Surviving the Assassin Academy as a Genius Professor-Chapter 201: [Corruption] One-Horned Demon Trappycche (3)

The violet slime surged in like a tidal wave, swallowing the district whole. It paid no heed to wagon-mounted barriers, to earthen walls conjured by mages, or to blazing wards.

It shattered walls, smothered buildings, swept through every street, and then rolled back toward the sea along the roads—taking people with it.

The battlefront we had held so well began to collapse in an instant. Walls painstakingly built gave way. Troops gathered from every sector were broken apart one by one.

< Uaaagh! >

< Damn it, the unit’s being wiped out! >

< P-Professor!! What do we do now?! >

< Captain Eiprosen is dead!!! >

Frantic comms battered my ears. I had already told everyone how to avoid being seized by Trappycche, but the scale now was different. One wave could sweep away dozens at once.

From one flank came something worse—massive spikes lancing out to skewer anyone in their path.

< I’ll block it! >

Glory leapt in, unleashing his demon sword at full capacity. The weapon’s mutable form spread into a mass of black energy, branching like wooden spikes to intercept the oncoming thorns.

KAANG!!

It was metal striking metal, but so immense that the sound reached all the way here.

< Professor! What now?! >

Repeating the cycle, Glory called to me again. I stared silently at the battlefield.

“How long are you going to just watch? People are dying! Should I move?”

Rebecca’s voice came over comms, slightly urgent as she waited in the air for orders. Even the most wretched serial killer must fear their own death, I thought.

“Hey... you!”

Rebecca called again.

< Professor! >

Puhk—

Glory tore himself free after being skewered by a spike, shouting in pain.

“......”

I didn’t answer.

Not to the flood of frantic voices in my comms. Not to Glory’s aimless wandering without a clear objective. Not to Rebecca’s impatient questioning.

I simply watched the battle, explosions and screams filling the world beneath me.

“......”

The line we’d struggled to hold was being driven back hard, casualties climbing fast. That much was expected. There were seven of them. Expected things didn’t need my attention.

“What exactly are you looking at...?”

Rebecca drifted closer, apparently realizing I wasn’t just standing idle while people died.

“Something’s wrong...”

“What?”

“Trappycche’s movements are... more precise than they should be.”

Sure, in the game there were times when more than one Trappycche appeared. Three or four at once was a lottery hit, the kind of thing that got you dozens of upvotes in the community boards.

The only reason Trappycche could pull that off was because it barely understood the concept of being alone. Other one-horned demons knew themselves as individuals.

“With something that big, shouldn’t it be precise?”

“No. That’s not it.”

Because...

“Trappycche is based on a slime.”

A cursed mass of fluid, clumped together and moving just enough to threaten you.

“They normally move with [Collective Intelligence]. No single brain directs them—they share awareness imperfectly and act together.”

It’s like a group project full of idiots. The more there are, the bigger they get, the more their combat efficiency plummets.

So with seven Trappycches, they should be thrashing around, barely able to move properly.

Should have been.

“...So why is its movement this precise?”

You could tell by the timing of the spikes appearing and retracting. Each of the seven was doing its own job in its own position.

A group project where everyone is pulling their weight.

As a professor, I can guarantee—that doesn’t happen.

'Is it just because this is Hell Difficulty?'

No.

That wasn’t it.

Jinksythe and Bomiteka had been dangerous, yes—but they never broke the rules I knew.

'And it’s not a bug.'

Ran had said there were no bugs in this Trappycche run.

I forced down the urgency rising in me from the chorus of screams and thought it through—until I reached one conclusion. There was only one reason its attacks could be this coordinated.

Exactly one.

“Rebecca. Over here.”

“......”

Reluctantly, she flew up in front of me. I put a hand on the back of her head and turned her toward a single point—behind the surging mass of Trappycche.

At the very rear, unmoving, was a horned brain.

“What do you see?”

I couldn’t see a thing myself. But if I was right...

“......”

