Surviving the Assassin Academy as a Genius Professor - Chapter 63

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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 63
EP18 – Over the Snow-Buried Ruins, Christmas Bells Ring (8)

“Hehehehe!”

About nine hours into the first day of the forty-eight. Until the end of day one.
I’d spent it being nothing but mocked by Galua.

“Ughehehe!”

Because Grey hadn’t been able to concentrate at all.
She’d done nothing but fail, right up to the very end.

Crash!

The Illusion Magic, nowhere near the correct answer, shattered.
Her student robes, pulled tight as if ready to burst, swelled and collapsed with each breath.
Grey sank to her knees, blood trickling from her nose.

“Hah… hah…”

Why couldn’t she concentrate?
If she’d just focused the way she normally did, she could have won.

* * *

……

To move muscles requires ATP within the body.
Moving mana also consumes mental energy.
That is Willpower.

Thus, anyone who overuses abilities and magic over extended periods experiences a depletion of Willpower.
An intense sense of helplessness and exhaustion.
A feeling as though nothing more could be done, as though nothing were worth doing.
That’s why Overload feels similar to depression.

……

Grey lay face-down in the Phantasmal Realm, her face buried in its depths.
Only a handful of the fragments she’d carelessly thrown had filled even a small part of the vast “branches.”
Most of the points she’d gained hadn’t come from answers she’d solved methodically herself.

……

She couldn’t concentrate.
In truth, from the moment before the test when she’d tried to unfold her Wings in the courtyard behind Zamryong Academy, Grey hadn’t been able to focus.

At some point, doubt had begun to creep in.
A fierce doubt—that those Wings weren’t something she had made.

In the haze of memory, she could feel Wings blooming where her hand had reached out.
But there was no concrete recollection. Like an empty book on a library shelf. That fact tormented her.

What if it wasn’t her? Then what about all the praise she’d received from those around her?
The professors and students praising her for something she’d done? The financial support the Academy had sent her as a gesture of patronage? The scheduled cover photo shoot for the Assassination Daily News?

But what troubled Grey even more than all of that was her disappointment in herself.

It was a falling airship. There were others aboard besides herself. She’d thought she’d been the one to save them.
Later, when the Captain thanked her, she’d played it off with careless banter—”Pfft! You’re hopeless, Captain♡ Can’t even manage a proper landing♡”—but inside, she was overjoyed.

Truly, genuinely overjoyed.

Grey had believed that saving a life was a tremendous achievement in her own right. It was her first time rescuing anyone. For the first time in her life, she’d done something that mattered.
But what if it had all been someone else’s doing?
Then what about me?

‘What did I even do…?’

Desperate to close that gap, she’d tried to unfurl her Wings—but she’d managed only ten meters, nowhere near the twenty she needed.
After that, every compliment, every kind word directed at her began to grate on her nerves.

Because those Wings weren’t truly hers.

Not the Wings of someone who had bet her entire childhood and her house’s honor on Illusion Magic, but someone else’s.

And so, her focus shattered. She finished that first day with what she herself knew was a pathetic score.

‘…241 points. How many did everyone else get…?’

She wiped the blood from her nose so the others wouldn’t see her shame. Walking weakly out of the Forest of Magic—the testing ground—she spotted Elise with a group of students.
Right, she’d been in the same class too.
She didn’t have the energy to greet her, so she was about to walk past.

“Elise. You got 500 points?”

The words made no sense.
How many?

“Yep.”
“Wow, you’re incredible! Is this what geniuses are really like?”
“500? I barely scraped 90. How on earth did you pull that off?”
“Well, I dug really hard at the roots. Like, dig-dig.”
“Dig-dig?”
“Yep, dig-dig.”

And with that, Elise bent at the waist, mimicking the motion with her hands—dig-dig.

Watching her, Grey felt irritation spike up through her chest.
It didn’t make sense.

“…What’s with all these 500 points?”

The words came out before she could stop them.
Elise turned to her with a wave.

“Oh? Hi, Grey.”
“Hey. I’m asking what’s up with all these 500 points….”
“Huh? I got 500. Well, maybe 510? Did I do okay?”

At that, the other students began whispering. ‘That’s right—Grey’s from an Illusion Magic noble house, isn’t she?’ ‘Shouldn’t she have scored even higher then?’ The words clawed at her pride.
Because hers was lower.

“Hey….”
“Hm?”
“Come here for a second….”

And so she called Grey aside separately and asked: did she really score 500 points?

“Yeah, yeah.”
“No, seriously, don’t lie to me….”
“I’m not lying.”
“Ah, come on, really…. That makes no sense…. How could you score 500 points? Do you honestly think that’s possible…?”
“Why not?”

Elise tilted her head, then broke into a bright smile.

