The Academy's Assault (3)
It had only been a week and a few days since our academy life began. And already we were under attack? Goddamn it, they wouldn’t even give us time to breathe. The empire had promised to take preventive measures, but just as expected, they failed to stop the raid.
The air tore open, and people came pouring out. Vines ripped through the club room, savagely tearing apart everything inside—components, bookshelves, the works.
“Ah… ah… ah…”
Eileen had witnessed the horrific scene and apparently lost her mind. Words failed her completely. Her eyes rolled back as she staggered, on the verge of fainting, but Kafka burst from the shadows and caught her at the last possible second.
It was inevitable. The club room had been completely overrun by the dungeon and turned into a disaster zone. All the materials the Ancient Literature Club had painstakingly gathered were on the brink of total destruction. Several pieces already looked beyond saving, swallowed whole by the writhing vines.
The people spilling from the dungeon were terrorists through and through—each one carried some kind of bomb. True to their long and infamous history, several mages were mixed in among them. A few aura users as well.
What they all had in common were eyes bloodshot to the point of madness, as if they’d downed an entire bowl of drugs and were proudly advertising their insanity. On their robes and arms were tattoos of a dragon coiled around a sun.
The venerable chaos-bringers who had been raising hell without pause for three hundred years. The Katai Liberation Army.
They were the perfect mob characters for this academy raid event.
“Well now, this is quite the stroke of luck. To think I’d run into the First Princess of Astoria here of all places.”
A mage in a robe cackled in a phlegm-filled voice. His underlings joined in with the same creepy laughter, staring at Eileen with naked lust in their eyes.
She really did have the worst luck. I clicked my tongue, staring at the mage who appeared to be their leader.
Us? Well, if you were talking about Senior Eileen who had just passed out cold beside me, then yes, her luck was terrible. But I was referring to the so-called liberation army friends standing right in front of us.
They truly had the worst luck imaginable.
Out of all the possible locations in the academy, why the hell did they choose this one…?
Staring at the skull before me, I offered my silent condolences to these extras who had just sealed their own fate.
The grand plan of these self-proclaimed troublemakers who sought to terrorize the academy failed from the very first step.
They had level forty-something swordsmen and mages among them, but what could they possibly do? A monster equal to the academy headmaster herself was standing right here.
As if to prove that point, the terrorists were now collapsed on the ground, vomiting blood.
How did it come to this? Before launching their attack, the troublemakers had tried to introduce themselves and explain why they had come—essentially starting an interview briefing.
“Rejected.”
Before they could even open their mouths, Professor Luke stepped forward indifferently and stomped the ground. Immediately afterward, every single member of the liberation army collapsed, coughing up blood.
That was it. The end.
“Their insides are flipped upside down, so they won’t be able to stand, use magic, or even manifest aura for quite some time.”
Having performed such an absurd feat, Luke simply dusted off his palms as if it were nothing. Then he suddenly pried his jawbone wide open, reached inside, and pulled out something long.
It was a rope. Since he was hollow inside, it seemed he used the space to store objects. Just by sight it looked like quite a long rope; it was honestly impressive that he had swallowed it in the first place.
Professor Luke used the rope he had pulled from within his body to bind the terrorists’ hands, stripped the explosives from their persons, then opened his jawbone once more and performed the bizarre act of stuffing every single explosive into himself.
One by one, the bombs disappeared into his body through that gaping jaw. There had been many terrorists, so there were naturally many explosives.
Yet Luke swallowed them all without so much as a change in expression.
Everyone except Eileen—who was still half-unconscious—stood with their mouths agape at the grotesque display. Even Angelica, who normally kept a perfect poker face, showed a faint but unmistakable look of shock.
Wait, is his body literally an inventory?
“Well then, the situation is resolved for now.”
Professor Luke spoke calmly.
No. It was absolutely not resolved. The most important figure had yet to appear. Scaramuccia was supposed to emerge together with the terrorists as the boss of this event.
