Chapter 150: Drug Incident at the Academy (5)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 150: Drug Incident at the Academy (5)
Well, borrowing the power of a succubus isn’t all that difficult.
I tried it on a whim since the idea popped into my head, and it was quite successful.
I particularly liked the way his face went blank, looking as stupid as a pigeon hit by a BB pellet.
“Did you have a nice nightmare?”
“You… you son of a bitch. What the hell did you do?!”
“Who knows? I don’t think it’s my fault you’re such a scrub that you can’t even figure that out. Do I really have to explain everything to you?”
He really went at me in the dream. Anyone watching would’ve thought we were sworn enemies.
I needed an opponent to test the power I gained from my contract with the succubi, and thanks to him, I obtained quite satisfying experimental results.
The Magic Eye of Dreams, was it?
To trap an opponent in a dream and manipulate them—it’s a scarier ability than I thought. It’s practically brainwashing.
The guy, who had suddenly been reduced to a clown, flushed red and tried to lunge at me again, but he was immediately restrained by the instructor who appeared.
“Stop! The duel is already over.”
The instructors didn’t intervene in the insults and provocations before the match, but attempting to attack an opponent after the match had concluded was clearly crossing the line. Well, that was only natural.
The guy seemed to realize that too, but I had no intention of letting things end so tamely.
As the price for crossing the line, you’re going to have to serve as the detonator that alerts everyone to the dangers of these drugs.
Watching him try to calm his excitement, I smiled slowly and reached out my hand as if offering a handshake.
Even without this, he would easily lose his reason due to the contract, but since I was at it, I might as well make it certain.
It would only be dangerous if he held it in halfway and then went berserk somewhere I couldn’t see, right?
I opened my Magic Eye once more and looked at him. Since it was the second time, he showed some signs of trying to resist, but in the end, he couldn’t put up any resistance and fell back into the hypnosis.
In his eyes, I probably looked like I was mocking him right now.
Even though, in reality, I was smiling and offering a handshake.
He violently swatted my hand away, and the surrounding gazes filled with bewilderment.
Yes, that’s it. For things like this, it’s important to be thorough so that no one can claim there was fault on both sides.
Rudely rebuffing an opponent who offered a handshake after the match wouldn’t win him any favors, but it still lacked that final punch.
I lightly poked at the desires reflected in his dream and the inferiority complex born from them. His face began to distort further as he glared at me.
And the moment his rage reached its limit, he finally succeeded in shaking off the instructor who was holding him back.
“You…!”
Yes, get angry. Get angrier. You barely have any reason left anyway, so why not let it burn out spectacularly?
The guy pulled a vial from his pocket.
As I’ve mentioned before, using doping agents or artifacts isn’t strictly forbidden in the Leilan Academy ranking tournaments.
However, that only applied within the context of the match. Attempting to down a clearly suspicious drug while losing one’s mind after the match was over was a scene more than sufficient to cause a problem.
“Stop! I warned you, Cadet! I clearly told you to stop…! This is your final warning!”
“You’re dead, you son of a bitch!”
He looked quite pathetic, still floundering in his illusions.
He grabbed a handful of pills from the vial and shoved them into his mouth.
The demonic energy that had only been flickering around his fists now enveloped his entire body, and his eyes, which had been completely consumed by rage, began to turn hollow.
By this point, even those who couldn’t sense demonic energy would have realized that this wasn’t just a simple cadet going berserk with anger.
Perhaps because he took too much of the drug at once, all of his remaining reason melted away, and the contract was completed.
From this point on, what stood before me was not a human, but a half-baked thing that hadn’t yet fully fallen into being a devil.
The intermediate entity—neither human nor devil—roared, scattering demonic energy in all directions.
Now, that’s a problem. Other people might get hurt.
I initiate the contract.
I offered the life force I had cut away to the Touch of the Devil and manipulated the demonic energy he scattered with a demonic energy of my own, one that was far more viscous than his.
I compressed the demonic energy gathered at a single point and intentionally fired it toward myself.
