Chapter 87
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Translator: Prime Works
Chapter: 87
Chapter Title: The Way to Eradicate Violence (2)
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“The ca-capital……? Cough, hack!”
Diego couldn’t come to his senses.
It was a blow that had struck him so suddenly.
It had landed squarely in his solar plexus.
And it was incredibly powerful.
His stomach twisted like it was being wrung out. His breath caught in his throat. He couldn’t breathe properly.
On top of that, his entire body ached. He had been sent sprawling. He’d smashed through two tables with his back. There was no way his back was fine.
Even so, Diego got up.
That bastard who had kicked him.
He didn’t know who he was, but he couldn’t show weakness here.
Besides, who was he?
He was a mana user with a Mana Heart, no less.
“Guh, guhuh!”
Diego rose to his feet, bracing himself on his knee with a face flushed beet red.
He shot a murderous glare toward Lloyd, the one who had dared to throw the first punch(?).
But in that instant, he realized.
Lloyd’s fist was already rocketing toward his face at breakneck speed.
‘Too fa…….’
Crack!
Stars exploded before his eyes.
The bridge of his nose throbbed like it had been hammered.
His head snapped to the side involuntarily.
In the momentary gap where time seemed to slow, he caught sight of something bizarre.
‘That……my front teeth?’
A pair of white, flat front teeth spun through the air.
Mixed with a bit of blood and saliva.
But Diego had no time to admire(?) the sight.
Another merciless fist slammed into his solar plexus.
Crack!
“Kuugh!”
His body folded into a kip again.
His knees drew together involuntarily.
A cold voice rang in his ears.
“You don’t even know why you’re getting hit right now? Huh?”
“I-I, cough, hack!”
Smack!
A palm struck the side of his face with a sharp crack.
The ear on the struck side went deaf.
The world spun dizzily.
He couldn’t tell up from down.
Even amid the chaos, the cold voice kept coming.
“You don’t even know why this is happening to you? Huh?”
“Grruh!”
Crack!
This time, it was his right shin.
Had it been stabbed with a shoe heel?
Or hit with something else?
He couldn’t tell.
All he knew was that his shinbone hurt like hell.
His waist bent involuntarily. His hands dropped down.
The voice pierced the gap.
“The wise and merciful Viscount Rionero Racona? What a joke.”
Thwack!
“……!”
The dining hall ceiling came into view.
Had his head been thrown back?
How had it happened?
Why did his jaw hurt so much?
“Maybe fathers and sons do the same damn things. Huh? Is bullying the weak a family tradition for you people?”
Crunch!
This time, it was his left collarbone.
A hand chop from above crushed it mercilessly.
“……Guh!”
It was a pain he’d never felt before.
His mouth gaped open involuntarily. His tongue scraped desperately against the roof of his mouth.
‘Why! Why the hell?’
Diego couldn’t comprehend what was happening.
He was a mana user, damn it.
He’d been training swordsmanship under the territory’s senior knight since he was eleven.
He’d diligently practiced mana cultivation methods.
Thanks to that, he’d formed a Mana Heart in just four years.
He still remembered the senior knight’s shocked face.
Sir Kurono had said it back then.
Young Master Diego seems like a genius.
That’s why he had confidence in his strength, in grappling, in fights.
He was big, and with a Mana Heart, he feared no one his age.
But now?
‘How dare he, how dare he do this to me! Arrrgh!’
He was furious.
It hurt so much.
Even in the midst of it, he tried to counterattack.
He swung a tightly clenched fist.
But his opponent didn’t even dodge it.
Thud!
Lloyd’s head snapped to the side from Diego’s punch.
For a moment, a hopeful smile crept onto Diego’s lips.
Can I do this? Me too?
But that hope shattered in less than three seconds.
Lloyd’s head, which had whipped around, slowly turned back toward him.
He wiped the blood from his split lip with the back of his hand.
A wicked grin spread across his face.
“Now it’s mutual assault, huh?”
Crack!
Lloyd’s strikes grew even more merciless.
It was outright brutal battery.
Fists pounded, pounded, pounded.
Elbows smashed, smashed, smashed.
Kicks flew, flew, and flew again.
When he fell, they propped him up and beat him more.
When he resisted, they took it and hit harder.
When he begged, they ignored him and stomped more.
“St-stop! I was wrong! Pleeease!”
“Stop my ass.”
