Surviving the Assassin Academy as a Genius Professor - Chapter 130

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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 130
[Incursion] One-Horned Demon Tribe Vomittekka (3)

A single strike.

── .

That one strike shattered countless Siege Entities. The ground cracked and splintered; a massive individual carrying a colossal weapon was bisected along with it.

Yet only those who knew of Dante’s National Treasure No. 17, the Colossus-class Sword, understood what they had witnessed as a single strike.

To the soldiers’ eyes, it appeared differently. Dante simply held a blade, and the charging Siege Entities burst apart, shattered, and ricocheted of their own accord. Something invisible dominated that space. The soldiers could only dimly perceive that the one wielding dominion was Dante Hiaka.

Eaimon, the war strategist who flew across the battlefield under the effect of the Floating spell, felt her breath catch in her throat.

‘…Where in the world does such a creature come from?’

Even as she continued issuing orders, her eyes would not leave Dante’s combat.
He puppeteered the Colossus-class form as though it were a marionette, and from the shock of the massive weapons he wielded, blood trickled from his own lips. Dante was burning through his own body to fight.
Yet that was not the source of Eaimon’s astonishment.

“Hm, so it truly is a National Treasure….”

At that moment, the adjutant floating beside her murmured.

“Remarkable. A single person holding back such a force…. The power of a National Treasure truly is….”

Eaimon knew the moment was not for such thoughts, yet she felt a flash of irritation nonetheless.

It was foolish talk.

Eaimon had served as a war strategist not only in the Lewiyan region but across numerous campaigns, and had been dispatched on considerable royal and ecclesiastical missions.
Among those, she had seen three people who had been lent the Colossus-class Sword.

They were all great warriors—those who served the royal court and the ecclesiastical seat, people whom she would address as strategists. Yet not one of them had wielded the National Treasure as Dante did.

The Colossus-class Sword they had wielded was crude.
Merely the level of bringing down a great axe from overhead.

Powerful in force, yet—
lacking in finesse.
Missing the mark proper….
Like a village fool swinging an axe to split firewood, likely to cleave his own shinbone.

But this.

‘…How is that boy managing it?’

It was different.
Unmistakably different.

First, it was not an axe.
It was a blade.
More precisely: Dante was wielding the Colossus-class Sword with Swordsmanship. It was exquisite. It was menacing. He severed the colossal Siege Entities along the most efficient paths with economy of motion.

Second, Dante was freely manipulating not only the sword itself but the Colossus’s arms and hands as well. When a Hornless Demon Tribe Siege Entity with bright stigmata etched upon its body ignited itself and lunged to overwhelm the mages and soldiers, Dante extended the Colossus’s arm to shield them.

Crash!!!

The mages who hadn’t been caught in the massive explosion assumed someone had shielded them and felt relief wash over them. But Eaimon saw the truth. Dante had stopped it.

Three times now. This was a different sort of astonishment than what had come before.

‘That disrespectful weapon is actually obeying him.’

The countless warriors and masters Eaimon had known over the years were dragged about by the Colossus-class Sword. Some generals had even gossiped behind its back about its lack of manners.

And with reason—fine arms each possessed their own temperament. The Colossus-class Sword’s nature was that of an arrogant, haughty prince of the world.

There were times it had even refused its master’s command and attacked the wielder itself—the Colossus-class Sword.

Yet that supremely arrogant blade now hung obediently in the grip of a man even more arrogant than itself.

At this, Eaimon felt a laugh rise in her chest.

‘…The lunatic.’

Once the war ended, she’d wanted to coax him into her bed somehow, corner and all.
This, though.
No matter how she thought about it, it seemed impossible.

But this wasn’t the time for such thoughts. Eaimon’s keen eye, reading the flow of the Battlefield, narrowed. The ‘Phase 2’ Dante had mentioned was drawing near.

*

Meanwhile, there were two commanders who had harbored the deepest discontent with Dante’s orders until now. As commanders of the County, they were men who had never fallen under Dante’s dominion. They had stumbled into the war almost by chance, and had been handed assignments just as haphazardly.

Kion, the County’s adjutant and now Eaimon’s direct assassination strike team, found Dante’s commands deeply displeasing.
Dante had demanded only one thing of him.

What sort of order was that? And there he was, the so-called commander, wandering about with blade in hand everywhere. Why was he being so reckless and wasting military strength for nothing?

At the same time, Python, the control commander of the County’s secret weapon Thunder, found Dante’s instructions equally displeasing.
Dante had told him beforehand: “Do not fire Thunder under any circumstances until I give the signal.”

‘Who does he think he is?’

Thunder was a weapon where the control commander’s competence mattered greatly. And Python prided himself on possessing the finest competence as a commander.

