Surviving the Assassin Academy as a Genius Professor - Chapter 73

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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 73
EP19 – Yuri Nabi (1)

“Hey! You scoundrel, what is this?!”

In the residence of Galua, the Academy’s chief lecturer, an old man flew into a rage. He’d swapped ninety worthless potions for a single high-grade one and walked out.

“What’s the matter?”
“What do you mean, what’s the matter?! You took the good one, so get out!”

He’d chased me from his residence in an absolute fury.
And he had every right to be.

＊ Mana Potion (MP+451) [Legendary I]

Because I’d taken this.

“Hmph! Professor Dante, you really are blessed with fortune! If only my Parhan’s mind hadn’t broken… Parhan…! Victory would have been mine!”
“But it did break, didn’t it?”
“Shut your mouth, you lucky bastard!”

If I’d distributed them among ninety people, ninety potions would show far greater mana gains in total. But the larger one’s mana capacity grows, the lower the absorption rate of potions becomes.

Take, for example, this one I’d received from Kaiser long ago.

＊ Mana Potion (MP+37) [Rare]

…if I consumed it now.

＊ Mana Potion (MP+21) [Rare]

The numbers themselves display differently.
Because I’d already raised my mana considerably through private training.
When I’d swallow ten of those worthless potions, the values drop geometrically: +21, +17, +8, +5… and so on.

‘The human species’ maximum mana capacity is ten thousand. Even that is a realm only the chosen few can reach.’

That’s why one must consume high-grade potions.
And I’d obtained one worth a staggering +451.
Excellent.

“By the way, is this expensive?”
“Quiet! Get out of here!”
“Understood. Understood. Don’t be sour.”

As I left, I glanced back at him.

“But if it’s expensive, can I sell it?”

Leaving Galua to his fit behind me.

I returned to the Research Office and immediately placed the potion in my mouth.
It was a yellow coin-sized Illusory Pill.
Or rather—was this made from ground mummy?

“…Ugh.”

The revolting taste scraped the inside of my nose.
After the nausea had passed,
elation bloomed and filled my entire body.

At last, I’d broken through 170,000 in Overall Combat Power.
Now I could deploy the Kaleidoscope at full power twice over and still have Mana remaining.
I was becoming a monster of a professor with each passing day.

‘Next comes the private training session….’

I conjured a butterfly with Illusion Magic in the palm of my hand.
A blue-light butterfly fluttering and dancing through the air.
Its form was flawless to any observer.
And yet…….

The World Forgery Mastery Level I’d been steadily building was now within striking distance of 90%.
But this cursed 0.01 percent wouldn’t budge.
I’d spent the entire day barricaded in the Research Office crafting countless intricate Illusion Magic constructs, yet nothing shifted.

‘I drew a dragon, but I have no idea how to paint its eyes.’

In forging worlds, I’d reached the point where I could fabricate anything.
Matter, phenomena, space, even perception itself.
If anything proved complex, I simply needed time to manifest it. Within the reach of my cognition, there existed nothing I could not fabricate.
And yet the Mastery Level presented me with a problem—telling me I still had far to go, that something existed I could not forge.
I was the one who’d conjured trees blanketing the sky, succeeding even in an Illusion Magic so colossal that humanity’s history had never witnessed its like.
What more could I possibly forge at this point?

‘I have no idea.’

I stood before some wall that blocked my passage—an honest confession from a scholar.
From here on, deceptive tricks and mechanical repetition no longer sufficed.
I needed insight.
Not the kind that arrives like a lightning bolt from heaven.
Even grasping the thinnest thread’s end would do, but I had to seize an insight I’d never grasped before.

‘Of course, if I invested Fragments of Star, I’d gain the insight immediately and surpass 90% at once….’

Fifty-three Fragments just to raise 0.01 percent.
Including the gift from Hwahwa Song last time, I held four hundred Fragments of Star total.

What did this sum of four hundred Fragments represent?
Rice from a free meal center. Clothes from a donation bin. A cardboard bed at Seoul Station instead of a home. These were four hundred Fragments painstakingly scraped together.
I could never waste them on something like this.

‘I must spend them when I have a clearer, more certain use.’

At that, I rose from my seat.
It was time to meet someone.

The first-place scorer on the Final Examination.

* * *

The meeting place was Batalion Hall.
Or rather, what used to be “Cain Hall.”

Batalion Hall had burned to the ground, and they’d built a new indoor gymnasium in its place.
The Academy had attached my alias to it. Embarrassingly so.
I arrived earlier than the appointed time, and a cadet was already there, waiting for me.

“…Hello, Professor.”

