Surviving the Assassin Academy as a Genius Professor - Chapter 43

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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 43
EP14 – Small Error Space (4)

Grey wasn’t in a good mood.

Hiccup…

Her head swam with alcohol, her stomach churned, lingering flu symptoms nagged at her, and an odd unease kept creeping back—plus the whole room seemed to tilt at intervals. Nothing about it pleased her.

What bothered her most in the Engine Room was how bright it was. Someone had turned on the lights and left without switching them off.

‘Irritating.’

What else could she do?
There was nothing for it but to drink.
She fished out the fourth Alcohol Bottle she’d hidden in the blankets and poured it straight into her mouth with a gurgle.

“Ahhh…”

Crisp. Sharp. That distinctly unpleasant tang cheap liquor always carried. She loved it all. The irritation that had been building began to ebb away.

Creak, creak, creak…

Was she getting drunker? The swaying of the hull and everything around her seemed more pronounced now.
Then a thought occurred to her—a pleasant one.
This was the scenario, after all.

She was sailing right now…
She’d run away seeking freedom and smuggled herself aboard a merchant vessel…
The ship was taking her to Utopia, a place she’d never been…
There was no competition there. No conflict.
No reason to feel needlessly desperate…
The temperature was always a pleasant twenty-three degrees.
Cool winds blew, fresh water ran, and abundant fruit and grain grew.
People were kind. And there, she was kind too—good and gentle.
So what if a storm or two whipped up on the journey to such a place?
Glug, glug, glug…
A cool breath escaped her lips.

“Ahhh…”

Suddenly, everything began to delight her.
A warm place. A cozy home. Kind people…
And best of all—they all recognized her Illusion Magic as extraordinary.
The elderly woman on the left.
The grandfather on the right.
Even the cat standing ahead.
They all gave her thumbs up.

“Illusion Magic—Grey is the absolute best!”

Isn’t that right?
At those words, Grey’s expression melted into contentment.

“Thank you… I love you… ♡”

What a lovely street it was.
Then, turning her head suddenly, she…
Some guy with pink eyes.

…Oh no.
…Dante, the professor…?

「 Get a hold of yourself, Grey Habanero. 」

Huh?

“Ugh, damn it….”

Grey clutched the alcohol bottle and her eyes snapped wide open.
The fog in her mind cleared instantly.
Her mood plummeted.

‘What the…?’

Now that she thought about it.
In that haze, she’d definitely seen Professor Dante, hadn’t she?

‘Was it a dream?’

He came and tormented her mercilessly.
Pressing down. Weighing on her. Hurting her. Just… getting furious….

‘…??’

No, the more she thought about it, the more it seemed he really had been there.
Why had Professor Dante tormented her?
Small, cute, weak, kind… If she had any sin, it was only being good at Illusion Magic….
…Illusion Magic?

‘Ah.’

It hit her.
It was because of Illusion Magic.
Apparently Professor Dante had heard about her skills and grown jealous.
Of course, she hadn’t been able to master every aspect of his Illusion Magic either, but fundamentals have always been what matters most. Kaiser himself acknowledged it—how could the professor himself deny it?
She never would have thought it. So he had a petty side after all.

“…If you’re weak, you should know how to accept it…?”

She was incredulous.
No matter how jealous someone got.
A professor physically tormenting a student—how was that acceptable?
And a man doing it to a girl at that?

“….”

A smile bloomed across Grey’s face once more.
It was the unmistakable glow of victory.

“…Pathetic♡”

He’d worked hard all those years, sure.
But to lose to someone so much younger than himself?
What a pitiful fellow….

“Dante’s just a pathetic professor… right…?”

Grey asked, and the grandmother, grandfather, and cat all responded in agreement.

“That’s right, absolutely right!”
“Illusion Magic is definitely Grey’s specialty!”
“Pathetic, meow…!”

It was a gratifying answer.
Glug, glug, glug… Taking another long sip, she wondered to herself. So where was this place again? Not the hideout. Not the Engine Room either.

“Sigh… ♡”

It was paradise.

* * *

Viper made two wide circles through the sky.
Whoooosh—!!
A torrent of grey Petrification beams cascaded down.

“Gah!”

The fingertips that grazed him began to harden into stone.
Following standard Petrification countermeasures, he clenched his fist urgently. This way, his fingers would turn to stone while still attached to his hand—minimizing the risk of them shattering off.

‘I can manage this.’

The creature was targeting only him.
This was Dante’s assessment.
The reasoning was simple: if he struck first and kept its attention, one of its seven arms would remain pinned to him alone.

Even the Senior Professors had questioned it at first.
Conventionally, a giant monster pursues the strongest target—that was just how they behaved.
But Dante had explained it differently.
With seven arms, the creature could afford to sacrifice single-target focus without losing efficiency. If the first striker kept drawing its attention, he could lock down one arm.
His reasoning had been sound.

