I Became the Savior of the Academy’s Villains

Chapter 183

"Huh? Luca!"

Ottbo, who was riding on Rivik, spotted Luca and gestured with his armored controller.

Shuuung! Clank!

Immediately, five armored giants soared through the air and landed in front of Luca all at once.

"Did you have a good trip? Are you alright? You aren't hurt anywhere, are you?"

Ottbo, having dismounted from Rivik, approached Luca with bright, sparkling eyes.

"My body is fine... but those..."

Luca glanced over at the five armored giants behind Ottbo.

Seeing this, Ottbo scratched his cheek awkwardly.

"Well... I figured it'd be hard for Rivik to help you properly on his own... so I did a bit of modification."

Saying this, Ottbo gestured with his armored controller again.

Whir! Chunk!

At that, the five armored giants behind him all moved in unison.

Seeing that, Luca's expression became dazed.

"... Are you controlling five armored giants at the same time by yourself?"

There are two types of armored warriors.

One is the armored soldier, slightly larger than the average human.

The other is the armored giant, much bigger than a human.

Armored soldiers are about human-sized, allowing them some autonomy when given simple commands.

That's why so many armored soldiers were deployed during the Milia attack incident.

In contrast, armored giants are much larger than humans.

Even with the same command, mechanical limitations often make it impossible for them to follow orders.

That's why alchemists refine materials and mages improve drive magic—to make armored giants act as much like humans as possible.

Even so, they still require a pilot to operate them; autonomy is impossible, and only with someone controlling them can they be deployed to battle.

Of course, armored giants are far more powerful than armored soldiers, but also more restricted.

It's extremely rare for one pilot to handle multiple armored giants.

Most can manage one; some veterans can control two or three.

But right now, Ottbo was operating five armored giants.

And he was only thirteen years old.

Even in the original story, such a situation had never happened.

'There's no way full automation of armored giants has already been achieved.'

During the Aldnoa War, the Mage Kingdom demonstrated fully automated armored giants.

That power was enough to push back even the mighty Hernan Empire's army.

'What insane talent is this?'

Watching the stunned Luca, Ottbo put on another awkward grin.

"I'm not manually controlling each one or anything. It's sort of semi-autonomous, I guess? By combining my family's drive magic with the armored soldier movement-correction technique I learned from Professor Srettle Magus..."

Ottbo was back with his signature too-much-talking.

This time, he seemed proud and didn't bother to let Luca pick an easier explanation.

... Or perhaps, to Ottbo, this really was as easy as it gets.

'Well, there are a few things I can roughly understand, so maybe it's the latter.'

Controlling five armored giants alone is difficult, so no matter how easily he explains it, it'll still sound tough.

'Basically, he improved what he learned from Srettle Magus and his family's drive magic. Srettle Magus aims to create the most human-like armored soldiers, after all.'

Just as Luca was summarizing the main point, Ottbo said something rather shocking.

"Big brother Ferka's research on multi-unit control helped a lot too. Remember last time, when Big brother Ferka came after me and was controlling five giants on his own? That gave me a hint."

"... Back then, all those armored giants—your brother was controlling them by himself?"

"Yeah. He only used one armored controller."

Luca felt a pang of confusion at Ottbo's words.

'Ferka did that by himself too?'

Back then, Luca had assumed that other mages from the Gress family were remotely controlling some of the armored giants.

Or, he thought maybe four were in automatic artillery mode, and just one was in manual close-combat.

'Then, does this mean the Gress family has already completed their research on multi-unit control? Or is it just Ferka himself? But then, why wasn't that mentioned in the original?'

In the original story, the Gress family didn't have such a significant role.

Only Ottbo appeared, and even he showed up briefly in the early part, then disappeared.

But based on Luca's experiences so far, this kind of unexpected change was almost always because of the Demonz.

'Could it be that even the parents' personality issues are because of Demonz's mind control...? No, probably not. Will the Gress family end up following the Marquis Kisen over to Aldnoa later?'

In the original story, Ottbo was bullied, lost to the protagonist, and suddenly vanished.

He wasn't saved by Luca, nor was Miros Kisen or the Shadow Over the Academy present back then.

― We're not really close with the Marquis Kisen family, so I don't know about all that.

― Not close?

― Yeah. Our family specializes in munitions, but the other side focuses on pure magic research, so we're not that close. I haven't even met Marquis Gardaf Kisen.

That reminded Luca of something Ottbo had said before, that the Marquis Kisen and Gress family weren't close.

That also seemed like it might be a clue.

'Well, if I have some tokens to spare later, I'll ask Chat-GOD.'

He now had the all-powerful cheat named Chat-GOD, so anything he didn't know could be asked.

Thinking that, Luca looked over at Ottbo, who was putting away the armored giants.

"Can you handle those things properly?"

"To some extent?"

Ottbo immediately understood Luca's question and grinned slyly.

Luca grinned back.

"Then, how about a spar—"

"Master."

Just then, sparks flew from Bella's eyes as she called out from behind.

Luca was someone who'd only just gotten back on his feet after collapsing.

Having him fight five armored giants right now?

Absolutely unacceptable.

Luca flinched, sighed, and looked to Ottbo.

"We'll spar tomorrow—"

"Hmph!"

"... Let's do it the day after."

He remembered seeing Bella cry earlier, so fighting right away felt wrong.

Luca quietly sighed and headed inside the mansion.

For today, he decided to rest for sure.

'Besides, I need to do some accounting.'

Even so, Luca felt his heart start to race.

It was time to see the results he'd achieved with all his efforts.

'So... thirteen demon stones. One of those is the corrupted divine relic.'

Just like with the Devil of Hunger, a bug demon stone had formed by corrupting a divine relic.

