Academy’s Undercover Professor-Chapter 312: The Path of the Unclean (1)

On the surface, evacuation efforts were in full swing.

While the elite members had gone underground to wipe out the Liberation Army, those above couldn’t afford to be careless.

Especially because the periodic rumbling rising from beneath was anything but normal.

A fight that should have ended in an instant—was dragging on fiercely.

That alone was enough to fill the evacuees with dread.

The same went for the Seorn students being escorted to the Imperial Palace.

Boom—! Boom—!

“Is it just me, or is that sound getting louder?”

“What the hell is going on down there...?”

“Don’t stop moving, keep going!”

The knights and guards leading the students felt it too—something serious was happening—and hastened their steps.

‘Everyone’s scared.’

The air was thick with anxiety and dread.

What was supposed to be a fun field trip had turned into a living nightmare in just half a day.

‘Please... let this end safely.’

Just as she was about to move again, Rine collapsed where she stood.

A sharp, stabbing pain like a needle piercing her temple had struck her suddenly.

She clutched her head with both hands.

“Ugh!”

“Rine!”

Erendir, walking beside her, immediately ran over and supported her.

“Are you okay? What’s wrong? You didn’t get hurt, did you?”

“N-No... I’m fine. Just... a sudden headache... ugh!”

“Rine!”

Rine couldn’t even respond to Erendir calling her name.

It wasn’t just the splitting headache—her eyes felt as if they were burning alive.

‘My eyes... they hurt so much.’

They stung so badly she thought she might cry, but even her tears seemed to evaporate from the heat.

Then, just as suddenly as it began, the pain disappeared.

It had only lasted several seconds in real time, but it felt like an eternity to her.

Rine could finally catch her breath.

“Rine, are you really okay? Really?”

“Yes, yes. I’m fine now.”

“Let’s go. If we fall behind, we’re going to get separated.”

Erendir tried to help her up, but then stopped mid-motion.

She stared at Rine in silence, a strange expression on her face.

“Senior?”

“Rine... your eyes...”

She murmured, staring into Rine’s gaze.

In her eyes shimmered a glimmer like stardust—a light that looked like a cluster of twinkling stars.

Were her eyes always like this?

Of course not. Erendir had spent enough time by Rine’s side to know better.

Something had changed. Drastically.

Just as Erendir was about to ask what was going on, Rine’s expression hardened in an instant.

Her eyes fixated in a single direction, and she spoke firmly.

“Senior. Let’s move.”

“Huh? O-Okay, yeah. But your eyes—”

“This isn’t the time to talk about that. Let’s go.”

“Uh, right...”

Erendir, flustered by Rine’s unusual assertiveness, followed her lead without protest.

“I’m the senior, though...”

She muttered in confusion, but Rine couldn’t relax even a little.

Maybe no one else could see it, but she certainly could.

That massive swirling force of evil, deep beneath the capital.

It felt like it could erupt through the earth like a volcano at any moment.

The only reason it hadn’t...

Was because someone was desperately holding it back.

‘Who...?’

All Rine could perceive was the power, rendered in pure color.

The massive evil entity was pitch-black—darkness incarnate.

The one fighting it blazed with radiant gold.

They stood in direct opposition to that evil, driving it back with brilliant light.

The image felt strangely familiar, almost nostalgic.

But she couldn’t let herself relax.

Her instincts had been warning her for a while now:

If she stayed here any longer—something bad would happen.

* * *

A golden palm filled the sky.

Basara realized it was too late to dodge.

So instead, he raised all four arms high—intent on resisting, even if it meant being crushed.

His regenerated body surged with terrifying mana.

The demon’s entire form was engulfed in black-red energy, burning like fire.

He drew on every last bit of his strength.

Resist? No—he’d tear straight through that glowing palm.

“Come on!”

Let’s see who’s stronger.

But the closer the golden hand approached, the more Basara’s confidence waned.

When the Buddha’s hand finally met his four burning arms—

Shrrrrkkk...

They began to crumble into dust from the fingertips inward.

“...!”

Basara could only watch with bulging eyes.

Tremendous mana. A reinforced body. Regenerative immortality.

None of it mattered.

