93. Academy (6)
93. Academy (6)
What do humans taste like?
Actually, I have some idea.
Because they have a scent.
The scent coming from a human body is fragrant.
The scent that used to come from Amber's body in the beginning is completely different from the scent now.
Back when I was still human, I was filled with the urge to bite, but now it just feels cozy. Like the powdery scent of a newborn baby.
Humans are food for creatures.
It doesn't matter if we eat other living things, but the efficiency is very low. That's because we creatures like human brains the most.
I didn't really know why we liked them.
But now I realize.
We don't eat humans just to fill our stomachs. That's why we prefer the brain.
Of course, the children with little intelligence just eat because they're hungry, but for creatures of General-class or higher, it wasn't just about filling their stomachs.
After eating a human brain, I think I understand why my children scream brain, brain, brain, brain, brain.
The moment the human brain touched the part responsible for my sense of taste, I felt a sense of ecstasy.
The brain, which can be called the culmination of a living being.
It was a taste where I could feel the person's entire life stored in that brain.
It's hard to explain in words, but simply put, it's very delicious.
I've never eaten such delicious food in my life.
If just eating a raw brain gives this much emotion, then how delicious would it be if Narim-nim cooked with a human brain?
Of course, the human I just ate was a Black Mage, so they had been handling mana for a long time, which probably made them even tastier.
Ah, for the record, I didn't eat the Black Mage in front of me in an uncool way.
Of course, I had been starving for a few months, but it makes no sense for someone who goes by the name Queen of Creatures to eat greedily and without dignity.
I swallowed it all at once with my hand as elegantly as possible, just like a piece of candy.
The person's head was crushed like soft tofu and absorbed into my body.
Every single cell in my body is rejoicing.
It's incomparable to when I first inhaled the smoke.
The original cells are rejoicing, and it feels like all the sleeping cells are waking up.
When I came to my senses, the Black Mage's body that was in front of me had completely disappeared.
The time it took to eat one human was less than a minute.
It's great that I ate deliciously and the hunger I'd felt for so long has disappeared a little, but the problem is that the Black Mage was eaten by me.
I had many questions about black magic.
I should have asked various things, but I ended up eating them without realizing it.
For now, I have no choice but to look around and see if there is any information I want.
Ha, I should have asked everything I wanted to ask before eating.
==
Padix Academy receives numerous checks, such as threats, attacks, and terrorism.
It is natural for the Academy to be checked because it is where the country's most capable students gather, and they are future resources and combat power.
Whether they hate the country or not, it receives a lot of attention to know what kind of activities it is doing.
Therefore, the Academy's security is maintained at a thoroughly high level.
However, the Padix Kingdom has been more chaotic than ever recently.
The existence of creatures that appeared so suddenly.
Countless missing persons, casualties, damage to the Order of Knights, and the disappearance of a Saint Candidate due to that. Various incidents are happening one after another.
Judging it to be a serious problem that threatens the survival of the nation, not just a simple issue, the Padix Kingdom was more obsessed with creatures than ever before in order to exterminate them.
The problem is that there are beings in the Padix Kingdom who are targeting this situation.
That was the Black Mage, and because of that, a huge terrorist attack occurred at the Academy.
"How is the restoration going!"
"We still haven't made contact!"
"What about the Return Magic on the bracelets!?"
"All the Magic Tools in the vicinity are not working, so I think the bracelets are the same...!"
"Damn it!!!"
A huge explosion that occurred suddenly.
All Magic Tools were broken.
Various spells for the students' safety were cast on their bracelets. However, all those spells were neutralized.
"Since there will be many victims from the explosion, designate that place as a treatment area right now! Combat Department assistants, go into the forest immediately and rescue the students, and if there is an emergency, contact us without delay. Do you understand!?"
"Yes!!!"
The professor in charge of this freshman Class Assignment Exam began to handle the situation quickly and perfectly, as befitting the person in charge of this exam.
Although the forest where the exam is held is large, this place itself belongs entirely to the Academy, and since they are professors and assistants who are familiar with the geography of this forest and possess detection abilities or magic, they began to rescue the students quickly.
"Professor Iano!"
At that moment, a student ran over, calling the name of Professor Iano, the person in charge of this exam, in an urgent voice.
"Charlotta! You're safe!"
"Professor Iano. This incident was caused by a Black Mage!"
"I know that."
That sticky and unpleasant mana mixed within the huge explosion.
Anyone who has fought a Black Mage would have noticed it immediately. That this explosion was black magic.
"That Black Mage kidnapped all the students with teleportation!"
"...What!?"
"They stole and used the teleportation spell built into the bracelets! I saw them kidnap a student using a bracelet right in front of my eyes and disappear together with teleportation magic!!!"
"To think there's magic that stops the operation of Magic Tools while leaving the spell intact. However, since they used teleportation magic, we should be able to track them. But..."
