Chapter 132
Chapter 132
Academy’s Gumiho is a Magic Genius – Chapter 132
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World of dreams.
The world unfolded by the Marquise of Beauty wasn't a power that used others' dreams as a medium to turn wild delusions into reality.
It was solely the ability to enter a dream and then stimulate the brain to recreate events that had actually happened.
That was the true nature of the power she had deployed.
"Where on earth is this place?"
But she lacked the authority to arbitrarily shift the dream's perspective.
Peeking into others' memories was a privilege granted only to the fiend known as Andrealfus, so this partial imitation had clear limitations.
She couldn't interfere with the memories.
She could only remain a silent third-party observer.
Yet the Marquise of Beauty believed that was enough.
"Still, he's so handsome. Won't be boring at all, hehe."
Her own power was feeble, amounting to no more than a baron's level of strength.
That was her limit.
Aware of her limitations, she had realized it was impossible to seize a name greater than Andrealfus.
And so, for centuries, she had merely clung to maintaining her own name.
The rank bestowed by Andrealfus was baron and nothing more.
However, she possessed the elegance and cunning befitting a noble.
That was why, even as a mere baron among the "Nobles of Paradise Lost"a society of fiendsshe had long been known in the wider world by the moniker Marquise of Beauty.
Practical prowess that couldn't be explained by raw power alone.
On top of that, her signature "enlightenment"instilling the proper ideology into ignorant humanshad elevated her to the status of marquise.
Of course, marquise was merely a nickname.
By the hierarchy of ranks, she was only a baron, but she took satisfaction in matching a marquise everywhere except in martial might.
How lofty the position of marquise was in fiend society.
She knew it down to her bones.
And this dream worldmanifested by mimicking another noble's powerwas one of the key achievements that allowed her to be called a marquise, if only in name.
"But... there are more than one or two odd things here."
When Andrealfus entered another's dream, it stimulated the dream to summon past events the subject had directly experienced. Those memories were virtually indistinguishable from reality.
She excelled at pinpointing the era and location within the dream world, using clues like calendars and backgrounds.
But this world was riddled with anomalies.
For one, the calendar showed the year 2087a future she had never lived through.
Even more so...
"Has he had his tail docked?"
The absence of a tail on Baek Seung-woo gnawed at her.
Tail dockingfor aesthetic reasons.
It was sometimes done for surgical treatment or disease prevention, but mostly for appearance.
And that was an act reserved strictly for livestock.
Even for beastkin, who were undeniably people, docking a tail was absurd.
It had been unthinkable even in the 18th century, when she received her true name Andrealfus.
For beastkin or demi-humans, their traits were the essence of their pride and identity.
Thus, even in an era of rigid class systems and outright slavery, cutting off a beastkin slave's tail was legally forbidden with utmost severity.
Do it, and you couldn't escape the backlash or vengeance.
Still, madmen who did it cropped up everywhere now and then.
'But for a noble of the Heavenly Fox Baek Family to suffer that?'
Daring to dock a noble's tail.
Especially the eldest son of the esteemed Heavenly Fox Baek Familynow Family Head Baek Seung-woo. Utter nonsense.
Well, assuming an internal rebellion, it wasn't entirely impossible.
But the sequence was all wrong.
"Cut off the tail in the past, then reattached it later? No contradictions at all..."
Every scene in the dream world reflected his actual past experiences.
Meaning Baek Seung-woo's tail had indeed been severed at some point.
So how was it back on now?
As she pondered this, the dream pressed onward.
In the end, the Marquise of Beauty set her questions aside for the moment and focused on the scene before her.
"Wow, still so handsome. My little maknae. Want some snacks from big sis?"
"Cut the bullshit. You're barely two years older than me. And aren't snacks more your thing? I'll give you all the ones from the last supply drop, so scram."
Eve entered the leather tent, arms stuffed full of snack bags.
Rustle rustle.
Irritated by the crinkling of the bags rubbing together, Baek Seung-woo jabbed his fountain pen toward a corner of the tent.
Piles of all sorts of snacks were stacked there.
"Hey! Why are you just hoarding these?!"
"Not eating them."
"Aigoo, wasting these treasures. What... you want some yakgwa or han-gwa like Old Man Kim next tent over?"
"No thanks. Take 'em all if you want."
"But on one condition."
Seung-woo's gaze shifted outside the tent.
