Conquering the Academy with Just a Sashimi Knife (Novel) - Chapter 105 - Night of Purge (4)

Chapter 105 – Night of Purge (4)

===================

Translated by Jinmu

Read only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

======================================

“Whew, it looks like things are mostly wrapped up on this side.”

That was what Media muttered after beating down three villains with her bare hands.

The enemy’s offensive had been savage. In order to force Media and the Sword Emperor onto the defensive, they had unleashed all sorts of bizarre and unimaginable magic.

But the result had been utter defeat. The strength of the Seven Stars far surpassed anything they could have imagined.

“Gueugh……”

One of the villains twitched on the floor. His leg bones had been completely crushed, so he couldn’t walk.

Media’s gaze sank into the back of the man as he crawled across the concrete like an earthworm. Reflexively, he rolled over and begged for his life.

“P-p-p-please! I’ll tell you everything. Spare me!”

“Really?”

“Of course! Ask me anything you want!”

The villain spoke passionately, trying to prove his own worth. If it meant living, he could even make up things that weren’t true.

Tok, tok. The sound of approaching death stopped right in front of the man’s nose. Media let out a small sigh and shook her head.

“Hey.”

……?

“If you were me, would you trust a villain’s word?”

“N-no, do-!”

Kwa-deuk-!

The man’s skull shattered beneath the Tyrant’s shoe. She lifted her foot and shook the blood from her heel.

“Hey, Zig! How’s it looking on your side?”

“It’s almost over.”

The Sword Emperor was prodding the severed heads of the villains with his blade.

It was cleanup shaped by decades of experience. Having grown old, he had become careful in all things.

After confirming that all signs of life had completely ceased, the Sword Emperor.

Only then did he wipe the fresh blood from the metal.

He slowly looked around at the surroundings.

‘So those five really were the end of it.’

And yet, what was this ominous unease that was slowly rising in his chest?

Just as the Sword Emperor was sinking into thought.

Kwaaaang-!

A tremendous explosion rang out from somewhere far away.

The Sword Emperor and Media both turned their heads in that direction.

“……!”

Their pupils wavered once. Neither of them had any trouble guessing that the source of the sound was Cladi’s annex.

For a moment the Sword Emperor and Media stood staring blankly that way. Then came a chilling sensation. They felt a massive wave of magic, numbering well beyond ten.

The two of them looked at each other and silently nodded.

Immediately, they darted away from the open ground.

Their feet were already carrying them toward where Kang Geom-ma was.

* * *

Kugugugugung!

A pure white wall collapsed. Fragments scattered in every direction, and powdery asbestos dust settled down in a pale cloud.

“Wh-where the hell are those bastards!?”

“Fuck, how should I know!?”

The villains hurled curses at one another.

Their faces awash with dismay, they kept snapping their fingers over and over, but their aim was rough because their vision was blocked.

Someone gulped in empty air. Stone dust clung to the lining of his lungs and made a cough rise on its own.

Shik.

A blade pierced through the cloud of dust and ran straight through the man’s temple.

A short groan of `ugh-`. Nox flicked his wrist, drew the blade back out, and once again buried himself in the hazy field of vision.

“That assassin brat’s over there! Fire everything that way!”

Kwaaaaaaaaaaang!

Elemental magic of all kinds slammed into place after place, exploding with thunderous force.

Fire, water, wind, stone, and the like rose into the air and rained down in every direction.

But their disorderly joint attack, utterly lacking in coordination, struck nothing but empty space.

You bastard! Your magic just collided with mine!

“You wanna die?”

“What, you moth-”

Just as the man screamed at the top of his lungs.

Tatata.

-Puuuk!

A blade thrust clean through the solar plexus of the villain who had been responding to him.

“Gueok-! Fuck……”

Altair put strength into the hilt and drew it straight downward. Along with a burning pain like being seared by fire, blood spurted from the gash.

The villain finished his short dying words and collapsed, his eyes gone murky. Syndicate’s blade swept mercilessly across his neck.

“Fall into hell, trash.”

Altair spat out a line far removed from his usual `Rest in peace.` There was no reason to show villains any respect.

“Th-there…! Everyone, fire! Fire at it!”

A villain with slicked-back hair shrieked. Altair sneered and immediately manifested the Blessing of the Crow.

