NOVEL NEXT Chapter 571
Vroom vroom, crackle!
Vroom vroom, crackle!
An alarming sound echoed through the alarm speakers as all the mana gauges screamed and the ground trembled.
“Surely the professor is just joking, right?”
“Yeah, who would be crazy enough to gather second-years for a real giant beast attack?”
“This is just a lecture to prepare for false alarms. The alarm itself might be fake! The first day might just be a fun courage test.”
Students busily turned their hope circuits. Their faces wore smiles, but cold sweat dripped down their backs.
Why is this feeling so uneasy?
Pretending not to notice, they secretly knew the truth: the professors at Gift Academy were not exactly student-friendly.
After all, the third-years had all bailed, leaving the class with zero students, forcing the second-years to take it over.
“What the heck? We’re about to get wrecked by Ishtar just when we wanted to take one down!”
“Don’t panic, Honor Fried Chicken! The professors have assured survival with the instructors. In other words, there’s no way we can die, so we should actually be bold!”
“What are you trying to say, Cheddar? Be clear about your intent!”
“Whether a giant appears or not, we simply need to follow through with our objectives.”
“Are you saying we should dive in right now? On the first lecture?”
“Don’t you want to know if instructor interference happens regardless of a giant’s attack? How far student disputes will go unchecked?”
“!!”
“It’s the simplest it’ll ever be to take out Ishtar at this lecture. You won’t find a mad professor who would throw a third-year level class at a second-year.”
With the increasingly loud sound and palpable vibrations, the students were amazed, almost like moviegoers marveling at a 3D film.
The Empire Nobles, desperately hoping this was something like a 3D movie, quickly traced Ishtar’s movements.
“The entire space is under expansion magic!”
“The whole classroom has been turned into a gigantic field prepared by the professor!”
“Ishtar’s magic reactions are hidden by the professor’s expansion magic—it can’t be detected!”
A boy in metal armor yelled amid the chaos of the imperial children.
“Shut up! Make way!”
“Whoa, Leff Iron Charcoal Barbecue!”
“That guy is suddenly raising his mana levels!”
“He’s no worse than the third-year seniors from the Three Great Meritorious Families… His mana amount seems to match theirs!”
“But what is he trying to do?”
Leff filled the space around him with metal magic and emanated heat, causing the air to sizzle.
Chiiiiiiiiiiyk!
Amidst the white steam, Leff shouted, his eyes glowing with bright blue mana.
“Found you!”
“What?!”
“How do you know that?”
“Ishtar isn’t a master of [Hide]
or [Invisibility] like Oknodie. If they managed to disappear quickly without anyone seeing, it can only be from a technique using mana.”“Could those heat and steam just now be the byproducts of mana detection?”
“Exactly. I made the surrounding area my [Domain] to detect and locate any disruptive energies within it.”
“Impressive. How could you, from the Knight Department, perform such precise mana detection?”
Even the arrogant Honor Fried Chicken was astonished at the meticulous detection, and Leff confidently declared:
“My Iron Charcoal Barbecue is based on a record of my ancestors in the demon realm, where the toxic properties of the meat are neutralized only when heated on a high-temperature iron plate, but too much heat causes it to explode. Precise temperature control and mana detection are the basics!”
“If you had that kind of skill, why didn’t you use it against Ishtar last year?”
“Due to my lack of mastery, I couldn’t gain the control enhancement effects from my armor, which lowered my precision. I needed at least armor to face the Warrior’s [Holy Sword].”
That made sense. The imperial nobles had endured a year of pressure from Ishtar and Oknodie until they could equip their armor.
Of course, hiding like mice was over now that they were second-years.
All of them had their armor equipped, totaling 17 nobles ready to go. Even the famed Ishtar wouldn’t survive a 17 to 1 battle!
Killing Ishtar and crushing the revolutionary army that supports Masugaki means the next emperor of the Empire will be chosen from our noble faction. If we play our cards right, an emperor might even rise from our family!
