Surviving the Assassin Academy as a Genius Professor - Chapter 96

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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 96
EP23 – Hand (6)

Electricity surges through my mind.

So now he won’t listen to a word I say?

There had been a hint in his words. Perhaps the Scar Curse had always clung to Valmond like a curse, and it seemed Betelgeuse had maintained partial control over it.

What flashed through my mind was his comment about how Zamryong Academy couldn’t be controlled from the institution itself, so they hoped to control it through me.
I had no intention of playing along to their tune. But this crisis had to be suppressed by someone, regardless.

“…Is it Command, Senior Betelgeuse?”

I asked amid the chaos, and Betelgeuse gave a light nod.

I see.

It makes sense. The Scar Curse is heavily influenced by Will. The stars read people’s intentions.

Cain was merely a phantom tree, so why would it receive the Scar Curse of the Hwaepyeong Starlight Seat? Because the stars read my will for peace.

Following that line of reasoning, there was something only I could do right now, at this very moment.

I stepped forward.

“Huh? Professor Dante?”

The operatives’ gazes turned toward me.

“Professor Dante. Where are you going…?”
“Wait—no, Professor! Don’t go near him! It’s too dangerous…!”

The Discipline Department operatives who recognized me cried out. These were the same ones who’d fretted anxiously when I collided with the rogue member earlier.

“Senior Professor Dante! Don’t approach him!”

Even the director, receiving healing magic for the stab wound in his chest, urgently tried to stop me.

“I’ve already summoned the Unnamed from the emergency standby unit…! Senior Betelgeuse…! Please stop him…!”

He thought I was a maverick professor and brought Betelgeuse into it as well.
The Unnamed are useless.
Those mechanical puppets won’t solve this. If they could, Betelgeuse would have used them already.

Valmond right now is a live bomb. Raw force alone cannot set things right.
The answer lies with Valmond himself.
If he regains his own senses, the Scar Curse loses its power.

“Uhhhhh…!”

I crouched before Valmond, who stood with his head bowed before the iron bars, clutching his chest in agony.

“Get away! Do you want to die!?”

He was only half-conscious. His voice, his gaze, neither processed properly from the calculation device in his mind. Even the Script of his thoughts had shattered, wavering and fractured.

“Get away!!”

But something unfamiliar approaching him made him cry out.
That same rush of attack as before.

From now on, I have to use Command on Valmond.
But what should I say to him?

Like I did with Elise—wait? Sit? No. That’s Command meant to control a beast through paralysis or when it can’t wait, when excitement has made it wild and thrashing.

He’s emotional and uncontrolled right now. But this state is fundamentally different from a creature squirming its hindquarters because food sits before it.

“Get away!!!”

And that aggression turned also upon the Discipline Department members who had been protecting and guarding him.
At that point, I found my answer.

The only way to save Valmond.

* * *

I’d seen such a post on the internet once.
How dogs and cats became ‘domesticated animals,’ losing their freedom and living bound to humans, was a pitiful thing.
And that post had become a site of fierce debate.

Was losing freedom and living bound to humans an unhappy fate?
Who knows. There’s no telling.
I’m neither an expert nor livestock myself.
If someone called a graduate student the livestock of a professor, I’d take a blade to them.
Still, that remark fascinated me, and I dug through several papers, finding an interesting hypothesis.

The process of becoming domesticated is called Domestication.

Domestication is:
Something achieved because both animal and human desired it.
The academic world, while lacking a clear-cut standard, mentions roughly three conditions.

First is Mutual Benefit.
It means they helped each other and came to live together.
Long ago, humans must have given leftover food to dogs, and dogs must have guarded that human against thieves.
I, who hovered near Elise seeking a Star Fragment. Elise, who followed when I gave her a bone. We were in Mutual Benefit.

Third is Coevolution.
Living together for long stretches of time, influencing each other’s very genes.
For instance, the muscles around a dog’s eyes became flexible once it encountered humans.
Unlike wolves, dogs can move the muscles around their eyes to smile, to grieve.
The reason humans feel “look, he’s smiling!” is because the dog really is smiling.

Why did I speak of the third first? Because Valmond’s problem stemmed from the second.

Second is Taming.
Taming means becoming a relationship where neither harms the other.
In other words, it resembles what we call socialization.
An unsocialized owner kicks the dog. An unsocialized dog bites the owner.

You hold responsibility for what you tame, always and forever.

—A certain fox said this.
I, who once lived with wildness in my nature, have now become something that, because of you, refuses to harm or be harmed—you must bear responsibility for making me this way.

