In the blink of an eye, I was back outside. I didn't even get the chance to say goodbye, not that I cared a ton.

Again, it was a disorienting feeling… even more so, because now the sudden contrast with my surroundings made me feel like I'd woken up from some strange dream.

Great Sage, that happened, right?

[[Affirmative.]]

Nearby, I set up a magic circle based on something I read in a book from the library. It's a sort of teleportation magic that I can use to bring my students here quickly and easily later. It was quite large and elaborate, but worth it to take the time to construct.

I then triggered the one I left back just outside of Englesia to cut down the trip back and soon found myself in the field outside the city.

"I'll really need to get used to that… even when I'm the caster, it still feels strange."

Not only that, but it takes a decent chunk out of my magicules doing that. However, even after getting splattered earlier I was perfectly fine. A little lower on energy than I would like, but it wasn't enough to trigger any sensible fatigue.

Hmmm… on second thought, maybe I could grab a snack before returning to the city proper?

And by that I mean: find a monster, kill it, and eat it.

Yeah, it's been a while since I've had a good hunt. The thought of it was making me excited, it was a strange feeling, but pleasant in a way. It was making me hungry, even though I couldn't really feel hunger in the physical sense.

I still had a few days before I was due back, so taking a detour for a little track-n-snack wouldn't do any harm.

I flew to a safe distance from the city pronto and started my scan for potential prey.

There wasn't much here, which was expected since this wasn't Jura and magicules weren't as abundant, but I did stumble across something.

Out of a hole in the ground popped a cute little face. This creature looked just like a prairie dog from earth, except somehow cuter.

"Aww, hey there, little guy!"

It was too adorable to eat. The accompanying guilt would be too much for me to handle if I made this my prey.

It looked at me and sniffed the air, twitching its cute little whiskers.

"You're adorable," I cooed, feeling my nonexistent heart melt a little. Walking away, I said over my shoulder, "you stay safe, 'kay little guy? You don't wanna hang around something like me."

I was even letting my aura out a bit since I'd been holding it in for so long, but this little guy wasn't even scared. Just curious. I could tell it was some kind of monster thanks to the magicules in its body, but it wasn't a strong one.

Walking away at a brisk pace, I set my senses to scan for other potential targets. Preferably something not as cute.

As I looked behind me with [Magic Sense], I saw the little guy crawling out of his hole after me. Another set of legs appeared following its long body… and then another… and another…

Holy crap! That thing is like two meters long! How many legs is that!?

The end of the creature came out, and another head popped up to look at me.

Both… heads…

IT HAS HEADS ON BOTH ENDS OF ITS BODY!

EWWWW!

I took it back, this thing was not cute!

Nevermind, I'd found my meal.

No, my extermination target.

Nothing that cursed could be permitted to live. I wouldn't be able to sleep at night, knowing these things were crawling just a few miles from the city.

I was still letting my aura out as I advanced menacingly towards the target, its cute little eyes staring innocently up at me as it let me approach.

More heads started popping up, and I counted them with [Magic Sense].

Twenty… thirty… and no way to tell if I was seeing both ends of the bodies of these two-headed noodle-dogs.

This was going to be a big job.

As I came within predation range, the noodledog made a move of its own. With lightning speed, it shot towards me and slithered up, wrapping itself around my body.

It was purring. This thing was purring, looking at me all puppy-eyed while I felt it absorbing the magicules emanating from my body.

This was clearly its feeding tactic, looking all 'cute' at first glance so it can get close and absorb your magic. I wasn't amused.

Time to get to work.

After a few hours I walked away from the scene. Behind me was a hellscape of deep holes and upturned earth, where I'd dug up the entire system of burrows and devoured every noodledog I could find. I was feeling significantly refreshed now despite all that magic I'd spent dealing with that obnoxious fairy and her labyrinth.

[[Notice: energy spent outweighed energy gained from this activity.]]

…well, I feel mentally refreshed, okay? Whatever. I was heading back to the school anyway. It wasn't like I was at risk of passing out or anything, I was just feeling mildly fatigued.

