Chapter 151: Drug Incident at the Academy (6)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 151: Drug Incident at the Academy (6)
The battle was entirely one-sided.
The sturdy armor made of mana was simple in structure, but for that very reason, it boasted high efficiency as long as the user had enough mana to sustain it.
It required no complex calculations or intricate formulas. One simply donned the rigid armor and swung a fist at the enemy.
It was a simple yet powerful talent that unified offense and defense.
Because of this, Aisha felt certain of her victory.
From what she had gathered, her opponent was a balanced back-liner proficient in buffs and various spells.
While the girl seemed capable of high-level martial arts and possessed decent firepower for a balanced type, minor attacks that couldn’t pierce Aisha’s armor were ultimately meaningless.
To defeat her, one either had to be a master of mental-type techniques or possess overwhelming firepower to shatter the armor. There was no other way.
“Why don’t you just give up!?”
Though called mana armor, her fists—honed to be sharp and hard—were spears as much as they were part of her protection.
The moment her fist slammed into the girl’s body, the frail, pink-haired girl coughed up blood and was sent flying through the air.
It was over.
Aisha felt a twinge of regret, wondering if she had gone too far out of a slight sense of envy, but she had adjusted her strength enough to ensure the girl wouldn’t die. It would be fine.
“…You seem quite relaxed, don’t you? Even holding back your strength.”
But then, she stood up.
A light of healing. She was a priestess, so it wasn’t strange, but the speed at which her wounds were closing was extraordinary.
But so what?
“Are you an idiot? Even if you heal, you’ll just be knocked down again. It’ll only hurt more. Do you have a hobby of enjoying pain?”
“I don’t. But what can I do? Our compatibility is the worst. If I want to win, I have to bet on even the smallest possibility.”
Win…?
Aisha couldn’t understand what she meant.
“If I had no information at all, I probably wouldn’t have been able to do anything. I should say thank you—after I make you crawl on your knees, that is.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but it’s somehow very unpleasant.”
The smile on the pink-haired girl holding the mace was incredibly grating.
Aisha was fighting a back-liner, a support role, yet it felt like she was facing a berserker.
To deny that unpleasant sensation, she put strength into her fists and charged.
The girl’s mace struck the head of the armor, but Aisha ignored it and rained down a barrage of punches.
If the girl had stood up because Aisha had been half-hearted with her strength, then crushing her with overwhelming might and forcing her out of the match quickly would be the kinder way to end her suffering.
That was the logic behind her actions.
“That hurts.”
However, Lee Yu-na did not fall.
A divine incantation consisting of three words—Recovery, Persistence, Maintenance—mended broken bones and sealed bursting wounds, keeping her on her feet.
Once again, the mace struck the head of the armor.
There was no damage, but it was irritating.
Aisha thought about striking her head in return, but she felt a surge of reluctance at the thought that the other girl was unprotected.
…Wait, unprotected? Does she not know how to use defensive buffs? Why is she only maintaining the bare minimum and focusing entirely on recovery?
A strange sense of unease washed over her. It was as if she were facing an incomprehensible creature.
“Why? You should keep going. Or are you going to give up?”
Why was the word ‘give up’ coming from her opponent’s mouth? Wasn’t Aisha the one winning unilaterally?
The mace continued to hit the exact same spot. Aisha had turned her opponent into a bloody mess with her fists, but the girl kept staggering back up with healing magic.
“Are you some kind of zombie? Stop joking around and just stay down!”
In her agitation, Aisha accidentally struck the girl’s face.
No matter the circumstances, hitting a girl’s face was…
“That hurt. You must be really angry.”
The girl, her face drenched in blood, stood up once more with a smile.
“Ah, Lilac would be shocked if he saw this.”
She simply said that, wiped her face, and gripped her mace again.
Just what was Aisha fighting?
The moment the mace struck the same spot again, Aisha tried to rush forward, but her balance felt off.
“Huh? Wait… what?”
“Ah, is it finally taking effect?”
“…What?”
“You’re having trouble keeping your balance, right? Your armor is certainly impressive. I hit you so many times with a mace imbued with Wavering, and you’re only just now getting a little dizzy.”
“…W-Wavering?”