“Mm, right. Grey must’ve scored higher than that, huh?”
“…….”
“How many points did you get? If I scored 500, you must’ve gotten around 1,000, right? You’re good at Illusion Magic, after all.”

Irritation flared up suddenly.

“Why are you lying to me?”
“Huh? I’m not ly—”
“Why are you lying? To me. It’s not like we’ve only just met.”
“…Huh?”
“Or are you saying you somehow….”
“……??”

Grey bit down on her lower lip.

“Stop messing with me. I’m getting seriously pissed off.”
“But I’m telling the truth?”

Her lower lip throbbed where she’d bitten it. Fury erupted in her all at once. She grabbed at Elise’s collar, but Grey was small and Elise was large in every way, which made the whole thing look absurd.
She shook, but her grip was weak and listless. So her own body swayed instead. It looked very wrong.

“Ahahah. What’re you doing? You don’t have any strength. You must be tired.”

At that moment, the frustration only deepened, and although Elise had reached 510 points, it seemed the Overload hadn’t set in yet. But that wasn’t the end of it.

“Why’re you being so cute today? Aw~”

Elise suddenly wrapped her arms around her. She pressed her warm cheek against Grey’s forehead.
That warmth on her forehead was the body heat rising from the discharge of magical power, a heat meant to cool down after exertion.
Grey understood in an instant.
Elise hadn’t been lying.

“…….”

She was the fool.

“…Let go.”
“Huh?”
“Let go. Please…. Just…go away.”

She pushed away and turned her body.
Self-loathing began to crack open inside her.

“Grey…? What’s wrong? Or…did the test not go well?”
“Don’t come near me. I mean it. If you do, I’ll die…. I’ll break up with you and leave Zamryong Academy….”
“???”

She fled hastily from that agonizing place.
And then, for some reason.

“It’s alright, Grey. You’ll do better tomorrow.”

That was what Elise had said to her.

“You can do it!”

What was she saying? It irritated me. At first, I’d thought otherwise.
The voice echoed through her mind.

You can do it.

In that instant, something like an electric current passed through Grey’s consciousness.
Vision blurring. Arms stiffening. Body collapsing. The left arm pressed against blood pouring endlessly down, and from within that embrace of her own shoulder came an adult’s voice.

— Try again. Just once more.
— I can’t.
— You can. You’re able to. You can do it.
— …….
— One last time. Let’s try once more.

And then?
I found a book on the shelf.
One page was missing.
Then what?
What had that adult said next?
After searching desperately, I found a single fallen page.

— This professor will help you.

Her ashen eyes widened in a perfect circle.

* * *

Day One of the examination had come to a close. About thirty of us—professors, teaching assistants, and other proctors overseeing the Illusion Magic section—returned to the lodgings near the Forest of Magic.

After the affair ended, Chief Galua dropped the smile from his face and comforted the other professors. In truth, both of us knew that the clash of pride between us had been nothing more than play.

But the mood was not one for such levity.

I thought about the “month-long research” that Chief Galua had proposed to involve me in. In truth, he had stepped away from research—fifteen years ago, no less.

Because the ninth-level magic “Land Regeneration,” which he had once monopolized and led the research on, had killed tens of thousands of innocent people during the 2nd Assassination War.

Originally, Land Regeneration was a magic meant to breathe life into soil. Its intended use was simple: place useless organic waste like food scraps into the formula, and it would be converted into nutrients evenly distributed across the entire land, instantly restoring the vitality of soil covering tens to hundreds of square kilometers.

It was a great magic that could save countless people from starvation and death. Despite bearing the stigma of having plagiarized papers, it was a landmark achievement that had placed him among star mages and made him a candidate for the Obell Award.

But the formula was leaked by Croix, and it was perverted in the hands of some mad mage.

In a single casting, all thirty thousand inhabitants of a vast dominion were devoured by the earth, shattered into fragments, and annihilated.

Magic created to save lives had massacred them instead.

The lives of Hiaka’s own people.

Profoundly devastated, Galua had declared his abandonment of magical research and retreated into seclusion for a long time.

So why was Galua now reaching back toward research? I believed it could only be because of the Rebellion and Collapse. The reason was that Glumi, the chief professor and Galua’s own star disciple, had betrayed him and murdered his other disciple.

In other words, we were taking this situation more seriously than anyone.

“Huff, huff, huff! Professor Dante! I’m here!”
“…….”

Hmm. Or was I?

“Have you heard the rumor? Our Parhan is still at 441 points, can you believe it? Lower than I expected—rather disappointing. How many points did your Grey achieve, you said? What? 241!? Oh my, what a shame~!”
“…….”

The second day of the exam had begun, but there was a problem. Grey hadn’t come to the examination hall. And the old man had been refueling his mouth with energy all night.

