Villain Takes Over The Academy

[Translator - Helga]

[Proofreader - Starfall ]

Chapter 46

I opened my eyes to the same, old, tiresome sight.

Metal walls enclosing me on all sides, a summoning circle, iron bars, chains, shelves of potions, and the stench of blood and decay...

And then, the messages began.

Beep-

[Your soul has been possessed by the villainous 'Blood Demon' body.]

[Due to the Blood Demon's characteristics, you have awakened the 'Bloodsucking' spell.]

[The 'Bloodsucking' spell allows you to absorb life force and essence from your target's blood.]

[Due to the Blood Demon's characteristics, you have awakened the 'Polymorph' spell.]

[The wild instincts latent in your blood react to the 'Polymorph' spell.]

[‘Bat’ has been added to your Polymorph spell list.]

[A main quest has arrived.]

[Main Quest: Survive until the end of the story.]

The place, the time, the situation.

Everything was exactly the same.

Except for one thing.

[Due to data preserved from the previous playthrough, skills have been inherited.]

[Skill "Dragonkin Affinity 1" acquired.]

[Skill "Genius 1" acquired.]

[Skill "Speed Reading 1" acquired.]

‘Skill inheritance...?’

This was new. In my 138 restarts, I'd never encountered this pattern.

‘Why is this happening suddenly?’

I stared blankly at the message, reading it over and over.

Dragonkin Affinity, Genius, Speed Reading.

These were all skills I'd acquired in the previous playthrough. Except for one thing: the Indomitable Will I'd obtained from Shin A-sol was missing.

[Skill Indomitable Will activates.]

The final message of the previous playthrough had clearly stated that. So this current phenomenon was most likely related to it.

‘Indomitable Will activated right before the restart... so that's why I was able to retain my abilities from the previous playthrough?’

In this game, there are several penalties when a player dies. Loss of experience, loss of money, loss of important items...

Indomitable Will reduces these penalties. Since Shin A-sol was such a popular character, there was a lot of information about this skill.

‘But I’ve never heard of this effect before.’

That was only natural. Who else besides me would experience this cursed infinite restart?

‘But... why wasn’t Indomitable Will inherited?’

That was puzzling. Perhaps it was because the level of Indomitable Will was too low?

‘I don’t know yet... but one thing is certain.’

The higher the level of a skill, the stronger its effect.

If I had raised Indomitable Will to level 2 or 3...

‘Maybe more things would have been inherited.’

My heart pounded.

My breath quickened with this new discovery.

After 138 deaths, I'd finally found a clue.

A clue to escape this damned curse!

Thud-!

As if on cue, the wall moved and the door began to open. The guy who walked in, Do Jin-hak, looked at me with a familiar expression.

"Finally, you're here. What a troublesome soul you are,” Do Jin-hak muttered with a mixture of relief and mockery. I stared intently at his face for the first time in a long time.

Seeing the original Do Jin-hak in front of me after living in his form for so long... it was strange.

“You have no idea how much time I wasted trying to put you in that body. You should have been summoned obediently. Why were you so difficult, just a wandering soul?”

Do Jin-hak, who always spat out these lines like a scripted speech, suddenly stopped. He seemed to be bothered by my gaze.

“Why are you staring at me like that?”

“...I was just thinking for a moment.”

“Thinking?”

“I was wondering how in the world the guy standing in front of me made so many enemies.”

It was my honest feeling. I had never been more curious about a person named Do Jin-hak than in the previous playthrough.

Do Jin-hak scoffed.

“It’s as if you know me well.”

“I thought I did. But now, I don’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“I just don’t understand why Kim Taek-hee wants to kill you.”

At that, Do Jin-hak's mocking expression changed. As if he thought there was a problem with the summoning, he looked around the summoning circle.

“What happened at the Genova Academy two years ago? What did you do there?”

Unable to find the problem even after thinking for a long time, Do Jin-hak frowned and looked at me.

“...Genova Academy. I remember tearing apart a research paper there because it was so absurd. The presenter, who was suffering from high blood pressure at the time, had a cerebral hemorrhage right then and there. I heard he’s still lying in a hospital bed in diapers.”

