Chapter 108
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 108
Chapter Title: The Dead Eye
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I stared intently at the eyeball preserved in the formalin specimen jar.
Even accounting for the fact that it had sunk to the bottom, making it clearly visible, it was still grotesquely shaped.
Some were entirely red, as if the blood had pooled to one side, but what stood out was the inverted pupil where the pupil should have been—like it had been clawed by a sharp nail.
If you saw it as a symbol representing Satan, it was truly macabre.
“Do you really have to keep that thing?”
“Well, unless the imperial family demands it, I plan to.”
Princess Lilian shuddered in disgust.
“Why on earth are you preserving something like that!?”
“Because it’s a Dead Eye.”
“You don’t mean that if you make eye contact, you die...?”
As if recalling how I’d covered her eyes back then, the princess hardened her expression seriously.
“It doesn’t actually have that strong an effect. I looked it straight in the face myself and I’m fine, aren’t I?”
“Isn’t that because you’re a master, Professor?”
“That’s true enough.”
If I hadn’t been a master, I probably would have closed my eyes too.
The princess’s point was valid.
“But even considering that, it doesn’t have the overwhelming power to kill instantly upon eye contact. At most... it would just distort the body somewhat grotesquely.”
An eye that lets you see the underside existing somewhere on the boundary between life and death, rather than a Dead Eye proper.
That might be a more accurate way to describe it.
Unless you poured all your power into it, it was closer to implanting the concept of “twisting.”
The body could twist, the mind could twist, or even the mana flow could twist.
It illuminated the realm beyond what was permitted for humans.
The apostles of the demon church typically received such things from demons.
“Do you remember those guys?”
I tore my gaze from the eye in the formalin jar and looked at the princess.
“Sir Philia? Or that man?”
“I mean the knights.”
“Ah...”
The princess nodded as if the memory had resurfaced, then promptly tilted her head again.
“Why the knights? Didn’t you take care of all of them, Professor?”
I nodded in agreement.
It was safe to say there were no demon worshipers left in the imperial palace now.
‘There might be a few lingering in the capital.’
“Yeah, we wiped them out once, that’s true. We’ll have to see what happens later, but they won’t be up to anything right now.”
“So, is there something else bothering you?”
“Grace.”
After I took down Philia and moved to deal with the knights, one of them had yelled desperately.
“Advisor! Grant us your grace!”
“Yeah... that happened.”
The princess muttered awkwardly, frowning.
It seemed like she was annoyed at dredging up a memory she wanted to forget.
“You’re more radical than I thought, Professor. Like when you clashed with Sir Philia, or when you broke Silveia’s finger... and the advisor there...”
“I didn’t have the capacity to worry about your safety too.”
I hadn’t thought much of it, but from the princess’s perspective, seeing a perfectly fine person’s head suddenly split into pieces must have been shocking.
“Trauma, you say.”
“You’re lucky it ended as trauma. You didn’t die horribly.”
“......”
Princess Lilian fell silent.
“Ha... I guess you’re right. The fact that I can complain like this means I’m still alive. Still, later with Silveia...”
“Too much hassle.”
“...Got it.”
Once she calmed down, I steered the topic back.
“You said grace. And then they got exponentially stronger.”
“Really?”
Princess Lilian briefly recalled the battle.
That moment at the pass, with the sunset at their backs.
She’d had her eyes closed, so she couldn’t see details, but all she remembered was Professor Aiden leaping in and ripping the monsters’ heads out by the roots.
While the princess dry-heaved at the unwanted reminder, her slightly narrowed eyes turned to me.
“I didn’t know you were that skilled in martial arts, Professor.”
I furrowed my brow, wondering what she was on about now.
“You might not know, but those graced knights were twice as strong as that knight Philia.”
“Huh?”
“Frankly, unless you’re a master, it’d be hard to handle them. There were fifty of them. And when half-dead Philia transformed, she was several times stronger than the other transformed knights.”
The title of the empire’s top female knight wasn’t for show—even after I burst her organs without mercy and left her half-dead, she didn’t lose consciousness.
Of course, I’d done it intentionally so she wouldn’t die easily, but not passing out despite her bones and tendons twisted was purely her own prowess.
“Even with her body wrecked like that, when she received grace and transformed like the other knights, it was a bit dangerous.”
“You, Professor!?”
“No, you.”
Princess Lilian jolted in surprise, then deflated with a cold stare at me.
“...So it wasn’t you who was in danger, it was me.”
“Of course I wasn’t in danger. If I had been truly at risk, you and the entire imperial family would already be in ruins.”
“Ah, yes.”
The princess gave a perfunctory reply and turned her head away listlessly.
“The man turning into a demon was within expectations, but their transformation was outside mine. Honestly, if I hadn’t been there, the palace would’ve been destroyed.”
“That serious?”
“Yeah. So we need to look into this grace thing. Keeping this eye is part of that.”
Grace was a development not in the original story.
