Discipline 18. The Disciplinary Committee Leader Thwarts the School Villain's Plan (3)
It was a story from long ago.
Back before humanity had ever conceived of the concept of mana.
A colossal gate connecting to another world had opened in the Pacific Ocean.
The gate first disgorged a towering demon draped in golden fleece, and then, one after another, it poured forth hordes of mysterious, power-laden monsters.
Those unknowable creatures slaughtered and devoured without restraint, competing and multiplying and thriving, until they had remade the Earth into a wilderness that belonged to them alone.
Billions of human lives were lost in the process.
Nothing could stop them.
Nuclear bombs and every other pinnacle of human engineering—the modern firearms that represented the sum of mankind's technological achievement—were utterly ineffective against the monsters.
No matter the creature, each of them wielded that inexplicable, mystical power.
Humanity named it mana—the power of magic that transcended science and technology—and so the monsters who commanded it came to be called magic beasts.
By then, the helplessness of that long slaughter had already been carved into humanity's very genes.
Fear. The terror the magic beasts had etched into mankind was nothing short of a lethal poison.
Only those who overcame it became explorers who roamed beyond the city walls. But the vast majority could not, which meant they had no choice but to feel, vividly and instinctively, the dread that a proven threat inspired.
"Aaah…."
One male student's legs gave out and he crumpled to the ground.
His whole body trembled violently.
The emotion surging across his face was fear.
It rose up beyond his will—something branded into his instincts themselves.
A skeletal monster, fed up on dread-inducing mana, came charging. It was the fear of human history itself.
The student could not muster the courage to resist. The sheer volume of mana pressing against his skin already far exceeded his own level.
The other students fared no better.
Some ran.
Some panicked and scattered.
Some simply gave up and waited to die.
Faced with the magic beasts, they were all too busy cowering.
The unique ability: Necromancy.
Magic Formula, Type One: Summon the Dead.
A spell that called forth the departed—souls bound by contract through communication established by the passive skill of her unique ability, Sixth Sense.
A summoned dead one possessed no mana circuits in its flesh, and so could not manipulate mana at all.
In other words, a monster's corpse—with its skeleton far tougher than any human's—made the perfect servant.
And so the Necromancer had sealed countless contracts in the graveyard of magic beasts that the Head Principal had guided her to.
Most beasts could not be communicated with and obeyed nothing but instinct. As long as they could move again, as long as they could crave flesh once more, they did not hesitate to be regrown in skeletal form.
And so the army of the dead that appeared at the practical evaluation site was composed entirely of magic beasts.
Keee-ing.
Clank, clank.
The security robots serving as test proctors, detecting the crisis, transformed into combat mode in unison. The lamps that had been casting light now glowed like battle-hungry eyes.
They were AI robots responsible for the city-wide infrastructure of Academy City.
They possessed, of course, no biological senses with which to feel fear.
[Grrrrrgh!]
The skeletal monsters, shrouded in the Necromancer's mana, threw themselves forward. The security robots fought back, but several met a futile end as their steel frames were torn apart.
Not every skeletal beast wielded equal power. They were not the same individuals, after all. And the ones even the security robots could not handle turned their sights on the students.
But Ahseong High had prepared more than just security robots.
KWAANG!
The three-section staff swung by Kim Deok-su of the Disciplinary Committee bored through the mana skin enveloping a monster and shattered its spine. The strike was wreathed in elemental mana, the kind that forged solid rock.
He was the committee member who had once been tangled up with Lee Se-ah back when she delivered food for charity, and who had later told the expressionless underclassman Han Seo-jin about what had happened.
The skeletal monster lunged again, but Deok-su swung his staff in a continuous flurry, driving the creature back.
"You okay?"
Deok-su shouted to the student he'd saved. The student nodded, choking back tears.
"Th-thank you…."
"Whew."
Deok-su lowered his staff and swept his gaze over the surroundings.
The extreme tension had melted into cold sweat that ran down his cheeks.
No matter how brave he tried to look, Deok-su was an ordinary person. It was only because he was Disciplinary Committee that he forced his feet to move at all; in truth, every fiber of him wanted to flee.
