96. Academy (9)
96. Academy (9)
Does the Padix Kingdom have laws against murder?
Of course it does.
It would be strange if a country didn't.
But this is a modern society. It's not Korea.
What happens if an ordinary human commits murder in Korea?
Unless it's a really special situation, they're going to prison.
But this place is different.
Just like the men in front of me, who came at me with weapons without hesitation to attack me.
Killing them is also a light task for me.
Plus, thankfully, they set up a Barrier with magic to keep the outside world from knowing what they were doing.
It's fascinating that there are humans targeting me like this, even though I've been pretending to be friends with Prodisia, an Academy freshman and an elf at that.
I should use that thing first.
I took out the small orb that Yui had given me and threw it onto the floor, shattering it.
Pachangㅡ!
The sound of glass breaking rang out.
It wasn't just the sound of the orb breaking on the floor; it echoed from the sky.
"Tsk. This is annoying. I didn't expect you to have a Magic Tool that disables surveillance magic."
A man clicked his tongue and stroked his hair.
"If this happens, I have to use a Recording Orb. Ha... Do you know how expensive a Recording Orb is?"
What Yui gave me was none other than a Magic Tool to protect my identity.
Yui, who has grown to the point of being called an Archmage by human standards.
She wasn't eroded in the brain like Amber, only her limbs were eroded, but Yui, who started eating humans back when she was human solely out of a desire to become stronger, ended up with a level of erosion similar to Amber's.
She's truly amazing.
Later, when the kids born with mana grow up, I should form a Legion Magic Unit and appoint Yui as the captain.
"I won't kill you. I'll just end it by breaking one of your armsㅡ"
Wagujakㅡ.
Not my mouth, but my hand transformed grotesquely and chewed off the head of the man in the front.
I pierced through the soft skin, crushed the hard skull, and savored the sweet and flavorful brain inside.
A human head is like a Sunkist candy.
Sunkist candy.
It's a candy with jam inside. The jam is so delicious that when I was young, I used to wonder, "Don't they sell just the jam inside?"
That candy is always found in places where children visit often, like dental clinics or children's hospitals.
You eat the hard, sweet candy at first, and when you've eaten it to a certain point, you crunch it and roll the jam and candy together in your mouth—that taste is truly delicious.
A human head feels exactly like that.
The candy is the skull, the jam is the brain.
'Then I guess the hair and skin are like the wrapper?'
Actually, humans are just food, but since I feel so good every time I eat, it makes me realize all over again that I am truly not human.
"Uh...?"
The remaining humans showed a stupid reaction as their colleague fell to the floor with his head gone in an instant.
Still, one of them must have been a fairly decent mercenary, as he reacted quickly and swung his sword at my upper body with a quite menacing expression.
"ㅡ!!!"
The sword couldn't cut through my upper body and simply disappeared.
To be precise, it was eaten by my body.
The man quickly stepped back and stared at his sword.
He looked at me, seeing that the sword hadn't just snapped, but had disappeared with teeth marks appearing on my body.
If I hadn't eaten humans, I would have been cut by that attack and died again, but not anymore.
Now that the Queen's cells all over my body are waking up one by one, unless it's a special attack, it will absolutely not work.
'That said, the sword doesn't really taste good.'
It had mana in it, so it tasted like mana, but the feeling of eating a non-living object wasn't a very good taste.
"You're not human."
The man noticed that I wasn't human.
Actually, it would be strange if he didn't notice.
He swung his sword, and a mouth appeared on my body to chew it up; no one would call such a creature a human.
It's a monster.
No, what am I doing calling myself a monster?
It's a Creature.
"To think a monster entered the Academy pretending to be human. And to such an extent that it couldn't be distinguished."
The man looked at me with a quite surprised expression.
"On top of that, the grade seems to be at least National Emergency Class... This isn't cost-effective."
The man, who was talking to himself, took out a scroll from his pocket.
It was a precious scroll, no matter who looked at it.
I didn't expect a mercenary doing this kind of work to have such an expensive Return Scroll.
But it doesn't matter.
Paseuseuseukㅡ
The Return Scroll failed to activate and burned away.
"Wha, whatㅡ!?"
As the Return Scroll failed to activate and disappeared, the man, who had been calm until just a moment ago, panicked greatly.
I'm sorry, but it's a Magic Tool Yui made to perfectly hide my information.
Yui has already surpassed the limits of humans.
Even though it's a narrow range, it also blocks Return Scrolls.