Thwack! Thud thud! Pow!
They stomped openly on the back and head of the curled-up figure on the ground.
Lloyd’s eyes gleamed with utterly cold, calculated malice.
‘This way, he’ll never even dream of messing with Julian again.’
At least, this guy wouldn’t.
So, if he was going to do it, he’d do it thoroughly.
No half-assed mercy.
He had to crush him properly.
Lloyd knew that much for sure.
Thanks to his school days back in South Korea.
‘This is the straight shot for punks like you.’
A memory suddenly surfaced.
Was it his first year of high school?
His class had a bully back then.
And once, he’d become that bully’s target.
That time, he’d responded with exactly this kind of extreme prescription.
When the bully told him to go buy bread from the school store, he’d said no.
Then he got slapped with a slipper.
Slap, slap, six times round-trip.
Thud, thud, two punches to the solar plexus.
After taking the hits, he’d said okay and headed to the back of the classroom.
There stood a fluorescent light tube that someone had taken out to discard. He grabbed it like a bat and turned back to the bully. He smashed it down on the back of the head of the guy who was sitting turned around, chatting with his cronies.
Crash, shatter. Blood gushing. Chaos erupted.
But he didn’t stop.
If he was doing it, he’d do it right.
Repeating that to himself, he grabbed a chair. Smashed. Stomped.
That day, he sent that guy to the hospital.
He got suspended.
His parents were called to school.
They apologized profusely to the bully’s parents at the hospital and paid generous medical bills.
But aside from that, there were surprisingly few repercussions.
The only fallout was whispers of “that crazy bastard.”
He spent the rest of high school quietly and peacefully. No one, not that guy or the other bullies, ever bothered him again. No one told him to buy bread from the school store again.
It was a brutally violent method, but it was the incident where he directly proved and earned an intangible authority that no one would bully or disrespect him.
‘Same thing now.’
Touch Julian, and you die by my hand.
Insult my family, and you die by my hand.
Lloyd’s plunging fists and kicks carried that chilling message.
Each blow etched vivid bruises onto Diego’s body.
Julian Frontera’s heart sank with every one he saw.
‘Lloyd’s lost his mind!’
Julian was appalled.
Seeing the assault unfolding before his eyes made him want to clutch his head.
Just from surprise?
No.
It was because his vision went dark and his future seemed hopeless.
‘Lloyd Frontera, I knew he was a lunatic……but what the hell is he doing now?’
He’d signaled with his eyes not to get involved.
He’d hinted desperately to just pretend not to see.
And that guy had given a faint nod.
So he’d felt relieved.
He’d thought he was just some reckless idiot. Just family trash who only upset his parents. But somehow, in this situation, he’d learned some ‘restraint.’
But now he saw he was wrong.
Restraint my ass.
He was beating Diego like a total maniac. No, pounding him like he meant to kill him!
“Hey! Cut it out already!”
Unable to stand it, Julian yelled.
He had to stop.
They really had to stop here.
No, they’d already screwed up big time.
What would Viscount Rionero Racona do when he heard Diego had been beaten to a pulp? And what punishment would Lloyd get for assaulting a student at the academy?
And what further bullying would he himself face afterward?
The more he thought, the more chills ran down his spine like he’d fallen into an ice cave.
Unable to bear it, he grabbed one of Lloyd’s arms.
“I said stop!”
He shouted harshly.
But right after, Julian had an unexpected experience.
“Sorry. Just a bit more.”
“……Huh?”
A chill ran through him.
Lloyd glanced over briefly.
The moment their eyes met, goosebumps prickled his skin.
Because Lloyd’s gaze was ferocious?
No.
It wasn’t ferocious at all.
If anything, it was endlessly……
‘Calm. He hasn’t lost his reason at all.’
It was utterly unexpected.
Incomprehensible.
Because it was so different from the wastrel brother he’d known, Lloyd Frontera.
Even the response he got now proved it.
“If we stop half-assed here, you’ll suffer more. That what you want?”
“That’s…….”
“So trust me a little.”
Thud!
The assault on Diego resumed.
Julian felt overwhelmed despite himself by that paradoxical sight of calm violence.
And finally, he witnessed Diego passing out.
Crack!
Diego’s head lolled with the final punch.
Foam bubbled from his half-open mouth.
And there were countless gazes turned their way.
