The Main Character is the Villain

Muspel Aristo was in a complicated state of mind. He had been a young man full of passion when he entered the Academy's Graduate School to study history. Carving his name into the pages of a history book was his life's goal.

When Muspel Aristo announced he was going to graduate school, everyone tried to stop him. Rumors were rampant that the graduate school professors were mostly trash, that stealing theses and publishing them under their own names was the norm, and that they treated graduate students like slaves.

Even so, Muspel Aristo wanted to go to graduate school. He believed he could succeed, overcoming the professors' abuse of power and mistreatment. At 24, Muspel Aristo was that passionate a person.

“Hah…”

But when Muspel Aristo woke up from a short nap, he discovered he was covered in wrinkled skin and lumps of fat. Even with the belt buckled at its last hole, his pants wouldn’t stay up, and his leather vest was straining at its limit as if about to scream. And next to him was a man claiming to be a High Priest of the Archdeity Church.

“You are a professor in the Academy’s Department of History. Muspel Aristo.”

“Me… you say?”

“Yes. You.”

He had wanted to succeed. But this success, which had come so suddenly, only filled his heart with a sense of emptiness. He had suddenly become middle-aged, the world had changed, and a High Priest he’d never seen before was encouraging him, calling him a renowned professor. Pinching his cheek sent a stinging pain. Could this really not be a dream?

“I’m trying to give you an opportunity. You see, you were a very, let’s say, an exceptionally bad professor.”

“Me?”

Aristo couldn’t understand Lusius’s words. He was a bad professor? From the moment he entered graduate school, he had faced all sorts of filthy scandals involving professors. How many years had he spent vowing to himself that he would not become like them? Aristo couldn’t believe Lusius’s words. He couldn’t believe he had become that kind of trash.

“That’s a lie.”

“You were a decent enough person 30 years ago.”

Lusius said, glancing over Aristo’s professor identification. His age, written on the certificate that was renewed annually, was 54. Aristo touched his own face again, then let out a hollow laugh. He had no idea what had happened to him. Lusius rose from his seat and spoke to Aristo.

“Shall we go see the graduate students?”

“Ah, yes.”

The two stood up. Aristo still had many questions. He couldn't tell if this world was a dream or reality, but he was also curious about what kind of person he would be if he were a professor. Lusius had called Aristo a villain, but that wasn’t something he could believe on words alone.

A magnificent golden nameplate was attached to the door. Aristo asked.

“Only my nameplate is gold.”

“I heard the students made it for you voluntarily.”

“Of course.”

Lusius saw Aristo beam, pleased by the word ‘voluntary.’ Lusius thought there was no need to shatter Aristo’s fantasy just yet.

When the staff room door opened, the teachers scattered in perfect unison, like rats in a sewer suddenly hit by light. They returned to their respective seats, buried their faces in documents, and began writing. Some were a passionate bunch focused on their theses, while others were struggling to stay awake, their faces gaunt.

Aristo couldn’t believe all these people were his graduate students. A beat after Aristo entered, one staff member stood up as a representative and bowed.

“P-Professor! What brings you back here?”

“Ah, I, I just came to see.”

Aristo said awkwardly. The teachers were a little surprised by Aristo’s lukewarm reaction. Aristo still couldn't grasp his new reality. All these people were his graduate students? The faces of the students here looked exactly like the seniors who had tried to talk him out of attending graduate school.

“You. What’s, what’s your name?”

Aristo asked the most tired-looking graduate student for his name. He looked at Aristo with a pale face before answering with a stutter.

“A-Ah… It’s Ali. The one who submitted his graduation thesis today…”

“Graduation thesis?”

“Uwaaaaaaah!”

At Aristo’s single phrase, Ali shrieked and ran out. A startled Lusius ran after him to catch him, and now only Aristo was left. Strange. Something was strange. He said he had received a graduation thesis, but there was nothing like a thesis on his office desk. He took a seat in a chair in the staff room. The moment he sat, the teachers rushed over to him. One began to massage his shoulders, and another started to take off his shoes to polish them.

“What, what are you doing?”

The flustered Aristo shouted. The graduate students grinned and said.

“Isn’t this… isn’t this part of your daily routine, Professor? You always said that when you sit in that seat, you’d like a foot and shoulder massage and a shoe shine… that all the other professors’ disciples do it for them, and you, you were upset that you weren’t getting it…”

“Did I say such a thing?”

When Aristo asked in surprise, the graduate student shook his head and cried out.

“No, sir! You never said such a thing! We’re doing all of this voluntarily! Professor! Please don’t say you’ll kick me out! My parents are waiting for me at home… sob…”

“I won’t kick you out. Calm down.”

