The Academy’s Deceased Ate It All

"Ngh…."

Landschi pressed a palm hard against one eye, as if in real pain, and gave his head a rough shake.

He was aware that cases where damage carried past a doppelganger and reached the original body — though vanishingly rare — did exist. But the idea that Choi Hyun-woo, of all people, might possess such a means hadn't crossed his mind for a second.

"To take a wound like this from somewhere I never expected…."

The right eye Choi Hyun-woo had pierced couldn't see a thing. And that was just the start of it.

Damage had ripped through his mana circulation pathways and various points throughout his body.

A young human like Choi Hyun-woo possessed no such power on his own, which meant it had to be the sword he'd been wielding.

The moment he saw an unfamiliar weapon and watched it split his skin so effortlessly, he should have registered the threat and braced for it. Landschi readily acknowledged his own foolishness.

He also accepted that the price for that foolishness was crushingly steep, and he hacked up a thick mouthful of clotted, jelly-like blood.

Generating doppelgangers would be off the table, and so would any complex spell-work or formula for some time.

He'd sent out the doppelganger meaning to throw Yu Ji-hyeok and everyone around him into disarray, but in the end, the move had backfired on him.

The same went for using Choi Jun-hyeong, for bringing in Arthur Walclay, and for the Big Watch stragglers who, by now, should have been rampaging on the city's outskirts — all part of the same calculation.

"Tch."

But none of that mattered anymore.

He took stock of the situation with cold clarity and tore his outer garment open.

A pattern much like the one that had appeared on Yu Ji-hyeok — but subtly different — had surfaced between his throat and chest. Patterns would have appeared on Isaac McDowell, who was now mangled and mentally subdued, and on Natalia Milited, who had been buried inside a dragon's heart, as well.

A larger, more intricate pattern was inscribed across his abdomen.

Landschi ran his fingers over it again and again, as if relieved.

He let out a long breath that sounded genuinely thankful.

"That came too close to a disaster."

The intricate ritual had been laid out in advance; all that remained was to set it in motion.

So even in his current state, he could push the plan forward without any trouble.

"……."

Milited's seal lay hidden deep beneath the Baltic Sea.

By rights, breaking it would have required traveling all the way there.

There was no luxury of time for that.

So Landschi had drawn on his specialty to bend the rules.

His specialty was spatial magic — the rarest of arts.

Right now, Landschi Milited had made his own body the medium, linking it to the entrance of the undersea shrine where Milited slept sealed.

…With a medium planted inside Yu Ji-hyeok's body, I can drag that man here whenever I please.

He swept his eyes over the space he'd been preparing for years and made one last check that everything was in order.

With himself, Isaac McDowell, Natalia Milited, and Yu Ji-hyeok, all four sacrifices were now in place.

And since he'd tethered his own body to the undersea shrine, once the seal broke successfully, Milited would surely use his body as a door to step out into this world.

He could swear on his life this was the moment he'd waited centuries for.

"My lord, please…!"

Landschi raised both hands and murmured the words.

Then, without hesitation, he drove the fingers of both hands deep into the pattern carved across his abdomen.

Blood gushed from his pierced body, and the patterns inscribed across him flared to life with a strange light.

It meant the ritual was working as intended.

"…Success."

He could feel Yu Ji-hyeok's body being pulled here.

The instant he arrived, Milited would be unsealed, and Landschi could once again live those glorious days serving beneath his master — and the rising tide of emotion in him was almost more than he could contain.

Which was why he was a little, just a little, late in catching something he would normally have noticed at once.

And that small difference produced a result that could not be undone.

"What…?!"

It wasn't Yu Ji-hyeok being dragged here.

It was him being dragged to Yu Ji-hyeok.

By the time he realized it, it was already too late, and the only thing he could do was clutch Isaac McDowell and Natalia, one in each hand.

A moment later, the dungeon he had so painstakingly seeded with traps and spell-formulae to subdue Yu Ji-hyeok was empty of every last living soul.

I'd had a rough idea of the kind of stunt Landschi would try from the start.

I had no information about Milited's children, who only showed up in the sequel, but every detail about Milited was burned into my memory.

The fact that its seal lay hidden deep beneath the Baltic Sea — and the fact that in the original work, the place where the seal broke and it actually appeared was always the dungeon buried beneath the Academy.

At first I figured something must be hidden in that underground dungeon, but once I learned Landschi's specialty was spatial-type ability, my thinking shifted.

That was when I came up with a way to turn his own plan against him.

Drag Landschi into a space specifically prepared for handling Milited, and then have him summon a weakened, incompletely unsealed Milited inside it, where we'd take her down.

The moment Landschi tried to use me as a sacrifice, he'd be certain to leave some kind of trace or mark on me. And among the people closest to me alone, the spatial-type magic — rare as it was supposed to be — was something Han Su-yeong, Horie Yuzuki, and Evangelline Loengreen could all wield, which made the whole thing possible.

With their help, plus Alice Blesbuck and Kath Ryle, and even Jin Ye-jeong, we'd built the trap to turn his own plan against him — and the situation was unfolding exactly as we'd intended.

Landschi, now standing in front of us, was the proof.

"……."

"Isaac McDowell… so this is where you got off to."

Alice Blesbuck and Evangelline Loengreen each had their own reaction.

Alice Blesbuck silently watched Natalia Milited, who had been imprisoned inside a hideous bagworm-like lump of meat with only her face exposed, unconscious. Evangelline Loengreen's expression hardened as she took in Isaac McDowell — his limbs twisted, his mouth hanging open and his eyes vacant, as if he'd been reduced to an idiot.

"You got me… completely."

Landschi murmured the words quietly, breathing hard.

