Academy’s Undercover Professor-Chapter 302: Andrei Semov (1)

A simple probing strike to signal the start of battle.

Andrei Semov gathered mana in his chest, then launched it forward like a pillar.

It was an attack of [Mana Discharge] with no elemental property whatsoever.

Yet the sheer volume of mana turned it into a tremendous force, seeking to engulf Veronica.

Veronica responded by swinging the sword in her hand downward from above.

A perfectly balanced, motionless vertical slash.

The frostbitten aura clinging to the tip of her blade split the mana beam in two.

Crack!

Frost spread across the ground along the path carved by Veronica’s swing.

Seeing this, Andrei’s eyes lit up with interest.

“You wield a rather unusual aura. I’ve heard that some knights can imbue their aura with elements based on their constitution. I suppose you’re one of those.”

“......”

Veronica didn’t reply.

The cheerful, booming laughter she often displayed was nowhere to be seen—her demeanor in combat was so starkly different it was almost jarring.

Instead of answering, she intensified the cold aura rising from her blade.

Was she implying he wasn’t even worth speaking to?

Andrei had only asked to confirm a theory, not expecting much of a response anyway.

Still, it didn’t change the fact that she was a troublesome opponent.

Even if that earlier blow wasn’t her full power, the surrounding temperature had momentarily dropped enough to be noticeable.

No—he hadn’t imagined it.

Andrei deliberately exhaled.

A white mist formed in the air, evaporating like smoke.

The wrinkles around his eyes curved like crescent moons in amusement.

“How fascinating. So it’s not just simple frost you’re generating.”

Indeed, this wasn’t ordinary cold.

The aura particles spilling from Veronica’s sword carried with them a biting chill.

They shimmered like mirages, rippling outward and steadily taking control of the surrounding space.

To anyone fighting her, the longer the battle dragged on, the more the cold would numb the body, gradually eating away at both physical and mental stamina.

It was a technique optimized for close-quarters combat—maximizing efficiency through extremity.

‘Still, even she shouldn’t be safe within that frost.’

Andrei’s curiosity was answered the moment he looked into Veronica’s eyes.

“I see now. It’s not for nothing that she’s spent years in the cold north.”

The reason Veronica had joined the Cold Steel Knights...

The reason she operated in such frigid conditions...

It was all so she could withstand the double-edged nature of her own technique.

‘No wonder they couldn’t hold out against someone like her if all we sent were Seconds.’

Andrei gave a faint, self-mocking laugh and pulled a vial from inside his robe.

Veronica wasn’t about to let him do as he pleased.

Even before she gave a signal, the battle mage behind her moved.

Fwoooosh!

The battle mage, hood pulled low, extended both arms.

A wind like a winter gale surged forth, sweeping up Veronica’s aura particles and driving them toward Andrei.

“Hmph.”

Andrei scoffed and raised a mana barrier to block the attack.

But the scattered aura particles only spread further, coating the surroundings in frost and pressing in around him.

Crack.

Even the edges of Andrei’s robe began to ice over.

“An annoying trick indeed.”

Still, the cold wasn’t enough to stop him from fully withdrawing the vial and mixing its contents.

Inside the vial were three pea-sized chunks of flesh.

Andrei popped the lid and poured them onto the ground—where they began to squirm, swelling like inflating balloons.

In mere moments, they expanded, shifting and writhing until they took on humanoid form.

Each one was about the size of an adult male. They had no eyes, nose, or mouth, and their pale skin was smooth and hairless.

Seeing them made Veronica’s skin crawl without even realizing it.

Her knightly instincts screamed that these were anything but ordinary test subjects.

‘Before they fully awaken—!’

Leaping high from her position, Veronica launched herself at Andrei.

The aura flowing from her sword was more condensed than before—dense, lethal.

Even if Andrei raised a defensive spell, she intended to cut through it along with him.

But her sword was intercepted—by one of the test subjects, which had suddenly moved.

Clang!

The subject raised its arm to block, the collision making an unnatural sound.

