Surviving the Assassin Academy as a Genius Professor - Chapter 39

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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 39
EP13 – The Elephant

This is a story of two encounters with Eve.

The night before Professor Dante killed Toxin.
The twenty-fifth meeting with Eve took place.
Recently, as the ghouls’ gathering place seemed to have shifted, it became convenient to disappear and reappear near the Error Space.
Adel, who knew of Dante and Eve’s relationship, had asked him a question.

“How’s it going with the witch these days? Are you two getting close?”
“Not really. It’s not going well.”

Dante reflected on it. Progress in their relationship had slowed recently.
They would greet each other when they met. She would express delight when he gave her bells. They would bow when parting. That was all there was to it.
He’d given her an Apple as a gift, but not much more than that.

“Would it be alright if I tagged along sometime?”

It was then that Adel asked to accompany him. After following along for ten minutes of driving each day, curiosity had apparently taken root.

“Fine. But be warned—the subject has some wariness and aggression. You’ll need to be careful.”
“Understood.”

And so Dante brought Adel up the mountain.
Adel saw Eve for the first time.
Just as Dante had warned, Eve grew wary at the sight of him, but as soon as Dante took his position at the designated line, she eased her guard.
In the meantime, she allowed Dante to approach her side—clearly the behavior of a wild animal discriminating between people.
Adel sat down about twenty meters away, watching blankly, and when Eve lifted her Burlap Hood slightly, admiration burst from within him.

‘Wow… what is…?’

Beneath that tattered burlap—nearly ghillie-suit caliber.
Sky-blue bangs, blue eyes.
Impossibly, breathtakingly beautiful.
A girl who seemed almost to belong to a different species altogether.
In other words, it was a sensation he’d experienced before—when Adel had first seen the newborn baby of an acquaintance years ago. A feeling like gazing upon something sacred; human, yet not quite human…

‘Now I understand a little.’

In that moment, many questions dissolved in Adel’s mind.

He could roughly grasp why Professor Dante, who was almost wooden before her, kept coming here. (It felt something like an audience with a divine being.)

He could also understand why so many victim disciples from Star-Meeting Mountain had been produced. Even a brief glance was this entrancing; those who approached close enough to truly see her must have been destroyed.

‘…’

After that, Adel watched as Dante and Eve communicated simply with each other.
The communication itself was unremarkable. Eve shook a Pinecone. Dante gave her a bell. When Dante pointed to the stars in the sky and explained something, Eve tilted her head. That must be what Dante had mentioned. A tilt of the head when communication faltered.
But what struck Adel was how, even as Eve tilted her head, her gaze remained fixed on Dante’s fingertips and lips—those impossibly blue eyes tracking intently, as if eager to understand what that gesture meant.
So after a moment, he spoke up.

“Your relationship has progressed quite a bit, hasn’t it?”
“What?”
“Well, you said things weren’t going well, so I thought you two were completely distant. But from what I’m seeing, you seem pretty close.”
“…Is that so?”

It was then that Adel perceived something crucial: Dante seemed remarkably obtuse when it came to people.
Like some dull brute who knew nothing but assassination.
Which meant Adel ought to offer him a little instruction.

“In my view, that child there……. What was her name again?”
“Eve.”
“Ah, Eve. If I’m reading the situation correctly, I’d say she’s rather like an elephant.”
“…An elephant?”

Adel gestured toward Eve.

“Enormous, yet utterly incapable of communication. A neutral creature, you might say.”
“Why an elephant specifically?”
“Because she’s so alien, isn’t she? I can’t fathom her logic or her patterns of behavior at all. You see, humans adore cats the way cats can adore humans—but in her case, Eve holds all the initiative in the relationship. That’s what makes her the elephant.”

Then Adel proceeded to lay out the Elephant-Human-Cat Theory.

Elephant (Eve) – Human (Dante)
Human (Eve) – Cat (Dante)

The structure was thus:
when Dante drew near and Eve waved her hand, it resembled
the way a human strokes a cat that rubs against them.

And when Eve offered him a Pinecone when his bell chimed,
it was akin to offering one’s arm to a cat for kneading.

……

Dante’s eyes gradually lost focus, his expression going blank.
An elephant?

“Watch Eve now. See how she tilts her head? Notice the slowness of it? It’s like a cat thinking, ‘Why is she standing so far away?'”
“And look there—she was watching the bell, and now she’s looking at you. It’s as if she’d brought you a toy and was wondering: should I give this back to her?”
“And that motion with the hood just now—that’s like a cat putting on glasses to get a better look.”

Dante stood dumbfounded, sketching elephants, humans, and cats across the canvas of his mind.

“I’ve never conceived of it in such terms. But what observation led you to this interpretation?”
“Intuition, really. If you just compare it to a stray cat, it clicks. You’re simply being dense.”
……

In any case, it was time for them to part that day.

“If you want to grow closer from here, you’ll need to communicate properly.”
“Communicate how?”
“Right now, your cat is just bumping into a human on the street, so to speak?”
“Should the cat choose the human?”
“No—that was just a jest. The human is the one doing the choosing, isn’t it? So from here on, you’ll get handled, fed, all that. And then, eventually, Eve might choose you in return.”

It made sense, more or less.

“…A curious relationship indeed.”

Dante descended the mountain, pausing now and then to observe the elephant, and
Eve watched him recede into the distance with eyes the color of deep blue.

