Conquering the Academy with Just a Sashimi Knife (Novel) - Chapter 95 - Finals (5)

Chapter 95 – Finals (5)

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Translated by Jinmu

Read only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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“…What was that?”

I absentmindedly rubbed the back of my neck. The hairs there had suddenly stood stiff on end for no reason.

An unknown, nameless chill wrapped itself around my whole body and then vanished.

‘Was it magic power?’

And yet, calling it that didn’t quite fit. It was a strangely alien sensation. Like someone far away had called out to me. Like a ripple had formed for an instant on still water.

As I brushed down the goosebumps on my arms, Rachel asked me.

“Did something happen? Why is your face so stiff? What, did you drop something while crossing the bridge or something?”

“…No, nothing like that. I just thought I heard a voice from somewhere. Rachel, didn’t you hear it?”

Rachel tilted her head and answered.

“A voice? I didn’t hear anything like that at all. Wasn’t it just the sound of bubbles popping in that insane lake? Just from looking at it, it feels like more than one or two people probably fell in and died there… You know how there are always ghost stories online like, `You can hear the voice of the little girl who died in the third bathroom stall…`? Hehe. Geom-ma, you’re more of a scaredy-cat than I thought, huh? If you’re scared, you can always come tell this noona.”

“……”

Rachel pointed down under the bridge we had crossed while chuckling. I let out a sigh.

‘Did I just mishear it?’

Shaking off the idle thought, I looked ahead. Rachel must have recovered completely, because now she was only wiping away sweat. Hana senpai, likewise, was calmly rubbing her lenses clean even while still wearing her glasses. Only Instructor Choi Seol-ah was sprawled out on the ground in the shape of a giant `大`, arms and legs stretched long as she panted helplessly.

“Ueeugh, ueeugh. I can’t go any farther, nooooo!”

Choi Seol-ah dragged out her groan and then immediately started throwing a tantrum. The way she flailed her arms and legs made it look as though the eyes of the cadets no longer mattered to her at all.

‘Dambi! Turn it off! Waaahh!’ It overlapped perfectly with those cartoons where someone burst into a shrill tantrum-cry like that. Rachel looked at Choi Seol-ah with utter disgust.

“Is that really an instructor? The way she talks and acts is like a total brat.”

Inwardly I agreed with Rachel, but I didn’t show it on the surface. No matter how pathetic her behavior was, it was thanks to Choi Seol-ah gathering up her courage that we had reached this point within the time limit.

That said, of course, this didn’t erase all the things she had done.

On top of that, there was no way this girl was genuinely repenting for her sins. As if someone with no conscience or shame would reflect on anything. I still planned to keep using her like a dog.

The reason Choi Seol-ah had become this obedient was just one thing: her determination not to get hurt by me. That alone was why she had crawled on all fours for us.

Still, I figured I should at least say one thing to her. I had only just learned that the engine that moved people, or things like people, was an appropriate reward. Quietly, I approached Choi Seol-ah and opened my mouth.

“Good work.”

“…What?”

For a long while, Choi Seol-ah only stared at me blankly. Her violet pupils had gone perfectly round.

“Are you deaf? I said you did good.”

“……”

The moment I said that, Choi Seol-ah’s lips and eyes began to twitch. Tears welled up at the corners of her eyes; if someone poked her, it felt as though shining drops would spill right out.

‘…What’s wrong with her now?’

“Hrrgh!”

Choi Seol-ah squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them and suddenly sprang to her feet with a vigorous shout. She shook once, then dusted the dirt off herself.

“Just leave it all to me, Geom-ma sir!”

Saying that, she strode past me and took the lead again. In a single run she advanced about twenty meters ahead, then waved one hand broadly and urged us to hurry up.

At the sudden change in behavior, Rachel looked bewildered and asked me.

“Geom-ma, what did you say to her to make her start running around like that all of a sudden? I noticed before too, she’s all stiff and nervous whenever it’s you talking to her. Don’t tell me you secretly slipped her some kind of bribe?”

“…What kind of money do I have that I’d be handing bribes to her?”

“Hehe, true enough.”

“……”

Rachel hit the mark with that sheepish smile of hers. Harmless stabs were always the ones that hurt more.

When I shot her a sharp look, Rachel, startled, immediately dashed off with her blond hair flying behind her. Standing beside Choi Seol-ah, she began waving her arms too.

Choi Seol-ah shot Rachel a withering glare. Rachel glared right back.

Blue sparks seemed to fly between the two women. Soon enough, they both let out little huffs through their noses and turned their heads away at the exact same time.

“Those two actually have pretty good chemistry.”

At that moment, Hana senpai said that as she came up beside me. I nodded.

