Is This the Main Story…?
Is this the main story…?
No. 4 tore across the grounds at a blistering sprint, locked on the objective.
When they first breached the perimeter, No. 7 and No. 12 had been right beside him—brothers forged in the same merciless training, the same grinding infiltration. But No. 7 had taken a combat mage’s full-force blast head-on and simply ceased to exist. No. 12 had wheeled around to buy time against the pursuing knights.
Sorry, brothers.
Teeth clenched, No. 4 ran without looking back.
Maybe the whole thing was pure folly—worse than pointless. Maybe it would only whip the Empire into a murderous rage. No declaration of war. Targets who weren’t even armed.
But there’s no other way. This is the last road left!
Without something like this, the Alliance would collapse under its own weight soon enough. The fire was too weak. They needed something that would burn white-hot—whether it was their own lives or the Empire’s fury, it didn’t matter. Better to become demons and die fighting than to be brushed aside with a single gesture and crumble to dust.
What about the other teams?
Barely a dozen people had been committed to this entire Academy. Of his own three-man cell, only one was still racing toward the target. If the other cells were faring the same, fewer than five would ever set foot inside. They would inflict less than half the damage they had planned. If things went truly wrong, the whole operation would be nothing more than a single spark that flared and died.
They had accepted becoming that moth to the flame anyway.
“If you touch us, we may lose in the end—but you will bleed for it. The Empire needs to learn that lesson in blood.”
No. 4 hurled himself forward and closed the last stretch to the Academy’s main gate. Knights rushed him; he shook them off without effort. Even when they poured mana into their strikes, the hits barely registered. Ten minutes of activity—that was all the enhancement bought them—but the effect was absolute. These were high-caliber knights, yet he dropped every one of them in a single exchange. Even the famous knights of his homeland would have struggled to match it.
Of course. When the price is your life, this is the least you should be able to do.
Past that gate lay the Academy—and the loathsome Imperial nobles within. Their only crime was being the sons and daughters of those nobles. That same crime had already claimed countless children of the kingdom. Tragic for both sides, and utterly unavoidable. That was war: the innocent died, and people who had nothing to do with the fighting paid with their lives.
“Stop him! Stop him now!!”
More knights threw themselves into his path. Pointless. Mana runaway had already pushed his body past the redline. No one in this Academy could stop him now—or so he believed.
He launched himself through the gate—
Thwack!
“Ghk—?!”
Something searing and blunt smashed into his throat. He hit the ground face-first. He tried to rise at once, but his limbs refused every command. Sensation had vanished from every extremity; blinking was the only motion left. He tried to scan his surroundings and discovered he could not even lift his head. His mind remained razor-sharp; his body might as well have belonged to a newborn.
“Wh-what the h—”
The last thing No. 4 saw was a boot streaking straight for his face.
Crunch!
The intruders were clearly a cut above Imperial knights—stronger, faster, superior in every measurable way. One look at their bodies, however, made “expert” the last word anyone would use.
This is ridiculous. How is a body like that producing power like this?
Kyle subdued another one and shook his head. Generously, their physiques rated no higher than an average Imperial knight. Beyond that threshold muscle and tendon should have shredded. Yet here they were, operating at that impossible level anyway. The first one he had caught had refused to talk, so he lacked absolute proof—but Kyle was already certain they had done something grotesque to themselves.
No other explanation. Greenhorns like these don’t generate this kind of pressure on their own.
He examined the man he had just snared.
“Ghhhkk!”
Identical to the first: unnaturally strong and fast, body already a wreck. The killing intent pouring off him was real enough, yet it was still woefully short of the mark. Nothing like the controlled aura his parents or older siblings projected—or even Yulika and Priscilla of the Imperial 10 Strongest. These men could not refine or restrain their own power; their bodies were being eaten alive by it second by second.
“Don’t—hkk—bother! You won’t—get anything!”
Kyle blinked at the sudden rant, then decided to let the man keep talking.
“Whatever you want to ask me—who I am, who sent me—you’ll get nothing!”
“…Ah.”
Now Kyle understood. The man assumed the next words out of Kyle’s mouth would be the usual interrogation: Who are you? Who sent you? What’s your objective? Perfectly reasonable questions; any knight who had caught him would have been hammering them home. But the one holding him was Kyle of the John Nassen family.
“Where you came from, what you’re after—none of my business.”
As if the man would answer anyway. Asking was for idiots. Anyone with a working brain could piece it together from context alone.
“Looks like you took something seriously strong. Or ate it.”
“Wh-what…?”
“You still have to keep the body from falling apart. Once it’s ruined, what’s the point?”
“Heh… don’t worry… any second now—”
“Right. In a little while you’ll go boom and that’ll be that, so no need to worry?”
The man’s face drained of color. He had expected Kyle to notice the unnatural enhancement. He had not expected Kyle to know about the final fail-safe—the hidden dagger they all carried.
Obvious. How many times have I seen this exact setup in novels?
To Kyle it was elementary. Bodies in this condition always defaulted to the same last resort: suicide or self-detonation. Every story followed the same script; prediction was trivial. You didn’t need the original plot to know how this ended. They weren’t strapping on bombs and pressing a trigger. One glance told the truth—their own bodies had become the bombs. The violently fluctuating mana was the fuse. When that reaction ran its course, everything would collapse into an explosion. Kyle was sure of it.
So was he supposed to just stand there and watch the fireworks?
Another thought struck him—the movies where someone snips the right wire and the bomb goes quiet. Maybe a living bomb could be defused the same way.
“This might sting a little.”
“What are you—gkk?!”
Crunch.
Kyle casually clamped the man’s throat and severed every mana circuit inside. Easy work. Beyond the pulse of blood in the veins he could feel the second current of power running through the body; it traveled straight up his hand. John Nassen people were better at reading and controlling that kind of force than anyone alive. Kyle still considered himself half-baked, but he was still a John Nassen. This was ten times easier than a workout.
“Ghhhk… haah…”
Maybe a touch too hard. He might have clipped a few nerves as well. Kyle clicked his tongue at the man who could now only glare upward. His older sister had always been better at this; whenever she caught him she made him beg before she let go. The thought only made Kyle criticize his own insufficient training again.
That’s six.
In the span of minutes he had neutralized nearly half the infiltrators—alive, cleanly disabled, no corpses. As for the rest…
“Kyle. I caught four all by myself. Impressive, right? Doesn’t that make me the strong woman who suits you?”
Yulika dragged two thoroughly pulverized men and women behind her, voice full of confidence. She still hadn’t given up on the marriage idea and kept showing up every other day. Even while group projects already made Kyle’s head throb, she had been an extra headache—yet here she was, lightening his workload. Life was funny that way.
“Four, Your Highness?”
“Yep. Pretty amazing, huh?”
“I got six.”
“…What?”
“I said I caught six. That’s two more than you.”
Indignation and competitive fire lit Yulika’s face at the same instant. She dumped her captives on the spot, spun on her heel, and vanished. Clearly she intended to bag every remaining intruder herself.
…
Kyle stood there a moment, handed his own prisoners off to the knights, then launched after her. If she somehow tied him at six—or, heaven forbid, actually surpassed him—she would use it as fresh leverage for another marriage offensive. That could not be allowed. He poured on the speed—
BOOM!!
A massive explosion roared from dead ahead… right next to the café where Tisha, Ian, Elga, and Leto were waiting.