Academy’s Undercover Professor-Novel - Chapter 96

ACADEMY’S UNDERCOVER PROFESSOR

[Translator – Alice]

[Proofreader – ilafy]

Chapter 96 – Banquets of Flame (1)

Ludger was quite confused because he had never expected Lynne to be in a place like that.

“Lyhne. What are you doing here?”

“Well, that’s…”

Lynne contemplated whether to say that or not, but she decided to be honest because it wasn’t something to hide anyway.

“It’s… part-time work.”

“Part-time work?”

“Yes. I got a recommendation from a senior I know because he said they are looking for people to serve here. He said the payment over time is good here.”

“Part-time job, huh?”

He didn’t know if that kind of job should be entrusted to a Sören’s student, but surprisingly, it was a common occurrence.

The city of Leathevelk had once signed an agreement with Sören…

At Leathevelk, Sören’s students were hired especially for a number of necessary jobs.

The same went for the notice board that existed in Sören.

It was the agreement’s purpose to hire Sören’s students only for jobs that were not that difficult and to give them the opportunity to let them earn the necessary funds.

On the contrary, Leathevelk could arrange an opportunity to meet such students and stamp the faces on the future talents who would become great wizards with a positive image of the city, so it was a good thing for both.

Even in that kind of banquet hall, it was not uncommon for a few students to go to do a part-time job.

“There are a few more fellow Sören students besides me, so it’s okay.”

Lynne laughed and replied, telling Ludger not to worry.

In fact, she didn’t expect it to be that kind of place either.

According to Henry’s senior, it was a part-time job where she would just have to kill some time, but who knew that it was a banquet hall for professors and important people?

“…Yeah. I understand.”

“Oh,right. Would you like a drink?”

“Sure.”

Ludger took a glass from Lynne’s tray and moistened his throat.

It was a little unexpected that Lynne was in a place like that, but it wasn’t that a big trouble was going to happen anyway.

It was just a little bit of a surprise.

It was something he didn’t have to worry about.

‘However…’

Every time he saw her, he suddenly remembered what had happened in the past.

Even more so when she stood still and looked at him with twinkling eyes as he was drinking.

That woman’s expression who looked just like Lynne…

It could not be erased from his brain.

“Lynne, You are—”

“Pardon? What?”

Suddenly, Ludger was about to tell Lynne something, but he couldn’t finish speaking properly.

“No. Never mind. It’s nothing.”

He couldn’t tell her because there was a previous ‘promise’ already in place.

There was no way he could say that.

He handed her the book. There was only one thing he could do for her.

“Don’t overdo it; go back early.”

—In the end, all Ludger could give to her was a little bit of concerned advice.

“Ah, yes. Thank you. I’ll take my leave now.”

“Yeah.”

After Lynne bowed her head and stepped back. Selena, who discovered Lynne late, approached Ludger and spoke.

“Oh. It was Lynne, right? The young lady just now?”

“You know her? I thought she wasn’t taking your class.”

“Yes. I came to know her the other day. By the way, what brings Lynne here?”

“She said she has a part-time job.”

Selena clapped her hands together and shouted.

“Aha. I see. I think I overheard that some students who can’t get scholarships earn money by doing other things. That’s why it was amazing to see my assistant here as well.”

“Your assistant, you said?”

Ludger remembered Selena going with her students for a Spiritology exam before that at the word “assistant”.

At that time, Selena had three assistants.

“Who would that be?”

“That kid over there.”

Selena raised her hand and pointed to one side.

There was a girl who had long, dark-brown hair braided over her shoulders.

She had big glasses on her face, so Ludger couldn’t see her face well, but Ludger immediately recognized her.

She was clearly one of the three assistants that he’d seen at the time.

“Her name is Joanna Lovett. She’s a freshman who just entered Sören this year, but I heard she was enthusiastic about Spiritology, so I took her as my assistant.”

“I see.”

‘Joanna Lovett, huh?’

She was not a student in his class, so that was the first time he had heard her name.

Ludger stared at her carefully so that nobody else would notice his look.

She was standing still with an empty tray, but he could see that she was there to work part-time like the other students.

‘Hmm. Come to think of it, I didn’t really pay too much attention to her assistant among the people back then… ’

She was a woman who handled an advanced-level flame spirit, so was his problem thinking that she was at least a professor?

With Esmeralda’s true identity remaining unknown, Joanna Lovett could not escape the list of suspects either.

Just as he was about to think about it, Joanna Lovett, who was standing still, began to move.

‘What is she going to do?’

Ludger paid sharp attention to her movements.

She was glancing and looking around at her surroundings.

It was so stealthy that others wouldn’t notice, but Ludger saw it.

Joanna carefully moved and placed a silver tray over the table where the banquet was at the center of the banquet hall.

