Shido Makoto nodded, walked to the door and looked out.

The headless figure had already come down from the ceiling. It was walking, step by step, toward the classroom where they were assigned.

"It's gone into the classroom," Shido Makoto said.

"So what do we do now? Do we follow it in?" Lin hesitated. "Wouldn't going back now be walking right into the trap?"

"We have to go back," Shido Makoto said firmly.

"Skipping class obviously doesn't fit the definition of a normal student. If we don't return to the classroom, the rules may erase us on the spot."

Yukino agreed. "He's right. The rules in this dungeon are interlocked. Evading one only triggers another, more dangerous one. We have to get back inside the framework of the rules."

Lin gritted his teeth and finally nodded.

He knew they were right. He just couldn't help the instinctive dread of facing something so unknown.

Shido Makoto took a deep breath and pushed the door open again.

This time the corridor outside was empty. The headless figure was gone.

The three exchanged a glance, hurried out of the Student Council Room and ran for the classroom door.

The classroom door stood ajar, and a sickly green light seeped through the gap, eerie and ominous.

Shido Makoto went first and gently pushed the door open.

The sight inside made all three pupils contract sharply.

The classroom was empty of the living except for the three of them. Every other seat was filled with a translucent figure.

The figures wore tattered school uniforms. Their heads hung low, their faces hidden, and thick resentment poured off them.

They were the vengeful spirits of the thirteen failing students who had jumped to their deaths together, the ones they'd read about in the old newspaper.

The three of them hurried to their seats and sat down.

The Headless Teacher stood in the center of the podium.

"Eve… ning… self… study… be… gins…"

"Ran… dom… ques… tions…"

As its words trailed off, line after line of blood-formed writing surfaced out of nowhere on the blackboard behind it.

[Evening Self-Study Rules]

[1. Keep quiet.]

[2. A questioned Student must answer within ten seconds.]

[3. Students who have not answered when time runs out will be punished.]

[4. No prompting from others.]

[5. Do not leave your seat.]

The rules were crude and brutal, and dripping with malice.

The third one especially made your skin crawl just thinking about it.

The Headless Teacher stood on the podium, seemingly surveying the whole classroom by some unknown means.

Then it stepped down and began to wander blindly among the desks.

Shido Makoto, Yukino and Lin held their breath. Their bodies stiff in their seats, they didn't dare move.

All they could do was watch the horrifying monster pace around them, hoping not to be chosen.

The translucent vengeful spirits were doing the same.

The Headless Teacher made a full circuit of the room, seemingly searching for its first prey.

Knock… knock… knock…

The pointer's tapping grew closer.

It stopped beside Lin's desk.

Lin's heart leapt into his throat.

The pointer in the Headless Teacher's hand came to rest on Lin's desk.

Knock!

"You. Stand up."

The voice rang directly inside Lin's head.

His mind went blank, yet his body stood up on its own.

He could feel an invisible force of the rules locking onto him, leaving him unable to resist.

"Good." The Headless Teacher seemed pleased with his obedience.

Inside the mouth on its belly, a dark red tongue licked across its teeth. Then it asked its question.

"Given: the Butcher in the canteen killed three pigs today."

"Question: how many pounds and ounces do your parents' internal organs weigh combined?"

The moment the question landed, not only Lin but Shido Makoto and Yukino in the back row froze.

What kind of question was that?

It wasn't a question at all!

It wasn't even a riddle!

How much do your parents' organs weigh? Who the hell would know something like that?

And even if you did, how were you supposed to answer?

Give a specific number?

That would definitely be ruled wrong!

Because this was never a question with an answer!

Lin felt his hands and feet go ice-cold. Sweat slid down his forehead and into his eyes, stinging and gritty.

How the hell was he supposed to answer this?

A wheezing laugh rumbled from the big mouth on the Headless Teacher's belly, as if savoring the despair on Lin's face.

At the same time, the rules on the blackboard began to flash red.

A crimson "10" appeared out of nowhere above Lin's head and began counting down.

10…

9…

8…

What do I do? What do I do?

Lin's mind raced, searching for any sliver of hope in this dead end.

Whatever he answered would be ruled wrong!

Say he didn't know? That counted as not answering, and meant death all the same.

Give a number? It would ask how he could possibly know, then rule him wrong.

Make up a story? It would say the question asked for weight, not a story.

It was an unsolvable trap!

In the back row, Yukino was frantic. She wanted to give Lin a hint, but Rule Four on the blackboard, [No prompting from others], kept her from making the slightest move.

All she could do was watch the number above Lin's head tick down.

7…

6…

Lin's thoughts had dissolved into chaos.

He was a veteran player who had been through countless brushes with death, but he had never met a rule-kill this unreasonable.

"Calm down… calm down…"

Lin forced himself to be calm, and a possibility came to him.

This thing was a math teacher. However absurd its questions were, maybe they had to be forced into the logic of mathematics?

Like one of those ridiculous philosophical debates, where the point wasn't the answer itself but the process of argument!

Yes! It had to be that!

The countdown had reached "5".

Resolve flickered in Lin's eyes. He was going to gamble.

He drew a deep breath and said, in a trembling but as clear a voice as he could manage, "Teacher, this problem can be solved with a hypothetical mathematical model!"

