The Academy’s Unrivaled Professor - Chapter 18

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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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Academy’s Absolute Professor 018
I Believe in the Innate Goodness Philosophy
A moment later.
When Kang Hyun entered the Professor’s Office, Lee Se-a asked as though she’d been waiting.
“What did he say? What did Hwang Tae-gwang want?”
Gwak Do-jin and Yun Hyun-jong both swallowed hard.
“He wanted me to delete the video I recorded yesterday?”
“So what did you tell him?”
“Hwang Min-woo confesses everything in front of the Disciplinary Committee, hands over the corruption ledger from the professors, and I’ll delete it for him.”
“……What?”
The reaction came from Gwak Do-jin.
What in the world was all this supposed to mean?
He’d already given up, resigned to being expelled tomorrow, and now this?
Hwang Min-woo confessing?
A corruption ledger from the professors?
“Professor, what exactly is……”
The man who’d just shown up was none other than the actual Guild Master of the Tae-wang Guild—so this was no casual remark.
“Do you really think he’d abandon his own son?”
Lee Se-a voiced her worry from beside the now-rigid Gwak Do-jin.
“The odds are high he would.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Hwang Tae-gwang doesn’t care much for Hwang Min-woo.”
Just looking at how he bribes professors and commits corruption, you could read Hwang Tae-gwang’s character plain as day.
A man who stops at nothing to maintain his own power.
To his kind, a son is nothing but a trinket to polish his image.
When his own hide is about to be stripped, wouldn’t he cut off a mere tail without hesitation?
“Still, he’s his own son, isn’t he?”
“If he’d treasured his son in the first place, would he have let him grow into such garbage?”
“That’s true. Garbage raising garbage.”
“Hwang Tae-gwang cleaning up after him all this time wasn’t paternal love—it was just that he hated getting his own reputation soiled.”
“What if he tries to retaliate?”
“Against me?”
That one line put Lee Se-a’s mind at ease.
‘Right.’
This was Black we were talking about!
The man who’d destroyed Leviathan with a single gesture when five S-Rank Hunters couldn’t bring it down!
‘If anything, I’d be grateful if he did try.’
From the nation’s perspective, removing a rotten guild without lifting a finger was a bargain.
“In any case, Gwak Do-jin.”
“Yes, yes?”
Gwak Do-jin flinched.
He still hadn’t grasped the situation.
“Tomorrow, you have nothing to do. Just sit there and watch. Don’t spout any more useless talk about expulsion or anything else. Understood?”
“……Professor.”
“The soju was good. It tastes nice.”

