WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Surviving the Assassin Academy as a Professor

Translator: Touch

Editor: Grass

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Chapter 60: The Bell Rings Over Snow-Covered Ruins (5)

D-4 until the deadline for the verification.

Day 2, early dawn.

After taking a two-hour nap on his office couch, Professor Collider sat up, rubbing his eyes. He had yet to solve the problem, so he couldn’t afford to sleep too much.

Sleep really was the best medicine. After refreshing his mind with a bit of rest and a cup of morning coffee, he read through the exam paper once again.

And this time—!

“I still don’t understand shit.”

Of course, there was no way it would be that convenient.

Collider had bashed his head against the exam sheet all through the night, but had no results to show. Even after the short break, it still made no sense.

“What the fuck is this supposed to mean…?!”

At this point, he began to suspect that Professor Dante Hiakapo—that son of a bitch—had deliberately sent him this nonsensical problem just to mess with him, since they’d always been on bad terms.

To be fair, things had improved somewhat between them during the airship incident and the subsequent faculty meeting. So perhaps Dante was merely a petty man who held onto grudges, unlike this elite and generous senior professor.

“…No.”

That couldn’t be it.

The first three lines of the formula were far too brilliant for that. It was clearly an exam with formulas and circuits designed with coherent structures and meaningful purposes.

“…Aagh, c’mon!”

Thud!

Collider slammed his head onto the desk. A clump of hair fell from his scalp with the impact. On any other day, he would’ve panicked about losing his hair, but not today.

This was about his pride as an elite senior professor. A few dozen strands of hair meant nothing in comparison.

“I swear I’ll solve you today, you damned paper…”

Clenching his teeth, Collider stood up with resolve and locked the door to his office.

And six hours later, he finally unlocked it and stepped back out.

“P-Professor! Are you alright?” one of his assistants asked, startled.

“…"

“You don’t look so good, sir…”

Collider said nothing. He was in a daze, his eyes unfocused. He had concentrated too hard for too long.

Formulas and circuits floated around in his numb head. Yet despite all that effort, he hadn’t made a single breakthrough.

It was driving him insane.

Who was he?

He’d been called a prodigy from a young age—the genius of House Lemontree. His estate had once put up banners to celebrate his achievements. He’d been hailed as a genius student at Hiaka Academy, studied abroad in the Empire, and even had his name listed as second author on the solution to the Ravioli Conundrum…

Ding!

“Ah, fuck! That scared me!” he snapped.

Collider had received a message. And it was from Dante.

– Dante: Is it done yet?

Damn it!

Why was he contacting him already? Hadn’t he said he’d give five days for the review?

…Then again, Collider had said he’d be done in a day or two.

– Collider: Hold on. I’m almost finished.

– Dante: Understood.

He was about to end the conversation there, but another message arrived.

– Dante: If you find any issues during verification, please don’t hesitate to point them out. Feel free to approach it with a critical eye. This exam question must be flawless.

That follow-up message tore Collider’s heart to pieces.

Flawless? Hell, I don’t even know what it means yet!

– Collider: Alright.

He ended the conversation. 

Still, if there was a silver lining, it was that Dante had probably asked him to check the exam sheet because he saw Collider as the most competent professor around.

…But this wasn’t the time for self-consolation. Collider had to get himself together.

Ah, this isn’t going to work.

At this rate, his public humiliation was inevitable.

He had no choice but to ask for help… from the entire Illusion Arts Studies faculty!

And so, 30 minutes later, five other professors gathered in his office.

“You called, Senior Professor?”

“Why does your office smell so much like cigarettes...? How much did you smoke in here?”

“You said there was an interesting problem. What did you mean by that?”

Collider sat them down, handed out copies of the exam sheet, and partially explained the situation.

“This is Professor Dante’s exam sheet,” he said. “While it looked fine to him, he asked for a review and wants to know what everyone thinks of it.”

“Hmmm…”

“Let’s have a look…”

For the next three hours, the Illusion Arts professors examined the problem sheet. However, not a single one of them could identify any issues.

…Because none of them understood it.

