Chapter 89

Confusion at Simon’s ridiculous request was clearly etched on Serene’s face.

“Don’t you think that sounded better in your head? Why should I help you?”

Simon answered while riding on the back seat of Lorain’s skeleton horse,

“I’ll consider myself to be in your debt.”

After leaving those words, Simon nodded to Lorain. The skeleton horse immediately soared into the sky as she pulled at the reins.

‘……Nonsense.’

Serene raised a feather with a cold expression.

The feather disassembled into a magic circle and transformed into a large ballista.

“You’re bad at playing politics, aren’t you?”

At that moment, she remembered what Simon had said.

“Your method only increases the number of your enemies.”

‘……’

Serene gnashed her teeth together.

This was pure sophistry.

She’s always the strong one. 

The weak ones only had two choices: to be taken or to die.

Since her mind-controlling abilities had reached their peak, the thoughts of others were never worth considering.

But…

‘My method is… bad?’

Her gaze turned to the sky again, seeing Simon and Lorain having a friendly conversation on the skeleton horse.

* * *

“You mean the monster went berserk, right?”

“Yup.”

Simon nodded and continued,

“By the way, did you hear anything about me from Nefthis recently?”

“Hm? What kind of ‘anything’?”

It was easy to read Lorain, who blinked in confusion during her response. Nefthis never told Lorain about the Legion.

The secret was between Simon and Nefthis. Of course, someone else figured it out this time around, but that couldn’t be helped.

“Nothing. Actually, a famous treasure hunter visited Class A as an outside lecturer, and the monster was listed in his materials. But it’s not in the guidebook.”

Lorain pondered on the matter for a moment before saying,

“It could be an artificial monster that didn’t originally inhabit this island.”

“That’s also possible.”

While Simon was briefing Lorain about what he’d learnt so far, the distance to Big Krum shrank and shrank.

The fake Big Krum, which had gone berserk, had grown to nearly 20 meters. It now crossed the river and entered the southern island.

“This is insane!”

“What the hell is that?!”

The students quietly hunting monsters in the outskirts were busy running away because of the sudden appearance of a ginormous monster.

As Big Krum passed by them and gave a kick, the ground overturned, and trees were uprooted. It really was a walking disaster.

“Kyaaaaaaah!”

Big Krum stopped and looked down at the screaming female student. He then raised his huge foot.

“Ah……!”

As the shadow of the foot came over her, the female student went stiff in horror.

Whooooooosh!

In that moment, a man bravely soared toward the foot of Big Krum before taking a deep breath and punching as hard as he could.

Slam!

The gargantuan body of Big Krum faltered for a moment, lost its balance, and took a step back.

[Ohhhh!]

[Brett, nicely done!]

Of course, his true identity wasn’t Brett, but Elizabeth, who had transformed into Brett.

She had a magic transmitter attached to her ear to communicate with the executive headquarters and other assistants.

When she landed on the ground, the female student shouted as though touched,

“Thank you for saving me, assistant teacher!”

Elizabeth put her pointer finger on the forehead of the female student and pretended to flick it lightly.

“It’s dangerous here, so get back.”

“Yes!”

The female student, cheeks flushed, glanced back at Brett and soon ran off into the woods.

‘Ah, right, this isn’t Brett’s style.’

Brett was just a simple musclehead. After reflecting on his character for a moment, Elizabeth put her hand on the magic transmitter and said,

“This is assistant Brett. I’ll share what I learnt from the fight.”

Even Elizabeth felt as though it was a perfect imitation.

“The monster reacts sensitively to human sounds. Sounds made while running away seem fine, but screams and shouts are dangerous. Please tell that to the students.”

[This is HQ! Good work. We’ll tell them immediately.]

[You already figured that out? Why are you so competent these days? This isn’t like you.]

[I know, right? I thought even his brain was made up of muscle.]

Judging from the reactions of the other assistant teachers, it seemed that he wasn’t a competent person at work.

Elizabeth cleared her throat and bluntly said,

“Every assistant who’s under me, shut your mouths.”

[Bwahaha! As expected from big bro!]

“And HQ, there’s one more thing I need to share. Combat should be avoided at all costs, and student rescue should be the first prio—”

While Elizabeth was talking, another assistant started flying toward Big Krum.

[Hey, Brett!]

It was Chris, an assistant teacher for Mechanics of Jet-Black.

[I get what you’re thinking, but none of the students will be able to hunt this thing. I’ll just do it myself!!]

He soared up into the air and made a rough swing with his scythe. A half-moon slash shot out and cut into Big Krum’s back.

[Okay! I injur—!!]

Big Krum looked back, unscathed, and threw a punch like a thunderbolt.

Whaaaaaaaaam!

Such tremendous speed! Chris flew hundreds of meters within seconds of being hit and ended up stuck in the ground.

[Kugh! Cough Cough! Ah, damn! This bastard hurts so muuuuuuch!]

You could feel a lot of pain from the shout heard through the transmitter.

“That’s why I told you that, Chris. HQ, I’ll repeat it again.”

Elizabeth raised her head and continued speaking.

“He has the ability to regenerate. Combat should be avoided at all costs, and student rescue should be the first priority.”

[Copy that.]

Elizabeth was once Big Krum’s comrade, so she already knew this much. After turning off the transmitter, her expression became complicated.

‘Looks like Commander screwed it up in the end.’

If Big Krum went completely berserk, nobody could stop him.

