Chapter 251
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 251
Chapter Title: Lesson 49. Casanova's Holiday - 1
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Second semester, week 8—a Saturday morning when all tests related to midterms and every assignment except the magic research paper with Aire were finally done.
Ban Yu-won had entered an empty low-level dungeon near Union Academy alongside Shati.
"Hmm, perfect spot for a stray cat to sneak in. Cramped, cozy, and filthy."
With Mira, the ability user who could lace poison and curses into a radiant smile.
"Soooob, Yu-won sunbaaaae, I'm gonna curse yooooou."
"Noooope."
Even as her body twisted in the Elven Cobra Twist—a secret technique supposedly passed down through the fairy royal family, which Ban Yu-won had just arbitrarily tacked on—Shati spat venom at him. Feeling a twinge of guilt at the sight, he couldn't help but argue back.
"You've done well hiding it this long. But as you can guess, I didn't say a word. Mira just sniffed it out like a ghost."
"You should've at least tried to fool me!"
"Unlike some people, I can't lie to the ones I love."
"You philanderer! Devilish scum!"
"Hahaha, hearing 'devil' from an Evil One like you hits different."
As Ban Yu-won played it off like it was someone else's problem, Mira finished punishing Shati and settled into a cross-legged seat nearby, exuding the aura of a demon king risen from the dead.
"Alright, now do it. Hug, kiss, whatever."
"Aaaaaah, seriously?!"
Shati, who desperately didn't want Mira catching her practicing summoning magic, couldn't just quit now that they were here. Tears streaming down her face, she shuffled slowly toward Ban Yu-won.
"This is like a horror flick—could you wipe those tears first? And if you're using that as a catalyst for summoning, grab a basin."
"So! What's this solution you mentioned?!"
Ban Yu-won patiently fielded Shati's irritated whining and explained yesterday's events with Yumina as indirectly and briefly as possible, without prying into personal details.
Everyone already knew something had happened between him and Yumina anyway— that morning, she'd gone out of her way to the student cafeteria where the Rebellion members were eating breakfast, beaming and firing off lovey-dovey rays left and right before leaving.
So it was better to lay out the facts upfront and minimize the damage before wild rumors spread.
"Phew... I knew it was only a matter of time with her, but still. So that's how it went."
"Is that the problem right now? It's Word Spirit, Mira! Word Spirit! The Ortima family might just grab our junior and dissect him alive!"
"I've known about Yu-won's Word Spirit from the start."
"You two won't feel better unless you rub your relationship in my face every chance you get, huh?"
Just because Ban Yu-won could interfere with internal concepts via Word Spirit didn't mean the issue was fully resolved.
After analyzing Shati's divine authority for a while, they'd sadly concluded they couldn't alter the structure of her summoning magic.
Summons were limited to monsters from the demon realm, and properly controlling them required blood demonic power no matter what.
Shati didn't want blood demonic power, so they had no clue where to even start.
"From what I've observed, sunbae, your summoning breaks down into three steps. First, find a world flowing with blood demonic power. Second, call a monster with it. Third, subjugate it with blood demonic power. The first two are untouchable. Meaning you can't change the summoning location or target."
"Normally, the subjugation holds with blood demonic power too. But since I was born without it, it clashed with my authority..."
"That's the silver lining, at least. Either way, we can tweak how the summoned monsters are handled."
As proof he hadn't been secretly fooling around with Shati, Ban Yu-won poured out explanations. Mira, listening from the side, nodded and chimed in.
"It's not like you'll summon monsters forever anyway. We could probably trick them temporarily and make them obey. Like a changeling."
"That has limits. Repeated summons leave records in the authority."
Every time Shati summoned, she often failed to pay the proper price for the target and ended up killing them herself.
She hadn't realized it at first, but those brutal acts during summons got etched into her authority and transmitted to the monsters in real-time.
So naturally, the more she repeated summons, the worse the monsters' reactions to her became.
In other words, even if they used changelings to fool monsters short-term, the accumulating records would eventually lead to them attacking her the moment they appeared.
"Doesn't that mean it's already over? Even if we change the price now, the monsters won't just obey nicely."
"Exactly, Mira. Spot on."
"You picking a fight with me right now, junior? Fine, let's duel over Mira."
Ban Yu-won kindly explained to Shati, who'd been floored by Mira's elven dropkick.
"You have to hear me out. Since we can't properly contract with the monsters anyway, we figure out alternative uses. For starters, sunbae, your summons carry far more magic power than what you invest to activate the authority. That's a ridiculous advantage right there."
"So what if they have more magic power? I can't control them."
"Magic power equals destructive force. Haven't you seen the abandoned dimensions? The destructive power bursting from collapsing monsters is potent, even ignoring the infection waves."
Shati stared at Ban Yu-won like he was some mad blasphemer.
At this point, even if he suddenly declared, "I'm a walking bomb," it wouldn't surprise her.
"Mira, do something about your boyfriend."
"Huh? He's a genius."
"Wrong! You're too lovestruck..."
Shati recoiled at the idea of using monsters as bombs, but Ban Yu-won had genuinely concluded it was the only way.
"At least you agree we can't just use them as-is, right?"