And the Oath of Chivalry still hadn’t been completed.
Yet only the terrorists had come out of that dungeon. Could it be that there wasn’t just one dungeon, but several?
But all the mid-bosses that had appeared in the game had just emerged from this very dungeon. What exactly was I missing here?
“First, I’ll go confirm whether dungeons have spawned anywhere else. The attack may not be over yet, so all of you should quickly head to the dormitories—”
KWAAAAAAAANG———!!!!
At that exact moment, a massive explosion thundered from another building.
“It’s an attack——!!!”
Soon after, an extra’s scream rang out—the unmistakable herald of the academy raid event.
Most of the faculty had already left for the day, and the majority of students had retreated into their respective club rooms. As a result, the hallway that had been bustling only moments ago was now eerily quiet.
In that deserted corridor, an elf walked along with a deep frown etched on his face. Professor Silves was in an exceptionally foul mood, having once again been saddled with duty shift.
He continued walking while thoroughly cursing Professor Luke under his breath for dumping the responsibility on him yet again. Before long, he reached the lobby.
There was no one present, but Silves relaxed his heavily furrowed brow, turned around with a grave expression, and stared into empty space.
“My apologies, but it’s time for me to leave. Could we perhaps postpone this personal meeting?”
Naturally, there was no reply. Of course there wasn’t—the place he had addressed was nothing but empty air.
However—
“You seem to possess quite a sophisticated stealth technique.”
Silves spoke mockingly into the void once more. He began raising his spirit power, clearly preparing for battle.
“Your cover is already blown, so you might as well come out now.”
“As expected of an academy professor. You’re on another level.”
The empty space distorted, and from within that warped void, a man stepped forward. He wore a mask one might see at a masquerade, had short black hair, and striking blood-red eyes. In his hand he held a long lance coated in gold.
It was the kind of lengthy lance used in jousting matches. A golden spear that glittered brilliantly—more decorative ornament than actual weapon.
“To think my stealth, which even ‘Moji’ failed to detect, would be seen through so easily.”
“Human eyes can be avoided, but the eyes of spirits cannot.”
Silves clicked his tongue, having realized the man’s identity.
“The Twilight Sect, I see.”
“Correct.”
The man’s sly reply only made Silves frown harder. He pulled out the stomach medicine the headmaster had given him, dumped the entire contents into his mouth, and chewed furiously.
“By the World Tree, damn it all. Why do these incidents always happen on the days I’m stuck on duty?”
Lamenting his misfortune, Silves raised his spirit power even higher. In response, high-ranking spirits began to manifest.
The wingless fire dragon—Salamander—breathed flames from behind him. The mermaid-like water spirit Undine gathered water into a spear. The wind spirit Sylph, taking the form of a massive bird, spread its wings and rattled the windows.
Finally, behind the man, a gnome in the shape of a giant stone knight appeared, planted a sword of earth into the floor, and cut off the intruder’s escape route.
These were Silves’ trump cards—four high-ranking spirits. The already narrow lobby felt positively claustrophobic with their presence.
Against a single opponent, summoning four high-ranking spirits might have seemed excessive. But Silves, facing this particular enemy, did not think so.
What the spirits’ eyes showed him was the man’s body bound by restraints. He was currently sealed by Dragon Words.
There was only one person in the academy capable of using Dragon Words: the headmaster herself, the Red Dragon Ash Bell Draig.
Which meant the man before him had faced the headmaster and survived.
The headmaster was not dead. Had she perished, the academy’s barrier would have collapsed. Yet the barrier remained intact.
Even so, she had used Dragon Words on this man but failed to kill him? The Red Dragon?
It was a contradiction. If she couldn’t kill him, there was no way he could have killed her. And if he were truly strong enough to slay the headmaster, he would have had no need for stealth. He could have simply rampaged through the academy—who could have stopped him?
