I Ended up Doing Too Well as a Professor of the Enemy Nation - Chapter 255
—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————
Chapter 255. The Enraged Butterfly (1)
The First Prince, having discovered the seal mark of the Five Evils, realized this was beyond what he could handle alone.
In the end, there was only one method he chose.
“…Professor. I have something to tell you.”
Ruin, with his arms crossed, looked quite surprised.
Of all people, the First Prince?
“To me? Surely you’re not going to give up your claim to the throne.”
He threw out a joke as usual, but the First Prince’s face was the picture of seriousness. There wasn’t even a hint of laughter.
Ruin immediately withdrew his expression and narrowed his gaze.
“What’s the matter?”
“Thanks to your buff magic, Professor, I was able to use my resurrection ability. But one of the children I revived… was fake.”
“Pardon?”
“To be precise, one of the corpses was a doll, and what was found in those ashes was the seal mark of the Five Evils—Deception.”
Ruin’s eyes instantly turned cold.
He quickly headed to the medical ward. The children’s beds were empty. The children revived by the First Prince’s ability had already been handed over to the Healing Arts professors for examination.
However, evidence still remained on the bed that was left behind. A corpse crumbled as if pottery had been shattered. And on each fragment, a black seal mark was carved.
Ruin reached out without hesitation to examine it.
「It’s certain. This is the aura of Deception.」
Ginseng Superior’s voice rang out.
Ruin scooped up a handful of the ash pile. The ash powder flowed down through his fingers like scattered dust.
The reason the corpse had turned to ash was simple.
‘…It’s because of the First Prince’s resurrection ability.’
The power to draw forth life, pure life energy.
That power had breathed life into the children.
But the fake couldn’t withstand it. The doll that was nothing but a shell couldn’t endure that overwhelming flow of life and revealed its true form.
Ruin’s eyes narrowed coldly.
‘…Did Deception switch out one of the corpses? Or…’
At that moment, his pupils wavered. His cold face rarely showed cracks. The imagination that arose in his mind was something even he wanted to deny.
‘…No way.’
What if Deception hadn’t simply stolen a corpse, but had been mixed in among the Hero Candidates from the very beginning?
[Raise the Hero Candidates. Then, except for the useful ones, eliminate the rest.]
Yes, that had been the Upper Echelon’s orders.
But what if they hadn’t been content with just watching, and one of the Five Evils had infiltrated to directly monitor them? What if they had deceived them, true to their name?
Thump.
Ruin’s heart sank heavily. His expression gradually contorted.
He slowly looked around the medical ward. He took in each bed where the children had lain, engraving them in his mind.
Initially there were seven, but excluding the children who were sent back midway, five Hero Candidates remained in the end. Excluding Elaine from those…
Aina.
Hiren.
Yuri.
Kailen.
…And the names carved in his mind like blank spaces.
At that moment, an old memory flashed through his mind like lightning.
‘The one who was fake was…’
Kailen.
The boy who always followed Elaine around.
The child who shared laughter with everyone.
…That child was fake.
Ruin lightly pressed his brow.
“Of all people…”
Of all people, that child had been the one closest to Elaine.
That’s why Ruin tapped his forehead with his fist. A curse escaped him.
‘Damn it… this wasn’t in the calculations.’
This needed to be examined in detail. Whether Deception had stolen Kailen’s corpse, or whether Kailen had been Deception from the very beginning.
The story would be completely different depending on the result.
* * *
Ruin immediately summoned Cedric Erol. The owner of the tracking notes and the Second Prince’s subordinate. Annoying but useful talent.
“Erol.”
“Y-yes. Professor…”
Cedric flinched like a student who had done something wrong. Perhaps it was because every time he saw Ruin, he remembered being trapped in a bathtub and tortured with refreshments. His face was already turning pale.
But then—
“There’s a new target to add to the tracking notes.”
“Eh, what?”
Cedric was even more flustered.
“I, I haven’t been tortured yet though?”
“Do I look like some kind of villain who would do such things?”
Yes.
Kedrick, who couldn’t bring himself to say those words, asked.
“Wh-what kind of target?”
Instead of answering, Ruin held out the doll’s remains. It was a fragment with traces of deception still lingering.
“If you have traces of the opponent, you can easily add them, right?”
“That’s true, but… Ugh!”
The moment Kedrick grabbed the fragment, his face turned pale.
“Who is the target?! What kind of curse power is this strong!”
“It’s classified for security reasons.”
Ruin cut him off sharply, but Kedrick was sweating profusely.
“The power is too strong, so registration might be difficult with my abilities…”
“I’ll lend you my power for that.”
Ruin’s fingertip touched Kedrick’s note. Instantly his magic power flowed in, and Kedrick’s ability was amplified threefold. His eyes flashed as the note emitted a blue light.
