The Academy’s Unrivaled Professor - Chapter 7

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Academy Absolute Professor Episode 007
Pathetic Lot
Twenty students in total.
Three existing applicants, plus seventeen the dean had forced through.
“Wow.”
Lee Se-ah swiped through the Tablet.
“Their résumés are quite impressive, aren’t they? Some of them have been disciplined dozens of times, and there’s one who drew a sword on a professor thinking his connections would protect him and got expelled. Want me to read through the list?”
“No.”
Kang Hyun, who had slipped into the residence, sank into his usual spot on the sofa.
Pop.
Then, naturally, he uncapped the Whiskey Bottle.
Lee Se-ah made a look of disgust.
At this rate, doesn’t he have alcohol flowing instead of blood in his veins?
“You won’t even look? These are the students you’ll be teaching. Don’t you think it’d help to at least know their names and backgrounds?”
“What good would that do?”
“Sir?”
“Whether they beat up a professor or swagger around relying on their status—it’s not my concern.”
He spoke between sips of whiskey.
“What matters is what kind of look they have in their eyes when they stand before me.”
Twenty years in the Murim.
From cutting down countless geniuses and prodigies, he had learned a truth.
Even a man born into the greatest houses, raised on rare elixirs and secret arts, who pisses himself and flees before death—he was nothing but a well-raised pig.
But a street beggar who bares his fangs like a beast and charges for survival—that was the real spirit, the true vessel.
Though the dean had asked, he had no intention of saving all of them.
“When does class start?”
“Next Saturday. That week is the opening week of the semester.”
Kang Hyun had been hired as a late-contract professor and missed the Academy’s twentieth-anniversary opening ceremony and orientation.
Privately, he regretted that.
There was no better place to see students’ true talents.
But there was no need to rush.
Seven vessels who could maintain their formation to the very end before that terrible Asura.
Real treasures like that would never be hidden just by sitting quietly and clapping beneath the ceremony podium.
‘A true blade shows its worth not when it rests in its sheath, but when it cuts through flesh and bone, when it’s drenched in blood.’
He simply hoped they were among those twenty.
Even just one.

* * *
Kang Hyun pushed Lee Se-ah away again when she insisted on tidying his room.
After she left.
“Ugh.”
He set down the whiskey glass on the table, his brow twisting.
Even numbing pain with alcohol had its limits.
‘It’s creeping up so insistently.’
Kang Hyun crossed his legs on the sofa and closed his eyes.
Soon his breathing slowed imperceptibly, and the air around him grew cool and still.
The Geukyang Heart Method.
The secret martial art of his grandfather, the Sword Fanatic, who dedicated his entire life to one blade.
As he activated the method, the venom of Asura that had been creeping through his blood vessels writhed like a serpent before being driven down to the depths of his dantian.
Of course, this was only temporary.
‘I need to purge it soon.’
He was pouring eighty percent of his internal energy just into suppressing this poison.
There was no room to accept new energy and strengthen his cultivation.
‘I have to grow stronger.’
Last time he had fought the Demon evenly and barely won.
Because of it, his grandfathers all died and most of the Murim was swept away.
‘This time, I won’t let it happen like that.’
He would prepare more thoroughly and win overwhelmingly.
So these people would know nothing but that a typhoon had brushed past them.
Whoosh.
Kang Hyun’s eyes closed.

* * *
Saturday morning, 9:50.
The Training Hall in the old building of the Academy.
A handful of students had gathered to attend Kang Hyun’s class, which would begin at ten.
“Shit.”
A harsh curse spilled from someone’s mouth just then.
The voice belonged to Gwak Do-jin, Class 18.
By any normal measure, he should have graduated long ago—should have left the Academy after completing the third year, Class 19—but instead he’d been held back.
His nickname was “Mad Dog.”
He’d been disciplined dozens of times and held back a year.
“Saturday morning, and this aggravation.”
Smack!
He irritably kicked a training dummy standing nearby.
