I Despise Nobles Even More
The bastard was grinning like an idiot, clearly pleased with himself.
I followed quietly behind him, cloaked in invisibility magic.
“Heh. Got a nice haul this time too.”
He patted the pouch at his waist, looking thoroughly satisfied. One glance told me the money had come from something dirty.
Still humming cheerfully, the guy headed straight for the Academy.
Just gonna let him go today?
As if.
I’ve never been a patient man. The type who’d rather sprint for five minutes and wait fifteen than walk slowly for twenty. The kind who can’t even enjoy night fishing because the second the bait hits the water, I’m already yanking the rod like something’s about to bite in ten seconds flat.
But today? One of my students nearly died. And I saved her with my own two hands just moments ago.
The bastard responsible is walking right in front of me.
Time to deal with him personally.
First, I needed to lure him to a suitable location. So I used magic to quietly steal his money pouch.
The guy stopped in front of the Academy gates. He reached for his waist again, then froze, eyes wide with panic.
“W-where did it go? I-I swear it was right here a second ago!”
What a fucking moron. Kekeke. Look at him losing his shit. Aslan, you’ve done this a lot, huh?
Old habits die hard.
Convinced he must have dropped the pouch somewhere along the way, he hurried back the direction he’d come. I followed silently, then released my invisibility spell in a dark alley I’d scouted earlier.
“Looking for this?”
He spun around. The moment his eyes landed on the money pouch in my hand, he lunged for it like a starving dog.
But I was faster. I pulled it back.
“W-what the hell?! That’s my money! Give it back!!”
“Do you have any proof that it belongs to you?”
“Of course I do!”
“Really? You look like a commoner to me… I find it very hard to believe a man like you would be carrying around this much coin.”
The guy faltered, suddenly at a loss for words.
Of course he did. The amount was far too large for any ordinary commoner to be carrying.
I tossed the pouch into the air and caught it again.
“I’ll just hand this over to the city guards. If it truly belongs to you, proving ownership and retrieving it shouldn’t be too difficult.”
His face twisted violently.
Once it reached the guards, there was almost no chance a commoner would ever see that money again.
That left him with only two choices: give up, or take it back by force.
Come on. Attack me already.
As if answering my silent taunt, the bastard roared and charged.
“Give it back, you son of a bitch!!”
I pretended to be startled and broke into a run.
“Stop right there! Fuck, don’t you dare run?!”
I fled from the raging man, deliberately leading him deeper into the darker, more secluded parts of the alley.
Blinded by greed, he didn’t notice a thing. I easily guided him exactly where I wanted him.
Face is well hidden. Perfect. Time to show off some of my old skills.
I stopped running.
Then slowly turned around.
A man burning with fury stood before me. His eyes gleamed like a starving hyena in the darkness, locked dead on the pouch in my hand.
“You’re fucking dead, you piece of shit. How dare you steal from me?”
Beres chimed in immediately.
Aww, too bad. Guys like him really deserve to have their assholes wrecked. But he’s a man…
That’s not a bad idea.
What?
He stalked toward me, step by heavy step. With my back against the wall and nowhere to run, he clearly thought he had me trapped.
I casually cast a single spell at him.
Impotence.
Thud. His knees buckled.
His eyes shook violently, unable to believe what was happening.
“W-what…? Magic…?”
But he grit his teeth and forced himself back up.
“Something like this is easy to resist!”
Of course it was.
Magic could be resisted. Or dispelled.
Even a knight cadet had that much ability.
The problem was that the caster was me.
“W-what the… why isn’t it dispelling?!”
He collapsed again. This time he couldn’t even hold his head steady; it jerked and twitched uncontrollably.
You’ll never break this. Not even if an Academy professor showed up. The only one who could possibly dispel this spell is Pellermil.
Magic is determined by desperation, willpower, and understanding.
The closer all three are to perfection, the lower the mana cost and the higher the spell’s rank.
And understanding?
I had lived a life dragged along against my will for decades. In the back alleys and on the battlefield, I had tasted countless moments of despair and helplessness.
At the Academy, researching something a thousand times meant failing nine hundred and ninety-nine of them.
So perhaps it was only natural that my understanding of despair and impotence was greater than anyone else’s…?
Understanding is ultimately the product of experience.
I had lived through more than sixty years of pure despair and helplessness with my entire body and soul.
There was no way some greenhorn like him could ever break my spell.
Realizing that at last, the bastard trembled as he looked up at me. The greed in his eyes had vanished, replaced entirely by terror.
“Jeffrey.”
“H-how do you know my name…?”
“From now on, you will answer every question I ask with nothing but the truth. No lies.”
He slammed his forehead to the ground.
“Y-yes! I understand! Ask me anything!”
“The recent string of suicides at the Academy. You’re involved, aren’t you?”
“T-that’s…”
“Tell me everything. The full story behind the incidents.”
But it seemed he still hadn’t come to his senses.
Or maybe he realized that admitting it would only make things worse.
He tried playing dumb.
“I-I don’t know anything! I really don’t know anything about that…!”
“I see. Looks like I’ll have to show you what I can really do after all.”