But then—
"To all Disciplinary Committee members. Emergency Response Level 4 is now in effect. The barrier prevents proper reinforcements. Devote your full strength to protecting the students."
The solemn order from the Disciplinary Committee Leader, relayed over the radio, flashed through Deok-su's mind.
Level 4 was the highest response tier.
The stage where one confronted an emergency prepared to risk one's life, where the students had to be evacuated somewhere safe no matter what.
The other committee members would be straining themselves in this crisis too. He couldn't allow himself to be ruled by fear.
A sense of duty.
Responsibility.
Camaraderie.
Countless emotions pressed down upon the fear.
That was why Deok-su and the other committee members could stand against the skeletal monsters with trembling bodies.
But such feelings alone could not become combat power.
"Hey, behind you!!"
"!"
The student he'd saved spotted a monster that had crept up like an assassin and screamed in desperation.
It was already too late.
The monster was bearing down on Deok-su in an instant.
Deok-su whirled around in shock. The monster's skull, coiled in violet mana, was already at close range.
In that sliver of a moment, time seemed to slow.
There wasn't enough time to swing the staff in reply.
I'm hit.
The moment he thought it—
CRACK!
A bolt of lightning was etched into the empty air.
Someone had coiled lightning mana around their weapon and leapt forward with blistering speed.
He swung the black three-section staff forged from ironclad dragon armor—Cheollyonggon, the Iron Dragon Cudgel.
WHOOM!!
CRACKLE!!
The shockwave of the electric discharge burst the monster apart.
Thunder-energy spread in all directions behind the overwhelming blow.
Bone fragments scattered, and a gust of concussive wind rolled outward for a long moment.
Then a heavy wave of mana washed over the senses of every student present, raising the hairs on their necks.
Thud. The man who had smashed the monster with a single blow landed on the ground, steadying the officer's peak cap on his head.
Deok-su and the student stared at him, wide-eyed.
"Leader…!"
Ahn Woo-jin, Disciplinary Committee Leader of Ahseong High.
He looked back at Deok-su with sharp, keen eyes.
To Deok-su, Woo-jin seemed to retain his usual composure in full—as if the terror radiating from the magic beasts hadn't touched him in the slightest. That cold gaze, if anything, rallied Deok-su's fighting spirit.
Woo-jin said nothing at all. He simply gave Deok-su's shoulder a light tap as he passed, as if to say: I'm leaving this to you.
"……."
As the memory of nearly being killed moments ago seared itself into his mind, Deok-su bit his lip.
His Leader was running himself ragged, ceaselessly, all to protect the students.
He couldn't afford to keep fumbling like he just had.
"Follow me! We're evacuating!"
"Y-yes, sir…!"
Deok-su took the student he'd rescued and moved out at a brisk pace.
I never heard anything about THIS…!?
This was bad.
The situation was far bigger than expected.
A barrier had deployed out of nowhere, the smartphones were dead, and location tracking was impossible. The only thing that still worked was the radio.
Worse, the barrier dwarfed a football stadium in scale. The mana I could feel was crushing in its weight.
Oh Baek-seo was not inside the barrier.
That much I'd gauged from the location-tracking app before it went dark.
Besides, the density of mana flowing through that barrier was at a maddening level, the kind you'd almost never witness in Neo Seoul.
Even Baek-seo would struggle to break through it.
Either way, for now, all I could do was hold back the threat with the committee members and security robots I had available.
Expressionless… it really was you, wasn't it.
I looked toward the center of the barrier. I'd already confirmed who was there, back before the tracking app died.
The expressionless underclassman. Han Seo-jin.
According to the location data from the app, she had, for some reason, stayed rooted to one spot. I only noticed because I'd been watching her so carefully.
And then the barrier had deployed with Seo-jin at its center.
There was no doubt she was one of the Six Sinners.
Something's wrong.
My brow furrowed on its own.
My head was a tangled mess.
Even the Necromancer shouldn't be able to build a barrier of this scale. And how did she summon her servants in so many places at once? In the game, she could clearly only summon them around herself?
For all that the unique ability Necromancy was impressive, it wasn't a power that broke the balance this badly, this early.
