Surviving the Assassin Academy as a Genius Professor - Chapter 66

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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 66
EP18 – Over the Snow-Covered Ruins, the Christmas Bell Tolls (11)

There was a Spirit.

It had a peculiar form.

It was a spirit of the Spy Starlight Seat—a star spirit of that particular kind.
Among such spirits, this one took particular delight in observing people worn down by hardship or drowning in sorrow.

Recently, Hiaka had been a feast.
There were weeping people scattered throughout the city, which pleased it greatly; but there was one household it never failed to visit. It was a family of four who had moved here about a year ago.

The Spirit had observed them carefully.

From the Spirit’s deductions drawn from overheard conversations:
Once, this family of four had lived in the capital, but they lost their home and ended up on the streets because of the wife’s surgical debt.
The husband had decided to relocate. The daily wages at the Academy’s Sewage Treatment Facility were decent.
In the process, he brought along his younger brother, who suffered from severe mental illness; and they had one child, a ten-year-old with shoulder-length hair.
In simple terms, it was a household that depended entirely on the husband.

That husband was struck by a fragment of the Meteor and lost consciousness.

He lay sprawled on the ground, blood streaming from his head, but the hospital wards were packed—there was nowhere to take him.
The family, burdened by debt, lived in the slums of the outskirts, where property values were lowest even in District 2, and the unconscious husband had to receive treatment at home. Then today, the healing mage gently suggested he should begin making preparations. For the husband’s death.

“You!! This is all your fault! If you hadn’t gone out needlessly and gotten hurt…!”
“What do you know? What have you done while things got this bad? You’re nothing but a parasite holed up in your corner…!!”

The Spirit laughed at the spectacle.

The wife and the husband’s brother began their daily ritual of weeping and quarreling, and it did not end even after several days had passed. They attacked each other whenever they found the opportunity. Right beside the dying husband.
In the midst of it all, the child simply stared blankly.

The Spirit watched with fascination.

The child would sit with a vacant expression before the father, then step outside and walk around the neighborhood, only to return and repeat it all again.
Beyond the front door lay a snow-covered expanse of ruins.

Though foreign reports called it one of the cleanest examples of defending against the Meteor, there were still places where buildings had collapsed and people had perished. This was one of them.

The child walked blankly through the ruins. The child visited the broken school, then the Park where they used to go. Everything there lay in pieces. When snow fell and made the ground slippery, the child sometimes stumbled.

And then, with weary steps, the child returned to simply stand vigil before the father’s side.

The Spirit found this strange.

The Spirit reflected: it was odd. Humans typically wept when sorrowful, and children did so even more readily.

Why didn’t this one cry?

But interest faded quickly. There were too many other amusements to focus on a single strange child. It was time to move on and observe another household.

The Spirit drifted away into the falling snow.

* * *

In the downpour of snow, professors’ shoulders and foreheads had accumulated a fine layer of white.

“Fifty-three hours, fifty-one minutes, thirty-two seconds…….”

Professor Dante stepped forward, thirty faculty members arrayed behind him, and opened his mouth.

“We originally planned for forty-eight hours, and I judged that naturally insufficient.”

Some twelve hundred cadets held their silence, eyes lifted toward him.

“We faculty intended to fill the gaps. Yet remarkably, you exceeded our expectations. So we decided to wait a little longer.”

A final examination unprecedented in history, he called it. The rewards staked upon it were equally extraordinary.

Word had spread that mere participation would be recognized as a credential, and the cadets, caught between chaos and survival, could not afford to miss their chance. It was why everyone, without exception, had staked their lives and plunged into Illusion Magic.

“This tree has been completed by no hands but yours.”

Yet those four days had been relentless—the tree before them now, stretched skyward in all its expanded glory, bore the blood and sweat of them all. Dante regarded them quietly, acknowledging their labor.

“Truly magnificent.”

Then he continued.

“As you know, Hiaka Academy has endured hardship—not only in the study of Illusion Magic, but across all divisions. I won’t speak of suffering; you all feel it in your bones.”

Beneath the glittering expanse of the great Christmas Tree.
The cadets’ faces darkened.

“Yet viewed from on high, Hiaka has only stumbled once. The road will not wait—Hiaka must rise and walk.”