No windows, so ordinary eyes saw only leather walls, but his exquisitely honed senses pierced beyond.
Lowly soldiers huddled together in cramped quarters.
Most in their early-to-mid twenties, three meals a day barely sated their appetites.
"If any soldiers out there want some, share without holding back."
"...What about you?"
"You know. Regular meals aren't necessary for me."
Hwan-gol-tal-taebone transformation.
Transcendence.
His body had evolved on the battlefield, growing fiercer in survival and deadlier to foes.
Months without sleep left his focus and vitality untouched.
Half a year without food posed no threat to life.
And that was just the start.
Minor wounds healed in seconds; skin tough as steel repelled bullets when infused with mana.
His eyes rivaled Ten-Li Sight, and with every step, the landscape warped around hima superhuman realm far beyond mortal limits.
Having reached such heights young, he had no need for luxury snacks.
It wasn't pity for his men, either.
Simply efficient to give such things to those who needed them.
"But... you like snacks too."
"Eve, liking something and needing it are different. For me, they're indulgences I could eat endlessly if I wanted. For them, they're as vital as morale boosters."
"Then just hand 'em out to the guys outside yourself?"
"You know how those gossipy loudmouths are? Throw 'em a bone, and they yap all day... Wait'the guys outside'?"
"Captain! We came to hang out!"
"As expected of the tent belonging to the captain who swept up every merit among the company commanders! Mind if I move in from now on?"
"...The world's gone to shit."
A half-dozen soldiersmen and women alikepiled in through the tent flap. White swords emblazoned their uniforms' chests.
The mark of Seung-woo's elite detachment, the White Sword Unit.
Eve had vanished from the tent sometime during this.
"What'd you come barging in for?"
"Aw, Captain, you think we only show up to mess around?"
A tall man spoke up.
Including him, they all looked mid-twenties to pushing forty.
Grown adults speaking politely to a kid who hadn't even shed his teenage awkwardnessit was surreal.
"Then what? Gonna help with paperwork?"
"That's your job and the vice-captain's. Nah, we're here for something way more important."
"Like what?"
"Colonelwho've you got a crush on lately?"
"...Huh?"
Seung-woo's blank expression sealed it for the soldiers.
"Knew it! Told youCaptain's got that glow-up glow lately."
"You... what the hell are you on about?"
"Aigoo, Colonelno need to hide it from us."
"Yeah. It's pretty obvious. Outsiders in the unit probably wouldn't notice, though."
"...That obvious?"
Scribble scribble.
The fountain pen, which hadn't paused even mid-conversation with Eve, finally stilled.
Feeling heat flood his face, Seung-woo slapped a hand over it.
"Knew you'd react like that!"
"So who's the lucky one? Gotta be the [Saint Mother], right? Even pushing late twenties, that aura just screams itno escaping that."
"...Huh?"
"C'mon, the Saint Mother's basically your mentor. Obviously you've got a secret thing for our vice-captain sis."
"Haha, you lot know one thing and miss two. Puberty at eighteen's got no confidence for straight talkinstead, you snap at your crush. Right, Captain? It's Eve, yeah?"
"...Fuck."
The sudden curse jolted the soldiers.
Three years by his sidefrom age fifteen, traversing battlefields togetherand hearing Seung-woo curse was rarer than once a year.
Usually reserved for stuffy brass or vile demons.
Yet this middle-aged guy pulled it off.
"Don't talk nonsense. Me and Evea match?"
"Haha! Obviously, Captain. You two are perfect together!"
"You sure you won't regret saying that?"
"No way. My own daughter said the exact same. Brushed it off back then, but never dreamed I'd be a grandpa when she came back a year later."
Prankster energy rippled through the soldiers.
Grown adults clowning around a minorit bordered on embarrassing, but Seung-woo knew the efficient fix for this.
Shing!
The sound of a sword drawn from thin air.
Yet no blade appeared anywhere.
The White Sword soldiers knew this intimately, down to their marrow.
Formless Sword.
Lacking fixed form or mass, it could become anything.
Their captain's power, which had massacred tens of thousandsthey had no choice but to know that invisible blade in the air bone-deep.
Drip drip. Cold sweat poured.
"C-Captain, you... pissed?"
"...Not really?"
"Liar! Your face is stone. Guysrun for it!"
"Eve's by the flap! Just hold till there!!"
