Academy’s Undercover Professor-Novel - Chapter 119

ACADEMY’S UNDERCOVER PROFESSOR

[Translator – Alice]

[Proofreader – ilafy]

Chapter 119 – The All-Ferocious King of Beasts (1)

Pantos stared back at the Kunst auction house they had just escaped from.

“What are you looking at so intensely?”

Alex, who’d gotten onto the truck full of stolen items, asked while looking at Pantos’s weird behavior.

“The place we just escaped from…”

“Kunst auction house? Why?”

“I felt something there.”

‘He felt something?’

Alex also stared back at the Kunst auction house.

Since they had crossed beyond a couple of blocks, the building’s wall was covered, so the Kunst could no longer be seen.

“You felt something? I don’t feel anything strange…”

“A huge prey.”

“What do you mean by ‘prey’?”

Pantos was talking about something beyond his comprehension.

No. On the contrary, he seemed to say it simply like that because it was something only a beastperson could understand.

“But it’s dangerous.”

“What?”

“This prey’s smell and sense of presence… It’s far out of the ordinary. It’s something so dangerous that I’ve only ever rarely sensed something like this, no, maybe it’s much stronger than that…”

Pantos spoke for a while before shutting his mouth.

“What? Why did you stop talking? So is that guy in the Kunst auction house now?”

“Yes.”

‘Since Pantos said that, did something really happen in the auction house?’

Ludger and Hans, who’d gone to join him, were still in the Kunst.

‘It’s not like something happened to both of them, right?’

‘No, of course not. Let’s not be worried for no reason.’

Alex threw off his anxiety while shaking his head.

On the day he’d met Enya and shared a conversation in his separate meeting with Ludger, Alex had asked Ludger something that he was curious about.

-Hey, Leader.

-What?

-Now that I think of it, you said that Pantos is the second main fighting power in our organization.

-Yes.

-Then who’s the first one? As expected, is it you yourself?

The answer to Alex’s playful question as he snickered was completely unexpected.

-I judged fighting power based on the personnel I have available. Obviously I’m not included in that.

-What? Then who could it be? No way, is it me?

-Alex, you’re third. Even though you have amazing skills since you maintained good grades in a Knight officer academy, it’s not enough for you to be in first place.

-Then is there even a person who could be first?

-Yes.

-Who’s that?

When he asked the question, the name that Ludger uttered was completely unexpected.

-Hans.

* * *

As Hans was feeling his senses plunge beyond a distant darkness, he suddenly remembered what’d happened in the past.

He’d met Ludger, sworn his allegiance to Ludger, and spent a lot of time with Ludger thereafter.

Ludger hadn’t asked Hans to fight even after he’d found out that Hans had a physical type that allowed him to transform into a beast and had only ordered him to do errands.

One day, when he thought of how Ludger said he would take care of battles instead of asking for Hans’s help, Hans had been unable to hold in his curiosity.

-There’s something I’m curious about.

-Say it.

-How come you accept a coward like me?

Hans still couldn’t comprehend it.

Even after Ludger had seen Hans’s real ability, he hadn’t tried to utilize it thoroughly.

On the contrary, Ludger had ruled him out of battles completely as if he was being considerate of Hans.

-You know it too, don’t you? I’m a coward who has only been running away while possessing this kind of ability. Even so, it’s a fact that I possess a strength that others don’t.

-Did you ask me the question because you find it weird that I accept someone like you?

-To say it honestly… Yes.

It was okay to call it an inferiority complex.

They were the words of a man who hadn’t been able to receive any kindness from anyone while living a servile life where he was only chased around. He couldn’t believe the real consideration Ludger was showing him without thinking there was an ulterior motive.

‘Yes. It was obviously like that.’

What did Ludger say again?

-It’s because you’re a coward.

-Ah, really. I know that I don’t like to fight, but I feel hurt when I hear it directly.

-No. It’s similar but different.

-If it’s similar, then it’s similar, what’s different about it?

