Chapter 61
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 61
Chapter Title: Bloody Stand
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Radia caught her breath and infused mana into her sword.
The mana billowed neatly before curving inward, wrapping around the blade like blue smoke and rippling.
Soon, it transformed into swirling waves, engulfed in a torrent.
Whoosh—!
Radia surged sharply toward the monster pounding fiercely on the door.
Her figure blurred as if condensing into a single point in an instant, shattering its skull.
Splurt.
Blood gushed like a fountain from the severed neck.
The monster's spurting blood soaked her body, bringing a sticky discomfort and a hollow ache in one corner of her heart, but she had no time to mind it.
Slash. Slash again, and again.
Her sword arced fiercely, like a vengeful demon devouring the living in a frenzy.
She leaped sideways, slamming down onto the floor to evade an attack.
With the power from her toes, she propelled her upper body upright and spun.
Adding rotational force to her sword, she cleaved the monster's upper body, then kicked the staggering lower half toward other monsters.
The collapsing monster was met by Isel, who slashed straight upward from below.
Riiip!
The monster split in two from groin to head, crumpling to either side.
Isel retracted her sword and looked at Radia, who was catching her breath.
“Senior, use this to wipe off a bit.”
Her body was caked in blood.
Her clothes were so stiff with dried gore they no longer absorbed more and restricted her movements.
Each time, Radia tore them slightly to keep her arms and legs free.
Now, the ripped fabric resembled an open-shoulder style, exposing blood-smeared skin.
Even her refreshing blue hair was matted with clumps of blood, no trace of its former silky sway.
Radia silently took the towel from Isel and wiped her face.
Yet the blood wouldn't come off.
No matter how much she wiped, it kept dripping from her hair.
Like hair ends endlessly leaking rainwater no matter how she wrung them after a downpour, the blood was the same.
Radia gave up on her face and reached to hand the towel back to Isel.
But she hesitated, realizing it was too soaked to absorb more.
Before Radia could show her distress, Isel cut in.
“It’s fine. More than a towel, what’s it like outside?”
“…Professor Aiden’s there. It’ll be okay.”
Radia played along, sensing it was a deliberate shift to an external topic to avoid despair.
They had to head to Professor Aiden. Isel had told her that much.
But Radia had to deal with this place first.
‘I can’t just abandon them.’
After a brief silence, Isel looked up.
“It has to end safely, right.”
With that, Isel gripped her sword.
Despite slashing countless monsters, it still gleamed with sharp menace.
Radia glanced at Isel’s enchanted sword and nodded.
“Yeah, I’m praying for that too. But…….”
Radia looked down at the monsters surging from below.
Her face showed utter weariness, yet somehow a detached calm.
“Before that, we need to clean up the rest.”
Isel nodded.
“Let’s move.”
Isel and Radia turned back toward the monsters.
Under Radia’s watchful eye, Isel was thriving even more in this frenzy.
It might not be the right thing to say, but in this soul-corroding melee, Isel was steadily blossoming.
She parried, shook off her blade, scattering the blood it held onto the floor.
Everyone at the magic tower knew how much Isel cherished that sword.
Considering her status as a maid, she couldn’t have bought such an expensive blade herself—Aiden must have given it to her.
‘That’s why she treasures it even more.’
That gaze, so steadfastly directed at Professor Aiden.
Objectively, no better match existed for her than him.
The empire was desperate to bind him, even the imperial family coveted him.
It felt like a child glaring to protect a candy clutched in its hand.
But Radia couldn’t understand what about Professor Aiden had captured Isel so devotedly.
To Radia herself, someone too perfect was a bit much.
She’d feel too shabby standing beside him.
In contrast, Isel didn’t seem to grasp at him for her own prosperity—it was like a girl’s pure, steadfast love packed tightly within.
A form of emotion Radia had never contemplated.
She wanted to see more, to resemble it more.
To feel it closer, to exchange more words.
Because that figure was admirable, that unwavering straightness enviable.
That courage, devotion, thoughtfulness, her gaze, her heart, her convictions, her chastity, her ideals, and above all…….
Radia bit her lip.
‘Loving him.’
It was baffling how such irrepressible emotions overflowed even into her movements.
She, who should resemble that professor most,
Was instead seeking his traces in Isel.
Upright sword, upright stance, upright gaze.
Her impeccably disciplined swordsmanship was elegant and fluid.
It was hard to believe she hadn’t yet awakened aura.
The day Isel awakened her aura……
‘She might surpass someone like me in one go.’
Radia followed behind Isel with a self-mocking chuckle.
Isel’s gray hair fluttered softly and gracefully.
Eyes that had forgotten fear.
A brilliant sword path.
Chains of combos.
Monsters collapsed one by one, uttering death cries, her movements flowing like water.
A normal blade steeped in layers of blood would dull, but the enchanted sword showed no such sign.
