No Hero

Translator: Minna (proofread by Cesium Black; C/E edited by lucathia)

The curtains in the living room were already open. Even though it was still morning, it was already slowly approaching midday. The sunlight was much more vicious now than in the early morning. That was why I picked a couch in a corner where the sun did not reach to read a book named “Studies about the Dissection of the Body.”

Rather than reading a book about surgery, why not read a book about dissection? This was what Mr. An Te Qi had suggested. But this suggestion made me even more frightened because the target of the dissection would be the young master. If I did not have absolute certainty in myself, I likely would not have enough courage to take up the operating knife to dissect the young master… No! To help perform an operation on the young master.

Glancing at the clock at the wall, I discovered that time had passed without my noticing—it was already ten thirty. Maybe I should change the breakfast I am preparing to lunch?

Yesterday was Saturday. After breakfast, the young master had changed into Dark Sun’s outfit and left. He had yet to return.

The news on TV reported all kind of headlines which changed every hour. Amidst them they mentioned many super hero sightings, but the heroes were so busy that they did not even have time to stop and look at the media’s cameras. You could only see their figures, most of which were filmed from a distance, come and go on TV.

Although the young master had not come home to eat breakfast, he had been busy all day and night, so when he returned, he would most definitely be starving. Therefore, I had already prepared numerous dishes. I was only waiting for the young master to return, so everyone could eat to their heart’s content.

However, I had not thought that he would be busy for so long. I could only stop preparing dishes to avoid the food being ready too early, because by the time we finished waiting for the young master, it would already be cold and not delicious anymore.

While waiting, I made use of the time and delved into books.

These past few days, I had already studied many medical books, but the more I read the more I felt it was not enough… Books could not give me enough courage to take up the operating knife and cut into the young master’s body.

But it appeared that Mr. An Te Qi did not plan to let me have more time to educate myself. He just shrugged and said, “Make the cuts and you’ll know how.” Then, he said that he would bring a corpse and operating tools to let me try to dissect something for real… I was to remove the organs while I was at it and test experimental drugs on the different organs. Afterwards, I was to write down the results and complete a report to give to him.

It is as if I am not a clueless beginner student but have rather already become a physician’s assistant.

Thus, I decided to do more self-study, so as to avoid dissecting a whole corpse single-handedly under the circumstances of having absolutely no experience, and even use a large quantity of medicine with unknown effects on the corpse.

Looking at the dissection book before me, I could not help sighing. Even though these books were a great help with understanding the theory, they did not help at all with the actual practice.

After thinking a while, I still decided to make a call. “Good morning, Curtis.”

“Family Head? Has something happened?” Curtis sounded quite nervous. He seems to be under the mistaken impression that something grave has happened… Perhaps in the future, I should call him more often, and not just when something happens.

I quickly said, “Nothing has happened, I only wanted to ask you to help arrange some university classes for me. I want to… Well, start with medicine first. I need operating, dissecting and pharmaceutical classes.”

“Do you want to study at medical school?” Curtis seemed surprised. “The classes in medical school are very burdensome. I am afraid that you might not be able to study and be a butler at the same time.”

“I only need practical classes, not theory classes. Besides, you do not have to arrange for too many classes at a time. I can learn slowly…”

Having said that, I secretly prayed that Mr. An Te Qi would have a long life of a hundred years… No! Make it one hundred fifty years. Let me have time to polish this knowledge to the state of absolute perfection. It should not be too late to operate on the young master after that.

“I understand. I will have someone arrange for your enrollment as soon as possible.”

“Thank you very much.”

At the same time that I hung up, I heard a noise from the living room’s balcony. I slide stepped over to open the French window. On the porch, a red-black silhouette knelt there. On his back, a pair of silver-white wings radiated brilliantly due to the sun’s reflection, but those rays of light gradually decreased and at last disappeared when the wings slid inside the silhouette’s back.

Smiling, I said, “Welcome home, Young Master.”

Dark Sun stood up and took off his visor, his expression cold. A pair of ink-black eyes looked toward me. His eyes were without any emotions, and his whole person was like an ice-cold metal statue.

