Midterms (4): The Flame on the Eastern Cliffs
The place I ran to was the eastern coastline, the complete opposite direction from where Camilla had fired her signal flare. Unlike the white-sand beach where we’d first landed, this stretch of shore was lined with sheer, dizzying cliffs. Perched on the edge of one sat a young man in a fedora.
“Whoa… I didn’t expect to get found this quickly. How the hell did you know to come all the way out here?”
“That unique murderous aura you Demons give off is practically leaking everywhere. Anyone with even decent detection skills would notice. It’d be weirder not to.”
It was a bluff. In reality, my detection ability was barely A-rank at best. I only knew about this guy because I’d seen the cutscene where the Demon swiped the amplifier after the midterm event.
“Sharp, aren’t you? Are you a teacher pretending to be a student or something?”
I wasn’t, but I wasn’t exactly buddies with this Demon either, and I saw no reason to explain every little detail. I just gave a small snort and ignored the question.
“Come on, answer me. Don’t be so cold…”
“Are we even close enough for you to say that?”
“Fair point.”
The fedora-wearing Demon hopped lightly to his feet while still seated, then turned and started walking away.
“One of us has to die anyway. Right?”
“You got that right.”
I studied the Demon’s right hand with a sly grin.
“You already stole it, huh?”
“Oh, this?” He gazed at the small cube in his hand with open affection, then took off his fedora and dropped it inside. “You’re not planning to let me leave with it, are you?”
“Then are you planning to let me go?”
“Not a chance.”
Not every Demon was the same, but when one had intelligence, blowing its head off was generally the best thing you could do for the world. If I were in mortal danger I might look the other way, but there was no reason to let this slide when I wasn’t even at risk. Besides, the cube he’d stolen was genuinely important. I had zero intention of letting it slip away here.
“Aw, can’t you let it slide just this once? I’m an S-rank Demon, you know? You’re really going to risk your life over one lousy ability amplifier?”
“Amplifier?”
“Why are you acting like you don’t know? Even an S-rank hero who specializes in illusions couldn’t project hundreds of physical phantoms across an island this size. You’re a teacher—you know that much, right?”
“Yeah, I know…”
The cube the Demon had taken was one of the Academy’s hidden treasures. It was an artifact that could multiply the user’s ability several times over. That was how he’d been able to scatter illusionary Demons across the entire island. But its true purpose wasn’t as a simple amplifier.
“Still, you’re not planning to use it only as an amplifier, are you?”
“…What? Wait, you know that much? Are you really a teacher?”
“I never said I was a teacher.”
The Demon’s eyes suddenly sharpened with real focus.
“Damn it. They told me I’d only have to deal with one or two teachers at most… Who the hell is this kid?”
Calling S-rank heroes “one or two teachers” might sound ridiculous, but the Demon in front of me was an S-rank himself—one of the strongest among his kind. It was said that taking down a single high-ranking Demon required at least three heroes of equal grade, which meant this guy’s real power was above S-rank. Since he was an enemy you only fought in the game’s late stages, I already knew exactly how dangerous he was.
Watching him mutter to himself and prepare for battle, I loosened up my body as well. It had been a long time since I’d had a proper fight.
Meanwhile, Siwoo and Aria were racing toward the spot where Camilla’s flare had gone up.
“Camilla! Are you okay?”
“Siwoo? And… Aria? Did you come to help?”
“Yeah. Plea told us to head this way… I wondered what she meant, but it really was urgent, huh?”
A Demon with three faces and pitch-black skin was staring straight at them.
“That thing… doesn’t look like an illusionary Demon, does it?”
“No. That’s not an illusion. It’s a real Demon…”
Siwoo broke into a cold sweat as he looked at the creature his ability couldn’t affect. Illusionary Demons were created by an S-rank professor, so even his Disruption couldn’t erase them completely, but it could at least make their bodies flicker and blur. This one, however, hadn’t so much as wavered despite taking multiple hits. That meant it wasn’t one of the professor’s creations.
“Aria… can you contact the professor?”
“No. The watch’s communication function has been dead for a while.”
Camilla bit her lip at Aria’s words. If that was true, they were completely isolated with a real Demon standing right in front of them.
“Still, if Plea were here, something like this would probably…”
“Plea didn’t come with us.”
“What? Why not?!”
“I don’t know either. But Plea only sent me and Aria. We’ll have to handle this ourselves.”
“Damn it.”
On top of that, they had no idea where Plea—the strongest student on the island—was. Camilla felt like she might faint on the spot, but passing out here was the same as dying, so she forced her eyes wide open and desperately searched for the best course of action.
“Then we have no choice but to take it down ourselves. Siwoo, take the front line and lead the close-combat students. Aria, I’d like you to stay at the very back and focus on healing the injured and providing buffs.”
After quickly assigning their roles, Camilla racked the slide on the rifle slung across her back.