Veronica’s eyes widened.

‘It blocked an aura strike of this intensity... barehanded?’

Realizing her attack hadn’t cut through, she was momentarily stunned.

A sharp carapace had jutted out like a blade from the subject’s forearm, shielding it.

Crack!

Of course, the freezing aura embedded in her sword wasn’t without effect—the arm began to frost over.

Veronica immediately leapt back.

A beat later, the other test subjects’ attacks swept through where she’d just stood.

The one who had blocked her strike flexed its frozen forearm.

Thwip. The frost flaked off, dropping to the ground, and in an instant, the purplish, necrotic tissue underneath regained its original ivory hue.

It had instantly regenerated the frostbitten, necrotic flesh.

It was a regeneration speed almost too absurd to believe.

Andrei spoke with quiet pride.

“Well? Impressed? My proud creations. I never would’ve dreamed of producing something like this in the past, but thanks to the World Tree’s vitality, it finally became possible. They aren’t mass-producible... but that’s what makes them so valuable—”

The battle mage didn’t let him finish and fired a blast of flame.

If the cold didn’t work, then he’d try the opposite—burn it to death.

Waves of flame surged like a tidal wave.

One of the three test subjects stepped forward and raised its arm.

Crack.

Its forearm ballooned outward, reshaping into a massive shield that covered its body.

The firestorm crashed against the shield.

Crimson sparks exploded in all directions, and the searing heat rolled across the battlefield.

Once the flames subsided... the test subject was still standing unharmed.

It slowly lowered the charred shield.

The blackened outer layer peeled away like a shed skin, revealing newly regenerated ivory flesh beneath.

Andrei clicked his tongue and shook his head.

“Isn’t that a bit too simplistic? These test subjects are designed to endure any attack. They’re the ideal blueprint for evolution.”

He gazed fondly at his creations.

“This is the power of life. The direction humanity must evolve toward. Immune to burns, frostbite, any injury—regenerating from all.”

Andrei murmured softly.

“Even incurable diseases could one day be overcome...”

He shook his head [N O V E L I G H T] and looked confidently at Veronica.

“Well? Still intend to keep fighting after all that?”

“......”

Veronica said nothing—but she adjusted her grip on her sword again.

Andrei shook his head.

How could she not understand? Such perfection stood before her, and she showed no awe—only hostility.

He raised a hand to command the test subjects—

—when suddenly, his expression froze.

His half-lidded eyes glanced upward.

A knight with golden hair was falling straight down from above.

By the time Andrei registered it, it was already too late.

There was no blocking it. No dodging. A flawless ambush.

Shkunk!

The sword pierced Andrei cleanly through the forehead.

Immediately after, Passius kicked off Andrei’s shoulder, backflipping away from the impact.

A blade swung by one of the test subjects narrowly missed him as he flipped back.

‘Did I get him?’

Passius looked to confirm Andrei’s corpse.

The man, stabbed through the brow, was still standing—staring blankly upward.

Seeing that, Passius immediately retreated several steps further.

His judgment had been correct.

“...Impressive.”

The voice came from the mouth of Andrei—who should have been dead.

His wide, glaring eyes rolled toward Passius.

“I’d planned to deliver a counter-assault the moment you let your guard down... but you reacted quickly. Is it because you're a Master? Your instincts are sharp.”

He hadn’t expected a Master-class swordsman to launch a surprise attack like an assassin.

Passius let out a dry chuckle, lips curled in disbelief.

“Didn’t think you’d survive a sword through the forehead. Should’ve gone for the heart instead.”

“Wouldn’t have mattered. My body long ago transcended the human limit.”

Andrei slowly lowered the head he had tilted upward.

The wound between his brows healed in an instant.

Passius muttered, stunned.

“...That’s kind of cheating.”

“And a Swordmaster ambushing people is no different. Fighting without honor, so pragmatically—if I were still the man I was before gaining this power, I might have died before I realized what was happening.”

“I’m flattered.”

“Honestly, I’m surprised. I hadn’t planned on revealing this trump card so early.”

