NOVEL NEXT Chapter 39
EP.39 The Stench of Decay (4)
Silence envelops the Spell Training Room.
No one dares to speak. What just happened? No one has accurately grasped the situation.
Then the door opens, and someone walks in.
It’s the new professor, Rania van Trias, who has been recently attracting attention.
Crack.
She crushes something that resembles a bone. Before the crushed object even hits the ground, she stomps it down.
Crack, squish.
The moment her foot meets the barrier, it tears like a sheet of paper. It couldn’t hold her steps for even a second.
By the time they realized that, the situation was already over.
BOOM!
With a deafening noise, the Spell Training Room trembles.
Cracks form on the floor. Dust kicks up. In the blink of an eye, all of it happened.
At the epicenter of the shock are the professors.
Pushed back by the impact, they sit on the floor, staring at the girl revealed when the dust settled.
‘What just happened?’
They can’t tell.
‘A spell was cast. Magical energy surged.’
However, they have no idea how many spells were emitted. Even those who had been deeply immersed in magic for a long time couldn’t grasp the momentary phenomenon.
“……”
With trembling eyes, they look up at her.
Rania van Trias.
Her robe is stained red and blue with blood. She’s covered in it from head to toe. However, when she wipes the blood from her cheek, they suddenly realize.
‘It’s not her own.’
The blood is closer to blue than red.
It’s the blood of a beast.
“Phew…”
She exhales sharply.
Then, she reaches toward the center of the shock where a betrayer is lodged in the floor.
Squelch, squelch.
She walks while gripping the betrayer’s hair. The black blood trailing on the floor is thick. Nobody stands in her way.
“……”
Silently, she walks between the parting students and professors. At the end, there are knights, perplexed, holding their swords.
“This one.”
Rania points to the betrayer she dragged along.
“If you leave him be, he’ll regain his senses, so bind him up and interrogate him.”
“Yes, yes?”
The knights blink in disbelief.
No matter how they look at it, he doesn’t seem to be alive. Aware of the knights’ gaze, Rania scratches the back of her head, looking annoyed as she replies.
“I raised his demonic energy. The betrayer will move alive until you rip out his head or heart. Even if he dies, he comes back.”
Thud.
She nudges the betrayer’s body with her toe. He flinches, trembling.
“See? He’s alive.”
“Ah, I understand. Thank you for your cooperation.”
The knights receive the betrayer.
They bind him up and gag him so he can’t chant spells.
“I’ll be going.”
With those last words, she leaves.
All, professors, students, and knights alike, stand dazed, staring at her retreating figure.
“Ahem.”
Only her master, Rosel, coughs lightly and offers a faint smile.
2.
The Fourth Princess, Ayla’s guard knight, Habel.
While the other knights say the seat feels like a thorny chair, Habel takes great pride in being the Princess’s guard.
‘She will become the queen one day.’
It may be presumptuous, but Habel thinks Ayla is more suited to be a leader than anyone in the royal family.
‘If I can guard such a person…’
There could be no greater honor.
Habel genuinely thinks so.
‘…But this time, I failed my duty.’
His mouth feels bitter.
Fortunately, the princess was unharmed, but that wasn’t due to Habel or the knights doing anything.
‘A professor saved her.’
One professor protected the princess.
Guiding her through a pack of beasts to the knights’ base. Habel knows the professor’s name.
‘Rania van Trias, Rosel’s adopted daughter.’
The person he personally delivered a robe to last time. Remembering her, Habel nods subtly.
‘I should express my thanks separately.’
For protecting the Princess in his stead.
And…
“Assistant professor in Battle Magic, Kelt.”
For capturing the instigator of this incident as well.
Habel lowers his gaze.
Most of the beasts have been eradicated. The knights search around to find and clean up the remaining beasts.
All that’s left is this filthy betrayer.
At Habel’s feet is a bound betrayer, kneeling on the ground. There’s contempt in Habel’s gaze as he looks down at him.
“A filthy betrayer who turned against humanity and joined the ranks of fiends. The crime of unleashing beasts to cause chaos at the academy is quite severe.”
“……”
No reply is returned.
The betrayer, Kelt, stares blankly into space, his mouth agape.
Drip.
Drool trails from his mouth.
‘He can’t even come to his senses.’
Tsk, Habel clicks his tongue.
It seems it will take a bit longer before he regains his senses. Torture? Soaking him in holy water? That will be the next step.
“Phew…”
Habel sighs and stands up.
“By the way, how on earth did you capture him?”
“Exactly. It’s hard to find a betrayer before they unleash their magic.”
As Habel steps out of the tent, the knights are chatting. Habel approaches them, and they turn to face him.
“Ah, Habel! Have you finished the interrogation?”
“We haven’t even started torture yet. The state he’s in… well, he can’t come to his senses.”
“Indeed… it makes sense that one would lose their senses after getting hit like that. It’s amazing he’s still alive.”
The knight guarding the Spell Training Room, Kled, nods in agreement. The knights’ gazes turn toward him.
“What? Kled, did you see it?”
“I didn’t see everything, but I definitely saw the results.”
Kled speaks as he receives the knights’ attention, and Habel, who was curious about the process, listens closely.
“It was incredibly quick! I saw her walking in, drenched in blood from afar. So I asked, ‘Are you okay?’”
