Surviving the Assassin Academy as a Genius Professor - Chapter 122

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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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Episode 122
DLC [The Hero’s Professor]: Interim Summary (2)

Scene # 4 – 「Eternal Starlight Seat∞」 ◀

“Something’s wrong with the world.”

Song Chien, ranked thirty-third on the global leaderboard under the title 「Eternal Starlight Seat∞」, had come to believe that something was amiss with the world of late.

The Old Dragon, its wings torn and frayed in countless places, its eyes long since gone dim, tilted its head. “If my lord, who has walked this earth since time’s beginning, perceives something wrong, what might be the reason?”

Song Chien raised a single finger in response.

“First: someone found me for the first time in eight hundred years.”
– Eight hundred years, you say.
“Right. A child from the Kingdom of Hiaka, goes by the name Dante Hiakkapo. Wants me to help him break a contract.”

The dragon fell silent.

– ……So after eight hundred years, mankind’s sole request to a Starlight Seat is merely to sever a contract?
“Ridiculous, isn’t it?”
– A most reckless child indeed. How did he come to know how to contact my lord?
“I haven’t a clue. By all rights, no one should know anymore.”

Song Chien raised a second finger.

“Second: the dimensions are beginning to warp.”
– Did the dimensions not warp several times before?
“They did. But lately, again, and something about it feels wrong. Though I can’t quite place it, so never mind that.”

Song Chien raised a third finger.

“Third: the Lord of Eternal Recurrence has begun to move.”

The entity that had existed since time’s dawn, which had never stirred until now—the monster was beginning to move, slowly and surely.

– It could move all along?
“Apparently. First time I’ve seen it myself.”
– I had always regarded its very existence as akin to a living mountain, something immobile and eternal…. If it moves, then….

The dragon’s voice grew grave.

“…the end that humanity was promised is coming.”

Song Chien, the 「Eternal Starlight Seat∞」, turned his gaze toward the distance.
It had happened mere minutes ago.
Seven locations across this world had been cut off from the realm.
The Lord of Eternal Recurrence had just erected the Containment Field itself.

And within the order maintained by the 「Transcendent Starlight Seat✯」, those permitted were summoned into that Containment Field and imprisoned there.
That reckless fool Dante Hiakkapo had likely been trapped there mere moments ago as well.
Song Chien shook his head as he gazed at the cylindrical Containment Field that stretched from the earth to the heavens.

“Even I can’t open that.”

Afterward, Song Chien ventured briefly into the Empire and obtained a modern artifact called a Crystal Orb, through which he now monitored the world’s reaction to this calamity—and the continent was already in an uproar.

A video played across his mind: the Kingdom of Croitz, a flying luxury airship swept into the sky engulfed by a colossal maw that burst through the clouds, swallowed whole and vanishing. Communications cut. Within moments, a handful of nobles and merchants, dozens of ordinary middle-class people, had vanished utterly. Reports of their complete “disappearance” followed in succession.

Next came footage from the Empire. A floating island orbiting some five kilometers above the ground had collided with a suddenly materialized Containment Field and shattered, its fragments tumbling from the sky.

An assassin who specialized in Summon-Taming wyverns took to the air for reconnaissance, only to be sucked wholesale into a cavernous black maw emerging from the clouds, along with five wyverns.

No one knew precisely what that thing was. Yet seven monsters identical to it appeared simultaneously across different nations of the continent.

Song Chien’s lips twisted into something ugly.

“…How wretched. The mortals.”

Scene # 5 – Incursion Progress: 2 / 3 ◀

Perhaps Ran had been right.
The □ drawn from the Empire cookie meant the numeral 0—which suggested that from this moment forward, I might be in for a spectacularly cursed run of luck.
I don’t ordinarily put stock in superstition, but the timing was what it was.

There existed a cruel synchronicity.

Moments before the sudden upheaval, I was training alongside the Dante Assassination Unit.
Rock climbing drills.

“Climb faster! And once you reach the top, hold on longer!”
“If you can’t endure this training alone, you won’t survive anything!”
“You have no idea how many more exercises await you. Push through! Balmond! I said hold!”

The cadets hung from the cliff face by a single fingertip, their faces twisted in agony.
By Black Path doctrine, I would have cracked a whip over them, but I rebelled against that instinct so I merely barked commands instead.

“Hey there, Professor Dante. Got a moment?”

It was then that Galois appeared, and we exchanged a brief word about the White Path.
I sent him on his way.

“Professor Dante! Tsk, you’re busy, aren’t you?”

Immediately after, Gulla—a neutral-faction instructor with a perpetually sour expression—approached and thrust a stack of authorization documents at me for review.
That was when it happened.
The Incursion status window appeared.

⋮

⋮

When I opened my eyes, I stood alone on an unfamiliar mountainside.

*

Lewien Province. The house of Count Kahla.

Count Kahla was a high-ranking nobleman of Hiaka.
In southern Hiaka, he wielded the greatest power.
Moreover, the lord’s castle overlooked the vast southern plains from its perch atop the Caldera Basin.

In a sense, Count Kahla was the “King of the South.”

Now, the entire mountainous region encompassing that county was trapped behind a Containment Field.
I came to consciousness at the foot of the mountain still in my training clothes, dazed, and immediately grasped the situation.

‘So this is an Incursion on Hell Difficulty.’

It was different from Hard Difficulty. There, no Containment Field exists.
Reinforcements arrive if you wait—that’s the system.
A way to reveal the gap between cadets and professors. A mechanism designed to withhold the sense of growth from the player.

‘Hell Difficulty is far more dangerous….’