“What was the presenter’s name?”

“Anton Kahn. He was considered the highest authority in the Emission Department. He was also Kim Taek-hee’s teacher.”

Anton Kahn, the highest authority in the Emission Department.

‘...Now the puzzle is complete.’

After hearing Do Jin-hak’s story, the lump of frustration in my chest seemed to fall away. At the same time, for the first time, I empathized with Kim Taek-hee.

‘Compared to what this guy did, he treated me quite gentlemanly.’

To treat someone who had made his teacher into a vegetable like that... I guess you could say he was a real scholar.

“Now that you know what you wanted to know, I would appreciate it if you would answer my question. How do you know about Kim Taek-hee and me? A soul from another dimension?” Do Jin-hak asked with a furrowed brow.

I stared at him and said, “...Curious?”

“Yes, answer me.”

“If you’re curious, kneel down and bark like a dog for about 10 minutes. Then I might tell you.”

“...Caesar, prepare for the disposal process.”

Had my words angered him? The disposal was decided upon quite quickly this time.

-Initiating disposal process for P412. Power output 5%... 13%...

With Caesar's voice, electric current flowed through the iron chains.

The electric shock I had experienced dozens of times.

Every time this moment came, it was painful enough to break my molars, but this time was different. This time, I wasn’t afraid of the pain.

‘It’s finally beginning.’

I was actually looking forward to it. I was really looking forward to the time when I could take this guy’s blood and go back to that school.

This playthrough would be completely different from the previous ones.

* * *

After draining Do Jin-hak in the laboratory, I climbed up to his study once again.

[You have acquired 5% of 'Essence of Do Jin-hak'.]

['Do Jin-hak' has been added to your Polymorph spell list.]

The message that appeared after draining him informed me that all the essence I had accumulated in previous playthroughs had been reset.

"I raised Do Jin-hak's essence to over 20%... What a waste."

With the attribute levels reset, all the essence was gone, and my knowledge of the Deconstructionist Department had vanished as well.

I had to rebuild my knowledge of the Deconstructionist Department before the new semester of the Masterclass began.

"...I have to read all of this again."

I looked around at the study, filled with books from the Deconstructionist Department. In the previous playthrough, I hadn't even managed to read half of them in three months. I remembered struggling with the lectures because I had only barely reached 1-star in the Deconstructionist Department.

"Thanks to that, my evaluations were good at the beginning of the lectures, but they were terrible towards the end..."

Because of the positive reactions from the students at the beginning of the lectures, I was able to quickly accumulate reputation points, but as time went on, the evaluations were not so good.

It was obvious that Kim Taek-hee would try to expel me from the academy again this playthrough.

I needed to increase my reputation points faster than before and establish a stronger position in the academy than Kim Taek-hee.

"Well then... let's start with 'What is Deconstruction?' volume 1."

I pulled the familiar book off the shelf and opened it. Even though I had delved deep into it once, I couldn't understand it at all. All my knowledge of the Deconstructionist Department had disappeared.

Even a thousand-mile journey begins with a single step.

Every step I took from this playthrough onwards would not be in vain. This was proof of that.

[You have begun to focus on reading.]

[Skill "Speed Reading 1" activated.]

[Reading speed increases by approximately 1.8 times.]

The Speed Reading skill I had acquired from Okamoto.

At first, I thought it was a useless skill, but in a situation like this, it was helpful. Very helpful.

[Deconstructionist Department knowledge score increased.]

[As your knowledge of the Deconstructionist Department increases, Do Jin-hak's essence

strengthens.]

[Do Jin-hak's essence has increased to 7%.]

Messages appeared one after another as I finished reading a thick textbook in less than two hours.

However, I didn't have time to pay attention to the messages. I immediately took the next book off the shelf.

[Deconstructionist Department knowledge score increased.]

[As your knowledge of the Deconstructionist Department increases, Do Jin-hak's essence strengthens.]

[Do Jin-hak's essence has reached 9%...]

One hour, two hours.