“You guys don’t get it?” Collider asked, feigning nonchalance.

“Not at all. It seems to be quite exquisitely written. My guess is that the illusion’s range is incredibly broad.”

“No, no, no. That’s not it. It’s not about the range! It’s a formula about time. Specifically, illusions that are maintained over long durations.”

“You’re both wrong. It’s a formula about expansion.”

“What are you talking about?! How is this about expansion? You’re making it way too obvious how little you know!”

Thus, an argument broke out. Collider couldn’t help but snicker on the inside.

I fucking knew it~!

It wasn’t just him who didn’t understand the question!

And the nonsense they were spouting? He had already figured those theories out on his own.

But then, gloom overtook him again. 

In the end, even all these professors had no idea what the formula was really about.

“So… what kind of illusion is this formula supposed to represent?” someone finally asked.

All eyes turned to Collider.

He sighed.

“…I don’t know.”

“Pardon?”

“I said I don’t know. Dammit... It’s embarrassing, but I’ll be honest. Professor Dante sent this to me for verification, but I don’t even know what kind of Illusion Art this is supposed to be.”

“Ah…”

“Hmm…”

“That’s why I called you all,” he said. “You’re all distinguished professors of Illusion Arts Studies, after all.”

“…But we’re pretty lost too…”

Being honest with his colleagues brought some relief. It felt like the lump in his chest had finally vanished, like taking a breath of fresh air after suffocating for hours.

“Senior Professor, why not just ask him for the answer?”

“What? Are you insane?!” Collider snapped.

“P-Pardon?”

“That’s the one thing I’ll never do!!”

Being honest with these guys was one thing. But bowing his head to Professor Dante?

That was absolutely unthinkable!

There were still a few days left. And since none of the professors had lectures this week, they had plenty of free time.

“Let’s all figure this out together,” Collider declared. “We can’t just be sitting around like fools, admiring the exam question of a professor who’s not even in Illusion Arts Studies!”

“Yes, understood!”

Collider sent Dante a message asking for just a few more days, then dove back into the problem with the other professors.

And finally, as the sun rose the next morning, amid the unwashed, disheveled crowd of equally haggard professors—

“Aha…!”

One professor suddenly stood up, grinning wildly as he declared:

“I have no fucking ideaaaa!!!”

D-3 until the deadline for the verification.

* * *

D-2 until the deadline for the verification.

In the evening.

“I fucking told you we can’t approach it like that!”

“What the hell do you know, you bastard?! It's about expansion! Expansion, I tell you!”

A full-blown argument had finally broken out.

“How is this expandable?! You should try expanding your brain folds, you idiot! Think logically! Why would you add expansion to a final exam for cadets? Who asks cadets to put an engine on a wheel and call it a car? At the end of the day, this is an exam question—a problem meant to be solved!”

“You ignorant prick! Did you throw your common sense out the window?! The exam only has a single question, dumbass! If it’s just one question, then you have to make it expandable to grade the cadets distinctively!”

Crash!

Unable to hold back any longer, the professors grabbed each other by the collars and started throwing punches.

“You motherfucker!”

“Ow, you hit my ribs!”

“Don’t pull my hair!!”

Slam!

Desks crumbled. Chairs shattered against walls. The office was a wreck.

Collider stroked his chin, looking pleased despite the destruction around him.

Heh. What a shitshow.

At this point, it felt like he was starting to lose his mind. But oddly enough, he was feeling more determined than ever.

What the hell is it?

That damned, young, arrogant Professor Dante… What was he trying to show the cadets with this test question?

First, Collider had to stop the fight.

“All right, all right. Let’s all calm down—”

“You bastard! I’m going to ask Dante myself right now!” one of the professors shouted, ignoring him.

“Let us stop fighting—”

“Go on, then! Ask him! Wanna bet on it? I’ll wager 500 million hika! No—one billion hika! Let’s see if it’s about expansion or not!”

“Let’s fucking do it, you punk! I’m upping the wager! Ten billion hika! Throw in your house deed and all your properties too, you fucking—!”

Collider took a deep breath.

“SILENCE!!!!!”

