Surviving the Assassin Academy as a Genius Professor - Chapter 11

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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 11
EP5 – The Saint of the Palace (2)

I’d almost kicked the fallen man’s face, but thought better of it and stopped.

The reason for attacking was simple enough: looking at his Script, it seemed he intended to restrain me. And I’ll admit, every time I glimpse such credentials, I find myself wondering about the developer parents who coded this world.

“Nngh! Ahhh—ugghhh…!!”

The man writhed on the floor and reached for his sword, but the pain was too much; he crumpled again. Blood trickled down his cheek. The priests hurried over to tend to him.

With Holy Power flowing through him at that rate, there’d be no lasting injury. The pain would linger, though.

Either way, with matters having gone this far, Rebecca’s affection rating—which I hadn’t even encountered yet—took a sharp nosedive in my mind. Just as a disrespectful envoy shames a nation, a discourteous guardian knight brings dishonor to the princess.

With that thought, I turned my body, and a lady-in-waiting rushed over, clasped her hands, and blocked my way.

“I—I’m so sorry, Professor Dante. The guardian knight only just arrived as a new recruit, and was terribly discourteous….”
“Walk with me.”
“Yes! Though… the Princess is waiting for you inside right now. Would it be all right to show you in? Please….”

Attitude matters.
If someone approaches me rudely, I have no choice but to be rude in return.
But shown respect like this, I return it in kind.

“…Very well.”

I climbed the stairs and knocked on the Clergy Office door.
A voice bade me enter.

As I opened the door and stepped inside, a space filled with quiet, smoldering firelight unfurled before me.
A monster assassin posing as a maid stood there, and a monster knight masquerading as an aged servant beside her.

And in the center of them both—
Rebecca sat in a chair, awaiting me.

“Oh my.”

She rose and approached, smiling softly.
Her expression warm, inviting.

“How wonderful that you came.”

A chill crawled up my spine. Even though nothing appeared on my Script.
She was merely performing the role of a saint. Yet my senses screamed that Rebecca was a woman of terrifying danger.

“Please, do sit.”

For some reason, now she was choosing to play the student. It felt like a kind of make-believe game.
A typical professor would observe propriety, but I decided to match her rhythm instead.

“If you wish to see a professor in the future, submit a request for an appointment with my research assistant.”

In that instant, the expressions of the old man and maid standing behind Rebecca twisted. According to their Scripts, they both considered me insane.
Yet Rebecca merely laughed.

“My apologies, Professor. I’ve been so busy I’ve scarcely found time.”
“Since you mention being busy, I’ll ask directly. What is your business?”

Rebecca blinked blankly for a moment, then spoke with subtle intent.

“Would you two mind stepping out for a bit?”

After they left, she continued.

“The other day, Kaiser told me about you, Professor. He spoke very highly of you.”
“Kaiser has a discerning eye.”
“Indeed. I’ve never seen Kaiser praise anyone quite so lavishly. I was so taken aback, I simply had to see for myself what sort of person you are.”

Her voice was soft, like a jade orb.
I didn’t want to think it, yet that was how it struck me.

“You didn’t call me here just to swap pleasantries.”
“True enough. Since it’s a matter you likely already know, I find myself circling the subject. Forgive me.”
“I’m listening.”
“There are strong children among us. For now, they’re at the level of ordinary students, but one day they’ll grow into masters counted on one hand across the entire continent. Yet they have many shortcomings…. They need guidance.”
“That strikes me as strange. From what I gather, you’re all heirs to noble families and wealthy organizations.”

Rebecca’s smile was tinged with sorrow.

“When painting a still life, one turns aside the rotten parts. Professor, are you aware that the Empire’s princess took her own life early this year? Even she—beloved by all, wealthy, possessed of the world’s greatest power, beautiful—even she needed help.”

The princess lifted her gaze to meet mine once more.

“I understand what you’re driving at. But let me ask you this: why call on me instead of the senior professors?”

That had been my lingering question.
The senior professors were masters whose strength far exceeded that of ordinary faculty.
They were naturally incomparably stronger than the current Sleeping Dragon Academy Group, and the professors themselves studied under them. They were the assassins who became the pillars of the state.
Rebecca opened her decadent crimson eyes narrowly.

“I don’t trust the senior professors.”

Her voice was careful, measured.
Yet her tone was resolute.