“I’ll provide fire support from the middle ranks.”
Siwoo and Aria nodded and moved to their assigned positions.
“Do we have any data on that Demon’s attack patterns?”
“Siwoo? You’re here to support? I’ll tell you what we’ve figured out so far.”
Siwoo joined the front line, where students were clashing directly with the Demon using bladed weapons, and called one of them over to hear about its patterns and stats.
“That black bastard is slow, but its strength is insane. Two or three people have to gang up just to block a single swing. Worst of all is those closed eyes. Never make eye contact when it opens them. It seems to be some kind of mystic-eye ability—each head paralyzes sight, hearing, and touch in order from the left.”
A creature that was already a pain just because of its raw power could also mess with your senses? Siwoo instinctively understood that this was an extremely troublesome opponent.
“What a pain in the ass…”
It was practically the worst possible matchup for heroes who specialized in close combat.
Still, I have to do it.
Siwoo drew his sword.
“Let’s go!”
At his loud command, Aria’s familiar buffs wrapped around his body. Her wide-area support raised every stat—strength, agility, stamina, and more. Feeling the increased power in his grip, Siwoo charged the Demon.
A diagonal slash aimed at its left shoulder, followed by a heavy overhead strike as he took a deep breath. The Demon’s hand moved to block. Clang!
The sound was too metallic to have come from a blade meeting flesh, but most fights against Demons played out like this, so Siwoo didn’t panic. He poured more strength into the sword he’d brought down.
Demons possessed endurance and physical toughness that far surpassed ordinary heroes. Because their inner worlds had gone berserk and fused with their bodies, a Demon’s flesh was essentially a mass of pure ability and mana. That was why Siwoo focused not on cutting the creature, but on crushing it.
If he were stronger it might be different, but with his current strength and mana he was still just a rookie. He couldn’t pierce that outer shell. Shifting his center of gravity, Siwoo began to press down in earnest.
Having learned multiple combat styles in addition to Dana’s basic combat class, Siwoo’s technique held a slight edge even against upperclassmen. The Demon was pinned down, unable to move.
But the creature clearly didn’t like the stalemate. Its eyes snapped open with a flash. Not just one, but all three at once. Siwoo had sensed this opponent was different from the small fry and acted accordingly, yet that decision backfired.
Disruption.
The moment the Demon’s eyes opened, Siwoo’s ability activated in direct counter. Mana meant to seal the senses poured from the creature’s eyes, but Siwoo’s power dismantled every ability and spell released outward. The Demon’s technique scattered before it could reach him.
Realizing he could block it, Siwoo shouted to the mid-rank firepower users who had been waiting for an opening.
“Now!”
The instant he yelled, Camilla understood and fired her rifle. A single alchemical restraint round worth over thirty million won. The precisely aimed bullet flew past Siwoo and slammed into the Demon. The magic formula engraved on the round activated, binding the creature’s body.
Of course, the restraint wouldn’t last long. No matter how excellent the effect, the target was a Demon with resistance far higher than any hero. Five seconds at most. But five seconds was more than enough time for ability users to flip the tide of battle.
Fwoosh.
The moment Siwoo saw the restraint take hold and leaped back, the mid-rank students unleashed their abilities. Flames, lightning, ice, glass constructs, laser beams—every kind of power, amplified by Aria’s buffs, poured toward the Demon. The overwhelming firepower was so intense that even Siwoo wondered if he could disrupt it all.
Camilla’s alchemical bullets in particular burned ten million won per shot, delivering devastating force. Among the mid-rank students, her output was in a league of its own.
When the carpet bombing finally stopped, a crater far deeper than ten meters had been carved into the ground.
“I-is it over?”
“It has to be…”
The students muttered anxiously while they waited for the smoke rising from the crater to clear. A moment later—
“Uwaaaaah!”
“We did it! We killed a Demon!”
In the center of the crater lay the Demon, its body shattered and broken as if it had been crushed to death. Siwoo collapsed on the spot.
He had seen Demons before, but this was the first time he had actually fought one. The extreme tension that had gripped him vanished the moment the creature died, and his legs finally gave out.
“Haa… it’s over.”
“Good work.”
Aria walked over, wiping the sweat from her forehead.
“What are you talking about? You worked harder. There must’ve been almost twenty students, and you buffed every single one.”
“I was just sitting in the back the whole time.”
At Aria’s self-deprecating remark, Siwoo let out a hearty laugh.
“I wonder what Plea’s doing right now?”
“Yeah…”
“We took down the Demon. All that’s left is to head back—”
But Siwoo’s words never finished.
Before he could close his mouth, a colossal pillar of flame erupted from the eastern tip of the island. It was so enormous it looked like it could reach kilometers into the sky.
Siwoo knew instinctively.
The owner of that flame was Plea. Their fight might be over, but hers had only just begun.