28. Injustice Is Unforgivable
28. Injustice Is Unforgivable
Demons (惡魔) were evil fiends that came from another world.
They were wicked devils that beguiled humans, robbed them of their senses, and tempted them down sinister paths.
Because demons did not belong to our world, they could not be so much as scratched by ordinary means.
However, there were three ways to kill these demons.
The first was divine power.
The second was a pure substance.
And the third was......
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Despite all the chaos, life at the academy had already entered its second week.
To think that all that madness wasn't even two weeks ago... it was truly horrifying.
I had been swinging a sword without a moment's rest for a solid week.
The problem with the academy was that it was crawling with too many worthless little shits who'd been spoiled rotten at home and had nothing but useless pride.
When you live in a community, you should be thinking about getting along with everyone, not about how to trample on others....
My duel was a bit sensational, so it got talked about a lot, but just as Liber had a duel right at the start of the semester, countless small duels had taken place at the academy in barely a single week.
With so many little bastards brimming with pride gathered in one place, there was no way they'd all get along peacefully.
They clashed, fought, dueled at the slightest provocation, and inevitably ended up losing an arm or two, so the infirmary was always packed with patients.
In the first week, there were idiots who looked down on me and tried to pick a fight, but lately, things had been quiet.
It seemed that persistently slicing people apart for a full week had finally produced results.
It wasn't possible to just live quietly.
As expected, the hierarchy between people was established through unmistakable fear.
It was probably because the rumors had really taken off—the ones about me storming the newspaper club and smashing it to pieces.
Physically dismantling the newspaper club was spine-chilling enough, but the fact that I was still attending the academy unscathed after wrecking a club even the student council dared not touch must have made people wonder what was backing me.
Of course, that kind of thinking only applied to those with half a brain, so characters who still hadn't figured out their place did surface from time to time.
But with Russell backing me, my restraints had been loosened by a notch.
All of them ended up in the infirmary instead of the dorms.
Aside from those exceptions, the atmosphere had been relatively calm lately.
There were a few things, but they were nothing more than minor commotions.
I considered this silence to be the calm before the storm.
In the academy's second week, the clubs would start recruiting new members in earnest... and there would be a dungeon exploration event.
The demon worshippers... the Demon Church would begin to reveal themselves in earnest.
Now was the time for Liber and Emy to really put in the work.
"Sigh.... I couldn't land a single hit again today."
"Your skill is improving. You're lasting longer, aren't you?"
"You're still going easy on me."
"If that bothers you, you just have to get stronger."
Morning training proceeded according to the usual routine.
Just as I had every morning in the knight order, I finished exercising and followed it up with a sparring session using wooden swords.
Liber still hadn't managed to land a single effective hit on me, but compared to the first day when a match was decided in a single exchange, she now lasted a bit longer.
Every time a spar ended, I would ask her what she thought the best move would have been, or explain that a certain motion had been a matter of psychological warfare, forcing her to think for herself.
There was no dramatic, visible improvement in her skill, but her fundamentals were growing steadily stronger by the day.
'She's following along well, so soon... I should give her a noticeable power-up.'
What she was doing now was building a solid foundation.
The Aura Blade she produced, being at the entry level of Expert, was only a faint cluster of bright light hovering around her sword—enough to cut through a rock, but still thin.
Considering the events that would unfold ahead, she needed to become stronger.
The most fundamental difference between an entry-level Expert and an upper-rank Expert was the output of the Aura Blade.
The Aura Blade was a technique, the symbol of a swordsman, manifested when the three elements of heart, energy, and body were harmoniously balanced and united as one. If even one balance was off, it could not exert its full power.
No matter how great one's strength or how vast one's mana reserves, if one's technique and inner self were weak, it was impossible to form a strong Aura Blade.
This was why mages could imitate the Aura Blade but could never use it properly.
Liber had strong tenacity, so if she could just shore up her energy and body, she would quickly reach the upper ranks of Expert.
The stage beyond that was not something anyone could teach—she would have to attain it for herself.
The technique part would grow with steady sparring, and the body... meaning physical ability and mana capacity, could be supplemented with elixirs.
I had a few myself, and there were a few things to be scavenged at the academy.
Most of them were no longer of any help to me, so I decided to give them all to Liber.
