Surviving the Assassin Academy as a Genius Professor - Chapter 116

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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 116
EP27 – Starlight Meeting Mountain Redevelopment (6)

– Professor Dante Hiakampo. What is this sudden attitude? The Princess trusted only you, abandoned Kaiser, and bowed to the Royal Family—a family she’d rather die than humble herself before—multiple times. How can you show such irresponsible behavior?

While Laim rattled on, I listened in silence.

“My position hasn’t changed. The Starlight Meeting Mountain redevelopment has been canceled. If you attempt to restart it, you’ll have to face me as an enemy.”
– Y-you!
– Aren’t you afraid of death? You staked your life before Eternity∞!
“I won’t die.”

Of course, staying alive would require some effort.
To put it plainly: within the next thirty days, I need to find and meet a certain person. I already know their location, personality, and weaknesses precisely. If I go to meet them, I could make the journey and the meeting in a single day.

“Just deliver the message to the Princess accurately.”
– You! Hey! You arrogant bastard…!

Click.

I hung up the phone.
At the same moment, a status window appeared.

I’d chosen the fork in the road. I’d entered the expressway. The original path had deviated considerably, but I preferred it this way. My objective was always to shake off Rebecca anyway.

What came next was predictable.
Rebecca would have a breakdown.
She might even abandon the mask she’d never once dropped before and come at me.
But so what if Rebecca attacked?
At this point, Zamryong Academy valued me as much as Rebecca—perhaps even more. They wouldn’t consent to my assassination.
The faculty had also become my safety net. Shaman, the dean, couldn’t help but protect me even if he had to stand against all of the Princess’s forces.

This was worth doing, worth securing and preserving.
Potential 3.0—that’s what it was.

‘Let’s see where and how this decision takes me and Rebecca.’

Interesting things were bound to happen.
And in the end, I would win.

Around that time, Lan had sent the squirrel, bird, turtle, and Mini-Mini-Mung out of the cave and returned.

“Shall we head back now? To the estate?”
“……”

I paused for a moment.
Then I looked down at the witch, the Iferan woman…
at Eve.

The world sometimes has people who pretend to be kind for no reason. People who aren’t really all that good, truth be told. I fell into that category, somewhat.

Not quite guilt. A faint sense of apology was beginning to stir. Of course, I had my reasons, but I didn’t much care about those.

I believe,

that what remains as a phenomenon in the world is what matters.

For instance, I love hypocrisy. Because what remains in the world is goodness.

Thus, intention is irrelevant. What matters is what was left behind. From that perspective, what remains here?

I wounded someone who cared for me.

Even a paper cut from a textbook would draw tears and cries of pain, so I could barely imagine the agony of having a blade thrust into one’s belly.
And Eve said she had been waiting for me to come—whatever else might be true, there must have been considerable bond between us.

I tried to put myself in her shoes. If I had been waiting desperately for someone to arrive, and then that person drew a blade and ran me through—what would that feel like?

Hmm….

No one came to mind, so I conjured up the Advisor Professor in his glory days.
Someone who had once seemed like heaven itself to me—and he had stabbed me with a blade. That thought made the discomfort in my chest grow sharper.

I had felt something similar when I killed the assassins from Croitz to protect Forte.
The demon-kin had weighed on me not at all. They were never human to begin with.
The underlings barely troubled me either. They were merely hired hands.
But when I killed Croitz’s assassins, I felt a definite revulsion.

‘…Am I investing myself in all this far too much?’

The thought struck suddenly.

Perhaps there’s no need to invest so deeply.

After all, this is a world inside a game.

And all these people are essentially NPCs.

True, it would be strange to regard this place purely as a game at this point, but if I forced myself to see it that way, wouldn’t it fit?

Something along those lines.

‘Stop.’

I cut off the thought.

I could barely manage my own survival as it was—what was this foolish philosophizing, this overindulgent Socratism, just because things had looked up a little?

“You are experiencing confusion regarding bonds with hypothetical entities, Professor.”

That was when Laim spoke.

“…What?”

I see the parrot perched above my head.
Ah. Non-verbal Communication.

“You read it from my expression?”
“Yes.”
“…I see. I’ve been wondering about this for a while—how many of those ‘auxiliary devices’ do you have?”
“Many.”
“Could you show me? I’d like to get a look at them while we’re at it.”
“There are quite a lot of them.”
“Empty it all out.”

Laim upended the Subspace Pouch entirely and dumped its contents out.
And just as he’d said, there was an enormous amount. A quick count showed well over a hundred items. More than ten headbands alone.
Among them was an oddly oversized Bear Doll that seemed meant to sit on one’s head.

“What is this.”
“It’s a Bear Doll.”
“I can see that much. But why a bear doll. What function does it serve.”
“Ah, that’s not an auxiliary device. The Director gave it to me as a gift to commemorate my hiring as a teaching assistant.”

The Director?
For some reason, anything connected to the Director felt suspicious.
So I felt it over carefully and found mana circuits woven through its interior.
What kind of circuit is this?
An unfamiliar one.
It doesn’t seem to be combat-oriented.
When I poured mana into it to sense what it contained, the circuit revealed itself to be about movement—in other words, this was a Bear Doll that could move.
The circuits ran from its head through its arms and legs. The circuit itself was crude, nothing special, but knowing it came from the Director gave me an odd, unsettling feeling.

“May I test it?”
“Of course.”

The activation button for the circuit was on the belly.
I pressed it.
The Bear Doll sat up and spread both arms wide.

– Please hold me.