The shout of the supervisor who had rushed over amid the commotion rang out.
“What in the world is this outrage!”
A skinny middle-aged supervisor screeched in a shrill voice.
Only then did Lloyd straighten up.
He raised one hand. Swept back his disheveled bangs from his forehead. He turned to the supervisor, breathing roughly, soaked in sweat.
“I was in the midst of reclaiming damaged honor.”
“What?”
Flinch.
The supervisor halted at the unexpected reply.
But soon, taking in the sight of Diego sprawled and battered, he bit his lip hard.
“Have you forgotten what this place is? This is Magenta Academy. An academy run under the patronage of Her Majesty the Queen. And here you are, causing a disturbance, committing violence, and injuring a student of the academy.”
“So?”
“If there’s no just cause for the violence you perpetrated, I’ll hand you over to the guards right now for severe punishment.”
Murmur murmur.
By now, quite a crowd had gathered behind the supervisor.
Staff from the dining hall.
Young faces that looked like students.
Even people who seemed to be academy staff.
Some clicked their tongues, others gasped in dismay, staring alternately at Diego’s fallen form and over here.
That must have been why.
A bitter smile bloomed on Lloyd’s lips.
‘They wouldn’t have reacted like that when Julian was getting picked on.’
Probably.
They would have looked the other way.
Dismissed it as kids’ stuff between students.
No, they might have sided more with the perpetrators’ voices.
‘Their families are probably loaded, after all.’
It was plenty plausible injustice.
That’s why.
Lloyd puffed out his chest proudly.
Recalling the calculations he’d made before swinging at Diego, he smirked.
“Just cause, huh.”
“Is there a reason?”
The supervisor’s gaze grew stern.
Lloyd smirked.
“Yes.”
“What is it.”
“Defamation of honor.”
“Pardon?”
“This guy insulted me.”
“For something that trivial…….”
“It’s not trivial. Me being insulted is the same as Her Majesty the Queen being insulted.”
“……What nonsense are you spouting?”
Suspicion clouded the supervisor’s eyes.
It was natural to think he was talking crap.
And rightly so.
‘Why the hell drag Her Majesty into this? And he’s just some nobody from a rural barony.’
The supervisor’s gaze toward Lloyd turned icy.
Honor this, that.
Listening to Lloyd, it sounded ridiculous.
In truth, he still had no idea what accomplishments Lloyd had made in the trading city of Creemo. News from Creemo hadn’t reached the capital in detail yet.
So naturally, he looked down on Lloyd.
Because of his family.
‘That visitor, Julian Frontera, said he was family, right?’
Yes.
The Frontera family.
Their baron hadn’t slipped him any backroom cash.
Was it a lack of manners?
Or common sense?
Compared to the Racona Viscount family, who had sweetly tucked a thick envelope into his pocket with a “please take good care of our lacking son,” they seemed a world below.
The supervisor resolved himself.
He’d make this an issue and ensure that visitor got strict punishment. That way, he wouldn’t get chewed out by Viscount Rionero Racona, who had handed him the envelope.
“Explain exactly what you meant by invoking Her Majesty just now, and what that implies.”
He pressed Lloyd with a stern gaze.
The others gathered behind the supervisor looked at Lloyd with similar eyes.
A barrage of condemning stares.
Lloyd remained unfazed before them.
“What else? The reason’s simple.”
He casually reached into his inner pocket as if nothing had happened.
He pulled out a round golden pendant.
Held it out toward the crowd.
“Because this is who I am.”
“Gasp.”
The supervisor sucked in a sharp breath for a moment.
The eyes of the others behind widened in shock.
Stunned over a single pendant.
Lloyd’s bitter smile deepened.
“It’s the token of an honored guest specially invited and bestowed upon me by Her Majesty the Queen. As people involved with the academy, I trust you all have the discernment to recognize its significance.”
“…….”
The golden pendant in Lloyd’s hand imprinted itself on everyone’s retinas.
The twin-headed eagle engraved at its center gleamed with particularly sharp eyes.
At the same time, everyone thought.
That’s definitely a royal guest token. It’s impossible to forge in the first place, so no room for doubt.
No one dared interject and all fell silent.
Only the pale-faced supervisor gnawed at his lips.
In the dining hall, now deathly quiet.
Lloyd’s voice rang out clearly.
It lashed at the silent crowd’s consciences like a whip, stern and unyielding.