Academy’s Undercover Professor-Novel - Chapter 133

ACADEMY’S UNDERCOVER PROFESSOR

[Translator – Alice]

[Proofreader – ilafy]

 

Chapter 133 – Blade Within A Shadow (1)

 

Elendil’s hand trembled.

Her complexion paled like she had heard a secret that should have never been heard.

“Senior, are you alright?”

“O-oh? Why do you ask?”

“Your complexion doesn’t look good.”

“Y-yeah. It seems a bit like that anyway.”

Elendil was barely able to answer.

However, even when she said that, she felt that there was something dark wriggling and ascending within her body.

To say it frankly, Elendil was feeling a tremendous sense of betrayal from Lynne.

‘I thought we were each others’ only friends!’

The shout that didn’t pass her mouth fluctuated in her heart.

Lynne was kind, and she was even pretty.

Obviously, her having another friend to eat with was nothing strange.

In the end, Elendil thought that it was her own deficiency for not being able to acknowledge it.

‘S-still. I wanted to talk to her about the story of the Kunst auction house while eating together!’

She’d already scripted how she was going to tell the entire story in her head.

She only needed someone to listen to it, but there was a setback there.

Elendil was tearful at the unbelievable reality.

“Y-you know. Lynne.”

“Yes.”

“Well… Who… who else are you eating with?”

“Oh, hm. That…”

Lynne was hesitant to answer.

She had an appointment with Freuden Wolfsburg. However, that was supposed to be a secret.

Freuden was a frugal person who cared for his own flower garden to avoid peoples’ eyes, and he’d only shared that secret with her.

—It’ll be better if you keep the things here a secret.

That was Freuden’s request when he separated ways with her.

If she spoke Freuden’s name here, she would become a bigmouth who told another person’s secret as she pleased.

As her thoughts went on to that, Lynne tightly shut her mouth and Elendil was once again shocked.

To think that the kind and innocent Lynne kept the person she would eat with a secret!

‘It’s a man! It’s obviously a man!’

Elendil was certain that the person who was eating with Lynne was a man.

It was a judgment that she made out of anger and fury, but it was surprisingly accurate.

Elendil’s eyes widened before she hurriedly fixed her expression.

“I-is that so? Well, it can’t be helped if you’re busy, then. Hohoho.”

“I’m sorry, Senior. We should eat together tomorrow!”

“Of course. And I’m not a narrow-minded person who holds a grudge because of things like this. You know? Really. I don’t feel offended or anything.”

“Pardon?”

“Just~ That’s all I’m saying.”

“Oh, yes.”

Lynne nodded her head and felt relieved when she saw the smiling Elendil.

‘It’s a relief that the senior understands me with her broad mind.’

Still, she’d thought that Elendil would inwardly hold a bit of a grudge, but as expected from a princess, she was being considerate of Lynne with her broad mind.

“See you tomorrow.”

“Yeah, goodbye.”

Lynne bowed to Elendil, who waved her hand and disappeared beyond the corridor with hurried steps.

As she waved her hand at Lynne, Elendil stood still as if time had stopped when Lynne disappeared from her sight.

‘Lynne is going to eat a meal with a man?’

According to Lynne’s personality, there was no way she would approach someone first and offer to eat with them.

—Which meant that there was a fair chance that the man had approached her first.

There was immediately one situation drawn within Elendil’s mind…

‘That wolfish guy is obviously hitting on my innocent Lynne!’

There were many male students who were aiming for Lynne.

Because she had status as a commoner, the aristocratic male students thought that she would be particularly easy.

No matter how much of a wall Lynne built, she couldn’t kick away everyone who approached her while hiding their intentions.

‘I can’t stay still like this! I should step up and help Lynne at all costs!’

Apart from her sense of justice, Lynne was Elendil’s first friend after she’d arrived at Sören.

Her friend was falling onto the wrong path, so she couldn’t just stay still while watching it with her own two eyes.

Elendil chased after Lynne with stealthy footsteps.

‘Over there!’

Just in time, Lynne left the main building and headed to the park.

‘The park! It’s a favorite for students looking to have impure romantic relations!’

Because Elendil also had ears to listen with, she knew where students secretly whispered their love.

As she felt that her anxious imagination was gradually becoming reality, she continued to follow Lynne.

‘How dare a shameless guy try something with my Lynne! Let’s see what his face looks like!’

When she thought so, Lynne entered a remote forest near the park.

Elendil became rushed. She was unsure about whether she should step up and pull Lynne’s hand there.

‘N-no!’

When she was contemplating for a moment, Lynne entered the forest.

Elendil hurriedly chased her and headed to the forest.

