Ch.294294 – The Professor’s End

<294 – The Professor’s End>

After entering the Academy, I thought there would be almost nothing more I could do for the young lady who had made many friends and grown tremendously in skill.

Unlike the young ladies I had sent off so emptily before, Oknodie was leaving my care with a different meaning.

While Jona felt relieved that this was fortunate, he also felt a sense of regret in one corner of his heart.

“Help me!”

The young lady relied on him.

Honestly, he was happy.

Happy that he could still be of help to her.

“Understood. This will be a good opportunity for observation. Leaf, April. Guard the young lady.”

At Jona’s call, Leaf and April appeared silently from the darkness as if they had been waiting, taking positions on either side in an interception stance.

Their posture showed determination to protect the young lady from any attack.

With them present, Jona could go out without worry.

Leaf had the skills.

As for April… well, she could at least serve as a meat shield.

“Imperial professor. You’ve crossed the line by far, harming the young lady’s friend without an invitation.”

The <Metal Manipulation> ability, which he usually only used to increase the weight of the young lady’s training equipment, flowed through the ground.

The cold wave that had been flowing rapidly across the ground was suddenly blocked by a metal wall that rose up.

With a boom, the earth undulated and cracked.

This was a common phenomenon when the powers of masters who had reached the pinnacle clashed.

A Silver-rank monster with enough danger level to warrant evacuation orders for an entire area.

A skilled individual who could single-handedly cause the kind of damage that such a Silver-rank monster could inflict.

And not just any Silver-rank either.

Lower Silver-rank with a vague possibility of devastating a region someday.

Middle Silver-rank that could threaten a region in the near future.

Upper Silver-rank that would immediately devastate a region if not subjugated urgently.

Both Jona himself and the professor causing trouble were at the Upper Silver-rank level.

In adventurer or mercenary terms, they would be called [True Silver], meaning silver among silvers.

Though not quite Gold-rank powerhouses with the top 0.1% danger level, they were still formidable individuals with 0.2% or 0.3% danger levels, just below Gold.

In front of such powerful individuals, even hero-level strength was not yet applicable.

Someday in the distant future, heroes might catch up and surpass them, but at this moment, these two were experts who stood above heroes.

—Tsssk.

The hero and saint were enveloped in pure white smoke.

Surrounded by extreme freezing crystals, the two were barely managing to protect themselves.

Jona passed by the crystal-encased hero and saint with an indifferent face.

“What exactly is the Foundation’s butler trying to raise?”

Professor Layve was dumbfounded.

“To think a mere butler possesses professor-class strength.”

“Now you understand. You misjudged our strength. You stepped where you shouldn’t have. And did what you shouldn’t have done. That neck of yours could fall off at any moment.”

Jona abandoned even the minimal courtesy of formal speech.

He made the stark reality clear.

“You will die. Unless you show sufficient sincerity for your rudeness here and now.”

The pressure of Jona Wiheomhae, who didn’t yield even against professor-class powerhouses.

Although he might pale in comparison to Destroyer, the retired hero who once served as a thief in a former hero party, he was in no way inferior to an ordinary professor-class individual.

“This is an uninhabited island in the middle of the sea. A place overflowing with natural mana that responds to my ice magic. Foundation’s butler, do you truly believe you have a chance of winning?”

With magic, once there is sufficient mana, it becomes a battle of mental imagery.

How efficiently can one awaken the principles of nature?

How powerfully can one harness nature’s destructive force?

This was a battle between special-class magicians who had surpassed novice magicians who could only partially imitate nature, intermediate magicians who succeeded in reproducing natural phenomena, and advanced magicians who could realize disaster-level phenomena.

Phenomena beyond disasters could only be realized through imagination.

The Empire had passed down their arcane knowledge to promising special-class magicians.

Opportunities to observe natural phenomena related to the birth and death of stars from cosmic-scale astronomy.

Access to the latest magical observation instrument called the Nova Telescope.

Magicians who had experienced Nova and those who hadn’t were selected by the Empire’s will, and this was why powerful magicians with nothing to lack pledged loyalty to the Empire.

Of course, Professor Layve was a young magician lacking in both years and experience compared to the Imperial Royal Magicians who had served loyally for decades and made numerous contributions.

Nevertheless, he had gained the enlightenment of Nova because someone had extended a hand to him.

“Ignorant greed and thirst for knowledge. Interesting, Layve. Will you pledge loyalty to the Academy in exchange for satisfying that desire?”

Layve had gladly taken that hand.

[Imperial Ultimate Magic – Nova Effect]

[Ice Attribute 7th Circle Ultimate Magic]

[Frost Nova]

And now, the power of a Nova-class grand magician who had observed the destructive force originating from stellar explosions was being recreated in his hands.

Jona acknowledged it.

Indeed, an Academy professor.

