I Became the Savior of the Final Boss

Assistant Professor (5)

Ellis Éclat.

She was a short-lived but intense character.

Although her appearances dwindled after Chapter 50 when she dropped out of Springwind University, the impression she left before that was so vivid that most readers remembered her fondly. And I was no different.

“Ah, damn it……”

Ellis, who hadn’t touched her stew until it had gone cold, bit her lower lip. Her squinting eyes turned to me with a look of irritation.

She had an incredibly readable expression. That’s how pure she was.

“You lied to me, didn’t you?”

“It wasn’t a lie, it was a fabrication. Please mind your language.”

“Do you know how much you startled me⸺!”

Thud.

“……Forget it. It was my fault anyway.”

Ellis lightly slapped the table with her wrist and shut her mouth again.

From her perspective, she had every right to be pissed.

The mood must’ve been just getting good by now, and I interrupted it.

Not only that, I used the surefire trigger—Dennis.

Letting out a sigh, Ellis glanced around and asked,

“My dad really didn’t come, right?”

As expected.

“Don’t worry. I came alone.”

“I already know you’re single, Rohan. So what, what’s the real reason you suddenly showed up? Don’t tell me you missed me after just a few days?”

That rootless joke and that smug tone, as if she were drunk on herself.

Facing Ellis after Grace really made me feel like I’d entered the novel.

Or maybe this was reality now.

Anyway, that wasn’t the point.

“You didn’t attend today’s lecture. Not just today, but all day yesterday as well.”

At that, Ellis flinched hard. She must’ve had a guilty conscience.

She had definitely been absent from Grace’s lecture today.

If she had planned to start drinking in the afternoon, then she’d have been prepping since morning. And this wasn’t a one-time thing, so it wasn’t hard to guess she skipped yesterday too.

“But how did you know that, Rohan? What about the Knights? Is it okay for the Vice-Captain to be missing over something like this? Don’t tell me my dad secretly sent you to spy on me?”

Ellis knew better than anyone how much of a doting father Dennis was. That’s why she panicked when I mentioned her father.

Her wandering wasn’t simply out of rebellion. It was a deeper, more serious issue.

So from here on, I had to speak carefully.

“The Captain, as always, is simply concerned about you, Miss Ellis. But he’s not someone who would order a subordinate to spy on his trustworthy daughter.”

“So what, you’re on leave?”

“I apologize for not informing you sooner, but I am no longer the Vice-Captain of the Éclat Knights. I’ve temporarily stepped down to serve as Assistant Professor of the Swordsmanship Department with Professor Grace……”

Ellis’s eyes went wide.

“Gr-Gr-Gr-Grace Ni-i-i-i-im⸺?!”

I had expected a reaction, but not one this extreme. No matter how much she liked her, wasn’t this too much?

“So you’re saying, Grace came to the Swordsmanship Department as a professor?!”

“Yes.”

“Why! Why didn’t you tell me! No, wait! Why didn’t you call me to the lecture?!”

“I’m sure the call got buried under bar noise. As for the lecture, it was your choice not to attend, wasn’t it?”

“……”

Flustered, Ellis soon realized her own mistake and started lightly bonking her head with her fist.

Then she asked,

“I never imagined you’d come to the Swordsmanship Department as assistant professor…… And whatever you do, don’t tell Dad about any of this, got it? ……What’s with that look? Why are you looking at me like that? You’re gonna tell him, aren’t you?! You are, aren’t you! Hey!”

I silently watched Ellis, who was frothing alone.

‘Rohan’ and Ellis had known each other for over five years, but that didn’t mean I had any intention of scolding her over this.

“Miss Ellis.”

Everyone had their reasons. Ellis was no exception.

“Your face looks especially troubled today.”

“……What do you know?”

Ellis muttered softly to herself. “You don’t know anything,” she said.

Yeah.

The previous Rohan might’ve known nothing.

But I wasn’t the previous Rohan.

I knew you, Ellis.

Why you started drinking in the afternoon.

Why the word ‘worry’ was carved deep into that broad forehead of yours.

And just what kind of struggles you were fighting in your heart……

“You never liked the sword since you were young, did you?”

Ellis’s defiant eyes turned toward me.

Her lips were slightly parted, unable to find words, letting out only soft, alcohol-tinged breaths.

“Even so, you worked hard. Until your small, pale hands were blistered and callused.”

She hid her hand, which had been on the table, under it.

But effort wasn’t something you could hide just by hiding your hands.

“There was even a day you couldn’t walk, and I had to carry you to the bathroom.”

Embarrassed, Ellis half-hid her face behind her thick, red bob.

The faint blush that rose resembled a younger Ellis from days long past.

I recalled the moment I read about her. All those descriptions, actions, and pains.

“The day you said you wanted to go to Springwind University, I was truly happy. In a world where the word ‘dream’ had become a joke, only you still dared to dream.”