* * *
Hwang Tae-gwang proved to be even colder than expected.
“To think he’d cast his own son aside so quickly.”
A file arrived at the professor’s email.
It was a corruption ledger from the Tae-wang Guild regarding the implicated professors.
“Wow, everything Kang Hyun said was spot on?”
Lee Se-a clicked her tongue as she scanned through the ledger displayed on screen.
“Good grief, they’ve eaten away at an astronomical amount. Now I understand why everyone says becoming an Academy professor is the path to fortune.”
“Now bring them in.”
“Bring in who?”
“Who else? Oh Sung-hun and Park Tae-su.”
He’d caught the rats waiting by the rice sack.
Now came the time to cook those fat little rodents, didn’t it?
“Do you think they’ll come quietly when I summon them?”
“Capable, are you?”
Lee Se-a flinched.
When she thought about it, it was embarrassing.
All she’d done was boast about being hired at the top of her class at the Management Bureau—but what had she actually accomplished?
While she’d been moving carefully within legal bounds, following procedure to the letter, Kang Hyun had summoned Hwang Tae-gwang overnight and made him hand over the ledgers of his own volition.
A stunning resolution, swift as lightning—the kind that left no room for doubt.
‘How is that even possible?’
Now she understood why the veterans in the field had hammered it into her ears: real experience was everything.
All those nights hunched over textbooks were nothing but theory—hollow and useless.
“I’ll call them right away.”
She pressed her lips firmly together and tapped the tablet twice.
Remarkably, two professors came rushing in less than five minutes later.
“Huh? Gasp!”
“Professor Kang? What was that just now?”
Kang Hyun looked surprised.
“What? How did you manage that?”
“I sent the ledger files to their personal email. I told them they had five minutes to come to the Professor’s Office, or I’d forward everything to the Ministry of Education and the police.”
“Nice—you really are top of the class.”
As Kang Hyun gave a thumbs up, Professor Oh Sung-hun bristled.
“What in the world are you doing?”
“What do you mean?”
Kang Hyun showed no deference to either professor.
That Hwang Tae-gwang—his covering for his own son was just animal instinct, understandable enough.
No matter how foolish or corrupt your child is, they’re still your blood.
But these men?
These so-called professors had watched one student nearly lose his life, watched another’s future crumble unjustly—and for a few coins, they were ready to smile and move on.
Kang Hyun despised that type more than anything.
“However you obtained that file, it’s been tampered with. How dare you threaten a professor without even verifying the facts?”
“Tampered with? Then why is it identical to what you received?”
“Professor Oh, wait a moment.”
Park Tae-su, sensing the situation had taken a dangerous turn, stepped forward.
“Where did you get that file?”
“Where? The person who took the bribe sent it to me.”
“What? What did you just say?”
Both professors’ eyes went wide as saucers.
Did that mean the Tae-wang Guild had sent it?
‘That can’t be. Why would the Tae-wang target us?’
“Here’s what I want: tomorrow, at the Disciplinary Committee, I want you two to confess everything yourselves. Every crime Hwang Min-woo has committed, and exactly how you sold your conscience for a handful of money and destroyed an innocent cadet’s life. Honestly, I’d rather not waste my breath arguing with you here. Let’s do this the easy way—tell the truth now.”
“Nonsense! Are you drunk? Where do you get off spouting such garbage?”
“You’re right. I didn’t really expect you to cooperate willingly.”
“Then?”
“I’ll have to remind you—the improved version of you.”
Kang Hyun rose from his seat and cracked his knuckles.
“You know what I believe in? The Innate Goodness Philosophy.”
“What nonsense is that?”
“Humans are born with good nature, right? But as we live, greed and selfishness—all that dark corruption—seeps in. At first, your conscience screams at you, keeping you awake at night, wracked with guilt. But eventually that voice grows muffled. And in the end, the corruption consumes you completely.”
Kang Hyun advanced slowly toward them, like a hunter herding prey.
“But here’s the thing. You know the fastest, most reliable way to strip away all that stubborn corruption?”
Both professors took a step back.
Something cold and sinister flickered in Kang Hyun’s eyes.
“Getting beaten. You see, corruption is fundamentally cowardly—no courage, no patience. It falls away the moment pain is introduced.”
“You, you insane bastard! You think I’ll just take this lying down?”
Oh Sung-hun and Park Tae-su, sensing the threat, desperately tried to summon their energy.
But.
‘What?’
‘Why won’t my energy—?’
The professors’ faces drained of color.
Their energy was completely sealed.
Without even knowing it, every vital meridian in their bodies had already been perfectly locked.
‘When did he—?’
There was no time for shock to register.
Crack!
Kang Hyun’s fist drove ruthlessly through Oh Sung-hun’s solar plexus.
“Ack—ugh—gah!”
Seeing Oh Sung-hun crumple, Park Tae-su tried to flee, but Kang Hyun’s kick came down mercilessly across his shins.
Thud, smack! Crack!
Kang Hyun didn’t beat children.
They hadn’t ripened yet, so words alone should make them understand.
But these ones? Full of years they hadn’t earned, full-grown in age but broken in mind?
They deserved beating.
There was no fixing creatures like this without the rod.
Time crawled forward.
“Please—spare us!”
“I was wrong! Professor Kang!”
At last the madness lifted from both men.
“Better now? Ready to be good?”
“Yes, yes! We’ll be good!”
“Then what did I say before?”
“……what happens to us?”
“What do you think happens.”
Kang Hyun collapsed back onto the sofa, his voice drowsy and indifferent.
“You’ve got two choices. Tomorrow, you tell the truth with your own mouths and pay for what you did. Or you run, and I hunt you down and beat you to death.”
“……!”
“I gave you a chance. Pick one yourself.”
Both men, limbs shaking, glanced at each other.
They wouldn’t be deliberating long.

