Of course, from the Magic Tower's perspective, they were merely enjoying themselves, completely unaware of the truth.
The enemy laughed.
They laughed heartily.
They still had no idea just how capable the mage before them truly was. With such an overwhelming advantage in numbers, they had naturally assumed victory would come easily. On top of that, before reaching the Academic Hall, they had dissected the mind of an orange-blooded noble and stolen the secret magic of a rival family. Now they possessed not only the power to torment the mind, but physical strength as well.
Reality, however, was cold and merciless.
One against a hundred.
Here stood someone who had turned that absurd expression—something that ought to exist only in dictionaries—into reality.
..Do you all know? I don't particularly enjoy wasting my breath.
His tone was perfectly ordinary.
Since both sides were Alphauri, they could at least communicate in the same language.
So I'll only say this once. Don't make me repeat myself.
That did not mean, however, that the green mage who had begun speaking had any intention of holding an actual conversation...
Get out of this academy right now.
By then, the entire sea had been swallowed by a mysterious black liquid that amplified the effects of brainwashing.
From the far edge of that pitch-dark expanse, where not even the outline of a figure could be made out, a voice reverberated through the water.
Vertically.
A sound wave released by a male compatriot sitting crookedly atop a rock.
If you don't leave these waters before I count to three, I'll erase from this world the greatest treasure you and your ancestors have guarded for generations!
The green one spoke now in an exceptionally aggressive tone.
What? Treasure? What treasure?
The Magic Tower's response, however, was disappointingly unimpressive.
Though their species lacked anything resembling proper nasal cavities, they somehow managed to snort in contempt.
The black liquid spreading throughout the area was a drug that affected the mind—in other words, something not unlike a specially manufactured magical enhancer.
No one knew where the stranger's confidence came from, but his skin was completely exposed to the drug.
At this point, regardless of how strong his mind might be, shouldn't the desired effects have started appearing?
What war hero?! At this rate, it'd be faster for us to kill every bastard here before worrying about him! Listen carefully to the vibrations. One of those pathetic Archmages from the Academy just collapsed somewhere in the distance.
Hahaha. If I'd known the borderlands were this weak, we should've invaded long ago.
Salpa! Where's that old man?
The spiritual pillar of the Academy!
Tell us where Salpa is hiding, and we'll be generous enough to let you die peacefully.
You arrogant bastard from the filthy deep sea!
Noise and chaos erupted everywhere.
In the span of mere milliseconds, information flooded in.
The foreign Alphauri shouted from every direction at once.
For the green Academy member, whose hearing was extraordinarily sensitive, sorting through the overlapping voices was no challenge at all.
The problem was that he calmly dismissed every threat that followed without giving any of them a second thought.
One.
Because despite being completely exposed to the Magic Tower's special drug, he remained perfectly fine.
[Golem Control Technique].
In a battle against such overwhelming numbers, there was hardly any magic more effective.
Unfortunately, however, he had not yet perfected the spell to a level he found satisfactory.
In that case, perhaps a smaller weapon would be better.
Something simple.
Something °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° easier for those unruly bastards to understand than some grandiose display.
Two...
Had those foreigners suspended in the water ever imagined it?
That the new branch of magic they had spent more than ten Earth-years perfecting—mental brainwashing—
could be unraveled by this young mage in a matter of minutes.
Even if they learned the truth, they would probably refuse to believe it.
That was how absurd the deep-sea dweller of this region truly was.
A being so overwhelming that every other genius appeared little more than a pinnacle of foolishness beside him.
An existence so unreasonable it almost defied belief.
Huh?!
At last, the man's magic activated.
The sorcerer hovering at the center of the Magic Tower's forces suddenly collapsed.
He did not even think to regulate his own buoyancy.
His body simply began sinking endlessly into the depths.
The sight was completely different from the compatriots who had earlier been torn from their mounts by telekinetic force.
What the—what's happening...?!
Wait, hold on! He hasn't even counted to three yet?!
It's already too late—for every last one of you!
He was the creator of [Mana Burn].
Even though the structure of the spell had already been made public, there was still no scholar in the world who understood its principles better than he did.
Which meant that a technique like this could only have been created by him.
He had devised an extraordinarily powerful method of protecting himself—
all because of the advice once given to him by a certain orange-blooded compatriot.
That damned deep-sea bastard actually lied to us?!
Wait... no way.
Aaaah! Everyone, stop! It's coming from the Deputy Tower Lord's body...!
What he had used was his own original modification of Mana Burn.
There's no mana coming from the Deputy Tower Lord!
The green mage had completely reworked the spell, which had originally been designed for wide-area use, transforming it into a single-target attack.
And the newly created weapon displayed its terrifying power from its very first use.
During the satellite war, the Archmage of the enemy nation had achieved remarkable feats every time he stepped onto the battlefield...
Kyaak!
Aaaack!
...only to die at the hands of a mere youth.
The end of the mage, whose entire body's energy scattered and vanished, was pitiful.
The purplish-red Alphauri who had been leading the group died almost instantly after his mana barrier collapsed.
More precisely, the green-blooded scholar seized upon the enemy's weakened state and used his usual trick.
He shattered the other's transparent gelatinous layer completely.
Oh my God!
Actually, sights like this were hardly unusual even on Earth.
In science-fiction shooting games, aliens struck by gunfire often exploded into splashes of slime.