Layve’s move was as impressive as he had thought.

But Professor Layve had made one misjudgment.

“For an ice magician, water is an element optimized for obtaining natural mana. An ice magician above the sea is nothing short of a nightmare. But there are other elements abundant here as well.”

As Jona drew up his power, Professor Layve began to see the butler’s strategy.

The attribute of the mana puzzle rising and responding around the butler was metal.

And now, this uninhabited island was piled high with the corpses of mineral rats whose bodies were made of Blue Metal, a type of rare metal that was in a different league from ordinary metals.

‘Could it be that he knew from the beginning that Blue Metal rats would appear in this place and brought a metal artisan…!?’

Professor Layve realized.

The Foundation had responded to the deal and provided information about Oknodie.

And they had placed a guard with ambiguous but sufficient strength to lure him in.

While hiding monsters containing elements specialized for that guard’s abilities in the underground of the island.

Unlike Professor Layve, who exercised violence of scale with numerous mana puzzles, Jona Wiheomhae pressed with the quality and purity of mana puzzles.

‘Area-effect magic that disperses destructive power. To think he would break through my most powerful magic head-on…!’

Unlike the common and abundant mana permeating the entire sea, the mana of Blue Metal rats possessed a purity of a different caliber.

‘This is dangerous. I’ve depleted all the mana puzzles in the surrounding waters using Nova-class magic.’

The difference between low-quality and high-quality mana became apparent.

Mana that only has quantity is depleted all at once when used, but high-purity, high-quality mana can be used repeatedly with good efficiency even in small amounts.

Though the thought process is long, the conclusion is simple.

He was pushed back.

Layve’s offensive had failed.

‘I’ll target Oknodie instead of you.’

‘Try if you dare. If you believe your head will remain attached until the end.’

Magic that clearly revealed their killing intent toward each other.

Jona’s faith in his young lady and the maids was steadfast.

That strong belief planted doubt in Layve.

Could there really be some trick?

Maybe the maids were such formidable experts that they could block any attack.

And what about Oknodie, who was known as the Dark Princess for her deep knowledge of dark mana?

‘I can’t kill her. Even if it costs me my life.’

A moment of doubt created a tremor in the solid barrier of Frost Nova.

Jona’s iron will did not miss the small gap and broke through from the front.

‘No, this is strange.’

Layve’s eyes, which had been heading toward desperation, widened.

[Rapid Thought][Battlefield Analysis]

The cold brain of a magician derived the absolute value of mana destructive power that he had failed to recognize.

The mana puzzles of Blue Metal rats that Jona had mobilized couldn’t exert this much output.

There was something more.

The source of the element that granted him power.

When he widened his view, the answer finally became visible.

“Just a little more, Ishtar.”

“Almost there…!”

The freezing crystal.

A large hole had been opened in the prison that had confined the hero and saint by mixing ice and metal attributes.

The magic deployed to stop the hero had instead become Jona’s power source.

The variable was there.

Just as Jona was about to manifest a second grand magic, the crystal sphere finally collapsed.

“If I die, you’re next. Do you think the Foundation would miss this golden opportunity to harm the hero?”

Layve shook the hero’s heart.

He encouraged anxiety and instilled fear.

If the hero had any sense, he would threaten Jona and Oknodie for his own survival.

If that created a gap in Jona’s grand magic, he could finally gain the upper hand.

This was Layve’s plan for reversal.

“Why should I care?”

The hero opened a door.

Holy Mirror.

The ability to transmit attacks through the image beyond the mirror.

The door was aimed at the back of Layve’s head.

The hero’s deadly technique, fueled by rage, flew toward the professor.

“The Foundation has never harmed me first. Unlike your Empire.”

As Layve’s magic direction was thrown off while trying to block the hero’s attack, Jona’s grand magic hit him.

Crack!

Layve’s heart was pierced by steel thorns, and the center of his chest transformed into metal.

The professor couldn’t hide his resentment as he glared at the hero.

The hero was too straightforwardly crazy for him to manipulate, and the price for not realizing this fact ultimately came back as death.

Swish swish

Just then, in the blurring edge of Layve’s vision, he saw a shadow rushing in quickly.

Oknodie.

That frightening child had finally begun to act.

Now that he was dying, she must be planning to kill the hero without thinking of any consequences or aftermath.

Serves them right.

Stupid girl, let’s just die together.

As Professor Layve was about to mock the hero’s demise, a dagger was firmly planted in the back of his neck.

“I can’t resist the finishing blow!”

…There wasn’t just one stupid girl.

“Oknodie, can I stab him once too?”

“Sure! But I get to put in one more knife at the end.”

Zhang and Oknodie chatted amicably while stabbing with their daggers.

The future of the Academy looks very dark indeed.

Professor Layve, who had abandoned both hope for life and expectation for revenge, closed his eyes and perished.