-Hans. You know your own strength very well, and you also know how dangerous your strength is and how big of a responsibility such strength brings. Aren’t you scared of that? That you will perhaps hurt someone with that strength.

-…

For the first time since his birth, Hans realized that he couldn’t say anything if someone hit the nail straight on the head like that.

‘No, that’s not the case.’

‘I simply don’t like to fight, I’m just afraid to get hurt, so I’m a coward that can only run away.’

—He should have said that, but what actually came out of his mouth was something completely different.

-I was an orphan.

With a self-deprecating tone of voice, he complained.

-When I was a kid, I spent my days in an orphanage. At that time, I couldn’t get along well with the others there.

-…

-There was an only child who seemed like a younger sister to me that took care of me—she was a bright and cute kid who was incomparable to someone like me. She was obviously a child who would make men cry and live a nice life when she was grown up.

He reminisced on the time when he was a loner in the orphanage.

-That wonderful, sweet girl… I killed her.

-…Hans.

-It was an accident. She brought me a puppy one day; I have no clue where she picked it up from. It seemed like she wanted to show it to me. It was the pure, innocent thoughts of a child—she just wanted to show something cute to her friend.

‘If only the puppy hadn’t bitten my hand back then…’

‘If only I knew about my physical type back then…’

-If only she hadn’t shown such kindness to me back then…

‘Such a thing wouldn’t have happened.’

It was a candid remark, but to Hans, what happened on that day was a nightmare and trauma that would stay with him for the rest of his life.

It was when he’d discovered his awakened beast factor.

Because he had only been a child, he hadn’t been able to properly hold onto his humanity.

As Hans couldn’t control his surging beast instinct, he’d ended up killing his only friend, that sweet little girl.

-It was the first time I killed someone.

Thinking about that incident still made him dizzy.

Thinking about how his body had been showered in her blood and how her cold corpse had lay at his feet…

The taste of blood and the sinewy, dripping meat…

The horrible memory was like a sin that he had to carry for the rest of his life.

That was why, even though Hans possessed that kind of ability, he never fought anyone and always ran away.

He ran from that dirty strength of a beast that had mercilessly trampled on a girl’s life because he wouldn’t be able to endure it if he ever committed a similar incident again.

-But, Hans, as you continue your life, you’ll definitely run into the day where you won’t be able to live according to your wishes.

-What’s that? Are you cursing me?

-It’s a hint and advice. Hans, you might some day encounter the reality that you don’t want to confront. You might have to make the decision to use that power some day.

-If I run away too, then? Even if it costs me everything?

Hans deliberately forced a smile as he tried to make his reply seem like a joke.

Perhaps the fact that he said that was because he expected Ludger to reprimand him and tell him the hard truth.

However, Ludger wasn’t like that.

-In the end, it’ll be your choice.

Just like what he had been doing until then…

He could just run away if the time came.

As Ludger turned his back on Hans, he’d answered calmly.

-Hans. If that time comes and you run away after throwing away everything, I won’t blame you.

-What’s that?

Ludger didn’t say sugar-coated words that he believed in Hans or that, if it was Hans, then he would be able to do that, or anything.

Even though Hans ran away, he wouldn’t ask for Hans’s responsibility, which lessened his worries for a bit.

Hans had overanalyzed it as he complained about what that meant at the time, but he couldn’t know for sure how he would respond in such a situation.

‘Seeing as how my life is flashing before my eyes like this, it seems like the time of my death has finally come.’

Hans mocked himself for his own gruesome circumstances.

He thought that he had lived a life where he was only running away, met a good person, and had something worthwhile.

Even though it was something that couldn’t be recognized by the world…

The work that Hans had done with Ludger while helping him had just been an escape where Hans could run away from his past trauma.

‘Even if I die in this situation, it won’t be that bad.’

‘Still, if this is the end of everything anyway…’

‘Let’s set the world on fire at least once.’

Ludger barged through the surging crowd and headed back into the auction house.

The people who couldn’t evacuate and the intruders who’d turned the interior into a devastated state got entangled, and everything was still in chaos.

“Kill! Kill everyone!”

“These damned bastards!”

