The Genius Professor Wants An Easy Life - Chapter 11

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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 11
When I decided to become a professor at the academy, I harbored one worry.
Though the academy was safer and more comfortable than military service or government office, it harbored nuclear warheads I absolutely must not approach.
The protagonists.
‘Especially the four main protagonists—I’d prayed never to cross paths with them.’
The Hero Academy had sixteen protagonists in total.
The game featured four academies as settings.
That meant four protagonists were stationed at each academy.
What made it peculiar was that the assignments were randomized.
Since protagonist placements varied with each playthrough, the Hero Academy’s selling point was the fresh experience it offered.
‘I had no way of knowing which protagonist would be assigned where, so I’d been praying that the relatively safer ones would land at Rubiness Academy.’
The sixteen protagonists held different roles and narrative weight within the storyline.
There were four main ones, and among those, two stood above the rest.
Kathryn was the apex—the True Protagonist among those two.
I’d stumbled directly into contact with the most dangerous bomb.
‘Damn it, should I just pretend not to see her?’
But our eyes had already locked exactly.
Kathryn’s eyes went wide.
“You mad bastard of a young lord? What in the world are you doing here?”
A reaction recognizing ‘me’ as a young lord.
Given Kathryn’s status, it made sense.
‘She was the lady of the Klein Duke Family, a prestigious house of magic.’
Since we both belonged to the same four great ducal families, there must have been prior acquaintance by design.
‘Though hardly on good terms.’
Good terms? Not a chance.
The protagonist before me—Kathryn’s eyes gleamed with pure contempt.
Kathryn wore her usual aloof, irritable expression, but even her gaze alone felt like it could draw blood from a wound.
‘Kathryn wasn’t a protagonist with a good temperament either.’
She was the very definition of prickly.
In the early part of first year, she was frankly a ‘cancer character’—many players disliked her.
She only began to show her true protagonist qualities once the scenario had progressed considerably.
‘Just exchange pleasantries and don’t get entangled.’
I summoned an appropriately neutral greeting.
Reading the atmosphere, it seemed she’d attempted the Cave of Lamentation and failed.
So then.
“Did you challenge the Cave of Lamentation? Your courage is admirable, but surely you’ve realized your meager talent makes it impossible. I’d appreciate it if you’d get out of the way. You’re in my path.”
Damn.
My Black Flame Dragon Charisma reacted to Kathryn’s hostility and caused trouble.
‘Hell. What did I just—? Do I need to clean this up…?’
I blinked.
‘…Wait, do I actually need to fix this at all?’
Let me reconsider.
I must not grow close to the protagonists.
Among them, Kathryn was my number-one priority to avoid.
Picking a fight with her now—becoming someone she’d never want to see again—wasn’t the worst outcome.
‘If we end up in the same academy, sure, I might get a dagger in the back later, but Kathryn’s just a student and I’m a professor, so she can’t really harm me anyway.’
And there was another reason I had to provoke her.
“Is that everything you have to say, you trash of a young lord?”
Her bloodthirsty glare made my heart stutter, but I didn’t stop.
“No, I haven’t finished. I don’t know what you were hoping to gain in the Cave of Lamentation, but give it up. Better yet, perhaps you should abandon the path of magic altogether. There’s nothing quite so agonizing as clinging to hopeless endeavors.”
Even I felt the urge to strike myself for such shameless words.
“!!”
True to form, Kathryn’s face drained of color.
“How dare you….”
Her anger now bore no comparison to before.
I’d stepped on her landmine.
I quietly recalled her background.
‘A bastard of a prestigious magical house.’
As befitted the True Protagonist, Kathryn carried a tragic past.
She was born illegitimate into the Klein Duke Family.
And it wasn’t just martial prowess that eluded her—as a mage, she possessed the worst talent imaginable.
‘A lowborn bastard with the worst talent of all, a dull fool despised by everyone in the family.’
Her prickly temperament was a consequence of that.
Her challenge to the Cave of Lamentation must have been a desperate struggle to overcome her own shortcomings by any means.
And then she failed, sinking into despair.
A person with normal empathy would have offered her comfort, but.
‘Comfort won’t help Kathryn right now.’
She was a hero-type character who grew through adversity.
All these trials and all this rage would become the very foundation of her growth.
More than that.
“Ha! Don’t make me laugh! What could a piece of garbage like you possibly know! I’ll conquer the Cave of Lamentation right now and prove your words wrong! Prepare to kneel and apologize to me!”
With a sharp spin, she turned her back and stormed into the dungeon.
As she went, a message materialized beside her retreating figure.
<Cave of Lamentation Clear Probability>
-If you manipulate the spiky novice mage like a fool: 70%
The probability had jumped dramatically.
It was exactly as intended.
* * *
-That child is not mine.
Kathryn was born when the Duke of a magical noble house spent one night of pleasure with a courtesan from the street.
The Duke abandoned Kathryn by pressing a few coins into the courtesan’s hand.
Kathryn’s mother abandoned her as well.
While she struggled through each day begging in the back alleys alone, her ‘father’ appeared again.
-I was wrong in my thinking. Call me father. Now you are my daughter.
A prophecy had come down to the magical noble house.
That Kathryn would become the “great star” that would illuminate this world.
-You will be the fortune of our Klein Duke Family.
But was the prophecy mistaken?
Kathryn could scarcely distinguish herself.
Her achievements were far inferior not only to the geniuses of the magical noble house, but even to ordinary people.
-Low blood shows as low blood.
-Why did we ever accept such a thing into the family?
-The previous house lord must have misread the causal threads.
Hope had curdled into contempt.