The members of Auditore were masters of suppressing their presence. And among them, Altair di Auditore stood at the very peak of assassins.

The presence-suppression honed over long years disrupted even the enemy’s senses.

And in particular, with sight obstructed as it was now, the environment was ideal for them to display their full skill.

“Y-you son of a-! Where the hell did that crazy old man disappear to this time!?”

All trace of Altair vanished without a scrap left behind. Fear flooded the slick-haired villain’s face.

Sasasak.

-Puk!

A thrust came from an angle he had never expected. No, more precisely, it came from an angle he couldn’t have predicted.

Puk- jjik-

The slick-haired man couldn’t even leave a dying word behind. He followed the earlier villain as a companion on the road to the afterlife.

The surviving villains’ eyes had gone cloudy. They could no longer read the flow of battle.

All they could do was roughly judge positions from the fleeting silhouettes appearing here and there and cast their magic as fast as they could.

But they were far too slow compared to the swift steps of Altair and Nox.

Hongryundo carved an arc. The blood-drinking steel cut through the dust and then passed across a villain’s forearm.

A right arm rolling on the floor.

Severed in the middle of casting, the gathered mass of magic burst apart like foam and oxidized away.

“Gueeok!”

The villain grabbed at the stump. His vocal cords let out a scream. But his throat was cut immediately afterward, and the sound was swallowed below the Adam’s apple.

“I-Insane.”

Cladi muttered with a face emptied of all sense.

Then, with a plop, he collapsed onto his backside.

His heartbeat rattled like a broken machine, and he felt both his spine and his blood vessels freeze in an instant.

There were clearly only three enemies, while the villains numbered fifteen.

So why was this side the one losing? Even if the villains refused to cooperate to the bitter end, this one-sided slaughter was absurd.

Even if Altair had joined them, there was no way the balance of offense and defense should have tilted this far to one side.

Cladi stared blankly ahead. In the obscured field of vision, a short blade flashed.

A tightly controlled sword stroke cut into a fireball suspended in midair. The ominous heat vanished in an instant.

The villain who had deployed the spell spat out a curse.

His words were slurred in panic, but the meaning was roughly, `How is this even possible?`

The question was brief.

He too was immediately cut down by the sashimi knife, just like his own spell.

At a phenomenon beyond all expectations, the villain formation had gone half-mad with panic.

They didn’t know where the enemy would appear, what techniques they were using, or even how many allies the enemy had in the first place.

A villain wearing glasses shouted, his eyes bloodshot.

“Get the formation back together first!”

But immediately after, a `swish-` sound rushed into his ears.

The sashimi knife passed smoothly from the crown of his head downward.

Seogeok-

The nose pads of his glasses snapped apart like a taut string finally cut.

Another meaningless death by sashimi was added to the pile.

“Just die already!”

A female villain nearby charged at Kang Geom-ma.

Whirik-

Pivoting on his left foot, Kang Geom-ma spun in a circle and swung his hand.

Sseokduk-

The villain who had tried to counterattack. Her upper half slipped away from her lower half in farewell, leaving behind a wet splat.

……!

A scene unbelievable even while seeing it. The emptiness in Cladi’s eyes deepened yet further. His sense of reality had already departed long ago.

‘Th-that monster…… is a cadet?’

It wasn’t just a figure of speech. He was cutting cleanly through them like well-softened butter, not even seeming to strike steel or bone.

Auditore was terrifying enough, but Kang Geom-ma’s handling of the blade existed on another plane entirely.

Cladi knew nothing of swordsmanship, and yet even he could tell that the way Kang Geom-ma wielded the blade was fundamentally alien.

It wasn’t a metaphor. The swordplay truly felt uncanny.

And it wasn’t only the swordplay. Kang Geom-ma was slicing through the magic and creating an environment in which the two assassins could rampage freely.

He looked like he was killing at random, yet his wide vision let him pick out and cut down only the villains who were just about to cast.

His body moved through the confined space along only the minimal, optimal routes.

Even when he could have dodged, he deliberately cut through the magic instead, filling the villains with futility and horror.

Footwork, blade work, psychological warfare.

He had used all of it to overturn a battle where they had started at a numerical disadvantage.

Cladi had known for a long time that he was exceptional. But who could have guessed it was to this extent?

‘…That bastard Kang Geom-ma……’

But the reason a chill greater than simple shock crawled up Cladi’s spine was something else.

