Surviving the Assassin Academy as a Genius Professor - Chapter 42

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Chapter 42
EP14 – The Compact Error Space (3)

An 8-Level Totem Domain had already been set. Everyone had completed their Combat Doping. The battle could no longer be stopped, and yet Grey Habanero was here.
She lay on a mat, a blanket draped over her like a comforter.
As if she were in her own bedroom.

“Grey Habanero.”

I shut the door hastily and spoke.

“What are you doing here right now?”
“Taking a nap…?”
“Why.”
“Why? Well, this is my base, after all. Or Grey’s Base, for short…?”
“No, what kind of nonsense is that. How is the Undergraduate Airship your base.”
“Well, because no one ever came here… *hiccup*… yeah…?”

Then came the reek of alcohol, sudden and sharp.
Three empty bottles rolled across the floor.

“Um…? Now that you mention it, Professor, what are you doing here…? No one’s come by in half a year…?”

I closed my eyes.
Then I pressed my temples firmly with my fingertips.
A thought surfaced: that the Habanero Clan were descendants of a feline beastkin lineage, and cats could sleep anywhere they pleased.
Even so, this was not a situation to be excused.

⋮

A real-time battle countdown transmitted through the Communication System.
This place was the very heart of the battlefield. Yet she was entirely unprepared for combat.
Of course she was. She’d just woken from a nap.
What’s more, she didn’t seem to have a Parachute Magical Tool—everyone had brought only one before boarding, and there were no spares. The Undergraduate Airship itself had been hastily retrieved from storage, stripped of supplies as it was.
Ah.
How was I supposed to handle this situation?

“Right, right. Professor…?”

That was when it happened.
Grey grinned, her small fangs jutting out proudly.

“You know what? There’s something funny I heard…?”
“Funny?”
“Kaiser said… that I’m overwhelmingly better at the Illusion Technique than you are.”
“What?”
“Surprising, right? I even said it wasn’t true, but Kaiser just kept insisting—yes, yes, yes…—he just wouldn’t stop pushing it. *Hiccup*.”
“……”
“So, um, if you’re missing anything, would you like to learn from me…? Mmm. *Hiccup*… Even though I hate those other incompetent professors, I actually wouldn’t mind teaching you, Professor…♡”

Her voice dripped with laughter.
Her small fangs protruding cutely.
A supremely confident expression.
Yet I could not fathom what she was saying in this moment, and the stench of alcohol wafting from her was deeply unpleasant.
Having just come from confronting demons, my chest was already brimming with rage, and that only made it worse.

“What nonsense are you talking about now?”
“Huh? I mean, Grey was….”
“Stop.”
“……?”
“I’m not listening. Get your head on straight, Grey Habanero. Drop this talk about getting shot in the brain.”

A harshness in my voice that even I found unfamiliar.
Perhaps because I’d set my expression so firmly.

“……Huh?”

The smile fades from her face.
Her fingers curl inward. Her grey eyes go wide and round.

“…Why… why are you angry….”

Grey murmurs the words. She seems startled that I’ve lost my temper.
But there’s no time to worry about that now.

Time is running short.
Grey’s condition?
Completely drunk.
Her cheeks and ears are flushed, her body temperature visibly elevated, her eyes half-lidded. She has a grimy, unwashed quality to her.

“Um, hey.”

After her muttering, she begins to speak with a somewhat determined expression.

“Why did you suddenly get angry like that, and, ……why are you….”

As I step toward her abruptly, she shrinks back.

“Grey Habanero. The professor is currently in a very busy situation. And in no mood for this.”
“…What do you want me to do…?”
“Answer the question. How much alcohol have you drunk right now?”
“…Why?”
“Answer. How much have you drunk?”
“…….”

That’s when it happened. Grey, who had been looking up at me with fear in her eyes, suddenly broke into a wide smile.

“Just one glass♡”

A lie. Using Thought Reading, I could sense she’d emptied all three bottles scattered here.
Cheap liquor. Large bottles, thirty-five percent proof. In other words, she was now thoroughly wasted.
I’d heard that this cadet was extremely impulsive, sometimes violent even. Add alcohol to that mix, and impulse control would be nearly impossible.

With a monster outside. If combat breaks out.
I couldn’t be sure Grey wouldn’t charge out recklessly.

“Do you have the Parachute Magical Tool on you right now?”
“…Why would you…?”

Then Grey’s eyes snap fully open.

“I didn’t steal it.”
“Doesn’t matter. Just tell me—is it there or not?”
“It’s not. I didn’t steal anything. The storage room up front was always empty to begin with…. Grey didn’t take it….”
“Understood. Raise your arms.”
“…What?”

I hastily began to remove my Parachute Magical Tool to fit it onto Grey. After all, I could conjure something parachute-like using the Illusion Technique anyway.

“…What are you doing, Professor?”
“Raise your arms.”
“…Why? Why?”
“Because I need to put the parachute on you.”
“A parachute? What’s a parachute…?”
“You don’t need to understand. Just raise your arms.”
“No… I don’t want to….”

Grey then resisted, swaying like a drunk.
I had no choice but to force my strength into the task, but she refused to cooperate in every way she could.

“No… I don’t want to…. Why are you doing this….”
“You can’t understand me right now anyway. Just keep your arms still. You’re getting in the way of the parachute fitting.”
“Ow… Don’t… Please don’t…. It hurts…. Why do you keep touching me like that…? Are you curious about Grey’s tattoo…?”
“Professor doesn’t have much time. Hold still.”
“No, it hurts. It hurts, I’m telling you…. My arm—you’re gripping it too hard right now….”

Urgency flooded back through me. I grabbed both her arms and threw my weight against her, pinning her to the wall hard. The impact made her eyes go wide. “Mmph!” Her body convulsed from the shock.

