Academy’s Undercover Professor-Novel - Chapter 97

ACADEMY’S UNDERCOVER PROFESSOR

[Translator – Alice]

[Proofreader – ilafy]

Chapter 97 – Banquets of Flame (2)

The banquet hall turned into a whirlwind of chaos in an instant at the sudden appearance of a flame giant.

“Wh-what the hell is that?!”

“Aaargh! Run away!”

The crowd was appalled, so they scattered here and there and collided with each other.

Among the people who gathered in that place, most of them were people who had no skill whatsoever. Thus, they couldn’t maintain their rationality in an unexpected situation and fell into panic.

The giant stared at the crowd and soon opened its mouth wide.

As the mouth that was filled with sharp fangs akin to a beast’s gob was opened, what was seen inside was a wriggling blaze.

It was no different than a scarlet calamity that burned the hottest in the far depths of hell.

The crowd’s complexions, seeing such a ghastly sight, paled.

The masses who were in that place instinctively felt it…

They felt the incoming devastation that the giant would cause.

Roarrrr!

The hot blaze that would even overcook the skin of those who were standing far away from it spewed along toward the center of the banquet hall.

At that moment, the guards moved.

Since it was a banquet hall where important figures were gathered, all the guards were Knights to prepare for unexpected situations.

“Hap!”

The guards wearing black suits pulled out the swords that were installed in their belts and swung them right away.

Even though the number of the guards were not that many, considering that one Knight performed a role of more than dozens of decent mercenaries, it was sufficient for most threats.

The safety in the banquet hall had never been low.

Claang!

The sword swung by a guard who stepped forward first struck the flare.

The aura contained in the sword split the flare, and it pitched the flare far toward another direction.

Roarrr!

As the streaming flare switched its direction, it devoured the ceiling of the banquet hall.

The flame burned the ceiling; then it spread, forming a concentric circle while incinerating the hanging chandelier altogether.

The chandelier couldn’t stand the heat of the fire and melted down and fell to the floor.

“A-avoid it!”

“Run away!”

Boom bam thud!

Screams resounded from all directions. The people who’d fallen into panic bumped into each other, collided, and fell down.

Others who were escaping the place trampled on top of them, and they collided into each other once more then fell down. It happened all over again.

The banquet hall was filled with chaos that resembled an abode of demons in an instant.

At that moment, Sören’s professors moved.

“Everyone, please escape! Over here!”

“Slowly! Please, move calmly!”

Spirits appeared all over the place and blocked the wreckage that fell from the top or got rid of debris.

The wind spirits helped the people who’d collapsed, and water spirits extinguished the blaze that was burning the ceiling.

The other wizards didn’t stay still, either. Spells were cast from all over the place and were fired toward the flame giant.

The giant blocked such spells with its body.

“Everyone, block the giant! We need to defeat that monster!”

“Where the hell did it show up from?!”

“Buy some time for now! The most important thing is for everyone to evacuate!”

Ludger stared at the flame giant’s appearance.

It was the first time he’d seen such an appearance, but that energy was definitely familiar.

It was certainly the advanced-level flame spirit that he’d encountered that time.

‘Advanced? No. It’s stronger than that.’

What he felt at that time was that the spirit should be at least advanced, but when he looked at it, its splendor was quite extraordinary.

If it was that strong, it seemed closer to a spirit of the top-level that was born extremely rarely.

‘The top-level spirits must be in a stage straight below the elemental monarchs that represents each spirit’s attribute. I can’t believe she’s handling such a guy.’

The Spirit classes was divided on the continent

Starting from the lowest level until the top level…

Among them, the advanced-level spirits were akin to wizards of 4th and 5th rank, and top-level spirits’ strength was close to that of 6th rank wizards.

And what existed above them were elemental monarchs.

The flame giant that burst into the banquet hall recently was a top-level spirit that could be called straight below the elemental monarch.

Knowing that it was a being that possessed such a powerful level, he wouldn’t be able to deal a proper damage using an offensive magic that he cast on the spot.

‘Where is Esmeralda?’

Ludger rolled his eyes. The most suspicious person was the girl called Joanna Lovett, whom Selena had talked about.