As I drafted a curriculum for Liber, old memories surfaced.
One of the biggest reasons I had been able to become this strong was that, as a child, I had been forced to drink foul-tasting medicinal concoctions every day back at Titan in a bid to make me taller,
and I had been subjected to swordsmanship training that bordered on abuse every single day because I 'had to learn the secret swordsmanship.'
An ordinary person would have broken in the middle of it, but I knew the structure of this world.
It felt like I was really going to die, but I wouldn't die from just that.
Pain that could not kill me only made me stronger.
Titan wanted to increase my height even if it killed me, and because I also wanted to grow taller,
I gritted my teeth and endured all of that torture, and in the end, an abnormally robust energy and physique were forged within me.
Of course, that didn't make me any taller.
"...."
Emy, who had handed Liber a water bottle, was still keeping her distance from me.
She needed to get stronger too, but this ambiguous distance made it difficult to suggest anything.
She had refused a few times as well.
This strange sense of distance—she seemed reluctant to get too close, yet it didn't feel like she was cutting ties either....
I decided to focus on Liber first.
After finishing her morning training, Liber, who had been drinking water, stared fixedly at something as if she had spotted it, then abruptly jumped to her feet.
"Atlas, what's this?"
She had spotted it, huh.
You really do have sharp eyes.
What Liber was pointing at was a large tree.
At first glance, it looked like an ordinary tree, but upon closer inspection, there were two scars carved by a blade around its midsection.
They were too straight and deliberate to be accidental sword marks, which drew the eye.
"That's my height."
"Your height?"
"Yeah. My current height."
There was another one carved in the dormitory.
I checked my height once before bed and once after waking up.
Most people did it as kids and then stopped, but I simply continued to this day.
"There are two marks. Did you grow taller after enrolling?"
"The top one is my goal right now."
Liber remarked, looking at the mark above.
At a glance, it did appear that way.
The problem was, it wasn't... The mark above was exactly at 150.
"Then this is...."
"The one below that is my current height."
The height of the scar carved just beneath it was precisely 149.5.
That was my current height.
"When did you start measuring? Huh?"
"I did it as soon as I got here and started right away, so you probably missed it. I did it today, too."
"You did it today too? But there's no new scar... ah..."
Liber trailed off as she realized what that meant.
"Yeah. It stays exactly the same, so there aren't any new marks."
"... Sorry for asking something pointless."
Realizing she had touched a sensitive subject, Liber apologized.
But it was fine.
She hadn't mocked or sneered about it.
I liked that Liber was a good kid with proper manners.
"What's the big deal? It's a fact that I'm short, and it's a fact that I cause a ruckus every day because I want to grow."
Being short was a fact.
The fact that I raised hell over it every single day was also a fact.
As long as no one sneered or made fun of me for it, I couldn't care less.
"Just you watch. I'm going to grow until I'm at eye level with Russell one day."
Aura Blades this, demons that—they were all trivial issues that fell low on my list of priorities.
My goal had not been fulfilled in the slightest yet.
I was still starving.
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At the academy, classes were divided into mandatory classes taken together by class, and elective liberal arts courses we could choose individually.
Because I only sought out the most lax options, while Emy and Liber diligently took courses that made up for their weaknesses, our liberal arts schedules never overlapped.
As a result, we inevitably split up into three during every liberal arts period.
The liberal arts course I was currently taking was called the History of Different Races.
Because it covered the history of multiple races rather than one specific race, it didn't go into deep, exhaustive detail, and the lecture was well-received for just piquing the students' interest.
In fact, the lecture hall was populated not only by humans but also by a scattering of the very different races being described in the subject: elves, dwarves, and beastmen.
At the very least, they'd already know their own race's history, so it was basically free credit.
On my way out after the lecture ended, I discovered a shocking scene.
'Emy..?'
Three female students I had never seen before were walking ahead of Emy.
Emy had her arms and shoulders laden with thick books and bulky teaching materials that I assumed were their belongings.
The class I had heard about was definitely Magical Engineering Theory.
No matter how I looked at it, they did not seem like friends.
Emy's expression looked deeply troubled.
I could not tolerate shit like this.
"Hey, what are you doing?"
"What...."
One of them answered irritably, but the moment she saw my face, she struck an exaggerated pose.