I felt a fairly strong impact, but since I was prepared, I just flew back spectacularly for show; it didn’t actually hurt that much.
His gaze turned toward me.
Whether he recognized that I was the one who had seized control of the demonic energy or not, the thing let out a beastly roar.
Right. Even if his consciousness was stolen by the contract and he had completely lost his reason, his emotions and instincts remained, so he would at least recognize the person he hated.
The guy you hate is right here, so don’t go bothering others and come over here, you brat.
And please, burn as brightly as you possibly can.
Movements that surpassed human limits, manipulation of mana that should have been impossible at his level.
Multiple arms made of demonic energy sprouted from his back, resulting in a total of eight fists.
To efficiently use the physical reinforcement and rapid-fire strikes he specialized in, he must have intended to increase the number of fists themselves.
It wasn’t bad.
I particularly liked the grotesque appearance.
“Kang So-hyuuuuuun…!!!!”
Ah, why are you calling my name? What if we get attached?
The fists made of demonic energy smashed the arena, cornering me.
Because of that, he gradually began to smile.
If he had been just a little more perceptive, he would have been terrified instead of smiling.
A normal person cannot perfectly control body parts that they didn’t have before.
In the end, what he chose was to attack with four arms at a time, alternating between them as if swinging his right and left arms. Compared to such a simple attack, Professor Cathy fighting with one arm tied behind her back would be far more threatening.
His fists didn’t even graze me.
Perhaps frustrated that the prey he thought he’d caught kept slipping away, he vomited out demonic energy once more and transformed into an even more hideous form.
How ugly.
I took a quick look at the reactions around us; everyone was looking at him with contempt and wariness.
This should be enough.
If I wait any longer and his heart and brain get completely corroded, he’ll die, and that would be a problem too.
For this drug-addicted piece of trash to pay even a fraction of his dues, he needs to survive to be a witness.
Ruyi turned into a short sword and settled into my hand.
I took my stance.
I lightly twisted my body to dodge the incoming grotesque fists and slashed with my sword.
As I cut through the filthy demonic energy, black flower petals scattered in its place.
“It huuuuurts!!!!”
Well, of course it hurts if I cut you. It’s noisy, so stop screaming.
As if rebelling, every time he swung his arms, the limbs made of demonic energy were severed, and black flowers bloomed in their place.
Before long, the arena was filled with the black flowers that bloomed from the severed demonic energy and their fragrance.
They fluttered.
The petals, though not flamboyant.
They fluttered.
The demonic energy severed by the sword that held the petals.
It spread.
A subtle scent—one that was hard to believe came from flowers that devoured demonic energy—filled the arena, never becoming overpowering.
All that remained of the thing were his original two arms.
I extended my right arm toward him, as he could no longer even resist.
Seeing the pattern faintly rising over my glove, the thing trembled violently.
“If you weren’t a student, you’d be dead. Consider yourself lucky.”
I grabbed his throat and poured in demonic energy.
A vast amount of demonic energy, far greater than what he was shrouded in, tore through his body, burning away the seed of demonic energy that served as the core of the contract. He writhed in agony from the backlash.
Ah, this guy. It’s better than dying, so just bear with it.
After finishing the job, I looked around.
Well, now everyone should know that there are dangerous drugs out there, right?
But the atmosphere was strangely odd.
It felt like they were looking at something other than the drugs.
Why are these reporter bastards looking at me instead of the guy they should be watching? I didn’t even fight that flashily.
* * *
In fact, from the reporters watching the match to the professors acting as supervisors, and even those who had come for scouting—no one had high expectations for this matchup.
Was it not a battle between a middle-ranked student and a low-ranked student?
The reporters here were mostly those thinking they might catch a funny scene that occasionally happens in low-rank matches, and the scouts were also mostly those who had lost out in the competition and couldn’t see the cadets whose success was already guaranteed, or those who were killing time waiting for their matches.
And even in the early stages of the match, the progression of their fight went exactly as expected, ending hollowly.
One cadet had blankly walked out of bounds and started punching the air or the wall.
