The Academy’s Deceased Ate It All

"This is unexpected."

The huge man seated in the chair muttered the words quietly. The one they called Landshi was pressing one hand over his right eye.

His right eye was reflecting a scene far from where he sat — a dragon, its black scales gleaming, looking strikingly like the Minerva from his oldest memories, was on a rampage.

He clicked his tongue softly as he watched.

"Truly... something I never saw coming."

Chewed to bits, struck with a foreclaw, and then hit head-on by the breath. Just before that, Gracius had taken the full force of the mana-scattering roar that had once been Minerva's signature trait. He'd had neither the time nor the means to pull anything clever.

Landshi himself acknowledged Gracius's stubborn clinging to life, but no one survived a beating like that. There was no need to confirm it — Gracius was dead.

The first sign was that the undead had lost their coordination and were milling about, even starting to tear into each other....

"......"

The pattern that had once covered the back of his hand now had only two marks left. What that meant was that only he and Natalia Milited remained.

"Tch."

Landshi clicked his tongue in irritation and gathered his focus a little more.

In many ways, losing Gracius was a shame, but the bigger blow by far was that they had failed to secure the crystal they'd been after.

Frankly, Gracius himself was no great loss. But failing to take possession of the crystal they needed to break the seal of their master Milited — that was an enormous misstep.

He had been ready to break into the battlefield at a moment's notice should the situation call for it, but the instant he saw the black dragon, Landshi tossed every plan he'd had right out of his mind. There was no winning a fight against something like that.

The dragon in his sight may have looked like a hatchling on the cusp of adulthood, but the power it carried inside was nothing a young dragon should possess. Going in now meant nine times out of ten dying along with him. And not for the sake of his own master Milited, but for the sake of a Gracius? He didn't have an ounce of inclination to throw himself away over that.

"......"

It was too late to wrest the crystal back now.

He let his mind run through the pieces still in play — Choi Jun-hyeong of the Six Stars; humans who believed Yu Ji-hyeok had taken their children from them; former senior figures of the World Tree clan who had lost everything — turning over how each of them might be put to use. Then he quietly reached out to Natalia Milited.

Natalia. The operation is aborted. Withdraw from your position at once. Gracius is dead, and the crystal has already been taken from him and is in their hands.

There was no response, so Landshi closed his eyes once more and focused.

Natalia. Can you not hear me?

Landshi's eye twitched silently at her venomous reply.

His right eye, which had been showing him Gracius, soon turned to show him Natalia Milited.

In his vision was Natalia Milited, fighting alone against three members of the Ten Powerhouses, the woman known as her own daughter Alice Blesbuck, and a young man whose face looked familiar.

Landshi studied the young man's face for a long moment, then let out a small, dry laugh and muttered out loud without meaning to.

"It seems you'd truly lost your mind, Natalia."

A homunculus made in the very image of their master.

Now he understood why she had so uncharacteristically tried to keep the matter of Alice Blesbuck quiet.

His gaze on Natalia turned much colder. The woman who had obsessed over her appearance and adorned herself so meticulously was now a wreck.

He watched until the very end — Natalia pierced through by the stake Alice Blesbuck drew, then immediately seized and taken captive. Only then did he slowly rise from his chair.

Unlike Gracius, Natalia could easily have been saved, but he chose not to. The crime of daring to mold a homunculus after their master's likeness was too heavy.

"Now then..."

He let out a slow breath and began ordering his thoughts.

The information on the various humans Gracius had collected and made contact with as he moved about. The children Natalia Milited had specially selected, bred, and trained. The pieces he had set aside himself. And on top of all that, Isaac McDowell of Big Watch, a former ally. A great many things came to mind.

Only after a long while did he reach the conclusion that he would have to push his plans back a little.

But it didn't bother him in the slightest. He had already waited hundreds of years to reach this day. A delay of a few mere months was something he could wait out with a smile.

It would all come soon enough.

"So..."

Once everything was over — after basic first aid and the cleanup were both done — the group stood looking up at the enormous dragon and finally spoke.

"This guy is Ji-hyeok?"

"......"

Han Su-yeong quietly nodded.

Then Lee Ye-eun's gaze shifted to Minerva, standing next to Han Su-yeong, and she asked, "Then who are you? Unless I'm remembering wrong, you're definitely..."

"My name is Minerva."

Minerva said the words and slowly took in the people around her.

"And I am that Calamity ye all joined forces to slay."

That brazen way of saying it left the group at a loss for words.