There was no hesitation at all in the act of cutting down lived.

Even the assassins, for all their ruthlessness, had a faint trace of emotion dissolved into their blades. But Kang Geom-ma only swung the knife without feeling.

At this point, Cladi started to wonder if that thing could even really be called human.

The sight of the boy made it seem as though a blade had simply taken on human form.

“Uaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!”

One scream.

Kyaaaaaaaaaaaaak!

“Fuck, I can’t die like th-!”

Then two, then three layered one atop another and soaked into the walls and floor.

Confusion and shock spread through the villain formation. Everyone trembled in fear. Even if they had lost their humanity, they still feared death all the same.

“Run! We can’t beat those monsters!”

The villain formation broke apart in utter panic. Several of them tried to flee in blind terror.

“Where do you think you’re going.”

Kang Geom-ma immediately sensed their frantic footwork.

His sensory range, growing sharper by the day, had already passed the stage of mere improvement and entered the realm of evolution.

That was why Kang Geom-ma could move so freely even in a situation where vision was obscured.

He lightly planted a foot on the wall and launched his body forward.

Pang!

The marble making up the wall exploded with a crack like a gunshot.

“……!”

Landing before them like a flash of lightning, Kang Geom-ma swung the sashimi knife from a crouched posture.

Seooooogeok!

The sashimi knife burst with light and swept across the ankles of those trying to flee.

The villains didn’t even realize their feet had been severed. Red dots stamped themselves along the flagstones of the corridor like seals. They ran several meters without feet before toppling face-first.

“Fuuuck! My foot! My foot!”

Several screams rang out. The blade cut across their throats all at once. The screams died instantly.

The dark-skinned villain stood there in a daze. Because he had been providing covering fire from the backline with water-element magic, his head was still attached.

The man violently shook his head to cast off his shock.

‘Tch, first I have to do something about our field of vision.’

It was a little late for it, but if they re-formed now, there should still be a chance at victory. His mind finally started turning at full speed. He quickly gathered magic and formed an enormous water sphere.

Then he burst that formed ball of water in midair. The moment the droplet exploded with a pop, it swept through the surroundings like a tidal wave and drenched everything.

As the air grew damp, the dust gradually began to settle.

The man smiled with satisfaction and shouted:

“Hey, you bastards! Now that we’ve got our vision back, we can finally fight!”

“……”

The only answer was silence. He shouted once more.

Still no one answered him.

‘Wh-what?’

At that moment, a dull ringing spread through his head, and he looked around. By then the dust cloud had already settled to the floor, and his vision was perfectly clear.

“Uh……”

The man let out a groan without realizing it.

And he understood why no answer had returned.

The reason was simple. There were no comrades left to answer him anymore. Blood and chunks of flesh were strewn everywhere.

The only living beings left were the three humans stepping over the corpses and shaking the blood from themselves. Among them, the black-haired one in the center met his eyes.

‘Ah.’

A short cry of grief escaped only inside him.

All kinds of emotions swept across the man’s face. His dark skin had gone pale and wan.

Cladi’s reaction was no different. No, he felt fear even more violently than the villains did.

Then Kang Geom-ma stepped this way.

Chalbak, chalbak, trampling the blood flooding the corridor floor.

It was only the sound of footsteps, and yet it felt like a crushing grip around his heart.

He had no intention of simply waiting quietly for death. And yet his paralyzed mind could squeeze out no thought, dry as a wrung rag.

And just as his entire body was being cut apart by that tension and he was on the verge of blacking out.

Kwa-gwagwagwagwagwang!

A violent tearing sound that shattered the gloomy silence came from the side. At the same time, everyone’s gaze shifted toward the source of the sound.

“……!”

A perfect circle had been punched clean through the wall. From there, someone came strolling out with his hands clasped behind his back.

“Hmm-, the blood loss here is rather severe. To think that aside from one person, all of them would already be dead. This was outside my calculations. Still, there are few times an educator feels more fulfilled than when witnessing a student’s growth.”

Speaking in that warm, satisfied tone, a middle-aged man revealed himself.

Light returned to the face of the dark-skinned villain as he looked at him. Unable to hide his excitement and joy, he shouted with delight:

“Hey! What took you so long!?”

Unbearably unpleasant though that bastard was, there had never been a moment when he could have been more welcome than now.