This Is What They Call an Academy

"Keruk?"

And so I was back. The Goblin's Lair. I ignored the goblin staring blankly at me from up ahead and started loosening up.

"Ke! Kerrr?!"

Had it finally realized I wasn't one of its own? The thing shrieked in alarm and charged, swinging a crude dagger ground down from stone. Watching it come, I decided where to start.

Green skin. Yellow eyes. Horizontal pupils that called to mind an octopus and a goat. A long, grotesquely hooked beak of a nose. Scrawny limbs and a weirdly bloated gut — a body built all wrong.

No matter how many times I saw them, our sandbags never got any less disgusting.

"Alright. Let's start with hand-to-hand."

I reinforced my body with mana and pulled the shadows over myself in the same breath. They swallowed my cadet uniform in an instant, settling into something like the robes adventurers wore in games.

Clack.

Heavy-looking gauntlets and greaves took shape over my hands and legs. Shadows had no weight, of course — just custom armor with its durability cranked absurdly high through pure mana.

Unlike when I forged weapons, the shadows coated my whole body without a single beat of delay, as if showing off that this was how they were meant to be used. I snorted.

"More aggressive."

The shadows stirred at my will. The robe that had hung down past my thighs — too cumbersome — shrank to my hips, and thick spikes sprouted from the knuckles of the gauntlets.

The whole set bulked up, and my wrists locked in with a much firmer grip than before. The greaves developed ridges at the knees and shins that looked like they'd hurt if they connected.

Satisfied, I finally turned to the goblin that had closed the distance, dropped into a clumsy fighting stance I'd only ever seen on TV and YouTube, and leaned in.

"Ke!!"

Whoosh!

It came at me happily, swinging that stone dagger. I tracked it all the way, stepped once to the side, and whipped my arm around in a counter aimed straight at its brow.

Crunch!

It felt nothing like the old days of cracking them with a pipe. Back then the impact had been something transmitted through a weapon. Now I felt the crush directly in my hand. The vivid sensation made me frown without meaning to.

"Quek...?"

I slammed it into the ground like I was driving a stake, and its skull came apart completely. Blood sprayed everywhere; I flicked the shadows and shook off the gore and scraps of flesh before they could touch me.

"...Too easy."

Which meant I'd gotten stronger. Even with mana behind the blow, I hadn't expected a one-hit kill. It was so effortless it barely registered.

I needed to go back to basics.

Back to when I'd had next to no mana at all — every swing of that iron pipe a full-power squeeze, recovering and fighting and recovering again. At least while I was fighting, I'd deliberately throttle my mana and focus on efficiency.

I pictured my little lizard and snapped my fingers.

Snap.

"Kallion."

Fwoosh!

Kallion appeared in a burst of light and didn't move right away, cleaning his eyes with his tongue while he took in the surroundings. I held off on any orders and gave him time to adjust to the new space.

I wouldn't have done that in the middle of a real fight — but right now this was Kallion's time, and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠using it entirely for him felt right.

At first, when Hive and Growl had taken dungeon transfers with total indifference, I'd figured that was just how summons were. Watching this one, I realized that wasn't it at all.

Thinking about it, Hive and Growl had already experienced the world flipping on them by crossing in and out of a barrier. I'd been so exhausted I was about to pass out at the time, so I hadn't had the bandwidth to check on them — and that still bothered me a little.

"Grrung~"

Once he'd finished adapting, Kallion flared his nostrils for a long moment and then let out a cry in my direction. I'd already told him his job the moment I summoned him.

"Do as much as you can."

"Krrung!"

He went straight to the goblin I'd dropped first. Using his forepaws, he dabbed at the blood scattered across the ground, sniffed it, licked it — playing detective.

Was that just how young dragons were wired? Unlike crows or wolves, a young dragon was a pure product of fantasy, so even Kallion's eccentric little habits were fascinating to watch.

"Hnf!"

He tasted the blood, worked his mouth a few times, then spat with a look of pure distaste. Not to his palate, apparently. Fair enough — the first thing he'd ever eaten was a hatchling's eggshell.

Something that sold for a fortune as high-grade alchemy material, and he'd polished it off without a second thought. No way something this low-grade was going to impress him after that.

He rose onto his hind legs, scanned the area, and took off at speed. Trees and underbrush in his path were smashed and trampled as a matter of course.

It wasn't Growl's efficient, technique-driven movement — just raw muscle, brute-forcing a path. Anyone could have followed the trail Kallion left behind.

Which made my job easy. Following his route, I found the first settlement almost immediately.

"Grrung!!!"

Kallion charged without hesitation. Power flooded his stride; deep footprints stamped into the earth, and his body moved faster and more violently with every step.

"Keeek?!"

"Kerre!!!"

At Kallion's dramatic entrance the goblins shrieked and started rallying their kin. As they formed up into something resembling a unit and advanced, Kallion suddenly stopped, then spun his body with liquid ease.

Whooom! Crack!

His long tail whipped around in a blur of afterimages and scythed through the goblins.

