124. Time of Prophecy
124. Time of Prophecy
"You... didn't even participate. How are you inside this forest?"
After I finished talking with the Cyclops, Edgar asked with a flabbergasted expression.
Well, he had a point.
'Why am I even doing this?'
Edgar's question made my head pound.
Why was I doing this?
Up until I enrolled in the Academy, my plan had been to leave the important stuff entirely to Hayden, the original protagonist, and just help out a little from behind.
Hayden was a mess, but he was a self-contained character.
His methods were rough, but his goals were all noble.
The monster known as the Academy's 'Devil Slayer' was driven by an obsessive goal: to prevent any more weak people from being sacrificed to demons.
But in this world, there was no Hayden.
Hayden's role had been shouldered by a girl named Amy, who was far more fragile than him.
I couldn't just leave that incredibly delicate, kind, and soft-hearted kid alone, so I decided to help her a bit. Was this the result?
"Tsk, how pathetic. I saved you, and that's all you have to say?"
"That's... thank you for saving me."
When I pointed it out, Edgar obediently offered his thanks.
"Hey, you ungrateful bastards. Don't you guys have anything to say?"
"... Thank you. The Le family will not forget this favor."
"Thank you..."
"Saved by a human... Damn it. I will definitely repay this debt."
"Yeah, yeah, good job. Then the Hunting Festival ends here. Everyone go back quietly."
When I told them all to go back, Edgar glared at me sharply.
"What are you going to do?"
"Can't you tell by looking? I'm going around rescuing students in danger, just like you guys."
"That's something the professors should be doing. What I'm asking is why *you* are doing it."
"I want to ask that too. Why am I doing this?"
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The first thing I had tried to find were the faculty members.
If the tower controlling this Hunting Festival was intact, then the situation would be relatively better.
"Was this place hit first?"
The front yard of the Black Forest, the place that had been the professors' control tower, was a complete mess.
The most absurd part was that not a single professor or staff member who should have been here was in sight.
It was clear that a fight of some kind had taken place, but there were no corpses or wounded—they had all vanished without a trace.
The fact that there were no professors' bodies and that they had all disappeared was extremely suspicious.
I didn't have enough time to search further.
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Information about figures who could create these kinds of situations had been weighing on my mind, but it became certain after my conversation with the Cyclops just now.
[They were wearing a strange mask or something, and they told us to come under them... When we refused, they threw something at us... After that, I have no memory.]
It said the person was wearing a strange mask.
This was the work of the Demon Church.
'...It's not just the Cyclops that was controlled, it's safe to assume the Hydra and Orthos were hit too... Then it's at least a Demon Archbishop... and if it's a lackey of a Great Demon who possesses the power to control others...'
I told them to go quickly and was about to deliberate alone for a bit when someone grabbed my collar.
".... Wait, I have something to say."
"What is it, Cindy."
It was Cindy, the elf exchange student.
"That magical beast... a Cyclops is a creature that only appears in legends. It's an immensely powerful entity that can control an entire region just by existing. After facing it just now, I confirmed that the legends weren't lies."
"Yeah, it's a really strong magical beast."
"And you neutralized it in an instant.... I've been curious for a while... Just what is your true identity?"
"....."
Seems she got curious about something useless.
'Come to think of it, the Le family is related to the current Great Warrior, right...?'
Thinking back to how I had been harassed by the elves before, I felt a vein throbbing on my forehead.
"If you're curious, go ask the Great Warrior."
"What...?"
"She'll understand."
"What do you mean, ask the Great Warrior-nim!!"
She seemed like she'd pester me more, so I quickly left the area.
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Right after I had completely distanced myself from the Lemnos team, I felt a hot heat emanating from my body.
It was clearly a sensation I had felt once before.
"Liber..?"
Just like that time, I moved toward the source of the heat.
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The moment I arrived, I felt like my breath was being choked off.
