High School of Demon Hunting

Chapter 1293: Chapter 40 Professor Garcia

Thursday afternoon was an elective class.

Last semester, Zheng Qing had taken a Living Skills class, which taught first-year students some commonly used everyday magic, such as a spell to clean clothes, which was very helpful for those with limited independent living skills.

This semester, Zheng Qing was studying Fishman Language. On one hand, having interacted with the Lake Bell Fishman Tribe many times since he had started school, learning the Fishman Language might be very helpful, especially since the young fishman from Iseni in the Tail Snake Hunting Team wanted to do business with D&K. If he didn’t want to be cheated by the fishmen, mastering their language was obviously very important.

On the other hand, although a ’General Knowledge’ Array was set up on Buji Island, mastering a ’minor language’ was quite a popular thing to do at First University.

Just like in dormitory 403, Dylan studied Werewolf Language, Xin Fat Man studied Horse-Man Language, Zheng Qing felt he had to learn something different to appear like a proper wizard.

Besides these reasons, Zheng Qing had an unmentionable reason for taking the course in Fishman Common Language.

Once, when he was helping the Absolution Hunting Team train, he heard Deng Xiaojian mention that the final assessment for Fishman Language was very simple; just hiss twice, and many people could pass. If you could hiss a desolate tune during your hiss, you might even score high with Professor Garcia.

Professor Garcia was the instructor of the Fishman Common Language course, his full name being Abu Garcia. It was said his ancestors were leaders of a Fishman Tribe in the Scandinavia Peninsular—now part of Sweden—but no one knew when he came to Buji Island.

In the eyes of the students, Professor Garcia had none of the dignity or temperament of a Fishman Tribe leader, appearing just like a friendly old man, aside from having slightly larger whites of the eyes, and fish scales on the backs of his hands and neck.

Different from those Fishmen of Lake Bell Zheng Qing knew, Professor Garcia was a very ’civilized’ fishman.

He was the only old fishman in First University who had a seat at the Professor Joint Meeting, and he was always clean and odorless. Typically, he dressed like a true wizard in a black robe, wearing a Pointed Wizard Hat, with a monocle hanging on his chest, a Law Book hanging on his waist, and always holding a stack of teaching plans.

Even when walking normally, he would hold a cup of coffee or clear tea brewed with goji berries.

Zheng Qing had never seen Garcia’s fins—like those on Iseni’s back; most Fishmen saw fins as something to flaunt, similar to Minotaurs’ tattoos, French men’s high-heels and stockings, or Japanese sumo wrestlers’ loincloths.

To Zheng Qing’s knowledge, Iseni liked to hang all sorts of shiny trinkets on his fins as decorations, clangorously clinking when walking, like a bobble-headed ox passing by.

However, Professor Garcia had never shown his fins, as though they didn’t exist.

There was a rumor among the students that to stay teaching at First University, Professor Garcia had once determinedly cut off all his fins because according to university regulations, teachers and professors needed to maintain the dignified style of old-school wizards, and could not dress in strange or outlandish ways.

Rumors are rumors because people cannot verify their authenticity.

In any case, for Zheng Qing and most students, Professor Garcia was a good teacher, a good fishman, and that was enough.

But even the best teachers were still teachers.

As long as classes are in session, the difference between a good teacher and a poor one becomes quite minimal—like in Mathematics or Physics—even if the good teachers speak eloquently on stage, students prone to distractions will continue to be distracted.

During the first lesson of the general Fishman language course, new students chose the class with great interest, eager to listen to the Old Fishman’s lectures. However, it quickly became apparent that fishman professors were not much different from other regular professors, involving textbooks, lesson plans, homework, and answering questions.

Gradually, like in other classes, their eyes lost their sparkle, and they began to secretly doze off. After all, the exams for this course were easy, and missing one or two classes was not a big deal.

On the Thursday afternoon class of the general Fishman language, Zheng Qing, after a long absence, sat up straight, listening intently to the class like a true publicly funded student—this gave him a little confidence when clients requested the professor to find a black sheep—during which he resisted the urge to close his eyes for a chess match with the Duke of Zhou several times. For this, he gave himself many silent commendations.

In this class, Professor Garcia spoke slowly in Fishman Language about the history of the Fishman Tribe, from the Scandinavian Peninsula to the Aegean Sea, then to Anatolia; from the Jiaozhou Peninsula to the Leizhou Peninsula, and then to the Great Barrier Reef; from the Great Lakes to the Amazon.

The entire history of the Fishman Tribe’s migration was a history of the growth and development of wizards.

Perhaps Professor Garcia wanted to use this sense of ’historical intermingling’ to bridge the gap between the First University’s wizards and the Bell Lake Fishman Tribe, much like the history books of the Central Plains Dynasty when dealing with the Steppe Barbarians, preferring to use words like ’integration’ rather than ’slaughter and conquest’—Zheng Qing was very skeptical whether many understood the professor’s underlying message.

Most students did nothing more than hurriedly jot down important names and dates with their shorthand quills in their notebooks, while staring blankly and listening to the Old Fishman hissing on the podium.

Listening to the Fishman’s hissing was quite painful.

Zheng Qing had been scratched by the Fatty Cat Tuan Tuan, wielding its claws in chaos more than once in the dormitory while reciting texts in Fishman Language; no person, and no cat, liked to stay in a place filled with hissing sounds which sent shivers down one’s spine. Furthermore, if one understood a bit of general Fishman language, it was inevitable to syneesthetically feel the real Fishman’s pungent odor, making it even more uncomfortable.

”Violence is bad, very bad,” sighed Professor Garcia, summarizing the entire lesson’s theme in one sentence, ”This brutal pleasure will end in brutality. Destroying Order does not bring freedom. Order is what brings freedom.”

This phrase seemed to contain many profound meanings, so much so that Zheng Qing could not help but chew over it for a few seconds.

The Fishman Tribe’s use of violent methods to resist the school’s policies would only provoke a more violent response from the school. Although this statement sounded pessimistic, it was not hard to understand.

The following sentence was indescribable.

Mr. Wu had once told Zheng Qing that he was a ’seed of Order’, as the forbidden spell within him converged according to the rules of ’Order’. But in Professor Garcia’s mouth, Order seemed to be related to freedom again—Zheng Qing pondered how he, a bona fide Jiuyou student, ended up associated with the principles of Alpha?

This kind of problem should not be thought about too deeply.

When he came to his senses, Professor Garcia had already left the classroom with his lecture notes, and only his flowing robe could be seen.

”Excuse me!”

The young publicly-funded student hastily gathered his belongings, squeezed through a few classmates blocking the way, and briskly dashed out of the classroom, chasing after the Old Fishman, ”Professor! Professor Garcia, please wait.”