That was where the meeting ended.

As Dante made his way home afterward, he murmured absently to himself, repeating the words Adel had spoken.

“The initiative lies with them, which makes us the elephant in this game…….”

And for just a moment, Adel’s eyes lost their focus.

“…which means I have no choice but to wait. I’m not cute like a cat, nor can I play coy.”
“I’m sorry?”
“What?”
“What do you mean, sir?”
“The elephant. I’m talking about the elephant.”
“…An elephant? What elephant are you referring to? And what do you mean about playing coy like a cat…?”
“…….”

That was when Dante finally understood.

‘So this is how it works.’

……The Curse of Forgetfulness.

* * *

After killing Toxin, several strange things began to happen in my life.
First: Grey stopped attending classes as an auditor.

‘She vanished all of a sudden. Why?’

Seems she was fickle by nature.
It was just as well. Her presence had been a constant source of tension for me anyway.
Someday I’d have to put a bell around that cat’s neck. But there’s no rush.

Second: An unexpected reward appeared.

┃ Main Quest [First Achievement]
┃ Reward: Star Fragment × 20

I was suddenly handed twenty Star Fragments, and I was baffled.

‘What achievement is this supposed to be?’

It was welcome enough, at least.
But it made no sense.
Twenty Star Fragments was an enormous amount.

An “achievement” would normally refer to the progress of my students.
But I haven’t singled out any student for direct instruction yet, and none of them have shown that kind of growth, have they?

‘……Is this a bug?’

Given the Error Space on Star-Meeting Mountain, the system clearly has its glitches. I decided not to overthink it. As long as they don’t ask for it back.

In any case, it was time to visit Eve today.
Our twenty-seventh meeting.

Autumn had arrived in full. It was a day of bitter wind.
Eve’s cheeks were flushed slightly from the chill.

“A few days ago, I sent a letter to your family, Baron Lemontree’s household. And this morning, a reply arrived.”
“……?”
“Will you look?”

Wondering if she might know letters, I pulled out the letter and showed it to her.
But she seemed not to recognize them either.

“The gist of it was that he was very wary of me and asked who I was. And that the Lemontree house had already fallen. He said if I wanted money, I should leave.”
“……?”
“I haven’t mentioned you yet. But I thought we might communicate a bit more. If I could piece together who you are—why you’re doing this here—that would be good.”

Her head just tilted, tilted, remained tilted.

Exasperated, I gently pinched her cheek.
It stretched out, and her skin was cold to the touch.
She didn’t flinch. Just stared at me, eyes fixed.

“……And soon I might not be able to come for several days. A great crisis is about to befall this entire Academy. It probably won’t concern you much. But I’ll be very busy, and if luck’s against me, I might be injured and unable to come for quite some time.”

But why was it different this time?
Her reaction was slightly different.
Eve didn’t tilt her head.
Only her drooping eyes drooped a little lower.

“…….”

She didn’t understand the words, but she seemed to grasp that something about them was different from what I’d said before. Perhaps because I’d spoken at greater length than usual.
I had wanted to convey something to Eve. And she, it seemed, had sensed it.

“……The moon is bright tonight.”

I tilted my head toward the sky.
Eve followed, lifting her head too.

In truth, it wasn’t the moon. It was the largest of the thirty-three stars called the Transcendent Star—the king of all stars.
In ancient times, people believed it was different from the other stars, and that distinction had been passed down through oral tradition as the name “moon” to this day.
As I gazed up at it, a slight weight settled on my forearm.

Startled by the unfamiliar sensation, I glanced down.
And I couldn’t help but feel a moment of surprise.

“…….”

Not long ago, Adel had said Eve was like an elephant.
An elephant meeting a human was like Eve meeting me, he’d said.
It had sounded like nonsense, yet it had circled in my mind ever since.

Eve (elephant) – me (human)
Eve (human) – me (cat)

Indeed, as Adel had said, the initiative in our relationship belonged to Eve. I’d never directly witnessed her fight, but surely she was shockingly strong. Her Potential of [3.0] attested to it.
The moment Eve rejected me here, I could do nothing. And that was remarkably similar to the relationship between human and cat, elephant and human.
So what was Eve thinking now?
What was this elephant thinking, exactly?

……Why had she rested her head on me?

In the silence, I slowly lowered my hand. Then carefully, I tried to place it on her head above the Burlap Hood, adjusting the angle so she could rest more comfortably. But I met with something blocking my way—her own hand. I wondered if she still felt resistance to my touch. But she didn’t. Instead, she took my hand and brought it to her cheek. On an early winter night, the air was cool, and her cheek was cold too. In contrast, my hand was warm—or perhaps it was. Eve moved that small lower jaw back and forth, feeling the warmth spread evenly across it.

It was unfamiliar. The hardness of the bone beneath her chin where I touched it. The tip of her nose brushing my thumb. The softness that occasionally met my palm—I found myself wondering if that was her lip. It was all very unfamiliar.

What struck him most was how strange it all was. From those early days of watching from afar—smashing the scope, ringing the bell, accepting an apple, learning to wave, sitting together on the ancient mound beneath the stars. Through twenty-seven meetings, until now.

Now they had come this close.

* * *

Eve gazed steadily after the human.
Until he grew distant enough to vanish from sight altogether.

……

EP13

Elephant

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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