The place I arrived at, following the presence I felt from Liber's body, was a disaster zone.
First, there were corpses of magical beasts and more magical beasts everywhere.
At the center, a demon worshipper wearing a skull mask with twisted goat horns was flapping the hem of a thick robe.
A mask with large horns... It was a Demon Archbishop, practically the head of the Demon Church.
But then, I saw people who shouldn't have been there.
'The Headmaster... and Senior?'
Gordon, the Academy Headmaster, and Andy were guarding the Demon Archbishop on either side like bodyguards.
And in front of them, I saw Casey, covered in blood and barely holding onto her rapier.
She was covered in large and small wounds all over her body from who-knows-what she had been hit by, and behind her, I could see the other team members, equally wounded, though not as severely.
There was Liber, clad in the fading golden aura around his body, and Amy, holding the sword I had gifted her with both hands, unlike usual.
Rio was unconscious, and Lucia was barely clinging to consciousness.
There were slight differences, but they were all equally a complete mess.
"..."
I wanted to run over immediately and check if they were okay, but I gritted my teeth and held back.
I suppressed the surging emotions by gripping Squete tightly.
I couldn't get swept up in impulsive emotions.
Right now, I had to make the order of operations clear.
First, making this place 'safe' was the priority.
The jet-black blade of the black sword Squete tore through the empty air.
A sword wind swept through, and all the magical beasts that had been clustered together were sliced to pieces, a rain of blood whipping through the forest.
"Seal Cube..!!"
"!!"
Reacting like an automated security system, Gordon and Andy, sensing the surroundings turning into a mess, responded even before the caster, the Demon Archbishop.
-Seogeok!
"Aaargh.!!"
I dashed out and cut Andy's leg as he drew his sword, neutralizing him, and a transparent hexahedron formed at the spot where I had just been standing.
It was the 'Seal Cube,' a personal restraint spell activated by the Headmaster.
When the magical beasts were all simultaneously sliced to pieces in the blink of an eye, the Demon Archbishop looked around in apparent bewilderment.
After all, he hadn't even noticed, yet the 'guards' on either side of him had already been triggered.
"Oh my... a new brother has arrived!!"
He belatedly greeted me, but the moment he was startled by the magical beasts being cut down, it was already too late.
The blade of Squete had already dug about halfway into his neck.
"Oh...?"
Smoothly, like water flowing, the Demon Archbishop's head flew off.
It spun once in the air, and the head wearing the skull mask tumbled onto the fallen leaves.
The head on the ground didn't even twitch, making it look at first glance as if he had died just like that.
"...."
When the head fell, Gordon also suddenly went quiet.
He looked like his control had been released.
But I drew my sword again.
"Did you think I'd turn my back thinking you were dead, you filthy demon worshipper."
I made a large slash at his apparently intact torso with Squete.
When I cut his neck a moment ago, I was in too much of a rush and just used skill, but this time was different.
This time, the Aura Blade was properly manifested on Squete.
"Kuaaaaaak??!!"
A scream echoed from the severed head of the Demon Archbishop, who had been playing dead.
Simply having his neck cut off might have been nothing to him, but being cut by the Aura Blade of a Master who had reached the Extreme was a different story.
When I made one large cut from his shoulder down to his stomach, he screamed loud enough to make one's ears fall off.
"Atlas?!"
Amy's eyes widened when she saw me appear in an instant and slice up the magical beasts and the Demon Archbishop.
It wasn't just Amy; everyone else was surprised by my sudden appearance as well.
From their perspective, it would have looked like in the blink of an eye, all the magical beasts around them were severed in two and the Demon Archbishop's head was cut off.
But right now, rather than answering that question, it was more important to fillet that bastard, cut him into dozens of pieces, and scatter them everywhere.
"No!! Atlas!! That guy uses the Power of Dominion. If Atlas ends up caught by the Authority, it'll be a disaster, so run away!!!!"
[[Stop!!]]