This level of mana density and spell scale was at minimum Tier 7 or beyond.
I had no idea what was going on.
None of this lined up with the game I knew.
And the mana beneath the ground….
More than anything, what unsettled me was the earth itself.
Something ominous stirred below the soil.
What the hell IS this mana…?
Ever since the Necromancer had activated her unique ability, I'd begun to feel a pulse of life rising from below.
Some unidentified mana was climbing upward, second by second.
One thing's certain—this isn't something Han Seo-jin can do alone. There's some massive catalyst down there. Something… extremely dangerous.
I didn't know what that catalyst was, but one thing was clear: it must never, ever be awakened.
Apparently Seo-jin had long known what lay beneath this ground.
A human?
No.
Nothing buried alive could still be alive.
A something.
Some Tier-7-or-beyond something was aiding Seo-jin from beneath the earth.
Which meant the reason she was staging this slaughter here had to be connected to the thing below?
It had to be.
She wouldn't have kicked up all this commotion for a meaningless massacre.
She'd clearly roused her servants in every corner to target the students for one purpose: to kill as many as possible, as quickly as possible.
Why?
…To wake the thing below? To offer it human corpses or blood?
I couldn't grasp the exact chain of cause and effect, but it was possible.
If not, why else would Seo-jin go to all this trouble, fully prepared, to stage a slaughter in a place like this?
I ground my teeth.
The interior of the barrier was far too vast.
The monsters' strength varied wildly, and the students were scattered across every corner. Whether the security robots and the committee alone could protect them all was anyone's guess.
What do I do?
How could I protect the students—and survive myself?
First, I had to find Han Seo-jin.
I couldn't bring Seo-jin down in one stroke with my current strength.
But to end this situation, I had to defeat her one way or another.
Had she already moved? Was she still where she'd been? I had no way of knowing.
Regardless, I kept sprinting toward where Seo-jin was. As fast as my legs would carry me. The hem of my uniform flapped without pause.
WHOOM!!
CRACKLE!!
Every time a monster came into view, I smashed it flat with the Iron Dragon Cudgel.
When a beast appeared at a distance, I hurled the staff's lightning outward, unleashing a discharge. Seo-jin's servants, caught in the wild bolts that forked out in dozens of branches, lost their mana skins one after another and dropped, inert.
My pounding heart never gave me a moment's rest, driving me onward.
Every beast I felled, somewhere else another pack was mounting its attack.
Even in this very instant, someone was probably already falling.
A little faster… FASTER!
Faster.
Faster.
I pumped mana into my body reinforcement at maximum output and tore across the exam grounds like an arrow. Tension hauled my entire body taut. My jaw clenched hard.
Then another monster caught my eye.
And—
"…Ahh!"
The monster's sharp claws raked across a girl's side.
Her eyes flew wide, her breath seemed to stop, and my heart plummeted.
The girl who'd been struck staggered backward, clutching her flank. Blood poured ceaselessly between her fingers, soaking her uniform.
Then she collapsed.
I knew that face.
"Keep at it and you'll get better. Fighting!"
"Leader, I'll work hard, sir…!"
A new Disciplinary Committee recruit I'd once given advice to while we ran uniform and hair inspections at the school gate.
As a first-year here for the practical evaluation, she wasn't wearing her committee armband.
Meanwhile, a security robot that had apparently been shielding the girl—half its body blown away, spitting sparks and trailing smoke—desperately tried to keep fighting the monster.
But the beast gave a light flick of its claws and finished the robot off. Its lamps went dark, and its mechanical whir fell silent.
WHAM!
I charged.
No complicated thoughts came.
The only thing in my head right now was the urge to kill that oversized monster.
I drove lightning mana into the Iron Dragon Cudgel more thoroughly than ever. By the time the beast noticed me, my cudgel was already carving through the air.
KWAA-BOOM!!!
CRACKLE-CRASH!!!
[Graargh…!]
I unleashed a devastating blow. The lightning-wrapped Iron Dragon Cudgel bored into the monster's torso, and the resulting shockwave blasted it to pieces.
Violet mana scattered, and skull fragments exploded in every direction.
The monster's death rattle cut off mid-scream.