064

“Sir! What happened to you!”

Rozalin stood beside me with an expression I had never seen before.

Her blood-soaked hands trembled.

“Don't worry. I'm fine.”

“No, this isn't fine! Yuria! Yuria!”

At her call, a small doll-like figure staggered over from one side.

“Yuria?”

She was bleeding not only from her mouth, but also from her ears and nose.

One eye was almost closed, as if she couldn't see properly, while the other eye's iris glowed with a brilliant purple light, giving her a grotesque look.

“Great Master. You've overexerted yourself.”

“Look who’s talking…”

“I will treat you.”

“No. It's fine. I’m alright. That’s not what’s important right now.”

Even at this very moment, the thudding sound of the shields being struck didn’t cease.

Hati moved diligently, filling the spots of students who had lost their shields.

But they lacked the crucial weapon to deal with the harpies.

A mage or an archer who could attack from a distance.

Neither Class C nor Class F had any students with good magic skills.

“Damn it! If that Harpy Queen bitch would just come down once!”

Rozalin ground her teeth with an audible 'krak' and glared into the air.

A murderous intent flashed in her eyes.

“Calm down.”

I forced myself to slowly get up.

My arms and legs burned endlessly as if they were on fire.

Even though I wasn't swinging a sword, my whole body ached as if it would break.

It seemed to be the aftereffect of cutting through magic once.

I suppressed the pain as much as I could and looked at the students.

I couldn't show any signs of panic here.

“The teachers will be coming. If we retreat, we can join them.”

“How, how…”

“Zelta.”

At my call, the gazes of a few students turned to one side.

There, a boy covered in dirt was trembling, terrified.

“T-T-Teacher.”

“Come here. It’s time we need your strength.”

When I beckoned to him, he slowly approached me.

He seemed to be clenching his teeth, forcing down his fear, but the trembling of his upper body was clearly visible.

Even so, the expression with which he endured and looked at me was admirable.

“Alright. We’re going to plan our movements from now on. We’re going to cut the harpies’ attack range in half. How should we do that?”

“W-with our backs, with our backs to the canyon!”

Zelta immediately came up with the correct answer.

We were currently facing the harpies' attack in a wide clearing between the canyons.

So, it was necessary to move completely against the slope of one canyon to cut the harpies' aerial route in half.

“Now. We have to move one by one. Who among us should step forward to draw their attention, and how?”

“Teacher!”

Rozalin let out a scream-like shout.

I deliberately didn't look at Rozalin.

The problem now was to calm Zelta, who was looking at me as if he were wounded.

“I'm not telling you to abandon your friends. I'll be the one going out anyway. How can we attract the harpies' attention... and make the Harpy Queen think of me as an attractive prey?”

Zelta's eyes, looking at me, trembled.

“Zelta. Don't worry.”

I slowly patted Zelta.

“This isn't a strategy to sacrifice me, but a strategy to save me as well. Can you do it?”

“W-we show them.”

Zelta continued with a strained, trembling voice.

“The, the leader of a monster horde is sensitive, so, so, we show them that we are protecting the teacher from now on.”

“How?”

“W-we, we deliberately expose a dangerous situation with the students and the teacher, and in that situation, we give up, give up on the student or…”

I shook my head.

“You know that kind of method is not an option. What other ways are there?”

“Th-then, then… we deliberately expose that we are moving under the teacher's command…”

“You bastard!”

Rozalin shouted and grabbed Zelta by the collar.

I grabbed Rozalin's hand and shook my head, as if to calm her down.

“It's okay.”

“Teacher. This plan is too crappy! It’s not just one or two! Do you know how the feathers are falling from up there right now? It's a shower! A downpour! That Harpy Queen will keep shooting until all the feathers of the surrounding harpies are plucked out and they're slammed into the ground!”

“You have to protect me.”

At my words, Rozalin bit her lower lip and glared at me.

I'm asking her to do something she shouldn't.

“Let's all go back and punish the Chairman and Avril who made this stupid test.”

“Hey, come on! Don't set up that kind of flag!”

Flag? Kids these days use strange terms.

I chuckled and looked at the students.

I had to resolve the faces mixed with fear and concern.

Giving commands, and exposing that?

It wasn't difficult.

“Pan. Take three steps to the right with the five students next to you. Bridget. Fall back from that position. Count to ten, and switch shields with the students behind you. Hati. Please shoot an arrow to make the harpies concentrate on the central shield. If a harpy grabs a shield, deliberately let go of two shields.”

I had been watching the flow of the battle since yesterday.

All the intentions of planning and moving came into view.

“Eleveth. Take Yuria and turn around, then fall back.”

A high-ranking monster is smart.

Just exposing myself won't fool it.

So, I had to give the impression that we were on the defensive and evading.

I slowly moved the formation, shifting it to the canyon wall to simplify the harpies' attack path.

“Shoot.”

At my signal, Hati and Yeni shot fire arrows to restrict the harpies' movements.

— Kieeeeeeeeeek!

The enraged harpies charged at our front.

I moved to a place where I would be most exposed to the monsters.

“Let go!”

Just like before, the harpies grabbed the front shields with their talons.

The students didn't resist and just let go of the shields.

Swoosh—! The shields soared up, and for a moment, the sky was wide open.

