Surviving the Assassin Academy as a Genius Professor - Chapter 9

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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 9
EP4 – World Fabrication (2)

In Dante Hiakkapo’s estimation,
learning World Fabrication as his first Ability had been a stroke of genius.
It was because of his other class—Assassination Practical Training.

“After him!”
“He went that way!”

Class time. The cadets were running. To kill their professor.

“Where is he?!”
“He went over there!”

For thirty minutes, they could locate Professor Dante in a designated area and attempt to assassinate him; for the latter thirty minutes, they received instruction from him.
It was also the class Dante Hiakkapo despised most. According to what he’d heard from other professors, Assassination Practical Training was the most dangerous course offered. And they weren’t wrong.

“Damn it, he dodged the trap!”
“It’s fine! Push harder—just a little more!”

In the closed commercial district, now serving as the stage for Urban District Assassination Training, the cadets hunted Dante, vaulting through windows and bounding across rooftops in urgent pursuit.

“There! That’s Professor Dante!”

At that, one cadet spotted the professor and cried out.

“Gideon! Fire!”
“Got it!”

Whish-whish-whish-whisk—

The cadet hurled a shuriken. Wielding the Throwing Art, a single shuriken split into fifteen, tearing through the air.

“The professor’s fading!”

But just as Professor Dante seemed to blur, he was already gone from that spot.

Thunk-thunk-thunk-thunk!

Shuriken embedded in the wall. The cadet stepped on them, scaled upward, and swung his gaze around searching. Where had Professor Dante gone?

“Ah! The rooftop!”

The cadets clicked their tongues in frustration—the professor stood at the edge of the four-story building’s rooftop without a single leap, looking down at them.

Bang! Rat-a-tat-bang!

Gunfire erupted. Dante simply tilted his head to evade, then turned his body toward the far side of the rooftop.

“Don’t lose him! It’s open ground—wherever he runs, we’ll see him.”
“After him!”

Several cadets employed the Movement Technique, pressing off walls to reach the rooftop and pursue Dante, but when they arrived, only a dusty, empty expanse greeted them.

“Damn it. Where the hell did he go? We barely found him ten minutes ago.”
“Hey. Hey….”
“Huh?”
“Look at that. I’m getting chills.”
“Why.”

At his friend’s words, the cadet looked toward the dusty floor of the rooftop. But what exactly was causing the chills……?

“Wait, seriously! Professor Dante was standing right there!”
“So what? …Oh!”

Where Professor Dante had climbed up. Where he had walked. There were no footprints anywhere.
The bewildered cadet looked behind himself. There, footprints were scattered about in messy profusion.

“Huh……. The Movement Technique is on a different level.”
“This is maddening. How would you ever assassinate someone like this?”

……In truth, the Dante who had been walking was a Phantom Body. The Dante standing on the rooftop was also a Phantom Body. Because the phantom body bore no weight, it left no footprints, and since it could be created and erased anywhere within the range of the Illusion Technique, it appeared as if he had teleported.
Even if a professor-level assassin came, they wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. To the cadets’ eyes, it was unmistakably an extraordinarily advanced Movement Technique.
A Level 9 Forbidden Ability was in that realm entirely.

In pure martial strength, the current Dante could not defeat any cadet in combat, but in terms of mastery of the Illusion Technique alone, he stood among the highest in the entire continent. A rather strange state of development, wasn’t it? Yet that was Dante’s objective.
To grow precariously—balanced on a thread.

— Shrill whistle!

Right after the whistle sounded, the fifteen cadets attending the lesson gathered in one place. Now came the time for practical combat evaluation.

“First, Gideon. Your Throwing Skill—it seems like you’d find buyers for it everywhere once you enter society.”
“Ah, thank you…!”
“Foolish merchants who’d make medicine out of dung, that is.”
“…….”
“It was thoroughly disappointing. Your fundamentals are flawed, yet you’re all swagger and no substance.”

The cadet felt something swell inside him.