He had glimpsed it several times—the moment when the Siege Entities converged. At their center, at that instant, if he struck within precisely 1.5 seconds, he could inflict tremendous damage.

When that happened, he would ask.
Over and over.

⋮

It was when they surged toward Moong like a tidal wave.
That’s when Python saw it—the opening.
Exactly ten seconds away.
If he unleashed Thunder in ten seconds, he could deal absolutely devastating damage to the enemy forces.
Unable to contain himself any longer, he finally asked, his voice sharp with frustration.

He’d braced himself for the complaint even as he spoke, but the reply that came back was far too calm, far too composed.

This insane bastard!

Python’s eyes burned with rage, and he nearly fired anyway—Dante’s orders be damned. But just as his finger tightened on the trigger, he saw Dante there, standing in the line of fire.
Right where the strike would hit.

‘What in the hell are you doing?! Damn it!!’

It was then that both Kion and Python, the two commanders, recalled the words Dante had spoken to them.

– The Outer Fortress Wall will fall regardless. Both of you must accept that as a given.

After the war council concluded, Dante had pulled the two of them aside and said exactly that.
It had only made them more irritated.

Why say such a thing before even engaging? Why defend something that’s doomed to fall anyway?
What was the point?

That frustration began to dissolve the moment Dante, alone, held back hundreds of Siege Entities.

“…Ah!”

Kion, commander of the assassination unit, finally understood why Dante had given that command: save me.
Dante Hiaka was fighting from the most dangerous position—a place where death was almost certain—but he was turning the tide with devastating efficiency.
No one else could generate that kind of power from that location.
Even if someone could, it would require betting their life on every move.
Yet Dante Hiaka fought on.
A chill ran down Kion’s spine. They had to keep him alive. He shouted into the Communication channel.

“Keep Dante alive! Intercept the small-class entities! Eliminate the bomb-type Siege Entities in the rear!!”

Only now did they understand the true meaning behind those words.

If he fell, they were finished.
His death meant the war was lost.
He was the only thing holding this Battlefield together—a matchup they were losing on sheer combat capability!!

“Keep Dante alive—!!”

At the same moment, Python, the control commander of Thunder, grasped Dante’s intention as well.

‘What is this…’

The aggression in their assault began to lose its edge. They were still pressing forward, but there was no real bite to it. Could they actually be backing off in fear?

‘What…?’

Yet even as the tempo shifted, the Siege Entities continued driving into our ranks with their bodies.
Like a boxer who throws no punches but keeps pressing with constant pressure.
Then one of the Siege Entities glanced about.
It snatched up the corpses of fallen soldiers and cannons scattered across the ground.
Both arms full.
Then it began to flee.

‘…No!!’

Bomiteka was a creature that consumed and expelled. To expel, it had to consume first, and the more refined the substance, the better its body could absorb it—or so Professor Dante had explained.
Refined things. Humans loved those. Woven fabrics, swords, magical staffs—all certainly. But most of all, things like cannon barrels made from just two or three metals mixed with extreme purity.
In other words, the Siege Entities were gathering provisions for their master to devour!
At this, Python moved urgently to ask. His hand went to the transmit button of the Communication device. But there was no need.

Lightning struck through his mind like a thunder bolt.
He gave the order with all his might.

“Fire—!!!”

Craaaaaackllllle ━━

The County’s secret weapon, Thunder, discharged. A bolt of pale lightning fell from the sky and struck through dozens of Siege Entities. In a single sweep, it incinerated those who had been gathering corpses and armaments to retreat.
This was no mere opportunity that Python had anticipated—it was nothing short of ‘maximum efficiency’.

‘So that was it!!’

Python turned to look back at the professor across the field, his fist clenched tight.

‘What—?’

The professor was being hurled through the air by a black rod wielded by a Siege Entity.

*

He gasped for breath.

Blood poured from his nose and eyes. A metallic, coppery taste filled his mouth, and he swallowed hard.

He forced his shattered body upright. It was the recoil from pushing the Colossus-class Sword to its absolute limit.

The weakness lay in this: when the sword moved, my body remained stationary. I stood there helplessly and allowed a smaller entity to land several blows on me. I was sent flying and rolled across the ground.

‘…It’s fortunate I raised my stats when I dispelled Valmond’s curse.’

The [Vitality] stat increased not only stamina, life force, and recovery—it also bolstered the body’s own defensive power. And I had the most expensive Dark Robe from the lands I’d stripped from the Count.
Without this, I would be dead already.

“Professor Dante! Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.”

I rose to my feet. This was not yet the time to sit down. The Bomiteka battle had three phases. Phase One was nearly complete.
Our forces held overwhelming advantage.