But why should only animals have this privilege?
Humans must do the same.

And so the concept of Self-Domestication emerges.
It refers to the process by which humans suppress their own animal instincts and adapt themselves to society.
And nearly every human in the modern world is livestock—domesticated livestock that has completed its Self-Domestication.

In ancient times, humanity thought only of drawing swords and killing one another,
but now we’re reduced to cowering in our rooms, wounded and sniffling over a single message.
Some call this weakness.
They’re wrong.
We’ve simply become better at living.

Or so went some expert’s hypothesis.

Following that line of reasoning, it suddenly struck me.

‘Ah.’

A forgotten memory surfaced.
I recalled a side story from the game—the method of controlling the Nibelung family. The specific choices and methodology as well.

‘The Alpha Dog Story.’

Valmond has forgotten his Taming. I intend to restore it to him—in a manner halfway between beast and human.
Only then will Command hold any meaning.

‘But if I’m to use this method, first power must collide with power.’

I estimated Valmond’s stats,
and calculated the stats I would need before him.
Thus, I raised my Stat.

A surge of intense exhilaration radiated from somewhere in my mind, spreading through the blood vessels, finally rising through my entire body.
Now I possessed a respectable amount of combat power and physical form.

I’d finally spent what I’d been saving.
I didn’t regret it one bit.

I planned to make good use of him going forward.

⋮

Kangkang, a member of the Discipline Department, tensed. Professor Dante was approaching Valmond, who had transformed into something bestial.

“P-Professor… Professor…!!”

Dante Hiaka, a senior professor,
was exceptionally favorable to the Discipline Department among the faculty.
In fact, he had worked with them several times.
After the Joaquin affair ended, he’d even tossed Hika to the Discipline Department members with a casual suggestion to grab drinks. That’s why many members of the Discipline Department were fond of Dante.

“It’s fine, I am.”
“That won’t do, Professor Dante! If you go in there—!”

Thus Kangkang was caught in the hands of the other members as they held him back. The senior members spoke: “Let’s see how this plays out.”

Until now, neither the Discipline Department, nor the Wilhelm Family, nor even Dean Betelgeuse had been able to do anything about the situation.

But if it were Professor Dante—a peculiar hope stirred among them.

Yet the moment Professor Dante suddenly lifted the iron cell bolt and opened it, they began to tense again.

‘What…?’

Was he really going to go in there?
The thing in there was attacking people right now.
Amid everyone’s concern, Professor Dante stepped inside without hesitation and bent low.

“Graaaagh…! Graaaaaagh…!!”

With the Scar Curse intensified, Valmond—who could no longer even speak human language—opened his wild eyes.
Dante reached his hand toward him.

“Valmond. Hand.”

The members doubted their own eyes.
Asking for a hand from someone going feral?
Indeed, that gesture had no effect, and Valmond lunged at Dante like a beast bursting forth.
In that instant, Dante moved decisively.
A fist drove into his jaw. Dante rotated his waist and delivered a precise strike to the chin. Valmond flew back roughly four meters and crashed into the wall.

Crash—!!

The members were shocked; the punch had been merciless beyond imagination.
Professor Dante, after dealing out such violence, approached Valmond with an expressionless face.
Then he crouched before the fallen Valmond again.

“Valmond. Hand.”

But it was in vain.

“Grrrrgh, kraaaagh!!”

Valmond, howling like a wolf, charged at Dante once more—this time far faster than before, almost too quick for the eye to follow.
Black magical power bloomed from Valmond’s hands, transforming into something like claws,
and he struck precisely at Dante’s head.

Clang—!!

But it was Illusion Magic. Dante appeared elsewhere, and he drove his elbow straight down onto Valmond’s head as the creature staggered through the follow-through.

Boom—!

Like an artillery shell detonating, Valmond was driven into the ground. The wall of the administrative building rang out with a harsh, sinister wail.
Blood leaked from the corners of his mouth and his cheek split open. Those with an eye could tell Valmond’s jawbone had suffered damage.

A scene that makes the flesh creep.
Perhaps even cruel—more cruel than one might think necessary.
Yet Dante, the one it was happening to, remained utterly unmoved. As if watching firewood split after being felled. Observing an inanimate object.
He simply bent forward.

“Valmond. Your hand.”

But Valmond did not listen.
A raw, guttural scream tore from his throat as he hurled himself forward on unsteady legs.

Three times, four times, five times—Dante struck him, kicked him, stomped him, driving him ever deeper into the corner. With each blow, Valmond’s heartbeat grew louder, more frantic.
Those who could perceive curses recognized that Valmond’s curse was deepening, intensifying with each moment.

