I Became a Demon Professor at the Academy – Chapter 12

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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Yuziro
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‘Let’s not worry about it.’

Michelle’s current task was to submit her withdrawal form.

It wasn’t the time to be concerned about the materials Adrian had brought.

However, those seven letters were brazenly embedded, as if whispering that this belonged to her, with her name written next to it.

Her gaze kept being drawn to it.

Again and again.

Adrian certainly possessed an extraordinary level of magical ability.

Though the method and principle were completely incomprehensible, he surpassed Michelle in telekinesis.

It was unpleasant, but she had no choice but to acknowledge that.

‘Then were these materials truly made for me?’

She slyly rolled her eyes and sneakily examined the other students’ materials.

“Electric Chain”, “Wind Cutter”, and so on…

They were really different.

Each time she shifted her gaze to look at different materials, the spells and contents within them varied as well.

Then one thing was certain.

That Adrian had handed over the Event Horizon materials with only Michelle in mind.

-Well… It’s simply affection.

-I will fulfill each student’s aspirations.

He had definitely said that.

-I dislike you.

-The idiot incapable of even self-study. From now on, that’s your name.

He had also definitely said that.

Which one was the truth? How much did he know?

Did he know everything and was toying with Michelle, or should she believe the absurd notion that he was actually trying to help her?

The girl began to ponder.

Pondering and pondering and pondering some more.

“…This is foolish.”

She crumpled the materials she had received from Adrian with all her might.

What had been study materials just moments ago were now mere wads of paper.

To think she would believe what she overheard in the library.

She must truly be in a miserable situation.

She must look so pathetic.

If she had considered his actions, there would have been no need to deliberate.

He had brazenly suspended Michelle in the air and hurled insults at her.

He had treated her as a mere tool for moving desks.

Someone like that couldn’t possibly have prepared this out of consideration for me.

Event Horizon was a technique desired by anyone who dealt with telekinesis.

That’s why he must have included it.

He must have thoughtlessly included it.

Not even knowing the state of my legs, he must have simply shoved it in…

But that’s when it happened.

Flash!

Her vision turned white, and then immediately revealed a completely different scene from the lecture hall.

A meadow.

An endlessly stretching meadow.

In this meadow with scarecrows spaced at regular intervals, it seemed one could freely unleash any magic without worrying about anyone’s scrutiny.

“Individual hallucination…”

Without realizing it, she muttered in disbelief.

In the process of crumpling the materials, Michelle’s mana had flowed into them.

The pages were designed in a way that if the user’s mana flowed into it, it linked the user with hallucinations in this manner.

The failing class had a total of sixty-four students.

Did this mean sixty-four students were each training individually within their own hallucinations?

Confining even one person in a hallucination required an absurd amount of mana.

Yet he did this for the entire class?

It’s affection.

Those words echoed in her ears once more.

No, no way.

That can’t be…

The academy must have mass-supplied mana capsules or something.

There’s no professor in this world who would go this far, even harming their own body for something like this.

“Michelle Meinens.”

But then, she heard a familiar voice.

Adrian’s voice.

Michelle then straightened her posture without realizing it.

The professor approached the girl, who blinked her eyes.

Just in case, Michelle grasped the hem of her skirt.

Come to think of it, she was wearing similar underwear to that time today.

She looked up at Adrian without backing down.

The slightly crumpled withdrawal form was still in her hand.

However, Adrian’s avatar seemed to pay no attention to such things.

Still wearing an expressionless mask, he simply looked down at Michelle.

“Through this training, I will help you understand ‘Event Horizon’.”

Understand…

Who doesn’t understand it?

She had memorized the spell every day in her room.

But understanding and using were different matters, weren’t they?

“Before we begin the lesson, let me ask one thing. Is Event Horizon such a difficult technique?”

“…Of course it is.”

“That’s a misconception.”

A misconception?

If his goal was to infuriate Michelle, it was a successful remark.

After all, Event Horizon was acknowledged as difficult even by the Meinens family, renowned for their telekinesis.

“As you well know, telekinesis is achieved through the power of the mind. Yet, there are still many fools who confuse the difference between ‘telekinesis’ and ‘movement’.”

“Fools…?”

“Watch closely.”

Adrian easily drew a spell in the air.

But Michelle, who had memorized the spell, could tell.

Something was subtly different, though she couldn’t pinpoint exactly where.

Tap!

As Adrian snapped his fingers, the scarecrows placed at regular intervals swarmed madly toward the spell as if it were their destination.