* * *
Across town.
“Father, why did you call me?”
“The Disciplinary Committee convenes tomorrow. Explain everything that happened.”
“Ah, that’s because… Hmm, it’s nothing serious. There’s this girl, Baek Yoo-yeon, rather clever. I was trying to bring her over to our side, but this lunatic kept getting in the way.”
Hwang Min-woo poured out his grievances indignantly, as if wronged—but Hwang Tae-gwang already knew the whole story.
“Ha. Ha ha.”
‘I’ve been far too indifferent to my son.’
He’d assumed that any successor to the organization ought to possess ruthlessness and a sharp grasp of reality.
But this wasn’t ruthlessness.
It was sheer stupidity.
Wielding the Tae-wang Guild’s name and power so carelessly, all to force one woman he’d taken a fancy to?
And in front of a creature the Management Bureau itself had to contain?
“My son.”
“Yes, Father.”
“Tomorrow at the Disciplinary Committee, you will tell the truth from your own mouth. That you coerced her, that you bribed the professors to falsify evidence.”
“What are you saying! Why should we—”
“We? Didn’t you hear what I just said? Not we. You. Say it was you.”
“But, Father……?”
“Secretary Kim, fetch the Iron from my golf bag.”
“Which number, sir?”
“Seven.”
Whoosh.
Hwang Tae-gwang rose slowly from his chair, gripping the silver Iron the secretary handed over without hesitation.
Hwang Min-woo’s face drained of color in an instant.
“Dad—Father! W-wait, please. What are you doing!”
“Why?”
Hwang Tae-gwang’s eyes turned cold and lethal.
“What you do outside means nothing to me. But I won’t watch the Tae-wang name become a joke because of you. Bend over.”
“Ahhh!”
“Won’t you?”
Screams echoed through the Tae-wang Guild headquarters for some time.

* * *
The Disciplinary Committee concluded as expected—anticlimactically.
Hwang Min-woo, limping as he entered, made a full confession.
How a year ago, in a fit of rage, he’d tried to kill Baek Yoo-yeon—and then bribed two professors to pin the blame on Gwak Do-jin.
The startled Dean of Academic Affairs looked at the two professors, and they too acknowledged their guilt.
“We were blinded by the Tae-wang Guild’s money and falsified Gwak Do-jin’s disciplinary records. We accept full responsibility and will resign from our positions immediately to face police investigation.”
Choi Byeong-gil’s jaw went slack.
Had the Disciplinary Committee become a Confession Committee instead?
“……!”
Baek Yoo-yeon, who had come prepared to testify, widened her eyes in shock, and Gwak Do-jin stood similarly dazed, mouth agape.
Now that all the truth had come to light, Gwak Do-jin’s disciplinary action was completely nullified.
However, since he had used violence in the process, his grade retention would remain in effect, but all the disciplinary records that had been unjustly accumulated by the corrupted professors would be cleanly expunged—such was the final ruling.
“Ha, ha-ha.”
Walking out into the open air, Gwak Do-jin gazed blankly up at the sky.
Overwhelming emotion welled up from the depths of his chest.
A year of such bitter, maddening injustice—resolved so perfectly, so completely, in a single day.
‘It’s all because of Professor Kang Hyun.’
What kind of life would he have lived if they’d never met?
Thinking of it this way, that grueling year now felt like providence itself.
If Hwang Min-woo hadn’t done what he did, he never would have met Kang Hyun.
Gwak Do-jin headed straight for the Professor’s Office without hesitation.
“Professor!”
“Is it over?”
“Yes, just now! Thanks to you, all my disciplinary records have been deleted. Truly, sincerely, I thank you!”
“Just words?”
“……Sir?”
Ah, drinks!
The money for drinks—he didn’t have any now.
And come to think of it, how was he going to cover his living expenses?
“If you’re really grateful, go sweet-talk Baek Yoo-yeon for me.”
“What?”
Gwak Do-jin’s face flushed crimson.
“I don’t like her like that!”
“No, that’s not what I meant. Who’s asking you to date her?”
“Then, then what?”
“Get her to join my class.”
“Sir?”
“Somehow sweet-talk her into participating in my class.”
You, Do-jin.
I helped you out, so now it’s only fair that you help me too, isn’t it?
So don’t waste any more breath—just bring Yoo-yeon here.

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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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