Surviving the Assassin Academy as a Genius Professor - Chapter 27

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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 27
EP10 – Popular Professor (3)

In the end, last night I declined the offer. War could erupt centered on me—what difference would a hundred million or a billion make?
So I had no choice but to speak through barely held tears.

‘I’m sorry.’

When I expressed bewilderment at how such an enormous sum was possible, Professor Leo explained his position.

‘The truth is, I was only authorized eighty million Hika, but I’m willing to dip into my personal funds just to bring you on board. As I mentioned, Hacon—that bastard—killed my younger brother about fifteen years ago.’

In short, the White Path had failed to kill this thorn in their side using any number of excuses, and I’d removed it for them—so Professor Leo seemed to have grown a bit more desperate out of gratitude. (Though I hadn’t actually killed anyone.)

In any case, I’d refused.
But the White Path showed no sign of giving up on me.

“Good morning, Professor~”
“Professor, do you happen to enjoy golf or hiking?”

As I moved about the Academy, they kept approaching from all directions, feigning familiarity.

“Oh, you’re eating lunch. Would it be alright if I joined you?”
“Our teaching assistant really wanted to meet you, Professor Dante. Come on, say hello.”
“Ah, hello there….”

The meals that had always been just Adel and me became tables packed entirely with White Path professors.

“Would you like to grab a drink after the faculty meeting today, Professor?”
“That’s right, we know all the best places around here…!”

After the meeting ended, they gathered around trying to build rapport, not just one or two of them—they took turns showering me with praise and good will.
Of course, I ignored all of it.

‘Professor…! Won’t you at least smile…!’

Unable to bear it any longer, Adel seemed to be hoping I’d show some social response, but I disappointed that hope.

Instead, like a stone, like a rusted statue in a flower garden, I let time pass with a vacant stare.
Just as the faculty meeting had ended and I was trapped in the Conference Room, deliberating on an escape, someone abruptly jeered.

“How amusing you all are.”

Serpentine features. Eyes split into narrow slits. One of the Black Path professors who had been using Concealment.

● Black Path Professor Viper

Why had this man suddenly stepped out alone?

“Professor Viper. What’s the mockery for?”

Then Leo, the lion-like White Path professor, retorted.

“Isn’t your rudeness crossing a line?”

“Regardless of how much conflict there is between White Path and Black Path, when a colleague’s funeral rites are underway, you should have the grace to observe even four days of proper decorum. Not to go tramping about like a pack of dogs without any dignity whatsoever.”

The White Path professors’ expressions hardened.

“Ha. So you’re being oversensitive because Hacon was your friend?”

Leo continued, laughing lightly.

“A festival, you call it? My brother’s murderer’s funeral rites, and that’s what you make of it? I shouldn’t be standing here like this at all—I should be setting off fireworks in front of Hacon’s portrait.”

Then killing intent began to ripple across Viper’s eyes.
Something was wrong about this situation.
Why had Viper come here at all? He’d clearly seen me refuse the White Path.

“Watch your tongue, Professor Leo Bardo.”
“And you—stop poisoning someone else’s funeral with your presence. Get out.”

Viper’s tone was ominous, but Leo wouldn’t back down.
Tension wound tighter and tighter between them.

Then Viper’s gaze flickered toward me.
In the next moment, his eyes narrowed.

【 Black Path Professor Viper: ‘This one. What kind of eyes does he have….’ 】

I must have looked savage. Though from where I stood, he was the one radiating far more bloodlust.

“What are you doing, Professor Viper? Leave. Or should I throw you out by force?”
“Remarkable how all the Bardo bloodline seem to have dull-looking eyes. Your younger brother’s eyes were so clouded he buried himself alive, didn’t he?”
“…….”

The smile vanished from Leo’s face.

“Now hold on, you son of a bitch. Are you quite finished?”

Curses spilled from the mouth of the middle-aged Professor Leo.
The atmosphere became murderous at once. Just as the White Path professors began inching backward, Viper thought to himself.

【 Black Path Professor Viper: ‘That should be enough to heat things up.’ 】
【 Black Path Professor Viper: ‘I still have my doubts. Could that one called Dante really have killed Hacon without outside assistance…? I should test it here and now.’ 】

Damn. This was going badly.
Viper had come here to test me.

【 Black Path Professor Viper: ‘I’ll strike under the pretense of going after the lion…. Yes, I’ll probe those pink eyes of his.’ 】

That was when Leo threw his mug.
Crash!!
The mug shattered against the wall beside Viper’s head.

“…You snake-headed bastard, Viper. I’ve disliked you since way back.”

The lion had laid out bait, generously.
The air grew heavy and still.

“If we’re doing this, then one of us dies today.”

No. Actually, it was meant for me…. Damn it.

* * *

Leo Bardo drew his cherished weapon—the Sua Blade. A wicked-looking dagger. A beast-fang carved into an instrument of human slaughter.
And with it, he regulated his breathing carefully.

『 Hunting Focus 』

Blood boiled in his veins. His heart quickened its rhythm. Nerves accelerated until the world’s time slowed to a crawl.
At the same moment, Professor Viper unleashed his power. A half-dozen venomous snakes burst from within his clothes, tongues flicking. Simultaneously, a writhing ball of violet mist materialized and began rotating around him.