The completed books quickly piled up next to me, and my knowledge of the Deconstructionist Department increased even faster.

"Okamoto... you had a pretty useful skill."

As someone who was at the top of the theory and knowledge in the military game, the Speed Reading 1 skill was proving to be very powerful in reading.

An overwhelming speed of knowledge accumulation that I had never experienced before!

At this rate, I could not only reach 1-star in the Deconstructionist Department before the new semester began, but I could also aim for 2-stars.

"This playthrough is looking very promising."

I had experienced countless joys and sorrows in my 138 restarts, but I had never been as excited as I was now.

I continued to take books off the shelf and read, and read again. After 4 hours, after 7 hours, hunger and fatigue quickly overwhelmed me, but I did not stop.

It seemed nothing could stop me now.

* * *

"It's an honor to meet the master of the Deconstructionist Department."

Time flew by quickly, and the place was now the famous Cafe Untni in the main building of the Masterclass.

Vice Principal Oh Jisung, who had appeared in person on the interview day, repeated the same story he had told in the previous playthrough.

"The coffee beans in this cafe are a specialty produced in a very special region. It's a coffee with a very special secret. Why don't you try it?"

Oh Jisung was watching me with narrowed eyes, clearly intending to test me again.

I stared at the coffee cup in front of me and said, "I'll pass."

"Eh?"

"Isn't this just a test coffee? I'll just tell you. It's a single-origin Ethiopian, branded with chocolate, citrus, and cherry. It was produced earlier this year. That's all it is. There's no secret at all."

Oh Jisung's eyes widened and his mouth gaped open.

I said casually, "Ingredient analysis is a basic skill of the Deconstructionist Department. When you reach a certain level, you can analyze it just by looking and smelling."

"Oh, wow...! I've heard of your reputation, but this is beyond my imagination!"

Oh Jisung was genuinely impressed. This was the first time I'd seen this guy look so surprised.

He must have been so impressed that even this message popped up.

[You have shown abilities that exceed the Vice Principal's expectations.]

[Oh Jisung's favorability towards Do Jin-hak slightly increases.]

'Does favorability even increase in this situation?'

In the previous playthrough, he was just surprised... I guess he liked me quite a bit.

Of course, considering that the increase in favorability was as small as an ant's tear, he was still the stingy Oh Jisung, both in terms of money and relationships.

"Anyway, with these abilities, I feel at ease. I was a bit uncomfortable about how to tell you this."

"Are you talking about the issue of abolishing the Deconstructionist Department?"

"How did you know that?" Oh Jisung, asked again with a surprised expression.

I answered lightly, "Let's raise the reputation of the Deconstructionist Department before this semester ends. Won't that solve the problem?"

"Y-yes... If you do that, I'll fully support Professor Do."

Beep-

[A new main quest has arrived.]

[Main Quest 2: The Vice Principal's Worry.]

[Content: Oh Ji-sung is troubled by the low popularity of the Deconstructionist Department. Increase the status of the Deconstructionist Department and solve Oh Ji-sung’s problem.]

[Reward: Increase in Oh Ji-sung’s favorability, maintenance of the Deconstructionist Department, increase in special attribute experience.]

The same main quest as last time.

This time, I'm confident I can find a solution more easily. I know how to bring Arche and Seo Su-kyung to the Deconstructionist Department.

If I bring those two, my reputation will rise greatly again...

"It's going to be difficult, but it's a good thing, isn't it? At least there's one professor in the academy who can help Professor Do."

...I was about to think that, but Oh Jisung said something out of the blue.

'A professor to help? What does that mean?'@@novelbin@@

Oh Jisung had never said anything like that in the previous playthrough. In fact, there was no such thing as a professor who would help Do Jin-hak at this academy.

I suddenly had a feeling that something was wrong.

A feeling that this playthrough, too, might go in a different direction than I thought...

As if to confirm that intuition, Oh Jisung soon said, "Why are you looking at me like you don't understand? Professor Alfred. Isn't she a classmate of Professor Do? She was so happy to hear that Professor Do was coming to our academy."

[Translator - Helga]

[Proofreader - Starfall ]