Before Amy's warning was even finished, the Demon Archbishop infused his voice with Authority and shouted.
The voice from the severed head echoed through the forest, and it barely stopped my sword from mincing the Demon Archbishop's torso into small pieces.
Although it was already in about four pieces by then.
"Hoo... you finally stopped. Honestly, swordsmen are just so hard to communicate with...."
The Demon Archbishop was satisfied when he saw my sword stop.
His head floated into the air, and the severed body parts also floated up, sticking back together neatly like pieces of a puzzle.
It was strange that he recovered so quickly even from wounds inflicted by an Aura Blade at the Extreme.
Judging by his reaction when hit, the attacks were definitely landing though.
'.... He's pulling some other trick.'
Generally, the reason demons recover from wounds quickly is because the matter of this world cannot harm them.
But this was different.
He was definitely taking damage, but I presumed he was using some method to mitigate the damage or pass the harm onto something else.
"Even Atlas...!"
When it looked like I had been stopped by the Authority, Amy gritted her teeth and gripped her sword again.
"If we don't stop him now, something even worse will happen..!!!"
"We can't let him control Atlas!!"
Amy and Liber, dragging their exhausted bodies, rushed at the Demon Archbishop.
Without even looking back, he 'spoke.'
"[[Stop]].."
He uttered a voice filled with Authority just as he had done to me, but Amy and Liber, perhaps resisting the Authority, ignored it and kept charging forward.
"Ah, I forgot it doesn't work well on the sisters... Then."
"Hup?!"
"I'm having an important conversation right now, so go play with those guys."
A barrage of flashing anti-personnel spells rained down in front of Amy and Liber, who had mustered their exhausted bodies to charge.
The Headmaster, already afflicted by the Power of Dominion, had blocked their way.
The Demon Archbishop, satisfied with the sight, trudged over and circled around me once.
"A short Master... Yes, you are that Master the Great One told me to tear to death."
I looked at Amy and Liber instead of the Demon Archbishop.
They both seemed very tired, but it wasn't to the point where they'd be defeated by those magical beasts.
They'd clean them up soon and come this way.
"Staring like that is a useless endeavor. When the Great One descended here before, he couldn't even use his Authority because his lacking followers conducted the ritual in such a shabby environment.
But I am different. I, who assists from the closest place to the Great One, can freely use this Authority bestowed by him."
Authority.
It was the unique transcendent power that a Great Demon could use.
All Great Demons each possessed different Authorities, and it was said they could allow close followers to use their Authority as well.
For someone at the level of a Demon Archbishop directly serving them, wielding the Great Demon's power on his behalf was not that difficult.
"Even a Master is only human at best... Consider it an honor to die by the Authority of a Great Demon. Then... [[Kill yourself]]"
Once again, the Demon Archbishop's voice, filled with Authority, echoed through the forest.
Hearing those words, I raised Squete and placed the blade against my neck.
I felt the cold, sharp sensation of Squete on my neck.
"N.. No!!!"
"Atlas!!!"
When the blade touched my neck, the complexions of Amy and Liber, who were dealing with the magical beasts, went pale.
It was the same for Lucia, who was unable to move due to the Authority.
She couldn't even speak, but the way she trembled showed she wanted to jump out right then and there.
[You will die by having your neck cut off within two weeks...!! I don't know how you avoided the last prophecy, but this time it will be hard to avoid..!! ]
The prophecy of the Cursed Weapon came to mind.
The prophecy that I would die by having my neck cut... It made me think of my current appearance.
Was this the time of the prophecy?
My arm pressed Squete harder against my neck.
If I pulled Squete like this, the sharp blade would sever the flesh and blood vessels, and blood would spurt from my neck.
Strength entered my hand, and Squete moved, cutting its target.
-Seogeok
"Huh?"
The Demon Archbishop's neck, that is.
In truth, I had never been affected by that Authority in the first place.