Surviving the Assassin Academy as a Genius Professor - Chapter 136

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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 136
EP30 – Elephant Sword Technique

I pondered the matter carefully.

The addictive nature of modern conveniences.

How dangerously sweet refined sugar could be. How violently potent seasoned salt laced with monosodium glutamate could be as an ingredient.

– Ooga! Ooga!

Imagine, for a moment, a weak primitive man named Dante of Hiaka who happened to become a tribal chief.
He’d spent his whole life eating grass roots and monkey meat, until one day he tasted honey by chance and it became the crowning achievement of his existence.

– Ooga-ooga! (Listen! Have any of you tasted this sweet food called ‘honey’? Eh?)
– Oo, ooga…?? (Honey, you say…?)
– Ooga? (Sweet? Like an apple, then?)
– Ooga-ooga! (Preposterous! An apple?! Silence! How dare you compare it to such a thing?! It is honey, I tell you! And honey is so unutterably sweet that…!!)

But who in this modern age would be moved by something as simple as honey?

We consume someone else’s ‘crowning achievement’ every day without thought. And so we feel neither gratitude nor joy.
In short, the conclusion is this:

「 Stimulation must begin subtly. 」

Having reasoned thus, the first thing I decided to give Eve was a ten-Hika loaf of cheap bread. A little butter. Plain bread with a touch of salt and sugar.

It tasted like nothing special at all.

* * *

A week had opened up between the Royal Court’s ceremony of merit and the private meeting with “Eternal Starlight Seat.”

I found myself with nothing to do, so I sought out Eve.

“I’m here.”
“…….”

Eve, whom I hadn’t seen in some time, seemed delighted. I was pleased to see her too, but I didn’t let it show.

It occurred to me that I was always the one visiting. Always paying to break curses. The relationship had become painfully one-sided in my devotion.

This too was a matter of stimulation. When you give too much at the start, the other person begins to take it for granted.

Of course, being fair about it—my guilt over stabbing her with a sword still gnawed at me, so I was willing to maintain a seventy-thirty split in favor of devotion—but regardless. That aside.

I handed her the bread.

“Eat.”

Eve stared at the bread for a moment.
Then tilted her head, as if to ask what this was.

“……?”

I made the sign language gesture of bringing my hand to my mouth. It meant ‘eat.’
Eve then tapped her temples with her fingers. The gesture meant ‘why?’

I didn’t know the complex sign language, so I told her to eat again.
Eve didn’t know the complex sign language either, so she asked why again.
So, roughly speaking, it went like this.

‘Eat.’
‘Why?’
‘Eat.’
‘Why?’
‘Eat.
‘Why?’

This creature.
After that, a brief lull.

“…….”
“…….”

An unexpected development.
I’d assumed she’d eat it when I gave it to her.
But why would she ask if she should eat it?
Though thinking about it from Eve’s perspective, it made sense.
A strange cat shows up and tells you to eat a mouse—wouldn’t you be confused?
So what do I do?
I paused for a moment, folding my arms in thought. Eve stared intently at my two arms, then slowly twisted her own in imitation. But it seemed difficult; she only fumbled with her elbows.

“Why aren’t you eating this bread? It’s delicious bread.”
“……??”
“You eat it because it’s delicious. Because it’s delicious.”

A good idea occurred to me.
I approached carefully, tore off a small piece of bread, and put it in my own mouth. Then I forced my lips into a smile.

Delicious.

Then I made my hands into the shape of a gun and spun them in circles. It was supposed to mean ‘happy.’
Perhaps this worked a little.
When I gave her a small piece.
Eve glanced at me hesitantly.

“…….”

Finally, she put the bread in her mouth.
Then she began to chew.

“…….”

Feeding a Two-horned Demon in progress.

“…….”

Watching Eve eat her bread slowly, I reflected.

For the Demon King War, Eve must stand with humanity.
Mutualistic Symbiosis is necessary.
Taming is necessary.
She cannot subsist on acorns and dandelions forever while living among humans; she will have to undergo Socialization, and I am here at the beginning of that process.
In that regard, cheap bread turned out to be an unexpectedly decent choice.

“??,,”

Eve’s blue eyes widened gradually, round as moons.
Then she abruptly raised her fist.

Wait.
Why.
Did it show that it was cheap?

