Surviving the Assassin Academy as a Genius Professor - Chapter 85

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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 85
[Main Story] No. 2 Betting Table (1)

It had been a genuinely long day. Faculty meetings, manufacturing a Cain figurine to send before the Empire’s professors, chasing down violations in District 4’s Discipline Department—and it was still only evening.

Just as I was finally about to head out to meet Grey, text suddenly bloomed across my vision.

「 ⧉ [Main Story] No. 2 Betting Table 」

Ah. It’s beginning already.
The second act of the story.
Sooner than I expected. I’d thought it would start once the Empire Pact was ratified, but it seems the curtain rises with Grey’s dispatch to the Empire itself.

Looking back at No. 1, “Betrayal and Collapse,” you could see that the Main Story didn’t signify any single narrative so much as a vast, overarching current.
Where “Betrayal and Collapse” had already reached its conclusion, “Betting Table,” by contrast, would stretch on far, far longer.
At shortest it might reach Main Story 3; at longest, Main Story 7.

‘The real beginning starts now.’

And beyond that.
From this point forward, the One-Horned Demons would begin to appear.
As the concept known as the Demon King’s Assault.
Separate from the Main Story proper—a concept of indiscriminate terror being unleashed across every nation.

……Which was the pattern for Hard Difficulty.
How Hell Difficulty would play out, though—I couldn’t know yet.

‘It could be even worse.’

The Jinksite from before was mid-to-high tier among One-Horned Demons, so it wouldn’t appear yet.
Instead, One-Horned Demons slightly lower in rank would emerge, along with swarms of Hornless Demons.
More than anything, there was no way of knowing when or how Error Spaces and other bugs might surface. I’d need to stay sharp. There could be countless problems closing in from all sides.

Still, I didn’t think there was anything I couldn’t solve.

* * *

x.

A single letter that had surfaced in Grey’s mind.
Spelled out a bit more fully, it was this:

x is done.

Tomorrow. To the Empire. To the studio at the Assassination Daily News headquarters—tomorrow morning!

‘Ugh.’

Though most people around her knew her as composed and mature (or so Grey believed), never in her life had she found herself standing before an opportunity this immense.

‘I have to do well….’

In the short term, it would be the first image of Hiaka Academy—a school with poor reputation across the continent.

In the long term, it was the first chance to bring the Glass Butterfly, whose bloodline had been running dry, to every corner of the continent, beginning with the Empire.

Grey and her house, Habanero, would finally draw near to that dream they had long pursued.

‘I have to do well…’

Grey clenched her trembling fists tight.

It’s fine!

She’d been preparing for ages. Over the past month she’d devoured every interview with the cover models, every photo, every article that appeared in print.

What sort of place was the Assassination Daily? A rag so trashy even that fool Elise knew of it! The content was sensational through and through, but the cover models themselves had been genuine and seemed to have conviction. That impressed her.

She had plenty to say herself. She’d written and rewritten script after script, filling and emptying the wastebasket as she prepared, memorizing it all by heart……

‘Wait…??’

But as the hour approached, Grey realized she’d forgotten the single most important thing.

‘What am I going to wear!?’

She threw open her wardrobe. A wasteland.
A model, after all, exists to show herself to others.

As the face representing the Hiaka Assassination Department, what should Grey wear? How should she present herself?

She had no idea.

“H-help…! Help me…!!”

At this, Elise, maid Lucy, and inexplicably Rebecca too all rushed to her room and threw themselves into the frenzy.

“No short skirts! Nothing that shows her chest!”

The dog-hearted woman who loved humanity tried her best to wrap Grey up tight as a drum.

“Shouldn’t she look modest and a bit pitiful? A casual everyday outfit might actually work, don’t you think?”

The maid, who knew how to adapt herself to time and place, argued that Hiaka’s underdog status should be the message.

“The buyer sets the value. Do you know what the protagonist wore in the month the Assassination Daily sold the most copies?”

The princess, who saw people as instruments, casually unfastened the buttons of Grey’s student uniform top, baring her skin.

“Huh??”

Elise yelped and leapt back.
She hurriedly grabbed the loosened buttons and fastened them shut.

“What are you doing?”
“I can’t allow that, Your Highness.”
“Why not.”
“If a woman shows too much of her legs or body, she shouldn’t.”
“Says who.”
“Father….”

Maid Lucy had gone pale with alarm, knowing that the princess disliked being contradicted.
Yet surprisingly, Rebecca wasn’t overbearing even in this casual moment.