Irregulars kept popping up everywhere like this.
‘Like Bielle suddenly appearing in the tunnel. Or this demon church grace.’
Even if they prepared for war to face a master, shifting the timeline slightly meant the empire had effectively fought two localized wars already.
“...The difficulty’s too high.”
“Huh?”
“Nothing. Don’t mind it.”
No matter how hardcore, this level was impossible for the protagonist to handle.
It had ramped up partly because of my involvement, but the power creep was insane.
This made me wary of the remaining events.
“Let’s go over what’s left to do.”
Princess Lilian looked at me with an unenthusiastic expression.
“Go into the underground labyrinth beneath the palace and reinforce the great demon’s seal again. Right?”
“That’s it. We’ll probably have to deal with the maddened holy water too, and figure out something about Elise’s water spirits.”
“You maybe, but I’m going in empty-handed?”
“Didn’t Elise give you some kind of blessing? You won’t be targeted before me.”
“Even so. Are we really just going the two of us?”
The princess sighed deeply and squeezed her eyes shut.
“Secrecy is paramount.”
“I suppose so.”
She stammered, then drooped her head.
“So, when do we go?”
“Well... probably right after the academy chancellor inauguration ceremony.”
“Not much time left.”
I glanced pointedly at Princess Lilian.
Her anxious look tugged at me unexpectedly.
“So pack everything you can.”
“I was planning to.”
The princess clenched her fist tightly and nodded.
* * *
The academy had undergone unprecedented turmoil and renovations on the scale of its new buildings.
A prime example was the wholesale replacement of personnel for the new chancellor, student council, and security force.
The chancellor position had been vacant since the previous one resigned after the training disaster earlier this year, but it was finally filled.
And the new chancellor who took office was, as I’d expected, someone I had no desire to see.
‘Sigh...’
My gaze toward the new chancellor was thoroughly skewed.
One of the ten archmages said to exist in an era, a fairy even more intimate with spirits than elves.
As a half-fairy, half-elf, her innate mana sensitivity and spirit affinity were unmatched.
If anything, she didn’t pale much compared to Elin.
But to me, the new chancellor held special meaning.
‘The temporary professor who stepped in as acting when Aiden resigned and returned to the Pisvolt ducal estate.’
Unlike Aiden, who blindly continued as an academy professor, she directly aided the protagonists.
That’s why I’d told him not to get overly good evaluations and to keep it moderate.
As an archmage, magic was her mainstay, but her long life made her a hexagonal talent proficient in swordsmanship too.
She might not excel in combat, but teaching was another story.
“Of course, it becomes meaningless at some point.”
Even if she wanted to teach, incidents had to cooperate.
From a certain point, it was all assignments, cleaning up the magic tower, sealing tunnels, and then the academy collapsed after the tunnel ordeal.
Naturally, not just my classes but all classes ground to a halt.
That’s why I missed the professor gig with its 6 PM clock-out.
The emperor had been a pain over the public morals issue... but I’d unexpectedly scored an extension on my temporary professor role.
‘He was quite gracious about it.’
The emperor, desperate to etch his achievements forever, must have assumed I’d resign and enlist.
The Martial Arts College dean had bowed at a right angle, clutching the contract like it was fragile, and left.
“Sigh.”
“Why the sighs since earlier?”
Isel and Elin asked in unison, side by side, curiously.
The emperor hadn’t yet selected the soldiers to assign me, so I hadn’t received my sword officially.
To those who’d see me as a private tutor, I was just that.
Hence, I really didn’t want to attend this inauguration packed with such people.
It was chocolate ball central.
After a long sigh, I answered their sparkling, burdensome gazes with action.
To put it simply...
“Ah! Thank you all! This is our new chancellor! Please take good care of her! And flowers too? Hehe.”
“......”
The new chancellor bloomed with smiles like a campaign rally, entering my view.
“Can’t keep up with her energy.”
“...Her affinity is impressive.”
Elin glanced the same way and agreed with a hint of queasiness.
Come to think of it, this my-way girl was shy around strangers too.
Aiden was the same, so human-wise, the new chancellor was our natural predator.
A destroyer of personal space, you could say.
“It’s a fairy trait.”
“That’s a generalization fallacy...”
“Just as elves are seen as aloof, fairies generally baseline at that energy level. You could call it a generalization, but... think about why it’s a convention.”
I muttered bitterly, then turned away before locking eyes with the new chancellor.
In the original, Aiden found her off-putting for various reasons, but mostly the energy and disliking fairies themselves.
Stripped of flowery words, they had eyes that pierced to a person’s essence.
Like spirits reading lies.
It made her off-putting, but no need to show it publicly.
Even if I taught the protagonists swordsmanship, magic and spirits were outside my domain.
‘So avoid her as much as possible.’
No helping it at the inauguration.
“Ah! Professor Aiden!”
Her radar caught me, and she charged over at tremendous speed.
My expression soured in an instant.