Chapter 41
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 41
Chapter Title: Botany Professor
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If the first chapter was a practical disaster, this feels like a bonus stage before heading into Chapter 2.
You can skip it or proceed.
Skipping it means facing a tougher Chapter 2 and Elise as the boss, but there are rewards for that too.
Proceeding means tackling an appropriately difficult Chapter 2 in the tunnels while preserving Elin's abilities.
‘If I were the player, I would've killed Elise...’
But this isn't a game—it's reality.
More importantly, with all the branches I've twisted, the predictable outcome is the beast tamer. He'll show up.
He'll definitely bring a horde of beasts big enough to keep me tied down.
And along with that...
Prezel Professor.
No, correction.
Prezel Professor, the demonic mine of fire. That suits her better.
One must not be killed, and one must be killed.
Up until now, I've stuck to the original plot by funneling things to the protagonists, but the tunnels are different.
To keep the tower I've built from crumbling, I need to take the lead.
‘But first, I need to check their resolve.’
That will change my plans a lot.
“Ladia.”
“Yes, y-yes, Professor. I'll fight too...”
“No need.”
I didn't bring Ladia here for her hands.
“Do you remember the questions I asked?”
“...Pardon?”
Just as Ladia was about to ask what nonsense that was, the Botany Professor spoke up.
“Oh, Professor Aiden. You've brought students with you.”
“It's been a few weeks, and your speech has gotten strange. Have you found some peace of mind from that borrowed power that's not your own?”
“You know... this professor?”
Ignoring Ladia's puzzled look, I shot the Botany Professor a glance.
He had coalesced his colony, formed a massive body, and squeezed out knowledge until he reached his growth limit.
On that foundation of strong poison resistance, high resistance to various magics, and superior regeneration, he had created variables like scattering spores.
Given a little more time, he would've summoned colony monsters from all over to harass us.
But those colony monsters are currently being handled enthusiastically by the magic tower and my students.
Seeing I wasn't answering, Ladia realized this wasn't her place to interject and recalled our previous exchange.
“...I still remember the questions you asked, Professor.”
“Good.”
Matching eyes with the Botany Professor, I stepped back slightly to give Ladia some leeway.
“Then keep thinking about it. I'll ask one last time soon.”
Confirming Ladia had retreated a good distance, I slowly advanced.
He spread his arms like sworn brothers welcoming a long-awaited neighbor, inviting recognition with a smile.
Instead of playing along, all he said was...
“Professor Aiden. I really hate you.”
“Funny. I sincerely think you're an idiot.”
“......”
“Look at that hideous form. You've abandoned your humanity to become that. Utterly idiotic and laughable.”
Haha.
My mockery spread thick like fog.
At those words, the Botany Professor flew into a hysterical rage.
A man swollen with omnipotence used as a shield, bundled tight with narcissism.
Perhaps the budding humiliation ignited his suppressed mania, denying the failure right in front of him and averting his eyes.
“Nonsense!”
I brushed off the resounding shout with a sneer.
“Laughable?! Me, laughable? Ridiculous! I've gained power! Power that won't lose to anyone!”
“Isn't it stifling, trapped in that well?”
“A well!? Ha, absurd. You coveted what I have, yet you dare call it a well?”
Coveted?
I couldn't comprehend.
But he seemed utterly convinced, venting his fury passionately.
“Why pretend you didn't take it from me? That was... my students... my students...!”
The Botany Professor's face suddenly twisted.
Unable to contain his rage, he tore off his kindly mask, revealing his grotesque true face.
A warped, biased human perspective manipulated reality to his taste, and convenient hatred rippled forth.
Unknowingly, I smirked at the sight of him plummeting into the abyss.
Aiden truly found the man utterly ridiculous.
“I loved my students! I truly wanted to teach them. That was all. Even until the very end, I...”
The Botany Professor clutched his grotesquely twisted face from within his ragged robes.
Ladia's pupils shook, sensing something off in the conversation's context.
