Chapter 100
Chapter 100
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 100
Chapter Title: Omniscient Observer's Point of View
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The training grounds, where the match was in full swing.
Outside, sitting on the bench for reserve participants, Luna and Yui watched Luke's usual antics, unable to hide their shock.
I say "usual," but I mean it was usual for him to be acting strangely.
The sight of him sucking a person with a straw was a new kind of behavior they had never witnessed before.
"Wow... Even vampires don't suck like that..."
"Yui, normal people don't suck blood."
Perhaps because they had been traveling together for longer than they'd realized, their sense of common sense felt like it was shifting.
It made them momentarily wonder, *Do people normally suck blood?*
A question that should never have occurred to them.
On the training grounds, Luke held the professor from behind, using his shadow and a straw to furiously suck the man's blood.
The reason he wasn't doing it himself was likely due to his own limits.
That shadow, which they had no idea when he'd gained the ability to use, vaguely resembled Luke in shape, but it was decidedly not human.
Naturally, it was hollow inside, with no organs like a stomach or a heart, so it could suck an endless amount of blood without ever feeling full.
Besides, Luke wasn't a vampire; he had no reason to drink human blood.
Especially not from a muscular man like that.
"But at this rate, when is he planning to finish?"
"Who knows."
He might have no intention of finishing at all.
He was certainly the type of person who would do that.
Luna glanced to the side and saw the reserve professors sitting on the same bench as her.
Some she recognized, but others were new faces.
Every single one of them had an expression as if they were looking at a madman, which was, in fact, the normal reaction. It was Luna and Yui, casually chatting, who were the strange ones.
He had turned someone into a mummy in the first round. Anyone who could watch that and feel nothing had to be at least on Luke's level, or perhaps even worse.
Five minutes had passed since the second round began, yet he showed no sign of stopping his blood-sucking.
What could possibly happen from just a man sucking some blood with a straw?
Of course, the professor struggled desperately to break free from Luke, shouting about what he was doing.
But, being weaker than Luke, escape was impossible. He looked like a child caught by an adult, flailing helplessly.
Another twenty minutes passed like that.
No matter how ridiculous the act, when sustained for nearly thirty minutes, the amount becomes significant.
As proof, the professor, who had struggled so hard at first, was now limp, quietly having his blood drained.
He had probably developed symptoms of anemia from the continuous blood loss.
Moreover, it wouldn't be strange if he were already dead after losing that much.
The muscular professor was only alive because he had as much blood as his large frame suggested.
"That's even scarier because I feel like it might happen to me someday..."
Beside her, Yui shuddered uncomfortably.
A vampire having its blood sucked... It was a scene that defied common sense.
And Luke was the only person in the world who would do something so bizarre.
"As long as you do as he says, there won't be any problems."
Just as Luna said, since they started traveling together, there had been no issues as long as they obeyed him.
"Probably...?"
But honestly, she couldn't guarantee it.
She seemed to have forgotten because things had been quiet lately, but Luke could kill Luna and Yui at any moment.
Not that it mattered, since neither Luna nor Yui had the courage or reason to do anything to him first.
Compared to how he treated Yui when they first met, he was much gentler now. Back then, he would threaten to kill her the moment she even questioned him.
But the instant they crossed a line, even slightly, he would swing his sword without hesitation. He was thorough in that regard.
Their heads would be lopped off in an instant... No, a clean death would be a mercy.
He might lock Luna up and use her like livestock, claiming he'd make a fur coat from her tail before killing her, or he might try to suck Yui's blood with a straw just like now, curious to see whether she could replenish her blood faster than he could drain it.
As Luna and Yui contemplated their respective predicaments, the second round had ended.
Even the announcer was flustered and stammering, while the muscular professor being carried off on a stretcher was deathly pale.
Although he returned to normal upon leaving the training grounds, his lost consciousness didn't return, just like the first professor, so he was carried straight to the infirmary.
And then, the third round began immediately.
Seeing the next professor ascending the stairs to the training grounds, Yui spoke with a pitying expression.
"Ah... the third sacrificial lamb has arrived..."
"In a way, it gets more pitiful the later they go."
"Huh? What do you mean by that?"
"What we've seen so far has been relatively mild, hasn't it?"
Setting himself on fire and hugging someone, sucking an opponent's blood.
These were actions a normal person would never take, but they were things they had seen from Luke at least once before.
By Luke's standards, that much fell into the category of 'normal'.
As proof, the third professor's five fingers were detached from his hand right from the start.
The professor stared blankly for a moment at the sudden turn of events, then screamed as the pain belatedly registered.
As evidenced by the previous professors, injuries were restored upon leaving the training grounds, but the pain did not disappear with them.
So, what did he intend to do with the severed fingers?
"Professor, aren't you curious? Everything goes back to normal when you leave the training grounds, but what if you leave with your fingers reattached strangely? Will they still go back to normal?"
The conversations inside the training grounds weren't inaudible from the outside.
From the distant spectator seats, perhaps not, but from the bench right in front of the grounds, every word could be heard unless it was whispered.
"Let's call it the Training Grounds Glitch."
He used another word only he understood as he pulled a needle and thread from his inventory.
The bigger problem was that just seeing what he took out made it easy to guess what he was about to do.
It would have been better not to know.
"Yui. I recommend you cover your eyes."
"Huh? Why?"
"Let me just say it's going to be very gruesome."