So that mongrel stuck in the mire would soon grow impatient and push into Phase 2. If we failed to contain the situation properly, we could end up sliding into Phase 3 if luck turned against us.

And such a thing could not…
‘Phase 3’ must not happen under any circumstances.
If it did, we would be wiped out entirely.

I lifted my wavering gaze toward that distant place. At last, Bomiteka was hauling its massive body free from the chasm, beginning to fall.

Thunder felt dissatisfied.

Half of the siege entities that had been carrying off prey was dead—not bad at all. Frankly, I was annoyed we’d only killed half, but for a task handed off to someone else, it was decent work.

It was Eaimon who’d managed to read the flow perfectly, preventing any more prey from being carried away.

In other words, Thunder’s dissatisfaction meant she’d let half of them live.

The falling Bomiteka opened its maw wide and began snapping at the empty air. Like an infant searching for its mother’s breast. Grotesque.
Its left eye was burned out from firing, and its right eye was smashed to pieces and useless. So the Hornless Demon Tribe carefully stuffed food into that gaping, fumbling mouth.
Bomiteka chewed and swallowed the siege entities whole along with the food.

Inside Bomiteka’s body, they were dismantled, digested, and processed. The fragments of skull that Moong’s attack had shattered began to be filled in with refined metal.

There wasn’t enough material to fashion eye sockets, but the fact that the skull was restored to a proper sphere was threat enough.

“No, it’s coming!!”

Shortly after, an explosion detonated near Bomiteka’s neck region. Expending the gunpowder and mana stones it had carried with it, the blast sent its flesh tumbling.
That sphere—thirty meters tall, the size of a twelve-story building—began rolling toward the Outer Fortress Wall. Like a tank, like a bulldozer, like a landslide, rolling in a form that defied reality.

You couldn’t stop something like that. Not even Moong could. The eye itself was five meters in diameter, and blocking it had left the old man’s body in pieces. Thirty meters—what would that do?

This was precisely why the fortress gate had been designed to be destroyed from the outset.

This game wasn’t about wearing nothing but underwear and cutting through enemies without end.
It was about finding optimal efficiency within a strictly defined balance and making calculated choices.

And right now, I knew exactly what I had to do.

That was when it happened. A status window appeared unbidden.

What the—?
What is this bastard.

I ignored it. I pushed myself to my feet. Shouts came from beside me—Professor, you have to run, you must escape—that sort of thing. I stretched out my blade and shoved back those approaching me. Ignoring their panicked expressions, I walked forward.

Unfortunately, there was no one else on this field who could deal more damage than Thunder. There was one other person, certainly, but he was the Hero—if he attacked the rolling Bomiteka, he’d end up like an elephant hit by a dump truck.
By contrast, I could create a bridge with a height restriction like a dump truck’s—something capable of smashing the dump truck’s cab itself. That was what I had to do.

‘What I can give is reaching the fortress gate.’

Force is calculated as the product of mass and acceleration.

F = ma

Newton’s Second Law of Motion applies to this world’s framework to a certain degree.

Among the strategies I’ve written, there’s one where I strip magic from a dragon with clipped wings and let it plummet to its death. This moment is no different.
Right now, as that massive body bears down on me with crushing speed—I have one irreplaceable opportunity to deal catastrophic damage.
Here.
Right here.
I need to shave away at least half its remaining life force.
So I decide to invest.

Taboo again.
I despised learning it, but there was no other way.

A Level 8 ability.
Two hundred fifty Star Fragments.

And then the proficiency itself.

In that instant, torrents of understanding engrave themselves upon my mind like chisel strokes, and I comprehend and feel them as though I had spent years researching them.
This is the most formidable growth system that Systematicity ⧉ has granted to me, the protagonist of this world.

The reason I hated learning this ability was that using it consumes Star Fragments.

The Stigma I’m about to bestow carries the power of 「Holy Power†」—light that strikes even harder against the Demon Race than 「Radiance⁺₊⋆」.

The target for bestowal is the 「Colossus-class Sword○」. It was already growing restless at the addition of extra Stigmas as a Stigma weapon, but I’m at the point where if it objects again, I’ll just snap it in half and accept death for it. Perhaps it sensed that resolve, for it remained silent.

⋮

『 Stigma Bestowal Ⅰ: 「Cross Holy Mark†」⊂「Colossus-class Sword○」 』

⋮

And so, my ordinary blade erupts with fierce Holy Power.

Brilliant flash—!

A Holy Power so intense that everyone watching gasps. “What?!” “This… this can’t be!!” The kind of radiance only high-ranking priests could emanate now dwells at my blade’s tip. I’ll figure out how to hide this later.

“Professor Dante!! This is dangerous—!!”

Now. Right now.

I drove the tip of the Colossus-class Sword down into the rolling Bomiteka.

───── .

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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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