Madness for Madness
I answered madness with madness, ignoring Neon’s incessant chatter from behind. That guy had always been like this. Instead, I focused on the enemy right in front of me.
“So you’re the one who bullied our kid?”
“You’re the adventurer from the North?”
The man called Rhinoceros also locked eyes with me. We both understood the situation. Between everyone gathered here, we were the strongest. Yet in terms of sheer power, Rhinoceros held the advantage.
“How disappointing. To think an adventurer would only be at this level.”
“Aren’t you expecting too much from a Bronze?”
“You’re Bronze?” Rhinoceros reacted with disbelief, but what did it matter? If I was stronger than him, that was his problem.
“I’m nearly Silver-class, but still Bronze for now.”
“.....How absurd.” Rhinoceros’s face twisted. He still doubted me, yet that changed nothing. The victor would blaze like the sun while the defeated crumbled to ash.
I drew my sword from the inventory. The Ikelos gathered around me. Their wolf forms dissolved, layering over my skin until the futuristic armor was complete. The transformation didn’t stop there. Fragments gathered around the blade, reshaping the weapon into something new—a long, heavy sword-spear with a hilt nearly as large as the blade itself.
“Sword-spear… or sword-spear, I guess? Ever heard of it?”
“You mean the weapon forged in the North.”
Unlocking skills poured knowledge directly into my mind. Through the Weapon Master’s basic skill, Weapon Mastery, I had inherited memories of countless weapons. Combining that with my past-life recollections, I had chosen the one that suited me best: the sword-spear.
“It’s meant more for hunting monsters than people, but it feels right for this.”
“Are you mocking me?” Rhinoceros’s expression turned vicious. It might have looked like mockery, but I meant every word. I genuinely believed the sword-spear was the better choice—and even if I lost, I had ways to escape.
In other words, I can fight without worrying about dying.
Real combat taught you things you couldn’t learn otherwise. The advantage of fighting without fearing for your life was enormous. Even warriors struggled to stake their lives on a fight; how much harder must it be for someone from the Central region?
“Ready, Rhinoceros?”
“You think someone like you can handle me?”
“We won’t know until we try.”
My words became the spark. The ground where Rhinoceros stood cracked and sank. At the same moment he closed the distance, his greatsword swept horizontally. I slammed the sword-spear into the floor.
CRASH!
Weapon met weapon. Aura ground against aura. The sword-spear carved a long furrow as my body was pushed sideways. Rhinoceros’s foot shot toward my abdomen without missing the opening. I dropped the weapon and crossed my arms to block. The impact sent me sliding back, but the damage was minimal. I had lost my weapon in exchange.
It didn’t matter. The Ikelos that formed the sword-spear simply floated back into my hands.
“Umbra.”
A figure identical to me burst from the shadows, sword-spear in hand. Without needing orders, it kicked off and charged Rhinoceros. The two clashed at blinding speed, leaving afterimages.
“I’ll leave the rest to you, big brother!”
“This fight’s beyond us! Everyone fall back!”
“R-run!”
Under Neon and Shinshia’s lead, the academy students fled the plaza. The black-robed figures who tried to escape too late were cut down. Even those who slipped past were crushed beneath the Rune Golems waiting at the edges.
With the plaza cleared of obstacles, I grinned and felt the battle through Umbra. Because our souls were linked, every movement Umbra made was perfectly transmitted to me—how it moved, how much force it used, how to recover from mistakes. I was slowly turning remembered knowledge into real combat experience.
Rhinoceros noticed, of course.
BOOM!
“This bastard! Using me as a test subject!”
Umbra was a summon, born from shadow. Even if its upper body was blown away, mana flowing through the soul-link would regenerate it. Rhinoceros realized this too. He sent Umbra flying with his greatsword and rushed me.
“Die!”
“You think I’m afraid of death?”
In an instant the distance vanished. At point-blank range, sword-spear and greatsword collided—and we both felt it.
He’s enjoying this.
This guy… he’s enjoying it.
Instinct told us both the truth: only warriors who loved battle stood here. I had gradually absorbed Northern sensibilities through my adventurer work, but I hadn’t expected a Central man like Rhinoceros to enjoy combat this much. Or perhaps he was simply honest with his own nature.
As the fight dragged on, both our mouths curved upward. When the sword-spear Umbra had lost earlier and my own blade struck simultaneously, Rhinoceros twisted his body, parried, and met my eyes.
I want to win!
I refused to lose to the man in front of me. The old saying from my past life—that a true master hides thirty percent of their strength—flashed through my mind and was discarded. To defeat an opponent my very soul demanded I overcome, I had to go all out.