“Professor. I… I know I have shortcomings, but honestly, I don’t think it’s quite that bad.”

Professor Dante tilted his head.

“You don’t?”
“…W-well, isn’t it fairly decent though? Sure, from your perspective it might be lacking, but… it’s my pride, after all. There are guys who throw five or ten Throwing Stars, but honestly, splitting them into fifteen streams like I do—not just anyone can pull that off….”
“Does that help with assassination?”
“…Yes? Of course it does!”

The boy’s voice grew louder, some emotion catching in his throat.

“Obviously it helps! Wider range means it’s that much more lethal!”

That was when Professor Dante swept his arm in a large arc and threw something.
A shuriken came flying.

“Ahhh!!”

Startled, Gideon kicked off the ground and flew backward.
Fortunately, the attack didn’t land.
Then what was it?
Looking closer, the shuriken had split into fifteen segments where he’d been standing and hung suspended in the air as if mounted on display.
‘Wow.’ A gasp rippled through the cadets. ‘It stopped mid-air!’ It was a Throwing Skill so incredible that even watching it, they couldn’t believe their eyes.

“Judge, Gideon. Was my attack just now lethal?”
“…….”

Gideon fell silent, turning the situation over in his mind.
Fifteen shuriken had come flying at him. Yet none of them had been lethal.
He’d evaded them, and it had felt possible to do so.
Confusion washed over him.
Fifteen shuriken are stronger than one—an obvious enough statement.
And yet it had seemed avoidable.
What was the problem?

“The answer is.”
“Ah, well… they were avoidable.”
“Precisely. Fifteen of them, and yet clumsy. Crude execution.”

Dante Hiakkapo retrieved the fifteen shuriken as he spoke.

“The foundation of the Throwing Art is concealment.”
“…Concealment, sir?”
“A projectile need not be faster than a bullet. It need not be as powerful as a cannon. It need not be flashy like magic. But there is an advantage unique to the Throwing Art that surpasses mere speed.”
“…Is that concealment? But what is the concealment of a throw? Must the projectile be invisible as it flies?”
“There are many methods. The trajectory can be concealed. Or the motion itself.”
“When you speak of concealing the motion…”

The student recalled how Dante had thrown the shuriken like a baseball player. Ah, his motion had been too broad—that’s why it was so easily dodged.
The professor’s eyes narrowed.

“All throwing-art techniques ultimately develop in the direction of concealing the act of throwing itself. For instance. Like this.”

In the next instant, every student gasped.
A short dagger was rotating beneath Gideon’s chin, held there.

“What!?”

When had it happened? No one had seen it. Just as he’d said—the motion had been utterly concealed. There had been no telegraph, no wind-up at all.

“…!”

Had Dante not stopped, the shuriken would have pierced Gideon’s throat and shattered his cervical vertebrae. Not a single student would have known Dante was the killer.
It was assassination. Even with assailant and victim both in plain sight, it was unmistakably assassination.

‘This is…’
‘So this is why the Throwing Art assassins are said to be the most dangerous among the 12 Ability Categories…’

The students were stunned.

“Ah…”

Only then did Gideon truly grasp the weight of Dante’s teaching.
An entirely different plane of assassination mastery. Every student felt the impact of a revelation.
Such was the lesson that day.

“…We shall conclude today’s session here.”

┃ Schedule Completed: [Lesson]
┃ Reward: Star Fragment × 1

* * *

I left the classroom and stepped outside.

This was already the fourth lesson. Since I’d mastered World Fabrication, life had become more bearable. I’d stopped being pushed around by a bunch of children.
The rewards that came with it were hardly poor either.

>

‘Gathering Star Fragments as quickly and abundantly as possible—that’s the survival method for Hell Difficulty.’

How does one gather Star Fragments?
There are four methods in total.