Although Yui was older than Luna and Luke, what was about to happen was a rather brutal sight for someone as innocent as her.
As she squeezed her eyes shut and covered them with both hands, a scream perfectly timed erupted from the training grounds.
Turning her gaze toward the sound, Luna saw the professor with his five fingers crudely stitched back on, but not in their proper places—they were all mismatched.
At the brutal scene, some students couldn't stomach it and were seen vomiting in the middle of the stands.
He had always been a person who did whatever he wanted, but with the two words 'responsibility' removed, he went on a rampage.
Not even the Emperor of the Empire could stop him now.
"Ah, but the symmetry is a bit off."
With those words, Luke cut off both of the professor's arms, reattached them backward, and then mismatched all the previously fine fingers as well.
Now, when the professor extended his arms, his palms naturally faced upward. The only peculiar thing was that while his palms faced up, his fingers pointed outward, sideways, inward—in every direction.
"How about it? Isn't it magnificent?! Your arms are the culmination of the supreme intelligence and pride of the Germanic people! In other words, you have transcended all of humanity! Your arms can now rotate at angles impossible for any human!!"
...She had no idea what he was talking about.
Luna gave up trying to understand.
The professor's gory appearance was difficult for even the most mentally resilient person to look at with a clear mind. Even more so if it were their own body.
In the end, the professor, who now looked like a human modified by a mad scientist, passed out before the thirty minutes were up and was promptly carried out of the training grounds on a stretcher.
The fortunate thing was that he returned to normal upon leaving the grounds, but she predicted he would suffer from trauma for quite some time after waking up.
"Yui. You can open your eyes now."
"Eek...? Is it over already? Wasn't there still a lot of time left?"
"You were lucky. The opponent fainted and was carried away."
It had only been ten minutes since the third match started.
There were still twenty minutes left, but thanks to his fortunate fainting spell, his suffering ended early.
"W-Wow... What on earth did he do to him?"
"Sometimes, ignorance is bliss."
Yui, who hadn't seen what happened, spoke in a tone full of curiosity, but Luna had no intention of telling her, not even if she died.
If anything, she wished she could buy a pair of eyes that hadn't seen it.
Amidst all this, Luna glanced over at the Headmaster's seat to see what the organizers of the contest were doing. The opposing Headmaster was biting her nails as if something had gone terribly wrong, while in stark contrast, Lucia beside her was beaming with a wide smile.
Seeing the highest-ranking people in the academy acting like that, she thought the academy was running just fine.
Perhaps, as Luke had said, it really was best not to get involved with academies.
***
For the fourth round, a female professor came up. Luke repeatedly slapped her, making "thwack, thwack" sounds until she collapsed unconscious from a concussion.
And for the fifth and final round, a male professor who used a sword appeared. He was probably the one who held out the longest against Luke.
Because of that, the final professor's punishment was even more brutal. Luke forcibly shoved coins down his throat, and when his mouth was so full that nothing could come back up, he started furiously punching the professor's solar plexus, shouting, "Let's hit the slot machine jackpot~!"
The professor involuntarily spat out coins from his mouth, and the fewer coins he spat, the more times he was hit.
After exactly twenty-six minutes, with four minutes left until the end of the match, the final professor's eyes rolled back in his head as he fainted and was carried away on a stretcher.
He had been tormented so thoroughly that when the last professor was carried off and the announcer declared Luke's victory, not a single cheer could be heard.
The long thirty-minute match time was originally intended to showcase a variety of combat, but Luke had used that entire time to torment and torture all five of the opposing professors until they were carried away on stretchers.
The meaning of the contest—a competition of martial arts—had not just faded but completely vanished.
Afterward, Luke came down from the training grounds and rejoined Luna and Yui, who were waiting on the bench.
"Fifty gold coins, *burp*. Isn't making money too easy?"
"Wasn't what you did to the professor who was carried off last a bit too much...?"
Compared to what they had seen so far, what happened to the last professor seemed minor, yet he was the one who would suffer the most severe aftereffects.
While external and internal injuries were restored upon leaving the training grounds, the coins that had gone down his esophagus would not come back out.
The last professor would probably be busy vomiting coins for a while after he woke up.
"No, I wanted to end it quickly, but he kept holding on, and it just made me angry."
"Lord Luke, you say you don't... but are you sure you don't have anger management issues?"
"I think so too..."
"If I really had anger management issues, you two would be dead by now."
Luke made a throat-slitting gesture with his thumb.
Then, as if he had no more business there, he immediately started walking toward the waiting room.
"Whatever, let's go. It's almost time to get paid."
"Get paid?"
"I wrecked five people, so I have to get my fifty gold coins from Lucia as promised."
Luke walked on without pause.
They followed him into the waiting room and sat down for a moment.
*Click.*
Lucia opened the door and walked straight toward Luke.
She handed him a thick pouch she was carrying, and the motion was so natural it was almost frightening.
"Here, fifty gold coins. I added ten more as a token of my gratitude."
"Hehehe... Just give me a call, and I'll come running anytime."
As he spoke, Luke wore the expression of a man who had just completed a contract killing.
"I... I feel like I just saw something I wasn't supposed to see."
"...I feel the same."
Had Luke been in Luna or Yui's position, he might have said it looked like a deal between men in black suits, but of course, Luna and Yui would have no way of knowing that.
And so, the contest came to a close with the sixty clinking gold coins in Luke's hand.