"Four meters to the exitwhy's it feel like a marathon? Anyway, Captainhappy loving!"
And with that, the soldiers bolted out in a heap.
Disciplined in wartime, but everyday? Prank machines, a hassle to wrangle.
"Hilarious. As if I'd ever catch feelings for Eve... romantic ones."
To the boy, Eve was his closest friendfamily he could bare his soul to. Yeah. She was like a sibling.
Reckless big sis.
That fit her to a T.
Romantic feelings for that Eve? Please.
There had only ever been one he loved, from past to present.
The woman who appeared amid hellish moments, kindling hope in his heart without asking.
Stunningly beautiful, a great hero he revered endlessly.
So of course that spark of hope blazed into love.
"Next time I get those guys alone, I'll explain just how much I adore my master. Before they spread dumb rumors."
With that, Seung-woo sorted his paperwork and readied for the next war.
And won.
But the cost of victory was horrific.
His vast tent overflowed with over a dozen utterly mangled, unidentifiable corpses.
"...Yeah. This world's always been like this."
Mangled beyond endurance to beholdhis soldiers' remains.
Impossible to ship home.
Wartime shortages made even supplies a fight; begging safe burial back home was beyond a nuisance.
Only choice: bury them in this damned soil.
But still...
"This is... grotesque."
Even Andrealfuswho had treated countless humans like livestock, slaughtering them in the name of "enlightenment" right up to her exile on that uninhabited islandhad never witnessed a sight like this.
No patch of earth free of corpses anywhere.
The ground blanketed in bodies, forming hills.
Hills piled steadily into mountains.
Blood rivers snaked down their slopes, pooling into a crimson sea.
Hell had nothing on it.
"...Ha."
And atop it all.
Seung-woo stood on the peakthat mountain of his comrades' corpses.
Now, fewer than ten remained at his side.
His pupils lacked any focus.
* * *
Since the birth of the Military State.
The legendary elite unit hailed as the strongest: White Sword Unit.
They racked up feats across countless battlefields, snuffing two of the seven sparks fueling the war.
Their blades of pure white cleaved through corrupt evil, sweeping chaos from demon-tainted fields. Wherever they advanced, brilliant starlight heralded nothing but victory and glory in abundance.
Which made their defeat all the more shocking.
The decades-long war had overheated beyond measure; raw numbers no longer decided outcomes.
The very point of elite detachments had faded.
Brigade-scale clashes. Army against army.
In a war where small skirmishes yielded zero gains...
The two sides' struggle was barbarism incarnate.
A savage brawl pillaging lives.
To kill, they spared nothing.
Accompanied suicides. Human waves dooming kin to seize heights. Indiscriminate barrages blind to friend or foe. Human or demonto kill, no hesitation.
In that meat grinder, one colonel commanding a company of a hundred dwindled to squad leader of ten.
Buried the chatty man in the dirt.
Floated the shamefaced woman downriver.
For the nosy middle-ager, no body to recoveronly clawing earth till fingers shredded, his sole tribute.
Then the Military State's Chief of Staffin a sudden demon ambushrefused flight. Suicide blast to ignite fresh winds.
Status quo meant human defeat, breeding and growth too sluggish. His death birthed a new hierarchy.
Eight Great Saints.
Eight supreme ranks, modeled on Journey to the West's Seven Saintsa pet project of the Chief, who adored the tale.
Only absolute bests in their fields ascended the list; their authority dwarfed all prior elites.
After all.
Eight Great Saint meant proven deeds and prowess.
Over deskbound theorists yapping endlesslyeyes turned to them naturally.
Soon, they became the Military State's true overlords.
Eight soldiers.
The last name on that roster: not florid noble script, but stark hanja in three characters.
White baek (), Inherit seung (), Wing u ().
A name meaning "to inherit wings faded white."
True to it, like pristine wings he claimed the pinnacle seat of power.
Thus, they dubbed him with fitting titles.
Epithets flooded in.
Savior. Messiah. Sword Lord. Sword God. Divine Sword. And more.
Papers and press failed consensus amid the frenzy, but enthusiasts converged on one dual-edged gem: the sword that lit stars, the saint of swords.
[Sword Saint].
Asking no reward.
Lone sentinel roaming battlefields, subduing demonshis blood-scribed legend too sacred for words.
Thus was the [Sword Saint] born.
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