I placed my hand on his finger.
Then activated the spell.
Severing.
“Khh… Kuaaaaaaaaagh!!”
Too loud.
I immediately moved my hand through the air, writing the word “soundproof” with mana. Blue light flashed, and an invisible barrier formed around us.
The pain should have subsided a little by now, right?
Then let’s go again.
Severing.
“Aaaaaaaaagh!!!”
Completely drained of strength, the man could barely move. He buried his face in the dirt and screamed at the top of his lungs.
A small puddle of red liquid formed beneath the tip of his middle finger.
“Don’t be such a baby. I only cut off two centimeters. Let’s go one more time.”
“W-wait! I’ll talk! Please, I’ll talk, just—”
Severing.
“Kuaaaaaaaaagh!!”
The pain must have been unbearable. He pressed his forehead hard against the ground and rubbed it violently. He scraped it so hard that the skin tore open and blood began to seep out.
Good. Now we could have a proper conversation.
“Every time you refuse to answer, I will cut you three times. If you lie, I will also cut you three times. Do you understand?”
“Y-yes… sob… I understand…”
“Then let me ask again. Tell me the full story behind this suicide incident.”
This time, he answered obediently.
He had folded in the face of immediate violence.
“The truth is…”
What I heard next was shocking.
Just as I had suspected, Jeffrey had been acting as a pimp inside the Academy, preying on both commoners and nobles.
He targeted commoner girls from any grade, luring them in with thinly veiled threats. Sometimes he even fabricated incidents to force girls chosen by nobles into the trade.
His connections reached all the way to people on Prince Kenesis’s side—including the Academy’s dean and his secretary. He was operating under their protection.
“I-I had no choice… I was just trying to survive…”
“For someone who had no choice, you looked awfully happy counting that money. How much of it did you actually give to the girls?”
“T-that’s…”
“You’d better tell the truth. I can always go check later.”
“Two… eight…”
“You took two?”
“N-no… I took eight…”
This guy is a complete piece of shit.
The demon, unable to stay silent any longer, flew into a rage.
Demons might be evil, but they still followed certain lines when it came to deals and contracts.
Aslan, what are you waiting for? You said you’d wreck his asshole! Fuck him up so bad he can never walk again. I’ll make my dick troll-sized just for him.
Calm down. And when did I say I’d do it myself?
W-wait, you’re not?
I refocused on the man in front of me.
He was staring up at me with a pitiful expression, waiting for judgment.
He said he had no choice but to do this to survive.
I could understand that kind of desperation. But those words should never have left his mouth.
Because they weren’t words someone like him had any right to say.
“Let me tell you something… I despise nobles. They’re the same species as us, yet they look down on commoners, treating us like insects or livestock. But there’s something I hate even more than those nobles.”
Yes. Something even more disgusting than the nobles I wanted to punish by planting my filthy seed in their bloodlines.
And that was—
“Trash like you. Commoners who stab other commoners in the back, selling them out to nobles just to line your own pockets.”
“N-no, that’s not— I was just trying to survive…”
“You earned this much in one go? With this amount, you could live comfortably for an entire year without lifting a finger.”
“T-that’s…”
“Speak. I know you’re still hiding something. Tell me where this money really came from. Depending on your answer, I’ll decide whether to show you a shred of mercy… or send you straight to hell.”
Jeffrey lowered his head completely.
Then answered in a tiny voice.
“It was…”
Whew. That feels so much better. Too bad I couldn’t watch it myself though.
Please spare me, ma’am. If I have to picture that, I won’t have an appetite for a week.
After Jeffrey confessed everything, I gave him a choice.
Die here, or struggle and somehow keep living.
He was a man full of greed and attachment to life. He chose to live.
So I sold him to a male brothel.
From now on, he would spend every night crushed beneath horny men, gasping and panting until the day he died.
In my opinion, dying would’ve been the kinder fate.
I walked quickly.
Then peeked inside one of the buildings.
The sign above read “Bathhouse.”
So there’s a secret passage here that leads to Stronghold?
I unlocked the door with magic, opened it carefully, and stepped inside. The bathhouse was completely dark.
The owner must have already gone to bed.
Just to be safe, I used rune magic to cast another soundproof barrier, then layered invisibility over it as well.
Creak. Creak.
Every step made the old floorboards scream.
But the soundproofing was perfect.
I moved without hesitation until I reached a door deeper inside the building.
I unlocked it and opened the door. A long staircase leading underground greeted me.
Without the slightest hesitation, I stepped inside.
So this is how they smuggle the girls in for the parties?
Exactly. Unless you belong to a specific noble house, no commoner is allowed to set foot in the noble district.
Especially not the women they gathered purely for fucking.
Nobles who cared so much about face would never use the guarded surface entrance unless they’d been hit in the head with an arrow.
After walking for about twenty minutes, the downward passage began to slope upward again. A single door appeared at the end.
I approached it carefully and opened it.
A small forest came into view.
I looked around. It really was just a small wooded area.
Four buildings bordered the edge of the woods.
One of them was leaking bright light from every window.
That’s the one.
The place where they were currently throwing a massive fuck party.