The scarecrows that swarmed like moths to a flame did not stop even after being sucked in.

They collided with each other and shattered, making rattling noises.

“……Event Horizon?”

Michelle’s eyes widened.

It was a technique known for its extreme difficulty.

Yet he succeeded so easily?

“What do you think? Was that Event Horizon?”

“Definitely…”

It was definitely Event Horizon, but it was also true that she felt a sense of déjà vu.

Michelle shook her head.

“Something is different.”

“That’s precisely it.”

Adrian calmly continued his explanation.

“I did not explode my telekinetic power to pull them. I made the scarecrows move in a way that made it appear so.”

“……!”

The difference between telekinesis and movement.

Is that what it meant?

Even Michelle, who wielded telekinesis, was nearly fooled.

“But the interesting thing is, this kind of trickery is actually more troublesome. Trickery requires 144 circuits, but Event Horizon only needs a mere 74 strokes.”

“No. It’s 208 strokes.”

Michelle immediately retorted.

Was he crazy?

Why was he saying 208 strokes were just 74?

This was the one area where she had no confidence in losing.

She memorized the circuits and spells every day.

“Will you draw it?”

Ha.

Michelle, who snorted, immediately began drawing lines in the air.

Although she hadn’t mastered the technique of flowing mana into the circuits, she had reached a level where she could accurately trace what she had memorized with her eyes closed.

Her hand moved busily for a few minutes.

Finally, the spell for Event Horizon was drawn.

“Here it is.”

“This is what I mean by trickery.”

Without any hesitation, Adrian began erasing Michelle’s spell, stroke by stroke.

She had earnestly drawn it for him, yet he was casually destroying the spell! Michelle immediately shouted.

“Wha-, what are you…!”

But she couldn’t finish her words.

She was too surprised.

Adrian’s hand skillfully removed the strokes in mysterious ways.

Although, the erasure of the lines was clearly an act of ‘destruction’.

It was unnecessarily elegant.

So much so that Michelle, who had been about to get angry, was left staring in a daze.

Moreover, even as he erased the strokes one by one, Event Horizon maintained its spell form.

Adrian didn’t bother flowing mana into the spell, but Michelle could still understand.

This spell.

There were no errors.

If mana was poured into it, it would succeed as is.

“Don’t be surprised. You need to know which strokes I erased. I will teach you that.”

“Wai… Wait a moment. This can’t be… You can’t draw it like this…”

“Why is that?”

“Not a single stroke should be missing. When activating Event Horizon, you have to specify one by one what to suck in and what to leave behind. The moment even a single stroke is missing, even the caster might get swept up.”

“Then what is this spell remaining before your eyes? Is it a spell for a completely different technique? Or a byproduct that can’t even be called magic?”

Michelle just blinked her eyes.

But at the same time, her eyes began to sparkle.

She absolutely hated to admit it, but she was being drawn in by his compelling words.

She began to focus.

“Whether you feared failure or were obsessed with perfection, you wouldn’t have harbored any doubts. You must have repeated countless times that you could simply add intuition on top of established theory and that would be enough.”

Adrian displayed two spells in the air.

One was Event Horizon with 208 strokes.

The other was Event Horizon with only 74 strokes remaining.

“A mage does not depend on magic, but is a being who controls magic. You must thoroughly realize that fact.”

She swallowed her saliva once.

…There wasn’t a single thing she had wanted to learn from him.

She had only intended to submit her withdrawal form.

The hand holding the withdrawal form tightened.

Before she knew it, she was awaiting his next words.

Harboring a kind of anticipation.

“Wearing clothes that fit is a natural thing. You think you have to wear ill-fitting clothes, that is your misconception. Tailored clothes only become more beautiful. They do not change the essence.”

“Clothes that… fit…”

Perhaps his words might be true.

She had mistaken telekinesis and movement, trying to focus only on what was visible.

She had also tried to change her own body to fit the ill-fitting clothes called Event Horizon.

…Truly, I had merely depended on magic.

“This time, you erase it yourself. What did I remove?”

Michelle’s hand immediately shot out.

Touching the spell in the air, she replicated the order in which Adrian had erased, removing them one by one.

What could be discarded?

What could be conquered?

It was difficult.

Insanely difficult.

Erasing each line required different magical power and meticulous attention to length as well.

But it wasn’t hard.

“Ah…”

Wetting her dry lips with saliva and beading sweat on her forehead, the girl unknowingly muttered.

