Academy’s Villain Professor-Chapter 159 : Chapter 159

Chapter 159 : The Invitation
Watching the backs of the students diligently running towards the goal, Ho-cheol stepped down from the podium.
There were too many of them for him to supervise.
And he didn't know most of their faces.
In any case, their records, any cheating like deviating from the course or using their Traits, and their other conditions were being monitored and recorded by hundreds of drones floating in the air, watching each and every student.
Once the students' physical conditions were recorded, dozens of professional trainers would analyze each student's individual physical condition, augmentation, and physical abilities to create the optimal physical training curriculum for each of them.
All Ho-cheol really had to do was announce the start of the lecture or make notices.
In fact, the department head had tried to give Ho-cheol more roles, but they had been shot down due to strong opposition.
An ordinary professor might have liked it, but not Ho-cheol, at least.
Still, he wasn't going to completely wash his hands of it, and he had decided to manage the physical training of only the second-year students of the Augmentation Department, whom he was in charge of.
So now.
“Shall I clock out now?”
He muttered, watching the leaders who had already reached the halfway point.
In fact, it was closer to running away than clocking out.
Early dismissal for students with superior physical fitness?
What nonsense.
He had simply been asked to have the students run at full speed to gauge their current physical condition at the beginning.
But to make this many students all run diligently, he needed incitement, not persuasion.
It was just a reasonable fabrication for that purpose.
When the leaders returned, it would be a professional trainer, not him, who would greet them.
Since he, who had made the empty promise, would not be there, they would have no one to complain to.
Since the professional trainer had never heard of such a thing, the students would have no choice but to continue to attend the lecture even if they were angry.
He would get some flak, but the next lecture was a month away.
They would have forgotten all about it by then.
Just as Ho-cheol was about to leave, two students approached and stood in front of him.
“Hello, Professor.”
“Oh, Professor. Where are you going!”
Choi Da-yeon, Jeong Ye-jin.
Since it was a required lecture for all students, it wasn't strange to meet these two, but...
Ho-cheol asked, as if he couldn't understand.
“Why aren't you two running?”
“Ah, that is. They said patients should be excused and have to fill out a reason for absence form.”
“Are you sick?”
When Ho-cheol asked, startled, Ye-jin laughed awkwardly.
It wasn't an injury serious enough to be surprised about.
In fact, it was almost embarrassing to say.
She raised her index finger and pointed downwards.
Unlike the other students who were wearing sneakers, she was wearing slippers, so her feet were clearly visible.
And her big toe was wrapped in a white bandage.
“An ingrown toenail.”
“Ah.”
Ho-cheol made a strange sound.
“That hurts.”
It was surprisingly fatal for an Augmentation-type awakened one.
Since the hardness of their fingernails and toenails was several times that of an ordinary person, they needed specially made nail clippers, and if they got an ingrown toenail, they had to have surgery at a major hospital.
Of course, he had never experienced it himself, but during his organization days, there had been a few subordinates who had whined about it being painful.
Of course, at that time, Ho-cheol hadn't treated it or had surgery, but had solved it by removing the source of the pain altogether.
How do they treat it here without pulling out the toenail?
Ho-cheol turned his head and asked Da-yeon.
“You too?”
“I have… a slightly personal matter.”
Da-yeon, who had turned her head as if embarrassed, evasively mumbled her answer.
Next to her, Ye-jin silently and repeatedly mouthed two words.
And reading her lips, he realized why she was acting like that.
“Ah.”
Well, awakened ones are people too.
It’s hard to run once a month.
“Right. Go turn in your reason for absence and go back. But…”
Ho-cheol lightly looked the two of them up and down.
Ye-jin was in a shabby tracksuit, and Da-yeon was in her school uniform again today.
“I’ve actually been really curious about this for a while. You were in your school uniform during the vacation too, do you have some kind of special story about your school uniform or something?”
“It’s comfortable.”
At Da-yeon's short answer, Ho-cheol nodded his head as if he had lost his steam.
“Ah. Right.”
“By the way, are we not going to catch escaped convicts anymore?”
“Escaped convicts?”
At Ye-jin's sudden question, Ho-cheol's brows narrowed.
“You, you don’t seem to be after the villain.”
Perhaps because he had fed her some delicious food every time they went.
It seemed that the formula of ‘escaped convict arrest operation eating out’ had formed in Ye-jin's mind.
Ye-jin was horrified and waved her hands.
“N-no! It's great to gain practical experience!”
Then she turned her head sharply to the side and questioned Da-yeon.
