Surviving the Assassin Academy as a Genius Professor - Chapter 13

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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 13
EP6 – The Cemetery Witch (2)

3.0 ?
A Potential rating of [3.0]?

It was a figure I couldn’t comprehend.
Even the Slumbering Dragon Scholar—designed specifically to kill the professor on [Hell Difficulty]—had never exceeded [2.8]. So how could a rating of [3.0] possibly exist?
Was this what the [Error Space] truly was?

‘[2.8] alone should be the absolute ceiling of this world…….’

This person called Eve was no ordinary character.
There was definitely something more to her.
Something that affected the entire framework of this world.
But that wasn’t what mattered right now.

“…….”

Eve rose slowly to her feet.
I sensed it instantly.
She was about to lose interest in me and leave.
Yet following her seemed unwise. She’d always disliked others approaching her, much less making contact.
I rose as well, unhurried.

“Eve.”

Everyone treated her as a monster. What if I simply called her by name?
That was the impulse behind the words.

“…….”

Still no response, no dialogue box appearing.
But Eve, upon noticing my gesture, tilted her hood slightly upward and met my gaze.

“Would you spare me a moment for conversation?”
“…….”

Eve tilted her head in a shallow, bird-like tilt, then turned away.
That was all there was to it.
After that, she resumed walking and began to recede into the distance.

‘This won’t be easy.’

Watching Eve climb back atop one of the massive tombs and settle there, I decided to head down myself for now.
A Potential rating of [3.0]…….
I wanted it.
I had to have it.
If I had to guess, such a rating would exist in only one or two people across this entire vast world of over half a billion souls.
To have found it here, in some wilderness near the Academy—it was frankly impossible luck.

‘Have I forgotten?’

As I descended, I kept watch over myself.
I was wary of being struck by the Curse of Forgetting and losing the memory of what I’d just encountered.
Then an interesting log came to mind.

⋮

As if locked in combat, the two status windows continued to flash alternately.

It seemed the matter was settled.
I lived in this present reality, yet unlike the rest of mankind, I stood one step apart. Mental curses and status ailments held no sway over me.
And so.

‘I did not forget.’

I remember clearly. The face. The eyes. And the name too.
So what remained? How should I make Eve into something useful to me?
As I left the Error Space and descended Byeolmatsan,
my thoughts grew heavier.

“You there, young man!”

An old man called out to me.

● Olmount, Caretaker of Byeolmatsan

A resident, perhaps.
Remarkable that he’d managed to survive in a place overrun with ghouls.

I’d taken a different path down than the one I’d climbed, partly to survey the terrain.
This route led past a Mountain Lodge. The old man appeared to be its owner.

“What brings you to call out?”
“Are you coming down from the peak?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve met the witch of the graveyard?”
“I have. Do you happen to know something about her?”
“Ha! Many have come hunting that witch, but I’ve never seen anyone arrive unarmed… I’m the caretaker of Byeolmatsan here. If you’re willing, might we speak for a moment?”

After a moment’s consideration, I followed him.
Inside the Lodge, a small chair and table stood, and a large Madonna Statue was visible.

“Is that how you survive here, avoiding the ghouls?”
“Indeed! Spent my entire fortune on it, damn thing!”

He poured water and asked,

“Might I ask your identity?”
“I’m a faculty professor.”
“A professor, eh? So you’ve come to subjugate the witch?”
“I haven’t quite decided yet.”
“Do see if you can subdue her. I know her weakness, you know.”
“Her weakness?”

He crossed his arms and spoke with confidence.

“You’d do well to heed my counsel. First, she cannot hear sound.”
“You mean her hearing is impaired?”
“Seems that way to me. She’s never reacted to any sound.”

So that’s why he couldn’t hear what I was saying.

“The creature didn’t even react to sounds that would pique its interest.”
“Sounds that would pique its interest?”
“That’s the real weakness, actually. It’s weak to death.”

Death.
An unexpected answer. Weak to death?

“Maybe I looked like some worthless caretaker, because those old professors who came before and the Discipline Division officers all dismissed me. But my eyes don’t lie! That creature is weak to death. It freezes, doesn’t know what to do, when something is dying in front of it.”
“…….”