I did end up hunting some other things on my way back, (to little or negative energy gain but it was fun,) and buying some of those magic fruit tarts from Yoshida's once I was back in the city. Then it was straight to Yuuki's office in the Free Guild Headquarters. I wasn't going to waste any more time.

"Oh, you're back early."

"Yeah, I know. I need to leave again soon, though. This time with my students."

Yuuki raised an eyebrow at me, now paying more attention.

"You were successful, then."

"I've found a way to possibly save them, yes."

"Well, what is it?" Yuuki leaned forward, eyes trained on me.

I shrugged. "We'll see if it works first."

"Aw, but you can tell me, can'tcha?" He whined.

"No."

"Why not?" Yuuki pouted, "don't you trust me?"

…do I trust him? I wondered. I wasn't sure why I was keeping this detail close… though I had always been that way. I didn't like showing my cards to people, and Yuuki and I had only really known each other for so long.

"Don't you trust me?" I smirked, sitting on the arm of the couch Yuuki was on so I could poke his shoulder. "I came back this time, and I'll come back with the kids. Besides," I prodded him teasingly, "this is to get back at you for nagging me about all those dresses."

"Nooooo! It wasn't that bad!" Haha, I'd found his weak spot. Yuuki was practically begging me now.

"This is what you get," I grinned wickedly. "So, do I have permission? We probably won't go until the weekend."

"Fine." Yuuki huffed, crossing his arms. "Yeah, you can take 'em. But you've gotta tell me when you get back!"

"Maybe," I winked, and whisked away before he could change his mind.

I went straight to the S Class classroom to fetch my five students.

"Professor Rimuru!" All five kids rushed me at once and dogpile. I ended up completely buried, the substitute they abandoned snickering at my misfortune as they quietly left the room.

"Hey, don't bury me alive! You're squishing me!"

"Sorry, Professor!"

"We didn't hurt you, did we?"

"He doesn't look hurt."

"Professor Rimuru is too tough to get hurt by us hugging him!"

"Calm down already! I need you all to gather your stuff up this weekend; we're going on a field trip."

"Field trip!?"

"Where are we going!?"

"Is it that cafe again? Or maybe we're going to go shopping?"'

"No, I bet it's some boring thing old men like to do, like a dusty museum or something!"

"We'll talk about it more later," I said. This wasn't the time and place to talk about that.

Professor Rimuru had gone home for the evening, so we were hanging out in Kenya's dorm wasting time.

"How do you think we could find out if Professor Rimuru's a guy?" Kenya asked randomly, sitting with his head propped up on the windowsill.

"This again?" Gale sighed. "I'm sure he is."

"Well, Professor Rimuru said he was a guy in his last life," Alice pondered. "He might just say that because he used to be one. That's what Ryota thinks."

"W-Well I was just guessing!" Ryota sputtered, "I'm not sure!"

"I think… Professor Rimuru is Professor Rimuru," I muttered, ducking into the picture book I was reading.

"Well that doesn't help, Chlo," Kenya snarked at me.

"But… it doesn't really matter if Professor Rimuru is a guy or girl!" I protested, "I'm curious too but it feels mean to ask!" I wasn't sure why, but this felt like a weird argument to be having.

"Yes it does!" Alice insisted, "and if he, or she, doesn't wanna tell us, then we'll just have to find out ourselves!"

"But how?" Gale asked, sounding a little exasperated by Alice's stubbornness.

"Well," Kenya suddenly sat up straight, "I dunno, one of us could wait in front of the bathroom to see which one he uses?"

"We can't do that on a day we have classes though," Gale reminded us.

"W-well!" Kenya bit back, "we can think of something!"

We looked at each other, the gears starting to turn.

"Teacher, Teacher! We made something for you!"

Four of my students barged into the room while I was getting caught up on work, carrying an oversized pitcher filled to the brim, the contents sloshing all over the floor with their excited running.

I was almost going to scold them for making a mess, but the words never made it past my dumbfounded mouth as they slammed the pitcher on the desk, lemonade slopping all over my notes.

