novelraw Chapter 125 : Chapter 125
Chapter 125 : Chapter 125
125
When we arrived at the academy, a miserable autumn rain was falling.
The rain poured fiercely as if to whip the skin, and the sky was dark far into the distance, looking like a long rainy season would continue.
Considering the season, it seemed more accurate to say a typhoon was coming rather than a rainy season.
Indeed, the smell of the rain was mixed with the faint scent of sea breeze.
It was because the wind was blowing in from far away.
And at the center of it stood Berlis.
“Oh my, welcome. Has it been almost a month? You should have come a little sooner~.”
Berlis said that and waved her left hand.
However, we all looked at Berlis's right arm.
The arm was completely gone from the shoulder down.
The sleeve fluttered helplessly in the fiercely shaking wind and rain.
Her appearance was hard to call normal either.
She always had a smiling face with narrow eyes, but now she had her eyes closed weakly and looked exhausted.
Her skin also looked somewhat rough, suggesting she had many worries.
“Ahaha. Why do you look so down? Is it this?”
Berlis pointed to her right arm with her left hand.
Then, POOF, a skeletal hand suddenly popped out of her right sleeve and waved cheerfully, saying hello.
It was terrible black humor, no, necromancer humor.
“How is it? Ta-da~ Of! Course! It's not my arm~ It's a bit long, isn't it?”
“You don't need to force yourself to be so cheerful.”
“I don't need to force myself to be depressed either. I am thinking it is truly fortunate that I kept my life.”
Saying that, Berlis smiled brightly and came closer to me.
Perhaps because she was tall, around 170cm, and wore high-heeled boots, our eye levels were roughly similar.
She brought her face close to mine and grinned.
“It's true~ Don't worry. How long I waited. We have so much to talk about.”
It was a sticky distance where I could even feel her breath.
Before I could move, flustered, Rozalin ran over from afar with a choked-up expression.
No, she tried to run over.
“You there, guard member. The captain and vice-captain, and what. Anyone else?”
“There is one more person.”
For some reason, I had an intuition that she was looking for regressors.
I hurriedly pointed to The Spear God, and The Spear God and Berlis's eyes met.
“Oh my.”
“Hoh-oh.”
Just by looking at each other, the two seemed to intuitively recognize each other's strength.
Does that happen when Mana Sensitivity becomes keen and reaches a high level?
“Your body is unique~ Would you be my test subject?”
“The stench of corpses is terrible. It's rare mana. Is Akarind a place where miscellaneous things gather?”
……Maybe it wasn't exactly for that reason.
Anyway, from the moment they met, the two exchanged sharp criticisms with each other.
But that was only for a moment.
“This way.”
Because there was a more important agenda.
We gathered with Berlis at the guard shelter prepared near the entrance.
It was a space where the guards protecting the Akarind entrance usually rested, but with me, Pan, Rozalin, Hati, The Spear God, Berlis, and Yuria gathered, it felt packed.
Looking at the gathered faces once, Berlis smiled brightly.
“First, I should say thank you for saving my life~!”
Saved, her life?
We just ran here in a hurry after hearing the news that a demon had appeared.
We were late if anything, not that we were able to save Berlis.
However, Berlis was sincere.
“I realized it after facing it. Ah. If I had fought that thing seriously, I would have just died~ Ahaha. I was deceived by a demon.”
“Deceived, you say?”
“Well~ You know that demon who told me a demon would appear in this world? As expected of a demon-like bastard, he lied to me!”
Even though Berlis wasn't a regressor, she knew about the demon's appearance in advance.
Due to the nature of a Necromancer who borrows a demon's power, she had grasped the situation by listening to the story the demon told her beforehand.
If all those words of the demon were lies.
“The demon that appeared this time! As you expected, ta-da~ it was a demon related to magic~ Surprising, right?”
Berlis playfully waved her skeletal hand again.
The bone, faded to a near-grey color without a single piece of flesh, shook in the empty air.
“I increased not my magic ability but the subordinates that could assist me~? I increased the teaching assistants diligently and even obtained a couple of basilisk bones!”
“You handle a Bone Basilisk?”
The Spear God and Rozalin opened their mouths with expressions of absurdity.
I knew that a monster called a basilisk was incredibly powerful.
But is there any meaning in handling just the bones of that?
“It's a large monster, Teacher! Large!”
“So?”
“Large monsters originally living in this world itself makes no sense! The laws of physics are different, you know? What makes that possible is the demonic energy monsters possess?”
“Only a Necromancer who understands the concept of that demonic energy and can assist it becomes able to handle large monsters. We call such a Necromancer a 4th-circle.”
The Spear God said that and stared intently at Berlis.
Fighting spirit flickering in his eyes, it seemed the fact that she was a 4th-circle Necromancer had ignited him.
Ulf mentioned it in passing before.
Asking if I really thought Berlis was 4th-circle.
She wasn't.
At that moment, Berlis suddenly approached my side and hugged my arm.