“Adela!”
“Confirmed.”
Adela kicked off the sky and dropped. Her claws lightly raked Rhinoceros’s cheek. She spun gracefully and delivered a spinning kick, chitin blades extending from her knees.
“Kuh! Are you a monster?”
“War Ant Queen.”
“Still just a princess, though.”
“Taming Northern monsters… You’re not sane either.”
Rhinoceros laughed. Ever since the Northern adventurers had interfered with their plans, he had gathered information. The more he learned about the North, the more he realized how absurd its people were—and the more he felt a thrill. If he had been born in the North, would he have risen even after the empire’s disgusting experiments? But such thoughts were meaningless. He stood here to fulfill the Flame of Doom’s grand design, and the adventurer before him was simply an obstacle.
Rhinoceros spoke the conclusion his instincts had reached while crossing blades.
“You’re the one who’s been interfering with us.”
“Flame of Doom, right? Yeah, it just kind of happened.”
“Heh. So that’s how it is.”
He understood the weight of the situation. He had planned to set aside revenge until the Flame of Doom completed its grand scheme, but he hadn’t expected an opportunity like this to appear.
“Is this what they call fate?”
“What the hell are you suddenly spouting?”
“It means one of us has to die here.”
“Hah. Obviously.”
Our brief rest ended. We swung our weapons again. The greatsword came down on the sword-spear; the sword-spear traced a circle and fell toward his shoulder. I stepped forward to close the distance and thrust. The black-aura-clad greatsword blocked the blade that split the air. The gap in our levels made the outcome inevitable. The only reason I had lasted this long was because I wasn’t fighting alone.
CLANG!
Umbra, using my shoulder as a springboard, unleashed a rapid barrage of thrusts. Rhinoceros endured the storm of strikes by coating himself in aura, then bisected Umbra with a single swing. Adela’s arm transformed into a blade and aimed for his flank. Rhinoceros snorted and spun.
“Useless! Your pathetic blades can never bring me down!”
His greatsword carved through every direction as he rotated at high speed. I barely leaned back to dodge. The blade grazed me, but left no wound—the crystal spider’s crystal had gathered at my chest to defend.
“What is that? Crystal that blocks my attacks?”
“Armor made from Northern materials. Crystal spider and elide went into it.”
“Hah. The North really is crawling with all kinds of monsters.”
“Sometimes it’s a burden. They don’t know their own strength.”
Rhinoceros clicked his tongue and stared at my clothes. Any warrior would covet such equipment. Especially in the Central region—people would fight, even go to war, to obtain it. If enough wanted it, overwhelming wealth and force would crush the rest.
I nodded quietly, planted the sword-spear in the ground, and looked at Rhinoceros calmly.
“So. Finished with whatever trick you were preparing?”
“You noticed?”
“You were obviously stalling for time by talking. How could I not?”
“Hah. Even knowing that, you played along. I can’t tell if that’s courage or recklessness.”
Rhinoceros glanced behind him. A black mage who appeared to be his subordinate formed a circle with his fingers. Their plan had been completed. I couldn’t stop it while fighting Rhinoceros anyway. Since the academy had been incompetent enough to let the plan succeed, I crossed my arms to watch and see just how grand their scheme really was.
“You’re a strange one.”
“Running over to stop it now would’ve been too late anyway.”
“True. The descent has already begun.”
RUMBLE!
The moment Rhinoceros finished speaking, the ground shook. An ominous magic circle formed above the city. While I watched the circle in the sky, Rhinoceros laughed wickedly.
“Behold. The plan we prepared to destroy the academy!”
“The energy I’m feeling doesn’t feel ordinary.”
“We’ll use that to summon a large number of hell’s demons.”
“Ooh. So the headmaster and Professor Veronika can be dealt with too?”
“Of course not.”
“Huh?” I gave him a puzzled look at the unexpected answer, but Rhinoceros’s expression remained calm.
“The demons are just fodder meant to draw attention. To defeat those two monsters, you’d need at least an upper executive or the leader. A low-ranking executive like me can’t even touch them.”
“Then how are you going to destroy the academy?”
“By slaughtering every last student, of course.”
They planned to massacre the students while the demons kept the professors occupied. It was a vicious yet clever plan. Even low-ranking demons from hell would be dangerous enough to draw the faculty’s full attention.
“So you’ll be the main culprit behind the student massacre?”
“That’s right.”
“I wasn’t planning on losing anyway, but now I definitely can’t afford to.”
“You? Against me, who’ll have the demons’ support?”
