Academy’s New Guard is Unusual - Chapter 26

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 26
‘How thoroughly he’s fortified this place.’
I marveled at Raven’s door.
On the surface it looked like any other room’s entrance, but a closer inspection revealed mechanisms embedded throughout—each one so finely crafted it was hard to distinguish.
‘So he really is from Manwol.’
Manwol was an assassin organization belonging to the Empire’s Ten Assassins.
For the right price, they’d kill an emperor.
That was the phrase that defined Manwol.
In truth, Manwol accepted contracts without discrimination.
As long as the fee was met, they would eliminate the target, whoever it was.
The Empire and nobility had tried numerous times to bring down Manwol, but all attempts failed.
Because Manwol was an extraordinarily secretive organization.
How secretive? They didn’t recruit assassins—they raised them from birth.
Manwol’s method was simple: they abducted orphans showing promise from across the continent and threw them into a training facility.
The training was so brutal that only one survivor emerged for every ten sent in, but it posed no problem for Manwol. If ten weren’t enough, they’d send a hundred. A thousand.
Such a method inevitably spawned internal conflict, yet Manwol operated without discord.
There was one reason for this.
‘Jongchung.’
Manwol’s master was called the Poison King—a man with profound knowledge of toxins. Jongchung was a parasite he’d painstakingly created.
True to its name, Jongchung made its host a slave.
The parasite clung to the host’s heart, and at its master’s command, it would tear into the organ. The pain was so excruciating that even assassins who’d survived Manwol’s horrific training would tremble. That’s how Manwol maintained perfect order. Raven too was bound to Manwol by Jongchung.
Manwol operated without a single discordant note. Raven was bound to Manwol because of Jongchung.
Torture and curses don’t work on Manwol’s assassins. Their earliest training teaches them to endure interrogation.
But with Jongchung as leverage, even Raven could be swayed.
The problem was that I had no way to remove it either.
Or rather, I had no intention of removing it.
Raven is a sinister assassin. Free him and he’d wipe his mouth clean, then plunge a dagger between my shoulder blades without hesitation.
So I wouldn’t remove it—
‘I’d change the master of Jongchung to myself.’
— I didn’t copy the Poison King’s technique! I’m the one who taught him!
A grumbling voice seemed to echo faintly somewhere.
* * *
‘Damn it.’
Raven gnawed at his lips.
His mission was to enroll at Elysium Academy, gain the favor of key figures, and become close to them.
The plan was perfect. It had to be—Manwol had poured its heart into it.
The problem began when strange rumors suddenly started spreading.
Raven had gone mad for women, he’d contracted a venereal disease from his depraved lifestyle, his voice alone was enough to make one’s ears bleed—ridiculous, inexplicable gossip.
With new students and so much chatter about everything, the sensational rumors spread beyond control.
Instead of winning favor, he couldn’t even get anyone to speak with him.
Raven focused first on suppressing the rumors. But once spilled, gossip was like water from an overturned cup—nearly impossible to gather back up.
‘Where did things go wrong?’
Raven retraced his memory, searching for the origin of the problem.
One person came to mind immediately.
‘That damned guard bastard.’
The guard who’d blocked him when he tried to approach Evangelina—things started falling apart from that moment.
‘I’ll kill him for certain.’
That’s why Raven had filed a report with the security office. Once he confirmed the man’s identity, he planned to handle him directly.
Killing just one guard wouldn’t cause problems later anyway.
As Raven’s anger cooled, a question crept in.
‘But why was Evangelina the first target?’
Evangelina had once been a high-ranking noble, true, but that was the past. Now she was a fallen young lady with no pillars left supporting her house.
There were weightier targets—the crown prince, the saint candidate, the successor to the Magic Tower Alliance—so why Evangelina first—
Then a terrible pain surged from his heart. It felt like hundreds of insects had sunk their teeth into his organ.
Jongchung.
Raven hastily banished the question.
‘I am an arrow. An arrow exists only to strike its target. I have no will.’
After repeating this mantra several times, the pain slowly receded.
‘Damned Jongchung.’
Raven muttered a curse and rubbed his chest.
Then—
“Unit 54.”
A flat, toneless voice called his number.
He turned his head and saw his door standing open.
He’d installed over ten mechanisms on the door, all top-grade. And they’d all been dismantled?
Only someone at the Poison King’s level or a clan leader could accomplish that.
And the intruder knew his unit number.
The Poison King wouldn’t move. It had to be a clan leader.
Raven scrambled to his feet and fell to his knees, pressing his forehead to the ground.
Click—the door shut.
Thump, thump—leisurely footsteps, followed by the sound of someone settling into a chair.
Was it the Poison King or a clan leader? Raven swallowed hard and looked up.
The first thing he saw was a familiar blue shirt.
A guard’s uniform.
‘Disguised as a guard?’
A clever tactic. Guards were everywhere in the academy.
Raven studied the man’s face with admiration.
Long-drawn eyebrows, eyes that seemed lazy yet sharp, a mouth twisted in a sneer—something about him reminded Raven of a wolf.
He’d seen this face before.
‘That damned guard—!’
The guard who’d thwarted him when he tried to approach Evangelina.
Why was he here? How did he know his identity? Was this guard actually a clan leader? Had Manwol sent him to surveil him?
Questions piled upon questions, but Raven’s body moved first.
