The Genius Professor Wants An Easy Life - Chapter 45

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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 45
To be precise, she was from an assassin clan.
“Did you perhaps fall under a curse from the Demon Realm?”
“I had secret business with the Demon Race, so I ventured into the Demon Realm, but an accident occurred and I ended up cursed.”
That “secret business” had been an assassination contract, and I could have wagered my newly acquired dragon daughter on it.
“Please, I beg you! Our clan is bound by law to repay any debt! Allow me to serve you as your faithful retainer!”
Watching her go beyond merely dropping to her knees—her entire body tensed as if she meant to slam her forehead into the floor—I felt my stomach drop.
‘Taking the most formidable assassin clan in the world as my servant? Absolutely not….’
Then I blinked.
‘…Why not?’
Amanda was doing this because of her clan’s law, so there was no risk of betrayal.
Rather, I’d be gaining the most dependable subordinate imaginable.
‘…Far more trustworthy than Hans or Linden, anyway.’
The problem was the nagging discomfort it left.
‘If I’m careless, I could end up entangled with the Sun Moon Clan.’
The Sun Moon Clan was one of the major powers controlling a pillar of the scenario.
One of the sixteen Protagonists was even from their ranks.
‘Right, it’s a shame, but I should refuse. Besides, Hans and Linden alone are hardly sufficient—damn it.’
I fell silent for a moment.
As I recalled their pitiful performances, I suddenly felt an overwhelming pang at the thought of turning Amanda away.
In the end, I came up with a clever solution.
“I refuse. Taking you as a servant would only encumber me.”
“Ah…!”
Amanda’s eyes darkened with disappointment.
Of course, my words weren’t finished.
I pressed on hurriedly.
“However, if you truly wish to repay this debt, I can’t very well stop you. Since we happen to be fellow faculty members, how about you simply lend me a hand when I need it?”
I wasn’t interested in a deeper entanglement, but I’d certainly accept her assistance!
“Thank you, my benefactor! Is there anything you need right now? Please, tell me anything at all!”
I studied Amanda’s eyes, which burned with loyalty, and hesitated.
Truth be told, I did need something at the moment.
“…Could you procure the corpse of a monster?”
“Of course. You’ll be using it as research material for magic, I presume. Just say the word. Manticores, hydras, griffins—I can obtain any high-level monster you require.”
“…Never mind those. The meat needs to be tender. Easy to chew, in other words.”
“……??”
“And where do you live? Do you have a yard?”
“I’ve secured a place in District 1, though? There is a yard. But why do you ask?”
As expected of a wealthy assassin clan.
They’d obtained a residence in District 1, the most expensive area in the Free City.
‘I’m stuck in District 5, next to the slums. In a single room, no less.’
If you envy others, you’ve already lost.
“The reason is….”
I faltered, struggling to explain, when a small face suddenly popped out from my breast pocket.
-Kyu-yu!
“!!”
Watching Amanda’s eyes go wide with shock, I let out a long, weary sigh.
“…I need you to look after this little one. Just until I can get a new place.”
Where I lived now was too sensitive to noise to properly house a baby dragon.
‘Fortunately, the Dragon Race is a solitary kind, so they grow up fine on their own and don’t particularly seek out mother or father.’
Even dragons, when raising their young, simply prepare a single nest and abandon them to it.
They only watch from afar, unseen, offering protection from a distance—letting them grow up alone.
‘Understanding the truth through solitude and growing through that hardship, or so the saying goes? Human common sense can’t quite grasp it.’
For me, it was fortunate.
But then—
-Kyu-yu?
As I turned to leave, the baby dragon tilted its head, emitting a questioning cry.
“…I have to go.”
-Kyu-yu?
“…Our home is too cramped for you to come with me.”
-…Kyu-yu.
A cry that somehow sounded mournful.
“…The floorboards down below are completely rotten, so they’ll creak loudly every time you walk. The mercenary living underneath has a foul temper—he won’t tolerate it.”
Flap!
Remarkably, the baby dragon seemed to understand my words, because the moment I finished speaking, it leaped down and began tiptoeing carefully across the floor.
Coo-coo-coo.
A cry that seemed to say: I’ll be careful, so please don’t abandon me.
In the end, I spoke words I’d come to regret.
“…Never mind giving it away.”
“Master?”
“Instead, see if you can find a Soundproofing Magical Tool.”
Amanda nodded.
“As expected, you truly are a warm-hearted person.”
“…That’s not it.”
“In all my years serving as a descendant of the Sun Moon Clan, I’ve had many chances to meet baby dragons, but I’ve never seen one look this happy.”
Coo-coo!
Just as Amanda said, the baby dragon was nuzzling its face against mine, beaming with delight—looking less like a dragon and more like a puppyish creature.
I made a complicated face.
‘There’s no helping it. If I just left it alone and it grew twisted into the Dark Dragon of Destruction, that would be a problem.’
So it was a choice made for the sake of the world’s future, not because the sight of it reminded me of my own past self, abandoned and neglected by parents.
‘Anyway, the New School Term starts soon.’
I turned my gaze away.
The academy grounds, empty without students.
In just a few days, that would change.
The New School Term was beginning.
At last, the scenario was opening its curtain.
Now was the time for the protagonists.
* * *
The time of the protagonists.
It wasn’t a wrong way to put it.
More precisely, it was the students’ time.
After all, no matter what anyone said, the students were the backbone of the academy.
Indeed, as the New School Term approached, people’s attention fixed on the students.
“At any academy, this year’s crop of freshmen seems particularly impressive.”
“True. This time, Rubinnes Academy is stacked too.”