"First, let's assume my parents' average body weight is X. According to medical statistics, the internal organs make up about Y% of total body weight, of which…"

He tried to force an answer out of a set of seemingly rigorous formulas and medical terminology.

But before he could finish, the huge mouth on the Headless Teacher's belly snapped wide open!

"Wrong!"

The Headless Teacher raised its arm. Before Lin's eyes, the arm began to warp rapidly, and a chainsaw sprang out of it!

Bzzzzzt—

"Wrong answer!"

The Headless Teacher's voice pronounced Lin's death sentence.

It's over!

Lin's heart sank to the bottom.

He had gambled wrong.

Only three seconds remained on the countdown.

3…

A ruthless gleam came into Lin's eyes.

If he was going to die either way, he might as well go down fighting!

His hand crept toward his waist, ready to use his last trump card, a disposable, powerful ghost item.

Even if he couldn't kill this monster, he'd bite a chunk out of it!

2…

Just as Lin was about to strike!

A hand went up.

"Teacher!"

The chainsaw arm, already poised to swing down, froze in midair.

The big mouth on its belly slowly turned toward the voice, as if puzzled that anyone would interrupt its lesson at a time like this.

Shido Makoto had risen from his seat.

He stared straight at the monster on the podium. "I have doubts about the quality of your teaching."

"I have a question to ask you!"

Lin was stunned. He stared at Shido Makoto's back, his brain unable to catch up.

Yukino was stunned too. She never imagined Shido Makoto would break the deadlock this way.

The Headless Teacher stopped moving.

It seemed to have fallen into a conflict of rules.

On one hand, it had to carry out Lin's execution.

On the other, a teacher must answer questions raised by a student.

The hatred shifted.

The Headless Teacher withdrew the chainsaw arm that had been about to cut Lin down, and the arm reverted to normal.

It turned and walked toward Shido Makoto.

"Failing student…"

"State your question."

Shido Makoto stood tall and spoke slowly. "Teacher, I'd like to ask:"

"Can an omniscient, omnipotent maker of rules create a math problem that even he himself cannot solve?"

Lin understood Shido Makoto's intent in an instant.

It was a classic logical paradox: the omnipotence paradox!

If the Headless Teacher answered "yes," then there existed a problem even the omnipotent one couldn't solve, so it wasn't omnipotent.

If it answered "no," then it couldn't even create one problem, so it wasn't omnipotent either.

No matter how it answered, it would negate itself, an endless loop!

The big mouth on the Headless Teacher's belly jammed.

It opened and closed, as if trying to say something, but not a single word came out.

"Can… can't… can…"

"Can… create… then… can't… solve…"

"Can't… create… then… not… omnipotent…"

Its voice broke into fragments, flipping back and forth between two contradictory answers, until it was thoroughly trapped in a logical loop.

Unable to process the paradox, the Headless Teacher's body began to swell like a balloon. The veins beneath its skin bulged and burst out one by one, and its whole body turned an eerie dark red.

Yet facing a monster on the verge of going berserk, a cold smile appeared on Shido Makoto's face.

He stepped onto his desk and looked down at the monster writhing in agony.

A gleaming short blade slid out of his sleeve, and he gripped it tightly.

He knew that the moment this headless math teacher fell into a logical loop, it lost the protection of the rules that came with the teacher's role.

It was no longer a rule enforcer who could define right and wrong at will and hold players' lives in its hands.

Now it was only a high-level monster about to go berserk from a system crash.

And if it was a monster, it could be killed!

The Headless Teacher's body was still swelling and twisting violently as its logic collapsed. It had clearly lost its reason.

"If you can't answer, you have no right to be a teacher."

Shido Makoto muttered it dryly and pushed off hard with his feet.

With a body enhanced beyond human limits, he leapt and dove straight at the mutating monster.

"Brother Fang!"

Pulled back from the brink of death, Lin watched Shido Makoto charge fearlessly, and hot blood rushed to his head.

Without a moment's hesitation, he pulled out the ghost item he'd been saving as his trump card.

It was a ball of yarn.

"Go!"

Lin roared and aimed the ball of yarn at the swelling monster.

Tough strands shot out of the ball and wrapped around the monster's mutating limbs, restraining it for the moment.

On the other side, Yukino reacted fast too.

She had no powerful attack or restraint item, but she flipped over the desk beside her and shoved it hard at the monster's lower body.

Bang!

The desk crashed into the monster's twisting legs.

It did no real damage, but it knocked the monster off balance.

With its footing unsteady, the monster's body tilted to one side.

Now!

That one second of teamwork gave Shido Makoto a perfect opening.

Shido Makoto was airborne, his eyes locked on the mouth gaping wide in agony on the monster's belly.

That was its core!

He anticipated the path of its staggering struggle, twisted his body, and drove the blade home.

Shido Makoto's short blade plunged into the deepest part of the monster's belly mouth!

"ROAAAR!!!"

The monster convulsed violently, and the huge mouth spewed gouts of foul-smelling black blood.

Its limbs, bound by Lin's ghost item, thrashed wildly, but it was all in vain.

Shido Makoto threw his whole strength behind the blade and twisted his wrist hard!

The monster's screams cut off abruptly.

It was dead.

…