Kedrick began tracking with trembling hands. However, Kedrick’s expression was strange.
“…Huh?”
Ruin’s heart skipped a beat.
“Is there some problem?”
Kedrick’s following words were quite unexpected.
“It’s already registered.”
“What?”
“What do you mean it’s already registered?”
Rarely, killing intent was contained in Ruin’s voice. Kedrick returned the note while reading the mood.
“P-Professor, the traces you brought overlap with traces already recorded in the note. The same being… is already registered.”
Ruin skimmed through the note. Those written here were Haven’s faculty and students. What that meant was, in other words…
‘…No way.’
Suddenly, Echo’s words came to mind.
“One of the Five Evils is hiding within Haven.”
One is a professor, the other is a student.
Adding Kedrick’s words to that meant Deception was one of the two.
‘The Defense Professor was said to be ‘Death’… so what remains is the student side.’
At this, Ginseng Superior became even more troubled.
「There are more students than professors. Can you find them?」
Certainly, Deception had many similarities to himself.
‘Truly a being that deceives others.’
In short, it was a being skilled in the art of deception. Finding them easily would definitely be difficult.
‘Then there is a way.’
“Pop quiz.”
Huh? Suddenly?!
The students were about to burst with complaints, but Ruin didn’t bat an eye as he slammed the test papers down on the podium.
“Anyone who doesn’t take it gets a 0 on the final evaluation.”
Instant silence. Soon all the students’ eyes changed to ‘must solve this with my life on the line’ mode.
However, that was only momentary. The students who received the test papers murmured and glanced at each other. They had no choice.
‘This… is too easy?’
That devil Ruins is giving problems like this? Really?
Students who caught on brightened up.
‘Professor, are you trying to help our grades?’
‘Since he tormented us so much during midterms, is he going easy on us now?’
‘We love you, Professor!’
Flower gardens bloomed on the faces of students solving the test. Some even wrote letters on their tests saying ‘Professor is the best♥’.
However, there was a truth the students didn’t know. In fact, the next day, the academy became a battlefield.
“Aaah!”
“Ack!”
“Kyaah!”
“Guhk!”
A student who fell in the dormitory corridor with a bloody nose, a student trapped between library bookshelves crying out…
“Waaah! Why is my luck so terrible today!”
“Earlier I bit a stone while eating!”
“My chalk exploded while writing on the blackboard and got in my eyes!”
Every store they wanted to go to was closed, shoe soles came off, they were robbed by thieves, dropped laundry, spilled ink, had hair pulled out, love letters were revealed to all students… All kinds of misfortune swept through the campus like dominoes.
“Isn’t this happening ever since we took the Demon Hunting Studies exam?!”
“That’s right! There must have been some kind of curse on the test papers!”
“Ah, so you wanted to give us all F’s?!”
“Actually, wasn’t the real test supposed to be breaking the curse that was cast here?”
All the students were seething as if they were about to rush over and grab him by the collar at any moment.
There were actually people who came running over in shock.
“Professor Ruins…! What on earth have you done!”
The ones who entered the Head Professor’s office were the Hero and the professors.
“What do you mean what. I just gave an exam.”
“An exam? You’re saying the students ended up in this state because of an exam?!”
The professors were confused.
However, Ruin, who was sitting with his legs crossed on the desk looking at test papers, laughed nonchalantly.
“Well, if the Chairman shakes hands with all the students, they’ll all be cured, so don’t worry.”
“What?!”
At those words, this time it was the Hero who became dumbfounded.
…No, how many students are there in the entire school that he wants me to shake hands with each and every one of them?!!
At that expression pleading to be spared, Ruin shot a sharp remark.
“The Chairman’s hardships are none of my concern.”
No! Is he really going to be like this?
The Hero sent him a look as if asking why he was doing this to him.
Ruin, who was checking the pile of test papers stacked high, furrowed his brow.
‘Let’s not tell Elaine.’
Things like his closest friend’s corpse disappearing, or that friend might have actually been one of the Five Evils who infiltrated in disguise, or that the corpse seemed to have been stolen—if he heard such stories, his mental state would collapse.
I alone am enough to carry the truth to the grave.
And…
‘I will definitely resolve this.’
Ruin’s eyes narrowed as he looked through the test papers one by one. The problems were too easy, so most received perfect scores, but well.
Just one person among all the students.
“…As expected.”
Blank.
Only one person had submitted a blank paper. As if they knew that touching the exam questions would result in being afflicted by misfortune. And as if they were too scared to touch it.
‘Even that Deception was afraid of Misfortune, it seems.’
In fact, Ruin had anticipated this and created such an exam question. Ruin’s lips twisted as if finding it disgusting.
‘So this guy was Deception…?’
—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————