“You don’t trust the senior professors?”
“They lack drive, and they don’t particularly care for us.”
“Because you’re a threat to them?”
“That too, but I’m not the sort of student they’d favor anyway.”

“Some who seem to care even feign affection, thinking only of how to use us.”
“Yet I myself am a professor of the Assassination Department.”
“Word is, you’ve scolded students in the Assassination Department for their halfhearted murders. And it was Kaiser who said so. That boy’s judgment has never once been wrong.”

Her words made a certain sense.
Hiaka Academy was hardly a place of virtue.

“I know I can’t make a choice on sentiment alone. I’ll make sure you lack for nothing. As a princess…. So I’m asking you.”

Rebecca leaned forward slightly.

“Please, will you become the guidance professor for the Sleeping Dragon Academy Group?”

I paused to think.
This was the same request Kaiser had made.
His message—to set them straight when they went astray—still resided in my Crystal Orb.
I had delayed my answer to check the Script, but nothing came to mind.

“Unfortunately, it’s the same answer I gave Kaiser. I have no intention of personally mentoring anyone.”
“…….”

This was a small trap built into Hell Difficulty.
If someone were arrogant enough to believe they could fix people on their own, they’d wade into this swamp, but I’m not such a fool. I know exactly what monster stands before me with its jaws wide open.

“……What a shame. Kaiser will be disappointed too.”

Surprisingly, Rebecca nodded readily.

“I understand your words well. I bless your future, Professor.”

It was a blessing.

As I turned to leave, the Script of the two people outside came to mind.
They had seen me strike down the knight, and now they were seething at my refusal. Simultaneously, they harbored the thought that my much-lauded discernment was utterly worthless trash.
I had no desire to counter that, but something caught my eye.

* Ceremonial Vestment [Curse, Curse, Curse]

On the Ceremonial Vestment hanging from the coat rack beside the door.
Three curses were layered upon it.

It was just like when I’d seen the virulent poison on Kaiser’s Five-Color Black Tea before.
It was strange. By rights, I shouldn’t have been able to see it.
Yet at this moment, threading the first button through this perilous relationship, there was no harm in making it known.

“Princess Rebecca.”
“Yes, Professor.”
“Keep a Detection Mage at your side as an escort.”
“…I beg your pardon?”
“Check your surroundings as carefully as you can. The Crown Princess didn’t take her own life—she was murdered. You have people wishing death upon you as well.”

I kicked the coat rack with my foot, and the Ceremonial Vestment fell to the floor.
I had one last thing to say.

“Recruit a new knight.”

My meeting with the Princess ended there.

* * *

After Dante left.

“…….”

Princess Rebecca stared at the door through which he had gone.
The smile had long since faded from her lips.

Then an elderly knight and a female operative entered and began to denounce him.

“Outrageous! His arrogance pierces the heavens! Isn’t his nature shallow and base? How dare he speak down to the Princess in an empty room!”
“I share Cheongru’s view, Princess. You need not employ such a professor at all.”

Indeed, it was so. Was she not the blood of the glorious royal house? Even the department head of the Assassination Department, should he seek audience with the Princess, would kneel and bow his head as convention demanded.

“That insolent wretch of a professor…. Just give the order, my lord! I’ll see to it that he steps down from his post….”
“It’s fine.”

Rebecca silenced them both with a light remark.
Then she fixed her gaze on the Ceremonial Vestment.
Both of them caught the meaning in that stare.

“Ah, regarding that—there’s no need to worry at all, Professor. How could the Professor possibly know such a thing? Everything that touches Her Highness’s person falls under the steward’s direct supervision and——”

Rebecca cut off the words.

“Raime.”
“…Yes, Your Highness.”
“Is Ezekiel, the Magic Department head, in District 2 right now?”
“Yes. Likely so.”
“Would you go and verify?”

Raime, an operative in the Guard’s secret division, frowned inwardly—it seemed Dante had needlessly caused the Princess concern.

‘This is ridiculous. That arrogant bastard….’

Professor Dante Hiaka. A man with no Martial Rank. His assassination background unconfirmed. A third-rate instructor, surely.

‘Nothing special about him….’

She’d repeated such curses to herself countless times.
The man knew nothing. It was galling.
And yet.
When she went to find Ezekiel, a Challenger-tier mage, his answer was strange.