Rebecca’s eyes widened.

“...?”

That was enough. My hunch was correct.

“Rebecca.”

“...Say it.”

“The Dean said your magic is specialized for large-scale spells.”

She nodded, still looking unsettled.

“...I can only do it twice. My mana pool’s small.”

“Two shots are enough.”

From what I’d heard, she could simultaneously manipulate enough base particles to rival a grand mage—far beyond what most could reach.

I pointed to the very end of Trappycche. To the place we had both seen.

“Fire.”

At the source of this entire mess.

“......”

Rebecca nodded. She closed her eyes and began to focus.

< Professor! At this rate we’ll be wiped out! Please, give us the next order...!! >

Commanders who had been fighting back in their own ways shouted over comms.

The air began to vibrate.

Koo-goo-goo-goo-goong—

Mana—pure mana pressure—filled the space.

If human mana was a stream, this was the ocean flooding in. It seized the entire battlefield.

Koo-goo-goo-goo-goo-goo-goong—

No equipment, no incantations, no external circuits or contracts were needed. Those were crutches for mages lacking the will to command mana.

Rebecca, master of all magic in her own right, needed none of that.

Her mana swelled until it was nearly divine, gathering into her hand.

The first step of any grand spell—

【Rebecca uses 『Localized Mental Realm Manifestation』.】

Astonishingly, despite having studied magic for less than half a year, her body was now wrapped in a Level 8 spell. But even among Level 8, the scale was different.

This was her innate magical framework made manifest—a vessel to hold a miracle.

【Manifested Realm: 『Domain of Transcendence✯』】

Her power touched the heights and borrowed the [Stigma] of the Lord of Stars.

The daylight city dimmed into a rain-soaked twilight world.

It was a perfect match for her state.

The Star King, 「Transcendent Star✯」.

Once, there had been whispers in the royal court, doubting whether Princess Rebecca had any real magical talent. Ezekiel had praised her potential many times, but even the king had seemed indifferent.

After today, the court’s mood would change completely.

This might be a spell meant to shatter the sealed gates of the Demon King’s castle itself.

Rebecca raised a finger.

In the midst of the storm, the immense mana gathered into a single point, forming the shape of a sun. Blood burst from her nose—first left, then right—followed by a trickle from her eyes.

Like a typhoon sucking all the world’s air upward, every mana particle in the atmosphere was drawn toward her, spiraling into the point above her hand.

It lit the darkened world, scattering the raindrops in an instant.

It was as though she held the sun in her palm.

『Siege Ram of Purging✯』

Rebecca had always made an effort to look beautiful, but her face now was anything but. Bloodshot eyes were stretched wide open, her jaw clenched so hard it looked ready to shatter her teeth. She was enduring the crushing weight of the entire world pressing down on her, and from her fingertips—unable to withstand the mana—her skin was starting to peel.

Around that time, the comms exploded with chatter, and I finally responded.

< Commencing the operation now!! >

I moved, leaving Rebecca in place.

< What operation?! >

< Even with grand magic, killing Trappycche in this situation is impossible! >

A senior commander spoke with perfect clarity.

I thought to myself.

'There’s bound to be an underling among the ones listening to these comms.'

There were two reasons Trappycche’s movements were so precise. One of them was the presence of an underling. Since they weren’t demons, they were unaffected by the influence of the Pink Drug.

< There is a way! Follow my orders! >

That was all I said before dropping to the ground and moving quickly.

On this battlefield, there were warriors, mages, and assassins. There were plenty of other soldiers doing their part, but in the end, only those three could actually deal damage to Trappycche. And among the assassins, I was the one.

< Glory! With Eve, tear open the body of the rearmost Trappycche! Give Rebecca’s magic a clear shot! >

< Understood!! >

The warrior’s job went to the warrior.

< Rebecca, now!! >

The mage’s job went to the mage.

『World Forgery: Spatial Forgery [Veil of Concealment]』

And last, it was time for me to do the assassin’s work.