My classmates were not that significantly skilled; it was just a matter of being well-born and cute with good looks. Masugaki, your ambition was just too excessive!
Anyway, the strongest will always become emperor. I, Leff Iron Charcoal Barbecue, will prove it! If it’s a fight, I’m the strongest!
Leff’s ambitious steps towards the imperial throne paused.
“What are you doing, Leff? Stop chasing.”
“Right here.”
“Are you kidding? There’s no one here!”
“To be precise, I should say it’s below us.”
“…There’s just dirt down there?”
Everyone couldn’t contain their disbelief.
If Ishtar was underground, that meant they were being buried alive!
“What’s going on? Why is Ishtar being buried alive? Did someone intervene?”
“I don’t know. But that’s my detection result.”
“Should we dig to confirm?”
As the nobles panicked, Cheddar Potato Pizza calmly intervened.
“No need for that. While I don’t know the reason, it’s undeniable that Ishtar has placed himself in a disadvantageous terrain. Let’s use this situation.”
“How?”
“Let’s harden the ground with magic and freeze it. Make it impossible for him to come up at all.”
“…!!”
It’s a concrete operation that takes advantage of being buried alive!
“I like that idea.”
“Let’s pour all our mana into it so he can’t come back even with the Holy Sword.”
“He won’t be returning to the surface ever again!”
They froze it with Ice Magic, hardened it with Earth Magic, and layered it with Metal Magic.
A multi-sealing that would make coming back to the surface unthinkable!
Feeling satisfied, the nobles suddenly complained about the much stronger vibrations and tingling in their skin.
“When is the professor going to turn off the speakers?”
“Yeah, my ears are starting to hurt.”
“Shouldn’t it be about time to—…?!”
“Don’t mess with me! Why are you acting surprised all of a sudden?”
“Look, look behind us! Look behind us!”
In the midst of the noble students fixated on their concrete project, one student turned back, his face drained as he lifted his head, leaning a good bit to look up.
Noticing the ominous feeling, the now-silent students turned their stiff necks.
Scrreeech!
The detection devices on the noble students’ eyes picked up a massive silhouette through the fog.
━━━
Vermonthros
Classification: Ruler, Giant Beast, Rank 7
Features: A giant black bear, Earth Devouring Organism
Ability: Shakes the ground and causes earthquakes, annihilating a habitat with powerful physical strength and roars.
Features: Good news and bad news exist. The good news is that, luckily for humanity, Vermonthros consumes soil and rock as well. The bad news is that Vermonthros also devours any creatures above the earth that it raises.
━━━
So it’s a false alarm, huh?
Just a scare for the first day?
Those lame thoughts won’t hold up against a truly mad professor.
“This is really messed up.”
With someone’s futile murmur, a giant hand that could not even let light through dug into the earth.
With no mercy, the imperial noble youths screamed and jumped down.
*
“What a bunch of fools.”
Ishtar could hardly contain her astonishment as she watched the imperial noble students strengthen the earth above the underground space she had dug out with her Holy Sword.
“Did you confirm the giant beast’s presence with enhanced detection?”
“Not at all. My detection isn’t that outstanding. More importantly, Hiscliff instructor, why did you follow us here?”
“Didn’t I say? I’m Oknodie’s friend and instructor. Your safety is my responsibility.”
“Guess I worried for nothing. Thanks to those fools above, even a giant monster like Ishtar won’t want to dig here!”
The land turned into a bother that the giant monster wouldn’t want to mess with even as it dug with its [Excavate] skill.
Just a little deviation and the ground was soft as fine sand, while this space required a pickaxe to break through because of its mixed stone and gravel—so why would it stick to digging up something annoying?
“I’m still curious, though. Did you, like Oknodie, sneak any information from the Foundation to foresee the giant’s emergence?”
“Don’t treat me like one of them. The moment I confirmed that Duke Andersen was in the same class, I felt a hunch.”
“Duke Andersen?”
“He’s like a harbinger of calamity. As long as I’m in the same class as that guy, just assume the difficulty of the lecture will be set to the highest.”