“Hey, hey! You were supposed to ask with me. Now you’re making me the only weird one!”
“I’m curious too.”
Since Da-yeon had also joined in and asked, he couldn't just brush it off.
Ho-cheol let out a small sigh.
“Escaped convicts, right. Since the big ones are dangerous for you, it’s worth taking you along when we go to catch the weak ones. But a separate group has been formed to catch those weak ones.”
Wolf Fang and the other villains Ho-cheol had captured and put on a leash.
Thanks to them catching escaped convicts every day, there was no need to take the two of them along.
But looking at their expectant eyes, he couldn't just say no.
“Well. Right, I’ll take you along when I get the chance.”
He waved his hand casually.
Of course, he had no real intention of taking them.
He had already become uncomfortable even having a private conversation with Ye-jin after finding out about her true identity, and now he was supposed to take her to arrest escaped convicts?
He would never do it unless he was crazy.
Yet Ye-jin, who didn't know his inner thoughts, exclaimed with a face full of expectation.
“Yes! I’ll be waiting!”
I shouldn’t have been so friendly.
As darkness fell over the academy, a car slid to a stop in front of Ho-cheol, who was sitting on a bench on the side of the road.
He briefly checked that there were no other eyes around and then got into the back seat of the car.
The man holding the steering wheel in the driver's seat was the dean's secretary, and he and Ho-cheol had met before.
The man the dean trusted most.
And the man in the passenger seat was a stranger.
He met Ho-cheol's eyes through the rearview mirror.
“It's a pleasure to meet you. The director sent it to me.”
“It’s a pleasure. It’s better to have as few people who know as possible, but this can't be helped.”
After a short greeting, the man in the passenger seat turned around and reached out to Ho-cheol.
Ho-cheol also took his hand.
It was not a simple handshake.
After their hands were clasped for a few more seconds.
A new Ho-cheol appeared next to Ho-cheol.
“Oh.”
Ho-cheol exclaimed softly, looking at the clone that looked exactly like him, except for its closed eyes.
Of course, the presence and strength he felt were faint to the point of being non-existent.
Was its combat power completely nonexistent?
But in terms of simple appearance, even he himself was not confident he could tell the difference.
“This dummy doll. How long does it last?”
“It depends on the input commands, but in this case, since only 4 or 5 simple actions were input, it will last for about 12 hours.”
“12 hours is enough.”
An alibi for 12 hours from now.
Ho-cheol tapped the doll's cheek.
“Simple actions?”
“It's on the level of a robot vacuum cleaner. Not only conversation, but also emotional expression is impossible.”
“That’s fine too. It’s no different from usual for me to ignore people who talk to me anyway.”
Ho-cheol leaned back in his seat and said.
“Tell the director I said thanks.”
“Yes.”
In fact, this dummy doll was not Ho-cheol's idea.
To his plan of wearing a villain's mask and acting as a villain to hide his identity, the head of the Legal Department had added one more thing.
‘If you’re going to hide your identity anyway, how about adding an alibi through a dummy doll?’
There was no need to wander around through public activities.
Just having a sighting of Ho-cheol in the dorm hallway would drastically reduce the possibility of his identity being specified.
The man in the passenger seat said.
“Then I'll send it to the dorm right away.”
“Right.”
When the man manipulated it, the dummy doll opened its eyes.
It got out of the car and walked straight towards the dorm.
The purpose of that doll would be achieved just by taking a lap outside the dorm every few hours and then going back.
Ho-cheol, who had been watching the back of the doll, asked.
“What about the stuff?”
“It’s here.”
As if he had been waiting, the man held out a 007-style briefcase.
“The password.”
“It’s 0000.”
“As expected of civil servants. Really.”
Muttering as if dumbfounded, Ho-cheol entered the password and opened the briefcase.
Looking at the contents, Ho-cheol let out a faint sigh.
A pure white mask and a crumpled chrysanthemum-shaped badge.
They were the items Ho-cheol had used during his villain days.
On top of that, there was also the Purple Crystal Sword he had brought separately.
These three were also symbols of Ho-cheol during his villain days.
To think he had to dig up and use the things he had buried to forget the past.
Honestly, it was beyond pathetic, it was almost funny.
Once you start using it like this, you’ll get a real taste for the convenience and want to keep using it.
I have to get rid of it as soon as this is over.
As Ho-cheol was silently looking at the mask and badge, the dean's secretary spoke first.
“We’ll be leaving.”
“Ah.”
Ho-cheol, who had come to his senses, nodded his head.