SHATTER!

Every window burst into a thousand shards. In truth, it was all an illusion—the sound, the visual shock, even the amplification of his voice. But it worked. The brawling professors froze in place.

“That’s enough!” Collider declared.

“We apologize, Senior Professor…”

“We got carried away…”

“Enough with the excuses. That’ll be it for today.”

“So, are we giving up?” one asked.

“No. We’re not giving up. We’re all professors—we have our reputations and dignity to uphold.”

“True…”

“But just because we’re professors doesn’t mean we can neglect an opportunity to learn. So, let’s go ask in Zone 2,” Collider said.

“Zone 2…?”

That was the Mage Department.

An assassin’s Illusion Arts differed from a mage’s Illusion Arts, which was more commonly called Illusion Magic. 

When it comes to pure power and short-term usability, the assassin style is superior. However, regarding research and academic depth, the mages hold the advantage.

In other words, the mages were more likely to understand what Dante’s exam was really about.

“But… they might not be of much help.”

“Hmm? Why not?”

“Remember? That old hag—the chief professor of Illusion Magic Studies—defected during the recent incident.”

“Oh… Right. Tsk!”

Collider clicked his tongue and frowned.

Chief Professor Gloomy had betrayed the nation. Rumor had it that because of her betrayal, the entirety of Hiaka’s Illusion Arts research had collapsed.

“…Still, we should ask. Their senior professors should be better than ours in theoretical matters,” Collider said.

“Understood. Let’s go. We’re frustrated too. We’ll take whatever help we can get at this point.”

So, the group of professors climbed into a car and headed to Zone 2.

They sought out several senior professors of Illusion Magic Studies. But the mood in the building was heavy. It was to be expected, given that their department had suffered a devastating blow.

“She took all the equipment, research data—even the classified magic circles. She cleaned out anything of value. Can you believe it?” one of the mages said bitterly.

“Oh no…”

First things first, they consoled the weeping professors. Only after things had calmed down did they bring up the exam question.

“Wow, this is really difficult. Who came up with this question?” one of the senior mage professors asked, smiling brightly.

Wait… what? They find this difficult, too?

“Ah, well…”

“Wait! Don’t tell me,” the senior mage professor interrupted, eyes sparkling. “Let me guess!”

“This was definitely written by someone from the Abraxas lineage of Illusion Art assassins or mages. Am I right? Ah! I got it! It’s Challenger Cruciel, isn’t it?”

“No, that’s—”

“No? Then is it Agion, the 「Radiant Constellation ⁺₊⋆」? That old man loves problems like this. Super simple in principle, but loaded with layers of complex formulas!”

“No, that’s not—”

“Not Agion either? Then who wrote this question?”

At this point, Collider and the other professors from the Assassin Department were stunned.

Is it… really on that level of difficulty?

Seriously?

Was it truly so advanced that the names of Challenger or Constellation-rated combatants were being thrown around?

Dante—a newly hired professor in his thirties—had created something this complex as a final exam for cadets?

There was no way. It had to be nonsense.

“…This senior professor might have lost his mind,” one assassin whispered.

“Right? I was thinking the same. Probably a side effect of Chief Gloomy’s betrayal…”

“What a shame… for someone so brilliant to go insane like this…”

The assassin professors murmured among themselves, quietly assuming the mage professor had gone off the deep end and vastly overestimated the exam question.

But at the end of the day, they still hadn’t found the answer.

“Should we go grab some food nearby? The rest of the Illusion Magic professors will be back later this afternoon. We can ask them as well.”

“Yes, let’s do that. We didn’t eat anything all night…”

“What about you, Senior Professor?”

The man in question looked even more disheveled than the day before. His mouth was scrunched up like a bulldog’s before it finally relaxed.

“…All right. Let’s go.”

Everyone understood what that meant.

It was his tacit admission of defeat.

Collider decided he would tell Dante that the verification was complete… and that he couldn’t find a single problem with it.

It was embarrassing, but they had done their best. There wasn’t much else they could do now.

Collider’s resolve had been broken.

