RATH 47

TL: Eevee

TN: Thanks to those that commented yesterday on corrections!

6. h.e.l.l is just beginning. (8)

#11 Their story: A certain academy’s teachers’ stories (1)

“Uwooo!”

“Keep pushing forward!”

“Even if someone falls in front of you, step on them and keep advancing!”

I have fought countless battles.

I have fought countless battles to become a commander, and even fought in the Great War that left its mark in imperial history.

Even after the Great War, even if war was no longer a part of our lives, there remained still magic beasts and monsters, and as we were soldiers that protected the people we could only continue to fight.

Even when I had been sent to Yugrasia as a result of their negotiations with the army, I thought that it was a brief respite.

I had thought all I had to do was comfortably teach students and pa.s.s down my know-how to those who had not had the chance to fight on the frontlines!

“Why, why do you go to such lengths!”

“To get rid of the night study of course!”

“For victory in the imperial festival!”

The number of high ranking spirits I had officially contracted was four.

But I was actually contracted with a highest-rank spirit and six high-ranking spirits, and I had never unleashed them all except during the Great War.

But right here, right now, I had to use my full power against just students!

“Break through!”

“Kill off the water spirits first! Don’t let them heal!”

“Just stall out the earth spirits! Get the fire, water and wind spirits first and then go for the earth spirits! The earth spirits deal barely any damage!”

“Six people per highest-rank earth spirit! Get people with water-related summons onto them!”

“Magician brigade, desummon your summons and switch to magic barrages! There’s not enough room to have all our summons out anyway!”

Even before, the students had tried their best to escape from the self-directed night study, also shortened to ‘night study.’

But that resolve broke due to Professor Nicerwin’s summon they called the silver devil and the switch of strategies to Plan B.

But, now it is different.

Once a way to get rid of night study altogether appeared, the students all changed.

They were not fighting to escape from the night study, they were fighting to practice for the moment they would end the night study.

They were using us and the other teachers for that purpose!

“…Very well. Then I, too, shall give it my all!”

Summoners must manage their magic power reserves even more precisely than magicians.

Unless of course, you were an equipment-type summoner like myself where there was no further mana expenditure after the initial summon.

But among summoners, most notably among those that tamed spirits, when the spirit uses magic, it would use your own magic power as well as the contracted spirit’s.

That was the reason why even if someone had contracted many spirits, they would only ever use a few as their core fighting power.

But the enemy in front of me is powerful.

There was no way that people who had decided to fight for their future could ever be weak!

Hold back against enemies like this? That was impossible!

“Come, for I am Maroon Harcen!”

I poured in all my mana and summoned all six high-ranked spirits.

Three earth spirits formed a st.u.r.dy rampart, while wind spirits protected the back.

And after desummoning the spirits that were on the verge of being overwhelmed, summon in front of me!

“If I can’t take down at least a hundred of you with me then I will be ashamed to give anyone my name!”

I resummoned the four most famous spirits and gathered their strength.

They were contradicting energies, but a skilled summoner knows how to control it.

“Take my strike!”

Two earth spirits were completely destroyed and were desummoned.

And the remaining one probably wouldn’t last much longer either. The moment the wind spirit supporting it falls, the earth spirit would almost certainly follow suit.

But the time that they bought was more than enough.

As long as I could take down at least all the students on this floor with me!

Just so as long as I could suppress the seventh floor, where the major fighting strength of the student body were!

-Elemental Roar!

The four spirits of each of the great elements cried out.

The attack that combined fire, water, wind and earth into one could ignore common sense and obliterate the enemy!

“As we practiced!”

“Deploy! Deploy!”

“Everyone defend!”

But the students’ far surpa.s.sed my antic.i.p.ations.

As if they had already known, they fell back to the ends of the corridor and prepared to defend in a single line.

“Do you think that can stop… what!”

It was impossible to stop that attack. Or so I had thought.

Until I saw a single person out of the many standing there, the only person standing right in the middle.

