Academy's Undercover Professor

ACADEMY’S UNDERCOVER PROFESSOR

Chapter 44 – A Risky Bet (1)

After the pharmacology class taught by Professor Mary Ross ended, Aidan was immersed in practicing his magic while recalling the visualization of the elemental properties that Ludger had taught him.

Next to Aidan was Leo, who was clinging to him everywhere just like a best friend, and Tessie, who had recently joined the duo and often hung around with Aidan.

The trio materialize their own elements in the first training ground and worked hard to master the elements.

“Pheew. I almost did it.”

Aidan wiped the sweat that was flowing over his forehead while looking at the wind element materialized in his palm.

—The memory of the warm and cool breeze that he felt while running through the wide fields of his hometown.

Even though it was not perfect, the element in front of him was visualized nearly akin to the wind from his memories.

Aidan couldn’t hide his excitement at the fact that he was able to visualize an element at that level, even though he didn’t know anything about the elemental property beforehand.

It was all thanks to the method that Ludger had used to teach him.

‘As expected, he’s awesome.’

His advice was so practical that there was nothing that he missed.

Ludger’s advice as well as his manner in helping Aidan when he had been struggling before was enough to touch Aidan’s heartstrings.

‘As expected, was it a mistake that I suspected Professor Ludger back then?’

Ludger’s words and actions were always cold and frigid, but Aidan could feel how much he loved magic and seriously appreciated magic through his tone of voice.

People who liked magic couldn’t be bad.

Most of all, if Ludger was a bad person, he would not have passed on such a precious method of visualizing elemental properties to his students that the others did not teach them.

‘I’m not really sure yet.’

Aidan vaguely felt that there was something about Ludger. But even so, he didn’t feel that Ludger was a bad guy.

Was it because his contradictory feelings had made his mind complicated?

The wind element that had finally materialized soon disappeared without a trace.

After smacking his lips, Aidan looked at Leo and Tessie.

The two were also sweating and eager to visualize the elemental properties.

It was because the two people were also deeply impressed by the warm flame that Aidan had shown in the class before.

Aidan didn’t want to interrupt their good serious appearance, so he was only watching, and just in time, a group of students came into the training ground.

‘Those people…’

Some of the students who arrived at the training ground caught Aidan’s attention.

The person who had dark blue hair with a hint of azure color lingering in the hair…

The person who had a neat hairstyle with parted hair to show the forehead…

On the contrary, the one with white skin that even looked pale, with a sharp nose, and sharp, narrow eyes stood out the most.

He looked like a sophomore with his natural elegance flowing in his attitude, and all the students nearby him gathered around him.

‘Who is he? He made the aristocratic students gather like that. He must be an extremely incredible person.’

While Aidan was watching them like that, the man turned his head and looked at Aidan.

Their eyes met in the air.

Aidan suddenly remembered what Leo had said.

Leo told him not to make eye contact with aristocratic students for long and not to pay any attention to them.

Aidan was not stupid enough to ask, ‘It’s good if we get closer to each other afterward, so why?’ So he naturally averted his eyes.

The man didn’t give any comment after Aidan did that, either.

Aidan had already taken a proper break, so he was going to focus on practicing magic again.

“Oh? Who is this?”

It then that one of the flocked aristocratic students approached Aidan and spoke in a loud voice.

Leo and Tessie, who were distracted by that voice, also looked at the aristocrat student while halting their practice.

It was a boy student who was rolling up the corners of his mouth as he showed a mean smile while staring at Aidan.

“Oh, you.”

Just when Aidan thought that he looked familiar, he realized that the boy was apparently the eldest son of Baron Felio, who had argued with Aidan at the beginning of the semester and stepped down after hearing bitter words from Leo.

“Why is he suddenly acting like he knows us?”

Leo’s face quickly rotted as he recognized that boy.

Jevan Felio did not care about Leo’s question and deliberately approached Aidan’s party.

“Aren’t you Aidan, who wasn’t even able to visualize the elemental property properly?”

Jevan strongly criticized the moment when Aidan couldn’t visualize the elemental property intentionally.

Aidan and his other friends must have known his innermost thoughts.

“Hey, Jevan. We’re busy practicing magic right now, so why don’t you just get lost to that corner over there?” Leo replied with a cynical smile.

“Hah. I was wondering who it was, are you the arrogant commoner from last time? You two ended up hanging around together, huh?”

Leo’s eyes were staring at the aristocratic students, who watched the situation with excitement over Jevan’s shoulder.

