The Graduate Student Wants to Assassinate the Professor - Chapter 6

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

Chapter 6

Khalid nodded readily at my offer of tea.
I steeped the tea in the kettle, then dabbed a small amount of poison into Khalid’s cup. He accepted it without the slightest suspicion, merely watching as I poured the tea. Once the cup was full, Khalid took a sip. I observed him with tense eyes.
His throat moved as he swallowed several more mouthfuls, his expression growing visibly satisfied.
“This tea has a wonderful aroma.”
“I purchased it specially for you, Professor.”
“Do you enjoy tea?”
“I simply know a bit about teas with beneficial properties.”
“Then what are the benefits of this particular tea?”
At Khalid’s question, I smiled sweetly before answering.
“It promotes restful sleep.”
The moment those words left my lips, Khalid’s body tilted sideways.
Clang!
The teacup slipped from his hand and shattered against the floor with a sharp, ringing sound. I gazed down at Khalid’s limp form draped across the chair, laughing softly to myself.
“Farewell, future Demon Lord.”
I retrieved the teacup and placed it carefully on the desk, then approached Khalid to verify whether he was truly dead. His expression was peaceful, as though he were merely sleeping.
‘Wait. As though he were merely sleeping…?’
I raised one eyebrow as I observed his chest rising and falling steadily.
“This bastard…?”
When I held my finger before Khalid’s nose, a faint breath brushed against my fingertip.
“He’s asleep?”
Bewildered, I waved my hand before his eyes. But Khalid remained blissfully unconscious. I scratched my head in exasperation.
“What is this? He didn’t die? Did I use too little poison?”
I uncapped the bottle still containing poison and poured it directly into Khalid’s mouth. In his sleep, he smacked his lips and swallowed it down.
Then I waited a moment…
“Snooore…”
“I’m losing my mind.”
Watching him snore even more peacefully now, I rubbed my face in disbelief.
What on earth was the problem?
After a moment of consideration, I reluctantly drew my dagger.
If poison wouldn’t work, I would simply kill him directly. Since he was unconscious, there should be no difficulty whatsoever.
“This time, for certain. Farewell.”
I drove the dagger downward toward Khalid’s heart in one swift motion. But then—
Boom!
“What the—?!”
Crash!
Unable to overcome the rebound force, I let out an ungraceful cry as I flew backward and crashed to the ground.
Unable to overcome the recoil, Leoryna let out a strange shriek as she tumbled backward onto her back.
The moment the dagger bounced away, she reflexively cast a spell to erect a protective barrier, and something struck it and ricocheted, shattering the window on the opposite side.
“Ugh…”
Leoryna stared at the shattered window with bewildered eyes.
“What just…”
She turned toward Khalid to assess the situation, and just then, a faint golden magic circle hovered around his body before fading away. The magic from the circle seeped into the patterns embroidered on Khalid’s clothing.
As she doubted her own eyes, wondering what she had just witnessed, voices of startled people murmuring outside the broken window suddenly reached her ears.
Leoryna hurried to the window and called out to the crowd.
“So, that was… a magical experiment that exploded!”
Having hastily improvised an excuse, she restored the window with her own magic. After confirming that the surrounding people dispersed, she approached the sprawled Khalid.
She pointed her staff at Khalid and muttered timidly.
“Litmo.”
Poof!
A tiny sphere of mana shot from the tip of Leoryna’s staff and flew toward Khalid. But again, the reaction she expected did not occur.
Ting! Ting! Ting!
As if blocked by an invisible barrier, the mana sphere reflected and bounced between the walls several more times before disappearing when Leoryna swung her staff.
She glared at the clothes Khalid was wearing.
“So it functions like this?”
It seemed that magic circle was protecting Khalid. Not only from physical attacks, but from magical ones as well.
Despite all this chaos, Khalid slept peacefully.
Leoryna, seeing that irritating face, sighed dryly and pulled a long cord from her pocket. She brought it toward Khalid’s neck, then hesitated and rolled it back up, returning it to her pocket.
“If I strangle him, I have no idea what the magic circle might do. I can’t risk touching him carelessly.”
Leoryna let out a deep sigh, uncertain how to respond to this unexpected situation.
From the way things looked, the task seemed like it would be simple, but now I couldn’t even lay a hand on him.
‘Should I strip off his clothes? No, I don’t know how he’d react.’
Leoryna squeezed her eyes shut and reluctantly abandoned this rare opportunity.
Poison doesn’t work, attacks are deflected by magic. What kind of man is this?
Petila, you never mentioned anything like this. When am I going to that house?

* * *

“I guess I really was exhausted.”
I had waited for Khalid to wake up, secretly hoping the poison might take effect belatedly and claim him in his sleep. But when I saw him open his eyes perfectly fine the next morning, I couldn’t help but click my tongue in frustration.
Unlike me—who hadn’t slept all night watching over Khalid and now had hollow, sunken eyes—he had slept so soundly that his skin gleamed with vitality.
“I slept like the dead from midday on. But now that I’m awake, I feel completely refreshed.”
“It was a tea to aid sleep, after all. Haha…”
“How could you give me such a tea in the daytime? Sleep should come at night.”
“Haha, you’re right. I wasn’t thinking clearly. Haha.”
Damn it. What kind of liver does that bastard have?
Unaware that I had pulled an all-nighter, Khalid rolled me around just as he had the day before.
I managed to finish the materials needed for the undergraduate lectures on time, but work kept piling up beyond that.
Yet I couldn’t abandon everything and flee. A response had arrived to the report I’d sent—one that read like a snitch’s confession.
The reply from the Papal Palace was simple.

[Maintain the current state.]

And at the end, there was an encouraging note.

[Endure.]

Right. It’s only been a few days since I took on this mission. I just need to hold on a little longer. As always, I’ll find the answer this time too. Yes, I will.
I tried to console myself.
Though my first assassination attempt had failed, if I could just find an opening, it wouldn’t be difficult.
…It had to be possible.

* * *

Morning broke on the fourteenth day since I began working under Khalid.
Upon waking, I lay in bed, torn by intense conflict.
‘Should I claim I’m sick and skip?’
Since the poisoning failed, I had been observing Khalid from his side, watching for any opening. But all that came back to me was an enormous pile of overtime work and cleaning up after him.
I wished he’d at least remove the magic wrapped around his body, but Khalid always kept himself bundled up in clothes of questionable cleanliness—I doubted he even washed them.
Because of this, I genuinely didn’t want to go to the University. I didn’t even want to see his face.
As I thought about everything Khalid had done to me over the past fourteen days, a headache naturally crept in. I didn’t even want to think about what new way he’d torment me today.
‘If I jumped in front of a moving carriage, I wouldn’t have to go to the University, right? Or I could claim my grandmother passed away? Then I could legitimately skip while attending the funeral.’
Just fourteen days. It was truly only fourteen days. In that span, Khalid was the only being who had managed to exhaust me so thoroughly.
But I was Leoryna Yuren, Petila’s Poison Spider—famous for never letting go of a target once I’d seized it.
Rather than skip, it suited my temperament far better to assassinate Khalid with that very momentum.
“I can do this…”
I swallowed my tears inwardly and barely managed to drag myself out of bed.

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