Chapter 20
Chapter 20
Yohen’s eyes flew open.
The Demonic Energy that had been tormenting him was surging out of his body.
This wasn’t happening naturally.
The owner of that voice did this!
Sure enough, he could faintly hear shouts.
—Danger…!!
—To take the Demonic Energy into his own body?! How reckless!
Yohen’s heart sank.
No one could take in Demonic Energy and survive.
Who would take such a risk?
Then the voice spoke again.
—Didn’t I tell you? I would never let this child die.
Ah.
Yohen’s heart stirred once more.
Who could it be?
Who could care for someone else so nobly?
He couldn’t even compare himself to that person, not with his own ugliness.
I want to see who it is.
Yohen wished with all his heart.
If I can survive, I’ll go find him. I swear.
Yohen’s consciousness began to fade.
He etched the man’s voice into his mind,
vowing never to forget it.
—Successfully treated the Obsessive Saint!
God, I thought I was going to die.
I looked at the message and let out a breath of relief.
Thank goodness I managed to purify the Demonic Energy.
What I’d tried was to take the demonic energy into my body, then separate it out and remove it.
In the end, Demonic Energy is just mana mixed with demonic energy. I figured the Grandmaster Ability could separate them, so I took a gamble—and it worked.
Of course, it hadn’t been easy.
It had put quite a strain on my mana road.
Ugh. I feel like I’m going to throw up. Did I suffer internal injuries or something?
“Guh!”
Something surged up from inside me, and I spat it onto the ground.
It was black blood!
I was horrified, but then a message appeared.
—Your meridians have been strengthened during the extraction of the Demonic Energy! Your mana road has been reinforced!
That’s a really good effect, isn’t it?
I blinked.
My mana road had been reinforced!
In the game, this was an extremely rare fortuitous encounter.
The stronger your mana road, the more powerful you could become with the same amount of mana.
This is a huge boon for me, with my Mana Insensitivity!
And that wasn’t all.
—You absorb the purified mana into your body! Your mana increases!
I’d taken in almost as much mana as you’d get from a decent magical elixir!
Of course, because of my Mana Insensitivity, the amount of mana I actually gained was only one-hundredth of that.
Still, I’ve gathered a pretty respectable amount of mana now.
In other words,
I had nearly half the mana of an ordinary First-star apprentice mage.
…It was still pitiful, but for me, it was a tremendous amount.
And the benefits I’d gained weren’t limited to mana.
—Your successful treatment has made you a “Benefactor” of the “Legion”!
Legion was the name of the Rebel Army.
Sure enough, I heard someone call out:
“Are you all right, Young Master Ban?! You went to such lengths to treat the saint! Ah, thank you! You are a benefactor of our Legion!”
It was Lairan.
She seemed especially moved after seeing me cough up blood, too.
This is my chance, isn’t it?
At a time like this, I needed to make sure she felt as indebted to me as possible.
But if I made too much of a point of how hard I’d pushed myself, I’d look like an amateur.
As a former Sales King, I knew the most effective way to handle this.
I’d make her feel not just indebted, but moved, too.
I have to act like it was nothing, while still letting the strain show just a little. Like trying to look effortlessly put together?
The Black Flame Dragon backed me up.
“Do not make a fuss. I merely did what had to be done. A paltry matter like this is nothing to me.”
I swayed a little as I spoke.
But at the same time, I acted cool!
Naturally, it worked like a charm.
“Ah! To perform such a miracle and still remain so humble. Young Master Ban, how much more are you going to make me admire you?”
But perhaps it had worked too well.
Lairan continued, her voice filled with emotion as well as admiration.
“Your miraculous abilities, your perfect character… I can’t help thinking that perhaps you, Young Master Ban, are the hero Heaven has sent to stand against the darkness that is soon to come.”
…No, isn’t that a bit much? Could you not overdo it?
I felt cold sweat trickle down my brow.
The heroes Heaven had prepared were the protagonists. I wanted no part of that, and I didn’t even want to hear it as an empty compliment.