“Yeah. It’s a spell that slightly shakes whatever you hit with the imbued object. Most people don’t know it because it’s rarely used, but when it stacks multiple times, the shaking becomes quite significant.”
There was a reason for the strange dizziness she had been feeling.
“Even if you block the physical impact, I figured I couldn’t stop the armor itself from vibrating and rattling your brain. To be honest, if I didn’t have that information, I would have lost.”
Who on earth could have told her about a weakness Aisha herself didn’t even know?
“You didn’t use any defensive buffs just to maintain this one debuff? Are you out of your mind?”
“…What are you talking about? I can use defensive buffs.”
“…What?”
“I can use offensive buffs and magic, too. I just chose the most efficient path to be certain.”
“Certain…?”
“It costs less mana to heal injuries with divine spells than it does to maintain a defensive buff. The effect showed up a bit earlier than I expected, but I couldn’t risk running out of mana if you held out longer. I had to use it as efficiently as possible.”
Is it normal for a person to endure that much pain just to calculate efficiency?
“I don’t usually go this far, but you crossed the line. How could I ever forgive a bitch who looks at Lilac with those eyes?”
Aisha hurriedly deactivated her armor and manifested a new set.
“Ha… haha. Then this is the end of that. Your mistake was revealing your trick because you thought you’d won. Now, shall we start from the beginning?”
“I told you because it doesn’t matter. Even if you know, nothing really changes.”
“…Excuse me?”
“How many more times can you manifest that armor?”
She even knew that?
The armor was incredibly durable, but it consumed a significant amount of mana to create.
Without focusing on recovery, the maximum number of times she could manifest full-body armor in succession during combat was four. She had used the first one and now this one, meaning she had exactly two left.
“You have about two left, right? I can keep going as long as I need to.”
“You’re insane.”
“That’s a bit harsh. But maybe you’re right. If being crazy for love counts as being insane, then I’ll admit it.”
Yu-na raised her mace.
Aisha realized she had no chance of winning like this. To defeat this woman who rose like a zombie no matter how many times she was struck, she needed even greater power.
* * *
“…She’s widening the distance?”
Aisha began to draw forth an energy different from before.
A buff?
Could it be dangerous…?
Lee Yu-na was staring blankly when she felt a nauseating energy and knitted her brows.
The armor, which had been transparent and hard to see, began to turn a deep purple, emitting an ominous aura.
While others didn’t seem to realize what it was, Lee Yu-na knew exactly what she was looking at.
It was very similar to the power the succubi and Kang So-hyun had wielded.
‘Is this demonic energy…? No, it’s not pure demonic energy. Is it diluted?’
It was likely an reinforcement-type power, but it was difficult to estimate how much stronger she had become just by looking.
Just in case, the moment Yu-na wrapped a defensive buff around her body—
The armor that had been far away suddenly appeared right in front of her, piercing through her defensive buff. A heavy, dull pain surged through her abdomen.
“Cough… ah?”
The sensation of breath being forced out of her lungs, a searing pain that made her head throb.
She healed herself immediately with magic, but the power behind that strike was dangerously high.
“…This is getting a bit risky.”
She let out a weak remark in spite of herself.
* * *
After thrashing the lackeys of that delinquent circle, I had been called away briefly for the investigation, only to return to total chaos.
“Hey! Lee Yu-na, just give up already!”
Ha-ni was screaming at the top of her lungs, and Ga-eul was crying.
What? What’s going on?
Lilac probably couldn’t come because his match wasn’t over yet.
The moment I looked at the arena, I understood the situation immediately.
The match was beyond one-sided; it was brutal. It wasn’t quite… unbearable to watch, but for someone like Ha-ni who cherished her friends, it was understandably distressing.
The floor was slick with blood. All of it likely belonged to Lee Yu-na.
Well, it was natural for a friend to be angry, but Aisha probably wasn’t doing this out of malice.
She was simply attacking with everything she had because Yu-na wouldn’t stay down, even when Aisha went all out.
On the surface, Aisha looked like she had the overwhelming advantage, but I knew better.
If Aisha couldn’t break her here, the one to seize victory would be Yu-na.
“What is this? Just stay down! You’re going to die at this rate…!”
Well, there were safety devices in place, so she wouldn’t actually die, but it certainly wasn’t a pretty sight.
Actually, those two had clashed before my regression as well.
