Conquering the Academy with Just a Sashimi Knife (Novel) - Chapter 102 - Night of Purge (1)

Chapter 102 – Night of Purge (1)

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Translated by Jinmu

Read only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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Once the situation had been roughly sorted out, it didn’t take long to finish preparing.

After confirming my wish to join them, the Sword Emperor accepted my participation without much comment.

Even Media, who at first had firmly objected and said absolutely not, gave a reluctant nod once she saw the determination in my eyes.

Her expression was full of displeasure, but more than that, there was no time left to delay.

While everyone busied themselves getting ready, Weapon, who had been standing awkwardly by himself, spoke to me.

“…President, you’re really going?”

For the record, Weapon was naturally excluded from this matter. His brilliant mind and his value as a healer would make him a major asset, but he was still a seventeen-year-old boy.

A storm of blood was about to break. There was no way I could take a minor like Weapon along.

…Well, technically I too was still in the fresh bloom of youth. But the stuff inside was already nearing forty, so I was an exception.

I looked straight into Weapon’s eyes. All sorts of emotions were gathered in his gaze.

I had incurred a great debt to him today. He had explained all the recent events to the three giants in my place.

He must have felt wronged because of my absurd excuse, and yet he hadn’t complained even once. Even now, when we had reached the final act and were heading into a grim situation where several heads were likely to roll, Weapon was worrying about me before anything else. I felt more than simple gratitude toward him.

With a calm, settled gaze, I placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Wait here. I’ll finish things quickly and come back.”

“……”

Weapon’s expression was thick with concern. I said nothing, only patted his shoulder and passed him by. Then, just as the office door had opened halfway.

“Kang Geom-ma!”

Weapon called out to stop me.

“…I know it probably won’t happen, but don’t come back injured. Saki’s already in the hospital as it is, and if you end up laid up too, it’ll be too hard on me by myself!”

“……”

His voice trembled vividly.

Without turning back, I kept walking.

* * *

Inside an abandoned building so old the walls were flaking with age.

Figures with their hoods pulled low began gathering one by one.

Their eyes were hidden in shadow, but every one of their mouths was twisted.

“Fucking hell, how lightly does that bastard professor take us, sending us a text like this!?”

One man snarled viciously. He stamped his foot so roughly it looked as though he wanted to smash the floor. It was because of the text that had appeared on his phone screen.

== ==

This letter first began in the nation of Maple and had since made one full circuit over the course of a year, bringing good fortune to all who received it. Now, having fulfilled its mission, it had reached the final recipient. To you who had received this letter, a great misfortune would arrive tomorrow at 4:30 p.m.

.

.

.

By. Pr0f3$$or

== ==

A dogshit message not even worth snorting at.

But because the sender, written in code, was the professor, there was nothing for them to do but come, however furious they were.

“That fucking bastard. This won’t do anymore. He really thinks we’re total pushovers. We should use this chance to sort out the hierarchy once and for all, fuck.”

At the man’s violent reaction, a woman leaning against the wall sneered.

“Pfft, says the one who came running in a panic the moment he saw the text.”

“Who the hell said I panicked!”

“The professor pisses me off too. But what can you do? Even if he’s annoying, if he tells you to jump, you jump.”

The woman shrugged and folded her arms again.

The man twisted his mouth as he looked at her. Then, grinding up the curses rolling around in his mouth, he looked around.

There were five gathered in total. Perhaps because the number was so small, the damp smell of mold lingered at the tip of his nose even more unpleasantly than usual.

Feeling something eerily off, the man spat out:

“But why is it only us? Doesn’t everyone usually gather when we’re called?”

“……”

At the man’s words, the others only made odd expressions.

That point was a question for them too. There had been one or two absences now and then, but never before had they gathered in numbers this few.

And even if the professor had wanted a covert meeting, to summon them with a piece-of-trash text like this? That too was unprecedented.

As time passed, layers of suspicion piled up, and the strange feeling gradually turned into something more alien and unsettling.

‘Something’s wrong.’

Not only the man, but the others too instinctively felt that things were abnormal. Their wary glances circled one another.

As if by agreement, the villains all narrowed their eyes.

“……”

Silence fell.

No words were exchanged, but they had all prepared themselves to snap their fingers at one another at any moment.

Tok- tok-

At that moment, the sound of footsteps in dress shoes rang out from the direction of the door.