Rhinoceros sneered. He felt a twinge of regret toward the warrior who didn’t know his place. Even though the adventurer had only managed to match him with the help of summons and a monster, the fight itself had been exhilarating. He wanted to continue fighting purely as a warrior, but he was an executive of the Flame of Doom. Before battle came the plan. Regretfully, the moment he received the demons’ aid, he would finish this and head toward the students. The Rune Golems were already occupied with the black mages and black knights; they wouldn’t have any strength left to spare.
The headmaster tried to stop the magic circle, pouring enormous mana from the ground, but failed. A massive gate opened at the circle’s center, and demons began to fall through. They were nothing more than mindless low-ranking demons, yet Rhinoceros roared with mad laughter.
“Hahahaha! Finally! Finally, my revenge is complete! With this, the empire’s geniuses will all be wiped out!”
I didn’t know what crime the empire had committed to fill this man with such hatred. But what could I do?
“Is that so? Then did you prepare for this too?”
I had seen many people like Rhinoceros—more precisely, I had seen them in my past-life memories. People who lost everything to monsters and burned with hatred. I had also seen those who spread that hatred indiscriminately, not caring who else got caught in it. That was why I had anticipated their madness and prepared my own madness in response.
CRUNCH.
“Kieeeek!!!”
“Kiiiiiik!!”
“Kiiiiiiiiik!!”
Pure killing intent echoed across the entire city. Ants that had broken through the fragile stone rose up and severed the demons’ bodies with their sharp mandibles. There were over a thousand of them. The soldier ants that had instantly butchered the demons scattered in every direction while the worker ants chewed the fallen demons’ corpses into fine pieces, compressed them into small bead-sized spheres, carried them in their mouths to Adela, and respectfully offered them before departing.
They were gathering food for their queen. They were offering nutrients to expand the colony.
Rhinoceros stared blankly at the scene, then shouted in horror.
“You crazy bastard! You released Northern monsters here?!”
“When facing madness, you answer with madness.”
“You’re not sane either! Releasing a War Ant Queen!”
The destruction of the empire was no longer the issue. If left alone, the Central region itself would become a wasteland. A War Ant Queen could casually produce ten thousand troops under the right conditions. Even as a princess, her potential was top-tier; she could easily produce ten thousand. The more she ate, the stronger she would grow—her danger level needed no explanation. Even in the North, when a queen appeared near human territory, multiple factions would unite to subjugate her. The largest recorded War Ant colony in the North had maintained two million ants.
Knowing this, Rhinoceros ground his teeth and charged. Regardless of how dangerous the queen was, the fact remained that these creatures were interfering with his plan. If he couldn’t stop the queen that was using ants to hunt demons, the surviving students would escape in the chaos. The empire wasn’t stupid—they would pour everything into killing the queen before she grew. The damage would be limited, and she would likely be subjugated. Then he would have achieved nothing and failed.
“I’ll admit it! You’re crazier than me!”
“I’m not crazy, though? I’m perfectly normal?”
“Nonsense!”
I snorted at Rhinoceros’s words. Sorry, but Adela and I were connected through a taming contract. Parts of our souls were bound to each other—betrayal wasn’t even a dream. Rhinoceros, unaware of this, treated me like a madman and swung his greatsword.
Nom nom.
“Aww. Haaah.”
While leisurely watching the battle from behind, Adela diligently absorbed the nutrients the worker ants brought, clasping her hands together. The absorbed nutrients condensed between her palms, forming a small egg. She casually tossed the completed egg. The moment it touched the ground, it rapidly grew until it was large enough for a person to fit inside. Less than a minute later, an ant tore through the egg and emerged.
“Kieeeek!”
The newly born ant, under Adela’s pheromone control, headed into the city. I watched the ant depart to hunt demons for its queen without any particular emotion. It was a creature with a two-hour lifespan anyway—too worthless to waste attention on.
Adela continued absorbing nutrients with Rata perched on her shoulder.
“Rata. Can I eat your blood and flesh later?”
“Kii?!”
“Just a little.”
“Kit kit! Kit!”
“Got it. Then at least give me some fur. Your genes are interesting.”
She had a dream. A grand dream.
“A nest full of nothing but ordinary ants is pointless. What I want is a mobile nest made of a small number of elites. The goal is everyone at Silver-class or higher.”
Adela was working toward that dream alongside Argo today as well. After all, because of the taming contract they were practically one body. And being with Argo meant she could obtain many excellent genes.
BOOOOM!
“DIE!”
“Not happening!”
Just like right now. Adela chewed on the nutrients, eyes sparkling. She wondered what kind of genes this Rhinoceros would provide her.