Surviving the Assassin Academy as a Genius Professor - Chapter 55

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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 55
EP17 – ‘Human’ Does Not Come

There was a Spirit.

✧

This one was a Spirit of a star called the Voyeur Star — an avatar of the heavens that wandered the world’s corners and took pleasure in watching others in secret.

✧

Without purpose. Without meaning. Simply hiding itself halfway in one place or another, searching out what was interesting and watching it. A damp, shadowy spectator in this world, one that encouraged interesting things to grow a little more interesting still.
About a year ago, this creature came wandering to Byeolmachiisan as well.

✧

Byeolmachiisan was special. A place that couldn’t be found anywhere else in the world.
There was a fascinating person there.
It was a fascinating place.
It was a location where great things would unfold, a place that would grow more interesting still.
But even for simple people-watching, it was the perfect locale.

Most of all.

✧ ✧

Another Spirit was here!
How long had this one been dwelling in this place?
It couldn’t know, and it didn’t care to know, but….
When Spirits of the Voyeur Star met, there was always a required ritual they had to perform.

✧/ ✧

A hand salute!!

✧ ✧

Returning the hand salute!!

✧

Satisfying.

⋮

In any case.
It appeared that this creature too had been watching ‘that existence’.
In this deep mountain, within the lush forest.
The world’s treasure.

A being called ‘Eve’.

Bright sky-blue hair, blue eyes. A filthy cloth overgrown with grass, worn deep like a one-piece dress or a hood, with only her eyes showing.
A being who seemed to know only how to bounce around.

✧

For the Spirit, watching over a long time.
Eve’s days were terribly monotonous and dull.
She woke in the morning and rubbed her eyes stupidly with that face.
Yawned with that face.
Took walks nearby with that face, or did light stretches with that face.
Ate apples, flower honey, dandelions, and wild strawberries with that face. Sometimes ate dirt and stones too.
Went to the nearby pond to wash that face, bathed fully clothed, and cleaned her hands and feet.
Then entered the Cave with that face, drew a sword to train or slept.
When night fell, she climbed the Burial Mound and looked at the sky—that was all. With that face.
Yet why was it interesting?
She had no idea.
No matter how hard she thought, she simply could not say.

│ωㅇ)

It was just… f-u-n.

From a distant Spirit, she’d caught telepathic whispers of something—that far away where crowds gathered, there was supposedly another person much like Eve, only larger. Though she didn’t quite understand that part.

Anyway, watching that interesting face, or rather, that interesting person, had filled the first year.
During that time, people came to kill Eve a dozen times over, yet Eve survived.
Now, when no one came anymore and star-gazing repeated every night,
a new person appeared in Eve’s days.

│ㅅㅇ)

It was some man.
Pink eyes, black frizzy hair—apparently a professor of some kind.
At first, he didn’t strike her as particularly interesting.
His precise clothing and appearance were curious enough, but only just barely.
The only oddity was that he’d come alone to a place where no one ever went, which piqued her curiosity a little.
But ultimately, he was just a stranger. Stranger number one.
It probably seemed that way to Eve as well.
After all, she’d pushed him away and rejected him.

So the man had left.
It was an unremarkable interaction.
Simply put, it wasn’t fun.

│ㅅ-) …….

It was fine.
She hadn’t really expected anything from him anyway.
No expectations, no disappointment.

But then….
That man was strange in some way.

│ㅅㅇ)？

The man came looking for Eve the next day.

│ㅅㅇ)

And the day after that.

│ㅅㅇ)

And the day after that too.

│ㅅㅇ)

Then the next day came, and the day after that, and the day after that—without missing a single one, he began to seek her out.

│ㅅㅇ) ….

This was quite fascinating.
With each day he appeared, the distance between Eve and him shrank.
As if measured by a ruler. Precisely. Eve began to perceive him. Slowly, the space between them narrowed.
Throughout this process, he showed no impatience, no restless gesture that might make Eve uneasy.
Within that composure,
he drew steadily closer to her side.

│ωㅇ)

This was quite entertaining.
Even the most delicious food grows tiresome when eaten every day.
After more than a year of watching the same unremarkable scenes unfold, to witness such a marked change was far more amusing than expected.
Was this amusement hers alone? With that thought, she glanced toward him—

│ㅅㅇ)　　　　　♥(ㅇㅂ│

It was not.
He seemed to be enjoying it all the more!