『 Summon Snakes 』 『 Lethal Poison Cloud 』

And the Poison Fang that emerged through his palm was equally formidable.
Viper was an assassin of the venom school—disagreeable as he was, he was terrifyingly strong. One slip could be fatal.
Professor Leo steadied his breathing and calculated.

‘If I draw this out, the poison puts me at a disadvantage. Kill him in one strike.’

He wound his tension taut, pulling it higher.
The moment he stepped forward with a heavy stride—

“……!”
“……!”

The entire space froze.
Twelve blades extended from the floor, the walls, the ceiling.

⋮
『 World Fabrication : Spatial Fabrication [Weaponless Sword] 』
⋮

Blades that moved of their own accord, without sound, without killing intent, without the slightest trace of connected mana.
The twelve swords turned their edges toward Viper and his summoned snakes.
It was the Weaponless Sword—a Level 8 combat-class Ability that bordered on ultimate mastery, was it not?
Twelve swords encircling the space as if dominating it. From within the frozen air, a man’s rough voice emerged.

“Professor Viper.”

All eyes turned to a single man. Dante Hiaka. His hands remained in his pockets. He still sat with legs crossed. But the moment his head lifted and his pink eyes met Viper’s gaze, the professor went rigid—his body reacting before his mind could catch up.
Dante spoke in a soft, unhurried voice.

“I’d prefer if you’d leave.”

Inwardly, Viper let out a hollow laugh.

“…….”

There is a word called aura.
The atmosphere that emanates from a person. Bearing. Presence. This is something an existence is born with—something effort alone cannot acquire.

It is the reason a warrior already pierced through by spear and blade, already visited by death, commands respect nonetheless.
And it is why a ruler who has acquired power beyond his station somehow sounds like he is merely shouting.

Then what is the aura of an assassin?

This was different from brutal, aggressive violence.
A great warrior would radiate an aura far stronger and more solid.
A great mage would emanate the aura of one who had mastered the principles and logic of the world itself.
Yet there existed an aura that even such beings could not help but feel tension before.
Whether it posed an immediate threat or not remained unclear, but it was an aura that planted a primal fear—the sense that one’s opponent could end you at any moment.

Killing Intent.

There was one remarkable fact.
Professor Dante possessed such killing intent.

‘…This cannot be.’

Viper had thought his expression vague, despite the sharpness of his features.
To assassins honed to a knife’s edge by a lifetime of murderous focus, he had seemed somehow inadequate.
But the moment Dante properly unleashed his killing intent, Viper’s thoughts shattered.
Viper could not trust his own senses. Was his aura being suppressed?

“Remove yourself. Third parties have no place here.”

He pushed back against the oppressive weight and spoke those words. Even as he did, he resolved to continue feigning an attack on Professor Leo.
But the conflict in this space had already slipped from his grasp.
As Dante made a slow gesture, the blades filling the air drew slightly closer to Viper.

“Hear me while I speak.”

Dante’s eyes narrowed to slits.

“Go.”

At the same moment, one of the Weaponless Sword’s long blades drifted closer to the space between his brows.
Viper’s face twisted in rage, and he bared his fangs in a snarl. Was this a blood feud then? Or…?
Soon enough, he closed his eyes and exhaled a long breath.

“Tch… filthy insects.”

Viper turned and left the space. Until the end, he maintained the appearance of composure, but the professors of the White Path understood the truth: the arrogant Viper had been utterly crushed.

‘…Hmm.’

Meanwhile, as Viper walked out into the corridor,
he arrived at a certain conviction in his heart.

‘Hacon was definitely assassinated by Dante.’

Viper, who had lived twenty years as an assassin and another ten as a professor, had learned something along the way.
Among assassins who radiated such an aura, none fell short of Hacon.
They were all Grandmasters or above—monsters who defied understanding of the Mental Realm itself.
Like, for instance, Betelgeuse, a former executive of the Continental Black Path Alliance and current head of the Hiaka Branch.

‘Hacon, you idiot.’

Anger flared toward his dead colleague.
The fool had been far too emotional.
As an assassin, he grew flustered too easily, and his needless rage had caused him to blunder many times.

‘He should have known when to hold back, when to strike.’

Yet Hacon was no simpleton either. He would have already grasped the situation before attempting the assassination.
That his opponent was an assassin of such high caliber, and that he could wield the Weaponless Sword at that level.
He’d clearly charged in knowing full well.

‘…So he’d simply thrown his life away for nothing.’

While Viper settled into that certainty,
the Black Path professors who had been concealed in the darkness drew closer.
And even though they were practically at his shoulder, they sent a Communication.

Viper exhaled slowly.

* * *

Second floor of the Residence. My room. I sat in a daze, chiseling away at a new construct of Illusion Art. It was one of the training routines I performed every night.

But glancing at my Minimap, I noticed someone approaching abruptly. So I halted my training and peered outside, tensed.

Tap-tap.

It was a raven that tapped against the window—remarkably, a Messenger Raven summoned through a Summon-Taming Ability, sent by the Black Path professors.
Judging by its endearingly bright eyes and other features, the breed seemed to be a Messenger Raven responsible for Communication, not unlike a carrier pigeon. The characters on its collar read “Betelgeuse”…… so it had been sent by the Black Path Branch Director.
What now?

Tap-tap.

As I hesitated, the raven tapped the glass pane again.
I carefully opened the window.
The bird fluttered in and delivered its message.

“Two hundred million.”

I’m losing my mind.

EP10

Popular Professor

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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