“Well, that’s all because you’re such a sinful man, Geom-ma.”

“……?”

The moment I made a face that asked what that was supposed to mean, Hana senpai glided away gracefully. There was a strange little smile resting at the corners of her lips.

Blinking, I watched her back recede. The phrase `sinful man` stuck with me a little, but I gathered up the thought and moved my legs.

We had already passed through two checkpoints. Now only the last one remained.

“Ah, shit, what is this? Why do I feel so uneasy?”

Excitement and anticipation welled up in my chest, yet somehow my mind refused to settle.

* * *

At that same time.

Outside the Special Hall, it was filled with cadets whose complexions had gone sickly pale. Being able to sit was the best case; most of them were slumped over to the side, doing nothing but struggling to breathe.

Among them, a male cadet with two-tone hair was steadying himself with shallow, ragged breaths. Speed Weapon, a sturdily built man with a weak stomach. His cheeks swelled out, both of them puffed tight, and then at last, the lips he’d been clamping shut burst open like a floodgate.

“Uwewewewueweuueeh.”

Starting with Speed Weapon, the cadets around him made faces of `uugh-!` and soon vomited up their breakfasts as well.

And so the banquet of retching spread like a flash flood, infecting the whole area in moments. This was the typical appearance of those without resistance to magic power.

“Haah, haah.”

After neatly emptying his stomach, Speed Weapon collapsed to the ground with a thud. Irritably, he yanked at the tie that had been strangling his throat.

“Ugh, fuck.”

After throwing up the equivalent of an entire pizza, his stomach felt completely hollow. It was around the time Speed Weapon was rubbing his solar plexus and looking quietly around him.

“Lord Speed Whatsit!”

“Huh, what? Chloe, your team’s already out too?”

“…Yes, we went over the time limit in front of the first checkpoint.”

“Even so, that’s impressive. Our team just wandered around in that forest in circles and got eliminated. Ugh, shit, just thinking about that insane forest makes me feel sick again.”

Weapon pinched the bridge of his nose with a look of utter disgust. When the cool outside air hit him, it made his stomach churn even more. It was motion sickness from the gap between the inside of the Special Hall and the world outside. Meanwhile, Chloe whipped her head around this way and that, looking around, before she spoke.

“It looks like Geom-ma and Ms. Saki are still inside, then?”

“Looks like it. I got my head together and looked for them first thing, but they weren’t here. I don’t know about Saki, but President stands out because of the black hair, right? If I don’t see him, I guess he’s still in there.”

Speed Weapon shrugged as he said it. At those words, all sorts of emotions spread across Chloe’s face.

“…Geom-ma will be all right, won’t he?”

“Chloe, you’ve spent the most time with the president out of all of us, and you’re asking that? You know it too. There’s nothing more pointless than worrying about him. President will handle things just fine on his own. But…”

Speed Weapon stopped speaking there. For someone who liked explaining things, that was unusual.

President was one thing, but when Saki Ryozo’s face rose in his mind, inexplicable thoughts began circling around in his head.

She was on Leon’s team, the Hero candidate. Leon’s dependability had been famous for a while already, but for some reason that very fact made things feel even more troubling.

Speed Weapon thought deeply about Leon.

A prodigy of the age who had suddenly appeared one day. Handsome enough that even another man had to admit it, and with a personality and way of carrying himself as spotless as the rest.

Speed Weapon summed up Leon’s nature in a single phrase.

A blank sheet of paper.

Untouched and unstained, belonging nowhere. The kind of thing that looked unstable, as though depending on what color was painted across it, it could just as easily tip toward light or darkness.

Weapon raised his eyes. Each time the blue tower let out a `dong- dong-`, the stone gate opened its mouth and thrust out cadets all at once, as though spitting them up.

Those who had only just returned to reality stumbled weakly like he had done moments before, then vomited. At that sight, Weapon wrinkled his nose. He had been about to simply turn his head away, but then he changed his mind, dusted off his backside, and stood up.

There was something he had learned over the two months spent together with Kang Geom-ma.

Instead of worrying pointlessly, empty your head and move your body first. And Weapon happened to have something he could do right now.

“Chloe, let’s go.”

“Yes? Where to?”

“We’ve got villains to root out. It sucks that we got eliminated early, but thanks to that, we’ve got some time now. Let’s do what we can.”

Chloe stared blankly at Weapon’s bright smile for a moment, then let out a small laugh.

“Lord Speed Whatsit, you’re becoming more and more like Geom-ma too.”

Weapon scratched the back of his head, feeling oddly embarrassed. Then Chloe said in a clear, bright face.