She wasn't entirely sure who this demonic being was.
She was cautiously guessing he might be a professor, just from the word "students."
‘I hope she understands, even if my decision is a bit cruel.’
One word from him could mean dozens, thousands, even tens of thousands of lives at stake—small or large.
They're the ones I need to save before the magic tower's mages.
I just hoped Ladia's sword tip would cut straight through the vortex like a beam of light, unwavering.
‘For that, I'll push her to the edge.’
In that sense, the tower lord might be entirely right.
I was far from the ideal educator image.
‘That's more fitting for the Botany Professor.’
Even distorted, he cherished his students to the end.
That's why I could leave my students with Elin and come here.
The Botany Professor won't touch the students.
No matter the situation.
I let out a self-deprecating chuckle.
Mother lions cherish their cubs.
If a cub lion falls off a cliff, the mother might throw herself to save it.
Mother elephants struggle until exhaustion to pull a mud-trapped calf free, and other animals do the same.
The policy of cornering them off cliffs and raising only survivors is too cruel even for the wild.
The Botany Professor tore at his hair.
“That was unavoidable... I didn't do wrong. It's you! All of this! It's all because of you!”
Trapped in his tailored vision, sobs turned to screams, screams birthed rage.
Rage blinds vision and turns one impulsive—that was the Botany Professor right now.
“If only you'd come a little sooner!”
The Botany Professor locked eyes with me.
Desperate, trembling with injustice.
Ultimately, haunted by the regret of failing to save his students, sobbing in agony night after night...
Until he snapped.
The tragic professor.
“Must've been tough.”
I stopped the taunt and tossed out a single line.
At that, the Botany Professor froze, staring at me.
Eyes full of disbelief.
But Aiden's next words only fueled his rage further.
“But it's none of my concern.”
I smirked slyly, and he roared.
“You bastard!”
Even if tricked, his actions had crossed the line.
No mercy.
The Botany Professor lunged with a feral scream.
“You knew, didn't you! You knew and coveted my things while watching! My reputation with students, my social status, the recognition from those around... the contrasting glory you gained by stepping on me!”
His sagging face lifted, eyes bulging.
“You took everything from me!”
“I took nothing of yours. You lost it all yourself.”
“I'll kill you and prove my innocence.”
“Impossible.”
“Nothing will!”
The Botany Professor ground his teeth.
Twelve offshoots emerged from between the skeletal trees.
Their varied appearances suggested he was controlling pre-growth husks.
“No longer impossible. Not for me.”
With a gust, pale black energy surged.
Black smoke undulating on the wind.
Refined demonic energy—death qi.
The sinister aura proving he was a demonic mine.
“Ladia.”
“Y-Yes?! Y-Yes...?”
I swallowed a hollow laugh at her whimpering.
From that look, she was full of resentment about why I'd brought her.
I knew. I understood.
“Stay behind me.”
Ladia glared at Aiden.
A stew of one spoon unease, two spoons eeriness, three spoons resentment, topped with a ladle of fear.
If asked the taste, it'd be the flavor of a face turning ashen with death.
“Stay behind me.”
But the professor smirked faintly, as if unaware of my feelings.
‘He finds my whimpering amusing?’
Cancel the three spoons of resentment.
A full ladle for him to balance the scales.
“No sword, and you come to fight?!”
Twelve silhouettes charged.
In perfect unison, organic, swift.
Only then did Ladia realize Aiden had no sword at his waist.
He rarely carried one, and she'd been too focused on herself to notice.
‘But there's a limit!’
Who comes to a fight without a sword?!
As Ladia hurriedly drew her own sword to hand it over—
Crack! A figure tumbled across the ground.
Ladia flinched preemptively, but peeking cautiously, a small mushroom body rolled on the dirt.
Even that had its cap torn off, convulsing before going limp.
Feathers. Nothing but feathers.
A light, cozy whirlwind of feathers, and through it, Professor Aiden strode calmly.
Ladia, peeking with narrowed eyes, widened them.