"Chih...!"

"...!?"

The air cracked, and goblins went flying. Some died with their spines snapped, bodies folded in half. Others lost soft chunks of themselves as if they'd been torn clean off.

He'd remembered the tail-whip idea I'd idly considered before and put it to use exactly as I'd imagined.

One swing: four of ten dead on the spot, five more too mangled to ever stand again. The only one still more or less intact was the goblin that had shoved a comrade into the path of the blow as a shield.

A goblin using a friend as a meat shield. Already showing rotten instincts. That one, I was going to kill myself.

I left most of the remaining goblins to Kallion and walked toward the one sitting on the ground, trembling.

"Kek..! Kekekek...!!!"

Its legs had given out. It waved its stone dagger at me while crab-walking backward. I kicked it in the side and knocked it over.

Thud!

It flopped onto its face, clutching its ribs and thrashing. Choking on its own breath, it couldn't even scream. I drove my foot down hard into its chest.

"Kuek..."

"Does it hurt?"

In a last thrash of resistance it raked my leg with its sharp claws. Nowhere near enough to pierce the shadows. Every time its movements slowed, I put more weight into the foot.

"No cause. No plan. Just sacrificing your own kind so you can live? Pretty funny, huh?"

When more than half its chest had caved in, the wild flailing of its arms and legs cut off cold. It went limp and started cooling. For good measure I kicked its head and snapped the neck completely, then looked up.

"Grrung?"

Kallion, painted head to toe in goblin blood, tilted his head at me. Kill count: thirty-two. I'd taken two, so the other thirty were all him.

A superior base specimen really was overwhelming against fodder. That said, he wasn't completely unscathed — scrapes marked his scales here and there.

Most of them looked less like combat wounds and more like the kind you get smashing through everything on the way here.

I could have healed him on the spot and ordered another charge — but that would just put him on the same track as Growl. I held off on the healing and ordered him to fight smarter: efficient movement over pure ramming.

"Ggeung..."

He made a face like he couldn't parse the order. Low intelligence meant this kind of friction. What to do. I turned it over, hunting for an explanation even an idiot could ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠follow, then gave up.

Right. Cases like this, you only learn by taking the hits yourself.

"...If you don't want to get hit, you'll figure out how to dodge."

"Grrung!"

That one he understood. Kallion accepted the order and went back to hunting.

Crack! Boom!

Watching him flatten trees as he went, I wondered if he'd actually understood anything at all — then shook my head and followed the bold little idiot.

"Grrrr!!!"

"Keeek...!"

Crash!

The second he spotted goblins he charged without a second thought and flattened them. Getting hit by something with that mass and that strength had to feel a lot like being run over by a tank that didn't bother to stop.

And then, with uncanny precision, he ignored the already-dead ones, hunted down the goblins still staggering around half-alive, and stomped them to death with obsessive thoroughness. Watching him, I felt the full weight of the saying that a child is a mirror of its parent.

He skipped right past the good stuff and absorbed every bad habit with terrifying efficiency. Unbelievable.

Harmony this, balance that — first priority for this one was Intelligence. He had to understand me before I could educate him on anything. At this rate I was going to thoroughly ruin the kid's personality, and the worry was real.

With Kallion's training plan decided, I walked the red carpet he'd so thoughtfully laid out.

Thud!

"Ah."

A sudden impact between my shoulder blades. I turned my head just enough to look back and found a goblin in a black hood staring at me, pupils shaking like it couldn't believe what it was seeing. Right — those existed too. The ones that operated outside the pack, unlike the rest.

A Goblin Thief.

I usually left all scouting and perimeter watch to Hive, so I'd drifted into my own thoughts and completely forgotten to check my surroundings.

The stone dagger on the ground was different from the ones the others used — the tip sharpened to an awl's point. If I hadn't been wearing the shadows, even a body reinforced with mana would have taken a deep wound.

One more thing to reflect on. I rolled my neck against the dull ache and walked toward it.

"Come on."

"...!"

My confidence made it step back — but when I crooked a finger and goaded it, it drew a deep breath and charged. I set my stance and swung a fist to meet its attack like a block.

Clang!

The rebound was lighter than expected; its arm gave way and drifted back naturally. A goblin using a probing feint. A technique that belonged on a person.

You couldn't pull that off without some understanding of swordsmanship. Whether it was designed that way from the start or not, this one was clearly a cut above the rest.

Come to think of it, this was the only one that had held out against Growl last time. One evolution made that much of a difference. Same with Hive. Same with Growl.

Maybe it hit harder with them because I watched them level up and hone their skills in real time.

"Interesting."

The first summons I called always came as the base form of their species.

With monsters, that feeling was even stronger. Which was why most of them were relatively weak compared to enemies I'd already added to the List. Even Kallion, measured against the young dragon line, sat on the weaker end.

Individual strengths aside, their total stats right after summoning rarely cracked twenty-five. The real turning point — when they started feeling like they could pull their own weight — was the moment they crossed level ten and evolved.