In the next moment, Rebecca’s magic was unleashed.

A sun blazing with light enough to fill the entire world streaked toward Trappycche.

“Whaaaaa—?!”

“This... this can’t be—!!”

The entire surviving force of humanity was frozen in shock.

Trappycche tried to move, to evade, but it couldn’t. Normally, it would have been able to respond in time—but in this state, split into seven bodies, and with its gelatinous, mobile mass torn open by Glory and Eve’s combined assault, it couldn’t move properly.

And with mana now flooding into it—and its own internal neurotransmitters made of mana—it was crushed under Rebecca’s power, unable to function.

At last—

The sun slammed into the horned brain at the heart of the colossal slime, evaporating exactly one-seventh of Trappycche in a single strike.

Then something strange happened. The violet fluid was completely blasted away, yet the horned brain remained, resisting in midair against Rebecca’s magic.

─── .

An unseen struggle began.

On one side was the only mage in human history capable of producing the spell to break down the gates of the Demon King’s castle—on the other, a calamity incarnate.

Like a god and a monster wrestling in the same place, the 『Siege Ram of Purging✯』 clashed with Trappycche’s demonic aura in a silent contest of power.

“Don’t give in, you can’t lose!!”

Those who had just lost comrades and friends shouted, knowing that glowing sphere was their only chance of survival.

But I was certain.

Koo-goo-goo-goong—

Rebecca’s magic was only growing denser, powered by the force she was wringing out of herself, even as it broke her down.

Pasa-sak—

One of the Trappycches’ bodies dissolved completely.

And then, in the next moment, I realized something. The one we’d destroyed had been the least mobile of the lot. The instant it ruptured, something inside it rose to its full height.

A humanoid with two horns, its lower body a serpent’s tail, protruding from Trappycche’s body like a parasite.

《 I’ll tear you filthy humans to pieces— 》

It turned toward me and began spewing rage.

This was the one who had summoned all seven Trappycches here. The one who had taken the species’ natural [Collective Intelligence] and forced upon it a [Hive Mind], making them capable of such precise coordination.

And the one who had treated Rebecca like a granddaughter since her childhood...

The two-horned demon who had vanished the moment I set foot in the royal castle.

“You finally crawled ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) out, you worthless piece of trash...”

Setian.

***

Professor Gula of Hiaka Academy’s Department of Assassination awoke to find himself, yet again, in an inconvenient situation.

'Again? Seriously?'

Somehow, he’d ended up near the site of a massive monster attack. That made this the third time in his life.

'And of course, I’m not thinking straight again...'

Every time, he’d wanted to run, but somehow the chance always slipped away—not by his own will.

“What the hell are those insane monsters...?”

When he saw the approaching Trappycches sweeping away soldiers and skewering them with gigantic spikes of slime, Gula decided that this time, he was absolutely avoiding involvement.

'Sorry.'

Well, not that sorry.

Somehow, the center of these disasters was always Professor Dante. Dante, who was one of the highest-ranking professors—even rumored to be stronger than the chief professors themselves.

Gula was not.

'Hell, I’m completely useless if I get caught up in this anyway!'

Why was he even a professor? Because he liked bossing people around, enjoyed the power of authority, appreciated the social standing, and was paid handsomely without having to get tangled in dangerous assassinations.

'There we go.'

True to his assassin’s instincts, he quickly found the perfect hiding spot—a rooftop of a tall building from which he could watch events unfold.

“......”

Even as people were dying—

“......”

Even as a sun dropped to smash part of Trappycche—

“......”

Gula stayed put.

At least, until a little girl clinging to the back of a truck on its way to evacuate fell just before it reached safety.

“Ah, Mom! Mommmmy!”

“Lime!!”

He saw part of Trappycche’s split body crawling toward her, and behind it, dozens more of the creatures coming this way.

Gula squeezed his eyes shut.

“...Shit.”

He should have kept them closed.

“Goddammit...”

The next moment, he was standing in front of the girl.