Whatever. I could fix it with [Water Manipulation] later.

I seriously should tell them off for the mess, but their eager smiles were just boring deep into my soul.

"Oh, you did? What is it?" I could already smell the sharp citrusy scent of it, but I asked anyway to indulge the kids' excitement. It was clearly lemonade, or something close enough to it, but I could tell that they wanted to tell me.

"Lemonade, of course!" Alice proudly explained with her hands on her hips.

How did they even get lemons in this world anyway? And sugar too, isn't that considered a luxury here? Brushing aside those issues, I looked back at my eager students, the only one missing being Ryota.

Kenya enthusiastically placed a cup on the desk and reached for the pitcher, just for Gale to grab it before he could.

"Let me pour it. You'll just spill it more, Ken." Gale sighed and managed to fill the cup without any further spillage, not that it made much of a difference to my already citrus-soaked papers and floor by that point.

"Tch. Fine." Kenya grumpily accepted.

"Please try it, professor!" Chloe happily chirped, standing next to Alice who was also staring at me intently.

I took the cup in hand and sipped it somewhat hesitantly. These kids' excessive enthusiasm about this was setting off some alarm bells in my head. They can be little pranksters, I'd learned, and I didn't want to fall for any more of their tricks for the sake of my pride as an adult. Being bamboozled by a bunch of children wasn't something I needed.

The lemonade tasted overly-sweet, but didn't trigger my poison resistance or anything, which made me drop my guard a little. Analysis also told me it was just your average lemonade, outside of the extra added sugar.

Good. Those smiles aren't coming from the amusement of them slipping something weird or gross into it.

I honestly liked that it was sweeter than it should be for some reason I couldn't completely explain. I blamed it on my slime biology. I'd already noticed that my sweet-tooth had gotten more severe since reincarnating, so this was much of the same, really.

"It's very good. Thanks, kids."

Their smiles grew at my reaction.

"There's enough here for all of us, so why don't you go grab some more cups and we can share this together? Grab a rag or two while you're at it so we can get those puddles cleaned up too."

"No, it's for you, Professor Rimuru!"

This whole thing is for me? I really didn't need an entire pitcher of lemonade, but it wasn't like I couldn't physically drink it all.

"All of it?"

"All of it. We made it special to thank you for taking care of us."

How sweet, just like the lemonade itself. Now I felt bad for being suspicious about their motivations.

"If you insist." I downed the rest of the glass and held it out for one of them to fill it again.

"I'm pouring it this time!" Kenya insisted and roughly grabbed the pitcher, nearly dropping it. Struggling a little, Kenya started to pour the drink into my glass.

"Hey! You're doing it wrong!" Alice scolded him loudly and tried to grab the pitcher from Kenya, causing some to spill.

"No I'm not!" Kenya shouted back.

"Yes you are! Hand it over and let someone capable pour it before you spill more! I worked too hard on that lemonade to let an idiot like you waste more of it!"

"No! Lemme do it! Don't try to boss me around, Alice!"

"Stop, you two! You're ruining it!" Chloe butted in out of nowhere.

"Yes, stop fighting. I'll pour my own glass."

I took the pitcher from them. My hand was sticky, the outside of my glass was sticky, and there was a puddle of lemonade at my feet; everything was a mess now.

I should just get this over with before I have more bickering on my hands.

"On second thought…" I brought the pitcher to my lips and drank the rest of the lemonade in one go. I got gawked at for it, but that didn't bother me. "That was very refreshing. Now, carefully take this back to where you got it from and find something to clean up all the spills."

"Sensei was thirsty…" Gale muttered.

"Maybe he wants more?" Kenya pondered.

"Uh, no, wait guys–" I tried to stop them, but in a stampede of little feet they were already gone. "Uh, okay… great."

I sat there for a few minutes, pondering the monster I had just awoken, and sure enough they came back with a second, full-size, pitcher of lemonade.

"Do it again, Teacher!" The kids chorused, and I laughed.