They didn’t seem to have any intention of stopping Jevan. More than that, the man who stood at the center of the group kept disturbing his mind.

“Jevan. Are you trying to show a good appearance because the seniors are here?”

Leo knew very well who the senior at the center of the aristocratic students was.

In the first place, there weren’t that many gentlemen who held that much fame in Sören.

—Freuden Wolfsburg.

(TL/N: Change the prior translation of Wolburg into Wolfsburg to fit the context better.

He was the eldest son of Wolfsburg, one of the three Ducal families of the Exileon Empire that symbolized the wolf.

Leo also understood why Jevan had suddenly started a quarrel.

In order to stand out in that man’s faction, who could be called as the center of aristocratic students, Jevan deliberately took action to create a deep impression about himself.

“We don’t want to play along with your pranks, so get out of here right now. This is a space for practicing magic.”

“A mere commoner like you. Don’t you dare tell this noble-blooded body what to do,” Jevan responded with a snort as he listened to Leo’s words.

“It’s because you don’t understand the situation yet…….”

“And it’s Aidan that I’m talking to, so why does a little boy like you interfere with us?”

Grit.

The words “little boy” were just about the most triggering words for Leo.

Because Leo was especially short compared to his peers.

Some girls thought Leo was cute, but Leo extremely hated being treated like that.

For Leo, his small height was like an Achilles tendon.

“You…”

“Leo. Calm down. Just leave it to me.”

Aidan stepped forward to stop Leo from getting angry.

At that rate, the situation itself wouldn’t seem to end soon.

“Jevan, I don’t know what’s wrong with you all of a sudden, but please just pass by us quietly. I don’t want to fight with a friend.”

Jevan grimaced at Aidan’s words.

“Friend? Why am I your friend? This dirty trash.”

“W-were you not?”

“Are you crazy?”

That was why he didn’t like that commoner.

* * *

* * *

It was also annoying to see Aidan looking at him with such clear eyes as if he was detached from the whole world.

“If you are a commoner, act like a commoner and bow your head in front of the aristocracy.”

“…Jevan. I don’t know what on earth it is about me that bothered you, but I’ll apologize about it here. I’m sorry. So can you just pretend that it never happened?”

According to Aidan, those words were him raising his white flag and they were his effort to be as considerate to Jevan as he could.

The boy didn’t want to bring himself into a fight, as he had never been unprovokedly hostile to anyone.

Jevan responded with a snort to Aidan’s words.

“Never happened? Alright. Then I’ll let it slide, but you should do one thing…”

Then he pointed at his feet with his hand.

“Kneel down.”

“You…!”

Tessie stepped up, as she couldn’t stay still watching his behavior that was crossing the line.

“That’s enough. Don’t you even have any dignity as an aristocrat?”

“What? How dare a mere fallen aristocrat interfere?”

Tessie’s face froze at his sinister question.

“What?”

“Shut up if you’re from a family that’s too embarrassing to be called a fellow aristocrat family. I think I’m going to smell that disgusting stench.”

“…Do you want to die?”

For Tessie, her family affairs were the most taboo topic.

But Jevan had salted Tessie’s wounds as if it was nothing.

As Tessie’s body was surging with mana, Jevan sneered at her.

“I’m afraid you’re not even a fallen aristocrat since you’re not properly educated…”

“Jevan Felio.”

“Huh?”

It was none other than Aidan who called his name.

But Aidan’s voice was different from usual. As his tone of voice was heavier, Jevan flinched unknowingly.

“Jevan. I can’t do anything about your complaints toward me. If you insulted me with that, then yes, I could let it slide, but…”

Aidan strode toward Jevan.

His eyes that were blazing with anger glared at Jevan.

“Once you start messing around with my friends, I will no longer restrain myself.”

“Ha, haha. So what if you don’t restrain yourself? Oh? Okay. Then let’s see.”

As if he had been waiting for it, Jevan took a white glove out of his pocket and threw it at Aidan.

“It’s a magic duel. If you’re scared, just run away.”

Aidan shook his head as he looked at the gloves that hit his chest and slid down on it.

“Do we really have to do this?”

“What if I said we have to?”

“…Alright.”

Aidan nodded.

“Aidan!”

“Hey, what the hell are you going to do?”

Tessie and Leo tried to stop Aidan, but Aidan was serious as well. His instinctive intuition was telling him that he must not back down there.

His fight with Jevan was inevitable.