Only when confronted with it directly did he understand in his bones:

No matter what he tried—there was no resisting that power.

He should’ve listened to his instincts and fled before it completed.

As time seemed to slow, golden light filled Basara’s eyes.

Thud.

The Buddha’s enormous hand descended and pressed down on his body.

And yet—

There was no explosive sound.

Just a soft whish—like a butterfly landing on a lotus petal.

And when the golden hand vanished—

All that remained was a vast palm-shaped imprint carved into the ground.

“Haa... haa...”

Ludger gasped for air.

Behind him, the serene golden Buddha crumbled into glowing dust.

The light drifted throughout the chamber, illuminating it with soft brilliance.

Among the roots of the World Tree, the golden motes resembled fireflies.

From afar, Andrei gazed at the scene with blurred vision.

“...It’s beautiful.”

In that moment, an old memory surfaced.

Like those flickering lights—

There was once a child who shone like starlight in his dark world.

A child who smiled like the stars, whom he could no longer see.

‘It was all meaningless in the end.’

His gaze shifted to the massive palm-shaped crater.

Luypholdt’s body—so powerful it surpassed even Swordmasters, with terrifying regeneration—was gone without a trace.

Reduced to dust, down to the very last cell.

Unbelievable.

A faint, bitter smile touched Andrei’s lips.

Despite losing his life’s ultimate masterpiece, he didn’t feel angry.

If anything, he felt... free.

The obsessive compulsion that had gnawed at his soul for years seemed to lift.

And then, suddenly, he remembered why he had come to this point.

Once upon a time, Andrei had been a promising wizard.

Not a black mage skulking in shadows.

He had been a noble—and had a beloved daughter born late in his life.

A daughter he cherished more than anything.

His wife, whose health was frail, passed away not long after childbirth.

Her final words to him had been:

—Please take care of our child.

Andrei poured his entire soul into raising her.

He gave her all his love, taught her everything he could.

She was his entire world. His reason for living.

And then—

She fell ill with an incurable disease.

He scoured the world for medicine. Summoned every famed physician.

But her condition only worsened.

This can’t be.

I can’t lose her too—not like I lost my wife.

So Andrei decided to make the cure himself.

There was no such thing as an uncurable disease—he believed that.

He had the knowledge, the talent, the reputation.

He studied the disease’s origin. Sought out treatments.

But too much was missing.

Time. Ingredients. Data. Samples.

Time could be won by sacrificing sleep. Materials could be bought with money.

But data—proof the cure worked—was harder to come by.

You couldn’t rely on lab rats forever.

You had to know if it worked on humans.

And then—

A single word passed through Andrei’s mind.

Human experimentation.

To a mage, human experimentation was a forbidden act—a depravity reserved for corrupted black magicians.

If Andrei attempted it, he would lose everything.

His honor. His pride. His wealth.

Everything he had built over decades as Andrei Semov would collapse like a sandcastle.

Yes.

At the very least, that line must never be crossed.

Andrei whispered those words to himself, as if trying to convince his wavering heart.

But that night—

Just as he was about to check on his daughter, Andrei froze in place when he heard her ragged coughing through the door.

Peeking through the small gap in the slightly open door, he saw her wracked with pain.

The handkerchief she pressed to her lips was stained bright red with blood.

The same girl who had smiled bravely at him earlier that day, saying she was fine...

...now looked like she was on death’s door.

In that moment, something snapped in Andrei’s mind.

The next day—

Avoiding all prying eyes, Andrei acquired a corpse from the black market and began stockpiling materials.

In the end, he committed the forbidden.

Human experimentation.

Like a runaway carriage with shattered brakes, Andrei began sacrificing even sleep as he threw himself into research.

At first, he experimented on the dead.

Then, on living criminals—those he deemed already beyond redemption.

Data accumulated rapidly.

And eventually—he completed the cure.

Overjoyed, Andrei rushed to bring the medicine to his daughter.

—Andrei Semov. You are under arrest by Imperial Intelligence for conducting banned human experimentation.

If only the agents hadn’t come for him at that very moment.

Trapped between the urgent need to reach his daughter and the shock of being discovered, Andrei made his choice.

He overwhelmed the agents and stormed back to his estate.

And when he arrived—

He saw her.