But Lairan seemed to mean it. Her eyes glinted dangerously.
“…Let’s talk business.”
I was ready to leave the Slum.
“There’s something I need you to do for me if I’m to be appointed as a professor at Rubiness Academy.”
Afterward, Ban left the Four Dragon Fortress.
“He’s incredible. To think Young Master Ban was such an extraordinary person.”
Healer Galak watched Ban recede into the distance and spoke with admiration.
Considering how he’d looked down on Ban when they first met, his attitude had changed completely.
Lairan went even further.
“He’s more than that. Young Master Ban is a hero who has kept himself hidden—a Hidden Dragon.”
It wasn’t simply because he had treated the young saint.
She recalled the things Ban had shown her.
That dignity and nobility.
Who had ever called Ban a good-for-nothing?
Ban’s dignity was real.
Especially when he occasionally let his full presence show, it was enough to send a shiver through her.
So his good-for-nothing act up until now must have been an act. A way to make his enemies let their guard down.
A chill ran over her skin.
What terrifying calculations.
And even that noble heart, always thinking of others.
—I merely did what needed to be done.
He hadn’t said it just to be polite.
His lofty voice proved that Ban truly considered his good deed nothing worth making a fuss over.
And then there was the way he tried to conceal his own achievement for Saint Yohen’s sake.
Ban had urged them again and again to let Yohen believe that he had driven out the Demonic Energy himself.
He said it would help Yohen grow.
There was nothing about him that failed to inspire admiration.
He must have kept Saint Yohen from coming to Rubiness Academy because he was worried about him, too.
Though no one knew it, a great darkness had taken root in Rubiness Academy.
The other Four Great Academies are all shrouded in darkness, too, but for some reason, the darkness in Rubiness Academy runs deepest.
Lairan gave a faint, scornful laugh.
I was worried that Rubiness Academy might fall into the hands of darkness.
Lairan entertained a thought that would have horrified Ban if he’d heard it.
With Young Master Ban there, it was a pointless worry.
Of course, Ban’s power was still utterly insignificant compared with the darkness that had taken root in the Academy.
But Lairan couldn’t bring herself to believe that Ban would lose to the darkness.
It was the intuition that had made her a Watcher.
And that’s not all. Before long, Young Master Ban’s name will resound throughout the Empire.
The people, intoxicated by peace, couldn’t foresee it, but disaster would soon befall the Empire.
Amid that disaster, Ban would rise as a great hero.
We can’t let ourselves fall behind Young Master Ban, either.
Lairan’s eyes gleamed sharply.
“Are you ready to carry out Young Master Ban’s instructions?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Then begin at once.”
Lairan gave her order coldly.
“Use every resource and connection the Four Dragon Fortress has to spread rumors that will bury Professor Balik.”
Balik had been enjoying himself lately.
That insolent Ban Trash. He can make all the noise he likes, but he’s still getting above himself.
To be honest, Ban’s performance at the lecture hall that day had surprised him.
He had solved a seemingly impossible problem in basic magic, after all.
—Professor Balik, are you really allowed to give him a zero?
—Zero seems a little harsh…
A few professors had voiced their reservations, but so what?
Rubiness Academy was already halfway the property of the Rapalt Ducal House.
They could get away with this much and more.
The Ecclesia Ducal House might complain later, but the main house will smooth things over somehow.
Maybe because he was in such a good mood, the weather looked especially fine today.
He was taking a leisurely stroll around campus when something happened that made him tilt his head.
For some reason, people kept sneaking glances at him.
Do I look especially handsome today? Honestly, being good-looking is a burden.
At first he took it as a compliment, but the more it went on, the more it irritated him.
There was no goodwill in those looks.
“That’s Professor Balik over there.”
“Is the rumor true? Yikes, he’s looking this way.”
“Wow, I suspected it, but I never thought he’d really be such trash.”
“I never thought I’d live to see the day I felt sorry for Ban the Trash.”
What on earth were they talking about?
While he stood there, dumbfounded, a hurried voice called out.
“Professor Balik!”
“Ah, Director.”