── Star Fragment Acquisition Routes ──
1. Assassination commissions and espionage missions as a member of Hiaka Academy.
2. Actions as a professor at Hiaka Academy: research, publications, lectures.
3. Slaying demons.
4. Raising relationship status with Zamryong Academy.
───────────────

Of these, routes 1 and 3 were impossible to pursue at the moment.
Route 2 was already underway.
Route 4—raising relationship status with Zamryong Academy—was the one I could at least attempt at a measured pace.

‘There had been dangerous moments scattered throughout.’

Today’s lesson was a case in point.
That fool Gideon had hurled fifteen shuriken, but his accuracy was so abysmal that several went flying to ridiculous places—and one of them happened to pierce through a window on the third floor of the Abandoned Building where I was hiding.

Crash!

A shuriken passed through a point three centimeters to the right of my skull and embedded itself in a pillar.
I’d nearly lost consciousness. This must be why generals on the battlefield die to stray arrows.

‘A ridiculous way to go.’

Botched assassinations are lethal precisely because they’re botched—you never know where they’ll fly. But a far more precise assassin? At this point, I could crush him.
Take that one, for example.

The moment he spotted me, he quickened his pace and began walking toward me.

【 Zamryong Academy First-Year Kendraike: “Just a second.” 】

【 Zamryong Academy First-Year Kendraike: ‘I tried to assassinate him before, but he just vanished all of a sudden.’ 】
【 Zamryong Academy First-Year Kendraike: ‘Is he dodging, or ignoring me? I have no idea what he’s thinking. Maybe instead of pushing so hard, I should try talking to him.’ 】

More precisely, I could not respond.

The instinct of ‘Dante Hiakkapo’, synchronized with me, was lending me its aid.
Dante, after all,
regarded himself as an endless paragon of strength and maturity, so I too was constitutionally incapable of accepting his presumptuous greeting.

“…….”

So I ignored him and walked past at an angle, when Kendraike spoke from behind my back.

“Hey, what are you doing? I just greeted you.”
“…….”
“Over here. I mean, you’re dismissing a person like a dog. Let’s do some Assassination Practical Training together. If you’ve got the nerve.”

He parroted back what he’d said before. I ignored him and kept walking. Slowly. Then Kendraike spoke a bit louder.

“Hey! I mean, how can you brush someone off like that right to their face? That doesn’t sit well with me either. Hmm?”

I stopped.

“Student.”
“Yes. What?”

I turned and looked at him. Flustered, as though he’d been caught in an embarrassment. His face reddened slightly.
The boy was likely a monster on the level of any accomplished professor, but to my eyes, he was unmistakably a child.

“Manners.”

And an impertinent child needs an adult to correct his bearing.

“Show proper respect in front of a professor.”

His face hardened.

Silence fell. I turned away without another word.
As I walked on, the 【Script】 began to grow noisy.

【 Zamryong Academy First Year Kendraike : ‘What the hell. Why do I have to listen to that? Damn it.’ 】
【 Zamryong Academy First Year Kendraike : ‘I could kill him if we fought. Why am I getting humiliated like this…….’ 】

Kendraike seemed to feel some shame, and his urge to assassinate me flagged.

“So then, that…….”
“I won’t do Assassination Practical Training.”
“…Why. Are you scared? Worried you’ll lose to me?”

I walked away without answering.

“……Professor!”

At last, as the distance grew, the boy finally called me professor.
Yet I still didn’t acknowledge him.

【 Zamryong Academy First Year Kendraike : ‘Damn, he’s got some nerve pulling off that attitude…. Am I not up to his standard?’ 】
【 Zamryong Academy First Year Kendraike : ‘God, I hate this…. Who does he think he is, looking down on me?’ 】

There was a reason I’d had this exchange with him.
The four methods I’d mentioned earlier for obtaining a Star Fragment. One of them: building Relationship Status.
As someone already at a dead end, I understood the diversity of Relationship Status.
And I knew that ‘inferiority’ too was part of Relationship Status.

┃ Relationship Status Increase: Kendraike [3] (▲3)
┃ Reward: Star Fragment × 3

Just like this.

EP4

World Fabrication

END

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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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