“Usually, that’s true enough.”
“Isn’t it, Your Highness?”
“Especially not you.”
“Hm?”

A sudden tide of gazes washed over her.
Everyone tended to notice it eventually—that Elise was, quite simply, large in every dimension.
Tall as a man. Hands and feet to match.
Her bust so ample that the buttons of her Student Uniform seemed to be suffering for it, and the graceful curve of her waist was equally generous.
If you were to rate her by build, she was a large-breed dog through and through.

“For you, concealment is more flattering. For me, exposure suits better. She, meanwhile—small frame, small stature—but her body is like a canvas painted with art. We each require different strategies.”

Beautiful tattoos.
They were unconventional, yes, but all the more striking for it.
Rebecca continued her explanation.

“Humans universally desire the ideal. And the ideal, it seems, is often contradictory.”

“A man yearns for a great lover to be devoted to him alone, yet he desires a chaste woman with a wanton side. Impossible, and yet the heart wants what it wants.”

“Grey is young with tattoos covering her skin—so in an outfit where skin should remain hidden, skin must be revealed.”

And with that, she expounded on how this was precisely the method to etch Grey into the public consciousness.
Lucy the maid was inwardly flustered, for Rebecca’s way of thinking was somewhat… peculiar.

“Um… Your Highness… I don’t think that’s quite right…”
“I am correct.”
“But wouldn’t something more… modest be better?”

Back and forth they went.

Ordinarily Rebecca bullied them both into submission, but Elise could be stubborn on matters like this, and Lucy kept interjecting softly that simplicity was the way. The gap between their opinions would not close.
There was no meeting them halfway.
There was only one solution.

“Try it on.”

Seeing it in person was the only way.

“R-really? Then I’ll start with this one?”

Grey entered the changing room and put on the outfit Rebecca had recommended.
When she stepped back out,
she unfurled the towel wrapped around her.

“Ta-da…?”

It was a Student Uniform with severe exposure—cutouts in places a Student Uniform had no business being cut.
Far more daring than what Grey normally wore.

“She’s lost her mind……”

Elise was aghast.

“No. No, Your Highness. No. Grey, I cannot—I will not endorse this.”
“Bold, certainly. But beautiful.”
“No? No? No, absolutely not. No, definitely not… If you send her out in that, the Assassination Daily News will have a field day.”

Elise was practically seizing with disapproval.
Lucy spoke up then.

“So what do you recommend, Elise?”
“Hmm? I’d suggest this one.”

Grey emerged wearing the outfit Elise had selected and spread the towel aside.

“Ah, well…??”

It was a dark operative’s outfit—jet-black, heavy fabric that concealed even her hair, leaving only her eyes exposed.

“…Are you joking?”

The princess’s brow furrowed sharply.

“Are you sending me off to commit terrorism?”
“Why not? You look like an assassin….”
“Enough of that. Why are you talking like that? Dark operative gear—it’s common as dirt among foreign assassination guilds. I won’t have Hiaka’s face draped in such rags. Take it off immediately!”

Elise’s jaw dropped, and she began mumbling in defeat.
Next came Lucy’s turn.

“Grey, would you try on what I picked this time?”
“Sure…. I honestly have no sense for this.”
“When circumstances are complex, sometimes the simplest answer is the right one.”

Now it was Lucy’s selection.
She unfolded the towel.

“Tada…?”

It was modest attire.
A plain white shirt and jeans.

“Hmm. What do you think…? It feels strange wearing everyday clothes instead of a student uniform or mission gear. It’s been so long….”

At Grey’s words, the three fell silent, lost in contemplation.

“…….”
Elise, the conservative one, approved because the outfit covered her legs, torso, and chest entirely.

“…….”
Rebecca found beauty in the paradox—how modest clothing made her tattoo’s presence all the more striking.

“…….”
Lucy was pleased because this way, the continent would regard Hiaka as an innocent victim.

“I like it.”
“Really? What about you, Your Highness?”
“Yes.”
“Is it acceptable? What about you, maid?”
“It’s my choice, so of course it’s fine. Pretty. Tasteful.”

So the modest look it was……!!

……The very moment that decision was made, a visitor arrived at Zamryong Academy.
It was Professor Dante.
At which point Elise and Lucy both gasped.
Dante Hiakafone?
He cycled through several outfits—blazers, shirts, suits, and so on—but didn’t his formal attire look remarkably sharp?
So much so that there were quite a few students who imitated Professor Dante’s style.
Perhaps asking him for advice would be worthwhile…. They were thinking precisely that when.
Professor Dante paused for a moment outside the door where the four women were gathered, reading the atmosphere before abruptly speaking up.