Finally, Ellis looked at me properly.

Her stubborn features had softened, giving her a much lighter expression.

“But.”

It was time for Ellis to face reality.

“If I may be so bold, I urge you to give up the sword.”

“……What did you just say?”

I didn’t repeat myself.

Ellis had clearly heard.

She had to let go of the sword.

Because she had no talent.

“You bastard……!”

Even as she looked ready to overturn the stew bowl onto my face, I continued calmly.

“You are not suited for the sword, Miss Ellis.”

Ellis, contrary to her bold and cheerful appearance, had a heart more delicate and pure than any other character.

This one sentence might break her.

No—it had to break her.

So that everything could be rebuilt anew, from the beginning.

「‘Give up.’」

And those words—

Were also what Grace once said to Ellis.

「‘You have no talent, Ellis Éclat.’」

The moment Ellis heard that directly from Grace, it felt like her entire world was denied.

A truth sharper than any blade.

The cruelest words, coming from the one she respected most.

That was the moment she decided to drop out of Springwind.

“I wish for you to graduate safely from Springwind, Miss Ellis.”

If Grace was my top priority, then Ellis was my number one.

Maybe it was petty sympathy. Maybe it was meddlesome interference.

The ‘me’ who had to give up dreams because I lacked talent or ability.

The ‘reality’ that had forced me to endlessly abandon something.

……Maybe I was projecting that onto Ellis.

And so.

“Hence, I cautiously wish to make a suggestion.”

Ellis didn’t want to give up either.

“Don’t screw with me……”

Ellis glared at me, eyes brimming with tears.

That expression made her emotions all too easy to read.

Facing her, I said farewell to her dream.

“Instead, learn magic.”

Ellis Éclat.

The future Archmage who would later contribute greatly to Michael’s cause.

“That is the only path left to becoming a knight.”

In order to change Grace’s fate, I needed her.

***

Ssshh

Fresh from a bath, Ellis sat on her dorm bed and cracked open a can of beer.

She tilted her head back and gulped down half, then opened her tightly shut eyes.

The ceiling came into view.

“……”

Contrary to what Rohan had seen earlier, Ellis’s eyes had lost their spark and were vacant.

Rohan’s words at the restaurant replayed in her head like a broken cassette tape.

― Learn telekinesis from now on. That’s where your talent lies, Miss Ellis.

「Telekinesis」 was a mid-tier magic.

But for Springwind students, it was a petty trick they could perform half-asleep.

It would surely be a source of ridicule. If she wasn’t mocked for giving up the sword, she’d be lucky.

“There’s no way a world like this can be survived with a measly trick like that—Rohan knows that better than anyone……”

There was only one reason Ellis wanted to wield a sword in this world.

She never wanted to go through what she did during the Human-Demon War again—like losing her mother.

‘……Mom.’

Her mother died during the Human-Demon War.

In war, death was common. Dying with an intact body was a blessing.

But her mother’s death was different. It had been preventable.

― Run, Ellie! Go!

Those words were both her mother’s final words and her last will, spoken as she sacrificed herself for her daughter.

The scene vividly unfolded before Ellis’s eyes.

On a ruined street, her mother fought demons to protect her, who couldn’t run because of a broken ankle.

Over and over and over again……

“……I have to become a knight.”

She had inherited the blood of her father, a Beta-tier knight. Of course she could become one too. If even an idiot like Rohan could be a knight, then why not her?

She definitely—She definitely would become a knight― Learn magic.

Crunch⸺!

Suddenly, the beer can in Ellis’s hand began to freeze rapidly.

“What do you know!”

The anger she had barely suppressed exploded.

The now fully frozen can shattered in her hand like brittle ice.

“You don’t know anything……”

Staring quietly at the broken, frozen can still in her grasp, she saw Rohan’s face overlap with it.

His face, always so reassuring and easy to tease, looked annoyingly smug today.

“……Rohan.”

Woom.

The mana in the air resonated.

Sharp fragments of the can floated irregularly before her eyes.

“You always told me the right things. Just like today.”

The advice Rohan gave Ellis had never been wrong.

He had even been the one to teach her the sword.

Without him, she would’ve given up long ago.

To her, Rohan was already like an older brother.

“But now you say that, and what am I supposed to do……?”

As her words blurred, so did the mana. The fragments lost direction and fell to the ground.

Every word he said was right. She couldn’t deny it, no matter how badly she wanted to.

Maybe, deep down, Ellis had always known.

But she clung to denial until someone said it out loud.

“What am I even supposed to do now……!”

Her fragile conviction, held for so long, was finally shattered today.

Curled up sideways on her bed, Ellis could no longer resist the wave of sorrow.

“……Mom.”

In the wandering that seemed like it would never end—her day ended.

It was a night where she wanted to run far, far away.