“There’s only thirty minutes left before the faculty office closes! I’ll go on ahead, so Lord Speed Whatsit, please hurry and come after me too!”

Before she’d even finished speaking, Chloe began springing forward from branch to branch. Weapon stared blankly at her figure as she became a tiny dot in his vision in less than a minute. Then he muttered bitterly.

“…Chloe, when exactly is she going to learn my name…?”

* * *

Thirty minutes after trampling our way up the stairs of the third checkpoint.

By now you’d think the end ought to be in sight, but the moment I saw the stairs standing in dense rows all the way to the top of the tower, I let out a sigh first.

‘Damn it, why does the last part suddenly turn into a mountain climb?’

I turned my head behind me.

“Huff, huff. This place is seriously insane.”

“Just hold on a little longer, Rachel.”

Rachel staggered as if her soul had left her body entirely. Hana senpai tried to comfort her by holding her shoulder, but senpai’s own condition was far from good. The two of them were both dragging their feet forward with faces drained of all color.

That made sense. Just as it had begun to feel like we’d adapted to this shitty environment, the moment we entered this place, an immense wave of magic power had crashed down over us. Even Choi Seol-ah had let out a deflated voice from the excess of it.

Tch.

Balor Hoakin really did have one hell of a personality. At this point it felt less like he’d restored the demon tower that stood in Gehenna and more like he’d uprooted the real thing and planted it here whole. This wasn’t dedication anymore. It was madness.

And yet I alone was basically fine. My lips had gone dry from the arid heat, but they were dry enough that I could just lick them and move on. I had no idea what kind of body this was, but there was no way it was ordinary.

Step, step.

We climbed the tower at an easy, dragging pace. Whenever a floor appeared along the way, we rested for five minutes and then moved again.

Before entering the demon tower, I had noticed that there had only been footprints for four people leading to the entrance. Which meant our team was in second place.

It was a little disappointing not to be first, but I was satisfied just to have made it this far. Besides, everyone but me looked to be in terrible shape. Rather than forcing the pace recklessly, it was better to settle for second.

Hasty impatience only invited disaster. If I were alone, that would be one thing, but there was no need to push my teammates’ bodies beyond their limits.

As I emptied my head and moved only my legs, I found myself remembering the forced marches from my military days. Back then, with a full pack on my back, I’d shouted out military songs like my life depended on it.

‘Compared to that, this is practically a stroll.’

Just as I cut off every branch of stray thought and moved nothing but my leg muscles, a wet squelching noise sounded, and a sticky sensation pressed against the soles of my feet. It was an all too familiar kind of unpleasant texture.

I slowly lifted my foot off the ground. Something came into view immediately. Dark red threads tangled thickly between the sole of my shoe and the stair.

…Blood?

The inner world that had relaxed a little instantly tightened again. My gaze lifted almost of its own accord.

Kwa-duduk.

As if answering that, a tearing, ripping sound of flesh came from above. It echoed ominously through the tall, wide interior of the tower. My instincts reacted faster than my thoughts. I dashed forward reflexively.

“G-Geom-ma sir!”

Choi Seol-ah called out in a startled voice. She stomped her feet in place for a moment, then, after hurriedly telling Rachel and senpai to stay here, she quickly chased after me.

In a single bound, I skipped four stairs at a time. If I made even one mistake, it would mean plunging to my death, but I didn’t weigh the consequences. My heart hammered violently.

Tak.

The next level came into view. I took a big step and leapt upward.

I had crossed something like a hundred stairs in less than thirty seconds.

Huff, huff.

Leaving those hot breaths behind me, I raised my head.

At the same time, my pupils opened wide. Even the pounding of my heart, so loud until now, froze in that instant.

A female cadet with pink hair and a male instructor with narrow eyes were the only two left standing in the midst of slaughter.

“My, what is this? Guests already?”

Of the two, the pink-haired girl slowly turned her head toward me while gripping Leon’s right upper arm. When her eyes met mine, she draped a loose smile across her mouth and said.

“Wait just a second. Let me finish what I was doing first~.”

Udeuk.

The moment she crushed down on Leon’s arm, flesh burst apart with a wet pop. Leon screamed as though he were being torn in half, then his head drooped. Blood splashed across the pink-haired girl’s cheek. She casually wiped it away with her index finger and licked it clean.

At that moment, my awareness was drawn almost unconsciously toward the edge of my vision. A pale-blue-haired girl was looking at me with dim, unfocused eyes.

“…Geom… ma.”

As though an earthquake had struck, my pupils shook violently and then dropped slightly. A short blade was buried to the hilt in Ryozo’s collarbone. Desperation clung to her trembling voice.

“…Save… me.”

With those words, Ryozo’s head dropped.