Chapter 66
Chapter 66
Whether it was Katrinne, Libel, or the Third Prince, every one of them wore an expression that seemed to say the same thing.
For us, you went this far.
But there was another, far greater problem.
“…As I thought, my eyes weren’t mistaken. Ban, you really are a treasure to our Rubiness Academy.”
It was Former President Randolf!
His gaze was every bit as intense as the protagonists’ looks of admiration.
“You must have had some profound reason for siding with Director Karak, too, right? Ah, I misunderstood you without knowing any of that.”
No, what’s gotten into this old man? You’re the one misunderstanding things right now.
I tried to hurriedly open my mouth to set things straight, but—
“Cough!”
“Professor!”
“Professor Ban, are you all right?! Good heavens! You’re in such a serious state. You must have used a Self-Sacrifice Spell, prepared to die. Such devotion for your students! And I had no idea you were like this…! Randolf, you should be ashamed of yourself!”
No, please don’t exaggerate. I need to clear up this misunderstanding…
But I couldn’t open my mouth, and my body was growing heavier by the moment.
“Professor? Professor?! Open your eyes!”
“Good heavens! Ban, are you all right?!”
“Professor Ban! I’m a reporter from Gossip Daily, just passing by! You drove off the Puppet with a Self-Sacrifice Spell—could you share a few words about how you feel…?!”
Amid the clamor ringing in my ears, my vision went dark, and I lost consciousness.
Farther down in the Underground Waterway.
Not in the upper reaches where Ban had been, but in the central depths.
A horrifying scream rang out from a spot adjoining the Maze.
“Gyaaaah!! Why?! Why the hell?! Gaaah!!”
Astonishingly, it was the Puppet, which had been annihilated by Ban!
“The Dummy was annihilated, that’s all! Why is this affecting me, the real body?! Gaaah!! Aaaaargh!!”
In other words, what had just been annihilated was not the real body, but a fake Dummy.
The Puppet had seemed somewhat lacking in the imposing presence one would expect of a Level Seven earlier partly because of a flaw in the Puppet itself, but it was also largely because it had been a Dummy.
Dummies were at a great disadvantage when it came to manifesting their abilities. No matter how meticulously one was made, it could only reach about eighty percent of the real body’s strength.
Even so, the Puppet never exposed its real body to anyone. It feared death.
Some called the Puppet a coward for this, but thanks to that very trait, it had survived every crisis it had ever faced.
The real body should have been unaffected even if the Dummy was annihilated, yet an impossible aberration was unfolding.
“Gaaah!! It hurts…!! Why? How?!”
Its hand was breaking apart.
Like a sandcastle collapsing.
What was even more horrifying was that the fragments of its hand were vanishing into thin air as they scattered.
As though its very existence were being erased, leaving not a trace behind.
Disappear from the world forever.
Ban’s words came back to it.
Even now, it felt as if its spirit were being crushed beneath something absolute.
An irresistible terror surged through it, as though it were being swallowed up in real time by pitch-black nothingness.
“Gaaah!! Don’t be ridiculous! I’m the Puppet! I’ll never die!”
It summoned all its Dark Mana and fought back, but all it could do was slow the process down.
The disintegration, which had begun at its fingertips, had already devoured half its wrist.
I’m going to die? Me, like this?
The Puppet trembled.
But—
There was a way to survive.
It could offer up a price and ask someone capable of resolving this aberration for help.
If it were the ‘Lord,’ master of our Abyss, this might be possible—but no. The price he’d demand would be worse than death. What about the ‘Executives’? No, they’re just as horrible. Perhaps the Witch of the Dead Sea, whom I know, or Ghost Blade?
The Puppet had focused on its Puppet Art, so its understanding of magic as a whole was relatively inferior to that of others at the same Level Seven.
Someone else, with profound knowledge of magic, might be able to resolve this horrifying spell, but the price it might cost was too frightening for the Puppet to ask anyone outright.
That was when—
“My, you seem to be in trouble. Do you need help?”
“…Who are you?”
“I’m Rune, the newly appointed Temporary Professor at Rubiness Academy.”
His appearance was utterly unexpected!
Even more surprising was the Puppet’s reaction.
To everyone’s astonishment, the Puppet recognized Rune.
“Rune…? Then could you be the one from the Demon Realm?”
“Oh? As expected of one of the Abyss’s seats. You’re quite perceptive. That’s right. I’m the ‘Rune’ you know.”
“P-please save me! If it’s the one you serve, they should be able to resolve this damned spell! I’ll pay the price!”
“Haha.”
Thud!
The Puppet fell to its knees.
It was a shocking sight.
Rune, by contrast, looked completely at ease.
As though such deference were only natural.
“What price are you willing to pay?”
“That would be…”
The Puppet cautiously began to speak.
“…You came to Rubiness Academy for that ‘purpose,’ didn’t you? I’ll cooperate so that you can accomplish your goal for the glory of the Demon Realm.”
“Haha. Certainly, your Puppet Art would be a great help to me.”
“Then…?”
Just as anticipation began to fill the Puppet’s eyes—
Smash!
Half of the Puppet’s head burst apart.
The remaining half, still wearing the same obsequious expression it had been using to gauge Rune’s mood, tilted crookedly to one side, then fell with a thud.
“How dare someone like you speak of the glory of the Demon Realm. You’re filthy.”
Rune shook the blood from his hand.
“By the way, this is astonishing.”
Shrrrr.
Puppet’s corpse broke apart into tiny fragments.
Rune hadn’t done it.