“It’s there.”
“Pardon?”

What?

“Three curses. Cruel ones, at that.”
“Well, but the steward’s inspection didn’t—”
“The curses could have been applied afterward. One of the three has a restriction—it activates only on young females. That’s why the inspection missed it. Remarkably subtle.”

She couldn’t believe it.

“What should I do with it? Destroy the Vestment?”
“No… We need to recover it.”
“Take it, then.”

Once they parted ways, she still couldn’t make sense of it.

‘…Lucky guess.’

So he knew a bit about Curse Studies.

‘He must have sensed the ominous presence and taken a shot at it, that’s all.’

Operative Raime returned and reported the matter to the Princess, simultaneously bracing herself for whatever stern order might follow.
Rebecca stared blankly at the Ceremonial Vestment, then sifted through past events until something clicked.

“There’s a maid with her hair in two braids. Rosy cheeks, cute little thing.”
“Yes, Your Highness. That’s Heart.”
“Bring her.”

Three minutes later, the maid was dragged into the Princess’s chambers by her arms.
When the female operative Raime kicked the back of her knees, she shrieked and collapsed to the floor.
Rebecca stepped forward and seized her by the hair.

“You didn’t.”

The attendant shook her head, trembling with fear.

“P-Princess! I… I… I didn’t know anything…!”
“Then why did you do it?”
“I just did as I was told…! Truly, I knew nothing…!”
“We’ve been together for more than a day or two. Every morning you brushed my hair so gently. How could you betray me like this?”
“Your Highness……”
“Tell me. Did you despise me too?”
“……!”

The attendant gasped in horror and bowed her head, but Rebecca’s grip was merciless, wrenching her back up.
Red eyes fixed upon her.

“I want to know what you were thinking. Was it true? Did you think I was base-born filth from some street whore’s belly, a worm unfit to be called princess, whose bloodline should never have been dignified? Did you?”

The attendant’s face drained of all color.
Even in this moment when language itself had shifted, the princess’s expression remained eerily serene.
Rebecca released her hair. The attendant didn’t dare meet her eyes, pressing her forehead to the ground instead.

“Cheongru.”

As if an order were about to fall, the attendant began pleading again with her hands.

“P-Please, Your Highness…! Spare me, just this once…! I’ll tell you everything, who gave the orders…!”
“That won’t be necessary. Modern techniques are quite good—even corpses can be made to speak.”
“……!”
“Though I am curious. What curse did you place on my Ceremonial Vestment?”
“I… I don’t know, Your Highness…! Truly, I know nothing…!”
“Then I’ll have to find out myself.”
“How…! Ugh!”

Rebecca seized the attendant by the hair again, wrenching her neck backward, and shoved the Ceremonial Vestment into her mouth.
A curse that only afflicted young women, they had said.

“How fortunate. We’re the same age, aren’t we?”

The attendant convulsed, trying to spit it out, but her hands were bound behind her back, and Rebecca didn’t loosen her grip until the Vestment was fully inside. Though she herself had exceptional resistance to curses for some reason, the attendant would have no such protection.

“…Ghh!”

And just as Dean Ezekiel had described, the curse meant only for young women began to manifest.
The attendant’s face began to age in real time.

“Hnngh…! Hnnnngh…!”

A truly vicious curse. Accelerated aging blooming across her face in mere moments. Her hair bleached white, spreading outward in two matted masses.

“How ugly. Growing old……”

Rebecca watched with a melancholy expression.
It was then that the attendant finally expelled the Vestment. It fell, smeared with saliva and blood, something no one would wish to touch again.

“Cheongru. Cut off this child’s limbs and throw them to the muun as food.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”

An order stripped of all emotion.
The old knight drew his sword to carry out the order.

Shing—

Then he stepped forward to do as he always did.
The aged maid thrashed and shrieked.

“No, Your Highness…! Princess… Rebecca, you wretched creature…!! I, I will…!!”

The old knight raised his blade high and considered.
What accident would he report this maid’s death as?

A fatal fall, in the end.
The junior knight was dismissed from service.

⋮

After everything had concluded thus.
Princess Rebecca sat upon her bed and gazed out the window.

Looking upon those stars she cursed without ceasing.
A strange wonderment seized her, and she murmured.

“…How did you know?”

The Professor.

EP5

The Saint of the Palace

END

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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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