‘Is she going to go somewhere?’

He didn’t think so.

After placing the tray, she just went back to her original place and stood still as if she was protecting her original spot.

‘Did she just intend to put an empty tray?’

Maybe he had become too sensitive.

Ludger glanced throughout the banquet hall after averting his gaze away from Joanna Lovett.

One by one, he could hear the sounds of people talking in his ear.

‘Did you hear the news this time?’

‘What news?’

‘Recently, I heard that the movements of the back-alley vagabonds are unusual.’

‘Hoho. You mean the rabble? Isn’t that something that always happens?’

‘If that was the case, I’d have no interest in it either, but it’s a bit unusual this time.’

‘What makes it so unusual?’

The middle-aged man, who had opened his mouth, coughed and cleared his throat.

‘Oh, well, I heard that they’re going to do some business?’

Bwahah.

Everyone was talking so the laughter couldn’t be heard clearly, but Ludger definitely heard it, as he was listening to it with strained ears.

It was clearly a mocking laugh.

‘Hoho. The rabbles’ business? Aren’t you mistaken?’

‘I didn’t see it by myself, and I just heard the rumors, but I don’t think that it’s just a false rumor.’

‘It’s not a false rumor, you said?’

‘I don’t know what’s been going on in the back alleys lately, but I heard that the guys who had been fighting almost every day there have joined hands.’

He told them the facts that he knew one by one.

‘Aren’t they cleaning the slums neatly? They registered a building that people don’t use as their office. Moreover, large amounts of clothing have been seen going into that place.’

‘Hoo. What the hell are they trying to do?’

‘I heard that they’re trying to get into the apparel business, but even so, aren’t the things that start there going to stay there?’

‘Hohoho. Of course. What can the rabble do about it when the high-end merchants are squeezing the market like this?’

Ludger, who was eavesdropping on their words, realized that they had been doing what he told them to do well.

‘They’re moving faster than I thought. It seems like it’s been a while since I earnestly made a move large enough for me to notice the flow change around me.’

He pretended not to, but that was how desperate he was.

The strategy that Ludger presented to them was a little too far beyond effective.

—Because the people who only rolled around in the dark and dirty mud had become hopeful.

He had the thought that the people who lived down there all their lives might be able to climb up, so how could he stay still?

And with that intense will, it would be a huge wave that no one could stop.

But it seemed that they had different thoughts from Ludger.

‘No matter what the rabble does, they’ll stay in that place.’

‘I know, right? What would they do for the money that is needed for business? What can be changed by the prostitutes, beggars, and gangsters in the back alleys when they are united together?’

‘It’s also amazing that someone funded such people. He wouldn’t even be able to loan the money because of the low credit rating, though.’

‘Isn’t it because the royal family recently implemented a structural policy saying that this is all for the commoners or something? That’s why the lower classes are crawling up.’

‘It’s an absurd thing. They should just take a piece of bread that falls off the top, why are they aiming for wealth and honor?’

‘Don’t get too angry. Still, we don’t need to step forward and trample them, right? What are those kinds of people going to do, anyway? They’ll just ruin themselves. Let us watch the scene while drinking some wine.’

Hahahaha.

In the end, they couldn’t hold it in and each of them burst into laughter.

‘Stupid people…’

Ludger shook his head. They would laugh mockingly, saying that such a move was stupid, but he wondered if they could see it that way in the future as well.

It was obvious that they couldn’t read the flow of their own generation.

The human world was so small, and on the contrary, the world was so huge as well.

It was more than what was visible to the eye, what was commonly known, and what existed on the map.

Because, from their point of view, the immeasurably large world was bound to look like it was stalled.

But even if they looked at it like that, that didn’t stop the world.

‘The world is moving endlessly and is heading for the future.’

The long reflection of history proved it.

It seemed like nothing had happened in a day or two right for the moment, but that would change remarkably in a year or two.

The current time where everyone was breathing…

The short time of one minute and one second…

Every moment transformed and changed the next.

‘They’ll soon realize it. They will. And the other people as well.’

After thinking that far, Ludger staggered from his spot without even realizing it.

“Professor Ludger? Are you okay?”

Selena asked Ludger while looking worriedly at him.

“It’s nothing. The floor is a little slippery.”

Ludger responded lightly to it, but he couldn’t help but get his senses together at the ringing noises that rang in his head.

“Are you all righ…? I… will hel…”

“I’ll take a breath outside and come back.”

The words from his surroundings began to be devoured by the noise.

Ludger regained his breath and immediately left the place.

Selena looked worried, but she didn’t follow him, as he’d refused her help.

He stepped out onto the balcony. The banquet was in full swing, so there was no one there.

“Pheew.”

Ziiiiiing.