“Grey Habanero. What in blazes are you wearing?”

The maid Lucy raised her hand.

“Ah, Professor. This is an outfit we prepared for tomorrow’s Assassination Daily shoot. We were just having a meeting amongst ourselves…”
“Change out of it.”
“…Pardon?”
“You cannot wear that dress.”

What was this sudden declaration about?
Everyone exchanged bewildered glances.
Then Professor Dante dropped a bombshell.

“Kroitz is coming to tomorrow’s Assassination Daily shoot.”

What?

Dante proceeded to explain the details. Specifically, the young lady of the Carolina House—a renowned family of Illusion Magic practitioners within Kroitz—was scheduled to appear alongside Grey as a monthly cover model. This was intelligence that had just come in through the Royal Attendants Office, and the Academy Faculty was determined to proceed regardless.
At this, all four women’s expressions shifted. Elise reacted the most dramatically.

“What?!”

Even Elise, normally measured and soft-spoken, was startled enough that the shock this revelation carried was immense.
Maid Lucy began protesting loudly—”But that doesn’t make any sense!”—yet the one most directly concerned remained silent.
So what of the one most affected?

……

Grey had gone rigid.

The Carolina House was, after all, the ancient rival family of Habanero in all of recorded history.
After absorbing this chaos, all three of their gazes turned back toward Grey.
And without exception, each of them sank into deep despair at the sheer predicament.

“Was this information brought back by Seongru?”
“It was.”

Only then did Rebecca check the Crystal Orb, and belatedly reviewed the message that had come from Seongru.
It was the sort of thing that happened often enough to Rebecca, who slept during the day and communicated only when she felt like it.

After hurling his verbal bomb, Professor Dante made to leave. Rebecca, her expression darkening with anger, followed him out, then turned back to Grey and spoke.

“Take off that dress. Now.”
“Huh…? Then what should Grey wear…?”

A murderous glint flickered across the princess’s eyes.

“I’ll prepare something.”

Elise frowned, thinking surely not—but that wasn’t what the princess meant at all.

“I thought this was going to be half an outing, nothing serious. But clearly there are rules to how far one can go, and these bastards are crossing every line…”

The princess muttered, then asked:

“What time is the shoot tomorrow?”
“They said one o’clock in the afternoon. We’re leaving at nine in the morning.”

Time was slipping away.
By tomorrow, there would be no chance for any last-minute adjustments.
It had to be done now.
Rebecca made a phone call, speaking with quiet urgency.

“Summon the Royal Attendants Office at once.”
“The Royal Attendants, Your Highness?”
“Your Highness…!”

Elise and Lucy started in alarm. The powder room—reserved exclusively for the royal family. Wasn’t that precisely what the Royal Attendants Office existed to oversee?
Yet Rebecca felt no obligation to observe royal protocol while Kroitz—that contemptible name—hung over everything like a stain.
Exactly five minutes later.
Five royal attendants materialized at Zamryong Academy, having arrived via Teleport accompanied by no less than the palace’s own mage.

“What is required of us, Your Highness?”

No persuasion or lengthy explanation was necessary.

“Tomorrow, a student from Kroitz’s Illusion Magic house is coming. The Assassination Daily News confirmed it.”

Shadows fell across the attendants’ faces.

Kroitz?

That was when the subject arrived.

“Oh, she changed out of her uniform and came and… wait, who are all these—?”

The attendants appraised Grey. The foundation was good enough, though the tattoo was regrettable. There was also a certain rough-around-the-edges quality to her bearing.

But regardless of the subject’s condition, she had to be incomparably more beautiful than the Kroitz girl. Without exception.

Without exception.

That was why they had come. Five senior attendants from the Royal Attendants Office—each specializing in hair, skin and conditioning, wardrobes, nails and accessories, and makeup respectively. Their collective experience spanned one hundred thirty-seven years.

“Leave her to us, Your Highness.”

From this moment forward, Grey would become the goddess of Hiaka.

“This way, our dear student?”
“Huh? Me…?”
“Come along now. We haven’t a moment to spare.”

Soon Grey was swept up in the attendants’ capable hands and dragged into the makeshift powder room.
Like a country alley cat caught by a group of doting grandmothers being hauled toward a bath.

“Wait, I… I haven’t even…”

And the curtain fell closed.

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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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