“What do we do? It’s a two-hundred-point gap. Really, what do we do, Professor? There’s still more than twenty-four hours left in the exam, but already I’ve got twenty days of your service coming to me. Our Parhan is getting a feel for things, but Grey isn’t even showing up? At this rate the gap just keeps widening, doesn’t it? It’s one day per ten points—so five hundred, a thousand, two thousand, five thousand…. But Professor Dante, how many days of your teaching career are left anyway? What if you’re stuck as an assistant professor until retirement!”

“But you know what? I was genuinely surprised yesterday. Grey’s got some real skill, hasn’t she? I never expected an assassin could rack up as many as 241 points…. Oh, my apologies—that wasn’t meant as an insult to assassins, I swear it. By this fair and just and stern star, I absolutely mean it! But Grey really does have the assassin’s touch about her. Is this that rumor I’ve only heard whispered about—’Concealment’ magic? Huff, huff, huff!”

“Oh, there’s Grey now. Though she didn’t need to come….”

“What? Grey, have you given up the exam? Why are you suddenly face-down like that?”

“Well, well…. Looks like she’s given up.”

“…Yes, I understand your disappointment. Still, don’t think too poorly—wait, what? In any case, if you work with me, I’ll teach you my methods this time around. Not that you’re a poor educator, but looking at our Parhan, you can see what superior teaching looks like, can’t you? You’re young and promising, so if you work hard going forward, you too can teach students well… ah, but how many days of your teaching career did you say were left?”

“As a heads-up, let me tell you now—I don’t let my assistant professors go home. When you come next time, bring a toothbrush-and-toothpaste set and a change of underwear. Why just one change? Because you’ll wash it and wear it every single day! What kind of assistant professor expects to do comfortable research! Do you think magical research is easy?! When I was an assistant professor, let me tell you, if I couldn’t even defecate within the designated time, I had to hold it until the next day! But being a man of character, I’ll always have defecation pads ready in your quarters….”

Had cement been available, I would have smeared it in my ears. This old man possessed a natural gift for turning people’s insides out. And his words were hideously, unbearably numerous.

In all of this, I couldn’t figure out what Grey was doing at all. Why was she lying face-down on the floor, adjusting her posture this way and that? And she’d been doing it for twenty minutes now.

For that very reason, just as my mind was about to abandon ship—

“Ah….”

Grey let out an exclamation, as though she’d found something.
Her posture was strange—kneeling, holding what looked like a rod made of Illusion Magic with one arm.

【 Grey: ‘Found it….’ 】

What on earth was that? Wasn’t the lack of concentration bad enough?
What in the world was she doing now….

【 Grey: ‘…Focus. Focus….’ 】

Then, my eyes went wide. Grey began to unfold her Illusion Magic, then started to Petrify her own arm.
Only then did I fully grasp Grey’s posture. It was the exact position from when she was falling from the airship—lying face-down, clutching at the vertical metal pillar of the deck wall.
Grey was recreating this moment—the instant when I approached her and we unfurled our Wings together.

【 Grey: ‘Focus….’ 】

Her breath trembling. Gripping the vertical pillar. Eyes shut.
At last, Grey unfurled her Illusion Magic.

Whoom ─── !

In an instant, a massive surge of magical power erupted like a tempest.
Simultaneously, fragments of countless trees materialized and began to construct themselves in the void.
In the empty white space of the Phantasmal Realm, the many tree fragments that Grey had embroidered one by one were—
In the shape of an enormous branch, from the heartwood at its core, through the crown, the sapwood, the cambium, the phloem, to the bark.
It rose into being, taking form perfectly aligned with the correct answer.

‘Ah.’

I marveled inwardly. It was an exceptionally masterful display of Illusion Magic. I couldn’t fathom why she’d employed Petrification, but one thing was certain—Grey had regained her senses sometime during the night.
I turned my gaze urgently downward. The rankings?

───
27. Grey 241
⋮
23. Grey 275
⋮
17. Grey 311
⋮
13. Grey 349
───

Yes! I clenched my fist. Her score was climbing at a mad pace. An utterly absurd rate.

“What? What what? What what what what!?”

At the same moment, a shriek erupted from beside me. The mad old wizard’s shriek. He, too, was watching Grey’s Phantasmal Realm as I was.

“What!? What is this! No, how did that girl suddenly—!?”

What music in this world could be sweeter than this?
I turned to him with a broad smile.

“Curious? I could explain it for you.”
“…Ah, well, that’s… fine….”
“No. Refusal is refusal. But who was this extra chair placed beside me for anyway? I suppose I can sit beside someone too.”
“…….”

His expression froze like a corpse. I pursued the old man as he hastily retreated, even claiming the folding chair he’d brought with him.
That’s right. Now it was my turn.

Time to torment the old man.

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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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