He pushed off the ground and twisted his wrist. A black poisoned pick slid out from beneath his palm. He drove it straight at the man.
Or he would have.
Before his eyes met the man’s.
A person’s eyes contain vast information. That’s why people speak of “reading eyes.” A trained assassin could estimate an opponent’s strength—and even predict the outcome—merely by locking gazes.
Raven was more than trained; he was exceptional. An exchange of glances alone let him calculate not just the battle’s trajectory, but its conclusion.
And Raven’s prediction was—
‘If I strike, I die.’
Raven instinctively aborted the attack.
“Quick instincts. I like that.”
The man smiled slightly, watching the poisoned pick freeze inches from him.
Raven was certain: if he hadn’t stopped, he’d be dead.
“……Who are you?”
“Manwol forbids asking a client’s identity, doesn’t it?”
“Are you here to place a contract? I’m sorry, but we don’t accept personal commissions while on assignment.”
More accurately, it wasn’t that they refused—it was physically impossible. And not because of payment.
“Because of Jongchung?”
Raven’s eyes sharpened as Jongchung was mentioned.
“Let me name my price first. I’ll remove Jongchung for you.”
Jongchung—that accursed word made Raven’s eyebrows twitch.
‘No, he’s testing me. There’s only one way to escape Jongchung.’
The only way to be free of Jongchung was to kill the Poison King, Manwol’s master.
But to remove Jongchung? Was he saying he’d kill the Poison King?
Raven let out a silent, bitter laugh.
As if reading his thoughts, the man continued.
“Killing the Poison King would be difficult right now. That gloomy bastard hides in his burrow and never surfaces. Still, I’ll have to deal with him eventually.”
Raven was astounded at how casually the man spoke of the Poison King, like he was some common thug.
“Then how will you remove Jongchung?”
Raven’s voice turned sharp.
The man pointed at Raven with his Guard Baton.
“By making myself the new master of Jongchung.”
Change Jongchung’s master?
It was a method Raven had never conceived of.
Of course not. Jongchung was a parasite the Poison King had created with painstaking care. Changing its master would be like stealing a Sword Master’s blade—or harder still.
The idea was absurd.
“Despite its grand reputation, Jongchung is just a parasite. That’s also why Holy Power and magic don’t work on it. How would you use Holy Power or magic against a worm?”
“……Then how?”
“Do you know where Jongchung originally came from?”
Raven couldn’t answer. Only the Poison King knew Jongchung’s true nature.
“You wouldn’t, since the Poison King kept it strictly guarded.”
“You speak as if you know.”
“I do. Or more precisely, I know who first brought it.”
Raven’s eyebrows lifted. First brought it? Hadn’t the Poison King developed Jongchung himself?
But it wasn’t something the Poison King created from scratch?
“Jongchung is originally a parasite that lives on honeybees deep within Arbandale Mountain, at the continent’s southern edge. The Poison King modified it, but the base remains the same.”
Countless of Manwol’s skilled assassins had tried and failed to learn Jongchung’s truth. Even the Poison King’s lieutenants didn’t know.
Yet this man seemed to know.
And honeybees, no less. It sounded ridiculous.
Then the man pointed at Raven’s chest.
“Quiet, isn’t it?”
Jongchung was extremely sensitive. Merely speaking its name aloud would set it off.
Yet Jongchung had remained silent even as the man openly discussed it.
It had never happened before.
“Jongchung likes honey, you see.”
The man produced a glass vial and shook it.
A sweet aroma filled the room. A vial of honey.
‘The secret was honey all along?’
Raven stared at the man with wavering eyes. A long-buried hope stirred within him.
“So how do you change Jongchung’s master?”
“Simple. Mix blood with honey and feed it to Jongchung.”
Despite the man’s words, the method was anything but simple.
“……Feed it to Jongchung? But it’s attached to the heart. How do you feed it?”
“You open the chest and feed it directly.”
The man pointed at Raven’s chest with his index finger.
Raven’s expression, which had been impassive until now, crumpled.
“Open my chest? I’ll be dead before Jongchung even tastes the honey.”
“You won’t die.”
Pure white light appeared on the man’s fingertip. A dense aura of Holy Power.
With power of that magnitude, one could withstand an open-chest surgery.
But Raven was inherently suspicious.
He wouldn’t surrender his heart to an unknown stranger.
Then a sharp pain bloomed in his chest. Jongchung had awakened.
But its movements were unusual. Several times more violent than normal. As if it were furious.
“Ah, it’s awake. Jongchung has a nasty temper—smell honey and not eat it, and it gets quite savage. How’s that feeling?”
As Jongchung thrashed wildly, agony shot through his heart like his organ was being torn apart.
So this was blackmail.
A foolish move.
Raven was from Manwol. Mere pain wouldn’t break him.
‘I am an arrow. An arrow needs no doubt, no suspicion.’
Raven endured the agony and continued reciting his mantra. Even Jongchung, in its rage, gradually quieted.
The pain slowly faded.
Then the sweet aroma drifted closer.
The scent of honey.
Jongchung, barely calmed, suddenly thrashed about like a madness had seized it.
‘What is this…’
Raven’s head snapped up in confusion.
The man was waving the honey vial directly under Raven’s nose.
“Smells delicious, doesn’t it? Want to eat it? You can’t resist, can you?”
Raven felt the strongest murderous intent of his entire life.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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