A cadet with grey hair. Grey Habanero.
Her usual short skirt. Revealing cadet uniform. And tattoos.
But today was different from usual—there was no playfulness in her face. In fact, her buck teeth weren’t showing.

“Grey Habanero. Congratulations on placing first in the Final Examination.”
“I should congratulate you too, Professor.”
“On what.”
“Teaching a genius.”

She held up two fingers in a V-sign against her cheek, even winking.
But the playfulness was muted.
There was something almost melancholy about it.

“Starting today, we enter Private Tutoring. All sessions will be conducted one-on-one here at Cain Hall. I’ll teach you a Secret Technique, and we’re scheduled for up to three sessions until you reach a certain level of proficiency.”
“Yes.”
“So what do you want to learn.”
“…….”

Grey stared at me, then looked down at her feet, then raised her head to meet my eyes again. The melancholy I’d noticed before deepened. This happened several times.

“……Um, there’s something I want to say honestly.”

Her voice came out cautiously.

“I’m listening.”
“…….”

Still, Grey hesitated.

“…….”
“…….”

As I waited, Grey scratched the back of her neck awkwardly and looked away.

“…What should I do.”

A sigh-like whisper escaped her lips.

“Why.”
“…I can’t say it.”
“You can.”
“I mean, I can say it, but I feel like you’ll think I’m being presumptuous….”
“I won’t think that.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“……”

Grey brushed her hair back, then carefully opened her mouth.

“…Honestly, Professor, I know you’re good at Illusion Magic, right? About the same as me…. Or maybe even better.”
“But.”
“But, um, well….”

Grey glanced sidelong, gauging the mood.

“Speak freely. I won’t take offense. Besides, wasn’t it you who walked into the Academy wearing a Bomb Vest because you disapproved of the place?”
“Ah…?? No, I just didn’t need to make a good impression on those professors….”

Some words take time to say.
Knowing this, I waited in silence.
After a moment’s hesitation, Grey spoke in a voice small as a mouse’s tail.

“……I’m not sure if you should even be teaching me.”

Her small voice rippled through the vast auditorium like a wave.

“What do you mean.”
“……Are you angry, perhaps?”
“No. I simply failed to grasp the implication of what you said.”
“…….”

Grey scratched her head.

“…The thing is, I’ve never learned Illusion Magic from anyone else before….”
“Never?”
“No…. Not from anyone outside the Habanero Clan…. Because the Habanero Clan’s Illusion Magic is unique and magnificent, right? But our clan, we….”

Grey trailed off.

“…Do you understand?”
“I do.”

The Habanero Clan had been nearly exterminated during the Habanero Incident.
As far as I knew, most of the adults had perished.
In other words, there was no one left to teach Grey.

“People say that if the lineage or application methods differ, you can develop bad habits, or your existing Ability system could be negatively affected.”
“That is objectively true.”
“Actually, I had the chance to learn from Gloomy in the first semester, but I refused. I’m the last person to have inherited the clan’s Illusion Magic. If I learn a different Illusion Magic and it harms the clan’s unique techniques, it could be catastrophic….”

Grey continued, averting her gaze.

“I have a responsibility to preserve the Habanero Illusion Magic…. If I learn wrong just once, a heritage that’s been passed down for two hundred years dies with me.”
“That’s so.”
“So I don’t know. Whether I should even learn from you….”

I understood well enough.
Grey dimly knew that I was Cain. From that perspective, I was the professor with the highest stock value imaginable.
A one-on-one learning opportunity with me was, no matter Zamryong Academy’s standing, an extraordinary chance.
Yet because of her personal circumstances, she had to hesitate—and that embarrassed her.

“…Do you understand what I mean…?”
“Yes. I fully comprehend.”

Ordinary Illusion Magic and Grey’s were fundamentally different.
To make a simple analogy.
All Illusion practitioners, myself included, manipulate a ‘computer’.
But the Habanero Illusion Magic feels more like manipulating a ‘magical mirror’.

What’s the point of teaching coding day in and day out?
There’s no keyboard in front of a mirror.

In that regard, Grey’s dilemma was justified.
And yet, there was no solution.

‘But ultimately, for the sake of the Relationship Chart, and for the use of the Betting Table, Grey must learn from me and grow.’

So what do I do?

The two of us fell into silence, and I let my thoughts drift from one possibility to another.
About the connection between Illusion Magic as I understood and judged it, and the Habanero Clan’s unique Yuri Nabi. Or rather, their compatibility.
Yet no matter how hard I thought, I came up empty.
No amount of skill with computers could translate into immediately handling a magical mirror.

“…I’ve decided.”

Grey looked at me with tense eyes. There was a hint of apology in her gaze—she knew that she’d posed a problem, and that the problem had no solution.
My answer was much the same. There was no method to teach Grey right now.