‘I had my doubts, I’ll admit…’

But now he felt it in his bones.
Every word Dante had spoken was true!

Whoooosh—!!

“Kuh!!”

Evading the ashen ray with a sweeping motion, the battle unfolded rapidly.
Toy had fallen under Control.
Collider was struck by Toy’s blade and sent plummeting.
Leo, the Assassination Defense specialist, began laying Traps.
Dante smashed the Totem, sending even Toy himself tumbling down.

‘Perfect move, Dante!!’

With Toy gone, the heaviest obstacle vanished.

By then Leo had deployed his Trap Type ability to its fullest—the arm controlled by “Dominion” had its fingers caught in the jaws of a tiger-shaped trap, then wrenched backward and locked at the wrist.

There was no escape now.

And with that, Angela moved in with her Reaper’s scythe for the kill.

At last, a strike charged with overwhelming force hurtled forward. The Reaper’s Single Flash—

Crash!!

A tremendous impact erupted! The entire forearm jutting from the fissure shuddered. The shockwave crumpled Viper’s face. At the same moment, the flow of mana in the air was annihilated.

The effect was certain—half of the hand that had been studded with hundreds of eyes shattered and vanished.
In that instant.
A fragment of the Jinksite’s body, something like solid rock, slammed across Viper’s head.

Crack—

It felt as though his skull had split.
Seconds later, when consciousness flickered dimly back.
Viper realized he had made a mistake.

‘I shouldn’t have allowed myself to take that hit.’

Leo’s shout coincided with it.
In the swaying world.
The ‘Petrification Hand’ gestured toward Angela, who stood locked in the rigidity that followed the strike. Then it split the center of its palm into six sections and unleashed a colossal beam.

Shriiiiiiek—!

An ashen ray engulfed the Senior Professor.

Angela was a master swordsman and Viper’s former teacher. Even as blood poured from him, Viper unfolded his Footwork Technique in midair to steady himself and launched back skyward.

But the hands of the Jinksite were not mere ornaments that spewed curses alone.
Over Angela, now half-petrified and rigid.
A massive hand descended.
As one would swat a fly.

Crack—

A sonic boom rippled outward in concentric rings. Senior Professor Angela flew backward and vanished.

Viper recoiled in shock, but in the next moment, Angela’s body—the one flying away—shattered with a sharp ring and dispersed.
Ah!!
It was Illusion Magic??
So he searched for her true form, and there she was, descending in a gentle arc below, a Parachute already deployed.
After petrification set in, Dante had certainly swapped her out with an illusion. While deceiving even his own ally’s eyes.
At such a level of mastery, Viper was shaken. How could the Illusion Magic of a person be so exquisite…?

‘Don’t let your guard down.’

The problem was that of the six fingers of the ‘Dominion Hand,’ only five had flown away.
One index finger still remained.

And.
It pointed toward Senior Professor Leo, who stood nearby.
Even now, with Blink itself no longer usable, he pressed on.

At that moment, Professor Leo gritted his teeth and flew.

‘Damn it!!’

He pushed off with his fingers, treading air with Footwork Technique to escape the firing range.
But his primary skill was Trap Type, and his secondary was Combat-class as well—Leo’s footwork was not particularly refined.
No matter how desperately he evaded, he could not break free of the finger’s trajectory.

It was as though a colossal gun barrel had locked onto him.
And he was nothing more than a kitten cowering before it.

‘Damn this! Cursed thing!!’

Within mere seconds, he bounded dozens of steps, dodging frantically in every direction—but it was all for naught. He was, at last, trapped in the palm of Buddha’s hand.
Leo was utterly caught within the finger’s trajectory.

Though Leo knew full well that everyone was exposed to the assault and could offer no aid, he screamed anyway.

Jinksite’s eyes began to close in the grip of Dominion.
It happened in the same instant.

── .

A miracle unfolded. From the floor in all directions, thousands of mirrors materialized.
In a blink too swift for the eye to follow, something resembling a tower suddenly extended from somewhere and coiled around the “finger of Dominion,” bending it.
In the next moment, despite the broad daylight, an intensity of light erupted that could have illuminated the world.

──── .

The light of Luminous Star⁺₊⋆ streamed forth like a beam.

‘Professor Dante!!’

The light poured down through thousands of refractions and amplifications, obliterating what remained of Jinksite’s “arm of Dominion” in its entirety.

A thrill rose up from beneath his chest.
Feeling that rush, Leo pulled himself away and grabbed the bleeding Viper, retreating to the Deck of the Flying Airship. Behind Professor Dante.

Why?
It dawned on Leo too late: the “hand of Petrification” could still target them.
And this was a Flying Airship!

Whoooosh—!