Come to think of it, there were no casualties reported.
Perhaps it was avoiding murder.

“What? Don’t tell me you suspect me too?”
“……Not at all. Would you mind elaborating a bit more?”
“Right! Here’s the thing—somehow, despite meeting that witch ten times, I can’t remember her face or anything about her appearance. But the weakness? I’m certain of it. I tested it myself.”

And so he began his story.

“I was a boy who loved watching the stars.”
“When was that?”
“About seventy years ago, dammit!”

……A caretaker deeply attached to Byeolmatsan since distant times.

One day, in his autumn years, breathing with the mountain as he lived—the intruding witch, Eve, appeared.

The caretaker tried to drive her out.

At first she was indifferent even when he approached. Later, she would flee the moment she saw him, making encounters rare.

Then one day, by chance, he hunted a bird with a shotgun, and carried down the dying creature…….

“The witch followed me, I tell you!”
“…….”
“So I tested it with other animals. Healthy ones got no response. Only dying things! And the larger the creature, the more keenly it reacted. I also discovered its hearing was weak that way—even when it heard the sounds of something dying, it didn’t process them.”
“How fascinating.”
“Isn’t it?! You’ve got a keen eye! Here’s what I think: if it’s a human dying, that monster will be absolutely transfixed. With that, I can lure the creature from a distance!”

Then he began laying out a strategy with the seriousness of one who had truly considered how to capture the witch.

“The supplies needed are two. A dying person. And Restraint Equipment! At the moment the human is about to die, it won’t be able to leave—that’s when I snag the creature with the Restraint Equipment!”

Well. Since my purpose wasn’t to hunt in the first place, I let that go in one ear and out the other.
It was time to part.

“Thank you for the information. Stay well.”
“If you’re going to do something, get rid of that witch quick. Otherwise, I, Olmount at eighty-seven, will make one last attempt at heroics!”

I left the Mountain Lodge.
Coming down the mountain, I reached out through the Crystal Ball and Adele came through.

“You’re safe! I was so startled when I was suddenly chased away by that Ghoul.”
“What happened to the Ghoul?”
“It didn’t take long before everyone hid.”

On the drive home, I turned it all over in my mind.
Eve was a character that didn’t exist before the Update, so I had no information about her.

‘Then what?’

Hearing impairment. The Curse of Forgetting. A personality that disliked death…… I understood these things.
But what was I supposed to do with Eve?
Become her friend?
Abduct her and raise her?
Make her a student?
I had no idea how to grow closer to her, and even if I succeeded, I didn’t know what came next.
Yet there was reason enough to worry about it.
Her Potential was 3.0.

‘For now, I’ll have to grow closer slowly.’

Without pushing too hard.
At a comfortable distance.
Drawing nearer at a glacial pace.
The conditions were favorable. I could remember, after all.
What worried me was whether Eve would leave Byeolmatsan.
Or whether she’d disappear when the Update took effect.
I wanted to grow closer as quickly as possible.

‘Come to think of it, why is Eve even on Byeolmatsan?’

It was ironic—she hated death, yet she dwelt in a graveyard. All the while, her identity and history remained a mystery. Communication was difficult too.
Was there any reason a person with 3.0 Potential should be in this place?
Was it the Error Space, then?
Or was the graveyard the destination? Perhaps she came to honor someone?
Yet she seemed the type to sit atop tombs without reverence at all….

‘I was once a boy who loved to watch the stars.’

The old gatekeeper’s words suddenly came to mind. And the mountain itself was named Byeolmatsan—”Star-Meeting Mountain.”

Then—had she come to watch the stars?

⋮

The next day was Saturday.
I visited Byeolmatsan once more.
Again, Eve sat atop that massive tomb.

Remembering that she couldn’t hear, I changed course and approached from behind. And indeed, she didn’t notice me.

But I hadn’t gone far before Eve’s head turned toward me.
She seemed to sense me through something other than sound.
She’d be vulnerable to assassination.