"Ah~ your master's here. We better get going before we get scolded. Give that stuff back."
Snickering along with the surrounding hangers-on, the three girls taunted her and, as if nothing had happened, took their belongings back from Emy and began to walk away.
"Haha.."
Emy looked at me and gave a bitter smile.
Several emotions were reflected in that smile.
'Were they pulling this kind of underhanded crap on Emy where Liber and I couldn't see?'
Could this be why Emy was keeping an ambiguous distance from me?
The thought that she might have been taking such a stance because of some third party made my blood boil.
"Atlas..?"
I walked past Emy and chased after the three fleeing female students.
"Where do you think you're going?"
I drove a low kick into the shin of the one whose back was still turned to me.
-Ppak!!
"Aaaack!!"
The female student's leg buckled, and she collapsed to her knees right there in the hallway.
The plush carpet meant her knees weren't cut, but her shin was swollen and she couldn't support herself properly.
"You've got some mouth on you for a hole like that."
"Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!!!"
I grabbed the fallen female student by the hair and yanked her upward.
The girl was taller than me, but with her kneeling, my line of sight was higher.
"You... Do you know who I am..."
"Who are you? Are you bigger than Lemnos?"
"Well, no..."
"Then what gives you the confidence, huh?"
I was even angrier than when they came at me directly.
It was bad enough that they pulled this crap, but they had the nerve to mock her too?
What exactly gave them this confidence?
Did they think that because they were all birds of a feather, Liber and I were treating Emy like a pet too?
"Where are you two going?"
"Ah.. aaaah, let go...!"
I walked toward the two who were trying to slink away.
As the girl I held by the hair was dragged along, she screamed.
"This one still hasn't come to her senses."
"W-we didn't do anything!!"
I shook the girl I held by the hair roughly, and she let out a pained shriek.
The other two tried to make excuses at the sight, but it was all bullshit.
"You sure didn't stop her either."
I strode over, kicked all their shins out from under them, and then gave each one a refreshing smack across the face.
The faces of the three girls who had been wearing those cocky expressions were now filled with nothing but terror.
"If I catch you pulling this kind of garbage one more time, I'll shave every last hair off your heads and turn you bald."
"Y-yes...."
"You'd better answer me!!!!"
"Yes..!!!"
The three female students cried out, trembling with fear.
As they tried to flee on the spot, I noticed the items Emy had been carrying.
"Take this shit with you, you trash!!"
"Hiiiiik?!!"
I hurled all the teaching materials and books Emy had been holding at the three students.
A few hit them in the face or arms, but with me hissing at them furiously, they hastily gathered everything up and ran away.
After the situation settled, Emy carefully spoke up.
"They said they're sunbaes... and that it's only natural for a freshman to carry their bags...."
I had no idea what kind of nonsense she was spouting.
They must have just figured she looked like easy prey and pulled a fast one.
"That's all lies. If something like that happens again... no, I'll just swing by your area more often."
"Thank you for helping me..."
Emy grinned and gave her thanks.
Despite it being a simple, smiling thank-you, I sensed a jarring discomfort in that gratitude.
The sense of dissonance I'd been feeling from Emy ever since the first day.
The strange sense of distance that existed between her and me.
I didn't know what had given rise to it, but I had a feeling that parting ways like this now would be a mistake.
It was just a hunch.
"I don't really get it. You must have your own circumstances."
"What?"
"I thought you were getting a little more comfortable, but then you started subtly keeping your distance again—not completely pulling away, just orbiting around the edges. I don't know why you're doing that. It's your business, so I guess it can't be helped."
"That's... I'm sorry.."
"You don't need to apologize for that. I don't know what you think of me, but my thoughts haven't changed at all from the start."
Emy was taller than me.
Standing right in front of her, I lifted my chin slightly and looked her directly in the eyes.
"Like just now, if something difficult happens, tell me. If it's something I can help with, I'll help as much as you need. If it's something hard to talk about, then it can't be helped.... "
"..Thank you for saying that."
There was that expression again.
Not the bright smile I had seen on the first day, but a smile that seemed somehow bitter.
"Everything... I'm sorry for everything.. but it's not like that..."
With that, Emy turned her back.
But I saw it.
She had been biting her lip so hard it was bleeding.