Dante reflected. This was his method, as a Player, to restore the nation’s morale.

“You shall continue to grow as trees, reaching ever higher.”

That was his sole purpose.

“And we faculty shall kindle the light above you.”

With those words, Professor Dante raised his hand.

At once, the other professors raised theirs as well.

All moved in mechanical unison, arms rising in perfect synchrony, and the cadets felt an inexplicable chill run through them.

Every faculty member snapped their fingers.

Snap!

The hour was precisely midnight.
Then something extraordinary began to unfold.
Light erupted from the base of the tree, cascading upward in brilliant succession. It raced along the massive Christmas Tree, climbing swiftly to touch its crown. A ribbon of luminescence seemed to connect the earth to the heavens themselves.
At the tree’s peak, there appeared a symbol—the Peace Starlight Seat ☮, embodying tranquility and renewal. Above the darkened sky, a star seemed to be born anew. This too was the manifestation of a colossal Illusion Magic, standing some two thousand meters tall.
At its climax, Professor Collider cried out.

“Merry Christmas—!!”

In that same moment, a bell suspended at the symbol’s center began to ring.

Dong—

Thump—

Thump—

Before a landscape so dreamlike it seemed unreal.

The cadets swelled with overwhelming emotion.

A bell rang out across the entire Academy.

* * *

The Royal Council Chamber lay in ruins.
A colossal tree of such staggering proportion that no measure could contain it, defying all sense of perspective, emanated a dull glow against the night sky.

“No, surely not!”
“This cannot be…!”

The distance from here to the Academy was a full twenty-five kilometers. A distance at which even a four-hundred-meter-tall monument to the Imperial Emperor would vanish from sight; a distance where the mightiest mountain range would appear as little more than a hazy ridge. Yet still, that tree—defiant of all reason—loomed as impossibly vast as if a mere sapling had been plucked up and suspended in the nearby air.

“Unbelievable….”
“Just how enormous is it…!?”

At last, when light kindled at its crown—illuminating the barely-visible emblem of the Peace Starlight Seat—the tree’s form became starkly defined.

It was Illusion Magic of remarkable precision, so much so that even the ignorant councilors perceived it as such.
The moment they thought they did not wish to see it, the enormous tree began to blur before their eyes.
Even those elders unfamiliar with Illusion Magic understood one thing: how advanced the underlying formulae must be for such magic to bend so fluidly to the caster’s will.

In that instant, Ezekiel, witnessing this sight for the first time, felt a tremor run through him.

This was unquestionably Level 9 Illusion Magic. And the mastery displayed was near its theoretical pinnacle.

Dante Hiaka. What in the world was that man….

Ezekiel composed himself and observed the reactions around him.
Sure enough, the councilors were utterly overwhelmed. How could they be otherwise? Beside that tree, even a dragon would seem no more than a fly. The sheer magnitude alone was the sensation of witnessing something from another dimension entirely.

Yet, remarkably, the King’s face remained expressionless—and that was what unsettled Ezekiel. No matter if every citizen in this nation gasped in wonder, if that great King showed no sign of interest, it would all be for nothing. Hiaka was a nation where the sovereign’s personal power was so utterly overwhelming that it made everything else irrelevant.

In his anxiety, Ezekiel waited for the King’s reaction and his words.

“Hmm—”

The King began to speak.
The mouths of the flustered ministers and elders snapped shut at once.

“Ezekiel.”

His voice, clipped and precise.

“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“What did you say your purpose was at the outset?”
“Yes. That is a vast Illusion Magic imbued with Scalability, and—”

The King raised his hand.
Ezekiel bowed his head.

“I come from a warrior background, so I’m ignorant of Illusion Magic. Speak more simply, if you would.”
“My apologies. All the Illusion Magic practitioners in this land can layer their own magic upon it. I wish to entrust the decoration of the Christmas Tree to them.”
“Why?”
“Because it is Illusion Magic capable of drawing the attention of the entire continent by itself. Given the scale of this event, I wish to show, however slightly, that Hiaka Academy remains strong.”
“How long will that tree last? What’s the investment status?”
“Yes. Professor Cain has invested ten million Hika. The Academic Division has additionally invested twenty million Hika. As a result, it is expected to last approximately seven days.”
“Seven days.”

