Surviving the Assassin Academy as a Genius Professor - Chapter 58

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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 58
EP18 – Over the Snow-Buried Ruins, the Christmas Bell Tolls (3)

“Cover model?”

The Assassination Daily News is a crippled media outlet — even the village idiot Elise knows that. Half its content is garbage.

But the Assassination Daily News’s “cover model” is another matter entirely.

That the cover model position was extraordinarily special was also a fact famous enough that Elise knew it.

The Assassination Daily News is an Imperial publication.
Fundamentally, it publishes three types of magazines: “weekly editions,” “monthly editions,” and an “annual edition” that comes out once a year. It is the sole and largest publication about assassins, distributed across the entire continent.

So even being a “weekly cover model” is a big deal. But a “monthly cover model”? That’s a dream position for countless assassins and celebrities alike.
There’s an irony: assassins must remain covert, yet fame drives up their market value.

And the lucky child who’s grasped that opportunity is none other than…

“…me?”

Grey blinked rapidly.

“Wait, hold on…! Monthly cover model? Not Princess Rebecca, but… me?”
“That’s right! The Princess was already snagged for last week’s weekly cover! Don’t you even care about what your friends are doing?”
“I’m a patient! I’ve been sleeping — how was I supposed to know about something like that?”

After her initial indignation, Grey went blank for a moment.

“…Why me?”

That was what she really wanted to know.
Lucy, the maid, glanced toward the door and then leaned in close to Grey’s bedside, lowering her voice.

“You know how you stopped that falling Airship? With that incredible Illusion Magic of yours.”
“Oh, yeah.”

Her memories of that time were hazy.
But it was definitely her doing.

“Apparently, if the landing site hadn’t changed, it would’ve fallen right on top of the District 1 Kindergarten. There were children there and everything.”
“I already heard about that before.”
“The mood in the Academy has been terrible lately anyway. Everyone’s acting like something’s cursed. But when the Princess’s interview came out, the atmosphere actually improved a bit, right? So now the Academy Division’s press office is throwing money at the Assassination Daily News to make you the next monthly cover model — trying to refresh Hiaka’s image. You know how those Imperial types love their money.”
“Naturally…. With my face, the image probably will get refreshed….”

Besides, the narrative was solid too. Wasn’t the entire Assassination Academy Division currently blaming those vile Kroitz bastards for even the enormous curse-spreading hand itself?

Our cadet, who spread her wings while bleeding from the nose under Petrification to protect little children — if she was described as cute and pretty and lovely, the picture looked quite convincing.

“Hmm….”

Grey scratched her cheek with a vacant expression.

“…But is that even allowed? I’m not a princess in the first place, and I’m from the Habanero family — the one Hiaka tries to keep hidden. Why would the Academy Division suddenly push for something like this?”

And therein lay the rub.
The Habanero family was one of the few families with true Bloodline Inheritance that Hiaka possessed — a gifted, prestigious house. Grey’s very existence was a matter of national secrecy.

“That’s just the thing….”

Lucy bit her lip hard again, glancing toward the door before leaning in even closer.

“Listen. Don’t tell anyone else about this.”
“Tell me what, tell me what.”
“They’re saying the Assassination Studies Department might open up soon. To the Empire.”
“???”

Grey’s mouth fell open.
It was shocking news.
Hiaka Academy—the most insular institution across the entire continent—opening its doors? It seemed impossible.
Grey’s mind began calculating furiously, painting a future where she, a prodigy student, would grace the front page of the new era Hiaka was about to lead—not those insufferable children of the Dark Starlight Seat and the Shadowless Starlight Seat.

“This isn’t actually huge, is it…!?”
“Absolutely massive, you crazy woman…!!”

Clap-clap-clap! Grey slapped hands with Lucy in rapid succession, then ushered her out and settled back into bed for more sleep.
A thought surfaced suddenly.

…But that thing.

The wings.

“…….”

Did I really do that…?

* * *

Professor Dante said nothing.

He walked in silence, and Valmond followed behind him.
When was the last time he’d walked behind an adult like this? The memory felt incomplete. At some point, he’d only ever walked with his peers.

