Chapter 702
Chapter 702
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 702
Chapter Title: Fimbulvetr
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Swoooosh—
A steady rain fell.
“Of all things, it had to rain.”
Karl clicked his tongue as he looked up at the sky.
Though the rain was sudden, the second and third years donned their rain gear as if they were used to it.
“Why is it raining!”
“Ugh! My socks are soaked!”
But among the first years, complaints erupted.
Students who entered Lumerne are born with outstanding talent in their respective fields from a young age.
As such, most of them are coddled and pampered in their own countries and families.
Even for students who combine outstanding skill with real combat experience like monster subjugation, it was rare to have experienced such ever-changing field conditions before enrollment.
That's why the freshmen complaining in situations like this was an annual event.
Especially on a mountain, the ground was turning to mud.
“Everyone, calm down.”
Luke stepped forward and calmed his juniors.
“But, Senior Luke! Our uniforms are getting all dirty!”
The first-year female students from the Knight Department whined to Luke.
Juen stood next to Luke and crossed her arms.
“You’ll experience this kind of thing all the time at Lumerne. Stop whining!”
The first years flinched at Juen’s words.
Watching them, Iliana let out a chuckle.
“The second years who were on the verge of tears during their first field exercise last year are now acting like seniors, huh?”
“You’re one to talk, getting disciplined by Professor Halind on the first day of practical training when it rained.”
“Hey! Karl! That was—!”
“What happened?”
As Chloe tilted her head, Karl snickered.
“There was a sudden downpour during our first-year combat studies practical. The moment she saw it, Iliana ran right up to Professor Halind and suggested they change it to an indoor class.”
At his words, Chloe stared at Iliana with a look of disbelief.
“And when Professor Halind asked why, her answer was a real classic!”
“Stop it! Don’t!”
Her face bright red, Iliana tried to cover Karl’s mouth.
Chloe, who had been listening with great interest, glanced over at Leo.
Leo then answered as if it were nothing.
“She said she’d just bought new shoes and couldn’t let them get dirty.”
“Class rep!”
Iliana glared resentfully at Leo, and Chloe burst out laughing, “Ahaha!”
“If that’s not just like Iliana, I don’t know what is.”
While a pouting Iliana repeatedly poked Leo with her finger, Karl approached the first years.
“Well, shall I bestow a favor as your senior? Hey, first years. Line up. I'm going to hand out some rain gear.”
At his words, the first years quickly lined up in front of Karl.
“See the rain gear those guys are wearing? It's the same as that.”
Karl pointed at Leo and Chloe.
In fact, besides Leo and Chloe, nearly half of the second and third years were wearing the same rain gear.
The gear was embroidered with a logo of a sword plunged into an alchemy cauldron engraved with a summoning circle.
It was something Karl had made.
“I'll lend them to you. You have to return them later, got it?”
“Thank you!”
The first years received the rain gear one by one.
“Wow! This is so comfortable!”
“I don't even feel the rain!”
“As expected of the Preparer for the Beginning! Your preparedness is impeccable!”
The first years exclaimed in admiration, moving around to test it out.
“What’s the occasion? You're lending them out for free?”
“Hmph. It's a kind of promotional event.”
Karl replied to Leo’s words as if it were nothing special.
“A promotional event?”
“This stuff is pretty expensive. If I just tell the kids to buy it, will they? They have to experience the performance like this to go, ‘Ah~’ and then buy it.”
“You've thought of everything.”
“Hmph. You think I've worked my butt off for two years for nothing? I even bought a building in Lumeria City with the money I earned over those two years.”
“A student's duty is to study, isn't it?”
Chloe crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes, to which Karl wagged a finger and said, “Business is a study of life, too.”
“You’ve always got an answer for everything.”
Seeing Chloe shake her head, Karl gave a thumbs-up.
After confirming that the first years had also put on their rain gear, Leo gathered the participating students.
“We'll split into three teams for the orc colony subjugation. First, Team One.”
Leo glanced at Karl.
“The leader is Karl. The members will be first and second years.”
“First and second years, gather in front of me.”
The first and second years quickly formed ranks in front of Karl.
“Team Two's leader is Hilui.”
A female student from the third-year Summoning Department nodded.
Leo then called out the names of the third years included in Team Two.
“Team Three will be me and Chloe.”
“Class rep, what about me?”
“Iliana, you stay here and manage the first years.”
“Okay. Got it.”
Once the team announcements were over, the first years began to murmur.
“Are Senior Leo and Senior Chloe really going alone?”
“Even if they're just orcs, if they've formed a colony, their numbers must be insane.”
“Will they be okay?”
One of the first years cautiously approached Iliana.
“Um… Senior Iliana. It seems like we’re short on people for the subjugation. How about suggesting to the Student Council President that he conscript some of us first years?”
“Short on people? No way.”
Iliana shook her head.
“If anything, we have more than enough.”
“What? But Team Three is just the Student Council President and Senior Chloe, right?”
Looking at the bewildered first year, Iliana smiled gently.
“As your senior, let me give you a piece of advice. If you plan on continuing at Lumerne, it's best to quickly forget the common sense you're used to.”
“Huh?”
“Because people who constantly challenge their limits easily transcend the common sense of ordinary folk. Especially…”
Iliana glanced over at Chloe.