This one had already passed that threshold. On the goblin spectrum, it was definitely one of the strong ones.

How far could these things go? Could I push them further if I raised them myself? If I fed them the skill books and runes people used, would they learn skills?

There was definitely a Lesser Demon on the summon list. Once I solved the chronic problem of not having a dedicated ranged dealer, experimenting with a few different summons didn't sound half bad.

"Keruk!"

It sprang in, blades a blur. I leaned my whole body back just enough to slip the flurry and snapped a light jab into its face.

Crack!

A clean pop of air, and its head whipped hard to the side. The spikes on my knuckles had torn into its cheek and cheekbone; droplets of blood hung in the air.

Before it could recover I seized the hand holding the dagger, locked it down, and hammered its face with my free fist.

"Kueh...!"

Every time my knuckles met its face I felt the shape of it cave. The usually silent thing screamed and clawed at my arm with its free hand, but the shadow-wrapped clothes stopped anything meaningful from landing.

"Frustrating, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠isn't it?"

I knew full well this was half gear-carry. But without this equipment I wouldn't have been fighting this way in the first place, so I hoped it wouldn't hold a grudge.

I had no intention of stripping it off for the sake of fair play, either. It was a monster. I was the hunter who killed monsters. And this world was crawling with things far worse than me — if something this small counted as unfair, we'd never get anywhere.

I was only doing this to earn a skill. So it should give up soon and become experience for my little eccentricities.

Crack!!

"Kepuk..."

The last blow tore the black cloth and laid its face bare.

Nothing left intact. Every tooth broken. It kept spitting a thick slurry of spit and blood — and still glared at me with pure killing intent. A chill ran down my spine.

"...Yeah. That's it."

Forget strong and weak. Look at that razor-edged obsession — the absolute will to burn its own life if it meant killing the other guy. The heat of it felt like it could scorch me if I got careless. I smiled.

"That's what makes putting you down worth it."

I focused on the skill I carried and stirred my mana.

As if answering, dark crimson wisps seeped from its wounds, gathered in the air, and formed a half-shattered skull. The skull's jaw yawned wide and burst into flame, burning of its own accord.

The goblin staggered back as if it couldn't even see the burning skull. The skull, already alight, drifted to my side.

In those few seconds it shrank, settling beside me and burning with an ominous dark crimson.

The fire sank into mana that should have been blue and twisted it into a deep violet the color of blood. Not a goblin skill. Not a curse. This was the effect of the skill Sadism.

That was why I'd been killing enemies in ways that made them suffer as much as possible.

The half-formed skull from when I'd first stomped a goblin to death had finished itself in this fight, so I'd finally put it to use.

One token spent. Right now I was riding a +4 Intelligence correction. Higher Intelligence boosted both the quality and quantity of mana, which made this skill a perfect fit for my combat style.

What I was really looking forward to, though, was the Pain Amplification effect that came with the mana boost.

Tap!

I closed the distance on the goblin as it tried to edge away and threw a punch.

The Goblin Thief caught it on its dagger and set itself to deflect — the same uncanny movement it had shown against Growl.

I'd only wrecked its face. The body was fine. I'd gone after the face on purpose. If I'd wanted it disabled, I'd have broken an arm or a leg ages ago.

New skills were nice, but letting a skill I'd already earned rot as pure stat-farming felt wasteful. Using it once, getting a feel for it — that turned it into something I could actually deploy in a real fight later.

"Hup!"

Boom!!

I feinted the punch, then poured mana into my leg and stamped the ground hard. At the same time I drove the shadows into the earth and sent them moving. Target: the goblin. It felt the surge from below too late and jumped — already too late.

Fwoosh!!

Shadow spikes erupted from the ground. Far from losing force, they sharpened under the correction from the skill Trap Installation, driving up deadlier than ever.

Thuk!

The awl-fast spike punched through its leg, and its eyes bulged like they might pop free of its skull.

"Gyaaaaaaagegek?!?!"

The thing that had taken every hit so far without so much as a proper groan finally screamed — a raw, wretched sound.

As if the option of running had been erased, it clutched its leg and face and crumpled flat against the ground.

It shook like something in a seizure, no different from a bug twitching as it crawled. The fighting spirit that had lived in its face was gone. Only pain and terror remained.

"..."

Looking at it, I felt the air go out of me a little.

Yeah. I got it.

Pain Amplification didn't just hit new wounds — it hit every wound already there. It raised the target's pain sense itself.

Which meant every injury across its body dumped amplified agony into it all at once. Losing the will to fight wasn't strange. That was exactly what Sadism was built to do.

...But understanding that and my mood cooling off were two different things. The skill suited me well enough — efficient, the kind of thing I got bored of quickly. Still. Still.

I'd finally gotten a real spark going for the first time in a while, and watching it snuff out this easily made me feel like an idiot for getting worked up at all.

"Tsk."

If it were still fighting back, maybe. I had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠no interest in tormenting something already broken. I lifted my foot, gathered mana, and brought it down on the Goblin Thief's head — the fight long gone from its eyes.

Crunch!