After walking through it for quite some time, Elendil discovered a vacant lot within the forest and stopped in her steps.

‘There’s a small vacant lot in this kind of place?’

Inside the artificially decorated vacant lot, there was a flower garden that seemed to have been cultivated by someone.

Also, Lynne, who she had followed all the way there, was standing in the center of the lot.

She looked like she was waiting for someone.

It meant that the person who’d promised to eat with Lynne was there.

‘Where is he?’

It was then that Elendil heard a voice from behind her back as she looked at the surroundings while hiding behind a tree.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?”

Elendil was shocked and hurriedly turned around.

And as she recognized the person talking to her, her eyes widened.

“Freuden Wolfsburg?”

“…Third Princess Elendil?”

Freuden Wolfsburg…

The man with a cold impression squinted his eyes while glaring at Elendil.

“I was wondering who was sneaking into this place like a rat, what’s your business here?”

“No, then why on earth are you here?”

“That’s because…”

Freuden was about to answer before he shook his head.

“I don’t think I have to explain it.”

“What?”

“Ah! Senior!”

As she heard the sound of their conversation, Lynne, who had been waiting in the vacant lot, approached them.

She was about to greet Freuden, but she froze in place when she saw Elendil.

“Oh? Why are you here, Senior Elendil?”

She quickly turned her head and alternated looking at Freuden and Elendil.

A strange silence sank down amongst the three.

* * *

“So…”

As she sat on a mat, Elendil leered at Freuden with a suspicious look.

“This vacant lot and flower garden were personally cultivated by you, and Lynne met you here before you decided to start eating together?”

“Is there anything weird in that?”

Freuden picked up the meal he had made from his lunchbox as he replied.

Lynne couldn’t do as she pleased, as she was suddenly trapped in the war of nerves that the two were having.

She was contemplating what she should do in that situation before carefully opening her mouth.

“Well, but why are you in this place, Senior Elendil?”

Elendil’s body trembled at the question that hit the bull’s eye.

She avoided Lynne’s stare while hesitating for a moment before answering.

“Th-that’s because you said that you were going to go eat but suddenly headed to the park, and that made me worried…”

“Oh. I see.”

Lynne understood right away why Elendil had followed her.

If her friend said that they would go to eat while heading toward a forest, she would have had similar thoughts as well.

Then, Freuden snorted while refuting Elendil’s words.

“You’re making lame excuses. That’s why you don’t have any friends.”

“Wh-what? Hey! It’s not like I don’t have any friends! I’m deliberately not looking for them!”

Elendil hit her palm to the ground hard at the statement that she didn’t have friends.

Freuden’s words were rubbing salt on her fresh wounds.

“Hmph. Then what on earth are you, Wolfsburg? I can’t believe that you decorated a pretty flower garden, that’s so unlike you. It’s so different from your usual image.”

Freuden’s frowned at Elendil’s counterattack.

“…Don’t insult other peoples’ hobbies.”

“I would never in my wildest dreams have imagined that the heartless wolf would have this kind of girly hobby.”

“I think that you should also have a bit of a girly preference, Your Highness.”

“What?!”

The way both of them were snarling at each other made it look like they had grudges to settle.

Freuden shook his head.

“It’s just going to mentally exhaust me if we keep going on like this.”

“Hmph. The same goes for me. Let’s just go our separate ways.”

“…You said that, but why are you eating the lunch that I made?”

Elendil had been eating the meal that Freuden had made since the start.

Elendil suddenly stopped her fork at that word before she decided to be brazen since she’d gone all the way there anyway.

“What if the food that you were going to give her tastes bad? I’m eating this to check on it as her senior.”

Freuden put on an absurd expression at the princess’s brazen attitude.

It wasn’t like she was the royal taster checking the king’s food for poison or something.

Moreover, what was more ridiculous was that Princess Elendil ate for the sake of Lynne, a commoner.

Wasn’t the situation supposed to be the opposite?

“You don’t have any friends because you’re that obsessed.”

“Wha…!”

Elendil was about to shout, asking what kind of nonsense that was, before she shut her mouth upon seeing Lynne, who was staring at her intensely from the side.

“Oh, hmm. It’s a certain feeling that you give off, but… do you perhaps… not have any other friends?”

“Wh-what are you saying?! Lynne! Y-you said that I don’t have friends?!”

“Am I wrong?”

“No. You are right, Lynne. Sadly, this hopeless third princess is a pathetic person who can’t even have one friend.”

“You…!”

Elendil glared at him as if she was about to kill him, but Freuden just shrugged.

As she heard those words, Lynne couldn’t understand the situation. Elendil was a princess, but how come she didn’t have any fame?

Weren’t people supposed to approach those with high status by themselves?

