Surviving the Assassin Academy as a Genius Professor - Chapter 98

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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 98
EP23 – Hand (8)

I had made Valmond Nibelung my enemy.

Because he was intolerable.

But it wasn’t an action driven by mere emotion. I acted because I was genuinely confident I could manage the consequences.
So I notified the department of my decision.

“What? Professor Dante! How can you act without a single word of consultation…!?”

Shaman, the jowly head of the Assassination Department, erupted in anger, his flesh rippling like a king’s chest.

“Ahahahaha! Yes, that’s the spirit of our golden mouse!”

Ezekiel, the royal shield-bearer and head of the Magic Department, seemed delighted by my judgment.

“For such a decision—does the professor have grounds and a sense of responsibility prepared?”

Balkan, the Warrior Department head who made honor and chivalry the iron law of his life, posed the question to me.

“Yes.”

I answered.

Then I explained the three reasons why it was permissible to make Valmond Nibelung an enemy.

First, Hiaka Academy was currently entering an unprecedented boom, and the situation was sensitive to every small shift. The moment Nibelung made a move, it would set a precedent—and before long, everyone else would follow suit, jostling to do the same.
As a cartel, the Nibelung Family was among the largest factions in Hiaka, but there were plenty of organizations outside the cartel just as formidable. For them, opening the department to the Empire would be sweet fruit indeed.
Which was precisely why we couldn’t allow such a precedent to be set.

“Second, we can actually use this situation to strengthen our internal controls.”

Hiaka Academy was currently in a transitional phase. It continued ad hoc administration even as it managed the massive event of opening to the Empire.
But if we always accounted for a fixed threat and structured our operations around it, a coherent system would naturally take shape.
This meant far more than simply defending ourselves against the Nibelung Family.
The Croitz incident had occurred precisely because the administration and systems had been too loose.

And finally, third.

“If the results of this Imperial venture draw a bit more royal attention, we can request additional support. The precedents of Count Xycos and Marquis Hebrew provide the basis for this.”

This was one of the side stories from the Betting Table.
Every finger aches when you bite them all, as the saying goes, but the hand that wears the ring is predetermined.
The royal house, disappointed by the academy’s loose performance and lack of results, would shift its stance based on Grey’s success with the Assassination Daily.
Shouldn’t parents send their brightest children to university? Even if their spines break under the burden.

“Rational,” Balkan said.

The Warrior Department head gave his assent.

“You’re hinting at me right now, aren’t you? You want me to persuade the royal house.”

At Ezekiel’s words, I quickly averted my eyes.
Let the adults handle adult matters.

……

What remained was the Assassination Department head, Shaman, with tendons standing out at his jaw.
He looked at me with his thick arms folded across his even thicker chest, then spoke quietly.

“But Professor Dante. Doesn’t that only apply if Grey’s sales numbers perform well?”

I closed my mouth, having been about to respond.
I’d wanted to argue that his logic was too simple, that humans and chimpanzees share 99% of their DNA so that doesn’t make them the same thing, to mount some kind of rebuttal—but no matter how I thought about it, I couldn’t find a roundabout way to phrase it.
Because he was right.

……

Just as the real-world Big Mac Index represents the price levels of different nations,
the sales numbers of the Assassination Daily News had become the most credible metric for measuring the awareness and favor of continental assassins.
Purchasing it at the discounted price of 999 Hika per copy—roughly 99,000 won—was impossible without intense interest backing the purchase.
Only if those numbers came in strong, only if Grey’s external recognition was thereby authenticated as real, did my words gain the possibility of realization.
Adults loved numbers.
And the royal family were the most grown-up of all.

“…Yes.”

So I acquiesced without protest.

“It depends on the sales numbers.”

* * *

Dante’s teaching assistant, Ran, had placed a cogwheel atop her head.

Under Dante’s orders, she journeyed somewhere each day. Today was no exception.

After gripping the steering wheel, Ran deployed extreme Defensive Driving. To what degree? So extreme that when an arrogant wild turkey blocked the road, she simply brought the car to a halt and waited.

……
……

The wild, arrogant turkey began a battle of wills with Ran in the driver’s seat. “Gobble-gobble…” it seemed to say—just try me.

But after waiting for twenty-five minutes and fifty-seven seconds without so much as honking her horn, Ran emerged victorious from her confrontation with the turkey.

“Gobble!!”

The lament of the defeated—just you wait…!!
Super Defensive Driving: Victory 1.

Presently, Ran’s car entered the Restricted Access Cemetery. She parked the vehicle somewhere and removed the cogwheel from her head.
Turning her gaze, she saw an enormous black sphere looming before her.

……

She climbed Starlight Meeting Mountain on foot. When she finally drew close enough to see it clearly, Ran placed the Symbol ⧉ upon her head and closed her eyes.
The stars above had yet to fully comprehend what it was.

That might be because Systematicity ⧉ was negligent, or because understanding its nature but being unable to deal with it were both true. Operating an entire world was quite a grueling task, after all. Speaking plainly, how many games existed in this world that actually managed their operations well?

But one thing was certain: inside that sphere, something that should have been dead by this world’s compulsive law still lived. And it was certain that it moved in human form. It was also certain that one day it would bring upheaval to this world.

Ran opened her eyes.