What, is this rigged?
Most people thought so, and only a few with sharp eyes could notice that the cadet had been hit by something of the hypnosis type.
But that was all.
It wasn’t a particularly special display, and brainwashing wasn’t exactly difficult against a physical combat type.
Ah, whatever. It’s a bust.
The anomaly occurred the moment most people were about to leave in disappointment.
The boy who had lost by going out of bounds began to throw a tantrum as if he couldn’t accept the result, and the moment he swallowed something, an energy different from mana surged, and his appearance began to change.
A monster. It resembled a human, but it was clearly a monster.
The reporters were delighted because they sensed a scoop.
An academy cadet transforming into a monster during a ranking tournament and attacking a fellow cadet?
If that transformed monster were to violently take down the cadet now, it would be the birth of an even bigger scandal.
The monster blew away the professor trying to stop him and lunged at the cadet.
To capture the moment the boy was brutally struck down, they held their breath and raised their cameras.
When the moment of collision finally arrived, the cameras flashed with clicks, but what was captured was different from the scene they had hoped for.
The cadet dodged the attacks of the student-turned-monster with minimal, fluid movements.
He slowly drew his sword as if it were no big deal.
The sword severed the monster’s newly grown arms. Flowers bloomed at the tip of the blade.
A fragrance wafted.
Every time a monster’s arm was cut off, more new petals scattered, and the fragrance filled the arena.
Against the backdrop of black flowers blooming loftily as they devoured the filth, they found themselves mindlessly staring at the boy wielding his sword as if performing a sword dance.
That’s just a rank 200 cadet?
Nonsense.
Both the scouts and the reporters trembled at the fact that they had discovered a jackpot first.
* * *
Meanwhile, in another arena, a psychological battle of a slightly different atmosphere was unfolding.
The gazes of the two girls facing each other were incredibly cold.
Lee Yu-na and Aisha.
Lee Yu-na was much smaller in stature, but based on the aura she emitted, she seemed even more imposing.
The combination of two relatively high-ranking students, plus the sudden confession that had exploded just the day before, made this match draw a significant amount of attention.
“Hmm, this is troublesome. I hate bothersome things.”
“Oh, really? I hate them too.”
“Your way of speaking has become much more elegant than yesterday, hasn’t it?”
“This is my usual way of speaking. I was quite angry yesterday.”
“I suppose you were anxious about him being taken away?”
“No, that’s not it. Yes, that’s right. That’s not the reason I was angry.”
“There’s no need to deny it. You’re quite cute-looking too, but compared to me…”
“Listen. I hate bitches who wag their tails at Lilac. I also hate those who hurt Lilac.”
She cut her off with an attitude that suggested there was nothing more to hear.
“But you know, there’s something I hate even more than those two.”
Lee Yu-na pulled out her mace.
In contrast, Aisha maintained an arrogant posture, not even taking a stance as if there was no value in defending.
“I hate those who try to use Lilac, and I hate those who eat away at Lilac’s kindness even more. Yes, exactly like a bitch like you.”
“Oh, did you not hear my passionate confession yesterday?”
“What can’t be said with words? Don’t bother. I’m an expert at noticing things like that. You don’t like Lilac.”
“…My, a very troublesome person was attached to him. If I had known this, I wouldn’t have chosen him based on his abilities alone. Still, I have an image to maintain. I have no intention of backing down.”
“Fine, don’t back down. Even if you don’t worry about it, I’ll make you back down myself.”
“So far, I haven’t found a candidate more perfect than Mr. Lilac. Ah, as you said, it’s not like I’m madly in love, but since I’m only going to get married and have children, how about you just be his lover?”
At those words, Lee Yu-na completely lost her reason and lunged.
“I don’t know what your circumstances are, but don’t you dare drag Lilac into your garbage situation!”
The mace struck down toward the girl’s head.
“I’m envious. Being able to act so selfishly like that.”
Of course, before the mace could impact her head, it was blocked by armor, dealing no damage.
“I wish I could live that freely too.”
A fist clad in mana armor swung out.