From a mammal's perspective, it was difficult to understand what was supposedly so gruesome about such a sight.
But for beings born as marine creatures, there was hardly anything more horrifying.
The leader of the Magic Tower's forces was struck by the war hero's magic and blown apart.
The enemy, stunned by the sudden splatter of gore, suffered a momentary mental shock.
And that tiny opening was more than enough for the future Archmage.
By the way, I told you earlier that if you didn't retreat, I'd destroy the greatest treasure you possess, didn't I?
Like arsenic pigment.
The dangerously green mage delivered his next message.
That treasure I mentioned?
Your damned bloodline—passed down from generation to generation.
I swear I'll show you what it looks like when billions of years of reproduction go completely to waste.
Incidentally, the long speech he gave this time was not meant to buy himself casting time.
Creatures like you aren't needed in this beautiful sea!
At this point, he was still perfectly capable of using magic without chanting.
***
There was no need to describe the brutal battle that followed in detail.
The commotion soon came to an end.
While the war hero handled the most dangerous squad at the center of the area, fierce resistance continued elsewhere, and the battle was concluded relatively quickly.
Hmm? I was wondering where this guy had gone.
All the guards were taken down too.
What a shame-
During the fighting, there had also been the unfortunate death of Salpa, the head of the Academy...
However, this place was full of rational people, and so grief over something that could no longer be undone did not linger for long.
How many floors of the collapsed building are missing? The moment they realized things were turning against them, some of the Magic Tower bastards apparently fled with the research data!
And that's not all! My poor disciples—their bodies were stolen too! Those bastards took my disciples' corpses along with the data!
Those thieving bastards!
We have to... track them down.
They've finally analyzed Beta Star's technology. If they seriously use their magic, they can practically cross the entire sea. Honestly, catching them will be almost impossible...
Discussions broke out from every direction.
Then, all of a sudden, a sharp hissing sound came from one side of the sea.
The lazy scholar who normally seemed to drag himself along the ground was now racing toward them, shooting through the water with the aid of a pipe.
Oh, the war hero...
Moreover, the scholar who appeared was using all four of his auxiliary limbs to carry his cargo securely.
Wait, this crazy bastard! Did he deliberately try to separate us from the adults?!
What kind of nonsense is that?
We're not even specializing in biological magic-
I used to mock the younger Academy scholars as weaklings whenever they couldn't stomach the sight of cadavers.
Looking at this now, I feel ashamed of how I acted back then.
It was certainly a sight befitting someone who claimed to have cut down the enemy leader's body.
After wiping out the Magic Tower's squad, the green mage had dragged back the corpses of the four mages who had appeared most formidable among them.
On a planet where Alphauri funeral customs were so simple, there was almost always a reason when someone deliberately brought back another person's corpse.
Anyway, why did you bring those filthy things here?
Even if the Hammurabi Code had never existed in their history, there was no chance that an intelligent species would be unfamiliar with the principle of reciprocal justice.
Brain.
What did you say?
I brought them because I thought we might be able to extract information by searching their brains.
That's...
Their usual escape routes. The locations of emergency hideouts. Anything like that.
If I knew how, I'd roll up my sleeves and start immediately. But you know as well as I do, don't you? How are we supposed to analyze another person's mind? That's technology unique to the enemy nation the Magic Tower belongs to.
...
What our country knows about the brain... well, at best, it's superficial research. Things like discovering that if you feed tasty bait to certain brain lobes in experimental jellyfish, a lot of electrical current flows through them.
Haha.
War hero. You do seem somewhat skilled in [emotion control], but when you break it down, even that is merely a pharmacological modification. In reality, you haven't severed so much as a single nerve. What exactly are you planning to do with those corpses?
The older Alphauri, frustrated by his attitude, could not help scolding him.
Their people were so squeamish that the nation's biological experimentation data lagged far behind that of neighboring countries.
It was humiliating to admit, but in this particular field, their country was undeniably behind.
The war hero, however, paid no attention to the reprimand.
He was young.
He was capable.
And because of that, he possessed absolute confidence in everything he did.
So you're telling me that I can't accomplish something even those idiots from the Magic Tower managed to do?
Everyone fell silent for a moment.
Have you decided my intelligence ranks below theirs?
The young war hero's shameless confidence silenced the Academy members.
And yet, despite his bold declaration, it did not take long before the speaker who had begun with such certainty gradually lowered his voice and spoke more humbly.
...But, to be fair, even after saying all that, I can't exactly analyze a brain from nothing.
You're right.
Our country really does lack sufficient material when it comes to this kind of magic.
In recent years, research into golem magic and the activities of the Immortality Conspiracy had already kept him overwhelmingly busy.
The green mage was not particularly knowledgeable about the physical characteristics of the Alphauri.
Besides—
what had been the original reason he came to the Academic Hall in the first place?
No matter how much of a genius someone might be, there were still things that could not be accomplished alone.
So.
I'll need help.
Unfortunately, this time there truly was no other choice.
It was unavoidable.
...Bring him here.
He went directly against the warning the orange one had given him in the past and called for a particular collaborator.
...Bring the highest-ranking researcher here immediately.
The confidant of the upper class.
The one who has dissected the brains of the highest beings in this nation.
If it's him—
if it's the master of biological magic—
he might have a solution.
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