Han Su-yeong, scanning the area, tilted her head and asked Jin Ye-seul:

"Hey, where's Hyun-woo? Where on earth did he go?"

"Ah."

For once, Jin Ye-seul hesitated, her lips fumbling for the words. Then she avoided Han Su-yeong's eyes and answered.

"He said he had something important to talk about and stepped away for a bit."

"Something important?"

"I don't know any more than that, sorry."

Jin Ye-seul gave a small shake of her head as if to say she really didn't know any more. Then she slid a glance toward Minerva and quietly spoke.

"More to the point — can you explain what the hell is actually going on here?"

Jin Ye-seul turned and looked up. The dragon that was Yu Ji-hyeok looked back down at her, blinking. She held his gaze for a long while and quietly murmured.

"...He really does seem to be Ji-hyeok. No matter how I look at him, those are his eyes."

"Yeah, there's no mistaking those big round doe eyes. I don't know what on earth's been going on... but at least he seems to be okay despite everything we were worried about. That's a relief."

At Lee Ye-eun's chime-in, Lee Yu-na tilted her head in confusion. Then she looked up at the dragon — the one everyone else was insisting was Yu Ji-hyeok — once more.

Vertical black pupils. She could see that, unlike the dragons she knew of, his eyes looked calmer and gentler. But they were absolutely not the doe-like, sparkling eyes Lee Ye-eun had described.

How on earth had everyone found Yu Ji-hyeok in that dragon...?

Since everyone but her was saying he was Yu Ji-hyeok, Lee Yu-na started to wonder if she was the one who was wrong.

"Anyway, like I said, I think we're going to need a proper explanation."

Lee Ye-eun shifted her gaze back and forth between Minerva and Han Su-yeong.

"Either of you'll do — can someone tell us what's going on?"

At that, Han Su-yeong glanced over at Minerva. She didn't know the full story herself either.

With everyone's attention on her, Minerva nodded, swept back her hair, and spoke.

"I have no objection to laying out my own story... though it may run a bit long. Let us sit and talk."

She moved her tail until it formed something like a chair and settled herself onto it, leisurely.

She tilted her head a moment as if mulling something over.

"I am not skilled at telling stories in this fashion, so please bear with me."

So saying, Minerva began with how her fight with Yu Ji-hyeok had ended.

That she'd lost to him, but that her own blood had been splashed on him during the battle. That she'd been worried — dragon blood, Seven Calamity blood, blood famed even among them as deadly poison — and so she'd torn out her own heart and fed it to him. That she'd assumed she would simply die, having lost the heart that was the source of her life and the sum of all she was. That when she came back to herself, she found herself awake within his shadow, and had resolved to remain by his side....

When she got that far, Jin Ye-seul quietly raised a hand.

"Hold on. So are you telling us that you are currently inhabiting Ji-hyeok's shadow?"

"It was not my intent, but that is what came to pass. And to be more precise, 'living in it as a parasite' would be the better way to put it than 'inhabiting'."

At that, Jin Ye-seul's expression dropped another notch. The thought that Henir's Shadow — the link between her and Yu Ji-hyeok, the one thing they alone had shared — had been taken from her, hit hard.

"Can I ask one too?"

This time it was Lee Ye-eun. Her eyes were every bit as cold as Jin Ye-seul's had been.

"You're a Calamity, aren't you? Humanity's enemy, one of the seven disasters that lived only in legend."

"That is so, child of the World Tree."

"...And yet you're talking like you're now bound to Ji-hyeok and expect us to just believe that? Honestly, more than anything — how is it that you two were trying to kill each other not that long ago, and now you're talking so chummily to him? I genuinely don't get it."

"I understand. Thy question is only natural."

Minerva turned her head and glanced sidelong at the dragon, who at some point had settled down and closed his eyes.

"He and I fought with our lives and all that we had at stake. And I lost — and so all that I was passed to him as was only fitting. From of old, it hath been common for the loser to become the victor's spoils. My name, my existence... even my life, all lie in the palm of his hand and are determined by his will. To put it simply, I live now only by his mercy and grace."

Minerva let out a sweet, soft breath.

"Had I won, it would have been I who took everything that was his instead. And so I bear neither complaint nor shame at following him."

"...And you expect us to take that on faith? That you'd follow Ji-hyeok just because you lost a match? A Calamity?"

Minerva looked at her in silence at the question. Lee Ye-eun's doubt was only natural.