“Chloe is special, even among them. She's on a level where you could call her a monster and it wouldn't be an exaggeration. In fact, Chloe could probably wipe out an orc colony all by herself.”
The first years held their breath at Iliana's words.
They wondered if she was joking, but there wasn't the slightest hint of it on her face.
“Is that… even possible?”
“Of course. The heroes you aim to be are people who create miracles. As such, hero candidates must also create miracles.”
“Then… what about Senior Leo?”
This was Leo, the youngest student council president, who was already considered Lumerne's strongest in his second year.
If even Chloe, a hero candidate, possessed such overwhelming power, then just how strong was Leo, who had already reached the ranks of a hero?
“Hmm… the class rep.”
Iliana clicked her tongue.
“He's basically the Great Demon King.”
***
Swoooooosh—!
They walked through the rainy mountain.
The area Leo and Chloe were in charge of was near the very peak.
“This orc colony must be the work of Tartaros, right?”
“Most likely.”
Mount Ruderua was a fairly large mountain.
Its terrain was rough, and it was a forested area with no resources like magic stones or minerals.
It was a mountain of little value, so much so that not even mystical beasts or spirits had settled there.
Naturally, it became a land neglected by humans.
And as is often the case with mountains untouched by human feet, monsters appeared.
However, Mount Ruderua was located not far from Lumerne.
It was a place where Lumerne consistently assigned subjugation requests to its students.
The hero academy's history spanned three thousand years.
Normally, that would have been more than enough time for the monster ecosystem to have been wiped out long ago.
But on Mount Ruderua, monsters had continuously appeared for the past three thousand years.
They appeared even after Lumerne conducted large-scale subjugations to exterminate them.
*A Cursed Land.*
Leo muttered inwardly as he looked up at Mount Ruderua.
Areas like Mount Ruderua, where monsters endlessly spawned, existed all over the world.
The creation of these Cursed Lands dated back to the Age of Calamity.
A Cursed Land was a place where Erebos had been summoned during that age.
Erebos was the natural enemy of the gods.
The gods vanished from the mortal plane, driven away by the unquenchable flame of ruin.
But the gods hadn't just let Erebos run rampant as he pleased.
When Erebos appeared five thousand years ago, the gods, at the easternmost edge of the world—the final destination of the Great Heroes and the site of Leo's own final battle—had placed a binding punishment on Erebos, trapping him there.
The reason Erebos used Tartaros to destroy the world was also groundwork to expand his own range of movement.
If the legions of Tartaros burned the lands they conquered and performed the summoning ritual for Erebos, he would be able to move freely within that territory.
The lands where Erebos was summoned back then retained a thick residue of his energy, and these places came to be known as Cursed Lands.
*As of now, there's no way to lift the curse.*
It was fundamentally the same as the Forest of Magical Beasts, Luna's homeland, which had been cursed by Silatuna for five thousand years.
That place had been freed from its curse after Silatuna was defeated.
The Cursed Lands, too, would likely have their curses lifted if Erebos were to be completely defeated.
Normally, the Cursed Lands weren't a major problem.
They were just treated as troublesome areas.
Since monsters appeared ceaselessly, no one lived near the Cursed Lands.
Furthermore, the nations that possessed Cursed Lands conducted periodic subjugations to destroy the monster ecosystems.
But sometimes, large-scale monster outbreaks like this would still occur suddenly.
That was when Tartaros intervened.
“But isn't this a little strange?”
Leo nodded at Chloe's words.
“It is strange.”
It was no exaggeration to say that the world currently stood at a turning point in history.
The return of the Great Heroes.
The appearance of a god.
The subjugation of Erebos's fragments.
As if the hands of a clock, stopped since the dawn of the new era, had begun to turn again.
A series of astounding miracles was taking place.
Accordingly, the movements of Tartaros had become even more covert.
In such a situation, the unusual event of a massive orc colony forming in a Cursed Land had occurred.
There was no way Tartaros didn't know that this act would raise their enemy's guard.
“That's why we came to investigate.”
Leo stopped walking.
Chloe also stopped behind him.
In the distance, a massive orc colony was visible.
Even at a glance, there appeared to be well over several hundred orcs.
Leo activated his Supersense to survey the colony's state.
“An Orc Shaman King.”
“There's a Shaman King?”
Chloe looked surprised.
Common orcs were classified as low-tier monsters.
However, orcs were monsters that boasted overwhelming numbers.
As such, powerful mutations frequently appeared among them.
Among them were shamans who used black magic.
And among those orc shamans, one with particularly powerful dark magic was granted the title of Shaman King.
An Orc Shaman King could wield power greater than most high-ranking demons.
Hearing that a Shaman King—a creature so rare it might appear only once a century—was present, Chloe couldn't help but be surprised.
“Prepare your magic.”
Leo said, drawing his sword, and Chloe nodded.
Chloe summoned her staff.
*Tap—*
Tapping the ground with her staff, Chloe closed her eyes.
*Gwoooooooooo—!*
A chill began to whip through the air.
*Swoosh— T-t-t-t-t-t-t-tick—*
The rain falling around Chloe began to freeze, turning into pellets of ice that fell to the ground.
And Chloe began to expand her domain.
As the immense magical power swirled, the orcs also sensed that something was amiss.
But Chloe completed her spell faster than they could act.
“Fimbulvetr.”
*Crack-crack-crack-crack—*
An irresistible chill swept over the entire area.