“Nerkiaaa!”

-Elemental Roar!

The spirits of fire, water, wind and earth cried out. But it was different from my own.

“Elemental army, is it?”

Fire, water, wind and earth. They numbered eight in total.

It was an attack that used twice as many high-rank spirits as my own.

As I watched Nerkia’s Elemental Roar shatter my own to rush towards me, I could only smile bitterly.

“Is it my loss?”

I didn’t have enough mana left to block that.

They were enemies that I did not have the leisure to hold back against to do so.

How long had it been since I had been this cleanly defeated?

Who knew that a handful of students could do what no one had since the Great War.

“But, as a teacher of Yugrasia, I should at least struggle to the end!”

I have already lost. But I am a teacher who needs to set an example for the students!

I pulled on my overdrawn mana reserves once more, to their very limits and summoned a highest-rank earth spirit once more.

“Now, come at me!”

Because the long night of the night study was not over yet.

#12 Their story: A certain academy’s teachers’ stories (2)

“Heheh, Wahahahaha!”

“Y, young miss?”

“Good, very good! More, more!”

As I saw Miss Aris laugh as she wiped blood off her mouth, for a moment I couldn’t help but be shocked.

The crimson hair that could be said to symbolise the Letia family was damp as if soaked in blood, and the red eyes that could also be said to exemplify the Letia family were likewise dyed in madness.

Although I swear that was their original colour, why does this supposedly blood-soaked hair and feeling as if she’d used a berserker spell make her feel stronger than normal?

“Become a sacrifice to end the night study!”

Is it the night study? Is it because of the night study?

I thought as I deflected the incoming spear. I’d already long since given up on fighting her with a spear.

My own signature weapon was the sword.

Even among the army personnel I was skilled with the spear, so I used the spear whenever I fought against Miss Letia, but I abandoned that thinking yesterday.

“Twin Claws(二爪), Shatterwolf.(破狼)”

“Blade Attack!”

“Kurgh?!”

I parried away the spear with my sword.

But as if it was expected, a counterattack came in using the rotation.

I barely blocked that when a third attack came in!

Although her stance crumbled during the attack, a bird of fire struck my side before I could aim for that opening.

A charge that didn’t think of the summoned beast.

That kind of attack normally lost the trust of the summon, but right now, the summons were responding to their summoner’s heartfelt wishes and giving it their all to charge.

After the fire bird, I knocked aside another beast-type summon.

This was why I didn’t use the spear.

The biggest advantage of a spear is its long reach.

But conversely, if an enemy gets inside of that reach, it is very difficult to defend against.

Especially so against enemies that are more than willing to lay down their lives!

“Letia style, Fangs of the Starved Wolf (餓狼牙)”

“Spear aura?!”

Spear ki acc.u.mulated on the end of her spear before bursting into a crimson light.

“Kuuht?”

But as a veteran soldier I cannot stay shocked here! I instantly took out my sword specialised for defence and faced off with my own sword ki!

Although I received a large impact, thankfully I managed to defend against it.

“d.a.m.n it, a mid-master cla.s.s…”

It was not the full aura of a master.

But she had taken a significant step towards that realm.

Sword aura came to be when you gathered the mana used in sword ki, compressed it, and resharpened it once again like sword ki.

Right now, Miss Aris had succeeded in compressing sword ki, the first step in the process.

“How fearsome…”

Just seventeen years of age.

Of course there were those who never proceeded any further than this stage, but when you considered her Letia bloodline, at this rate she could very well break that ‘Sword Princess’s’ record as the empire’s youngest swordmaster.

“My my…”

The saying went that if you were not especially blessed by the G.o.d of magic and the G.o.d of war, you could not walk the path of a master.

Even if your talent but lacked the magic power, or had the magic power of lacked the talent, then one could not rise to the realm of masters.

And I was also one of those who never made it.

Although I had been in countless battles I could never ascend to the realm of masters.