But the girl’s figure couldn’t be seen at all after the appearance of the flame giant.

He needed to find that girl.

At the moment when he was thinking so, the flame giant, who had only been hit by spells, moved again.

Gaaaah!

The flare that hadn’t been extinguished on the ceiling yet stretched straight below and fell down as it seemingly responded to the flame giant’s scream.

Rather than a fire, it was more like a thick liquid with a high viscosity.

As it fell down, the guards moved hastily.

“Block it so it won’t harm the guests!”

“Cut it or get rid of it, do whatever you want!”

One of the guards who shouted so swung his sword right after and cut the droplets of fire that were falling down.

“Oh?”

But he soon spit out a perplexed breath.

The thick flare that he cut using his sword wasn’t cut properly, and it stuck into his sword instead.

If that was only the case, it would have ended after he sent his aura into the sword and shook it off.

But if the flare that was stuck on the sword’s blade spread toward the guard’s body in an instant through the sword’s blade, the story would be different.

Roarrr!

“Aarrgghh!”

The guard who’d attempted to strike the falling droplets of fire was engulfed in a flame and rolled over the floor.

Even the superior body ability of a Knight couldn’t demonstrate any strength in that moment.

The strength of fire that the top-level spirit possessed was extremely different from the flame of an ordinary nature.

The hellfire had severely high temperatures.

In an instant, the guard’s body melted and disappeared as it transformed into coal-black ashes.

The other guards’ complexions turned ghastly pale after witnessing the sight.

“Everyone, be careful! You shouldn’t touch it!”

“If you strike it with your sword, throw away your sword! If you don’t, you’ll die!”

But it seemed that the yell was a bit late. After the first casualty, three more guards died as they were burned by the blaze.

Ludger witnessed the scene and knitted his eyebrows.

‘As expected from the element used by a spirit. It’s different from ordinary fire—it’s closer to a magma instead.’

To call it as mere fire was wrong, it had a clear shape, moreover, even though it was small in size, its temperature was beyond one’s imagination.

Actually, if he looked at the flame giant in detail, its figure was full of a blackish something that was akin to sunspots here and there.

It was literally an appearance that resembled an incarnation of living magma.

‘I heard that spirits commonly have an appearance that shows the mystery and splendor of nature.’

Even though it was said that the shape of spirits wasn’t exactly fixed, they had their own regularity.

Basically, the spirits had an appearance that possessed a shape that wasn’t humanoid, it was either animals or plants or other abnormal structures.

—That was also the case for the spirits that were of higher classes.

The spirits’ levels differed according to how much of Mother Nature’s they consumed.

The higher the rank of a spirit, the stronger Mother Nature’s energy was, and thus the more their shape as an organism transcended beyond the norm and became something else.

A long time ago, Ludger and his teacher had once witnessed the water elemental monarch as they were wandering the world.

The appearance that he saw at that time was considerably different from the figures that were talked about and assumed in the human world.

The Dragon from the East… Or an appearance that was mixed with a huge whale.

The existence that moved on the surface of the sea whilst scattering a myriad of white droplets that resembled a huge sea of fog behind its back had a body that was bigger than an island.

It was literally embracing the wonder of nature.

But the flame giant before his eyes was not like that.

If he had to express it, it was closer to an existence that matched human senses.

It possessed the strength of a top-level spirit, but it chose the shape of a ‘human’.

An appearance that folded its arm with a human shape… Its body was big, but rather than seeming to be muscular, its appearance was closer to a bizarre chunk with a lot of fat.

The black spots that existed all over its body made such a flame spirit’s appearance more hideous.

‘A distorted spirit…’

If he had to explain the spirit that Esmeralda handled, there were no other words he could use.

Ludger stared at it and realized that something was strange.

‘It has no lower body?’

Compared to the giant’s obese upper body, the lower body of the giant couldn’t be seen, which was unusual.

That was because the lower body of that spirit didn’t exist.

And he knew the reason for that right away.

—The spirit hadn’t taken its full form yet.

‘So it was called using a medium.’

When a spirit summoner called a spirit, the spirit could take a form through two kinds of methods…

The first method was when the contractor called the spirit using their mana.