It seemed like persuasion failed, and in this case, there’d be no choice but to get rid of him while causing as little damage as possible. Kizen headquarters might stage an investigation if someone ended up dying, complicating things.

‘For now, I need to meet Commander.’

* * *

Translator – Ramen

Proofreader – Artethrax

* * *

“Hold on tight, Simon!”

Lorain stretched her arms out behind her while riding the skeleton horse. An empty void tore itself into space to form what looked like the mouth of a beast and revealed the silhouettes of eyes the same shade of red as hers.

Whaaaaaaaaap!

Rays of red light shot out from within and pierced through Big Krum’s body one after the other.

Big Krum, with a hole in his body, raised his right arm.

“Kugh!”

She pulled at the reins, and the skeleton horse dived down, leaving Big Krum’s arm to pass through nothing but air.

Whiiiiiish!

It was by a hair’s breadth. Simon wiped back his bangs billowing in the wind and secured his view.

“Lorain! From the side!”

“……!”

Before they knew it, Big Krum’s leg was approaching.

A kick with that heavy body!

She hastily pulled the reins, but the reactions of the skeleton horse were too slow.

“Simon! Brace for the fall!”

As Simon covered his head with both arms, a feather suddenly flew in front of them and spread out in the form of a defensive magic circle.

Slam!

While Big Krum’s legs collided with the magic circle and slowed, the skeleton horse flew out of the way of the attack.

‘Don’t tell me, this ability is…!’

Simon turned his head. Countless feathers were piercing into and all the way through Big Krum’s body.

Woooosh!

Blood poured out from all over Big Krum’s now-mutilated body, and the feathers returned once more to the platinum-haired girl floating in the air.

“Serene!”

“Hmm.”

She put a hand to her chin, looking concerned.

“As expected. Physical attacks won’t do.”

Big Krum’s body quickly recovered from the wounds it had received from Lorain and Serene. It barely looked like he’d taken any damage.

“Then what about this one?”

The feathers wrapped around her hands flew out in a flash and lodged themselves into Big Krum’s body.

The emotion imbued into these feathers was ‘calmness’. And there were a whopping twenty of them.

It wouldn’t be strange for someone hit by that many to fall into a vegetative state.

However…

[Gwoooooooooooooooh!]

Big Krum got even more furious and punched at Serene. Her brow furrowed and she soared higher into the air.

“This is why I don’t like ignorant undead.”

Even Lorain and Serene, unrivaled in skill amongst the first-year students of Kizen, had no way of dealing with him.

Once the two had stopped attacking for a while, Big Krum looked around again, searching for students on the ground.

“At this rate, this’ll never end.”

In order to buy time for the students to evacuate, they had to draw Big Krum’s attention by attacking.

Lorain poured out attack after attack, forcing Big Krum’s attention away. Irritated, Big Krum swung his arm.

Whooooosh!

The skeleton horse had to fly down until it was just above the treetops to dodge the attack.

When Lorain was about to pull at the reins to fly back up…

[Announcement from headquarters.]

They heard a voice from the tongue pad.

‘Don’t tell me they’re stopping the assessment just like this.’

Simon waited for the next words, nerves clear on his face.

[An unidentified monster’s attack is taking place on the southern island of the Kera archipelago. Students on the southern island will be forced to teleport to a random location on another island. After teleporting, you’ll be immune to damage for 5 minutes.]

Simon sighed in relief. He thought that it was the right decision.

[Students who wish to reject the teleportation, please input the rejection sign on the tongue pad. If you choose to do this, headquarters is not responsible for any problems that arise.]

Lorain and Simon immediately inputted the rejection sign.

“Simon!”

Lorain looked surprised.

“You should go back to the center and continue with your assessment! This is Kizen’s probl—”

“No. I’ll stay.”

‘Since it’s partly my fault, too.’

Simon looked at Big Krum with a hardened expression. Blue lights seemed to indicate that teleportation was in progress in various parts of the southern island.

“Simoooooon!”

At that moment, Simon lowered his head at the voice calling him. Elizabeth, who had transformed into Brett, was waving from the top of a tree.

“Lorain! I’ll go down for a moment.”

“What? Wait a second! Just how much are you going to do things your—!”

Simon had already jumped off the skeleton horse.

“I’ll signal you again!”

“Simon!”

As Simon came down from the sky, Elizabeth immediately jumped off the tree. She caught him like a groom carrying their bride and easily landed on the ground.

“Ta-dah!”

“……”

Simon, who suddenly ended up getting embraced by the muscular man, let out a sigh.

“I can come down by myself without you doing all this.”

“Fufu. There’s no need to be embarrassed, Commander.”

As she was setting Simon down, a turquoise marble started falling from the sky.

Simon reached out his arm and grabbed it.

[Simon! Can you hear me?]

It was Lorain’s voice. As Simon raised his head, he saw Lorain on the skeleton horse holding the same item.

[It’s a magic communication device. Just press the button below and speak. There’s not much mana left, so make sure to conserve it.]

“Ah, okay.”

Lorain immediately led the skeleton horse toward Big Krum.

“By the way, Commander, what’s going on?”

“Ah, you see…”

Simon turned off the communication device and informed Elizabeth of the current situation in detail.

She nodded her head.

“So it’s a fake Big Krum. I see.”

“Yeap. We need to get rid of it before the situation gets worse.”

“But how do we deal with a monster with regeneration and the powers of a giant…?”

[Kuhehehehe!]

Both of them looked down.

A sinister grin had made its way across the mouth of Pier’s clone dangling on Simon’s school uniform.

[I have an idea!]

——