Kled waves his hands.
“So she goes, ‘Make way,’ and without a moment’s pause, Professor Rania bursts through the door!”
Gulp. The knights swallow dryly.
“And then?”
“She opened it? What happened next?”
“Oh, well, I didn’t see much from there.”
“What do you mean?”
Kled lets out a nervous laugh.
“It happened so fast, there was no time to see. Just bang! Something sounded off, the building shook… and that was it.”
“Come on, what could you even call that?”
“Well, at least you saw the betrayer, right? His skull was all sunken in. His eyes were popping out, and all his teeth were gone… ugh.”
Shudder. Kled trembles.
“Despite looking handsome, he seems really terrifying. Dragging him by his hair… ugh, I thought I was gonna lose it.”
“…Your words are crude. Watch your tongue.”
“Y-yes ma’am!”
Habel sighs deeply, pats Kled on the shoulder a few times, and leaves.
‘…In any case, the testimony of defeating the betrayer in one hit is consistent.’
At first, Habel couldn’t believe it either.
Defeating a betrayer in one hit? It didn’t make logical sense. A betrayer who has made a deal with fiends has a body that’s different from a human’s.
Let alone, if they were to unleash their magic…
That’s no longer something you could call a human.
‘And that betrayer was oozing black blood.’
Black blood is proof that the betrayer summoned their magical energy.
Even a betrayer, if they haven’t summoned magic, would bleed the same red blood as a regular human.
‘Which is why they’re so hard to find.’
Based on all the information gathered, Habel reaches a conclusion.
First, somehow the betrayer was located.
Second, the betrayer fought while under magic.
Third, he was suppressed in a single strike.
Putting it all together, it became even more confusing.
“Is that even possible?”
To suppress him in one hit without allowing a moment of opportunity? In a place where students were clustered together as hostages?
‘That doesn’t add up.’
However, the results are telling a different story.
“I truly can’t grasp this…”
Habel suddenly recalls Rania’s figure passing by just moments ago.
-Professor, those shoes…
-I’ll buy you new ones, don’t cry.
-No, I really wasn’t saying that…
-I get it. I understand, so first let’s wash that outfit. Hurry and follow me.
-Yes…
The girl talking to Professor Rosel.
She was wearing just a shirt, with only a few blood droplets splattered on her body and no injuries.
‘She showed no signs of fatigue…’
Habel murmured in a resigned tone.
“Why is someone of that caliber even teaching?”
3.
“Should I quit…”
“Hmm? What did you say?”
“Oh, nothing. The robe doesn’t wash well…”
In the laundry room, I was washing the robe and shirt.
It felt a bit guilty to rinse it with water magic because of the expensive material…
‘…Maybe I should fight without it next time?’
But then my shirt would get soaked in blood.
While I pondered this unfamiliar dilemma, my mood felt mixed.
After all, in the battlefield, blood stains were the norm.
The priests, like Sara, who demanded white clothing to represent the divine, were fools.
‘…Why is this one so white?’
And now, I felt like one of those fools.
“Phew…”
As I washed the pristine white shirt, only sighs escaped my lips. The robe itself was navy blue, so it showed stains less, but the white shirt highlights even the smallest marks.
‘I might as well just leave it to a specialized laundromancer later…’
But I needed to wash it to look presentable.
The Master said so.
-As a professor, you need to pursue at least a minimal level of tidiness.
-Let’s just wash it enough for it to look acceptable. Knowing that we’ll likely stay here for a while.
I look at the shirt in my hands.
The collar of the shirt is embroidered with golden thread. A gift from the royal family, delivered along with the robe.
‘It’s a bit troublesome to wash it haphazardly…’
So I’m scrubbing at it diligently, but the blood doesn’t wash out easily since it’s so white.
‘By the way, this situation feels oddly familiar.’
Have I ever washed clothes on the battlefield?
I think I usually just rinsed them with water magic without a care in the world. I never paid attention to such details…
Ah.
‘…Me and Kyle.’
If we exclude the two of them, that just leaves the others.
Suddenly, the two mad girls’ images flash across my mind. Their voices echo in my ears like a haunting melody.
-No, Rania! What’s with these clothes? They’re all wrinkled!
-What about mine! What is this mess!
-No seriously, didn’t you say to wash them?
-Who asked you to rinse them wth water magic and leave them like that? See, that’s why you’re still a virgin!
-Stupid human. It’s my fault for handing it over to you.
Halt.
-Anyway, that’s why… Tsk.
-Rania, a man who doesn’t understand women’s hearts is unpopular, you know? What’s the point of being good-looking? You have a terrible personality and zero consideration.
-For crying out loud, give me back all of that.
At that time, what did I do? I think I tore up one of Sara’s treasured outfits.
Whoosh.
Right, like this.
“Eh?”
I feel like I heard something I shouldn’t have. Slowly, I lower my gaze. I look at the shirt in my hand.
‘What the hell.’
The tips of my fingers holding the shirt tremble.
“Huh? Is something…?”
The Master, who had approached me, also froze stiff. I turned to look at him. Our eyes met.
After a long silence, the Master finally spoke.
“…Rania.”
“Yes, yes?”
“If I recall correctly, this was a gift from the royal family. Am I right?”
I slowly nodded my head.
The Master slapped his forehead.