"Yeah, but... so? What then?"
"Summon two monsters at once."
"Two instead of one. And?"
"Fuse them right away. Luckily, I picked up a concept from an abandoned dimension. We merge it into your authority to enable fusion."
Ban Yu-won pulled out a Code Core and explained as smoothly as a home shopping pitch.
Mira and Shati knew what fusion meant—they'd watched the live broadcast of the abandoned dimension purge.
"Infection wave?!"
"Cut that part out, so you're safe."
Like peeling sprouts off a potato to make it edible, removing the infection wave from the chimera concept left something usable.
Ban Yu-won explained kindly, but Shati couldn't just nod along.
"...Fine, whatever. Can't use them raw, so summon two at once and fuse them. Got it so far. Then what?"
"Fusion doesn't guarantee results. Fuse two monsters, and you might not get a proper one—or even if you do by miracle, it'll be unstable. No using it like normal summoners would."
"Then it's pointless!"
"That's where the paired Collapse concept comes in!"
It was like skipping basic cooking to show off a half-done sample.
"With this, you can easily collapse the fusion of wildly mixed monster factors in their super-unstable state! The process unleashes destructive energy harmless to humans, inflicting horrific damage on targets near the designated coordinates!"
"Harmless to humans my ass!"
"Least you won't turn into a monster if you get hit by the collapse blast."
Finishing his explanation of how Fusion and Collapse worked in the summoning process, Ban Yu-won pointed to the faintly glowing red magic circle on the back of Shati's hand.
"The trick was harmonizing these two concepts into the authority. But yesterday, tweaking Professor Yumina's ability with Word Spirit gave me the knack. Once we're done, you'll just activate your authority to detonate an on-site bomb wherever you want."
"I'm supposed to be the bomb demon..."
Shati was stunned that the solution veered so far from what she'd imagined, but she soon accepted there was no other way.
In truth, her one effective use of the authority so far had been summoning monsters right into enemy lines for indiscriminate destruction... not far off from what Ban Yu-won proposed!
Plus, his method let her strike at will, with even greater power than normal magic usage.
No reason to refuse anymore.
"Kyahaha! Fine! I'll be your bomb demon or whatever!"
"Let's get to the procedure then. ...Mira? No kissing, so no need to worry."
Implanting and tweaking concepts was more complex than yesterday's Word Spirit use on Yumina, but after two weeks dissecting her authority and planning the interference, he pulled it off flawlessly.
"Wooow..."
The revamped Summoning Authority, infused with 1,000 Fusion and 300 Collapse concepts from the abandoned dimension purge, now formed a more intricate magic circle. Golden lines traced through the red ones, hinting at Ban Yu-won's touch.
"...This is kinda embarrassing."
Shati stared at the finished authority, blushing as some imagining crossed her mind.
Mira looked ready to skin her hand off, but Ban Yu-won knew Shati was exaggerating to provoke her. He sighed and stepped back from Shati.
"Pretty big investment. You know that, right? Planning to actively purge abandoned dimensions from now on... and I'll need your help then."
"If this authority proves useful as you say, of course I'll help. You'll share some of those concepts, yeah?"
"Depends how you do. Wanna test it?"
"Yeah, wanna check the destructive power scaling with magic too."
Ban Yu-won promptly deployed a barrier ahead with his Origin Sword.
Shati extended her hand toward the dungeon depths beyond it and activated her authority. A sphere of immense gravitational pull manifested in midair, instantly coalescing distorted monster magic power!
"Whoa, two monsters summoned and shredded before they even know what's up..."
"And that's not all! The fusion's affecting the surroundings, drawing in external magic power too!"
"Pulls enemies in so they can't dodge. Nice bonus."
"Yu-won, what the hell did you make?"
The altered authority activated in two stages.
First, activating the magic circle summoned and fused two monsters simultaneously. Second, snapping her fingers collapsed the fusion for an artificial explosion.
Shati gauged the destructive power the moment it activated and flicked her finger with careful composure.
—KABOOOOOM!
In that instant.
The dungeon vanished.
The three stared speechless at the suddenly wide-open view, but Mira quickly regained her cool and flashed a leisurely smile.
"As expected of Yu-won. Even the barrier held firm."
"Yu-won junior! What the heck did you make?! You planning to go around popping these off all the time?!"
But Shati couldn't stay calm.
Looking around, it wasn't just this dungeon—it had chained into several nearby ones in the dungeon cluster and wiped them all at once.
Ban Yu-won nodded, pleased with the result of his design working perfectly.
"It's fine. Only Evil One I know who's a guild president is you, sunbae."
"That's not the poi—oh."
Neither she, nor the other full professors, nor even the chancellor would guess Ban Yu-won's full capabilities.
As that realization hit and she pinched her brow, Shati sensed something linked to her via authority screaming in agony.
"What's wrong, Shati?"
"Nah, that Bronze Devil I summoned and left during the last test. Forgot to kill it off, so the explosion info must've reached it."
"..."
"It's totally spooked now. Says it'll do anything if I kill it nicely..."
Of course.
Ban Yu-won got it.
That must've been one hell of a terrifying experience...