But this little girl who hadn’t even lived half my age had caught up to me already!

“My my, really now. I should get serious.”

I stowed away my sword imbued with defence magic. What I pulled out in exchange was a sword of flames and a sword of ice.

These were weapons I used only for offense, when I abandoned defense entirely and focused solely on attacking! I had only one goal!

“Now, then. Not as your teacher, but as a fighter, I will put everything on the line!”

Stake everything on the line as a fighter, and fight for victory.

***

“Hiiing, looks fun.”

I tightly grabbed the head of the metal bat, that was sitting cross-legged and biting her thumb while watching a magic video tool.

“You can’t go.”

“I knoww… So it sucks even moreee…”

During the grand battle on the seventh floor, the student council defeated most of the key fighting power including Professor Maroon. Although the student council president collapsed after burning through all this mana the teamwork and coordination between the other student council members were much better than I had expected, and they made it all the way to the fifth floor.

The third floor was also in the middle of a giant fight.

The students were running their summons ragged to the point I suspected they might destroy their contracts, but even the summons charged at the teachers as they felt nothing in madness.

The summon and the summoner are beings contracted to each other by their souls.

Since their emotions were somewhat linked to each other, the emotions of the summoner could also affect the summon, just how powerful were the emotions of the students so that even their summons put everything on the line to end the night study.

“Hwiiing… Owner… Can I pwease go? Just one floor. I just need one floor.”

“I’ve barely managed to get the kids motivation up, how am I supposed to light it up again if you kill it.”

“Uwiiing… I can’t go out because I’m too perfect… This is my sin… the sin of being way way too perfect!”

As I ignored the metal bat that pretended to sniffle, she started grumbling as she turned her attention back to the magic video device

“Wiing, I thought I could go out again if that old man used that whatevs of whatever. But he’s not using it…”

“Because I banned it.”

Just in case, I asked if he knew how to use Gxte of xxbylon but he said he hadn’t even thought of such an attack.

The fact that he thanked me and tried to use it right then and there, and the metal bat kicked Professor Aruhan’s side was just a minor incident.

“Hmm… thinking of the balance, I dispatched Professor Muam and Harian to the first floor, but I think this will be alright for now.”

“Wiin? Then let’s start Plan S where I come out right naoaaaaaaa”

“Not yet, I said.”

I pushed down with my hand that was still gripping the metal bat’s head.

Was it because she was made to hit people, but she wants to hit people way too much. And here the Black Anvil clan, the elves and I made her with love and peace in mind.

“Love? Peace? Owner that’s being chased by some really scary unnis? The owner that started a s.h.i.tstorm in the middle of a war?”

“Shut it.”

“Uwiiiiiik!”

Now which mouth it is that’s giving me smack?

Is it the mouth attached to this head? Now take this squeeeze and be quiet!

The metal bat that had been making uwwwwu noises quietened down. Well, it was getting hard for me to think of plans as well.

If we went through to the holidays as it were, it feels like there is a very large chance that the teachers’ blockade would be broken.

Once, Professors Maroon and Harian that had been tanking all the students’ attacks actually were broken through.

And in this case especially, the student council and Aris herself played critical roles.

Right now they’re receiving the help of other students, but at this rate, it felt like they could 1v1 and beat ordinary teachers without too much trouble before the holidays.

And although he was hard to evaluate, but the Trickster that was the male vice-president was getting sharper and more accurate with his. .h.i.t and run attacks.

The one to lay out the path for Aris and the stuco president to attack the key forces, the one that lay down the path for that was none other than the Trickster and the rest of the student council.

And although they’re still lacking quite a bit, the other four people that became G.o.d-cla.s.s summoners along with Aris are slowly but surely improving.

And I haven’t been able to confirm yet whether the students could take Plan S and the metal bat.

Which left only one thing.

“Do I have to initiate Plan A already?”

There was only Plan A, the last resort still within the realms of humanity.