Chapter 162 – What Was a Hero

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

Translated by Jinmu

Read only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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

“Did none of you eat lunch? Why do you all look so limp! Look at your movement. I can see your legs. Move your feet quickly and diligently, now move!”

“Move!”

The stern shout of the woman running at the front rang out.

“I know you’ve all worked hard, but the situation is urgent. Once it’s over, I’ll make sure you get taken care of. For now, focus on moving.”

“Yes!”

The emergency response team answered at the top of their lungs. Their fatigue showed plainly, but they ran as though their calves would burst.

They followed the woman in a neat line like the morning jogs where they themselves trained cadets. Without even having time to wipe the blood off their instructor uniforms.

For some reason, Lee Won-bin was vividly reminded of the old latte days. This was the very person from whom he had learned the educational method of drilling cadets.

Their desperate fight with the villain bastards had only just ended. The result had been victory for Hoakin Academy’s side.

And the reason for that was neither superior numbers nor the results of the steady training they had put in so far.

While the team members all moved diligently together, Lee Won-bin furtively glanced to the side.

A woman running with the hem of her black robe trailing softly behind her. It was Media, the direct superior of the emergency response team and the Headmaster.

Her expression was twisted into something fierce. The way she ground her teeth showed urgency even in her eyes. Lee Won-bin let out a low groan.

‘To think the very flow of the battle would change because of the Headmaster’s arrival….’

Yes. Her appearance had brought the tense battle to a swift end.

Of course, Lee Won-bin and his team members had fought hard as well. Even in a battle where the compatibility was unfavorable, they had fought back boldly.

But the villain bastards had been far stronger opponents than expected. Even though they were villains with no spirit of cooperation, they attacked with considerable teamwork.

And that was not all. Even taken separately, each one of them had been an extremely troublesome enemy.

As the standoff continued, the course of the battle worsened. And while the situation was heading in a bad direction like that, Media dropped vertically from the sky.

With her right fist clenched and striking the ground, left knee bent in a kneeling landing pose. Dust rose up centered around her. It was a scene reminiscent of Terminator.

Immediately after that. One villain who had been grinning casually had his face flattened like a hotteok before he even had time to be shocked.

Right afterward, the villains responded at once. Their resistance was fierce. They cast every kind of spell and hurled them all at Media alone.

And they were crushed helplessly beneath Media’s mighty fists. Powerlessly and miserably they fell into hellfire under the tyrant’s blows.

‘To think the strength she just showed was said to be below her prime….’

And on top of that, didn’t she even had a twin older sister who was supposedly stronger than the Headmaster? Poison, Mea-in of Ten Thousand Calendars.

Lee Won-bin unconsciously swallowed dryly. Just what kind of family was the Poison clan?

Her strength went without saying. As descendants of the ancients, they lived hundreds of years longer than ordinary humans while maintaining their youth, much like how the lifespan felt by humans and dogs differed.

Though the Headmaster had lived close to seventy years, her real age, put simply her physical age, was around twenty.

Even that appearance was just something she used her blessing to disguise and make herself look older. Even then, she only looked to be in her mid-twenties.

“Wait, stop!”

Media stretched an arm backward and restrained her subordinates. Several instructors, unable to overcome their momentum, planted their noses into the mud. Among them was Choi Seol-ah, who had been panting.

Kuguguguguguguguung…!

The ground convulsed. Just when it seemed the torrential rain was easing, now the earth itself began to shake.

Caught off guard by the sudden earthquake, the instructors could not hide their bewilderment. Their formation crumbled as they lost their balance, and soon they had to brace themselves on the ground.

Only Media remained standing alone, throwing her gaze far into the distance. In the direction of the polling place building.

Kiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeek!

In her eyes, a gigantic figure shooting high into the sky was reflected.

“…Jormungandr?”

Media’s eyes shook violently. The monstrous serpent that should have been coiled in the demonic realm Gehenna had suddenly appeared within the grounds of the academy.

Only then did a crack run through the composure she had been forcing herself to maintain. Because the gravity of the situation struck her fully.

Jormungandr was a monster she could not handle alone. It looked like a magical beast, but it was classified as a demonic creature.

At the very least, old fossil Sieg or gorilla Muir would have to be with her for there to be any chance of subjugating it.

If she recklessly charged in alone, she would only become a mouthful of prey.

“Damn it!”

Media bit hard into her lip. Her upper teeth, once white, were stained red with blood.

The most important thing was the cadets’ safety. But if the subjugation battle began, the cadets would be dragged into it no matter what.

That one fact clawed painfully at her chest. That was why Media hesitated.

She herself had lived enough, but what crime had those children committed? All of this had happened because she had not been enough.

There had already been casualties, and she could not increase the number any further.

Besides, as Headmaster, was she really afraid of throwing herself against some mere monster?

She had a duty to protect the academy from outside threats. For the sake of that, she could keep fighting until the very moment her bones shattered.

That was what this Hoakin Academy had taught her too.

And now that she was the Headmaster.

That was what the existence called a hero was that she taught the cadets.

‘In that case.’

Media drew her tightly clenched fists to both sides of her waist and took up a stance. Then she drove the dragon force loaded into both hands straight into her lower abdomen.

[The Blessing of the Poet is activated.]

[The Blessing of Vow is activated.]

[The Blessing of Release is activated.]

Greenish light flowed from Media’s eyes. Steam rose from every muscle in her body. Baring her teeth, she shouted.

“Kiai!”

At the same time as the shout, her thighs and calves swelled to around five times their size.

