The Saintess of Calamity and the Puppeteer (3)
After the Seria rescue class began, the students put in considerable effort, but pulling Seria free proved surprisingly difficult. They simply grabbed her legs and yanked like they were uprooting radishes, leaving her calves red and raw. It was her fate, so what could she do about it?
“But is this thing actually going to come out?”
“I’m not even infusing it with mana. It’s not that strong. Put in a little effort and you should be able to pull it free.”
It wasn’t like I’d embedded any spell formulas. I wasn’t continuously pouring mana into it either.
“W-wait, are we going to rip her leg off at this rate?”
A few of the boys looked worried, but it was honestly trivial. No matter how much Seria currently couldn’t use magic, she wasn’t fragile enough for students to actually tear her leg off. If I applied real force, maybe.
“There’s no need to worry.”
“It looks so thin though. Is it really okay?”
The students touched Seria’s leg and frowned. Really, there was nothing to worry about. Sure, it looked slender, but it was incredibly sturdy. Ten grown men could charge her and she wouldn’t budge an inch.
“I’ll adjust it myself so it doesn’t actually rip off. It’s fine. And if it somehow does get pulled off, I can just reattach it.”
There was zero chance of it actually happening, but if it did, I’d handle it.
“You can do that?”
“A saintess can do anything.”
If it wouldn’t stick, I could just regenerate it. As long as the head remained attached, the lower body could be slowly regrown.
“No, logically speaking, how are we even supposed to pull this out?”
A somewhat familiar voice. I turned.
“Hmm. Croissant? I didn’t realize you were still in the magic department.”
I hadn’t expected Croissant to still be hanging around the magic students.
“At the very least, remembering someone’s face is part of noble etiquette, isn’t it? Even though I wronged you, I was shown mercy. My brother was the one who got kicked out. I’m different.”
Ah, right. She’d styled her hair more neatly, so I hadn’t recognized her at first. Still, traces of her old look remained—both sides of her hair were dry and stiff like overbaked pastry.
“So? What’s the problem?”
“Tying her up this tightly from the start. The difficulty is way too high for the students.”
Croissant muttered exactly what I was thinking.
Yes. I had to admit it. The difficulty was indeed too high. Of all places, the students had wandered into Jerato’s dungeon, so of course it was going to be rough. In that case, they at least needed to be able to move.
“Try thinking about it differently. Haven’t you considered that you need to pass this trial to reach the fourth floor? If you manage your mana even a little skillfully, pulling this off should be easy. All right then, Croissant? Tell me what the problem is.”
I had no intention of scolding her, but Croissant still hadn’t grasped the reality of the situation.
“I understand the demonic energy part. I get that we need to overcome this much.”
“Then?”
“I know my skills are far below yours. But still… at this point, wouldn’t it be better to just call a professor?”
Yes. That was actually an excellent suggestion. Unfortunately, it had several contradictions. Still, I gave Croissant a round of applause for at least racking her brain. Clap, clap, clap. Her face twisted like a crushed pastry.
“Oh, that’s actually pretty decent. The smartest thing you’ve said so far. However, that statement contains contradictions.”
“What do you mean?”
“First, every student here desperately wants to clear this dungeon.”
“Well, the great saintess could just persuade them.”
Yes. By beating them into submission with force. It was the worst-case scenario I’d imagined after giving up on bringing the students along, but it was still a foolish plan. Why?
“Second, and this is the biggest reason.”
“Which is…?”
“For starters, the exit to this dungeon is currently blocked.”
I pointed my finger toward the passage far behind Croissant.
“What? That can’t be. Huh?”
As expected of Jerato. The exit in the distance that had been letting in light was now completely sealed. Only darkness remained. It was definitely Jerato’s doing. He meant to trap us here. I hadn’t planned on leaving anyway, but since he’d thrown down the gauntlet, I’d play along. From the outside it would look like nothing but students were inside, so his plan made sense. He intended to capture Attelina’s students, devour them inside the dungeon, and expand his forces. With black magic, he could turn their corpses into undead monsters. It was a way to pressure Attelina while building his power. I could break through by force, but Seria’s head had gone in too easily and the ground looked unstable. Smashing the blocked door might cause the entire surrounding area to collapse. Therefore, training the students while clearing the dungeon was the better option.
“Then… we’re trapped?”
Now that she finally understood the situation, Croissant’s face twisted beautifully.
“Yes. The only escape route is clearing this dungeon. In other words, we have to beat the dungeon master to a pulp.”
I’d have to pound Jerato again and again. This time I’d take his head completely so he’d never show up in front of me again.
“Is that even possible?”
“So stop asking questions and use that time to pull Seria out instead. Do you not understand our current situation?”
“I’m sorry.”
Croissant lowered her head with a gloomy expression. I’d scolded her, but a girl like Croissant still had a decent future ahead. She had a strange habit of constantly appealing her presence, and her skills weren’t bad. Her mana control should come easily to her.
“As punishment, Croissant will go first.”
I decided to let her try first. At that moment Seria wiggled her legs as if pleading to be pulled free. Since she wouldn’t die anyway, she could at least cooperate with the students’ training.
“Uh, she’s struggling.”