Yet today, too, she had obtained nothing of note. She turned her head with vacant, dark eyes.

“…?”

High above, something strange came into view.

From the sky, something was reaching outward in all directions. Toward seven different places, no less.

Ran calculated the distance and bearing of the flying objects in her mind. The continent held seven nations—the Empire, Hiaka, Croitz, and others. These were heading precisely toward those seven countries.

In other words, one of them was descending toward Hiaka.

What could it be? Ran closed her eyes and thought. It was likely the will to destroy the world itself. And yet she found herself thinking further: perhaps this would come to the world again and again, periodically. Someday it would plunge everyone into despair.

So what exactly was it? Not long ago, Jinxxytte had burst out by mistake and shaken Hiaka Academy. This was not Jinxxytte.
At a size like that, it was probably…

Vomittekka, or Trappycche.

Next, she examined her own position.
She herself was a bystander. Whether the world perished or not mattered little to her. In truth, she didn’t even know what should concern her.
Still, since she had come this far to help Dante, she could at least warn him. That something dangerous was coming. For humanity. For Hiaka. And for you….

“….”

There, her thoughts concluded.
Ran lowered the Symbol ⧉ from her head and decided to return to the parked car.
Then she recalled the advice Dante had urgently given her.

– Whenever you’re alone and separated from me, you must always wear either the Excalibur Headband or the Cross Band Model on your head.

So lately she’d been wearing the Excalibur Headband twenty-four hours a day, but she’d forgotten for a moment while driving.
She’d do it on the way back to the car. Which one should she use? Since today’s date was even, she took out the Cross Band Model.
A band you’d put on a wound, crossed in an X shape. Like something from a comic—an exaggerated form of the kind of bandage you’d apply to an injured person.

She placed it on top of her head.
Immediately after.

Splorch—

Ran’s head exploded.
Her body tilted sideways and collapsed.

* * *

Today was the big day for the Sales Numbers announcement.
Anyone with an interest in this affair was glued to their screen, refreshing the homepage obsessively, watching the clock.
The Assassin Town forum was abuzz.

Interest pouring in explosively, truly.

But I wasn’t going to check every reaction from every person.
I’d told Grey beforehand as well.
Don’t look at the responses.

…Just this one.

———

1 hour 42 minutes left
———

Only two hours now.
Over at Zamryong Academy, they’d be sweating bullets.
Me, being a former grad student with an even temperament, I’d just accepted it as is.
But the younger students in the Assassination Department—sensitive kids—they’d be on the verge of panic by now.

…Just one more.

———

Hello there, it’s your Spine Fairy here. Cheapest back surgery runs 300,000 Hika. The process goes like this: first, you slit the skin along the spine with a blade, then hold back the flesh with forceps on both sides, then using a hammer and chisel, you drive a nail the size of your finger deep into the vertebral center, and—
———

I straightened my hunched back.
Three hundred thousand Hika earned.

———

It says [Shooting: Zamryong Academy] for today?
Doesn’t that mean we’re doing another shoot in Zone 0?
———

What the hell?
…Is this bastard trolling me?
I checked hurriedly and found I was wrong. It actually was on the official schedule.

– Trashi: Yes, Professor! The team just departed. Since it’s an emergency shoot, I was a bit late confirming myself!
– Trashi: It’s an additional Making Film shoot!

Making Film?
What’s that supposed to be?

– Trashi: It’s a film documenting the production process of the monthly photo spread!

Ah.
In game dev terms, it was like footage of some burned-out developer hammering out code.

– Trashi: To be precise, it’s a shoot for the ‘Reaction Video’ that goes into the final part of the Making Film….

So it was footage of a successful game dev’s face when the numbers came in.

– Trashi: Anyway, word going around inside is that this month’s sales numbers are going to be quite high! That’s probably why this special schedule popped up. I figure they’ll do another interview with Cadet Grey and all. And then film reactions when the numbers drop and capture the Hiaka Academy cadets’ responses!

I clenched my fist tight.
Quite high?
Did we break a hundred thousand copies?
But I didn’t ask beyond that. Even if I had, he wouldn’t know—he’s on a different team.
Either way, it was welcome news.
And yet, inwardly, I couldn’t help but marvel.

The Assassination Daily News—those cunning bastards.
They really do know how to make money.

Now even I was curious.
Everyone with any interest in the world had laid eyes on Grey.
How was Grey currently being presented to the public?

A street orphan who’d taught herself in the countryside and reached a level comparable to those with formal training—mature, articulate, playful one moment, then suddenly hurling profanities the next, and when she heard the faculty at Hiaka weren’t impressed, she’d gotten emotional and angry besides.
That distinctive cat-like mercuriality, that raw vitality bursting through—that was the image Grey had captured in the monthly spread.
And yet beneath it all, a desperation visible in every expression, every gesture, every tremor of her fingertips—a hunger to see things through to the very end.
The look on her face when those ‘high sales numbers’ were confirmed.
To someone indifferent, it was a subject of no consequence.
But to anyone who’d spared even a moment’s attention, it was exactly the kind of detail worth seeking out.

‘The exact figures remain unknown, so it’s premature to draw conclusions.’

Words I couldn’t speak aloud.
Yet because I knew the outcome was positive regardless of the numbers, my sense of anticipation had swelled considerably.

I hurried toward Zamryong Academy.

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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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