"Heh, okay," I chuckled. Smirking with a wink, I picked up the pitcher and said, "watch and learn."

Once again, I downed what was probably two gallons' worth of lemonade. I could have done it instantly, but I was limited to human form, and I wanted the experience to last anyway.

"Done!" I sighed, slamming the pitcher down. "How's that?" I bragged to the kids.

"How does he do that…?" Kenya whispered to Gale.

"I don't think he even stopped to breathe," Gale whispered back.

Whoops. Maybe I went a bit too far. "Alright, fun's over." I said, deciding to take the focus off my… abilities. "Here you are," I handed the pitcher to them, "now go wet some rags down and take care of this mess, alright?"

"Okay!" They chirped, more than happy to oblige. A bit weird for them, but alright. I guess they were happy that they got whatever they were after.

"It worked!" Kenya cheered as we ran down the hall, "There's no way he can hold it for long–when I tried to drink that much, I nearly peed my pants!"

"Kenya, you've never drank that much," Gale said.

"Well, yeah," he argued, "but it was still a lot!"

"Adults are crazy!" Alice declared.

"Uh-huh…" I hummed, not really sure if Alice was right, but the way Professor Rimuru drank all that lemonade was pretty impressive. He was so cool!

"What are you kids doing?" Mr. Yuuki suddenly appeared, jogging alongside us. "Also, no running in the hall."

"Sorry!" I blurted out, immediately slowing down.

"We made Professor Rimuru lemonade, and now we're cleaning up!" Kenya exclaimed.

"Yeah, Kenya spilled it all over the floor!" Alice snickered.

"Hey, you spilled more!" Kenya argued.

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

"Well, you're the one who was carrying it!"

"Yeah but you poured it!"

"Cut it out, guys," Mr. Yuuki said. "Why didn't you make me any lemonade?" He asked, looking a little sad.

"Well, we kinda ran out of sugar," Gale explained.

"Yeah, we used all of it that was in the kitchen!"

"Wait, you kids were in the kitchen?" Yuuki stared, "you used all of the sugar–do you even realize how expensiv– …you know what, nevermind. Can I at least have some?"

"Professor Rimuru drank it all!" Alice said, "see?" She held out the empty pitcher.

"Yeah!" Kenya snickered, "now he'll have to go to the bathroom!"

"Wait, what?" Yuuki asked, blank-faced.

"Nothing! It's nothing!" Gale quickly tried to cover, but Mr. Yuuki wasn't having it.

"No, what kind of scheme are you cooking up now?"

"Professor Rimuru says he's a guy, but he looks like a girl," Kenya explained, "but he can't go in the guy's bathroom if he's a girl!"

"So you guys…" Mr. Yuuki stopped walking, a hand over his mouth as he started to snicker.

"Yeah!" Alice said, "he drank two whole pitchers! Now we'll be able to figure it out!"

"Bahahahaha–!" Mr. Yuuki doubled over, wheezing. "Alright," he snickered, walking away, "you kids have fun with that. Let me know the results later, alright?"

"Bye, Mr. Yuuki!" I called after him, followed up by my friends.

We waited for Ryota to come to the dorm, but by the end of the day he still wasn't there. Instead we had to go back to meet up with him in front of the bathrooms.

Ryota was sitting against the wall, reading his book.

"Well?" Kenya asked, "which one did he go in?"

Ryota looked a bit startled, just noticing all of us there. "Oh… um," he hesitated, "he never showed up."

"What!?" Alice shouted. "He would've had to! Did you fall asleep and miss it?" She accused.

"N-no!" Ryota stood up, waving his hands. "I've been awake waiting all day! I just was reading my book!"

"Maybe you were too distracted to notice him?" Gale suggested.

"You ruined the plan, Ryota!" Alice huffed, crossing her arms.

"N-no I didn't!" Ryota was starting to look upset as well, "he never came, I swear! I would've noticed! Maybe he has a secret teacher bathroom somewhere that we don't know about!"