Shortly after, he blinked a few times. His ink-black eyes were wide and round, and he even pitifully furrowed his brow. He shouted, “Charles, I’m so hungry! Super duper hungry!”

At this moment, the living room’s door also opened, and Dell loudly whined, “I’m starving! Butler, serve us some food!”

I laughed and said, “Yes, I will immediately bring the food.”

“Charles, you’re attending university?” asked the young master, a little surprised.

While eating breakfast… or rather lunch, I told the young master that I wanted to attend university, and thus I hoped I would occasionally be able to take time off to go to class.

As soon as I finished speaking, everyone, who had been wolfing down their food, actually willingly stopped their action of eating. Then, they blankly looked at me, all showing equally incredulous expressions.

“A butler needs to attend university?” Dell wondered, “What kind of classes? Housekeeping classes?”

“No.” I explained at once, “It is to study medicine because I will have to perform operations on the young master for his wounds and the like in the future. Therefore, I want to gain some basic knowledge. In this way, I can save Mr. An Te Qi the trouble of having to teach me starting from the basics.”

After hearing this explanation, everyone stopped looking surprised and continued to engross themselves in eating. Mr. Bramble even nodded and murmured, “This is a good idea because the young master gets hurt all the time…” He stopped speaking. He seemed to take into consideration that the young master was present and did not continue that thread of conversation.

“I see!” The young master nodded in understanding and said, “Studying at a university is great. Bàba certainly doesn’t have the patience to tutor you step by step. I bet he already wants you to help with his experiments!” freℯ𝓌e𝚋𝐧𝘰vℯl.𝐜𝚘𝗺

Indeed.

The young master promptly gave his permission, “Go ahead and attend university. Nowadays, I’m not at home for very long anyway, so you’d probably be very bored at home all by yourself!”

“Thank you, Young Master.” While talking, I served each one of them dessert: walnut-pumpkin pie.

After eating a pie, the young master suddenly said, “Charles, remember not to wear clothing that is too nerdy when you go to school, or you’ll be bullied!”

I had not even thought of this point and promptly replied gratefully, “Thank you for the reminder, Young Master. I will keep that in mind.”

At this moment, Aren started to talk as well. “If you’re being extorted, don’t think that giving money will solve it. They’ll like seeking you out more and more to demand money, and it’ll be more and more money.”

I stared blankly and replied, “All right.”

The young master ate another pie. As I placed the third pie on his plate, he raised his head and said, “Ah, right! If a professor tells you to stay behind to help or wants to help you review for class, you must pay attention to whether or not their expressions are perverted! It doesn’t matter if the professor is male or female. You have to be alert with both! If they show a perverted expression, you absolutely shouldn’t do as they tell you!”

…Young Master, just what kind of university life did you have?

“Oh, that’s right!” The young master seemed to have remembered something important. He suddenly left his breakfast and ran back to his room, then rushed out again and gave me a box that looked like a magazine. Based on what I knew from the various weapons Yue Gang had purchased before, this should probably be a magazine full of hand grenades, rather than a magazine for bullets.

I took it and asked, puzzled, “Young Master, are these hand grenades?” But why would he give me hand grenades?

“They’re smoke grenades.” The young master carefully explained, “There are a total of ten smoke grenades inside. If you meet any trouble, just push this red button, and the magazine will launch a smoke grenade. When the air is filled with smoke, you can use x-speed to escape!”

I looked at the smoke grenades I held. Suddenly, I was not so sure if I was going to “university” or doing some kind of dangerous activity like breaking into jail. But as I looked at everyone else’s expressions, they did not look surprised at all. Aren even nodded his head in approval… Are universities nowadays really that dangerous?

As I held the smoke grenade magazine, I only said, “Thank you, Young Master.”

Completely serious, the young master said, “Charles, you must take care of your safety!”

“…Thank you for worrying, Young Master. I will certainly be extra careful.”

So, university is actually such a dangerous place? I could not stop myself from starting to worry.

Dear Father, please bless my quest for knowledge to be a successful one.