I found the panicking man's reaction amusing, and in return, I ate his head so he wouldn't feel any pain.
Thudㅡ
I ate 2 humans and looked at the remaining 3.
They seemed to have already lost their will to fight and were sitting on the floor, trembling.
I looked around at the remaining men and ate 2 of the remaining 3, excluding one.
Having eaten the brains of 4 humans, I felt more full than ever.
I had been starving for half a year and had only eaten 5 people until now, but I was still satisfied.
"Hiccup."
I approached the only surviving man.
The man couldn't even think of running away from me, just watching me approach.
I smiled brightly at him and said.
"Who ordered you to do this?"
"Hiccupㅡ I, I don't knoㅡ"
"Excuse me?"
"I, I really don't kno! I, I was told there was a good job, so I followed them when they said let's go together! I really, really don't know!!!"
A useless human.
"Pl, please spare me! I promise I won't tell anyoneㅡ"
Wagujak.
I misjudged.
He was standing in the back and looked like he knew something, so I thought he might know something, but he was just trash.
This is the downside of the Status Window.
You can see the target, but you can't find out about other things related to that target.
It only shows the information of the target right in front of you.
It doesn't show other information.
Still, it is a good ability.
It's just a little disappointing.
'Then I should have kept that human alive.'
I approached the man who had swung his sword at me.
I poured Holy Power into the corpse of the man who was bleeding intermittently from the headless body.
I had eaten 4 humans, but the energy of 3 people disappeared, and a head began to grow on the body of the man whose head had disappeared.
Since some time had passed since he died, he wouldn't be resurrected in a normal state, but it doesn't matter.
I'm not trying to put this human to work; I just need to extract information.
Twitch.
The dead man came to his senses and began to speak.
"I, I was definitely dead..."
I confirmed that he had resurrected normally the moment the resurrected man spoke, and I stuck my hand into his head.
My hand turned into thin threads and began to rummage through the man's brain.
From here on, I have to rely on the Queen's knowledge.
In the past, I would have felt a little difficulty touching a human brain, but now it felt so easy to know what to do with a human brain.
"Who is the human who ordered this job?"
"Ughㅡ Ughㅡ A, Abeㅡ"
"Is it the Academy student Abe?"
"Ye, Yesㅡ! Tha, That's right."
"Thank you."
Wagujakㅡ
I used the energy of 3 people just to get this one piece of information.
Furthermore, because he was forcibly resurrected and his life force was almost gone, there isn't even any nutritional value.
I just used the energy of 3 humans to get a single name, Abe.
'I hope Abe is a human with high nutritional value.'
==
Abe was annoyed when the crystal ball showing the situation of the mercenaries she hired suddenly turned off.
"Noㅡ! Ha... Seriously, mercenaries can't do anything right. If they ate that much money, they should do the job well."
Abe slowly stroked the leaves of the plant she was raising to calm her mind.
She didn't like it.
Padix Academy is a place where only very capable talents gather.
It is a place where only those with strong power, brilliant minds, or outstanding creativity gather.
A commoner, not even a noble, entered such a place.
A worm who is called a saintess even though she isn't a saintess candidate, and sleeps all day on the first day of class.
That was the perception Abe had of Lea.
It was disrespectful to attend this sacred Academy with the mindset of sleeping on the first day of class, so she intended to scold Lea severely.
She even hired mercenaries to see Lea suffer, but the magic turned off.
Abe sighed and pondered how to make Lea drop out of the Academy.
"Miss, someone has come to see you."
"Tsk. I don't want to meet anyone right now, so send them away."
"Understood."
Abe's maid bowed and closed the door as she left.
"What kind of human comes all the way to the Dormitory. Ha..."
The moment Abe took a sip of the tea the maid had made for her and was trying to calm her annoyance while wiping the leaves again.
Clangㅡ!
The sound of something breaking was heard from outside.
"No, I told you to just send them away! Don't tell me they broke the flowerpot!?"
Abe stood up and stopped as soon as she opened the door to go to the front door.
Because Lea, who should have been suffering at the hands of the mercenaries she hired by now, was in front of her.
"Ho, howㅡ"
And.
Abe confirmed her cherished flowerpot broken on the floor and the maid collapsed.
The broken flowerpot shards and the plant were strewn about, as if replacing the head of the headless maid.
A momentary silence.
The maid's blood, along with the water from the flowerpot, spread across the floor and touched Abe's feet.
==
Viviant panting.
