The Transmigrated Professor

‘Clack!’

Ray woke up in shock as the noise echoed across the tunnel.

‘Shit! Are the demons here already?’

His leg was looking much better, but there was still some pain left. Judging from its condition, about 6 hours must have passed since he fell asleep.

Grabbing a rock, he slowly stood up while taking support from the wall. 

Pointing his fist, which was desperately clutching the rock, he shouted in the direction where the noise had come from.

“If you think I will return with you nicely, don’t even try...” 

However, all that greeted him was silence. 

The light from the moss was too dim to make it more than a few meters into the tunnel, so he couldn’t tell who was watching him. 

As Ray was about to yell at him to come out, a figure slowly began walking out of the darkness.

“Y-you…” However, betraying his expectations, what had walked outside was not a Demon, but a human.

“I didn’t realize human etiquette had changed to yelling at one’s savior, instead of thanking them, to show their gratitude.” The human that had just appeared teasingly smiled at him. A smug look covered his face as if he were a leader saying ‘If you get down on your knees, I won’t punish you too badly’.

It was the same spoiled young master look Ray was all too familiar with, thanks to his younger brother, Edward, who would consistently make indirect jabs at him, to feed his ego.

“Who the hell are you?” Without letting down his guard, Ray carefully asked him.

The man before him was quite tall, with a tidied face. His clothes looked like they had been materialized straight out of the Pre-Apocalypse history textbook - consisting of a camouflage color military uniform, complete with a matching hat and black leather boots.

One noticeable feature was that the man seemed to have heterochromia - one eye a deep midnight black and the other a golden sun yellow. It was like looking at a loving angel and a tempting devil at the same time.

But despite his magical looks, Ray couldn’t even sense a hint of mana coming out of his body.

And that was why he was even more vigilant. 

There was no way a human, who looked like he just stepped out of a WW2 movie, would be able to come alone to the home planet of Demons and survive here if was a normal Unawakened.

And Fallens were infamous for their ability to hide their corrupted mana.

Maybe the Demons following him had gotten bored and decided to send one of their Fallen subordinates to come capture him.

“Oh! You are welcome by the way.” Flicking his hand, the human threw two items at his feet.

Checking what they were, Ray’s knees suddenly buckled, as he fell to the ground in horror and almost vomited the non-existent food in his stomach.

The two items the weird soldier had thrown at him were the mutilated heads of the Demons that had been tormenting him for the past week.

They were horribly disfigured, as if they had burst every blood vessel on their face, and had their brain leak out from their ears like a sewage pipe.

“Great! You know how to show your gratitude.” Mistaking his near fainting as an act of kowtowing, the man smiled in satisfaction.

“Bye now!” Waving him goodbye, the intruder turned around, about to go back into the tunnels from where he had appeared.

“W-wait!” Ray yelled at him to stop.

Considering he killed those Demons without hesitation, he at least wasn’t a Fallen, and wouldn’t readily hand him over to the Duke. That means there is a chance he might know of a way out.

“Could you tell me how I can go back to Earth? Seeing that you are here, there must be a way to go back.”

“Dunno.” 

Unfortunately, the strange man in front of him didn’t know the way.

“Do you at least know where these tunnels lead to?”

‘Hopefully not back to the Duke’s castle.’ He prayed in his mind.

“I am not completely sure, but these tunnels were made by one of the Demon Dukes. We are near his castle, after all!” 

“D-Duke? You mean that guy who wears that cape with the stars?” Ray looked around in fear, afraid that the guy who had kept him in captivity for so long would pop up behind him and take him back.

“I don’t think so. Belphegor is more like a mad scientist. The one you are describing seems to be the Duke of Death. His castle is pretty far from here.” The military man recalled, after some thought.

“That can’t be. I know I ran a bit far, but his castle was still in sight before I fell down here.”

The man clasped his hands, realizing where the problem for their discrepancy was. “These tunnels are made sentient using the Duke’s powers and spread under the entirety of Tartarus. You can go all the way to the other end of the planet in just a few minutes if you travel through these tunnels.”

‘Hmm…So my earlier conclusion about these tunnels moving around was correct.’

But Ray suddenly realized a problem.

“Wait! These tunnels won’t take us to the Demon King’s palace, would it?”

He didn’t want to escape the pan and jump straight into the fire.

“I doubt even a Duke would be bold enough to put these tunnels filled with magic under the Demon King’s Palace and risk a breach in security. So you don’t need to worry about that.”

Hearing this, Ray breathed a sigh of relief.

However, the main problem still existed.

How would he go back to Earth? And he needed to escape the capture of the Duke of Death as well.

As Ray was deep in his thoughts, the person in front of him coughed. “I know I said that I don’t know how to get back to Earth, but I can help you in finding a way.”

“How can you help me with that?”

Looking at the man’s military outfit, which had gone extinct since the Great Catastrophe, he must have been stuck here for decades, without finding a way back home. Hearing him suddenly offer his help seemed too suspicious.

“These tunnels are made out of a very complex fusion of teleportation and spatial magic. I am pretty sure a few exits here lead back to Earth. I have yet to find one, but possibly we can look for it together.”

Hmm…

If these tunnels did extend all around the planet, then there would be countless exits everywhere Finding just one specific exit would be extremely difficult.

And with his C Rank abilities, there is no way he will be able to fend off any Demons that wander here, it being their home territory and all. 

But the man in front of him was too mysterious.

With his clothes that looked like they didn’t even belong to this era, and him mysteriously winding up on a planet full of Demons, his background was too unclear.

However…

“Then I would like to trouble you until I can find a way back to Earth.”  

Ray decided to play along with this “kind” stranger until he found another way.

Currently, he was in no condition to be able to survive all those Demons all alone, having starved for the past week and running away with no rest.

If this golden-black-eyed man decided to betray him…well, he would cross that bridge when it comes to that. Immediate survival was more important right now. 

“Alright, then. We gotta move. Judging from the Demons that were after you, there will be more coming.” The man began moving deeper into the barely lit tunnels.

Looking at his leg which seemed more or less healed after the long rest, Ray slowly followed behind, careful not to lose sight of the man.

However, as the two followed deeper into the heart of the Labyrinth, Ray failed to notice a small butterfly stealthily flying behind them.

A butterfly with wings like the stars in the night sky…