“You look like you’re curious as to how that happened. The reason is simple, really. Elendil the third princess became like that purely because of Eileen the first princess.”

“If it’s the first princess…”

Eileen von Exileon, the first princess…

She remembered that Elendil had warned her that Eileen was a very dangerous and scary person.

“Why’s that?”

“It happened because the first princess’s position is so firm.”

“That’s it for your useless talk.”

Elendil was snapping at Freuden and telling him not to talk any longer, but he didn’t intend to do so.

After all was said and done, he was also quite annoyed at the coming of an uninvited guest into his own nest.

“In most families, children fighting for the right of succession is common. In the worst cases, the fights even happen on a national scale.”

Cases of that could be seen just by looking at the civil war that’d happened in the northern Kingdom of Utah.

The fight between the prince and princess faction sparked a war throughout the Kingdom of Utah, and it caused many victims.

“But very rarely, there are times when there’s no need for the pointless dispute to happen.”

“When on earth is that?”

“When the determined next successor already exists.”

Elendil maintained an uncomfortable silence.

However, she also didn’t have any words to refute it because Freuden’s words were all true.

“First Princess Eileen is a person who will be the next emperor, there are no two ways about it because she possesses everything a ruler requires… and even more.”

Freuden had encountered Eileen once in the banquet hall.

At that time, he’d felt the horror of falling into an ocean and peeking into an endless abyss.

What he’d seen inside of her mysteriously empty eyes wasn’t a human but something else.

“Come to think of it, other people’s statuses are actually pretty vague.”

Usually, the standard procedure of a battle between the successors to the throne would be supported by the aristocrats and the fight between factions would take place.

However, when an overwhelming superhuman existed, such factions weren’t even formed.

—Because everyone bet on only the winning person, the fight itself would never even be a factor.

Since the first princess had received overwhelming support, the position of the other successors had become vague.

The aristocrats didn’t need to put up with the danger of backing the other successors.

They only had to pledge their loyalty to the first princess.

“Of course, even so, having the solid background of holding the third princess title is still very attractive to other aristocrats because they can maintain a more friendly relationship with the Imperial Family if they marry their family member to her.”

“I see.”

“However, that also turned to smoke because of the first princess. I don’t know what’s with the first princess, she didn’t abandon her siblings but embraced them instead.”

To think that she didn’t only save the people who might be her rivals but also embraced them…

If someone did that, they might hear words that only lunatics would do such a thing.

However, if the one who did it was Eileen, the story was different.

“She didn’t embrace us. She just needs a toy to play with.”

Elendil got emotional and refuted him, but Freuden didn’t reply to that.

“Anyway, she’s in fact the first princess who is to be the next emperor. Neither me nor the bold aristocrats who try to do things in the shadows exist.”

The reason why Elendil had received a treatment unlike that of a princess in Sören was also because of that.

If they tried to get closer to the third princess, it might be offensive to the first princess, so the aristocrats didn’t approach her.

On the other hand, the commoners felt a burden and hesitation toward the third princess because of her high status, so they couldn’t approach her either.

“Actually, the third princess didn’t know that, and she went around attending the club activity or voluntary activity to have friends when she was a freshman.”

“Urgh.”

“You can’t imagine how uncomfortable the other students were.”

“Uurgh.”

As Freuden continued to speak, Elendil’s head bowed down deeper.

In the end, the past that she desperately hid from Lynne was revealed.

To think that in fact, the noble third princess couldn’t make a single friend and was a loner!

Elendil was embarrassed and couldn’t raise her head.

Lynne felt pity at her appearance, so she opened her mouth to defend her somehow.

“Well, then was the first princess that great since she was little?”

“Surprisingly, no. She also had a time when she was alone without any supporting force.”

At that time, there’d been aristocrats who had explicitly shown rebellious movements.

They’d seen the ability of the first princess in a dangerous way and they’d formed an evil plot to oust her.

“However, all of those aristocrats mysteriously disappeared without being able to reach their goal.”

“Disappeared?”

“I don’t really know the full story behind it. It happened way in the past and it’s strictly kept secret. However, there’s one warning that implicitly spread among the aristocrats…”

It was then that Elendil heard the words she had been waiting quietly for.

“Be careful of the first princess’s shadow because there’s no place that the princess’s shadow can’t touch.”

Freuden and Lynne stared at her.

Elendil’s face faintly paled with fear.

“If you encounter that shadow, you will definitely die.”

“What… on earth is that?”

“It was a funny saying that aristocrats bring up from time to time.”

It didn’t sound funny, yet he had no choice but to call it like that.

“It’s the reason why no one can recklessly disobey the third princess.”