I had one week.
Within that time, I had to gather as many people as possible from this place and face the Vomittekka battle.
If I failed, I would almost certainly die.

“A Vomittekka battle, then.”

The words came from Lan, who had been summoned into the Containment Field alongside me.

“…Yes, it seems so.”

We turned our gaze toward the sky.
Though hidden in clouds now, its shape was beginning to show through.
Vomittekka is a One-Horned Demon from the Projectile Arts lineage.
It was the largest specimen among its kind—spanning twenty-five to fifty meters across.
A massive, black head drifting through the air, crowned with a single enormous horn.

Its ability was simple: consume and expel.
To expel, it must first consume.
To that end, it hurled its body like a siege boulder, reducing everything around it to rubble, stuffing everything within reach into its maw.
Then it processed what it had consumed—either absorbing it or ejecting it.
That was when it happened.

Screeeeeee—Crash!!

Something like a meteor fell from the sky, shattering the interior of the count’s residence. ‘Ah. The communication tower….’ Lan flinched. As she said, Vomittekka had just destroyed the communication tower—to sever us completely from the outside world.

“A defense line is being erected.”

In response to this bewildering crisis, an emergency alert had been triggered throughout the county. Sirens wailed. Troops moved frenetically along the ridge.

“Let’s move.”
“Yes. Ah, but Professor—”
“What?”

Lan spoke with a Systematicity ⧉ orb balanced on her head and a Symbol ⧉ gleaming in her eyes.

“There are two bugs within this Containment Field.”
“Bugs? Why would there be? There shouldn’t be an Error Space here.”
“These bugs are assigned to a target rather than a location.”
“You mean to say—?”
“One of them is you, Professor. A corruption in part of the Systematicity ⧉ code caused a bug in the summoning itself, and the Script won’t appear for you.”
“…What?”

So I checked, and sure enough, the Script didn’t appear.

“…What’s this summoning bug?”
“I’m not entirely certain, but when the summoning occurred just now, it seemed as though Professor Gulla came along with it.”

That foul-mouthed neutral professor?

‘Ah.’

Here we go again. This cursed broken game.
The One-Horned Demon Tribe war was essentially ‘a group assignment for all humanity.’
The Script was already the most crucial thing when first meeting each other, and if it doesn’t appear, what are we supposed to do?

‘Why did you even release this DLC, you piece of trash.’

I pressed my temples against the mounting irritation and asked.

“What about the second bug.”
“The second… ….”

Lan’s brow furrowed.

“…There’s a ‘Hero’ in this world, and he’s here.”

That was startling.

“A Hero?”

So a Hero actually existed?

“Yes, a Hero. The only person among all of humanity capable of wielding the Holy Sword.”
“There’s a bug in him?”
“It seems so—they’re still analyzing it. I think we’ll need to meet him in person to understand the rest.”
“…….”

Truth be told, from the DLC title alone—”Professor of Hero Tales”—thoughts of the Hero and his party had been circling in my mind all along.

But since no one knew the term ‘Hero’ (I’d asked, and even the System Council didn’t know about Heroes), and it was a concept that hadn’t existed at all before the DLC, I’d simply harbored doubts.

A Hero was the only being capable of slaying the Demon Lord.
The protagonist chosen by the world.
By contrast, I was merely a professor.
That existence was here, within this Containment Field……?

“Well, it’s a silver lining, isn’t it? If there’s a Hero, he should be strong.”
“…I suppose.”

The feeling didn’t sit right.
Since he’s afflicted with a bug.

“What should we do going forward?”

I checked the floating status window.

⧉ Time remaining until the One-Horned Demon Tribe Vomittekka battle… 6 days, 23 hours, 45 minutes ⧉

Destroying the communication tower was also the result of Vomittekka sacrificing something. His Summon hasn’t been completed yet—he forced it through prematurely. By now he should be within the clouds, prying open a Rift and poking his head through.

“For now, we’ll have to enter the Countess’s domain.”

Kahla Mountain is a tiered mountain with levels one, two, and three, and above them sits the Earl’s estate—that’s how it’s structured.

0 → 1 → 2 → 3 → Earl’s Estate

To reach the caldera at the mountain’s peak, one must pass through no fewer than four small fortresses that manage each tier of the ascent.

“It won’t be easy, will it? The Earl of Kahla is renowned for being authoritarian, regarding himself as a king in his own right.”
“No, it won’t be easy.”

Which is why this is Hell Difficulty.
If we cannot mount a maximum response within the seven-day preparation window, there’s no telling how many will die here.

“However, the situation is not entirely dire. We have a military genius in the south, after all.”
“Quite so. Aimon, then.”

The military genius Aimon.

A woman in her forties, she was promoted at the remarkably young age of twenty-one and became an SSS-rank strategist who made the Earl of Kahla the supreme power of the south within twenty years.
Once I relay only Vomittekka’s intelligence to her, I can act as an assassin—as a missile, so to speak.

“Let’s make for it, then.”

We headed toward the tier-zero fortress.
But we failed to even enter the gates.

“Who are you?”

The fortress commander atop the rampart called down to us.

“Dante Hiaka, senior professor from Hiaka Academy.”
“Hiaka Academy? What brings the likes of you here?”
“I have urgent business to discuss with the Earl regarding the current crisis. Allow us passage.”
“That won’t be possible.”
“What?”
“Why should I trust someone from the capital? And you—you look every bit an assassin.”
……
“Besides, Hiaka Academy? Isn’t that the incompetent bunch that got thrashed by Croitz not long ago? Do you even have the standing to address the Earl in the first place?”

A sneer twisted the man’s face.

……

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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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