Ludger started to see the groups that were attacking the Kunst auction house one by one.

‘The first ones to make themselves known were the petty thieves that simply wanted to steal the valuables.’

Those guys didn’t think of fighting with the escorts and only carried the items that they could carry.

However, some of them had gotten blinded with greed and had attempted to snatch away the jewelry and gems that the noblewomen wore.

‘The black wizards are over there.’

There were a lot of valuable artifacts within the Kunst auction house.

Some were things that black wizards would drool over, so Ludger understood them stepping up when the people who protected the valuables vanished.

‘The worst problem is those guys who don’t aim for items or anything but purely attempt to kill everyone.’

The guys who deliberately started a fight even when they didn’t need to fight…

No, those were just bastards who wanted to kill nobles.

Because Ludger had met those kinds of bastards before, he could guess their identities right away.

‘It’s the Liberation Army.’

Rich aristocrats and businessmen had gathered in that place, so how could the Liberation Army just let them be?

They were bastards who didn’t hesitate to commit suicide attacks if they could kill those they deemed their enemies.

“Kill him!”

When one side of the door was opened, a Liberation Army bastard whose mouth was covered with a bandana rushed at Ludger.

As Ludger had already felt a sense of presence inside, he used Source Code, cast his technique on the spot, and fired his spell.

White flame exploded right in front of his eyes.

The second-tier lightning spell, Burning Lightning, pierced through the solar plexus of the Liberation Army member.

“Huek.”

As he glanced at the collapsing Liberation Army member’s figure, Ludger questioned how those guys could swagger about the place.

Most of the Liberation Army used gunpowder weapons in the end, so they shouldn’t have been able to easily fight in that place where Silence of Fire was being maintained.

Or did they bring along wizards? But it seemed like they’d suffered a big loss in fighting power due to the train terror incident.

‘Come to think of it, these guys…’

Ludger approached the fallen Liberation Army member and stepped back hurriedly as he felt a sense of deja vu.

—His judgment was correct.

The collapsed Liberation Army member’s body exploded with an intense flame.

Booooom!

As he retreated from the radius of the explosion, Ludger frowned while looking at the explosion.

As expected from the Liberation Army, they were masters in suicide terrorism.

Moreover, Ludger, who had received hard blows once due to their suicide terrorism, obviously knew about their rotten method, and he had prepared enough to counter it.

However…

‘An explosion happened in a space where Silence of Fire is being maintained?’

Moreover, the constant application of Silence of Fire was renewing itself and spreading to the surroundings.

When that magic that suppressed the action of gunpowder was being applied, no matter how one ignited the fuse, the gunpowder simply would not explode.

But an explosion had still happened.

‘It’s not an artifact that was created using magic—I didn’t feel any peculiar magic reverberation. It’s an explosion that happened purely because of gunpowder.’

A flame had been ignited inside a space with magic that suppressed the reactions of gunpowder?

There was only one case similar to it that he could recall.

‘A special gunpowder that Silence of Fire doesn’t work against… the rebel forces have it?’

It was something that couldn’t happen.

That was because the special gunpowder had been gotten rid of without a trace when its whole factory had been burned down along with his identity of ‘James Moriarty’ in the Kingdom of Delica.

‘I thought I had eliminated all of them, were there still some remnants of them that joined forces with the Liberation Army?’

That wasn’t an ordinary problem.

He didn’t expect that a special gunpowder that Silence of Fire didn’t work against was in the hands of the Liberation Army.

Even as Ludger had a hunch that it wasn’t an ordinary problem, he thought of having to find Hans quickly and escape the place.

Then the outer wall of the building collapsed with a thundering sound.

Fwoosh!

All the lights within the building blinked off.

Deep darkness engulfed the area in an instant.

Aaaaaaaah!

A gruesome scream that resembled the endless scream of a beast resounded beyond the corridor

Before Ludger could prepare for it, a black shadow flew in, rolled on the floor, and stopped under Ludger’s feet.

‘A person?’

It was a man in a black suit bathed in blood.