That alone was a tremendous achievement.

Beep!

Whistle, displaying the demon stones stored in space, said,

"With this, you might evolve by one rank—or maybe even two!"

Two ranks.

With more than half the power of the sky already recovered, two additional ranks meant the end was in sight.

"If you manage to grow by two more ranks, all that's left is the power of the sun."

"The power of the sun, huh."

"With just that, master will be invincible!"

Whistle's excited outburst made Luca grumble curtly.

"Didn't you say the same when I got the power of the clouds, or the power of space?"

"W-well... but the power of the sun is different! Really, it's invincible! Invincible!"

"Heh... is that so..."

It felt like just more lip service.

Luca replied indifferently and checked his tokens.

Tokens: 5113

'Right about five thousand.'

It was a little less than what he got from destroying a demon idol.

But the five hundred he'd received for defeating the Devil of Hunger was abnormally high.

This time, only the bug demon gave him that much.

'Still, not bad. Enough for a whole novel chapter.'

Since Chat-GOD consumes one token per character, this would be enough for more than 5,000 characters worth of output.

That's a chapter's worth of web novel, so he could ask plenty of questions.

On top of that, Luca also checked the likability section.

[Likability]

Herote Marcato – Likability (9/10), curiosity.

Ben Dwight – Likability (8/10), trust.

Bella – Likability (10/10), likability (??/10), gratitude, ??.

'Two likability scores?'

Luca looked puzzled.

But then, he understood.

'She sees me as two people.'

Luca and Luca Traverse.

Bella could distinguish between them.

That's why her feelings had seemed so complex at first.

'I've hit 10 in likability, too. And gratitude on top of that.'

He could guess what it meant.

Smiling, Luca whispered to the Luca Traverse inside.

'That's pretty impressive, I'd say.'

― ... So what am I supposed to do about it?"

Luca Traverse replied bluntly.

Luca chuckled to himself, then voiced a sudden thought.

'By the way, Luca Traverse. When you fought Ben Dwight, you used swordsmanship way better than I did. Why?'

― Well, that's because I'm always training in swordsmanship here."

Luca Traverse answered dryly.

Unlike Luca, who did a bit of everything, he spent all his time in the inner world honing his sword skills.

That's why, when fighting Ben Dwight, he'd shown swordsmanship and mental fortitude like he was an entirely different person.

"Wow, that's amazing."

― Rather, this sword style... bothers me.

"What do you mean by that?"

Luca was puzzled at the sudden complaint about sword style.

Luca Traverse fell silent for a moment, then grumbled:

― It's nothing.

He quieted down again.

Luca shrugged and glanced at his phone.

There was a new face added to the likability app.

'This is...'

Seeing it, Luca smiled.

Whistle – Likability (10/10), companion.

'So this guy's shown up here now, too.'

Not just in terms of growth; Whistle now appeared in the likability section as well.

Luca looked briefly at Whistle, who was napping—perhaps digesting the demon stone.

'Companion, huh.'

It was a word with a certain resonance.

Luca gazed at him for a moment, then lay down on his bed.

He really felt the end of the two-week-long expedition had come.

Suddenly, a wave of fatigue swept over him.

Luca closed his eyes.

'Guess I should take it easy for a while.'

Right before Luca fell asleep, a tiny notification flashed—so subtle that he didn't notice.

[As a reward for hunting demons, the application has been upgraded.]

* * *

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Shells bombarded the spot where Luca had just been.

Luca traced a curve as he moved, dodging the bombardment—but already, another armored giant was swinging an artificial ether blade in his path.

Ssshh! Whoosh!

Luca slid to avoid the blade, evaded the armored giant, then vaulted off the ground into a high jump using a tumbling motion.

Unfurling his celestial wings, he dove like a meteor straight at Ottbo.

Clang!

Standing firm beside Ottbo was Rivik, his protector.

Luca clicked his tongue.

Suddenly, Luca's eyes sharpened.

Rustle! Thud!

Using the formless swordsmanship created by Kryphi, Luca slipped past Rivik's defense and drove a blade at Ottbo's feet.

"Eeeek?!"

Ottbo was terrified at the sight.

After a deep breath—eyes returning to normal—Luca twisted his lips.

"Ottbo."

"Y-yeah?"

Still rattled by Luca's fierce appearance, Ottbo answered carefully.

Luca narrowed his eyes.

"From now on, prepare to risk your life when we spar. I can't really go easy on you anymore."

"... Okay."

Ottbo had become so strong that it'd be hard to beat him without the intent to kill.

'Not bad.'

Ottbo's power-up meant Luca's power-up, too.

After training, they bathed, then went to eat the meal Bella had prepared.

A table loaded with food.

As they dug in hungrily after a hard training session, Bella spoke up.

"Master! Soon you should start getting ready to return to the Academy!"

"Why?"

"What? Well—it's a three-day trip to the Academy from here—oh."

Normally, they'd have to begin preparations today to leave for Havok tomorrow.

But now, with Ottbo, things were different.

"Even if we prepare one day in advance, we won't be late!"

"But if you want to unpack in the dormitory, you should arrive a day early."

"Exactly!"

"?"

Watching Bella panic at Ottbo's astounding mobility, Luca grinned.

With his hunger sated, Luca finally found a bit of leisure and checked his phone.

'Hm?'

And there he saw the message.

['Hint Fragment Collection' application has been upgraded to 'Automatic Hint Fragment Collection.']

'Finally, I get to use the upgraded application.'

Luca immediately activated Automatic Hint Fragment Collection.

[Automatic Hint Fragment Collection]

- Automatically gathers information from the user's surroundings.

- Generates fragmentary hint documents based on the collected information.

- Usable only on matters that do not directly influence story progression.