The Graduate Student Wants to Assassinate the Professor - Chapter 11

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

Chapter 11

Seeing Leoryna’s genuine indignation, Khalid’s tone softened slightly as he continued.
“Everyone nearly came to harm. What would have happened if I hadn’t been there?”
“Still, you managed to extract yourself at precisely the right moment.”
“I’ve told you before—the students are such hopeless fools that one can scarcely speak of their unpredictability. While graduate students are marginally better than undergraduates, I cannot simply leave them in the hands of those still mired in intellectual mediocrity, can I? I was lying over there.”
‘Why is he suddenly insulting me after things were going so well?’
Leoryna regarded Khalid with a sideways glance.
Yet she alone viewed him askance, while the other students, having intuited the professor’s commanding presence, continued to gaze at him with sparkling eyes.
“Professor, you were so cool.”
At someone’s words, the students nodded in unison.
“That’s right, Professor. It was amazing.”
“Really?”
Leoryna’s expression turned sullen as she watched Khalid’s lips curl upward in a satisfied smirk.
‘Oh, he’s pleased with himself.’
If only he treated me with such casual affection normally, I’d be willing to look at him that way too.
Leoryna was muttering inwardly and gathering the scattered practice notes from all directions with magic to organize them when—
“Teaching Assistant Leoryna, you were amazing too! I’ve never seen defensive magic cast that quickly before!”
“Really? Oh, it was nothing special.”
At the students’ recognition of her abilities, Leoryna’s lips likewise curved upward in a satisfied smirk.
The expression bore a striking resemblance to Khalid’s, though Leoryna remained entirely oblivious to this fact.

* * *

After the students finished their lessons and left, I tidied up the Outdoor Practice Grounds and grumbled to Khalid.
“You said you had urgent matters and couldn’t come, didn’t you?”
“I finished.”
“Hmm.”
I responded casually, but inwardly I clutched at my suddenly racing heart.
It was a stroke of fortune that I hadn’t used fifth-circle magic. If I’d hastily cast a spell in my eagerness, thinking no one was watching, Khalid would have caught me red-handed.
“Still, you did well.”
“Pardon? I didn’t do anything.”
“You protected the students.”
Well, wasn’t that obvious?
As I scratched my head, Khalid continued his praise as if something had possessed him.
“Most people would abandon everything and flee in such a situation. But you didn’t manage to attack—you immediately deployed defensive magic. That kind of quick reflexes isn’t something everyone possesses.”
‘Wait? Is he saying I don’t look like an ordinary person?’
My heart began racing again. But Khalid seemed to mean nothing more than simple praise, merely smiling with satisfaction.
“I seem to have chosen an excellent graduate student.”
“R-really? Haha, hahaha!”
I tried to brush it off with laughter. But Khalid’s next words displeased me.
“So let’s stay together for a long time.”
I don’t want to? I’m going to assassinate you quickly and go home?
Having finished tidying the Practice Grounds to some degree, I managed my expression while harboring such crooked thoughts, turned my body, and responded.
“Professor, that sounds exactly like you don’t want to let me graduate.”
At my observation, Khalid’s warm smile deepened. At that sight, I unconsciously ground my teeth.
‘This bastard has no intention of letting me graduate.’
Khalid’s intentions were far too transparent.
‘Why haven’t I assassinated this simple man yet….’
I felt foolish and despised myself.

* * *

When I returned to the Research Laboratory with Khalid, Zigzagel was already there. I had no desire to see that man’s face every single day, yet it seemed he was determined to make Khalid’s Research Laboratory his second home.
I asked him with the intention of driving him out.
“Professor Zigzagel, don’t you have your own Research Laboratory?”
“I do.”
“Then why are you here instead of there?”
“I had something I wanted to ask him about.”
Zigzagel rummaged through the papers and research materials stacked throughout the Research Laboratory as he spoke.
“You’ve published an enormous number of research papers over the past decade—are you actually making progress on what you’re trying to accomplish?”
Khalid shrugged as he answered.
“There’s progress. There is, but if the goal is 100 meters away, I’d say I’ve only closed about 15 meters of that distance.”
“Hey, I did agree to help with your research, but isn’t that pace a bit much? Even accounting for how you conduct research, that’s still slow.”
Unable to contain her curiosity any longer, I asked quietly while listening to their conversation.
“Progress on what? What exactly are you trying to accomplish, Professor Khalid?”
At my words, Khalid and Zigzagel exchanged glances for a moment. Then they both shook their heads simultaneously and spoke.
“It’s nothing special.”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“What do you mean ‘nothing’? If you told me what it was, wouldn’t I be able to help when you’re conducting the research?”
“No, it’s fine. You just need to do what I tell you to do.”
I regarded Khalid suspiciously as he drew that line, but he averted his gaze and feigned indifference.
Now that I think about it, Khalid was simultaneously conducting twenty-three separate research projects.
Only after entering the Graduate School did I learn this fact, and I became convinced that this man was genuinely insane.
Just focusing on one or two research projects feels like it would split your skull open, but twenty-three?
Yet he neglected none of them. That’s why he complained about being busy every day and fell asleep in his Professor’s Office.
So I too was dying alongside him. After all, it was I who was helping with those research projects.
‘So he wasn’t just grabbing at any topic that seemed interesting—he actually had a purpose behind all this?’
“You’re human, and my lifespan as a member of the Demon Race is different from yours. The results of my research won’t emerge until a considerable time in the future. By then, you’ll be dead and gone. So Leoryna, it’s nothing that concerns you.”
My curiosity only grew, but I doubted that asking Khalid directly would yield a proper answer.
“Anyway, something incredible happened.”
Khalid, who was obviously changing the subject, smirked.
‘I don’t know what it is, but please don’t smile like that. Nothing good ever comes when you smile like that. I don’t want to know! I don’t want to hear it!’
Unaware of my inner turmoil, Khalid pulled something from his pocket and handed it to me. It was a newspaper that had been published this morning.
I saw an article printed in a small corner of the newspaper marked with a red pen. While I read the article, Khalid spoke.
“Two days ago, an enormous mana stone was discovered in a region called Sitra. The longest dimension is apparently 10 meters! But since only part of it is exposed, the buried portion inside is supposedly even larger.”
“Oh, that’s remarkable.”
As a mage, I expressed genuine admiration. Zigzagel’s eyes also gleamed with interest.
For good reason—I had never seen a mana stone of such size. A mana stone of this magnitude was something that would inevitably capture the curiosity not just of Khalid, but of other mages as well.
“This is exactly what I’ve been looking for! To proceed with the research I’m planning, I need a mana stone of this caliber to produce proper results. But the ones already excavated are either prohibitively expensive or locked under government ownership, so I couldn’t obtain one.”
Typically, mana stone mining rights belong to most governments. Mana stones are crucial strategic resources for national operations, and as such, reporting discovered mana stones to the government is standard procedure.
“With just that mana stone, I think I could keep about fourteen of my current research projects running. Wow, such efficiency. I definitely need that mana stone.”
“That mana stone will also be managed by the government though… Are you planning to purchase it?”
“What are you saying? Do you really think I could afford this with my research budget?”
Khalid responded to Leoryna with a tone suggesting she’d said something naive, and Zigzagel asked with an anxious expression.
“You don’t mean to say…?”
“Let’s go steal it.”

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