The king began stroking his golden beard, then fell into thought.
Everything that came from his lips now would become the conclusion of this meeting. Ezekiel, sensing this, held his breath and listened intently.
Perhaps because he was so tense, the answer that came seemed oddly strange to his ears.

“We’ll have no need for a Royal Proclamation.”

His heart sank. No need? But he had come this far precisely to obtain that one thing?

“…Pardon?”

Before he could help himself, the question came out sharp.

“We can make the spectacle larger.”
“Pardon? Ah, my apologies, Your Majesty. I’m not certain what you mean by making the spectacle larger….”
“If I were on the opposite side of the continent, I would still be willing to board an airship to see this.”
“……!!”

Only then did Ezekiel grasp the king’s intention, and he was astounded.
Ezekiel and Dante, the Academic Division—they had hoped this event would spread only throughout Hiaka.
But the king had decided to announce it to the entire continent!

And it was truly reasonable!
Though he dared not speak it aloud, Ezekiel had in fact harbored such a hope.
For that colossal Illusion Magic was a wonder that had never once existed in all of human history!

“Hadel.”
“Yes! I await your command, Your Majesty!”
“Send a letter to the Empire’s Hatengrajou Academy.”
“Yes!”
“Furthermore, Vitali, Koran, and Yusin—confer with the ministers at once. The Crown shall invest three hundred million Hika to extend the duration of that Illusion Magic, and establish temporary tourism facilities near District 9. By royal decree.”
“Yes!”
“We shall obey your command, Your Majesty!”

Tourism facilities???
Ezekiel’s jaw clenched so hard it felt like it might shatter.

“Thank you, Your Majesty.”

The king did not answer. But now that the floodgates had opened, it felt as though everything was rushing through, completely unobstructed.
Imagine. How would those arrogant Empire people react when they saw this?
And those Croitz dogs, so certain they had utterly destroyed Hiaka’s Illusion Magic—what would they say?

‘That bastard Battaleon, you son of a bitch!’

Hadn’t he received extraordinary rewards in the Croitz royal court for the achievement of stealing all of Hiaka’s Illusion Magic?
That ungrateful wretch would now have to regurgitate everything he’d swallowed!
It was hard to contain the smile spreading across his face. A thrilling current ran down his spine like electricity.

‘Dante, you magnificent bastard!’

All of this—this miracle was being born from the fingertips of Professor Dante Hiaka alone!
Ezekiel felt as though his mind might soar away. Beautiful! Truly the most beautiful being in the world! Right now, Dante was more beautiful to him than his own granddaughter!!

“Your Majesty.”

One of the council members spoke up then.
To the king, whose vacant eyes had been fixed on the tree.

“What is it?”
“Forgive me, but might there be a motto befitting this occasion?”
“A motto?”
“Ah, my deepest apologies. The administration came together so hastily, I thought I should ask while I had the chance….”
“A prayer for Hiaka.”

The king answered without hesitation. In a moment when Croitz was escaping responsibility for the Assassination Conspiracy while Hiaka appeared merely as a powerless nation that had suffered it, the motto was perfectly apt.

“And add that Cain created it.”
“Yes, sire!”

Then something seemed to occur to him.
The king split his mouth wide like a dragon and smiled.

“While we’re at it, send a request to the Empire for peace talks as well.”
“Yes, Your Majesty!”

At that, Ezekiel’s expression brightened with fresh delight. Peace talks—surely the king of Croitz would attend?

“Ezekiel. Can you bring that fellow Cain to the talks?”
“…Ah, yes! If the royal court accompanies him, it’s possible. If Your Majesty would grant permission to go….”
“Very well. Once we fix the date, send him to the royal residence.”
“…….”

In that moment, the Archmage Ezekiel’s imagination spiraled. He pictured Professor Dante performing his antics before the gathered kings of various nations. And all of it before the king of Croitz himself, who had invested hundreds of billions of Hika into Illusion Magic!

“I shall obey your command. …….”

So Ezekiel’s mouth would not close. He had things he wanted to say, and his words kept tumbling out in hesitant fragments. Should he speak? Should he not?
Should he? Shouldn’t he? Should he? Shouldn’t he? Should he? Shouldn’t he…….
But how could he possibly say it?

“…….”

……Take me along too!!

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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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