He didn’t want to avoid either.

“Good. Then bring it on. And the loser is going to kneel down and beg the winner for an apology. What do you think? It’s good, right?”

“As long as you promise to keep those words.”

“Hahaha! Yes! Whenever! As long as you can beat me.”

Jevan was confident.

Although they were fellow freshmen who were the same age, Aidan was a beginner who had not even learned the basics of magic properly yet.

Jevan didn’t know how the hell he was able to get into Sören, but he must have benefitted from being a commoner.

Jevan was confident that he could win against Aidan because he had been learning magic from his private teacher since he was young.

It was the moment when the fight between the two boys was about to take place…

“What are you doing right now?”

The cold voice weighed heavily on the shoulders of all the students on the scene.

***

I was on patrol.

Although the werewolf crisis was over, the patrol would continue for a while due to the principal’s words that stated that she did not know when or what some other incident would happen again.

It was annoying, but it couldn’t be helped, so I was just walking around with the thought of cooling my head.

No matter how many students existed in Sören, would there be more trouble just after the werewolf crisis was over?

—And it took me less than five minutes to realize how complacent my thoughts were.

“What are you doing right now?”

I asked cautiously, looking at the two students who were on the verge of fighting.

Yes. I was a little annoyed, but I still needed to hear the details of the situation.

So I asked it quietly without getting angry.

Some of the students’ faces turned pale, perhaps because they did not expect me to show up.

Really. People would think that some kind of ghost had shown up.

“You two there, what are you doing?”

I asked while pointing at the two students who stood at the center of the incident.

One of them was especially familiar, and after I wondered who he was, it turned out he was Aidan, the brown-haired country boy.

‘…You again, huh.’

I would jokingly say that he looked a lot like a shounen character, but at that point, I thought he was really serious.

Was his opponent an aristocratic student? I think his name was Jevan Felio.

Seeing that he didn’t look that familiar, he was just a kind of guy of no importance.

I sighed.

“Just because you can’t sharpen your magic on the training ground doesn’t mean you can fight with each other here.”

As I approached them slowly, the students who were gathered nearby avoided me and opened the way for me.

Strangely, their treatment towards me troubled my mind, but I decided to just think of it as them getting out of the way on their own.

I just ignored Jevan and passed him by, and then spoke to Aidan, who was in the center of the situation.

“Explain exactly what happened.”

“Th-that…”

“This is a fair match!”

Then Jevan shouted behind me.

I looked back at him without a word.

Was it because he thought I was ignoring him? He was huffing and puffing while staring at me without concealing his anger.

“A fair match?”

“Yes. I’m about to have a magic duel with Aidan. It’s definitely not a fight.”

“Magic duel, I see. It’s funny that the first-year students who just came to Sören are suddenly having a duel.”

“Can’t the first-year students do that?”

‘Why is this guy being like this? Did he eat something wrong?’

I was a little confused when a boy who usually wouldn’t even meet my eyes properly shamelessly stepped up instead.

And I could realize why.

It was because of the other students who were standing behind Jevan while seemingly supporting him.

All of them were aristocrats.

One of them especially stood out the most.

‘That guy is…’

It seemed like I’d seen him before.

Is he the Captain? He seems to be the one roughly commanding the men surrounding him.

He also looked at me and gave me a slightly odd stare.

‘A confrontation between the commoners and the aristocracy in the first training ground, huh. I’m familiar with this situation from somewhere…’

I was thinking about why I was used to that situation, it turned out that it was similar to the fight between Lynne and Romley.

However, in the case of Lynne, it was a surprise attack, and with Aiden, I think they were about to fight with each other.

I had a headache.

It was not strange if boys were fighting, even in a world like this, but why did it have to happen when I was on patrol?

Moreover one of them was Aidan, whom I had even been paying attention to since before.

“Jevan Felio and Aidan. I don’t intend to hold you accountable for what hasn’t happened yet, so just let’s call it a day and go back to the dorm.”

“Professor Ludger!”

“I told you to go back.”

As Jevan spoke strongly while glaring at Ludger, he clenched his teeth to see if he could challenge the authority of the professor, even though he was having a noble faction on his back.

“Why don’t you let them be?”

It was then…

I heard a new voice.

The students’ eyes turned to the entrance that was the opposite of the entrance I had entered from.

I saw a man approaching while staring at me from there.

“Professor Chris.”

He was Chris Benimore, a new professor and a member of the aristocratic faction who had joined Sören with me at the same time.

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