“...Whoa.”
Unbound by swords, he extended his hand blade, slicing space to draw not a sword but sword intent, exhaling strands of aura.
Aiden's kick narrowly missed as the offshoot ducked and thrust a fist.
A perfect distance calculation that would chill any onlooker.
Contrary to expectations of a clean hit, it grazed by a subtle margin.
Ladia caught it and covered her mouth.
Conversely, when Aiden punched empty air, someone inexplicably rolled in the dirt.
Fists not aimed at the foe, but extended ahead so the foe came to meet them—a mystical sight repeating.
Predicting their moves minutes ahead and striking first.
The offshoots tried to evade the prophetic technique...
Boom.
Smashed satisfyingly into the ground, bodies crumbling.
A feather settled on the offshoot's shoulder, crushing the entire arm like a smashed cake.
Aiden didn't stop. He grabbed the dangling arm, whipping it aside.
Dust billowed thick.
Their attacks, claws, even clinging attempts—all futile efforts.
The offshoot wasn't weak.
Just...
‘Professor Aiden was this strong?’
Ladia was stunned.
No special displays, yet reading the battle flow alone dominated overwhelmingly.
Beyond raw strength, it was vast vision and insight.
Ladia swallowed hard.
An offshoot grabbed by Aiden's face flailed legs to escape, but soon came the crunch of something breaking.
Headless, it knelt and collapsed.
Some retreated, scattering spores, but white feathers wafting from somewhere tolerated not a speck heading our way.
Pale white flock over purple earth.
A horrific aura aggregate slicing all it touched.
Spores disintegrated into dust before contact, shredded by the feathers' sharp presence.
Then Professor Aiden's hand blade plunged down.
Earth-shaking impact, another offshoot's head exploding unrecognizably.
Flesh facing unstoppable violence convulsed like a city gate hit by a battering ram, bursting explosively.
Ladia glanced at the flesh and bone fragments flying to her feet.
Thrown into the sky, slammed down, stomped—their mouths foaming blood as they were pulverized.
But Professor Aiden seemed utterly bored, not even breaking a sweat.
From his disappointed look at the meager exertion, Ladia realized.
He was truly one of the three masters upholding the empire.
The battle intensified by the second.
—Graaaaaah!
One massive body roared, swept by an ice storm; elsewhere, hordes of beasts twisted and scattered under Elin's magic.
Boom.
Dust erupted like an explosion, screams following invariably.
I glanced at the twelve offshoots smashed into the ground.
Then shifted my gaze to the Botany Professor.
He did the same, looking at me.
“Kill you... just you...”
The twelve replicas—the thirteenth, the completed growth—was different.
The Botany Professor's final stage, accepting demonic power to fully corrupt.
‘Elin would've struggled.’
Even Elin, drawing out Elise's full power after that massacre, had trouble.
‘But not me.’
“Time to end this.”
It had dragged on too long.
Chattering teeth in chills, he denied vehemently.
“I... I won't lose. I can't lose. Once I gain this power, everything will be fixed...”
As I approached for the executioner's finale, he slashed with long nails at my throat.
But upon touching my body, it snagged, refusing to descend.
The professor's face contorted freakishly.
Then my fist made a harsh noise.
The Botany Professor slammed into the ground repeatedly, bouncing up to lean against a skeletal tree like a ring corner.
“Guh, guh... cut...”
No waiting from me.
I yanked his body, smashing it into the tree.
Boom! Splintered wood fragments floated in the air.
Rebounding flesh met another shove; I cocked my fist and drove it in.
Something burst.
“Guhk, kghk.”
It might feel anticlimactic, but the Botany Professor clung to one delusion till the end.
I grabbed his face, dragged him, and dumped him at Ladia's feet.
‘No way he could beat me.’
Aiden almost never loses.
Even if I couldn't fully wield Aiden's power, that didn't change.
Unless it was the Dream Demon Lord exception.
Ladia gasped upon confirming the Botany Professor's face.