The sharp looked that had been aimed at each other shifted all at once toward that sound. Their eyes gleamed strangely in the darkness.

‘I can’t sense any magic.’

Even though their sense-ranges had grown sharper from the taut tension, they could sense no magic.

An outsider? But this was a place only villains used, and at this late an hour, who would happen to wander all the way to the far edge of the grounds by accident?

‘Then who is it?’

The man frowned and stared beyond the door. Just then, from the place his gaze was fixed on, a mysterious feminine voice was heard.

“Good grief, how did these brats find a place I didn’t even know about. Did you know about this place, Zig?”

A woman’s voice that sounded strangely familiar.

Just as he tilted his head, wondering who it was, the owner of the voice stepped into view.

At the same time, every eye widened so far it looked as though they might split apart.

The man blinked a few times, then his voice trembled.

“H-Headmaster……!?”

At Media’s appearance, the man’s pupils shook violently.

At last he started spraying spit as he pointed a finger.

“Wh-what the hell, why is Media here!?”

Meanwhile Media revealed herself completely. Then she broke the silence and spoke.

“Hello, trash.”

“You motherf-!”

The man spat out a curse as if convulsing, then immediately began drawing up magic. The others, who had stood there blankly, snapped to and began casting right behind him.

Countless questions floated in their minded, but the opponent was who she was. This wasn’t a situation where they could afford to pick and choose.

‘Sage Media.’

Though she was disguised in the beautiful appearance of a woman in her twenties, she was a veteran who had survived every possible battlefield. And among the Seven Star heroes, she was the only one whose position had never been fixed, and the reason was-

Wooooong-

While they gathered their magic, Media casually turned back and shouted:

“Hey! Zig! Get over here already!”

As soon as she finished speaking, a new figure surfaced behind her back and answered:

“The stench of garbage was too strong, so I stepped back for a moment.”

“Hey! And this is when you’re being fussy about cleanliness!?”

The old man fully stepped into view at last. The villains stared at him in a daze, their mouths hanging open.

A man with silver-white hair shining under the moon and golden eyes blazing like the sun.

“Th-the Sword Emperor?”

The man stammered. A few of the others actually rubbed their eyes while half-charging their magic, as if doubting whether they had seen correctly.

The Sword Emperor stepped up beside Media. Covering his nose, he swept his gaze over the interior, then furrowed his brow.

“There are fewer pieces of trash than I expected.”

“Right? If I’d known it’d be like this, I would’ve just come alone. Or better yet, Zig, want to go join up with Geom-ma’s side instead?”

“No need. Let’s finish them quickly together, then join the others.”

Even amid the ominous resonance of magic, only the two of them chatted back and forth in a strangely friendly way against the concrete walls. As though the villains themselves didn’t matter at all.

‘These bastards are looking down on us completely.’

But thanks to that, the man had enough time to gather sufficient magic. A cruel smile spread over his lips as he felt the heavy magic swell into his fingertips.

In an instant, the man rapidly recombined the magic and sent it to the tips of his fingers, then.

Tak!

He snapped them.

Sseuseuseuseuk-

A wind tinged with the smell of fishy water blew through.

Immediately, bubbles began seething in midair, and before long masses of water spikes took shape.

A power personally taught to him by his lord, the Third Legion Commander. It looked like simple water-element magic, but deadly poison was mixed into it.

The man thought to himself. The opponents were two of the Seven Star heroes. Not only that, they were the Sword Emperor, called humanity’s strongest, and Sage Media, the one villains were most desperate to avoid.

Even if there were five villains gathered here, under normal circumstances they wouldn’t even have been fit to face them.

But if the five of them worked together, why shouldn’t they be able to kill them? Media had been off the front lines for nearly forty years, and the Sword Emperor had lost an arm.

‘We’ll lure them into carelessness and kill them.’

Using the moisture in the air as a medium, the man transmitted his words to the other villains.

-I’ll take the front. The four of you attack from the left, right, above, and below. No matter how strong the Seven Stars are, even they can’t endure a wide-range assault.

At the man’s words, the others silently nodded. They didn’t particularly like being ordered around, but he wasn’t wrong.

Then suddenly, Media stopped talking, slowly turned her head, and stared straight at the man. Tilting her head deeply to one side, she spoke.

“You don’t seriously think I wouldn’t know, do you?”

“……!”