And he slowly lifted the mask and placed it on his face.
The Lunard Auction House in the black market.
To attend Black Oskopf's event, Ho-cheol had requested a VIP invitation from the Lunard Auction House, and the auction house had readily accepted the request.
Even though it was an early hour before the opening, the doors of Lunard were open.
It was opening an hour early, solely for Ho-cheol.
As Ho-cheol stepped through the doors of Lunard, the general manager immediately bowed his head to greet him.
Although he was wearing a pure white mask instead of the mosaic badge he usually wore when he visited the Lunard Auction House, the manager could easily tell that the other person was Ho-cheol.
“Welcome.”
“It’s been a while.”
The manager immediately took out a black envelope from his pocket and held it out.
“This is a VIP invitation to Black Oskopf.”
Even when Ho-cheol had first contacted him to request this invitation, the manager had not been surprised at all.
Considering the abilities and financial resources Ho-cheol had shown so far, it would not have been strange at all for him to know the true nature of the Lunard Auction House, and even the black market.
The fact that the black market itself had a giant corporation in the battleground as its backer was information known to only a very few, but Ho-cheol was fully qualified to be among that very few.
At the Lunard Auction, they had mistaken Ho-cheol for someone involved in the villain side.
No, it wasn't a mistake, but at least they had thought so.
His absurd financial resources, information network, and personal military power.
And he had even dug up information again on a matter related to the back-alley drugs.
In fact, it would have been stranger to think that he wasn't a villain.
One of the S-rank villains.
In fact, there were several other S-rank villains who were suspected to be Ho-cheol.
“You’re wearing a mask today.”
“Ah, do I have to return the badge if I'm not going to use it?”
“No.”
The general manager had seen Ho-cheol's bare face when he had come for the drug matter.
And after a secret investigation, he had destroyed all that information.
An academy professor?
A C-rank ex-villain?
In the first place, he had no choice but to conclude that Ho-cheol had been teasing them with a fake face that day.
Since Se-ah, who had accompanied him, was also quite well-known as a professor at the academy, it was clear that the two had swapped faces.
Two academy professors looking into drug-related companies?
It was a malicious joke without any humor.
“Is this an invitation?”
Ho-cheol checked the invitation held between his fingers, turning it back and forth.
“The paper is surprisingly ordinary……. No. There’s a Trait on it. It’s impossible to grant a Trait to paper, so it’s not ordinary paper, but paper made from monster byproducts.”
At Ho-cheol's words, the general manager grinned.
“You’re sharp. That’s right. A special Trait that fixes the coordinates at the gate that leads directly to the battleground is on the invitation.”
“Not just a Trait, but a space-type Trait. They sure are spending a lot of money.”
Of course, since it was one of the wealthiest corporations in the world, this probably wouldn't even count as a luxury.
“But you’re giving it to me quite easily. Is this something that can be given away so readily without a single penny?”
“Of course not. In fact, there are quite a few VIP customers who want this invitation. But unlike the auction, for this invitation, verifying qualifications is the priority, not selling a seat.”
In other words, it meant that Ho-cheol had the qualifications that other customers did not.
“Qualifications?”
“Yes. Financial resources, military power, and information network. Even if one has all three. Action. This is also as important an event as the previous three conditions. We have judged that you are the only one who has met all the conditions.”
“Is that so? You have a good eye.”
Thanks to that, one of my backers is going to be ruined.
Of course, Ho-cheol swallowed the last part.
“But if it's a coordinate-fixing Trait, do I have to go to the gate that leads to the battleground myself?”
“Of course not. We have prepared a limousine.”
“I like that.”
I've never even ridden in a limousine when I was a villain.
I was a little excited.
How much time had passed since he had settled into the back seat of the limousine?
The driver said, his eyes fixed on the front.
“This is as far as we can go by car.”
At his words, Ho-cheol got out of the limousine.
In front of him, there was a dilapidated, rundown building.
But this building was just a disguise; the real thing was beyond the door.
What he saw when he opened the door was a human-sized gate shimmering with a dark purple color.
Dozens of countries, and several gates in each of those countries.
These gates were truly anomaly gates that all led to the same single space.
Ho-cheol lightly placed his hand on the purple gate.
He felt a pulling force, as if he was being sucked in.
Beyond this was a lawless zone where there was no law, no morality, no good.
No, there was law.
But that law was only dominated by power and money.
And amusingly, for Ho-cheol, it was a much more comfortable place than here.
Ho-cheol leisurely walked through the gate.