“Hahaha. The person who allowed me to have that basilisk is Teacher Cassian.”
“Arm! What are you doing!”
“Me?”
“UGH.”
Sounds mixed from various places.
Berlis smiled and narrowed her eyes as if she didn't care about such sounds.
“That basilisk bone~ It was located deep inside the harpy habitat~ beyond the herd of evil beholders~!”
So she was preparing an artifact that could lure large monsters or beholders.
“But thanks to the Teacher who lured all those beholders out, I was able to bring the basilisk~ Fufufu.”
“So that is why you said you kept your life because of me?”
“This time, the demon wasn't just blocking magic, you see? It was a demon blocking entities imbued with magic~ So it blocks all summons, berserkers, tattoos, and such~!”
“Then Teacher Berlis's summons too…….”
Wouldn't have worked.
Berlis looked at me and smiled brightly.
“So I exploded them all. POOF!”
“You used Corpse Explosion.”
“Correct! You know well, perhaps because you are an old monster who lived long?”
I had seen records at the academy.
A Necromancer's Corpse Explosion was a technique that deliberately exploded one's summons to inflict damage in all directions.
Strong magical power was needed to move summons through necromancy.
The moment the imbued magical power, bones, and flesh exploded in all directions, an explosion occurred as if scattering Aura recklessly.
“Did you dispose of the demon?”
“No. I couldn't dispose of it. It would have been easy if there was even one teacher with Aura~.”
I felt sorry somehow.
Because under the pretext of the academic exchange conference, all students and teachers who used Aura had moved.
The remaining Chairman Gwen couldn't use Aura properly, and because she was the Chairman, it was difficult for her to leave the academy.
“So I sacrificed one arm and came back!”
“I am sorry.”
“Hmm? There is no need for Teacher Cassian to be sorry~ I heard from that little priest. That originally, I couldn't defeat this demon and died?”
“Did you have a conversation with Yuria?”
“She saved me!”
It was the most unexpected news I heard today.
To think Yuria, of all people, saved Berlis.
She let out a chuckle, fuhu, as if amused.
The smile until just now was a habitual laugh forced for the sake of conversation, but sincerity was felt in her laughter now.
“We moved together from the moment the demon appeared~ And when I discarded even my arm and was frantic, she rescued me?”
Yuria did something commendable.
“Go see her later. Her mind seems complicated. Fuhu.”
“Yes, understood.”
But that probably wasn't such a pleasant event for Yuria.
She was a child who pondered good and evil and constantly questioned how she should act.
I should go check on her later.
While I was thinking that, Rozalin squeezed in between me and Berlis and pulled Berlis's arm away.
Then, with clenched teeth, she spoke as if growling.
“We are going. Teacher, you stay here.”
“Me?”
To move suddenly excluding me?
As I thought that, Rozalin tapped my back.
“There is a curse Ulf carved on your back, right Teacher? That is prolonging your life, but the curse shouldn't be nullified while fighting the demon!”
Come to think of it, this was a curse too.
This curse helped me when I fought the Chief Knight this time as well.
If the curse can't absorb mana and a problem occurs now that my body is weak…….
“But you guys, will you be okay?”
“Don't worry. Demons are simple. You saw it too, Teacher.”
“It is still an early stage demon. Besides, the demon's concept is clear, so if we all go, we will dispose of it and come back in less than a day.”
Rozalin and The Spear God pounded their chests with confidence.
They were people who survived until the final battle with demons, not anyone else.
I should trust them.
“Got it. Instead, take good care of yourselves.”
“Not everyone is going, so it's okay. Pan and everyone are here, so Teacher, you take care of your body! I will be back soon and secure the Fantasy for you!”
“You act as if you have reserved the Fantasy. Who said they would hand over the Fantasy to you?”
“Oho, old man. You'll get hurt if you think I'm the Rozalin from 10 years ago? I am the Rozalin whose posture Teacher corrected. The one with one arm is that hag over there, and I have two arms, see?”
“Oh my…… I didn't expect a student to openly mock me for losing an arm.”
……I can trust them, right?
Anyway, after the commotion, Hati and the mercenary guild, Rozalin, and The Spear God moved immediately towards the direction where the demon was without resting.
According to Berlis, it was a little further in from where she revived the basilisk.
“Teacher.”
At that time, Shasha and Jacy approached me.
While I was talking with Berlis, they had just finished leading the students and sending them back.
“Where are the students?”
“They are all excited and out of it.”
“They look tired, but maybe because they don't need to worry about the demon business, they seem a little excited now and are sharing stories about the exchange conference.”
“Really? That's a relief. Please organize things so the students can unpack and rest well. I will go up for a bit.”
The academic exchange conference was an official event moved under the name of Akarind Academy.
So I had to report to the Chairman that the event was concluded well.
Wasn't I the person in charge?
So I entered the Chairman's office for the report.
“……Why are you here only noooooow.”
I faced Gwen, who was sobbing while sprawled on the desk.