It was out of joy.

The girl rediscovered the curiosity of her childhood after many years.

She wanted to know the reach of this curiosity.

She was learning something.

She wanted to learn more and more without stopping.

13 strokes removed, eliminating the condition of detailed analysis of surrounding objects.

25 strokes removed, boldly eliminating the output change that goes through three stages of transformation.

40 strokes removed, increasing mana consumption and eliminating the preliminary preparations required for spirit manifestation.

.

.

.

133 strokes removed, eliminating friend-or-foe identification.

Perhaps three hours had passed.

“I understand. But…”

“But?”

“I don’t understand the part about removing friend-or-foe identification. This way, activation would certainly be possible. But wouldn’t it be no different from suicide?”

“You removed one less stroke.”

How did he know?

Michelle erased one more stroke.

134 strokes removed, eliminating the condition of concentrating all mana to the legs.

“Uh… huh?”

The girl exclaimed in surprise.

‘He knows… the condition of my body…?’

No, even that wasn’t important anymore.

She had realized.

If friend-or-foe identification was removed, the caster had to concentrate all mana to their legs and endure with their own strength.

Surely that’s what should be done.

But he reversed that.

Instead of trying to change an unwell body, he changed the spell to allow the caster to levitate their body and endure sufficiently.

‘Fitting clothes.’

So this is what fitting clothes, this is what fitting magic meant.

Fully accepting one’s own situation and thoroughly making magic one’s own.

Along with surprise, she felt ashamed.

What had she been trying to give up?

Why hadn’t she thought of this?

True magic was this miraculous and enjoyable—

“Eek, eeeeh?!”

Her momentary immersion in delight was short-lived as Michelle let out a stupid sound that she had never made in her life.

Someone had embraced her from behind.

It was Adrian.

“Wha-, wha-, wha-, wha-, what are you…?!”

“Error checking is essential in training. Levitate so you don’t get sucked into Event Horizon. I will support your arms and legs.”

While tightly embracing Michelle, Adrian slightly leaned his posture backward.

Naturally, Michelle ended up in a position as if sitting on Adrian’s body.

“No, no. No… No way. No, wai-, wait a moment. I…”

The girl’s face flushed so hot it seemed like it would burst at any moment.

As if the circuits in her head had malfunctioned, she began to stutter.

“There is certainly an efficient posture, even when levitating the body. Here, like this.”

Adrian handled Michelle’s body as if manipulating a mannequin.

But Michelle couldn’t possibly let Adrian think of her as a mannequin!

“A-, a-, a-, I’ll do it alone. Al… Alone!”

“Put all your strength into your abdomen. This posture of half-lying in the air while levitating may look comfortable, but it’s extremely difficult. Instead, do this, it’s very sturdy.”

“Wai-, wai-, wai-, wait a moment… Wait…!”

To check if she had put strength into her abdomen, Adrian pressed firmly on Michelle’s stomach.

“Hya, hyaaaah?!”

The maids naturally didn’t touch Michelle, and even her parents had raised her without physical contact.

Yet what was this professor doing now?

Do-, do you not know who I am? I’m Michelle Meinens…!

“People ridicule those who only think and don’t act.”

But then, his voice tone poured into her ears.

“However, when someone achieves something with just their thoughts, they are called a genius. Legs and such are unnecessary.”

“Uh, uh, uh…?”

“Michelle.”

Still a chilling tone.

But there was none of the usual voice that disparaged Michelle.

It was a strangely warm way of addressing her.

“I ask the next head of the Meinens family.”

At the same time, Event Horizon began to activate.

Above all, the dark black hole began to devour everything in sight.

The scarecrows were annihilated before they even touched the boundary of Event Horizon.

The technique Michelle had dreamed of so much was unfolding before her eyes as if it were nothing.

“Ah…”

…It was so beautiful that her mouth gaped open.

At least for Michelle, who walked the path of telekinesis, it was a spectacle more beautiful than any famous scenic spot.

Piercingly beautiful.

“That word, ‘genius’.”

The absurd roar that occurred.

The absurd power.

But Michelle was not sucked in.

Because she was tightly embraced in Adrian’s arms.

Nor could she hear the roar.

In her ears, there was only—

“…How is it? Isn’t it an epithet that suits you perfectly?”

His voice alone.

She had to levitate, but she couldn’t.

All she could do was lean against Adrian’s body.

It was strange. In other words…

It felt as if time had stopped in the center of the universe.

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