Night had fallen deep.
The professor led him gradually into darker places.

– An assassin must love the darkness.

His mother used to say that often.
She was, in fact, the only being in the entire world chosen by the Dark Starlight Seat.
Valmond’s home had always been dark, and for that reason, Valmond hated the darkness.
Yet the professor continued walking forward into the gloom, and Valmond could only follow, despite his distress.

As they walked, Dante’s words and his own thoughts collided endlessly.
The professor had told him not to dwell on what he’d lost.
But all he could think about was loss.

Even now, posts about quitting filled Assassin Town by the hundreds each day. Mockery about failures like them—what use could they possibly be?
Valmond read them too, picking at his cuticles as he scrolled.

And as he did, his thoughts sprawled in every direction without restraint.
Why am I
born into such a family?
Why was I born into such a time?
Tracing back through the years he’d lived, every moment was threaded with suffering.
They say that thirty years ago, in his mother’s childhood, there was peace across all the world.
They say that just ten years back, after the war, there came a time of great prosperity and triumph. People lived with hope in their hearts.
Why was I born into this cursed era….

‘…Damn it all.’

There it was again.
He was fixating on what he’d lost.
As Valmond felt the lessons he’d grasped so tenuously slip away from the professor, he rushed to speak.

“Professor. Um, that is… there….”
“…….”
“We should be focusing on what remains, shouldn’t we? Yes….”
“…….”
“That is, what you said before—eight million hica. If we focus on that… doesn’t it work? Two million is already gone….”

The professor walked on without answering. That silence only made Valmond’s heart race faster.

“But, I keep… having dark thoughts. What if we lose even that eight million? We were already losing, weren’t we? Hiaka was….”
“…….”
“What could change here? So we had twenty million originally. It dropped to ten million, and now it’s eight million—that’s what I’m thinking. But your words must be right, so focusing on that eight million should be the answer, right…?”
“…….”
“Professor….”

If Dante had given him even a single answer.
Whatever it was, Valmond might have found some comfort in it.
He did not speak.

He only moved deeper into the darkness, his expression as quiet as before.
That silence made Valmond’s urgency grow worse.

“…I’m not the only one thinking this way, professor. It’s just… in Assassin Town too… sorry for whining. But there, everyone’s thinking like me….”

Valmond grew more and more agitated.

“They say Hiaka won’t make it. That we didn’t just get crushed in the Assassination Tournament by Croix—that we’re like a nation fading into twilight. That’s why even Battalion Chief, that bastard, abandoned us. Why the Tournament erupted. Why even that monster in the sky came crawling out when its luck turned foul….”

He began pouring out thoughts he’d carried in silence, thoughts he’d pretended never to have seen elsewhere.

“It doesn’t make sense, does it? It’s just—excuse me—it’s just horseshit. But why does that horseshit keep circling in my head? Why do I keep thinking Hiaka is already finished, buried in shadow, a ruined tomb… I’m sorry. You told me not to focus on losses….”

No matter what he said.
The professor did not answer.
He didn’t even look at him.
An impulse surged from Valmond’s throat.

“Just where are you going!?”

By the time his mind caught up, he had blocked the professor’s path.
Half a beat later, reason returned.

“Ah……!”

Valmond froze before those unfeeling pink eyes.
He’d actually done something this insane.

“I, that is… I….”

He was opening his mouth to make hasty repairs.
At last, the professor spoke.

“Have you extracted all the Echo?”

A low voice jolted him back to awareness.

“Yes? Ah, I… I was….”

Valmond bowed deeply.

“My sincerest apologies, Professor. Truly, I was far too eager—”
“Yet you still don’t understand.”
“…Pardon?”
“Whether it’s eight million or eight hundred thousand or not a single coin to your name—none of that matters.”

Valmond lifted his head slowly.

“Then… what does matter, sir?”
“I told you before. What matters is Judgment.”
…….
“You and I live in different worlds. In truth, every human being inhabits only their own world. But for a fool like you, I suppose I need to use simpler words.”

The professor’s voice was toneless, yet gentle.

“Judgment is the world itself.”

A single phrase—

Those words sent ripples through Valmond’s mind.
Judgment is the world? Is that what he’s saying?