That was all.
Was it just a doll begging children to embrace it?
Or was it a trap—some hidden circuit lurking beneath? I was puzzling over it when Laim crouched down and approached the doll.
Then he knelt.
And embraced the doll.
Slowly. But deeply. Even closing his eyes as he did.

“??”

What was that.
I looked at Laim’s face, taken aback by what he’d just done.
His expression was blank as always, his gaze empty of any particular thought.

“What are you doing.”
“It asked me to hold it.”
“So you held it.”
“Yes.”
“It’s a doll. The voice is just some recording built into it.”
“Is it not permitted to hold a doll?”
“…I don’t know. Are you normally the sort of person who embraces something the moment it asks you to?”

My words grew unnecessarily long. Perhaps because Laim was such an unusual person, I found myself becoming a little more unusual as well. Because even if I grew strange, it would be acceptable.

“…….”

Laim considered for a moment, then shook his head.

“I don’t know. Is it strange?”
“…There’s nothing strange about it, I suppose.”

What had puzzled me was that Laim was fundamentally a machine-like person.
Laim had never shown intimate behavior toward any human or object except Galois.

“…….”

Then Laim stared directly at me.
With eyes that revealed nothing of what lay beneath.
Then she asked.

“Professor, I have a question.”
“I’m listening.”
“When a doll asks to be held, is that different from when a person asks to be held?”
“Why ask such a thing?”
“It’s for my thesis. Demons study in order to kill humans, but I don’t understand humans well. So lately I’ve been studying them.”
“…….”

If I had to make a comparison, it was research into the feeding habits of the subject.

“…There must be a difference between a doll asking to be held and a person asking to be held. A doll isn’t alive, after all.”
“If it’s not alive, then does it mean nothing for it to ask to be held?”
“……That’s a difficult question. I’d say no, probably. And even if there were meaning, it wouldn’t amount to much.”
“I see.”

Laim stared intently at the Bear Doll she’d just been embracing. Then she pressed its buttons several times in succession.
The Bear Doll turned its body to face me.

– Give me a hug.

The doll opens its arms toward me.
I looked at the doll, then raised my gaze to Laim.

“…….”
“…….”

Laim was watching me with blank eyes. As always. A gaze that seemed to hold nothing within it.

– Give me a hug.
– Give me a hug.
– Give me a hu….

I covered the doll’s mouth.

“What’s this about?”
“It’s asking to be held.”
“I won’t.”

Laim tilted her head slightly.

“Why not?”
“Because I have no desire to hold it.”

Laim blinked.

“Is the reason you won’t hold it because it’s a doll? Would you hold a person if they asked?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Or perhaps is it because of what we discussed earlier?”
“What?”
“The difference between a doll asking to be held and a person asking to be held?”

It seemed to be about her thesis again.
So I tried to give more concrete form to the concept I’d glossed over.

“…If there’s a difference between those two, it’s probably the difference between something inanimate and something alive, wouldn’t you say? Normally, embracing something implies a certain communion and expression. But communion with something dead carries little meaning compared to communion with something living.”
“I see.”

Laim fell silent, lost in thought. He seemed frozen, not even breathing.

Then an odd question emerged.

“…Then why was this doll made?”
“What?”
“If there’s no real meaning to embracing something dead, then it’s strange that this doll has a function for being held.”
“…….”

Laim’s words swept across my cheek like a cool breeze.

“Shall we head down, then?”
“…Yes, let’s.”

As we descended the mountain together, I thought about it more.

Why the Bear Doll had a function for being held.

If there was no meaning to embracing something dead.

Then something like the Bear Doll should not exist in the world.

Yet the world was full of bear dolls.

So many bear dolls…….

The reason was simple.

Children felt a bond when they held a bear doll.

The reason children felt a bond while holding a bear doll was,

simply because it *felt* that way to them.

Next came to mind a post I’d once seen online, from somewhere overseas.
The author was a mother.
She had a twelve-year-old child who was obsessed with games. In a moment of anger, the mother deleted the child’s Minecraft server—a server the child had been building for about five years.
After that, the child cried for days and days, then began refusing to speak to the mother.
The mother asked users: how could she make her child understand that it was just a game, that it was nothing, if the child wouldn’t grow up?
The responses were harsh.

– Comment: A twelve-year-old built that server over five years? That’s essentially everything your child worked for their entire life up to this point?

– Comment: Imagine, ten years from now, your son spent all the money you’ve saved your whole life and told you “it’s just a number.” ㅋㅋ

– Comment: What you deleted wasn’t a server. It was five years of blood, sweat, and tears. It was the craftsmanship of a young boy. That child had a home he built with his own hands. In that home was probably a dog named Choco. You erased all of that and then told the child he lacks maturity??

Following that chain of reasoning to its end.

I understood something.

‘Ah, I see.’

……What I felt was my world itself.

* * *

But there was no time to indulge such soft thoughts. Perhaps in this Hell Difficulty world, I was the one refusing to let go and allow peace to reign.

——.

Something fell from the sky and pierced my head.
It was still only mana, but it was falling all the same.
What is this…?

“Laim!”

Laim stopped in her tracks and turned to look at me.
Following the instinct that flashed through me, I shoved her urgently down the slope.
Below the ridge.

“Don’t come out!”
“…….”

Laim tumbled down the hillside without even a cry, landing softly in a bed of fallen winter leaves. I spread a Recognition Concealment Barrier over that spot. All of this had unfolded in a single second.

My Minimap was in expanded mode. I could see everything. Red dots were rushing toward me from all directions.

But they didn’t look like assassins at all.

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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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