But if they used that kind of method, the wizards who were sensitive to mana could find out the true identity of the spirit summoner who called the spirit right away.

That meant that the summoner had used the second method.

—They’d summoned the spirit using a medium.

It was divided according to the type of the medium, if it was a top level spirit, they wouldn’t be able to take a form properly if the spirit summoner didn’t use a very expensive gemstone.

‘But the advantage of calling spirits using a medium is that the user remains anonymous.’

The method that Esmeralda had chosen was the second one.

And the medium that was used to call the flame spirit was…

‘The silver tray that was put on the banquet hall’s table.’

That was obviously the tray that Joanna Lovett had brought and quietly put in the middle of the banquet, he was certain of it.

Even though it was still incomplete, since it could manifest a top-level spirit, it wasn’t an ordinary tray.

He felt fortunate for being able to find out Esmeralda’s real identity, but the situation was very inconvenient, even to Ludger.

He couldn’t chase Joanna right away because he couldn’t do anything even if he did catch her.

‘This isn’t the time.’

Ludger scanned his surroundings.

The guards were doing their best to draw the giant’s attention, and some wizards also delivered blows toward the giant using the elements of water and ice.

Ludger discovered one person who wasn’t able to evacuate within all of the chaos.

‘That’s…’

His expression hardened in a flash.

* * *

‘What happened?’

Lynne opened her eyes.

She remembered that she had been walking around while working hard to serve people until a moment ago, but afterwards, her memory was blurry.

Something broke out before her eyes, and that was the last thing she remembered.

Did she faint?

She grabbed her dizzy head while moving her upper body, it was only then that she realized what’d recently happened in the banquet hall.

“Wh-what?”

The center of the banquet hall…

The place where a full-swing party should have been going on was literally in chaos.

Most importantly, the being that had appeared was close to her and posesssed a terrifying flame.

‘Spirit? No way, is that a spirit?’

A huge flame giant…

The giant that possessed such a high level that the woman couldn’t dare to estimate it was fighting with the guards and magic professors in the banquet hall.

What on earth had happened when she’d fainted?

‘Rather than that, it’s not the right time for questions. I need to quickly run away!’

As Lynne attempted to carry her body away, she felt pain that shot through her ankle and she frowned.

‘M-my feet.’

Had she gotten get hurt when she’d fainted? There was an injury to her ankle.

The injury wasn’t that deep, but she couldn’t put any strength into it.

‘F-for now, even though I’ll have to crawn, I have to get away!’

At that moment, the flame giant scattered his flare to the surroundings.

It was a strategy to get rid of the smallfry that had been bothering the giant once and for all.

“Ah…”

Lynne watched the scene and realized…

She couldn’t avoid it, nor could she block it. Each of the small fireballs had enough power to turn one person to ash.

Lynne closed her eyes tightly in the face of death.

At that moment, Lynne felt that something was covering her body, and she even felt her body was being pulled hard toward somewhere.

‘Oh? It doesn’t hurt?’

Lynne cautiously opened her eyes.

And she could see it…

Ludger was looking down at her.

“Lynne…”

“Professor Ludger?”

“Are you okay?”

Why was he there? No, rather than that, was he helping her?

Lynne desperately racked her brain that wasn’t working well, then she realized what kind of situation it was.

Ludger had saved her life.

And even more, he’d done so by risking his own body.

“Pr-Professor…!”

“Stay still.”

Lynne’s face flushed red as she was stuttering, but Ludger was rigid.

After he stepped back to take Lynne to a safe place while embracing her, he checked her feet right away.

“The injury isn’t deep. I have recovery medicine, so just wait.”

“…”

Staring at Lugder as he pulled out a medicine bottle from his arms right away, Lynne felt an unknown déjá vu.

‘What’s this?’

Obviously, they didn’t have any kind of relation.

To be frank, they hadn’t really even interacted much.

But right at that moment, from how Ludger was saving her and even giving her treatment…

She had the thought that she had seen that exact sight somewhere before.

“Professor…”

“What?”

Lynne didn’t know why she wanted to say her next words, but she really wanted to ask the question…

“Have we met somewhere before?”