Hero, Go To School! - Chapter 35

The renowned lawyer and politician Benjamin Franklin once said:

There is no such thing as wasted time. Only a wasted life.**

Back in my senior year of high school, I studied as if my body had fused with the chair, twelve hours a day, every day, without a single break.

It was a time when the word “studying” had consumed my entire life. Workbooks marked both the beginning and end of my day, and test scores felt like the measure of my worth.

But even concentration had its limits. Like an overloaded computer, my brain eventually stopped accepting even the shortest English words. No matter how hard I tried to memorize, nothing stuck. It felt like everything just bounced right back out.

That day too, I was clutching my head at my desk when I suddenly turned off the lecture and clicked on a variety show video featured on the main page of a streaming platform.

On screen, famous celebrities were seriously immersed in answering quiz questions over some trivial punishment. Their laughter and exaggerated reactions made the corners of my lips lift without me realizing it.

Then one of the quiz questions caught my attention. It was a quote from Benjamin Franklin.

I stared blankly at the monitor for a while, then quietly pressed the X button. And I restarted the online lecture I had been watching.

I don’t exactly remember what kind of feeling the quote stirred in me at the time. But even now, looking back, it still rings true.

Even if every tutor quit because of Ian’s eccentricity, I couldn’t just sit by and let life go to waste.

In the meantime, I gathered as much information as I could about Luxus Academy. I can’t express how lucky I am to have a possessor’s passive ability that lets me read the writing of this world.

I checked the list of professors conducting the academy admission interviews. Five professors would be present. One‑to‑many interview format.

After identifying the interviewers, I asked the Duke and Duchess to get for me any academic papers or books the professors had personally participated in or led. Drawing from my experience in the Republic of Korea’s intense academic culture, I memorized everything, repeatedly, until the contents would spill out effortlessly at the slightest provocation.

Next, I began collecting expected interview questions. But finding interview‑related information in this world, where online communities barely existed, was far from simple.

But somehow, there was always a way forward. The sixth tutor was a seasoned professional who had worked as a teaching assistant at Luxus Academy for three years.

Using the materials I had gathered, I connected the expected interview questions with the research results recorded through the professors’ time and effort, constructing the best possible mock Q&A resource.

I looked down proudly at the documents with bloodshot eyes. Outside, it was already morning.

The servants had begun their daily routines. The garden buzzed with chatter, leaves dazzling lush green beneath the sunlight, full of life.

That was when it happened.

“Aaah!”

The piercing scream ripped through my ears, and I shot up from where my head had been buried on the desk. My eyelids were heavy from nights without sleep. Screams were so routine here I barely blinked anymore. But that didn’t mean I could keep sitting still and do nothing.

Either way, there was only one person who could stop Ian. Me. I shoved the mock interview documents deep into the desk drawer and stepped out of the study.

But the surroundings were eerily peaceful. No explosions. The window was intact. The door stood perfectly in place. Both doors are still attached to the hinges.

What the hell?

Just as I was puzzling over it, I saw a maid sprawled on the hallway floor, her face drained of color.

That bastard Ian. Don’t tell me he hit a woman? He’d always been called a madman, but now he’d really gone too far. The exhaustion that had been pressing down on me vanished in an instant.

“Are you okay?!”

“Th‑there…”

The maid reached out a trembling hand and pointed somewhere. Ian stood there, completely still, his face expressionless.

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**TL note: the quote used in the novel is an abridged version, the one I found that matches it the best is “Dost thou love life? Then do not squander Time; for that’s the Stuff Life is made of” – Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1746**