However, the ghastly mana subtly emitting from him hinted that he wasn’t an ordinary person.

‘This ominous mana… is he a black wizard? So they are the ones who ambushed the auction house. But what the hell is this…?’

The wound engraved in the black wizard’s body wasn’t from a sword or magic.

Instead, the man bore the traces of a beast’s bite.

‘An ordinary person couldn’t make these kinds of wounds.’

‘No way… Did Hans use that?’

Ludger’s true fear had become reality.

* * *

“N-no way… My Kunst auction house…”

Ivan Luke, who’d managed to make an escape outside, showed a stunned face while looking at the chaos happening inside the building.

After the Black Guards were locked in the basement, black wizards, criminals, and the Liberation Army had shown up and triggered a commotion.

Maybe it was due to Ivan’s narrow escape. but his hair was disheveled, and his once-neat attire had been torn here and there and was caked in dust.

“Director! It’s alright! The building is still intact, right?! The evacuation of the guests is finished to some extent, and…”

“Guests? W-wait. How about the Princess? Where is the Princess?!”

“W-well… I wasn’t able to properly check it, so…”

“What will happen if the Princess is harmed?! Hurry and check!”

“U-understood!”

When the adjutant hurriedly left the place and was about to enter the building…

Roooaaaaarrrrr────!!!!!

The roaring of some sort of beast was heard from inside the building.

It seemed like the cry of something huge, and it also seemed like the scream of a myriad of beasts all at once.

The scream was filled with bottomless hatred, anger, and sadness.

The people watching the turbulence from outside closed their lips at the tension creeping over their skin.

The horror that had spread to the surroundings in an instant ended in silence.

“What was that just now?”

Booom!

One side of the Kunst auction house’s wall crumbled down.

The outer wall of the eight-story, the particularly high floor was nearly 1.5 times the height of the other buildings, so the debris collapsed down in an instant.

The people ran while screaming.

“Wh-what’s that?”

Those who didn’t have to run noticed a silhouette beyond the hazy fumes of the debris.

“Wolf? Is that a wolf?”

What popped out of the debris of the eigth floor’s ruined wall was the head of a black wolf.

They didn’t know why a black wolf was within the Kunst auction house, but their astonishment didn’t stop there.

The wolf, which had shown only one head at first, began to show its true appearance.

One, two…

When they realized that there were dozens of heads, the people felt that something was strange.

The body which could be said belonged to the wolf was actually misformed.

And after some time passed, the people realized that it wasn’t one a wolf’s body, but that it possessed the form of something else instead.

“Ha-hand?”

It wasn’t a wolf, but a huge ‘hand’.

The huge hand with beast heads in each of its fingers broke the outer wall again.

The debris collapsed, and a cloud of dust swallowed the surroundings.

However, the people froze in their spots and couldn’t think of escaping.

The auction house’s building had been destroyed, and the monster showed its appearance outside.

It looked like a huge black-furred monster with a height beyond dozens meters.

It had a myriad of beast heads throughout its entire body.

The head of its body was a head with a gruesome shape akin to a dried-up wolf’s skull.

There was scarlet glitter within the black pupils of its three main heads—one on each shoulder and one on the top.

It had twisted horns above its main head and a black mane that fluttered in the wind.

Exactly like the three-headed hellhound handled by the devil, hundreds of wild beasts were entangled into one body, and it was a being with a gruesome shape that left them wondering.

“It… it’s the monster.”

Someone that recognized the monster’s appearance spoke in a trembling voice.

It was a person who’d witnessed the incident that’d happened in the city of a kingdom with his own eyes five years before.

How could he forget it?

The monster reflected in his retina still showed up in his nightmares sometimes and distubed him.

It was a rare demonic beast that had eaten even the elite Knights of the Kingdom of Durman when the myriad of cryptids were summoned and showed up there.

It’d taken the leading role in the ‘Bloody Night’ five years prior and the thing that had plunged the city into a nightmare.

“─The Beast of Jévaudan!”

The All-Ferocious King of Beasts was revived in Leathevelk.