It was always sharp and keen, mirroring its owner perfectly—or so it seemed.
“Hah……!”
With a small kiai, Isel subtly quickened her pace by half a step.
Something was visible, something on the verge of realization.
Overcoming this hurdle would let her step into the ideal she yearned for.
Such emotions shone clearly from Isel.
Radia matched Isel’s pace at times, then glared at her leading back.
That back, that form—it was one she’d seen often from Professor Aiden.
‘You really are.’
Trying to resemble that professor.
Radia felled the monster kneeling on the floor, then exhaled raggedly.
“At this rate, it’ll never end.”
Their mobile strike tactics had collapsed long ago.
As casualties mounted, the strike team’s burden grew daily.
Perhaps getting stranded once was inevitable.
Casualties from the tactics she’d chosen.
Wasn’t there a better tactic, something to minimize losses?
Lost in such thoughts, her mind was a mess, but time ticked away relentlessly—wasted rumination was pointless.
Isel looked at Radia with complicated eyes.
“Radia Senior…….”
“Let’s withdraw first. We’ve put out the urgent fire.”
The second floor was breached. Lingering risked isolation, so they needed to climb quickly and regroup.
Isel nodded in agreement and followed.
Beyond the barricade they’d signaled through lay groans and the wounded everywhere.
The warehouse’s weapon stock was nearly depleted; what they held were all chipped, shabby swords.
Practice blades hastily sharpened for emergency—durability was never their strong suit.
As everyone hesitated to speak, blood-drenched Radia asked grimly.
“…How many died?”
Among those fumbling to open their mouths only to close them, Radia’s friend averted her gaze and said.
“Three. They swarmed suddenly and…….”
The mood differed sharply from their initial triumphant defense.
The situation shifted by the minute; in this retreating battle, each lost classroom or floor brought ill news.
Enemies pressed endlessly, and the biggest issue was the first-floor main entrance being breached.
‘If not that, we could’ve fortified the back gate better.’
Radia whipped her head around.
No time for such distractions.
Regret only shackled her ankles.
“How’s the third floor? Can they hold?”
“The kids are exhausted… They can’t mount resistance as fierce as the second floor.”
“Use spears to threaten them…….”
But the spears were all broken, so they were improvising with cut iron rods as substitutes.
Bows and arrows were the same.
“…If it comes to it, mobilize the wounded.”
“But they’re……!”
“We’ll have to move all the wounded anyway if we’re pushed to the fourth. Ask the lightly wounded to help mainly.”
She knew it wasn’t a real solution.
It was just that she had no choice.
The sixth floor was the last.
Pushed to the sixth, there’d be nowhere left to fall back.
‘Truthfully, the third floor’s the last we can hold by luring combat.’
The Martial Arts College building, with its three wings, connected the first, second, and third floors between wings, but from the fourth, they split.
That meant isolation.
With only one staircase per wing, losing the third meant being helplessly overrun.
Escape was impossible.
‘Not like we didn’t smash the elevators.’
If they could use elevators, so could the monsters.
Smart ones would learn to operate them.
Monsters breaching barricades via elevators would complicate everything.
So they’d crumpled the doors to prevent anyone from using them.
No rooftop evacuation either.
Flying monsters swarmed the skies, waiting for chances.
“We decide on the third floor. From the fourth, consider it death.”
Radia stated it definitively.
Most flinched at “death” and looked to her.
“Wings split from the fourth, and no rooftop escape. Stairs will be monster territory. We’d be isolated anyway.”
And in isolation……
“We’d just wait for death—nothing more. Remember: hold the third to the last with decisive defense.”
Usable space had already shrunk.
They had to think carefully. Buy as much time as possible.
Isel watched Radia.
Cold judgment yielding instant alternatives and responses.
Her broad view assessed what to do, where the limits lay—a textbook leader.
But her shadow still seemed precarious.
She acted confidently, spine straight to avoid sowing panic, yet her silhouette trembled faintly.
Radia Senior was just as anxious as anyone.
Perhaps even more, bearing others’ lives on her shoulders.
Shouldering that weight and falling wouldn’t be solo—it’d plunge straight to the abyss.
That anxiety made her itch to shed the burden.
Yet contrary to her thoughts, Radia truly shone above others.
As the saying went, true character emerged in crises. Casual at times, but when all wavered, she became the steadfast pillar supporting them.
‘That’s why I need to step up more.’
Isel gripped her sword.
Otherwise, Radia Senior would shoulder too much alone.
She knew maintaining herself was hard, but overloading a leader was unwise.
The mind crumbled in an instant, taking the body with it.
Isel regulated her breathing.
Her heaving breaths refused to settle, so she consciously controlled them and inhaled deeply.
“If we need to buy time, we’ll be the bait.”
Radia turned to Isel, questioning if she meant it.