He carried on with his insolence unimpeded.
The Academy divided seniors from juniors by class year, after all.
‘If it weren’t for the Director’s order, I’d just ignore this.’
Gwak Do-jin ground his teeth.
No matter how reckless Mad Dog might be, he couldn’t defy an order from Director Seo Il-hyun—one of only seven S-rank Hunters in the entire country.
“Hey, you two there. The new kids. Come here.”
Suppressed rage seeks an easy target.
Gwak Do-jin’s menacing gaze fixed on two freshman students cowering in a corner of the Training Hall.
Zip!
The two freshmen, suddenly stiffening, scrambled forward to stand before him.
“Class 21! Han Tae-ho!”
“Class 21! We greet you, senior!”
“Right, right. You adorable bastards.”
Gwak Do-jin propped himself up on one leg and patted both their shoulders roughly.
“You’re the ones, right? Two of the three morons stupid enough to voluntarily sign up for this ridiculous class.”
“Y-yes, that’s right!”
“Why?”
“Sir?”
“This class. Why’d you sign up for it?”
Han Tae-ho, who looked somewhat dim-witted, answered first.
“I-I saw the course description saying I could become stronger, so I signed up!”
“What a load.”
Gwak Do-jin let out a derisive snort.
‘Stronger, my ass.’
Rumors had already spread thick among the freshmen—that the instructor was just a parachute appointment, a contracted professor dropped in from nowhere.
“You really don’t know a damn thing, do you? Truly stupid.”
Gwak Do-jin clicked his tongue disdainfully and turned his gaze to the other freshman.
“What about you?”
“M-me, sir?”
“Yeah, you.”
“…I clicked the wrong button by accident when registering for the course.”
“Insane.”
He let out a scoff of disbelief.
“This one’s even dumber. Absolutely ridiculous.”
Then he swept his gaze around the Training Hall and raised his voice.
“Perfect symmetry. Problem students barely avoiding expulsion, bumbling freshmen who walked in of their own accord, and some nobody parachute instructor teaching them.”
Spit!
Gwak Do-jin spat on the ground.
“What a waste, all because of this guy Kang Hyun or whatever…”
“That language is uncalled for.”
Someone stepped forward from the corner of the Training Hall at that moment.
“Who the hell are you?”
“Class 20, Yun Hyun-jong.”
“So what? Kid.”
Gwak Do-jin uncrossed his legs and strode forward toward Yun Hyun-jong.
There was barely a head’s height between them.
“I’m the third voluntary applicant.”
“Ah, so you’re the one? The kid who nearly died after falling into Enchantment and crawled back out?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
Gwak Do-jin’s mouth twisted into a sneer.
“You’re cursing out your savior and acting like it displeases you?”
“……Making judgments without ever experiencing it yourself—I think that’s reckless.”
“What?”
Gwak Do-jin let out a short, bitter laugh.
Ha-ha, heh-heh.
‘The world’s changed so much.’
A kid two generations below him was actually talking back.
“Look at this bastard. Because I dropped back a year, you think I’m easy prey?”
Gwak Do-jin stepped closer, his face inches from Yun Hyun-jong’s.
“Let me teach you hierarchy before the professor gets here.”
“I think that’s something you need to learn first, senior.”
“This kid’s actually lost his mind.”
Rage flooding to the crown of his head, Gwak Do-jin seized Yun Hyun-jong by the collar with brutal force and was raising his fist when—
“Gwak.”
A low, weary voice drifted across the Training Hall.
“……!”
At those two syllables, Gwak Do-jin’s shoulders went rigid.
A man was walking slowly toward them from the far corner of the Training Hall.
Class 19, Cha Yu-sik!
Essentially the predator of this Academy!
Regardless of ability, no other student dared touch him.
Even the professors feared him.
Because he had enormous backing.
An S-rank Hunter and guild master of Cheonrang, Cha Ha-rang.
His second son.
“That’ll be enough for today.”