“Not only direct heirs from renowned magical and martial families, but can you believe the Bright Dragon’s disciple and the son of the Northern Sea Borderlands have chosen Rubinnes Academy?”
“And that’s not all. Unofficially, ‘that person’ from the Imperial Palace is also enrolling at Rubinnes Academy.”
“My, ‘that person’ from the Imperial Palace? Is it true? The Second Prince’s mood must be quite sour.”
The academy holds tremendous weight in imperial society.
Countless connections are forged through the academy, and all manner of cultural and social activities are tied to it.
It wasn’t for nothing that the academy was called the flower of the empire.
So naturally, everyone was fascinated by which remarkable figures enrolled as freshmen and who would stand out.
It was essentially ‘entertainment.’
There were even news outlets that specialized exclusively in academy gossip.
However, people’s attention wasn’t limited to the freshmen alone.
“They say Rubinnes Academy’s new faculty this year is quite impressive too?”
“That’s what I heard, but contrary to expectations, they don’t seem all that remarkable. Can you believe a worthless vagrant took first place in the faculty training course?”
“Worse than a vagrant? It sounds like all of them were just shiny on the surface.”
Among the people, my reputation remained dreadful.
Though not everyone thought the same way.
“Perhaps it’s true that this vagrant really has changed.”
“Come on, really?”
“Of course I don’t believe it either, but similar rumors keep reaching my ears.”
Of course, such views were only a minority.
The majority reaction went like this:
“Isn’t it possible the Ecclesia Duchy broke family tradition and manipulated the press?”
“Yes, that’s more reasonable to believe. The way people talk, you’d think this vagrant is some legendary genius.”
It couldn’t be helped.
More than a decade had passed while everyone knew me as worthless. The roots of prejudice ran deep indeed.
Yet there were those who regarded me with completely different eyes.
“…It does seem like the mysterious star in the Prophecy’s Celestial Mechanism must be this vagrant after all.”
It was the Second Prince Renius, an apostle of Ouroboros!
“This is troublesome. I cannot predict what variable the Crown Prince might become. I cannot leave this to chance.”
“Will you intervene directly, Your Highness?”
The Second Prince shook his head at his subordinate’s question.
“That would be impossible. Unnecessary, even. I intend to strike at the Crown Prince’s weakness.”
“His weakness?”
“His character.”
!!
The Second Prince Renius twisted his lips into a smile.
“Even if the Crown Prince is truly a genius without peer, he has one weakness he cannot overcome—a rotten, unbearable character that makes him impossible to associate with.”
His subordinate nodded in understanding.
It was no accident that the Crown Prince was called names.
“The Crown Prince is not a student, but a professor. What a professor requires is not merely exceptional skill, but the ability to guide others—something a man like him could never accomplish. I want you to relay the following instructions to Maximum, the Minister of Education.”
The subordinate nodded with an expression of admiration as he listened to the Second Prince’s instructions.
It was a stratagem that the Crown Prince’s character could never overcome.
“This time, the Crown Prince will surely be removed from Rubinnes Academy.”
Along with the Second Prince’s confident voice, a single official document from the Ministry of Education was sent toward Rubinnes Academy.
* * *
At last, the entrance ceremony day drew near.
‘The protagonists make their entrance.’
Soon the great hall doors would open and the students attending the entrance ceremony would pour in.
My heart thudded with anticipation and anxiety as I waited to see what students would appear.
‘I wonder what kind of protagonists enrolled?’
Besides Katrine and Rivel, there should be one protagonist each in the Knights Academy, the Liberal Arts Academy, and the Support Academy.
‘Please, anyone but Yodo.’
He was the Main Protagonist of the Liberal Arts Academy.
Merely thinking of Yodo sent chills down my spine.
‘I need to avoid the Villain-Type Protagonists too. Especially not the Massacre Demon.’
To be specific, the sixteen protagonists break down as follows.
Four Main Protagonists.
Four Sub-Main Protagonists.
Four Supporting Protagonists.
Four Villain-Type Protagonists.
What I hoped for were the four Supporting Protagonists.
They had minor roles in the scenario, and their struggles were relatively mild.
‘Or the Sub-Main Protagonists would be acceptable too.’
The worst were the Main Protagonists and the Villain-Type Protagonists.
Especially the Villain-Type Protagonists.
True to their name, they were fundamentally villains in the scenario.
If they weren’t ‘redeemed,’ they would become terrible named-rank villains. Truly terrible ones.
‘The Massacre Demon, in particular, is the worst. Redemption is almost impossible given their backstory, and preventing their misdeeds is extremely difficult.’
“Students, proceed!”
The students finally began to enter, and I soon spotted a familiar face.
A beautiful boy carved as if from marble.
‘Tern, from the swordmaster family.’
He was the Sub-Main Protagonist of the Knights Academy.
His personality was almost rigid, so he wasn’t exactly my preferred protagonist, but I couldn’t say he was terrible either.
Next, I noticed the faces of the ‘Named Students.’
‘These are the ones who play important roles in the Rubinnes scenario.’
The problem was the other protagonists.
‘…where are the other two?’
There should have been one each in the Liberal Arts Academy and the Support Academy, but I didn’t see them at all.
‘One protagonist should be placed in each academy without fail. So why…?’
Suddenly, a sinister chill ran down my spine.
‘…could they have skipped the entrance ceremony? Both of the remaining protagonists?’
Skipping the entrance ceremony.
Generally an unimaginable thing to do, but entirely possible for protagonists.
‘Many protagonists have irresponsible personalities.’
I could think of more than five protagonist candidates who might skip it off the top of my head.
The problem was that most of those candidates were dangerous wild cards I needed to avoid.
‘…Both Yodo and the Massacre Demon had remarkably unreliable personalities.’

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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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