From his forehead to his temples, the ringing was like stabbing his skull with a needle, so Ludger grabbed the marble railing with his hand.

The noise, which was not properly audible, began to speak in an increasingly clear language.

[Accept…]

[Our… strength…]

[You are… the chosen…]

“Shut up!”

Ludger roared toward the voice and took out the pills he had brought.

Unlike the usual two or three pills, he put all of them in his mouth that time.

The headache began to diminish due to the enormous mana and the painkiller effect that started to take action.

At the same time, the voice that had become increasingly clear began to fade again as if it was trapped beyond a fog.

Soon, as the noise gradually diminished, it disappeared like an echo leaving over a mountain pass.

“Pheew.”

With a sigh of relief, Ludger stared at the night view of the Leathevelk that was spread beyond the balcony’s railing.

The city shone brilliantly as it was full of lights everywhere in the darkness.

Ludger felt the night breeze as he gradually began to build up a fever.

He closed his eyes for a moment and thought.

What he should do next… What he could do…

The answer was always clearly decided in his mind.

* * *

‘Ludger Chelysie?’

As he was wandering around to take a break, Chris Benimore hid behind the wall without Ludger realizing it, he was watching Ludger Chelysie standing alone on the outdoor balcony.

‘What is he doing there alone?’

It was half an hour ago that everyone saw the wizard hired by the Luke Company had been destroyed.

Chris Benimore had watched the duel.

He’d hoped that Ludger would be shamefully defeated there, but the reality was not like that.

—Ludger knocked out the other person with an overwhelming force in front of everyone.

The pace of his magic seemed like a fleeting wind, and Chris realized that it was the Source Code spell.

He was a tough man. As he thought about it, he tried hard to ignore the growing sense of inferiority that he had in his mind.

‘He must be surrounded by people and listening to all kinds of sugar-coated words by now.’

But right then, in that place…

He witnessed Ludger’s suspicious appearance.

‘Is he consuming something?’

The man, who was normally expressionless and did not expose his emotions to his colleagues, was so exhausted that anyone could recognize it.

He took something out and began to put it into his mouth.

‘Medicine?’

If he consumed them in a hurry, did he usually consume them? Did he have any chronic illnesses?

Probably…

Chris Benimore’s thoughts came to a conclusion at that very moment.

‘There’s no way he’d purposefully overdose here like that… Whatever that medicine is, if he consumes a lot of it, it won’t cause any harm to his body.’

However, there was only one type of drug that was like that…

It was a drug that restored mana.

‘There are only a few mana recovery potions in the form of pills, but it can’t be said that they don’t exist. Since he’s consuming them, is he getting exhausted because of the lack of mana?’

Then why?

Chris’s head was spinning.

‘Is it because of the duel a little while ago?’

Ludger had used a series of spectacular spells in front of everyone and defeated his opponent.

The power of the spells was not that great, they were all second and third-tier spells, but Chris could tell that Ludger was struggling with the lack of mana right then.

Chris Benimore realized for the first time that the human named Ludger had a weakness.

‘I see. That was also the reason why he finished the magic duel at a fast pace.’

The hidden secret of Ludger Chelysie, unknown to others.

—He possessed an absurdly small amount of mana.

He didn’t know if it was an inborn trait or because of some other reason, but the result didn’t change.

He had been taking mana recovery pills regularly so that people wouldn’t notice it.

Chris Benimore couldn’t hold it in and smiled meanly.

He’d found Ludger’s weakness that no one had ever known.

Suddenly, he had a happy thought already about how to utilize that.

‘Yeah. The magic festival that is about to be held. I can do it there.’

Chris Benimore escaped while running away before Ludger could fully recover in case Ludger caught him.

* * *

‘Is it finally over?’

The trouble was because he’d used excessive mana during the magic duel.

At first, he thought it was okay, but he didn’t even know that he was running out of mana because of the time he’d spent chatting.

‘I ended up slacking off too much.’

He had to live with the pills in his mouth like a habit, but he’d even forgotten about them.

There were so many other things to care about, but it seemed that it was necessary to reflect on that.

‘Anyway, I’ve succeeded in narrowing the suspect list down as much as possible to find out who Esmeralda is.’

When he came back to the banquet hall while thinking so…

It was almost at the same time that screams erupted from all sides.

“Kyaaaaa!”

“It… it’s a monster!”

Everyone shouted in shrieking voices.

Ludger, who had just returned to the banquet hall, could see it as well

The center of the banquet hall… The appearance of the burning flame giant that appeared hot on the table…

The high ceilings of the large banquet hall were covered by the giant who had glowing eyes that was looking throughout the interior of the banquet hall.

‘Esmeralda!’

Ludger realized who’d done it.

The First Order of the Black Dawn Society… It was the spirit summoned by Esmeralda.