│ㅅㅇ)

In any case,
the man continued to draw closer, little by little, his approach gradual and deliberate, until he and Eve grew nearer still.
They exchanged small gestures—a telescope here, a bell there—and after all these small interactions,
finally,

finally, he sat at her side.

│ㅅㅎ)

It was a delight.
Fine material for observation.
What might happen next, how things might unfold between them—she could not say. But from that moment forward, Eve’s days were utterly transformed.

│ㅅㅇ)

Eve began to wash herself more often.
She gathered apples and walnuts—things she found delicious—and offered them to him.
Even sitting atop the burial mound, before she looked to the sky, she began to wait for him to arrive.
Later, knowing he always came around eight o’clock, Eve would watch his usual path from about seven, lingering there, grooming herself.
(Not that it made much difference.)
Holding a walnut she’d forgotten to give him, lost in thought—that was endearing. Having gathered two to give him an extra, only to hesitate between them in each palm—that was even more so.
Then one day, while training alone in the cave, Eve began to draw his likeness on the wall with the tip of her blade. It was remarkably interesting.
(In truth, it was dreadfully poorly done, and she puzzled over it with him later, wondering what it might depict—but all the same…….)
These new things, these acts that had never occurred before, brought the spirit great joy.
For endless repetition is tedium itself.

As such time flowed onward,
something strange began to happen.

│ㅅㅇ)

He stopped appearing.

│ㅅㅇ)

Beyond one day.

Sigh…

Beyond four days.

Sigh…

A full week had passed without his coming.

Sigh… what?

What was happening?
Why wasn’t he coming?

Sigh… what? What?

The Spirit found this curious.
But she made no effort to search for the man.
True, it would have been amusing to go and see him.
Yet, unexpectedly.
Unexpectedly.
Eve’s reaction to his absence proved far more entertaining.

Eve was beginning to malfunction.

Sigh…

The rhythm of when she woke shattered. Eve would bolt upright in the dead of night, seized by panic, and some days she found herself sleeping through the middle of the afternoon.
Even her walks near Byeolmachiisan grew strange. She ventured downward now, to places she had never gone before, her steps drifting ever lower down the mountainside.
Her appetite vanished too. Eve barely ate anymore. Not her beloved apples. Not honey. Not even dandelions.
She stopped bathing.
She abandoned her training.
Instead, she would stand before the drawing she had sketched on the cave wall—the man’s face—staring blankly, then touching it again and again.
Wasn’t that delightful?

Sigh…

In the Spirit’s estimation,
consistency was tedious, yet it held anticipation.
She understood that the pleasure lay in watching consistency crack.
And that was happening now.

Yet Eve never ceased her nightly climb to the Burial Mound to watch the stars……
About three weeks after the man’s disappearance,

a great event occurred.

Gasp! (Oh!)

Eve began descending the mountain!

This was an extraordinarily significant event.
She had broken one of the three rules she had kept without exception until now.

Eve descended from Byeolmachiisan.
She wandered considerably, as if she had forgotten the path.
Yet she pushed downward recklessly, following the direction from which the man had climbed up.
But somehow she strayed from the route he usually took,

“What?! How did that monster get here?!”

He encountered an old man who had been staying at a nearby lodge.

“The Tomb Witch!! If you could move, you’d have left ages ago!”
“…….”
“I don’t know what you’re plotting, but you’ve finally shown your true colors! Today, I’m going to drive you out of this mountain, no matter what!”

The old man suddenly pulled out a gun and began firing at Eve.
Bang! Rat-a-tat-tat!!
But Eve evaded the shots, dodging with each volley — only to find the old man standing near where she landed.

“Argh! You’re trying to kill me?!”

Startled, the old man stumbled backward and fell flat on his backside.

“No, no! You can’t kill me!”
“…….”
“I’m right! You can’t kill me, can you?!”

Then the old man pressed the gun barrel beneath his own chin and shouted.
Eve recoiled.
And then she began to flee in the distance.

“…The witch is getting away!”

The old man hurried back to the lodge, picked up an old Crystal Sphere, and made a call to somewhere.