“……??”

With her pinned like that, Grey stopped struggling. Finally, I was able to fit the Parachute Magical Tool onto her and fasten it securely in place.
Then, changing my mind, I tied it in such a way that she wouldn’t be able to remove it. ‘What is this….’ She frowned in frustration and tried to pull it off, but with the straps bound the way they were, it wouldn’t come free easily.

“Grey Habanero. You seem quite drunk. Rather than wandering outside, you should stay here and get some rest. Understood?”
“…I’m… not drunk at all… *hic*.”
“I understand. Let me say this again—don’t come outside. Do you understand?”
“…….”

Grey hesitated, turned her head away, and mumbled something under her breath.

“…I was planning to… sleep more anyway….”

If the Undergraduate Airship fell, the Engine Room would open for certain.
The Parachute Magical Tool would deploy automatically.
So she needed to stay here rather than move about recklessly.

“…*hic*.”

I closed the Engine Room door.

【 Grey: ‘…Why is he like that…?’ 】
【 Grey: ‘…I was trying to do well….’ 】
【 Grey: ‘…….’ 】

I could only hope she wouldn’t carelessly climb her way back out.

* * *

I stepped onto the Deck.

The moment the totem completes, the Mana Aura will burst. When that happens, even demons without eyes will perceive us.

But what concerned me most was this: I knew absolutely nothing about the Error Space.

If all three of those arms unleash the Instant Death Curse, Hiaka Academy will lose three of its finest professors…….

But there’s no choice now. I have to throw myself into this uncertainty. So please.

Please…….

Crackle-crackle-crackle――!!

The Mana Aura erupted. The Totem Domain of the Firefly Sanctuary unfurled. A verdant glow spread across the entire forty-meter radius, and I realized for the first time that a strange button had appeared inside my body.

Each time I pressed it, it would teleport me through space. But with only two bullets’ worth of firepower to my name, my attacks had to be calculated with care.

Viper burst forward first. Twin blades called the Fang of Poison erupted from his palms, and he shattered one of Zincsite’s fingers. Then he summoned a massive cobra fifteen meters long and wrapped it around one of Zincsite’s three wrists.
Zincsite’s fingers spread open immediately after—a sign that the struck limb was channeling a curse.

That’s when Leo’s blow landed. Bang!! One of the fingers—larger than a man’s body—was pulverized. Immediately after, Leo launched himself skyward using Blink and bellowed.

Chief Professor Angela used Blink to reach forty meters into the air, then stomped across the void with her Movement Technique, soaring up an additional hundred meters or more.
Now she was descending like a meteor shower.
She was a combat-class Assassin, an eighty-year-old woman who wielded a colossal three-meter scythe like it was nothing—a monster among monsters. The weapon she carried was called the Grim Reaper Ω, a Legend I-grade Sacred Stigma armament.
Falling.
As if an entire aircraft were crashing down. As if the god of death itself were descending to bring divine punishment upon the earth. Falling with a deathly pallor of killing intent.
The enormous scythe, charged with power, drove downward in a vertical plunge—and upon the wrist held fast by Viper, a single blow erupted, carrying the full force of a three-digit-ranked Grandmaster.

Boom ──── !!

The air tore vertically, then detonated.
Zincsite’s hand—a limb the size of a three- or four-story building—was obliterated. The shockwave didn’t diminish; it tore through from wrist to forearm, shattering the entire limb into fragments.

Not even five seconds had passed since the operation began. That was the way of an Assassin’s combat. Not a sluggish test of strength, not a gradual ramp-up in tempo. Either you obliterate in a single strike, or you break.

At that moment, Professor Toy moved to manage the totem, and Collider, prepared for Zincsite’s counterattack, deployed an Illusion Technique.

And I moved.

I deployed Blink, shooting upward to the highest vantage I could reach, then anchored myself with Void Walk. I needed to see the entire battlefield at a glance.
Then I sharpened my gaze with mana. Zincsite’s two remaining arms had begun to move in earnest.
The motion was grotesque—massive, heavy machinery set into limbs shaped like human hands.
I had to study it carefully. Only I could distinguish its curses from the faintest traces alone.

It was when Collider was brimming with hope.
I screamed out.

Hundreds of eyes bloomed across the moving arm.
Among the remaining hands, there was one in the nineties. Curse number ninety.
Curse number ninety—the Curse of Domination. The finger of that colossal hand bearing it pointed directly at Professor Toy.

I bellowed through the communication system.
In a heartbeat, the moment the eyes on Zincsite’s hand pointing at Chief Professor Toy closed, his body materialized on the far opposite side of the Totem Domain—near Collider.

But it wasn’t.

By the time I screamed into the communication system, it was too late.

Thrust—

A blade erupted through Collider’s chest. Chief Professor Toy’s strike.

Then Zincsite’s other hand moved, its palm tearing open with a sound like ripping fabric, and a grey totem emerged. A beam of grey light shot toward Viper.

—!

“Ugh!!”

A beam two meters in diameter. Viper managed to contort his body away, but the enormous cobra he rode was caught in its path. His head hardened on the spot, turning to stone.

In the next instant, everything descended into chaos. Collider plummeted. Chief Professor Toy charged toward Leo. Chief Professor Angela had to stand in his way.

At my shout, the chief dodged a fraction faster.
The Curse of Domination reached her position a beat too late.

She’d evaded it.
The saving grace was that Angela was a combat Assassin. She was a Grandmaster-class assassin who had spent nearly seventy years honing nothing but pure martial prowess—

Grey rays lanced at Viper again, and several shots missed, sweeping across the ground. Far below, the cadets on the ground level, buildings, facilities—everything in their path crystallized en masse.

In that moment, I moved again. I had identified precisely what I could do.