‘Is this the right way?’
‘At this rate, he might actually die…!’

Moments ago he had attacked a fellow student, yet he remained earnest and diligent—the only cadet at Zamryong Academy who actually favored the Discipline Department.
That such a cadet was now being beaten to death disturbed them all.

Thud!!

Kicked again, ribs cracking, Valmond’s head smashed into the ground as he gasped in pain.
Dante bent down toward him.

“Valmond.”

A low growl rumbled from his throat as Valmond looked up at him, every muscle coiled to strike again.
Yet Professor Dante showed not the slightest tremor. He spoke only with perfect calm.

“No matter how much you scream, how much you charge at me, no matter how hard you try to harm me—it will all be for nothing.”
“Raaagh!!”

This time the attack landed. Fingernails raked across Dante’s throat, tearing the skin. A wet scratch.

Thud!

Valmond was slammed to the ground, and Dante pressed his full weight down on the boy’s throat. The blood that opened on Dante’s own wound did not make him flinch.

“I can do this for as long as it takes.”

Valmond continued to thrash convulsively, desperately trying to break free, to attack, to bite, to kill. But Dante did not yield an inch.

“A hundred times. A thousand times. I will repeat it as many times as necessary.”

The professor spoke on.

“When I ask for your hand, you will give it to me.”

Valmond screamed. Now even Professor Dante was pouring all his strength into it. Yet even through his labored breathing, his voice remained clear—hard as metal.

“If you bare your fangs at me, I will bare mine at you. If you show me kindness, I will show you kindness.”

The force pressing down met resistance; both pushed against each other with equal tension. Valmond thrashed in a frenzy of desperation, while the professor bore down with cold precision.

“Whether you are young, of noble birth, a miserable wretch cursed by fate—none of it matters in this place.”

Then it came. A fingernail caught Dante’s cheek. Slash! Blood spilled. Yet even now, Dante did not react.

“I will not compromise with your savagery. If you have entered human society, you must prove that you have tamed yourself.”

In that moment, someone felt as though Professor Dante were growling through a human mouth.

“Show goodwill to humans. Child of Nibelung.”

In the space between those words, Valmond lurched to his feet again, convulsing. Yet Professor Dante simply tripped him as he rose, flowing like water.

“Valmond.”

And then Professor Dante extended his hand.

“Hand.”

⋮

The struggle between Valmond and the professor continued. Blood scattered. Things broke. They were methodically destroying each other, piece by piece. Yet no one could stop it. No one could look away.

Someone rushed to Betelgeuse in the middle of it all and demanded an explanation—what did this violence mean? Betelgeuse answered simply, explaining the relationship between Curse, Scar Curse, and Command. Only then did the others understand: the professor was throwing his body into this to save Valmond.

The mercy was that, from some point onward, Valmond’s resistance began to weaken noticeably. Though it seemed, perhaps, to be from the heavy bleeding. He looked like he was dying. Here they had no choice but to trust Professor Dante.

With teeth clenched as if they might shatter, everyone held their breath until the moment came.

The change arrived in an instant.

‘Ah…!!’
‘At last…!’

Valmond brought his hand slowly toward Dante’s outstretched palm.
His bruised, swollen eyes lifted to meet the professor’s.

‘His hand is rising!’
‘He’s letting go! He’s placing his hand on the professor’s!!’

The members rushed forward to the iron bars, pressing themselves against them. They did this even before his hand had fully released.
Just as his hand was about to make contact.
The members cried out their questions.

“V-Valmond!!”
“Professor! Is, is that one going to be alright…!?”

The professor said nothing.
He only looked down at Valmond.

Yet everyone there understood. This was Valmond finding himself. His Will had driven back the Scar Curse of the Dark Night Seat.

As if to prove it, the black aura that had filled Valmond’s body began to fade as if washed clean.

“What?! Ah, he’s coming! Medical team!”
“Medical team over there!! Over here!”
“Professor…! Are you alright, Professor!?”

While the commotion erupted around them.

The sluggish hand finally touched Dante’s palm.

Dull eyes gazed up at the professor.

A look descending like that of a dog who has broken pottery.

“Professor…, I….”

At that moment, the professor’s large hand came to rest on his head.

“Good boy.”

He drew the blood-soaked head into his embrace.

The way a man might hold a loyal dog.

“Well done.”

┃ Relationship risen: Valmond [70] (▲35)
┃ Reward: Star Fragment × 35

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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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