“The world expands or contracts according to how you judge it. If you cannot judge, the world does not exist.”
“I… I don’t follow, sir.”
“Do you know where you are right now?”

It was only then that Valmond felt a profound unease.
He had followed the professor for nearly thirty minutes, perhaps longer—and he had no idea where they were.
Thinking back carefully, he realized they had climbed very high.
They had been walking upward for quite some time.

“You don’t know where you are because you haven’t judged the ground beneath your feet, haven’t judged the scenery around you, haven’t judged the direction you’re heading. You’ve merely drifted like duckweed on water, unthinking, until you happened to touch down somewhere.”
…….
“Hiaka has fallen, you say? How unfortunate. The moment you rendered that judgment, Hiaka fell in your world. I have no counsel to offer you on this matter. In my world, Hiaka has not fallen.”

Valmond wanted to object, though he felt ashamed even as the thought formed.

He wanted to ask: Then what is your Hiaka?

What is this Hiaka of yours, this grand Hiaka in your world, that you can still claim it hasn’t fallen when every cadet says otherwise? What could it possibly be?
Yet Valmond caught himself—he knew such a question would be presumptuous, and he doubted a word or two from the professor would convince him anyway.
He merely bowed his head.

“You’re curious about my Hiaka, aren’t you.”

But then—
Somehow, that uncanny professor had seen straight through to the depths of his petty heart.

“I’ll show you.”
“…Show me, sir?”
“Yes. I’ll show you my Hiaka. That’s precisely why I brought you here.”

The professor resumed walking.
From that moment on, Valmond followed behind as if entranced, stumbling through whatever lay ahead.

Is it really right in front of me?

Hiaka—a world so utterly foreign to mine,
a place that that righteous professor could stake his confidence had not fallen to ruin—

is simply that close at hand?

Before many steps had been taken.
Dante’s footfalls reached the crest of the slope.
And soon after, Valmond too rose to stand at his side.

“Behold. This is my Hiaka.”

Before them, the world unfurled.

It was nothing more than climbing to the peak of the Back Mountain and gazing down the precipice.
Yet the hour had long turned to night. Hiaka should have long since crumbled into ruin. And yet standing atop the summit, looking down, the world blazed with an almost unnatural abundance of light. There was light there. Too much light—far too much to dismiss it as ruined—
A single writhing world lay bare before Valmond’s eyes.

“And what of the distant quarters?”

Magic circles burned in the places where the Assassination Tournament had erupted. Light poured forth from the beacon of Harmony Peace Starlight, once shattered. Countless buildings blazed with lamplight.

“The place we just came from?”

The cigarette ends of Discipline Corps members who had utterly suppressed the ghoul attack glowed red. The headlamps of rescue workers searching through the ruins of the broken clock tower for those trapped beneath shone bright. Vehicles bearing the wounded moved with their own beacon glow. As if struggling desperately to affirm their own survival.
And Valmond himself—had he not just been there, writhing alongside them……?

Overwhelmed by the vista, Valmond held his tongue.
In a silence so profound no breath could be heard.

“You spoke of a ruin buried in darkness?”

The professor’s voice was low.

“And yet my Hiaka shines far too brightly for that.”

In that moment, Valmond felt something small and rigid lodged in his mind begin to shatter.

Was that the way of it?
Had it been so?

The professor was right.
Judgment truly became the world itself.

The moment he reached the same judgment, this world’s shape began to touch him differently.

Those who believed, unlike him, that Hiaka still shone bright—they burned with that light even now.

Within a world he had so presumptuously declared ruined…….

“The Division—the faculty and I—we prepare for the age to come. When that age arrives, Hiaka will place a heavy wager. Whether we gain or lose by that bet, none can say. But you will be that wager. You will become the vanguard of our rebirth.”
“…….”
“What you must do, you must think through and realize for yourself. And fill your mind with a good echo. When you are certain of what that is, come before me again and speak. If we come to see the same world, then I too can offer you counsel.”

With those words, the professor turned and left, nor did he call after Valmond.

After Grey departed, Valmond stood gazing down at Hiaka Academy for a long while.

A long while.

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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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