His daughter, eyes closed, lying still—already cold.

—My child... why are your eyes closed?

Andrei took her hand in his, trembling.

There was no warmth left in that tiny hand.

—The cure. I have the cure. With this, you’ll...

He pressed the vial into her palm, but it slipped to the floor, rolling away uselessly.

—Why...? I succeeded. I made the cure. I developed the cure for an incurable disease...

But his daughter—was no more.

She no longer smiled at him, calling him Father.

She no longer pleaded to go outside and see the world through her window.

—This... this isn’t what I committed those sins for...!

Andrei collapsed, clutching her lifeless body, and sobbed.

Moments later, the agents of Imperial Intelligence burst through the door.

—He’s here! That’s Andrei Semov!

—Arrest him! If he resists, kill him!

His tear-filled eyes turned toward them.

The agents looked at him as if he were evil incarnate—eyes full of contempt and judgment.

And in that moment, rage surged within Andrei like molten lava.

I developed a cure for an incurable disease today.

I made a revolutionary breakthrough in medicine.

So why...

Why did my daughter have to die?

Why do you look at me that way?

Why do you let people die just to uphold some trivial morality when they could be saved?

This world is wrong.

So deeply wrong.

—Fine.

His hoarse voice cracked through dry, broken lips—still soaked in grief and fury.

—Then I’ll show you. That you were the fools. That I was right.

—Stop him!

Even when agents and knights poured in to subdue him, they were no match for a Lexur-class mage.

That day, the once-celebrated Sixth-Rank Mage Andrei Semov...

...died.

And in his place, the black magician of biotechnomancy was born.

Andrei Semov, branded heretic.

Yes. That’s how it happened.

Revisiting his memories, Andrei slowly lowered his head once more.

Before him stood a man cloaked in shadow.

Ludger Cherish.

An ordinary academy professor—standing in the heart of this chaos.

Ludger stared at him.

And Andrei stared back.

But Ludger didn’t ask why he had helped.

He simply stood still, watching this broken-down mage on the verge of collapse.

Andrei, almost muttering to himself, finally spoke.

“...Are you going to kill me?”

“I have no intention of doing so.”

“Hah.”

Was it confidence born from power?

Or perhaps... a final mercy?

Andrei couldn’t tell.

He only felt an odd sense of kinship with this man.

“...Have you ever failed to protect something important to you?”

“......”

“Have you ever come to hate the world because of it—and then poured everything into proving you weren’t wrong?”

“......”

Ludger said nothing.

Andrei chuckled faintly.

“So you «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» have.”

“......”

“I didn’t notice at first. But your eyes told me.”

Andrei murmured like someone who had already given up everything.

“You were never just an ordinary professor.”

As he spoke, he poured the last of his magic into his right hand and constructed a formula.

The structure was like the frameworks Ludger used to teach students how to code spells.

“This technique contains the knowledge I’ve built. Take it. It’ll help you somehow. I don’t care if you make it public—it’ll probably earn me another place in Arcane Chamber’s Hall of Honor.”

“...Why are you giving this to me?”

Ludger recognized immediately that this was no ordinary spell.

It was the culmination of a lifetime of research—a Lexur-class mage who had turned to black magic.

Its weight was immense.

“With this, you could reclaim your old prestige. And considering your help in the final battle, the Empire might even commute your sentence. You could avoid execution.”

Andrei shook his head.

“I never did this for a reward. I just... couldn’t bear it anymore.”

“Bear what?”

“What I failed to protect. And what this world refuses to protect. I couldn’t stand any of it.”

Hrk.

Andrei coughed, and black blood gushed from his mouth.

His body was failing.

He gave a bitter smile.

“I don’t need praise. I don’t need to leave behind some grand legacy. I just... wanted to protect what was in my hands.”

“......”

“Funny, isn’t it? That I committed such sins for something so small. No one would understand. But I don’t expect them to.” 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

“I was sincere. Always. That was everything to me.”

Even if it meant making the world his enemy.

Even if people cursed him, scorned him.

Even if they threw filth and forced him to walk through thorns.

He was prepared to endure it all.

“...You feel the same, don’t you?”

Andrei’s clear eyes stared straight through Ludger.