Yet regardless of the truth, one fact remained unchanged: the being before him was a monster who had survived an encounter with the headmaster.
That was why Silves decided to use his full power from the very start.
At his command, the gnome swung its greatsword, Undine hurled a massive spear, Sylph unleashed winds to throw the opponent off balance, and Salamander opened its maw wide to spew flames.
KWAAAAAAAANG——!!
The lobby shook violently. Glass windows shattered.
But—
———U—Woong.
The vibrating golden spear took the four spirits’ combined assault head-on. Then, wreathed in sword energy, it swung with ferocious power.
Slice.
With a horrifying cutting sound, the gnome’s left arm was severed cleanly.
Silves’ face twisted in disbelief. These were high-ranking spirits who, thanks to their contract with him, could exert one hundred percent of their power in the human realm.
Yet one of them had suffered a fatal wound without even managing a counterattack. And not from a slashing sword, but from a thrusting lance. The fact that the spirit’s body had been cut so cleanly was unthinkable.
As far as Silves knew, only a Sword Master could perform such a feat. And among the Twilight Sect, there was only one Sword Master who wielded a golden spear.
“Scaramuccia.”
The Twilight Sect executive holding the vibrating golden spear.
But… had he truly been strong enough to survive the headmaster?
And then—
“Rabicano.”
At his single word, a white horse with a flaming red mane appeared. It was a spirit possessing powers of wind and fire, similar to the irregular Rocinante contracted to Donnesia. A being that could easily qualify as high-ranking had formed a contract with Scaramuccia.
It was impossible for someone without spirit power to form a contract with a spirit. Judging by the bit forced into its mouth, it seemed the creature was being controlled.
Damn it. A Sword Master who commands spirits? There has to be a limit to how broken one person can be.
Even so, Silves still had hope. The man wasn’t using an aura blade… no, he couldn’t use one. He could have completely reverse-summoned the gnome with an aura blade, yet he had deliberately used mere sword energy instead.
It appeared the Dragon Words the headmaster had placed on him were suppressing his ability to manifest an aura blade.
The probing phase was over. Silves sent out his mid- and low-ranking spirits to spread throughout the academy so the students could evacuate, then ordered his remaining high-ranking spirits to charge Scaramuccia.
Water droplets formed around Undine before turning into cutting torrents. Fragments gathered on the gnome’s severed arm, restoring it, after which it gripped its sword with both hands and brought it down.
Sylph forged the wind into razor-sharp blades that threatened to grind the entire area—including the man—to dust. Salamander covered itself in flames and lunged forward.
The result was devastating.
The gnome fell silent, pierced through both its stone sword and body, collapsing to one knee and unable to rise again.
Salamander vomited flames like blood, its fiery body peeled away like fruit rind by a single thrust of the man’s magic spear, coughing up fire-like blood from its mouth.
Undine’s head was severed and she was reverse-summoned. The water stream capable of slicing through the academy walls had touched his body but failed to cut him, instead being split apart before her own neck fell.
Sylph’s wings were broken and it plummeted from the sky. The storm it created couldn’t even slow the man’s advance; its wings snapped under a single swing of the spear, sending it crashing down.
In that brief instant, four high-ranking spirits capable of holding their own against a Sword Master had been completely defeated without landing a single meaningful blow.
This is impossible. The spirits didn’t inflict any damage at all?
Their attacks had clearly reached him, yet not one had harmed him. These were high-ranking spirits that could wound even Sword Masters.
Riding the spirit called Rabicano, Scaramuccia slowly approached the stunned Silves. He had endured the coordinated assault of four spirits and crushed them all. It seemed he believed Silves had no cards left to play.
But Silves still had one final card.
The reason he had kept sending the spirits to charge Scaramuccia was to buy time to call forth the one who could resolve this crisis.
“Damn it, if you’re going to dump your duty on me, at least show up on time…”
“……?”
At those words, glass shattered with a tremendous crash, and a single skeleton burst into the room.