In one leap she would jump up and drive a straight punch into that tongue-flicking maw. With bloodshot face, Media said.

“I’ll handle that thing, so you all secure the safety of the cadets!”

Just as Media, having given her order to the instructors, was about to move. Choi Seol-ah’s senses picked up a familiar presence.

Huh?

She lifted the head that had been planted in the ground, peeking up. At once her eyes sparkled like marbles.

“My lord!”

‘My lord?’ Including the Headmaster, everyone looked up. A silence mixed with shock began to hang over each face.

Kiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeek!

Silver lines were being etched across the serpent’s scales. Its fear aura twisted into a scream.

Media’s face, which had been as hard as stone, loosened. She pressed down hard on a clump of snow. Then she opened her eyes again. Her green irises had gone even wider.

Jormungandr tried to dodge here and there, its great body undulating like wet laundry. The cluster of blades relentlessly pursued it and flayed off the serpent’s hide.

…Thud!

The massive body, which had been shrieking for so long, finally crashed down. Staring blankly, Media thought.

There was no need to say who it was that had so brazenly filleted Jormungandr.

* * *

Saki blinked her eyes. She stared fixedly at Kang Geom-ma’s back.

The sashimi knives spread out behind Kang Geom-ma like a peacock’s tail. It was bizarre and, at the same time, mystical.

The blades drifting about in the air had crushed the enemy with a single wave of his hand. On top of that, they had brought down a gigantic monster large enough to cover the sun.

The death of the monster did not matter at all to Saki. She had come running all the way out here anyway, and reason had not been doing its job from the start. The only thing in her head was Kang Geom-ma’s safety.

Saki looked at Kang Geom-ma’s back again. His black hair was fluttering pleasantly in the wind. Suddenly, tears welled up in her eyes.

“…You came back.”

Kang Geom-ma turned around. Emotion spread over the expression that had been colorless and scentless. He gave her a faint smile.

“Thanks. You helped cool my head a little. Once this whole thing is wrapped up, I’ll buy you a whole box of yokan.”

“…?”

“The expensive kind.”

Leaving behind that one line, Kang Geom-ma looked ahead again. With his narrowed eyes, he stared at the enemy.

From the front came faint groans. Vesna could do nothing but twitch her fingers and toes.

The earlier battle had been more or less decided. So it was time to finish things. Kang Geom-ma slowly began walking toward Vesna.

The closer he came, the more Vesna was wrapped in coldness. Oblivion was close at hand.

She had done everything in her power. She had attacked with secret magic and summoned her fiercest retainer.

Yet all of that had become meaningless, and she was now dying. Because of that monster drawing gradually closer.

Humans fear the demonic race. The reason was extremely simple. Because we were far superior existences to those insignificant things huddled together like mice.

That the strong prey on the weak was only the natural order and an instinct carved into existence.

Then why was it that those little creatures lived on a land overflowing with milk and honey, while we, the strong, were driven out into the harsh demonic realm?

This situation, which overturned the natural order, filled Vesna with rage. Therefore, once all humans were dead, they would seize this fertile earth.

And before long, when that person opened their eyes once more, the human realm would be drenched in grief.

That blood-red future had naturally painted itself in her mind. Just imagining it had made a smile rise on its own, until she met that mad human.

Step.

Kang Geom-ma stopped about seven paces away from Vesna. His low-set eyes looked down upon the Third Legion Commander.

An unfamiliar emotion touched Vesna’s soul. She shrieked through grinding teeth.

“How dare a lowly insect look at me with eyes like that!? No matter how strong you are, human! That person will return and stain this land dark crimson, and….”

“Hey.”

Kang Geom-ma’s single word cut off her fit as cleanly as a blade. Digging at his ear, he said.

“Don’t you know that talkative villains are the ones who die the most pathetically? Your little sister was comparatively neat because she didn’t say much. One hit.”

“W-what!?”

“And all that ‘that person, that person’ crap. It makes you sound like you’re out of your league and just bragging about the backing you’ve got, even while you’re calling other people bugs and whatever.”

“Y-you, how! D-do you not fear that person!?”

“I’ll think about that when the time comes.”

Kang Geom-ma raised the hand he had taken out of his pocket. Thousands of sashimi knives aimed at Vesna like gun barrels.

“Die.”

The blades cast sharp shadows, covering Vesna’s face in silver. Then, as though they had been waiting for that word, the sashimi knives lightly plunged downward. A few screams could be heard mixed in, but they soon quieted.

…And so, when the surroundings had become soaked in blood. A lump of meat so mangled that it was hard to recognize its shape sank bubbling beneath the lake.

The swords that had roamed through the air, one by one.

Began to stick into the water like gravestones in great clumps. As if mourning the cadets sacrificed in the massacre.

The sunlight of the setting sun pushed away the rain clouds. The whipping cold wind disappeared, and heat rose against the skin.

Though the cadets each wore different expressions, their thoughts all flowed in the same direction.

The special admission student toward whom they had cast looked of contempt. Kang Geom-ma had stepped onto the battlefield even though no one had ever pushed him to.

It was not because he expected recognition or understanding. If they had to guess, he had stepped forward because it was something he had to do.

That figure called to mind a single word. The cadets briefly wondered whether that word could truly suit someone so well.

They lifted their heads. Sunlight fell over Hoakin Academy. Their eyes stung.

They closed their eyes and opened them again. The cadet, whether boy or girl, or perhaps both.

Could not take their eyes off the lake, and looked at the hero standing there in silence.