“I won’t teach you.”
“….”

Perhaps because she’d hoped for something anyway.
Her gaze fell. Melancholy settled in the corners of her eyes.

“…I’m sorry. I said I wanted to learn.”
“Instead, I’ll contact the Academy and increase the lecture hours from three to five.”
“…?”

An odd statement from me.
Grey turned to face me. Confusion written across her features.

“As things stand, I have no method to teach you. That much is clear. However, I’ve judged that circumventing such a problem wouldn’t be right.”
“…Then?”

Life is full of great and small difficulties.
This problem was that I had, as yet, no method to teach Grey.
And here is the answer I arrived at.

“You will teach me instead.”

Her slack expression suddenly shifted, and her buck teeth showed through.

“…Huh?”
“Literally. I’ll learn from you. Your family’s unique Yuri Nabi. And then, drawing upon my own supreme mastery, I’ll be able to turn around and teach it back to you. That is the conclusion I’ve reached.”
“…Huh??”

The next moment, Grey’s brow furrowed.

“That doesn’t even….”

The defeated look on her face was a bonus.

“No, seriously? Professor, have you even ever learned Yuri Nabi before…?”
“No.”

A sigh escaped from her cat-like mouth.

“…Aren’t you thinking about this too simply right now?”
“I never thought that way. I do know what the Yuri Nabi is as an Illusion Magic.”
“You don’t seem to realize how difficult it is… The Yuri Nabi is an incredibly complex Illusion Magic. Back when I attended an Academy exchange event, I taught it to some Symphony Grade Illusion Magic practitioners, and even they couldn’t grasp it at all…”

She folded her arms.
As if she’d just heard something absurd.

“Since I create it so easily even at a young age, you probably think it’s simple. But I’m a genius. The other elders in my clan needed thirty, fifty years to reach my level.”

I knew that too. No ordinary person, no matter how hard they worked their entire life, would ever reach where Grey stands now.

“I’m grateful that you put thought into this for me… But I’ll just learn something else next time.”

She was giving up.
I had no intention of persuading her.

“I understand your position. Then, let’s do it this way.”
“Hm?”
“I know the third form of the Yuri Nabi—the Embroidery. Just that one technique for this hour. Let me learn it from you.”
“……”

Grey’s expression grew even stranger.
She might have been slightly surprised that I mentioned the third form, the Embroidery.
Or it could have been because I was skipping the first and second forms and learning directly from the third.

“Where on earth did you learn that… And normally, it takes at least a year to learn the Embroidery. It took me a month, too.”
“I know.”
“You know all this? I didn’t think you’d be this stubborn…”
“I’ll take that as a yes. Shall we move locations? Somewhere more fitting.”
“Where are we going?”
“Here.”

Snap—

The instant my finger flicked, the entire interior of the auditorium transformed into a beautiful dandelion flower field on a spring day.

⋮
『 World Fabrication: Space Fabrication [Flower Field] 』
⋮

Grey’s eyes widened.
The best place to learn the Embroidery is nature itself—somewhere butterflies would be.

“How do you keep knowing things like this…?”

Her murmuring voice grew quieter. By now, she’d probably figured it out—that I knew far more about the Habanero Clan than she’d expected.

“Sigh… You say it’s difficult, but then you keep… Are we doing this now…?”
“Yes.”
“…Fine. Let’s start.”

And so we sat side by side in the forest.

“Well, first… The Yuri Nabi requires imagination and mental imagery as an Illusion Magic. Among its forms, the Embroidery is…”

Grey began teaching me the Yuri Nabi in a reluctant, pouty voice.

“No, you have to do this step by step, gradually. You can’t go at it like this. It’s too hasty…”

She grumbled frequently, frustrated.

“…Yes. It’s good, but it still feels a bit artificial. They’re flying too smoothly. Animals stumble far more than people imagine, you see? So maybe if you made it a little more like this…. Like…that….”

She had been teaching me with genuine dedication. Truly.

“…But no matter how I look at it, today is just too much to ask…?”

* * *

A man of ordinary talent would need a year.
Even a genius would need a month.

I did it in an hour.

An hour and a few minutes after I began learning. Countless butterflies now danced and fluttered across the yellow flower field and sky, as if they had been ’embroidered’ there.

So very many blue butterflies…….

The grey cat gazed about in a daze, her clenched fist raised to slant-wise cover her mouth with the butterfly drawn on the back of her hand.

When the butterflies finally faded, her wandering gaze found its way to me. Grey stared at me for a long moment, her buck teeth hidden away.

“…….”

As though she were looking at a monster.

—————
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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