She waved her fist in front of my nose, and I couldn’t quite remember what it meant.
I thought I’d need to study sign language a bit more.

After that, Eve ate the bread with relish.
She crunched away quite enthusiastically, and it seemed to have been worthwhile.

“But listen, you—Two-horned Demon Eve. You can’t just keep receiving from me like this.”
“……?”
“You need to give me something too. Only then can our relationship remain healthy and sound for the long term.”
“……?”
“Tilting your head won’t help. It’s too complicated for me to express in sign language.”

Besides, I’d already thought in advance about what to ask of Eve.
I drew out a sword.
My left hand formed a thumbs-up.
With my right index finger, I traced through the air several times.

‘Sword. Teach.’

That was what it meant.

Back at Starlight Meeting Mountain, when Shaman, the Royal Court knight, and Eve had fought tooth and nail—all three of them—I’d gotten a precise read on Eve’s combat prowess.
Eve was extraordinarily strong.
By Warrior Ranking standards, she would’ve placed at least in the top fifty, and there was a high probability that wasn’t even her full strength.

Throughout that fight, I’d watched her swordwork closely.
Eve wasn’t simply crushing her opponents with brute force. There was a deliberate transference of weight and center of gravity, a precise path for the blade, and a systematic approach to combat entirely her own.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t ‘instinctive’ swordwork.
It was ‘disciplined’ swordwork.

Even to someone like me, whose knowledge of the sword was shallow, it was clearly quite refined—and likely matched the level of techniques employed by the Empire’s elite knights.

In terms of Ability Level, probably around Lv.9 swordwork.
And that was what I was asking her to teach.

Eve pinched her jaw between her thumb and forefinger.
Then she shook her head firmly side to side.
That gesture meant…….

‘No.’

Wait. What?
Did she just catch on that the bread was cheap?

‘Why?’

I tapped my temple twice in question.
Eve clenched her fist, then opened it wide.

‘…Just.’

He turned his head and eyes away.
His expression held back a laugh.
Ah.
That’s when I understood.
Eve had been teasing me.
I felt a bit deflated.
A Two-horned Demon playing pranks on a human?
But you’ve made a mistake…….

“Now begins the execution ceremony for servants.”
“???”

I immediately created servants using Illusion Magic and began striking them wildly, so Eve scrambled about crying ‘teach. teach.’ at me.

‘Teach?’
‘Mm….’
‘Me. Victory.’

Eve pressed her fist to her cheek like a cat.
Moving her index finger back and forth across her nose meant ‘Dante. Bad….’ I didn’t much care.

Soon we left the cave.
Eve began teaching me swordplay.
My prediction proved correct—a status window actually appeared.

⧉ Learn [？Sword Technique] from Eve Lemontree?

True to form for a buggy character, the sword technique’s name didn’t appear.
I decided to just think of it as the Elephant Sword Technique.

“…….”

Eve taught me with wholehearted sincerity.

Thrusts and slashes. How to move my body. Stances and footwork. Weight distribution and all the rest.

As I learned, I realized once more that this was definitely a sword technique with system and structure.

One advantage was that the original Dante of this body understood basic swordplay to some degree, and I’d distributed my Stats well enough to follow Eve’s instruction closely.

What surprised me was that Eve didn’t simply swing the blade on instinct—in actual combat, she was constantly calculating something.

When I’d take a step larger than she taught, she’d correct me, saying it was too wide, dangerous, always guiding me.

When I tried to continue the swordplay without breathing deeply enough, Eve would turn the tables and press me into a corner, repeating ‘Breathe. Breathe.’ until I understood.

Indeed, there’s no such thing as strength that simply emerges. In that sense, Eve was far less primitive than I’d thought.
Her perspective on that earlier battle began to intrigue me.
So I asked her.
Past. Dante. Fell. Thick chin. Fight. Think. What?

‘When I fell before and fought the Dean Shaman, what were you thinking?’

Eve blinked. Then she brought her thumb and index finger together, lowering them beneath her cheek, and rotated her palm inward before her chest. For some reason, her eyes drooped with sorrow.

‘Sad.’

…….

So I spent several days like this, learning swordplay from Eve.

* * *

There was a man who resembled a stout dwarf. He was Badrak, the neutral senior professor of Assassination Combat Studies.

With Dante Hiaka, he’d sparred over the matter of loaning out national treasures, leaving them in an awkward relationship—and afterward, neither had made any effort to smooth things over.