“Hic… sob…”

Aristo’s mind was blank. What kind of person had I been? Just how much of a scumbag professor was I for my graduate students to be trembling in fear? Aristo asked the graduate student.

“You, how many years have you been here?”

“.....Eight years, sir.”

“Eight years, why haven’t you graduated in eight years…”

“Sob… hic… I-I’m sorry…! It’s because I, I was lacking!”

Eight years. In his day, three years was more than enough to graduate from the Academy’s Graduate School. Keeping someone for eight years meant one of two things. Either they couldn’t graduate, or they weren’t allowed to graduate. The latter seemed obvious. Aristo couldn’t accept this reality. Me, who had detested those professors, had become the same kind of person as them?

Aristo wanted to deny this fact. He shot up from his seat. He turned and walked back to his room. A sense of urgency filled his hurried footsteps. He saw the doorplate shining with a golden light. Aristo fiddled with the nameplate, recalling what High Priest Lusius had said.

[“Only my nameplate is gold.”

“I heard the students made it for you voluntarily.”]

“Aah…”

Aristo opened his room door. Dazzling decorations. Excessive luxury goods. The pride and spirit of inquiry a historian should possess seemed to have been buried and forgotten under all that gold. His legs trembled. Aristo sat in his chair, his gaze falling on the trash can. He leaned over slightly and looked inside to see it was full of wads of paper. Aristo opened one of the paper wads.

[Graduation Thesis]

“Aaaaaaaargh!”

Aristo screamed and threw the trash can. He had become an even more horrible person than any of the professors he had once despised. Aristo trembled, sinking his body into the sofa. He wanted to wake up from this nightmare.

“How was it?”

Lusius entered. Aristo shook his head and said.

“Why are you doing this to me? Why are you showing me this nightmare? This isn’t me. How, how can something like this happen? Please, please just let me…”

“Professor Aristo. It’s not too late yet. Is it?”

“N-Not too late… What do you mean…”

“You can reflect on your actions now and free the graduate students trapped in the Academy. Can’t you?”

“Even now…”

“It’s not too late. Is it?”

“Ah, aah…”

Professor Aristo began to cry. Lusius gave a slight shake of his head and quietly slipped out of the room.

***

The next day, a story that Professor Aristo had changed began to circulate within the graduate school. After meeting Lusius, as if he'd had some change of heart, he had begun to devote himself to research just like his graduate students. He graduated all the students who had put in their years and declared he would do his best to guarantee the research conditions for those who still had time left.

A flood of questions poured down on Lusius, the main character of the incident, about how on earth he had changed Professor Aristo, but he did not answer. Starting with Professor Aristo apologizing to the student, Ali, whose graduation thesis he had torn up, and promising to review it with his best effort if he resubmitted the same paper, Lusius became an object of faith among the teachers.

Lusius had no intention of letting the emotional gazes directed at him go to waste. He said.

“Everyone. You are all teachers in the Department of History, correct?”

“Yes!”

“Yes! That’s right!”

The staff room. The teachers here had once hated Lusius, but now they were people who would die if Lusius told them to. They would do anything for Lusius, who had liberated them from their slave life. They were no longer graduate students-slash-teachers. They were now proud teachers, holding the official title of Doctor of History.

“I have a favor to ask of you all.”

“What is it?”

“From now on, when you teach your classes, please start subtly weaving in the idea that beastfolk and mermaids are also beings to be loved.”

“Ah, w-well, that’s…”

The favor Lusius asked of those teachers was simple. There was no need to be aggressive about it. Just design the lessons with content that could make students feel a sense of favorability towards mermaids and beastfolk. Professor Aristo didn’t meddle in the Academy’s classes anyway. They had to eliminate the prejudice against beastfolk among the middle and high school students.

“You’re all good at being subtle, aren’t you? I’m not telling you to distort anything. I’m telling you to praise them.”

“If it’s just that much, we will do it. High Priest, you saved us from slavery. If we can’t even grant you this, then we become the same kind of people as our professor. From now on, when I cover the history of the fishery, I will mention the stories of fishermen and mermaids who shared love!”

Once one teacher got the ball rolling, the other teachers answered all at once.

“I’ll do it too! From now on, when I talk about modern history, I’ll mix in stories about what might have been if beastfolk had been there!”

“When I talk about art history, I will talk about the beastfolk seductresses who tempted people in the nude!”

“When I talk about the beautiful women left in world history, I will talk about the aesthetic standards of beastfolk and mermaids!”

Lusius smiled, utterly satisfied. All that was left now was to go back and get praised by Cellu, Eve, and Elsi.

Heh.

“High Priest? What does that mean?”

“Heh means heh. Got it?”

“Ah, yes.”

Lusius thought, flicking his fingers in the empty air. How many professors are there at the Academy in total? How many graduate students can I create?

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