Professor Iano bit his lip.
Teleportation magic itself is a quite tricky magic.
Especially since kidnapping a large number of students means that the place they teleported to is fixed.
This is because the teleportation magic built into the bracelet itself requires a huge magic circle.
If so, tracking where they teleported to is not a difficult task.
However, it requires some time for that process.
In that time, it usually gives them enough time to run away to another place, and the probability that the kidnapped students are alive during that time is very low.
If this were a kidnapping for money, it might be different.
This kidnapping was done by a Black Mage, and a Black Mage is a being that requires human life force.
In other words, this incident was done to obtain the students' life force, so there is no reason to keep the students alive.
If they quickly extract the students' life force and run away, the possibility of catching them is low.
The damage from this Black Mage's terrorist attack has all been confirmed.
There are a total of 10 missing students. There are 42 injured students. Among them, a whopping 20 were seriously injured, and the rest had minor injuries.
We have even identified which students are missing.
Professor Iano looked at Prodisia, who was standing calmly.
'Why is she so calm? Because she's an elf? But Prodisia clearly said she was a childhood friend of a person named Lea. And that's why she entered this Academy together...'
Why is she reacting like that?
The student named Lea also went missing. According to Charlotta, she had an urgent expression when she disappeared with teleportation magic, but now she had a calm expression.
'Did Prodisia know about this incident? It's suspicious. Why did the Black Mage, who had been quiet until now, appear right after an elf entered the Academy?'
However, elves hate Black Mages terribly. Elves who protect life and Black Mages who take life.
Of course, humans also designate Black Mages as criminals, but elves fundamentally loathe them.
I haven't seen many elves, but all the elves I've seen so far loathed Black Mages.
'First of all, the truth of this incident is important, but what's more important now is the safety of the students.'
Professor Iano took his eyes off Prodisia.
==
2 hours.
It took 2 hours to find out where the students were kidnapped after the incident occurred and to arrive there.
From other people's perspective, they might say it only took 2 hours, but Professor Iano was different.
It took 2 whole hours.
Perhaps the Black Mage calculated this too, as they hid and hid meticulously.
Because of that, it took 2 hours.
The place where they kidnapped the students was a cave on the eastern outskirts of the Padix Kingdom.
Since it wasn't far, it didn't take long to check the location and arrive.
Everyone swallowed hard at the huge altar that was visible as soon as they forcibly dispelled the illusion magic cast on the cave and entered.
Numerous corpses visible on the altar.
They had their life force stolen, so it was hard to even see them as people.
Professor Iano calmly examined the altar.
Fortunately, no traces of mana were felt. In other words, nothing had happened at the altar in the last few days.
"The students are here!!!"
At the words of an assistant who was searching, Professor Iano went straight there.
Four students were collapsed in a room that looked like a prison.
Thus, they were able to rescue 4 students.
However, the whereabouts of the remaining 6 students were unknown.
==
'I'm hungry.'
I am currently inside the Padix Academy dormitory.
I share the room with Prodisia.
Maybe because she's an elf, they say the Academy gave Prodisia a very good room.
Well, it's not as good as my bedroom, but it's much better than the [Orphanage] room, so there was nothing particularly uncomfortable.
I wanted to get various information about the Black Mage, but I ate the most important Black Mage, and even to me, it was full of things I didn't know, so I couldn't really find anything.
It would be different if I had a [Status Window], but I didn't have a [Status Window]. To be precise, I couldn't use it.
To use the [Status Window], I need Viviant's eye. But Viviant's eye is gone.
As the Black Mage suddenly blew away the upper body, Viviant's eye naturally flew away with it.
I ordered Amber to pull out Viviant's eye and bring it, so she will probably bring Viviant's eye by tomorrow.
Since I couldn't use the [Status Window], I didn't know anything, so I just went to the prison and 'pretended' to be fainted like the students and got rescued.
I was treated by a priest, and I said that mental stability and recovery are a priority over investigation for now, and that I would talk about it tomorrow.
The freshmen seemed quite shocked by this incident, so everyone was trembling in fear, going to their assigned dormitories, or some students even said they would drop out.
But I only had the thought that I was hungry.
When I was starving for a long time, hunger became a daily routine, so I didn't have any particular desire, but once food came in, I started craving it more.
It's natural to want to eat again once you've eaten something delicious.
However, my children aren't able to eat enough humans to be satisfied, so it's not like I can just eat humans because I'm hungry.
I am the Queen, after all.
I don't want to be a shameless and dictatorial Queen.
That aside, maybe it's because I've come to know the taste of humans... I've become curious about the taste of Viviant too.
If the Black Mage is this much, then Viviant, who has been chosen by mana, [Holy Power], a woman, and the [Goddess]...
It's certain that she will be incredibly delicious.