Back then, Aisha, who was my subordinate, could manifest a black armor far stronger than what she had now, and Lee Yu-na was much more famous under the title of the ‘Undying Hero.’
Yu-na had been charging at me to kill me, and since I had other things to handle at the time, I told Aisha to block her instead.
I remember what a battered Aisha said when she returned after that fight.
— That crazy bitch! She’s a total lunatic! Boss, how do you deal with that every time?! Is she even human?! I am never fighting her again! I’d rather die than fight that woman one more time! Make someone else do it!
At the time, I just thought, ‘You have the best compatibility against her, so what do you want me to do?’
Ah, right. I remember threatening her to either do it or die, so she ended up fighting Yu-na two or three more times after that, crying the whole way through.
A blood-stained Lee Yu-na chanted her recovery spell once more, mending her body, and raised her mace.
The two clashed. Yu-na’s mace struck her opponent’s head, but in exchange, Yu-na took eight punches.
Ah, she’s coughing up blood. Her internal organs must be damaged.
…But I know better than anyone. Lee Yu-na doesn’t stop just because her organs are shredded.
Intending to end the fight, Aisha swung her fists wildly.
A significant amount of blood pooled on the arena floor.
It’s over.
If Aisha had been smarter, more composed, and more cautious, she might have won.
…Because the current Lee Yu-na isn’t yet the monster known as the Undying Hero.
Anyway, the conclusion is set.
You lost, Aisha.
The arena began to vibrate.
Before my regression, there were exactly seven heroes who had come close to killing me after I had reached a certain level of power.
One of them was the Undying Hero, Lee Yu-na. This was her original ultimate technique—the one that had nearly driven me to my death.
Though it couldn’t possibly have the same power it did back then, seeing it again after so long made my body tremble slightly.
Using the blood scattered across the arena as a medium, Lee Yu-na’s overflowing mana began to crumple Aisha’s armor.
Of course, Aisha was resisting in her own way, but it would be futile.
Once caught in that, even I couldn’t easily escape.
Blood is closely linked to life, making it an exceptionally effective medium for magic.
On top of that, Lee Yu-na’s blood contained a small amount of Holy-Demonic Energy, making its efficiency incomparable to ordinary blood.
Mana, Divine Power, and Demonic Energy—three types of energy repelling each other, resulting in an exponential multiplication of power.
As long as she didn’t know why her own blood produced such an effect, she wouldn’t be able to control it precisely, but for now, simply detonating the condensed power would be more than enough to take down the enemy before her.
“Get lost.”
A magic circle rose, and using the massive amount of mana filling the arena, the circuit was completed in an instant.
What emerged was a symbol of immortality and purification.
A beautiful bird made of flames that would never be extinguished.
Though cruder than the one I had seen in the past, the phoenix made of beautiful pink flames threw itself forward to incinerate its enemy.
Flames the color of her hair blanketed the arena.
She failed at delicate control, but the heat alone was the real deal.
And then.
…She endured that?
Breaking my expectation that she wouldn’t be able to withstand it even with the help of her contract, Aisha was still standing in the arena.
Perhaps the power was dampened by the arena’s built-in safety systems, or perhaps the reinforcement from her contract with the devil was superior to my estimates.
However, ‘enduring’ didn’t mean she was unharmed. Her prized armor had melted away, and her skin was badly scorched.
Lee Yu-na, whose mana was depleted by that last strike and could no longer heal, and Aisha, who had somehow blocked it but was too heavily wounded to manifest her armor again.
From this point on, it wouldn’t be strange for either side to win.
…If this were a fight between normal humans, that is.
“…Ugh!?”
The first taste of intense pain, combined with the stress of potentially losing. It was the perfect environment for the contract to advance all at once.
“…Sigh, what is it with this lingering attachment?”
I couldn’t just leave Lee Yu-na in danger.
Just as I was about to reach out a helping hand…
“I don’t… need it…!”
The spoiled young lady suppressed the contract and regained her senses.
…Huh? Was she always that kind of person?
Of course, she collapsed immediately after, having exhausted all her physical strength from the backlash.
And only after making absolutely sure that Aisha had fallen and her victory was confirmed did Lee Yu-na also lose consciousness and collapse.
…They really fight like absolute monsters.