"It's okay, Ryota," Kenya comforted him with a hand on his shoulder. "We'll find another way."

"Yeah," I added, feeling a little bad, "it was a silly plan anyway."

"I'm not giving up though!" Kenya declared.

"Yeah, we can try again!" Alice said, implicitly forgiving Ryota.

A day later in class Kenya suddenly raised his hand.

"Yes Kenya, what is it?" Professor Rimuru asked, turning around from the chalkboard. He was really good at knowing when we raised our hands without even seeing us.

"Do you like pink!?" Kenya shouted.

"Uhh…" Professor Rimuru gave him a funny look, and I giggled. "I don't have a problem with it. It's not my favorite or anything. Also, indoor voices, Kenya."

"'Kay," Kenya mumbled, looking sullen. Professor Rimuru gave him a weird look, but went back to teaching.

I sighed, thinking of how silly Kenya was being. That was definitely an attempt to out Professor Rimuru as a possible girl, but I wasn't surprised it failed. Guys can like pink too, so it wouldn't work anyway.

Alice seemed to be thinking similar thoughts based on the annoyed look on her face as she glared at Kenya. Sometime after, she tried a plan of her own and came up to Professor Rimuru during freetime, twirling her hair coyly. "Professor?" She asked.

"Hm?" Professor Rimuru had been working on whatever notes were so important recently–he'd barely had any time without that. "Yes, Alice?"

"Can you help me braid my hair?" She asked cheerfully. "It keeps getting in my face while I'm reading."

"Oh…" Professor Rimuru grimaced. "Sorry, Alice, but I don't know how to braid hair." Then, after seeing her downcast look, he caved in and said "…I can try though?"

"Okay!" She beamed up at him.

They moved to the desks so Professor Rimuru could sit behind her. I came over and watched, curious.

Professor Rimuru was trying really hard, biting his tongue while he focused on Alice's hair. After a long time he said, "okay, done!"

"How's it look, Chlo?" Alice turned to show me, I caught a wicked grin on her face as she turned away from Professor Rimuru.

"Um… it's… fine…" I brought my book up to my face. "But come here so I can fix it a little, okay?"

"Sure!" Alice smiled, "but I wanna see it first!"

Professor Rimuru walked over to the cubbies and brought out one of our play mirrors, handing it to Alice.

As soon as Alice got the right angle on the mirror, her smile was immediately gone.

"I said I don't know how to do it! Don't get mad at me," Professor Rimuru pleaded.

"Chloe!" Alice cried out, "help! Fix it please, I can't be seen like this!"

"O-okay!" As I started untangling Alice's hair, Professor Rimuru shuffled back to his desk with a guilty look.

"It's not that bad, Professor!" I tried to cheer him up, "for a first time anyway!"

"Uh… thanks Chloe… you two have fun, okay?" He propped up one of his books to hide his face. "Man, that went even worse than with my niece back in the day…" he whispered, but loudly enough that I still heard it.

Professor Rimuru has a niece? Oh… probably from before he reincarnated…

Later, Professor Rimuru gave us all homework to do for study hall, telling us to be quiet while he reads a book. He was sitting up front at the desk, completely hidden by a big textbook propped up in front of him. From my seat I could only see his fingers wrapped around the two covers, but I didn't think he'd turned a page in a while.

"Professor Rimuru?" Kenya raised a hand, frowning at his paper.

Professor Rimuru didn't respond, or so much as move. We all looked at each other in confusion.

Kenya hopped out of his seat and walked behind the desk to Professor Rimuru, tugging on his sleeve.

"Hey, guys!" He said excitedly after a moment, "I think it's happening again!"

"What's happening, Ken?" Ryota asked quietly, wandering over to see.

"Professor Rimuru fell asleep with his eyes open!" Racing over to one of the cubbies in the classroom, he started digging through it. "Hang on, I'm gonna try something!"

"What are you doing?" Kenya ignored Alice's sassy, condescending question. Pulling out a pair of scissors from the supply cubby, he scurried back to Professor Rimuru's side.