He looked even more diminished than I'd predicted. Glancing at Hyun-woo beside me, I thought, you really did your part, and took a step forward.

"Yeah. You got got."

I nodded as I slowly drew the sword forged from my scale out from the shadows.

"Choi Jun-hyeong is already dead by Ye-seul's hand. The traitor you pulled the strings for took a chest wound from the old woman and died. And the Big Watch stragglers hiding on the city's outskirts have all been wiped out by Lee Myung-jun and the Ten Powerhouses, the World Tree clan, and the Aegis system. Want me to tell you how cleanly? People are still out there enjoying the festival without a clue."

"……."

His mouth shut. I raised my hand so the ring was clearly visible.

"And only someone wearing this ring can come and go from this space freely. Needless to say, we're not about to let you slip out through spatial movement either."

I took another step closer.

"You lost, Landschi."

"But you stand before me right now."

Landschi said the words and broke into a grin.

"The four sacrifices are gathered — the condition is met. That means my lord will awaken. That alone is enough."

"That was my play from the very beginning, you idiot."

I snorted and looked at him.

"Milited — is it stronger than Margo?"

"Even comparing my lord to vermin like that is an insult beyond measure…!"

"Then is it stronger than Sbeungali?"

"My lord disdained associating with that snake-tongued schemer. It could not stand to hear that filthy tongue — but it was never out of fear."

[Is that lunatic lizard really standing there calling someone else snake-tongued and filthy…?]

Sbeungali muttered, sounding genuinely flabbergasted.

I drew in one long breath and asked the next question.

"Then — is it stronger than Minerva?"

"……."

Landschi, who'd been running his mouth so confidently a moment ago, snapped his mouth shut.

…For some reason the shadow rippled and stirred at my feet, almost as if it were looking up at me wearing a smug well, how about that? expression.

"No more questions are needed."

Landschi murmured the words and stared blankly in my direction.

His head turned slowly as he looked, one by one, at everyone gathered beside me.

"…Even so, I cannot bring myself to believe it. Reading your opponent's mind, working from limited information, sharp insight into the situation, plus the confidence to back it all — that's what it takes. How could you possibly have known?"

The vacant murmur cut off as Landschi's mouth abruptly stretched into a smile, unsettlingly wide.

"My lord. It truly knew everything."

Worthy of a master a Landschi has sworn his all to serve.

His murmur sounded full of genuine admiration.

"…What?"

Before I could so much as move, he drove his hand swiftly and deep into his own throat.

A heartbeat later, the pattern between my chest and throat began to prick at my skin, and I felt something deep inside me being clawed at and torn away.

[! Your soul and body have been selected as the sacrifice for someone's resurrection! !]

[! A part of you is beginning to flow toward 'someone'…! !]

For a moment I thought, did something just go wrong — and that was when I felt the catalysts I'd received from Evangelline Loengreen and Alice Blesbuck start to vibrate.

[! The catalyst you possess begins to resist the curse's grasp! !]

[! The artifact you possess nullifies the forced selection! !]

[! The Banshee's Necklace resonates of its own accord, projecting wavelengths that oppose the curse! !]

Notifications popped up one after another, and Landschi just let out a small snort, as if he'd anticipated all of it. Two dark green threads were already extending from the center of his chest, latching onto Isaac McDowell and Natalia Milited.

"Curse your own foolishness as you die. You've brought ruin down on yourself…!"

He opened his mouth wide, as if to pour one last curse on me — and that was when a silver-white liquid began erupting out of it like a waterfall.

The liquid shimmered as if it had swallowed light itself, dazzling to look at.

I said nothing and just drew a second spear.

The others around me each began calmly bracing for what was about to happen.

"Ngh, ngah…! Gaaagh…!!! Khuruk…."

The towering, two-meter build he'd had a moment ago was nowhere to be seen.

Landschi was drying out like a mummy at terrifying speed, the contours of bone showing through his skin in places, his body's nutrients siphoned away. And the same thing was happening to Isaac McDowell and Natalia Milited — and to the lump of meat that encased her.

"Some kind of… rebound?"

Han Su-yeong murmured, sounding puzzled, and Alice Blesbuck answered.

"That's right. A price that was supposed to be shouldered by four is being paid in full by just three. Naturally, what they have to give up grows bigger."

She watched the scene with something complicated in her gaze.

"By rights, they'd only lose part of their lifespan. But… honestly, I'm not sure that even giving up everything they have between them will be enough to pay the price."

She murmured one last thing, in a very small voice.

"…To think that Landschi and Mother would end up dying as the backlash of a ritual. For an alchemist, can there be any more shameful or agonizing death than this…?"

In the end, the three who had been alive only moments before no longer had any form left, and all that remained in their place was a single enormous mass of liquid, as though it had devoured everything that made them up.

[! Quest 'The Fourth Calamity' has begun. !]

The status window surfaced with detached calm.

The surface of the liquid mass rippled and churned, and a human arm pushed its way out.

[Milited….]

Sbeungali murmured, his voice tangled with something complicated.

In that brief moment, the shimmering liquid had taken the shape of a perfect human being.

The figure looked so much like Kath Ryle that you could have believed they were twins.

Sprawled like a lizard creeping along the ground, the figure slowly raised itself up.

Then, slowly, it opened its mouth at me.

"…At last, I meet that face in person, with my own two eyes."

Speaking in a voice that was eerily identical to Kath Ryle's, the figure bowed low, almost as if performing a formal salutation.

"Saint."

Saint?

I couldn't help knitting my brow at the meaningless word.

At the same moment, the spear I'd reflexively hurled buried itself precisely in the figure's face.

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