The man felt a sharp chill run down his spine. A gaze that seemed to pierce through every thought in his heart, just like her title of Sage. Feeling sweat gather in his palms, he screamed:

“Die!”

Just before the dozens of water spikes could be fired in a barrage.

“Honestly, do they teach you all those lines somewhere? Why are they always so cliche?”

After shaking her head, Media took one large step forward.

Hoo-uk!

In an instant, green hair swayed slowly across the man’s retinas.

She had definitely been ten meters away, so how had she…?

Before that question could even pass through his brain, he felt a heavy pressure from his left side.

Kududeuk!

And somehow, there was Media right in the middle of the enemy formation, smashing the man into the ground with one hand. His head was driven straight into the floor.

She hadn’t caught him careless, nor had she slipped past his guard. Yet without the man being able to offer a shred of resistance, everything above his shoulders had already been buried in the concrete.

She drew in a short breath, then raised her fist high. The moment a massive force gathered in that clenched hand, her straight punch slammed down into the back of the man’s head.

Jjeojeok- The floor cracked like a spiderweb.

Peok!

Something hard shattered with a sickening noise.

The villains stared blankly at the sight. One of them broke into a cold sweat and muttered:

“T-tyrant……!”

Another title of Media’s, one that had spread gradually from mouth to mouth.

The reason she had no fixed position was because her strength was too overwhelming to be described by any single role. The Sword Emperor shook his head with a sigh.

“Media, you truly know nothing of moderation.”

From within the swirling dust, Media slowly straightened her knees and rose. Then, with eyes gone cold, she spoke.

“Next.”

Fear rapidly filled the villains’ faces.

The Tyrant had returned.

* * *

As the entrance to Cladi’s annex came into view, Altair suddenly spoke to me.

“Kang Geom-ma, you truly are a peculiar young man.”

At that abrupt remark, I turned a vaguely confused expression toward Altair. His mouth was smiling, but his eyes were expressionless.

Perhaps because he was an assassin by trade, he was an old man whose emotions were very hard to read. The only thing I could really sense was that there was no hostility or malice in him.

Altair turned his gaze forward again and began speaking.

“This isn’t something to boast about, but because my profession is what it is, I’m fairly good at reading people’s thoughts. As I approach seventy, my body grows old, but my eye for such things only sharpens. And yet, amusingly enough, you are the one person I could never read, Kang Geom-ma. I couldn’t tell what sort of man you were, nor what you were thinking.”

“……”

“Yes, those eyes. The eyes that made this old body tremble in fear for the first time in my life. Black eyes like a single blade, with all emotion, thought, and humanity carved clean away.”

Altair tilted his head back and looked up at the night sky. After staring into it with barren eyes for a long while, he lowered his head and turned back toward me.

Lifting his red eyes with firm resolve, Altair asked:

“…Do you know the standard by which people and monsters are distinguished?”

“……”

I stared blankly for a few seconds, wondering what kind of question that was, and then Altair let out a faint smile and continued:

“A monster thinks of itself as an ordinary person.”

An abrupt Zen-like riddle. I tilted my head.

“What does that have to do with the situation right now?”

Altair’s red eyes slowly scanned over me. Then, with a hardened face, he said as though driving a nail into place:

“Do not become a monster.”

Having said that, Altair turned his eyes forward again. The moon slipped behind clouds, and darkness fell over the world.

Altair gave a whistle. Immediately the current of the air seemed to change by force.

Seuseuk- seuseuk- seuseuk-

Seuseuk- seuseuk- seuseuk-

Human-shaped shadows burst out from the darkness all at once.

Every one of them wore dull black clothing, and their eyes shone with a blood-red light. These were the elite assassins, carefully selected even within Auditore.

‘…Wait, he’s here too?’

One person among them in particular caught my eye. His whole face was covered so that only his eyes showed, but I could tell it was Nox.

Since he was called the prodigy of Auditore, it seemed only natural that Nox had joined as well. When our eyes met, he quickly looked away. I didn’t bother acting like I knew him either.

Thud.

“Auditore.”

In that instant Altair struck the ground with his cane. As if they had been waiting for it, the dark lions drew their weapons. I inwardly admired the movement, which looked like a dance of blades.

A cold metallic ringing flowed out from the many different kinds of edged weapons. Once the sound faded, Altair jerked his chin in my direction and said evenly: