Surviving the Assassin Academy as a Genius Professor - Chapter 120

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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 120
EP27 – Starlight Meeting Mountain Redevelopment (10) [Illustration]

The following day brought one crisis after another.

“Still, thank goodness the bell stopped Ibe.”
“Pardon?”
“…What?”
“Is there someone named Ibe?”

1. Everyone except Dante — the Knight-Commander Kashan, Shaman the Department Head, the knights, and Lan — had either lost their memories of Ibe or suffered some form of distortion.

“Is this our first mission failure……?”

2. Knight-Commander Kashan, whose limbs had been restrained by the Department, awoke in the intensive care ward believing he had gone to kill Dante, failed, and been defeated by Shaman.

‘Truly admirable. Dante Hiaka. A mere thirty-year-old warrior survived against me……?’

Youth was a weakness.
And he was the commander of the Assassination Specialist Unit.

It was as if a veteran hunter who had stalked hundreds of wild boar had just tasted his first failure in the hunt — brought low by some mere piglet.

‘…But I can’t quite remember how I fell. I know the Sacred Mark Gamble succeeded mid-combat……?’

Still, protected by the Royal Family, he’d somehow survived.

‘Hmm. Not bad, actually.’

Now that he thought about it, the situation was ideal.
He was alive?
All his subordinates were alive?
No lasting damage to speak of?
The one from the Royal Family and Lord Chingru might curse his incompetence, but honestly, did he care?
The fact that Shaman appeared only meant their intelligence network had holes?
He’d parrot back that he was following orders from above, and there’s no judge who sentences a weapon.
With that, Kashan pressed both hands to his head, reclined against the bed’s headrest, and even began to whistle.

‘Heheheh. I have no responsibility now~♪’

Then he jolted upright in horror.

‘Oh!!!’

He’d received a tremendous shock.
For good reason.

‘……The, the national treasure is gone!!!’

His hands trembled violently.
Hiaka Kingdom Designated National Treasure No. 14, “God’s Plaything □”, which should have been around his neck — was gone.
It was something he’d borrowed from the Royal Family, and he was absolutely required to return it within a few months.
His breath caught in his throat.

‘…W, what, what do I do……??’

In a flash, the shattered fragments of a memory scraped across his mind.
But then he’d lost consciousness.
The whereabouts of the national treasure remained…… a mystery.

Even the shattered remnants held enormous value, for they could serve as materials for extraordinary equipment. Yet even those fragments had vanished without trace.
Kashan found himself kneeling on the bed at some point.
His breath caught short, and his hands began to tremble.

‘This is fucked.’

3. Where did the fragments of the shattered national treasure go?

‘If you come to assassinate, you pay the assassination fee.’

Dante Hiaka was laughing…….

4. Meanwhile, Shaman Croitz found himself gripped by intense bewilderment. He had seriously doubted that he could end in a stalemate with some knight-captain like Kashan. It was a portent of the bitter second duel to come on Starlight Meeting Mountain, where he would fight the Witch of the Graveyard until blood spattered and one of them fell…

“Department Head, donuts are here!”
“Ohoho!”

…but upon seeing the donuts the assistant had brought, the matter seemed to fade from concern.

“Hehehehe! This is how donuts must be eaten—three stacked and devoured in a single bite. Bugibigi!”
“Oho, let me try that too!”

The clerical officer standing beside him shook his head disapprovingly.
That the young male assistant Bugibigi’s cheeks had grown noticeably fuller of late must surely have been the department head’s clerical officer’s imagination.

“Oho, delicious!”

Little piggy Bugibigi…!

“Hehehehe!”

Assistant in expansion…!!

5. In any case! A donut is a donut, and the Royal Family drawing its sword against Hiaka Academy was indeed drawing its sword.

The next morning, an enraged Shaman Croitz actually stormed the Royal Family’s palace and turned it upside down.
Shaman,
while enduring the scornful gaze from the Royal Family—’there goes that national traitor again’—succeeded in stringing up the neck of one elder who had ordered the assassination of Dante Hiaka, and succeeded in extracting long-term patronage worth hundreds of millions.

“…….”

Yet his heart found no peace, for Shaman sensed that the elder in question was merely a figurehead, a scapegoat. His instinct told him it was a classic case of cutting off the tail to save the body.
He would need to speak further with Dante Hiaka about this matter later.

6. Meanwhile, an investigator sent directly by the King questioned Dante.

“May I ask you something.”

He inquired whether Dante had any suspicions about who had ordered the assassination attempt on him.
Which elder. Which faction. ……or perhaps the “Princess,” as it were.
Dante sensed it then.
That whatever words left his lips from this moment forward would profoundly shape Rebecca’s future.

‘I thought she was the princess too.’

Surprisingly, she was not.
There existed ‘another faction’ within the Royal Family, led by Chingru.
I too would have relished seeing Rebecca utterly destroyed in this turn of events, but I could not fabricate words from nothing.
It was not because she loved Rebecca.
It was because the ‘vast latent danger’ could not be obscured behind Rebecca’s face.

“The princess has no connection to this incident.”
……

The investigator bowed his head, his expression clouded with bewilderment.

7. And Rebecca was……

Before the king, wrapped in backlighting and shrouded in darkness.
The princess knelt with her head bowed.
Father and daughter were silent. More precisely, because the king was silent, the princess too had no choice but to remain so.
Yet something about the princess’s appearance was wrong. Her hair, always kept beautifully neat, hung matted as if unwashed, and flecks of blood spattered her face here and there. Her noble robes were torn in places.
She had just killed Chingru and returned.
The man she had lived with for ten years.
The old man whom she had always thought of as a grandfather who would indulge her every whim.
Rebecca had killed him with her own hands.
And so she had been seized by the royal knights and brought to this place.
Then King Hiaka III broke the silence.

“Did you order the death of Dante Hiaka?”

The king’s voice was grave as he posed the question.
The eyes of the guardian corps and courtiers standing at a distance fixed upon her.
That Rebecca feigned saintliness was something all who knew of such matters in the royal family already understood.
Yet this was the first time a question had brought such misconduct into the ‘open’ before them.
Rebecca had to answer with utmost care. This was a question that could upend her entire life.
After a long moment of vacant silence.

“…Yes.”

The princess answered thus.
Her unfocused eyes gazed toward some distant place beneath the ground.

“…I did it.”

At this, the king’s courtiers standing at a distance felt murderous intent surge within them—this vermin of a woman was wreaking havoc on the kingdom with no end in sight.
How could she be this way?
How could a human being be so abhorrent?
Not only had she killed the renowned and revered knight who had cared for her since childhood, looked after her, and granted her every wish.
Now she dared order the death of Professor Dante Hiaka, the most precious figure in the royal household—someone everyone of consequence now knew?

‘Disgusting. Truly.’
‘Such a thing should be put to death at once.’

Verily, a cancer upon the royal house.
A human being deserving nothing less than death.
The princess’s already abysmal reputation was now plummeting through the depths of the earth.

……

Yet the king sat with his legs crossed and his chin resting on his hand, gazing down at his daughter, and several knights were driven to frustration.
Minutes of silence stretched on.
Then a courtier slipped in and whispered something before the king.
At this, the king narrowed his eyes and turned to the princess with a question.

“Why did you lie?”
……

Rebecca’s head rose slowly.
Words neither she nor anyone had anticipated came from the king’s lips.

“It seems Professor Dante defended you quite earnestly. He said there was no way you could have done such a thing. He even presented evidence.”

Princess Rebecca looked up at the king with vacant eyes.
Her scattered focus gathered, converging to a single point.
And from that convergence, a murmur spilled out.

“……What……?”

* * *

“There’s news regarding Princess Rebecca.”

Ran, who had just heard the story from Bugibigi, scratched his head.

“She’s withdrawn from the academy.”
“…What?”
“Exactly as I said. Princess Rebecca has withdrawn from Zamryong Academy. The academy now has five numbered positions, with two seats vacant.”

Ah, good.
Like a rotten tooth finally falling out.
But something felt off.
Why?

“What’s the reason?”

Ran’s next words were startling.

“She’s been nominated as a cardinal candidate of the Saintess Church Order of Hiaka.”

Good heavens.
I silently prayed for their souls.
The Saintess Church Order was about to face a bloodbath.

Then the rewards came to mind.

┃ Relationship Points increased: Rebecca [72] (▲52)
┃ Reward: Fragment of Stars × 52

For some reason, a reward notification appeared under Rebecca’s name as well, marking her withdrawal from Zamryong Academy.
The number was not insignificant.
Fifty-two?
Relationship Points rising by 52 all at once?

‘Eek, that’s terrifying.’

What had been my relationship with Rebecca?
Hadn’t it been one of mutual contempt?
And yet if it had jumped up by +52……

‘This is frightening.’

Still, now that she’d left the academy and gone far away, I wouldn’t have to see her face for some time.

That was enough.

* * *

The next day, I set out to meet Ibe—or rather, the creature once called Ibe.

“What will you do with Ibe going forward?”

Lan asked.
For what it’s worth, Lan had completely forgotten everything, but once I explained what had happened, she simply nodded and said, “I see.” That was that.
One way or another, what sort of relationship would I develop with this monster whose Potential sat at 3.0?
I’d spent the entire night thinking about it.

“A cardinal from the Saintess Church Order will visit tomorrow.”
“A cardinal?”
“First, I’m thinking of lifting that Curse of Forgetting.”

There was no telling when the Hotfix might trigger.

“Beyond that, I thought I’d attempt some socialization.”
“Socialization, you say.”
“She can’t live alone in the mountains forever. If we spend time together regularly, she’ll come to understand humanity better.”

A creature with 3.0 Potential was
like humanity’s final weapon, if you will.
If she could be kept close, she absolutely had to be.

‘But that alone won’t be enough.’

For now, I still didn’t know Ibe completely. I needed to learn more about her. So I looked into her family name and found a place called the Lemontree Barony. I was thinking of reaching out to them.

“Socialization, then. Is that why you brought that?”

Lan glanced at what I was holding in my hand.

“Yes.”

For our first step in socialization, I’d brought a Communicator.
It was a device that allowed one-to-one communication.
Though she couldn’t hear, she should be able to exchange mental impulses through it.

“There was exactly one unit left in stock at Hiaka.”
“A rare item, then.”

So today I planned to attempt only simple communication with it.

“We’re here.”

Approaching the cave, I found Ibe waiting. The moment our eyes met, her expression brightened dramatically, and she awkwardly waved her two uninjured hands as she came forward. I waved back at her.
Lan waved from beside me as well.
Ibe glanced over at her, hesitated a moment with some caution, but then—remembering she’d seen Lan twice before—slowly waved back.
Where had she learned that waving motion?
In any case, Ibe led us deeper into the cave and, brushing away the dust from the ground with her hand, gestured for us to sit.
The long-awaited gift presentation.

“Here. This is a gift. You wear it like this, in your ear…”

But as soon as Ibe received the Communicator, she tilted her head in confusion and began spinning the rotating part round and round.

“Hey, hey. What are you doing?”
“…”
“Why are you turning it? Don’t take it apart!”
“…?”

Her head tilted even as her hands kept turning it.

“Hey. You shouldn’t turn that—”

Snap!
At last, the Communicator split into two pieces: the main body and the core.

“……?”

Ibe tilted her head, confused.
It was broken.
And it was precious too.

“Shall I attempt to repair it?”
“Can you?”

Lan soon fitted a Tool Model on her head, then pulled out a repair kit and set about fixing it with deft, practiced motions.
But there was a problem: even after she’d repaired it and forced it into Ibe’s ear, Communication wouldn’t establish.

“Hmm… The entire system architecture appears to be fundamentally different.”
“I see.”

Was this attempt at first contact going to fail?
That was when—
Lan proposed something.

“What if you learned Sign Language?”
“Sign Language?”
“It’s a language that uses hand gestures to communicate. Last night I was studying hearing impairment, and I learned Sign Language from that.”

In a single night?
But with Lan, it didn’t seem strange at all.
She must have had help from some sort of auxiliary device again.

“Very well.”

And so Lan, with a Communication Parrot perched atop her head, exchanged simple signs with Ibe.
Ibe’s reaction was amusing, truth be told.
When Lan made a certain rhythm with her hands, Ibe would recoil and refuse.
But the moment Lan switched to a different one, she approached with curiosity.

“What did she say?”
“At first she refused to learn any hand gestures, but when I told her I could help her communicate with you, she agreed.”

And so Ibe and I learned roughly twenty simple signs from Lan.
Ways to express meaning through hand movements and subtle expressions.
It was unexpectedly easy and quite enjoyable.

“And Sign Language has what we call Sign Names. Shall we establish yours now?”

Ah yes.
A Sign Name was the hand gesture each person used to call the other.
Since it wasn’t written, it was simply a gesture agreed upon socially between them.

“Ibe, how would you like to refer to Professor Dante?”
“……?”

Ibe tilted her head, then made a fist and pressed her knuckles gently against her cheek, twisting her wrist like a cat’s paw.
Remarkable.
She was treating me as a cat.
That gesture would now be my Sign Name.

“As for Dante…”

For some reason, an elephant kept appearing in my mind, but to mime it with hand gestures felt like it would strip away whatever dignity I had left.
So instead, I pressed two fingers to my head.
Two horns.
This would be Ibe’s Sign Name from now on.

We exchanged a simple conversation.
I apologized for stabbing him with my blade.
Ibe replied that it was fine.

⋮

Our first proper meeting in the cave ended there.

Before we parted ways, Ibe signed something to me using what he’d just learned.

He held up both index fingers side by side to make the number one.
Then brought his middle and thumb fingers together in a fox shape.
He pointed downward at the ground.
Finally, he stroked both hands gently across the front of his body.

Meet. First. Here. Happy……
It was his way of saying he was happy to have met me here for the first time.

After I signed back, “Me too,”
I told him I would come again tomorrow.

Ibe was delighted.

EP27

Starlight Meeting Mountain Redevelopment

END

* Author’s Note
This is artwork by Yongyong Yongdon (@2sirin).
I’m Ibe. Thank you always to our readers.

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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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