Count Werner.
He was the direct younger brother of the Duke of Raphalt.
His bloodline was incomparably more noble than Balik’s, who was no more than a distant branch of the family, and he held the position of director of Rubiness Academy.
Balik bowed respectfully, but Count Werner did something he never would have expected.
Smack!
He slapped Balik across the cheek.
“D-Director? No, U-Uncle?”
“Don’t call me uncle! Shut up!!! I have no nephew like you! What the hell have you been doing?!”
“W-What’s wrong?”
“Hah!! You don’t know what kind of rumors are going around in the Free City’s social circles right now?!”
And then—
When Balik heard what came out of the director’s mouth, his face turned pale.
All the misdeeds he had secretly committed until now—
Every last one of them had been exposed, and rumors about them were spreading everywhere.
Especially the wrongs he had done to Ban.
I whistled.
As expected. Once the Four Dragon Fortress got involved, it happened in no time.
I shouldn’t have dismissed the Slum as unimportant.
In this Free City, light and darkness were tangled together like a spiderweb.
Countless people had ties to the Slum.
Of course, the reason the rumors spread this dramatically was all because of Balik and the karma he’d piled up.
Balik was every bit as much of a piece of trash as Ban.
The only difference was that Balik was clever and devious.
He had done all kinds of awful things since his days at the Academy, but with the Rapalt Ducal House backing him, he had managed to wriggle out of responsibility time and time again.
‘So many people had been grinding their teeth in secret because of him.’
Lairan, the “Watcher,” was the Rebel Army’s eyes and ears.
Apparently, she had been collecting evidence of Balik’s misdeeds all along, intending to use it later to put pressure on the Rapalt Ducal House.
With evidence in hand, they wouldn’t be able to deny the rumors, either.
“Then were all the misdeeds Young Master Ban the Wretch committed back when he was a student just slander pinned on him by that bastard Balik?”
“No, surely not all of them. Young Master Ban the Wretch is still a piece of trash himself. Even so, that bastard Balik seems like an even bigger piece of trash.”
“Ha! To think Professor Balik was even worse than Young Master Ban the Wretch.”
…Unfortunately, it seemed unlikely I’d be able to completely shake off my old image.
Well, it didn’t matter.
This much was more than enough to accomplish my goal.
“I heard Young Master Ban the Wretch failed the hiring test this time because that bastard Balik made some completely unreasonable demands.”
“Good heavens, is that true?”
“Yes. Apparently, Young Master Ban the Wretch performed brilliantly on the test, but Balik still gave him a score of zero.”
“Right. I heard he got a zero even though he solved one of the difficult problems in Basic Magic Theory. He should have gotten a hundred.”
Rumors like that spread everywhere.
That my failure had been unjust.
‘If rumors like this spread, Rubiness Academy—or, more precisely, the Board of Directors—will feel the pressure.’
Rubiness Academy was currently divided into two factions.
The Board of Directors, which the Duke of Rapalt had taken control of.
And the other side, the faction supporting the old rector.
Of the two, it was the Board of Directors that had led the effort to make me fail.
‘The Board of Directors hasn’t completely taken over the Academy, either. If things stay this way, they’ll risk giving the rector’s faction a pretext to act.’
There was a good chance they would try to reach some kind of compromise with me.
“Young Master, what will you do from here? Will you negotiate with those Board of Directors bastards?”
“No, not yet.”
“Young Master?”
I explained the “truth of negotiation” I had learned in the working world.
“Hans, do you know when you should negotiate if you want to negotiate well? When you’re standing firmly in the position of power.”
I couldn’t yet say I was completely in the position of power.
‘An angel who’ll make sure I’m completely in the position of power will be here soon.’
And sure enough.
It happened while I was walking alone along a secluded riverbank after parting ways with Hans.
A chilling voice rang out.
“Ban, you bastard…”
His eyes glinted menacingly, as if he were about to cause a disaster at any moment.
“Testify right now that the rumors about me aren’t true. Otherwise, I’ll kill you here.”
The “angel” was Balik.