A beam of Petrification streaked toward us. I managed to dodge most of it, but part of the beam caught the Flying Airship. The propeller and sections of the buoyant stone exposed to the air were both touched by it. Metal frames, wooden beams, fragments of the flotation stone—everything it touched began transforming to solid rock.

The Flying Airship, robbed of thrust, began its fall.

* * *

I furrowed my brow.

The one scenario I’d most dreaded had arrived. Ever since I’d registered that Petrification was among the curses, this possibility had gnawed at me.

The petrification beam had engulfed the entire Flying Airship, preventing the Engine Room from detaching. And with the buoyant stone transformed to rock, we’d lost all thrust.

The massive airship began its descent.

Whooooo…

While I frantically redirected the “Hand of Petrification’s” attention with Illusion Magic, I checked my remaining mana and cast my gaze downward.

At that moment, I was gliding with an invisible wing created by Illusion Magic—but it could only manage a slow descent for myself at eighty-five kilograms. Even that wing had been crafted with meticulous precision, stretched to the very edge of its durability.

Let alone that Flying Airship down there, which by specifications weighed 1.7 tons and carried two people inside…

Then, someone burst onto the Deck above.
The Captain and Grey.

At first, I thought it was fortunate,
but it wasn’t.
Petrification was still advancing across part of Grey’s forearm, and the Captain’s lower half was the same.
Which meant the Parachute Magical Device I’d forcefully equipped them with had been petrified as well.

As the airship tilted, Grey stumbled out onto the Deck and fell flat. Together with the Captain. As the Captain slid toward the edge with a cry of “Whoa!”, Grey caught his wrist.

The problem was that the Petrification was still progressing. One of the fallen Captain’s legs had stiffened and fused to the floor. And Grey’s arm, which gripped a vertical metal support beam on the Deck wall, was doing the same.

Then Grey cast Illusion Magic.
Truly worthy of a daughter of an Illusion Magic Noble Family. She knew exactly what she needed to do in this moment. In an effort to slow the descent by any means, enormous gliding wings over five meters long suddenly jutted from both sides of the Flying Airship.

But there was a problem: she was drunk, and the airship was simply too heavy. Wings of merely five meters couldn’t withstand the weight and air resistance—her Illusion Magic shattered.

Crash-bang-crash!!

The wings broke and scattered.
Like every window of a giant skyscraper shattering at once, like a colossal wave breaking apart, they fragmented and dissolved into nothing.

Leo and Viper’s shouts came through the communication device, and in that moment, I calculated once more. No matter how I worked the numbers, my remaining mana couldn’t stop the airship. It was an irrefutable physical and magical limit.
Then another thought occurred to me.
Did I really have to do this alone?

I released my glide and dropped.
Toward the Flying Airship.

As I drew closer, I saw Grey standing there dazed—nosebleed flowing, blood streaming from her eyes. One arm had completely hardened to stone.
I hauled the Captain up and threw him onto the Deck, then I called out to Grey.

“Grey Habanero!”

As I approached, her vacant eyes turned toward me.
She seemed unable to fully grasp what was happening.

“Try again. Just one more time.”
“…I can’t.”
“You can. You’re capable. You can do this.”
“…….”
“One last attempt. I’ll help you through it.”

I knelt beside the girl and spoke those words. Grey swayed, blood trickling from her nose, yet she nodded. Then she cast Illusion Magic.

I held my breath.
If I was even a second late—if her wings awakened first—this would be a meaningless death thrash. Grey and the Captain would die for certain.
But at the same time, I trusted in the mastery of Illusion Magic I possessed. That great and transcendent realm, I did not doubt it.
Grey’s magical power surged, mana traces erupted, and the form of Illusion Magic began to manifest—
Right now.

『 World Forgery: Form Forgery [Heaven’s Thousand-Shifting Wing] 』

My ability unfurled across the sky.
It happened almost simultaneously with Grey’s five-meter wings spreading open. I deployed my own wings in succession, and they were overwhelmingly vast—nearly twenty meters across, dwarfing even the Flying Airship itself.
The pterosaur Quetzalcoatlus, said to have a wingspan as large as a giraffe, possessed wings of merely ten meters. The forty-meter wingspan that Grey and I had unfolded was so immense that even I felt awe at the sight.
The massive wings spread out and gripped the Flying Airship firmly, beginning to arrest its plummeting velocity.

Far off, two professors hanging from parachutes shouted amid the descent.
Indeed, the combined form of our two wings was sufficient to glide this massive Flying Airship, exactly as I had calculated.
Meanwhile, with my nose bleeding and Overload flooding in until my brain felt incinerated by agony—I felt a gaze.

Grey was looking up at me with vacant eyes.
As though nothing made sense to her.

She lost consciousness moments later.
And then a remarkable reward materialized.

┃ Relationship Status Rise: Grey [30] (▲30)
┃ Reward: Star Fragment × 30

EP14

Small Error Space

END

—————
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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