“Right, yeah. Cha?”
Gwak Do-jin released the collar with practiced ease.
Even Gwak Do-jin, called the Mad Dog, had to tuck his tail between his legs in front of the truly insane.
‘No matter how unhinged I am, I don’t swing swords at professors.’
In fact, Cha Yu-sik looked down on the professors.
Or rather, he couldn’t help but.
The Academy’s faculty were mostly A-rank Hunters retired from active duty.
How could they possibly look worthy in the eyes of Cha Yu-sik, second son of the guild master of Cheonrang, one of Korea’s three greatest guilds?
‘They don’t even measure up to the assault captains of our guild.’
He’d learned the blade directly from true monsters who’d been grinding through real combat since childhood.
The professors’ pedestrian theory lectures and hothouse training were nothing but a yawn.
Yet the only reason he’d set foot in this tedious Training Hall on Saturday morning was one thing alone.
“Sigh.”
Cha Yu-sik breathed out shortly and brushed back his bangs.
‘Dean Seo Il-hyun.’
That old man had contacted his father directly.
“No need to get worked up, Gwak.”
Cha Yu-sik wore his characteristic arrogant smile.
“After all, this class will be over today anyway.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Why sit through an entire semester of worthless instruction? I’ll wrap this up cleanly today.”
“Oh, don’t tell me. You’re humiliating him on day one?”
“Humiliating?”
He smirked.
“I’m simply verifying whether they have the qualification to teach us.”
Tap, tap.
Cha Yu-sik touched his sword sheath.
A professor who can’t handle one student?
The dean wouldn’t have grounds to protect such an incompetent professor.
“Ha, haha! That’s right! That’s it! If you don’t have what it takes, you pack your things and leave!”
Yun Hyun-jong watched Gwak Do-jin’s delighted expression and clenched his fists hard.
‘This is dangerous.’
Rumors spread thickly that Cha Yu-sik could hold his own even in sparring matches against the Academy’s associate professors.
Professor Kang’s medical knowledge was certainly impressive, but there was no guarantee his practical combat ability would match it.
The other cadets gathered in the Training Hall harbored different thoughts of their own.
‘Cha Yu-sik stepping up? Perfect. I was tired of this anyway.’
‘If class gets canceled today, I can sleep in next week.’
Some of them were pleased.
‘Still, the Headmaster recommended him, didn’t he? There has to be a reason.’
‘He said he’d teach us how to get stronger. He’ll show us something.’
Some others held onto hope.
Time stretched on further.
Dong.
When the bell tolled to mark exactly ten o’clock.
Drag, drag.
A man entered the Training Hall with the sound of feet scraping through sand.
“…….”
In that moment, the cadets’ expressions twisted.
“Haaam.”
The professor walked in yawning widely, his hair tousled as though he’d just woken, and two buttons of his shirt hung open.
Most striking of all was the Whiskey Bottle he held in his hand.
A sharp, pungent reek of alcohol hit them on the wind.
‘……Alcohol?’
‘Chugging whiskey from the bottle first thing in the morning? A professor?’
‘What in the…….’
Even Yun Hyun-jong, who had been defending Kang in his heart, fell silent with his mouth agape.
No, Professor!
What on earth are you doing!
This would warrant disciplinary action even for an associate professor!
The cadets who had been hopeful grew visibly disappointed.
But Kang paid no mind to their stares.
He walked slowly to the center of the Training Hall, stopped, and faced the cadets.
He hadn’t even brought an attendance roster.
He simply stood with his weight shifted to one leg, bringing the Whiskey Bottle to his lips.
Glug, glug.
In an eerie silence where even the breathing of twenty people seemed to stop.
“Hah.”
Kang exhaled warm breath tinged with the smell of alcohol and slowly lowered the Whiskey Bottle.
“Not a spark of hunger in those eyes.”
Kang’s lips twisted with disappointment.
“Even livestock dragged to the slaughterhouse would have more fire in their gaze than this.”

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————