Still staring at Passius, Andrei stretched his arm in another direction.

His arm extended unnaturally, then struck a seemingly empty space in the air with force.

“Urgh!”

With a grunt, a figure was thrown backward from the air and landed on the ground—his invisibility disrupted.

It was Iron Mask Roteron.

He stared at Andrei from inside his helmet, eyes filled with disbelief.

“Adjusting air density to distort your appearance was clever. But did you think that wouldn’t alter the airflow?”

Andrei’s words made it clear—his skin was sensitive enough to detect even the subtlest disturbances in air current.

Passius and Roteron took their place beside Veronica’s party, steadying their stance.

Andrei, watching them, feigned composure on the surface—but inwardly, he let out a low sigh.

A 6th-Circle mage.

A Master-level Royal Guard.

The Deputy Commander of the Imperial Knights and an Imperial War Mage.

A lineup so stacked it bordered on excessive.

Had this been before he discovered the World Tree, he would have already died—many times over.

‘I can’t afford to underestimate them either.’

He immediately pulled another item from inside his coat.

A syringe, filled with a black liquid.

Under the test subjects’ protection, Andrei drove the syringe into his own chest.

The dark liquid coursed through his bloodstream, reaching his heart.

Thump. Thump.

A heart that had long exceeded human durability began beating with terrifying force.

Dark veins bulged across Andrei’s skin—pulsing grotesquely before fading again.

“Ooooh...”

A mix of pain and euphoria flooded his senses, and Andrei couldn’t help but gasp aloud.

His eyes turned pitch black—and then a bright yellow iris emerged from their centers.

Everyone watching instinctively tensed.

Something in Andrei had changed.

Before, he had been formidable.

Now, he radiated an aura of something near godlike.

“...I see. With this kind of power, I really could do anything.”

Refined demonic power.

Rather than “purified,” it had been diluted—stabilized after being extracted from the World Tree.

This was the same energy used to mass-produce the Second test subjects.

And Andrei had injected it directly into himself.

Even with a successful formula, a single drop in the vein would tear an ordinary human’s body apart.

But Andrei was no ordinary man.

His body had already been modified with advanced biotechnology—more than ready to accept the demonic force.

Black mana began to undulate around his body.

“Well then. Let’s skip the warm-up. Let’s all go all out.”

With that, the black mana exploded outward in a radial fan.

* * *

BOOOOOOM!!!

A massive tremor shook the underground facility.

Ludger’s party came to an immediate halt, momentarily suspecting that the machinery they’d destroyed had come back online.

But they quickly realized the scale of the tremor was far greater—and the shockwave came from a more distant location.

“This...”

A gust of wind swept past them from the far end of the corridor.

It was a pressure wave—born of a massive explosion.

And within that wave... an ominous presence could be felt.

Terrina furrowed her brow.

Her Swordmaster instincts flared in alarm at the strange, repulsive aura carried by the shockwave.

The others felt it too.

“...Looks like someone got there before us and started the fight,” Ludger said quietly.

Everyone nodded.

They’d been moving nonstop, but the size of their group had drawn concentrated interference from the test subjects—delaying them.

And now, for such an enormous blast and bizarre energy to erupt from ahead...

It could only mean one thing.

The black mages had finally begun deploying demonic power in earnest.

‘That’s going to be a problem.’

Just then, Ludger’s eyes narrowed. 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

A faint pulse of mana pricked against his skin.

He turned his gaze—spotting a paper frog on the ground.

He immediately recognized it.

It was a signal from Sedina and Hans.

Without hesitation, Ludger discreetly picked up the frog, unnoticed by the others—all of whom were still focused on the disturbance in the distance.

He unfolded it and read the hastily scrawled message:

[Our chimera cover was blown. Unable to transmit more info. One test subject in the central chamber appears highly dangerous. Biotech faction’s Andrei is currently stalling for time.]

Ludger crushed the paper into a ball and slipped it into his pocket.

“We should get moving. Now.”