The magic Ban had left behind hadn’t lost its power even after Puppet’s death. It was erasing Puppet’s existence from the world.
“It’s incomplete, but this is undoubtedly Miracle Magic. To defy causality without even having reached the heavens? This was only possible when the Demon King was still the Demon Crown Prince.”
An astonishing title slipped out.
The Demon King.
A being of the Heavenly Rank who had reached the end of Ascension.
An existence at Level Ten.
“If the Demon Dukes find out, there’ll be an uproar. I’ll have to keep a closer eye on him. Perhaps Ban could become the wild card that turns the tide in our Demon Realm.”
Out of nowhere.
It was the sort of thing that would make Ban faint if he heard it.
“Everything for the glory of the Demon Realm.”
Flash.
Rune vanished, and silence descended upon the waterway.
By then, Puppet’s corpse had disappeared completely, erased—as though it had never existed in the world to begin with.
I woke up after being unconscious for a full three days.
It wasn’t as if the world had changed while I slept… but a lot had changed.
—Ban the Trash’s transformation! Professor Ban saves his students from Puppet’s clutches with a Self-Sacrifice Spell!
Puppet was a notorious villain across the Empire.
The incident had received widespread coverage.
‘People think a lot better of me now.’
The things I’d done in the past had also begun attracting attention along with it.
—Has Ban the Trash really become a dragon? An in-depth look at Young Master Ban’s past!
—Demon-Contracted Human purge! Black magician hideout raided! Thorough preparations avert disaster during the entrance exam! Young Master Ban also resolves the Catastrophe at Ranchel Plateau!
—Young Master Ban’s boast, “I’m destined to become a great star,” was it really just hot air? It wasn’t?!
—Former President Randolf: “Ban is the rising star and treasure of our Rubiness Academy.”
—Anonymous student passionately expresses their feelings: “P-Professor Ban is the professor I respect most. He’ll be my professor forever.”
‘…Isn’t this getting a little too noisy?’
I set the newspapers down and sighed.
I was glad my reputation was improving, but everything was best in moderation.
‘My goal is to lie low and enjoy an easy life behind the scenes. If I get too famous, I’ll just attract unwanted attention.’
And that wasn’t all.
‘The more famous I get, the more people there’ll be who hold a grudge against “Ban.”’
“Ban” had tangled himself up with all sorts of people despite being a good-for-nothing.
A lot of those bad relationships had come from false accusations and misunderstandings, but that was only from my perspective, since I knew what had happened behind the scenes.
Would the people who considered Ban their sworn enemy hear about his recent fame and think, “Wow, our Ban’s really changed~,” then start feeling kindly toward him?
‘They’d more likely think I was being two-faced and grind their teeth in anger.’
I sighed, but it had already happened.
I decided to look on the bright side as much as I could.
‘Still, I got a lot out of this, too.’
Just then, the infirmary door opened.
Carefully.
As though whoever was opening it was worried someone might see.
To my surprise, the person who came into the infirmary was Julia.
She even had a bouquet of flowers in her hands.
‘I heard she came by every day while I was unconscious. They say the flowers in that vase over there are hers, too.’
…For the record, while I’d been unconscious, it seemed as though the people visiting had gotten caught up in some kind of competition. There were no fewer than ten vases of flowers in the infirmary.
‘Katrinne, Libel, and the Third Prince make sense, but why Hans and Linden? Are they sucking up to me? Emily’s look like a business courtesy.’
At any rate, I motioned for Julia to come over.
“You’re here?”
“…You’re awake?”
“Yeah. Are you all right? Any aftereffects?”
Julia had been caught by Puppet’s Puppet Art, too.
She looked fine on the outside, but that didn’t mean she was fine inside.
‘She might still be shaken up.’
“If there’s anything wrong, tell me right away. I’m your homeroom professor.”
“Are you always like this?”
“What do you mean?”
“Are you the sort of sucker who wakes up after all that and immediately worries about someone else?”
Her voice was sharp.
I didn’t know what she was unhappy about, but—
“No, I’m not usually like this. But you’re my student.”
…I left out the part about how any problems she had would affect my class evaluation.
Julia looked at me for a moment, her expression complicated, then spoke.
“I thought about it while you were asleep. But I’m rotten to the core, so I don’t think I can ever be like you. Even now, I can’t help doubting you. What if you sacrificed yourself only because you wanted to use me in the end?”
I listened to her quietly.
“So I’ve made up my mind. Rather than forcing myself to do something I can’t, I’ll do what I’m good at.”
“What do you mean?”
“From now on, I’m going to use you, Professor.”
It was a word with an unpleasant connotation.
But her tone was different.
Julia smiled.
It was the sly, bewitching smile of a villainess, one I’d seen many times as I played through the scenario.
“I’m certain you won’t remain an ordinary professor. You’re destined to become a star who shakes the Empire to its foundations. So I plan to make sure I have a firm claim on you. I’ll become more than just one of the Academy’s ordinary teacher-student pairs, and bask in your reflected glory.”
I chuckled.
‘She’s going to great lengths to say she’ll be a good student and listen to me from now on.’
“I plan to use you, too, so that makes us even.”
“…I knew you’d say that to spare my feelings. You know, being too nice can actually be a turnoff?”
Julia frowned, then suddenly flung the infirmary door wide open.
Katrinne and Libel were standing there, their faces stiff with shock. Who knew how long they had been eavesdropping?
“Julia, you…”
“You heard, didn’t you?”
Julia curled the corners of her mouth as she looked at Katrinne.
“The position of Professor Ban’s top disciple is mine. You wouldn’t stand a chance against me anyway.”
“!!”