There was, of course, the fact that she'd met Yu Ji-hyeok 300 years ago in the past, the fact that she'd voluntarily had herself sealed after promising they'd meet again and settle things between them then, the fact that she'd been hit by Aegis's bombardment while shielding him, the fact that Yu Ji-hyeok in turn had thrown himself into danger to protect her in his own way — if she told them any of that, she could have persuaded them easily enough. But she didn't.

The reason was simple. Those were precious secrets and memories belonging only to her and Yu Ji-hyeok. And so Minerva had no wish to share them.

"And if ye believe me not, what wouldst ye do about it?"

Still relaxed in her seat, Minerva let a small smile cross her face as she countered.

"Dost thou perhaps mean to kill me?"

At that, the mood went even colder.

Han Su-yeong, sensing this was about to spiral, stepped forward and waved her hands as if to break things up.

"Okay, everybody calm down for a second. There's no need for us to be locking horns like this right now, of all times."

"Y— yeah."

Lee Yu-na nodded and added her voice to Han Su-yeong's. Then she looked at Minerva and asked carefully.

"Um... what should we call you, miss?"

Minerva gazed at Lee Yu-na intently.

"Call me Minerva, little white duckling of a child."

At being called a duck, Lee Yu-na's face momentarily took on a what on earth are you talking about expression.

"So is the reason Ji-hyeok ended up like this connected to you, Miss Minerva?"

Lee Yu-na asked while looking at the dragon, who was nodding off with his head drooping as if he might slip into sleep at any moment.

"That is so. Thou might call it an authority born of his having taken in my power and my name."

"Then he can change back to normal, right...?"

Lee Yu-na's question came out anxious. Minerva looked at her as if she'd asked something blindingly obvious.

"Of course. Thou askest me a thing too plain to merit asking. Were he unable to change back, then this would be no more than a curse or binding. How could it be called an authority then?"

So saying, Minerva looked over at the dragon, who by now had drifted off into steady, even breathing.

"He can return at any time by his own will, but as we can all see, he is sleeping soundly at this moment. Forward of me though it may be, I shall return him to his original form myself this once."

With that, she reached out toward the dragon with full confidence.

A moment later, Minerva quietly drew her hand back, got up from her tail, and muttered under her breath.

"...Hmm?"

She tilted her head, then moved straight up to him and placed both hands on his scales. She strained at it for a long while, breaking into a cold sweat as she muttered.

"...Hmm?"

The sleeping dragon hadn't changed in the slightest.

"......"

Once things had settled enough, Nam Hyeon-hwa had slipped off to somewhere out of sight, sat down on the spot, and started tending to her wounds.

Throwing herself in headlong, against her usual way, had left her covered in injuries from head to toe, with her mana all but tapped out. Throwing herself into a brutal fight without having properly recovered in the first place, the fatigue and pain were now pressing down on her whole body.

She was letting out a heavy sigh when —

"So this is where you were."

A voice came up beside her, and she gave a startled jolt.

Choi Hyun-woo caught her as she scrambled to get up and quietly said.

"It's all right. Just stay where you are. I know everything now. So..."

He gave her a careful smile.

He now knew it all, and his eyes — the eyes of someone who understood everything — looked at her gently as he said:

"You need proper treatment. You're the one who told us to be especially careful with wounds from the undead. ...Aren't you?"

With that, Choi Hyun-woo sat down beside her and lifted a potion.

Nam Hyeon-hwa looked at him with a face full of things she wanted to say, then quietly turned her head away, as if she couldn't bear to meet his eyes.

A while passed.

"I'm sorry."

The voice was thick with guilt. Choi Hyun-woo's hand, in the middle of winding a bandage, paused for a moment.

"I never meant to deceive you. But I really didn't know things would end up like this either.... I don't have a single excuse I can offer you all — and you especially, Hyun-woo."

Head bowed, Nam Hyeon-hwa quietly murmured.

Choi Hyun-woo finished wrapping the bandage in silence before he spoke.

"Later. Once everything's been sorted out, please explain it to us. With Su-yeong there too."

"...Yes. I should."

At her answer, Choi Hyun-woo let out a small but long breath. A breath as long as if he were releasing everything he'd been holding inside.

"And someday later... a few years from now, when this comes up in conversation."

He was still smiling.

"I hope you, me, and Su-yeong... I hope all of us can bring it up and laugh about it together."

But for Nam Hyeon-hwa, at least, that day was not now.

She simply kept her head bowed in silence. She couldn't bring herself to look squarely at the boy she had raised as her own — her disciple, her family, the one she had thought of as her own child.

And so the two of them sat there for a long while without a word. Side by side, keeping each other company.

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