Meanwhile, Eve reached the road.
It was fascinating.

│ㅂㅇ)

To the Spirit’s mind, roads were a structure that exemplified human arrogance quite well —
Knowing that no other species posed a threat to them, humans had laid down these “roads” that led into their homes and domains.
It was something even an unknowing Eve could use to her advantage.

Eve ran along the road, heading toward the places where humans gathered.
And she ran for quite some time.
Until the city appeared.

│ㅅㅇ) ….

But what could she possibly find by going to the city?
To the Spirit’s reckoning, the city was vast, and humans were staggeringly numerous; finding a single man among them was nearly impossible.

Yet.
Apparently, the other one was thinking along similar lines.
For some reason, the other one seemed to have decided to use the Stigma to aid her, drawing power upward.

Around that time, Eve entered the city.

As expected, upon arriving in the city and stepping into the crowd, Eve had to stop. Unable to meet their gazes properly, looking about nervously, she stood helpless.

“What, what is that? A person?”
“Don’t go near it! Something feels wrong!”
“Isn’t that the Tomb Witch?!”
“What?!”
“The Discipline Unit! Where is the Discipline Unit?!”

Eve, her hood pulled low, was a grotesque thing. An outsider. Utterly alien among the crowd of ordinary people.
And then a drawing appeared on the ground—one only Eve could see.

↖ (ㅇㅅ│

Eve’s eyes widened in recognition, and she bolted toward it.
But she was already too late.

“A creature presumed to be the Tomb Witch has escaped. It’s currently prowling the city.”
“Stop it, or if the situation demands, execute it. Notify the Chief and the Dean immediately.”

The assassins charged toward Eve.

Crack! Snap!
Crackle-crackle-snap!

Bursting forth with Mana Marks, they rushed at her with lethal intent. Eve, as always, deflected their attacks with minimal effort or dodged them cleanly, and bolted. She ran hard.
Wall to wall, tree to tree—she vaulted across rooftops in a desperate flight.
But with the Discipline Unit joining the fray, the assassins swelled to over twenty, making constant evasion impossible.
A bullet grazed her arm. A crossbow bolt nicked her foot.

And then, at last, Eve’s foot caught in a massive trap.
Clang!!
In that instant, Eve drew her blade and slashed through the mechanism—the intricate machinery of a great-beast-class contraption shattered under a single stroke in a display so jarring it stole the breath.

But Eve’s rampage couldn’t last much longer.

The guardian deity of the 0-District had arrived to contain the catastrophe.

“…….”

“You know what happened here, don’t you? People died. One of this old man’s disciples among them. I’m not the sort to vent my rage somewhere else. Please—won’t you let me bear this grief alone?”

“Go back. Otherwise, I have no choice but to kill you here and now.”

Eve tilted her head.

│ㅂㅇ)

Either way, this was thrilling.

But contrary to expectation, Eve launched herself high into the air, and seemed intent on circling wide—a decision she would regret. Eve could not match the assassins’ speed.
As she struggled to maneuver, the assassins’ assault continued relentlessly, and wounds began multiplying across her body.
Thirty minutes of flight and pursuit.
The shuriken the department head had hurled like a cannonball tore through Eve’s cheek, raked open the skin there, and grazed deep before spinning away—blood erupting and scattering in its wake.
In the end, Eve had no choice but to turn and fight.

│ㅅㅇ)

Eve had failed to achieve her objective.
She had simply been driven back among the humans.

“Huh? Wait, why did we come here again?”
“Um… was there a five-minute standby drill…?”

After that, no one remembered the fact.

│ㅅㅇ)

But on the way back, something interesting happened.
As Eve made her way back up the mountain, bleeding, she stumbled at some point.
Thud—she crashed hard into the ground.
At the same moment, the hood above her head slipped free.
Two horns curved smooth and round like a lamb’s were revealed.

│ㅁㅇ) ?!

She had horns on her head?
They were only now noticing it. Despite watching her for a year.
Eve had never once lowered her hood.

* * *

“Oh, right, Professor.”
“I’m listening.”
“Shouldn’t we visit Byeolmachiisan?”

Dante stared blankly at Adel before answering.

“Why would we go there?”

EP17

‘Humans’ do not come

END

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————