It unfortunately seemed that Dante’s depth of knowledge in Illusion Arts was indeed greater than his, despite Collider being an elite himself.

Still… He couldn’t go up to that arrogant professor and say, “I have no idea what this means!”

The humiliation would break him completely.

“...Fuck me.”

With that, he tossed the copy of the exam paper onto a desk in the Illusion Magic Studies office and left with the others to get something to eat.

He didn’t want to see that piece of paper ever again.

– Collider: We reviewed your exam and couldn’t find any issues.

– Collider: It was much harder than expected and took longer to finish. We even had to seek advice.

– Collider: It looks like a flawless problem to me. But since I may be wrong, feel free to confirm with someone else.

– Dante: Thank you.

– Dante: I owe you a meal.

The verification was complete.

To be honest, I’d been a bit worried. Maybe I had made the question too difficult to solve.

But it seemed they’d managed to find the answer.

So I decided to reflect a bit. I had underestimated the professors, something I shouldn’t have done. They were brilliant minds, too, pioneers guiding the next generation.

“…So, I’m finally done with this.”

Now, I could sit back and relax, waiting for finals to arrive.

The formulas behind the exam had been difficult to research, but the question itself was fairly simple.

Everyone could solve it in their own way.

And so, I prayed sincerely, hoping that many cadets would score well.

“…Hmm? What’s this?”

Chief Professor Galois stopped when he spotted a piece of paper. He was passing by the office of Illusion Magic Studies with a group of assistant professors.

“Oh?”

The document that caught his eye wasn’t something he could just ignore. He picked it up and began to read with interest.

“Professor Yuha.”

“Yes, Chief?”

“What is this?”

Senior Professor Yuha—the Illusion Magic professor who had been speaking earlier with the Assassin Department’s faculty—looked puzzled.

“What do you mean, Chief?”

“There’s a strange test paper here filled with formulas.”

“Oh, that! The professors from the Assassin Department must’ve left it behind. They said they’d be back after getting something to eat, so they’ll probably return soon.”

“The Assassin Department? Why’d they bring it here?”

After Yuha explained the situation, Chief Professor Galois chuckled with intrigue.

A difficult exam paper, huh?

“Would you like to take a closer look at it, Chief Galois?” Yuha offered.

“Shall I? We don’t have anything scheduled right now, do we?” Galois asked one of his assistant professors.

“No, Chief.”

“Hmm. Alright, let’s have a look, then…”

Galois settled into the sofa, adjusted his monocle, and examined the exam paper.

He didn’t move for the next ten minutes, frozen in place.

While the other senior professors jotted down notes and analyzed formulas with their pens and paper, Galois studied the problem purely with mental calculations.

Senior Professor Yuha watched him nervously.

Given that even Collider and a whole group of Illusion Arts professors had been reduced to disheveled messes, this was no ordinary puzzle.

But this was Galois. Galois Granrey.

One of the foremost experts in Magic Studies, not just in Hiaka, but across the entire continent.

He might not have been a master of Illusion Arts, but when it came to analyzing formulas and circuits, he was a true genius. Even the Empire had offered obscene sums to bring his expertise into their fold.

He had been nominated several times over the years for the Obel Prize in Magic Studies. A true monster of a professor.

“…”

And now, the Galois was mentally solving the exam paper.

His body remained still. Only his eyes moved—shifting from one formula to the next—until, finally, he showed a small reaction.

“…Huh.”

He smirked.

Why? Why is he smiling?

“It’s a tree…” he muttered quietly.

A tree? What tree?

Then, Galois spoke to his assistant professor.

“You all take a seat and rest for a bit. I must go see the dean real quick.”

“Understood, Chief. Should I make a copy of the test for you?”

“No need. I’ve memorized it all.”

He had already memorized that monstrosity of an exam question in just ten minutes?

Chief Galois slowly rose from the sofa.

Yet, Yuha still had many questions in his mind. So he moved to follow the chief, hoping to ask a few, but before he could even speak, Galois vanished through a 「Teleportation」 spell.

As he disappeared, Yuha heard him mutter one last thing to himself, 

“…Someone is up to something quite interesting.”

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