“Croissant’s brain isn’t completely made of bread, so I’ll explain it slowly. You can just grab the leg and yank it out like an idiot. But we’re the magic department. We’re going to extract her a bit more elegantly using mana.”
Even without mana, if you controlled your strength carefully you could pull her out like a radish. However, since we were the magic department, let’s do it with some refinement.
“Yes.”
“Wrap your mana around the restraint attached to the wall section and try to release it.”
Instead of pulling mindlessly, slowly tighten and melt the mana restraint until it loosened up.
“Hmm. Like this?”
As expected from someone from a mage family, Croissant learned quickly. She began carefully and slowly extracting Seria’s body.
“Ooh! It’s coming out gradually!”
“That’s amazing!”
The students were marveling among themselves. It was a bit early to be this impressed. When I checked the mana mass attached to Seria and the wall, it had melted quite well. I’d deliberately only left the mana mass there, but it really was Croissant.
Finally, Croissant completely pulled Seria free.
“Whew. Lady Seria. Are you all right?”
Croissant brushed the dirt off Seria’s body.
“Ah, other than swallowing some dirt I’m fine, so no need to worry. Miss Croissant’s touch was so gentle it actually felt nice.”
“Thank you.”
The only disappointing part was that simply flowing mana into that mass and melting it for a while would have been enough to free her easily. That would have also helped the students practice fine mana control naturally. She’d just melted it and yanked immediately. It was fine for Croissant’s level, but there were still many students left. Was there any need to set the bar so high? Maybe I should just have them learn the basics and endure the demonic energy. Come to think of it, every time they got addicted to demonic energy, healing them right before they died would solve it quickly. The best way to build poison resistance was to consume the poison itself. The real problem was that the dungeon was on the verge of going berserk.
“Hmm. Anyway, this should be sufficient.”
“Then are we leaving now?”
Leaving? We still had a long way to go.
“I’m getting tired too. Can’t we just go? Saintess? Look at me. Thanks to you, my hair is a complete mess. The inside of the wall was moist and it felt awful.”
Seria’s face was in terrible shape. Her hair especially was completely wild. The sight was so ridiculous I almost laughed. Just this much? We were nowhere near done. This was unacceptable.
Since we still had to fill twenty-four hours, some proper training was in order.
“What are you talking about? We’re still far from finished.”
How could a mage like Seria be so oblivious? Was it because she was a genius? Well, being a candidate for Magic Tower Master at that age said everything.
“Huh?”
“All the students need to do it. We’ve only done one person so far. Or are you planning to take only Croissant and leave the rest behind?”
“Ah, that’s not it.”
Exactly. So every student needed to improve their mana control.
“Right. So I’ll reset the mana restraint. We’ll do it one by one. There’s still no sign of it loosening anyway.”
Doing it as a group wouldn’t improve their mana operation skills. Taking everyone like this would lead to a total annihilation ending. But I couldn’t force them out with brute strength after coming this far. Originally Adran should have been handling this, but there was no way Jerato would open the exit again.
“W-wait, then next is the saintess—”
“You said you wanted to be friends with me, right? Consider this the friend fee.”
Bang!
I slammed Seria back into the wall. Where did she get off acting spoiled when we weren’t even close to done?
Deep inside the fifth floor of the dungeon. In the center where dark, turbid demonic energy flowed, a gray-haired man sat on a stone chair, staring into a crystal orb.
Inside the orb, a group of Attelina students could be seen entering the dungeon.
The man frowned and let out a low groan.
“I didn’t expect them to arrive this quickly.”
They had moved far faster than anticipated. To think Attelina would send students here for training exercises. He had only just begun stabilizing the dungeon again.
“No, wait.”
This might actually be an opportunity. In any case, he had regained control of the dungeon that had been stolen by the empire long ago. Even if it was only recently recovered, killing these young brats wouldn’t be difficult. Now he could use this place as a base to terrorize the imperial capital, and Attelina’s students would make excellent sacrifices.
This Jerato is an indomitable man.
Although he had been beaten by Noah of the hero party every single time, he was still the greatest black mage alive. Now that Noah was dead, no one could stop him when it came to magic.
From the looks of it, those Attelina students were children of quite prestigious families. Killing them and weakening Attelina’s power was one valid method. Since the central nobles had already been largely purged, a successful operation here would put Attelina in an awkward position within the empire. There was even the empire’s saintess who had recently captured a succubus, along with a mage from the Magic Tower. Those two absolutely had to die. They might interfere with his master later. And if they were killed, it would undoubtedly cause massive upheaval. Then, while expanding other dungeons, he could slowly dismantle the empire from within.
“It’s a bit of a gamble, but if I install all the dungeons, teleportation won’t be difficult at all.”
If he captured the Attelina students, the academy would learn of it soon enough. But by then the dungeon would have already begun to run berserk. The demonic energy had already started spreading—could they stop it? Even if Attelina had skilled individuals, without the Seven Stars there was no one who could stop him. His master Clanice had ordered the start of destruction operations against the empire, so he couldn’t afford to get scared and run away. The Seven Stars weren’t near the imperial capital right now either, so there was no better time than this.
Good. Come, you greenhorns from Attelina who still have milk behind your ears. If it weren’t for Noah last time, I would have dealt you a serious blow.
Jerato did not know.
The saintess he was trying to kill was Noah.