"This is how we'll find out if he's actually a guy!" Kenya grinned, "if he's a girl, he won't like his hair getting cut!"

"Um…" I peeked over the rim of my book. I didn't like Kenya being so disrespectful to Professor Rimuru, but I was still curious…

"That's dumb!" Alice snarked, "nobody wants their hair cut without permission! It's not just a girl thing!"

"Yeah, but girls care more!" Kenya insisted. He grabbed his desk seat and dragged it over so he could stand on it, now high enough to reach Professor Rimuru's hair since it only went to his shoulders. "Plus, I bet he can just use magic or something to grow it back."

I got out of my seat and walked over, following Gale as we all gathered to see Kenya's experiment play out. We all wanted to finally answer the big question, after all.

Kenya raised the scissors and grabbed a lock of Professor Rimuru's bangs.

…it'll be fine. I told myself, Professor Rimuru will still look pretty with short hair.

Kenya brought the scissors across Professor Rimuru's bangs and cut… only they didn't cut right away.

"Ugh!" Kenya grumbled, "why do we always get the broken school supplies?" He started sawing away at Professor Rimuru's hair, making quick cuts close to the base of the blades.

"This still isn't working!" He whined, "even Professor Rimuru's hair is strong! How is that possible!?"

I couldn't see well with all my other classmates crowding Kenya's chair, so I climbed up on the desk to look over Professor Rimuru's book.

"Rrrrrrrrgh!" Kenya snarled, "I've got this! Ready?" Putting all his strength into the scissors, he slammed the blades shut.

With a snap, half of the pair of scissors went flying across the room, embedding itself in the corkboard on the wall. The other half was still held by the handle in Kenya's grip.

"...WHAT!?" Kenya shouted.

Turning around, Kenya started ranting. "You guys saw that, right!?" He burst out, "how does that even happen!?"

Meanwhile Gale, Alice, and Ryota were silent, looking chagrined.

A delicate hand tapped Kenya on the shoulder.

"Eh–?" He turned around to see Professor Rimuru staring at him, snapped out of his trance by Kenya's antics.

"Care to explain what you five are doing?" He asked irritatedly, taking in the scene. "Chloe, get off the desk. You know only I get to sit there."

I quickly scrambled down, not wanting Professor Rimuru to be mad at me. I wasn't trying to break the rules, I just wanted to see what was happening!

"Kenya, why is your chair over here?" Professor Rimuru asked, then his eyes drifted to the half of the scissors still in Kenya's hand. His eyes moved to the other half embedded in the wall.

"Were you guys playing darts with the scissors?" He scolded, "you shouldn't break school supplies just to play games! Not to mention how dangerous it is to be throwing knives in a classroom!"

"Uhh… heheh, yeah." Kenya scratched his head bashfully, "you got us, teach. Sorry."

"Go do your work," Professor Rimuru grumbled, "and take your chair with you."

We obeyed, happy to have gotten away without much interrogation. Kenya still looked pretty peeved about the results. And we still didn't know if Professor Rimuru was actually a boy!

I had no idea what had gotten into my kids the past couple of days, but their shenanigans were more extreme than usual. Like the lemonade thing. Did they know what was about to happen–like, sense it or something?

Well, no. They're not monsters, I reminded myself. They're probably just excited for the field trip.

So over the few days before the trip their energy skyrocketed, the excitement palpable, but I kept my mouth shut about the nature of our upcoming trip. They kept speculating, though, even though I was giving them nothing to work with.

But, the night before we planned on leaving, I finally brought it back up myself.

"I think it's about time I fulfill my promise."

It took a few seconds for them to pick up on what I meant.

"You don't mean-" Gale started to say, but his words caught in his throat.

"Yes, I've found a way to save you. That's what this field trip is for."

"P-professor…"

Oh man, all five of them are crying, even Kenya and Alice…

I wasn't really expecting this reaction from them. They are strong kids, so seeing all five break down like this was a lot to witness.

After some very tight group hugging, reassuring words, and head-pats, everyone eventually calmed down and cheered up a bit.