From then on, Kathryn had to endure days that were like hell.
How many nights had she fallen asleep without crying?
She grew increasingly venomous in spirit.
‘I will earn their recognition no matter what.’
This year she would be admitted to the academy.
She would prove it before them all.
That she was no filthy failure.
‘I must work a miracle in the Cave of Lamentation.’
-Those who walk the path of magic: overcome the trial of lamentation, and you shall gain the Mystery.
It was a story passed down like legend.
She didn’t know exactly what the ‘Mystery’ meant, but it was certainly a great power that would help any mage tremendously.
But she had failed helplessly, and was drowning in despair, when he appeared.
-Why not abandon the path of the mage instead.
‘What could you possibly know, you garbage.’
Kathryn clenched her teeth.
The truth was.
She wasn’t actually angry at him.
She’d heard such words countless times already.
Her rage came from her own inadequacy.
‘This wretched cave. I’ll conquer it no matter what!’
Yet as she was making steady progress forward, Kathryn’s face twisted in confusion.
‘Why can I hear the wailing without issue?’
The Cave of Lamentation was, true to its name, a cave from which wails could be heard.
Wails that gnawed at the mind.
Even now, the cries continued to echo through the cavern.
“M-master…!! I can’t go on…!! Ugh!”
The middle-aged mage who’d followed Ban collapsed with a gurgling sound.
It was exactly what Kathryn had experienced on her first attempt.
‘Why am I holding up so well right now?’
It still tormented her, certainly.
But endurable, perhaps?
‘…Could it be the rage at that trash?’
Fury rose to the crown of her head, and in that heat, she had no mind to notice the lamentation.
‘Ugh.’
The moment her anger subsided slightly, the anguish of the Cave of Lamentation clawed back into her consciousness.
‘No, this won’t do. I’ll fail again like this….’
That was when it happened.
“Is this all you’ve got? How pathetic.”
“!!”
It was Ban.
Utterly unaffected by the Cave of Lamentation—still the same haughty, infuriating figure as before.
“Turn back. And never so much as glance at magic again. I’m telling you this for your own good.”
“Shut up!!!”
She shot forward with a crackling sound.
Ban had reignited her fury, and now the lamentation faded from her awareness once more.
‘…Is he possibly doing this on purpose?’
The thought flickered across her mind for an instant.
‘…That trash? Impossible.’
Kathryn shook her head firmly.
There was no way that could be true.
Just look at him still running his mouth.
“Tch. You’re in the way. Your very presence makes it difficult for me to display my magnificence, doesn’t it?”
‘Just shut up!’
It was absolutely impossible.
And yet—coincidence?
Each time Kathryn wavered, Ban’s infuriating nonsense erupted on cue, and thanks to it, she found herself advancing deep into the cave.
* * *
‘Ugh. Why does this lamentation feel so spine-chilling?’
It was like listening to the eerie soundtrack of a haunted house.
Without the Black Flame Dragon Charisma, her face would have turned ghastly pale.
‘Thank gods my Mana is so meager—it’s what’s keeping me alive.’
The Cave of Lamentation held one secret.
The stronger one’s Mana, the greater the malevolent influence.
Conversely, if one’s Mana fell below a certain threshold, it was merely frightening, with little actual harm inflicted.
‘Even a 1-Star Rank would suffer considerable affliction.’
My Mana was barely a fraction of a 1-Star Rank’s, so I could endure it.
‘Kathryn’s managing admirably, though. Even for someone as dull-witted, she’d have far more Mana than I do.’
It spoke to the strength of her will.
‘Especially since Kathryn has Berserker as a latent trait. Her willpower only grows stronger when she rages.’
Minor monsters blocked our path occasionally, but they posed no real threat.
“Creatures like that would be beyond your capacity. Fall back.”
“What do you mean beyond my capacity?! Stay quiet and watch my magic technique properly!”
A mere taunt was all it took—Kathryn would bristle and fight in my stead with more fervor than anyone.
‘Fortunate, really. Without Kathryn, I’d have been in serious trouble.’
My Mana was too sparse; I’d have struggled against multiple lesser monsters.
‘True Protagonist, fighting spirit! Keep battling hard and save the world!’
But then.
We hit an obstacle.
We’d reached the end of the cave.
“Wh-what is this creature?”
Kathryn’s voice wavered.
It made sense.
An utterly absurd existence stood before us.
A skeleton clad in a Mage Robe.
A Lich.
Undead monstrosity at Level 7, no less.
‘This is precisely why this dungeon is deemed unclimable.’
The higher one’s magical aptitude, the more vulnerable one becomes to the Cave of Lamentation—high-ranking mages cannot penetrate this far.
Those of us with meager Mana reserves, like myself, may reach this depth but lack the strength to withstand a Lich.
“I….”
Kathryn’s hands clenched into fists.
“We’ve come this far—I cannot simply give up….”
The look in her eyes spelled determination. I felt the familiar chill of dread.
‘Kathryn, you mustn’t step forward—not now!’
I possessed a method to overcome the Lich.
Not a guaranteed victory, but at worst, a strategy that would let me extract myself alive, even in failure.
‘But if Kathryn moves, the situation spirals beyond control.’
In the worst case.
She could die.
‘Absolutely not. If you fall, who will stand against the forces of darkness in your place?’
By any means necessary, I had to ensure she survived this ordeal intact.
“The Lich is mine to face.”
“…I beg your pardon?”
I made certain to stop her before she could act, my tone brooking no argument.
Let her feel the weight of my concern.
“I am magnanimous. However rude your conduct may be, I have no wish to watch you perish like a stray dog. Stand here where you are and accept my protection.”

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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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