Honestly, he didn’t care for the successful Professor Dante.

That held true even recently. Somehow, at some point, Dante had gone to Kahrla County and as a warrior built up remarkable exploits and achievements.

He was becoming a celebrity beyond the Academy. Common people were beginning to know his name, and the Royal Court itself had even called upon him.

‘Tsk….’

It grated on him.

That very Dante had suddenly shown up in the Combat Training Hall a few days ago and begun sparring with a combat dummy.

“Professor. Isn’t that Professor Dante over there?”

At that, Badrak’s assassination unit students, who treated the training hall as their domain, came over and asked.

“…Stop gawking and focus on your own training.”
“Yes, sir.”

Yet the students couldn’t concentrate and kept glancing at Dante; his reputation for strength had become common knowledge, but this was their first time seeing him actually demonstrate his swordplay.
And their assessment was.

“……Hmm, looks kind of sloppy, doesn’t it? What do you think?”
“His swordplay level? Pretty much the same as ours, I’d say.”
“Right? I mean, really…. He should just stick to what he does well. Why’s he learning swordplay at his age anyway…. Isn’t that right, Professor?”

The students looked to him for agreement.
But Badrak frowned—such gossip was juvenile, and the real problem was his own jealousy, which he found depressingly petty.

“Listen here. Stop fixating on other people’s training and concentrate on your own, I said. Do I need to rough you up before you’ll focus?”
“Yes, sir….”
“We’re sorry….”

Meanwhile, Badrak’s eyes kept drifting to Dante’s swordplay. The level was certainly mediocre, as the students said—but something about his blade path, stance, and breathing felt off.
The more he watched, the stranger it seemed.
The swordplay itself wasn’t actually sloppy, contrary to what the students had said.

‘……What kind of swordplay is that?’

That was what puzzled him.
Badrak had been raised as a Combat Techniques assassin since childhood.
Over his lifetime, he’d seen or learned hundreds of sword styles, including those of swordsmen and assassins.
Yet Professor Dante was displaying a swordplay style that even Badrak—the senior professor—had never once witnessed before.

‘……Quite…, no, considerably….’

Despite it being unfamiliar, the form and structure were refined to an unexpected degree.
And with each passing day, it grew even more refined.

‘…Wait?’

Does that even make sense? Refining himself every single day? Dante has only been here for five days.

“Here he comes again. Tch… No progress at all, just keeps beating level-one dummies day after day….”

The cadets hadn’t noticed the change in Dante.
One of them clicked his tongue and approached him.

“Professor, do you need a sparring partner?”

Badrak considered giving him a sharp rebuke, then thought better of it.
Was it because he hoped Dante would take a hit?
No.
He was curious.
Curious how that “unfamiliar sword technique” would unfold against a living opponent, not a dummy.

“What’s this about.”
“Well, you’ve been coming every day, and I thought it’d be an honor to spar with the famous Professor Dante these days. How about it? Want to give it a try?”
“Fine.”

Dante picked up a wooden sword without hesitation, his movements unhurried.

“Take it easy on me, would you?”
“Got it.”

And so the two assassins began their match.

Crack—!!!

The cadet fell unconscious in a single blow. The other students watching gasped in shock.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!? Hegen!”
“What the—! Is he dead…!?”

He wasn’t dead, only knocked unconscious for a moment.
But even Professor Dante seemed taken aback.
Badrak rushed over urgently.

“Professor Dante.”
“…My apologies, Professor Badrak. I’ve never used it against a person before. I couldn’t control my strength.”
“Professor Dante.”
“…Yes. That is, I should apologize again….”
“Professor Dante. Stop that. I don’t care about apologies. What’s the name of that sword technique? Whose technique is it?”

Sparring with a person made it clear. What appeared to be a simple draw was executed at a level of swordsmanship far beyond Badrak’s expectations. He had just observed Dante’s body in minute detail, confirmed the deployment of his mana. The efficiency was shocking to Badrak—masterfully economical.
The kind of technique worth paying good money to learn! Driven by scholarly curiosity in that context, he asked.
But an unexpected development unfolded, and Dante’s eyes lost all focus.

“…The name?”
“Yes! What’s the name! The name of the sword technique!”
“…….”

Professor Dante did not answer.

EP30

Elephant Sword Technique

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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