“…….”
“…….”

I raised my hand, showing her my open palm.
It was a greeting, as far as I was concerned. Eve showed no particular reaction.
So I approached carefully.
It felt like approaching a feral cat.

Just when I thought I’d come too close, Eve turned her head toward me again.
A hard stare. As if to say: stop there.
According to the Minimap, the distance was about 19 meters. I’d closed the gap by roughly 1 meter compared to yesterday.

“Are you looking at the stars?”
“…….”

Eve didn’t answer.
She only tilted her head in confusion.

“Can’t you hear my voice?”
“…….”

Still no response.
She merely tilted her head again, reacting only to the shape of my lips.

I pulled something from my Inventory.
It was a Scope — equipment I’d borrowed from the assassination tools workshop.
The sort of crosshair you attach to a gun to see distant places.
Naturally, you could see the stars even better through it.

『 World Forgery : Form Forgery [Puppy] 』

I handed the Scope to the forged rural mixed-breed dog.
Following the Activity Variables I’d programmed beforehand, the puppy approached Eve, tail wagging.
Fortunately, Eve didn’t shy away from it. She accepted the Scope and looked at me with an expressionless gaze.
As if to say, ‘What?’

『 World Forgery : Form Forgery [Scope] 』

So I created one for myself and pretended to peer up at the sky with it pressed to my eye.
My Scope’s lens modeling was so shoddy it showed nothing at all.
But Eve’s was clearly different.
If she peered through it, she’d see the entire sky — all its beautiful stars and the rings of the earth stretching vertically in perfect clarity.

“Hey. What are you doing right now?”
“…….”
“Why are you turning it? Why are you taking it apart?”
“……?”

She tilted her head while her hands kept twisting.

“You can’t just turn it like that——”

Crack!
Finally, the Scope had become two pieces: “Scope” and “crosshair.”

“No, wait…….”

Eve tilted her head.
This girl was something else.

Still, it didn’t matter.
We’d grow closer soon enough.

* * *

The most repulsive memories linger and resurface, gnawing away at a person’s emotions and everyday life.

“…….”

A voice had descended upon his ear just as he stood vacant, lost in the past under the stream of scalding water.

‘The student should withdraw from the course.’

“…damn it.”

His vision swam with fury.
Joaquin—the Moonlit Scholar of the Black Order, an assassin since age five, who’d taken down countless targets—humiliated like that?
The rumor must have spread afterward.

‘Joaquin. Heard you got your ass handed to you in front of everyone?’

It was Kendreik, the Slumbering Dragon Scholar—a senior from the Black Order whom Joaquin respected—who’d so casually worked under his skin.

‘Worthless bastard. Thought his concealment was decent….’

Kendreik had been probing Joaquin’s temperament to uncover weaknesses in a professor he disliked.
His gambit had paid off perfectly.
A fist flew.
Crash!!
The mirror shattered into fragments.
Joaquin emerged into the corridor, breathing hard.

“Huh? Joaquin, your hand—”
“Listen. Gather all the kids.”
“What?”
“Go collect all the ones we’ve been managing. I’m too pissed off to just sit here.”
“Don’t tell me you’re going after that professor?”

Even in his rage, Joaquin thought it through with cold precision.
Acting on emotion was the mark of an amateur.
He needed to be ‘smarter’ about the assassination.

“Why would I do it myself? Damn it. Why should my own hands get dirty?”

Assassination was a war of information.
But almost nothing was known about Professor Dante.
So he’d uncover his ‘weaknesses’ instead.
Using other people’s hands.

“But would just sending those insect-like fools actually accomplish anything?”

His associate had a point. Sending incompetent foot soldiers would likely fail to even scratch the professor. So—

“I’ll need to deploy at least one Moonlit Scholar-level operative.”

With someone that skilled, even if they couldn’t kill Dante, they’d extract his vulnerabilities.
And who knows?
Maybe a blind arrow would find its mark.

‘I’ll kill him soon. Professor Dante.’

The fantasy lifted Joaquin’s spirits considerably.

EP6

Eve: The Witch of the Graveyard

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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