— Kieh—!

Up in the sky, a huge harpy was glaring at me.

My eyes met with the creature whose eyes shone as if we on the ground were pathetic, and with me, who was deceiving it.

— Kieeeeeeeeeeeek—!

In the meantime, perhaps there was some kind of instinctive realization.

The Harpy Queen moved its huge body and charged at me.

It shot forward in a posture close to attention, with its wings completely folded.

At that moment, Hati stood in front of me.

“Throw heeeer!”

No, to be precise, it was Hati and Rozalin.

Hati threw Rozalin into the air, and Rozalin's sword, flying at almost the same speed as the harpy, clashed with the harpy's teeth.

Kaaaaang—!

“Damn it!”

After the heavy collision, Rozalin and the Harpy Queen were flung back in the direction they had come from.

It was shallow.

The Harpy Queen's teeth only had a slight scratch.

Swinging a sword in the air without a proper foothold made it difficult to settle the match easily.

Rozalin, who had landed on the ground, quickly approached my side and took her stance.

“Close the shields!”

“No, wait.”

I quickly stopped the students and Hati who were about to close the shields.

The Harpy Queen, who had gained confidence from the last attack, circled around.

If we closed the shields now, I didn't know when the opportunity would come again.

“Rozalin.”

I pulled Rozalin in front of me and held her hands from behind.

“Teacher?”

“From now on, feel the energy moving inside you well.”

Foothold, sword, posture, strength…

If it was difficult to cut with the sword due to various conditions, then I just had to give her the power to overcome those conditions.

The swordsmanship of the Vürhelm family was more familiar than anyone else's.

I had watched her swordsmanship and taught it to the students, deconstructing it dozens, hundreds of times.

— Kieeeeeeeeeek!

The Harpy Queen circled and flew towards me, and Rozalin, once again.

“First, the foothold.”

I adjusted Rozalin's feet with the tip of my foot and slowly took a sword stance.

“Teacher, now is not the time…”

“Focus. Inhale. As if the energy that came in with your breath is circulating throughout your body.”

The air and mana that went deep into the dantian had to mix.

As if the sword was breathing at our fingertips.

That's why its name is Sword Aura.

— Kieeeeeeeeeek!

“Just as our bodies do, the sword too gains vitality in tune with our breath, like a living body.”

Towards the Harpy Queen, who was thrusting its teeth as if to tear my neck at any moment.

Cut.

* * *

Hati tensed his muscles, ready to throw his mace at any moment.

Teacher Cassian had told him to wait, but he had no intention of letting him be in a life-threatening situation.

And finally, the Harpy Queen, Rozalin, and Cassian clashed.

Hati unknowingly dropped his mace to the ground.

— Kweieeeeeeeeee!

With a terrible sound, the Harpy Queen struggled.

Half of its face was completely blown away.

More than half of the teeth it had confidently thrust forward were cleanly cut off.

Not only that, but the upper part of its shoulder, 1/3 of its wing, was cleanly gone.

A single sword strike.

Hati stared blankly at Rozalin.

An energy resembling the blue of her hair color rippled on her sword.

Rozalin herself didn't seem to understand what she had done at all.

She was just staring at the tip of her sword with a stiff expression, unlike her usual self.

“Hati!”

He snapped back to his senses at the voice that seemed to grab and shake his heart.

He quickly picked up the mace on the ground and swung it at the Harpy Queen rolling on the ground.

However, it seemed he wasn't the only one who had come to his senses at that voice, as the Harpy Queen hastily jumped out of the formation with clumsy flaps of its wings.

— Kieeeeeeeeeeeek!

An enraged cry echoed throughout the canyon.

The movements of the harpies in the air became more violent.

“Damn it, we should have killed it this time!”

Hati gritted his teeth, lamenting his own stupidity, but.

“It's alright.”

Cassian reassured him.

Kwaaaaaang—!

Almost simultaneously, flames erupted from the Harpy Queen's body.

— Kieeek?!

The movements of the harpies flying in the air faltered.

In the flames, the Harpy Queen's body slowly turned sideways.

The harpies' heads also moved in the same direction as the Harpy Queen.

There stood five Beholders, their mana shimmering around their eyes.

“It's time.”

“Everyone, snap out of it and run! Now! Run away!”

It was a golden opportunity.

At Rozalin's shout, the students squeezed out every last bit of their strength and started running along the canyon wall.

A few of the harpies flew towards them to check them, but it wasn't a large number.

The priority was to deal with the Beholders that were showering the Harpy Queen with magic.

The Harpy Queen, hit by a Fire Missile without even being able to fly properly, cried out in pain on the ground.

“Teacher! Teacher!”

Rozalin shouted at Cassian, who was slung over Yeni's shoulder.

Until just a moment ago, he was clearly commanding the operation.

The moment the retreat began, he went limp as if all the strength supporting him had disappeared, and he swayed on her shoulder without resistance.

“Aren't we late!”

Just then, a group of people rushed out from the opposite direction they were running.

It was Qantaii, Gwen, and the other teachers who had been watching them from the main camp.

“Teacher!”

“Uwaaaaaah—!”

The students, seeing the adults, burst into tears and ran towards them.

The teachers looked at them, dumbfounded.

There were few students who were unharmed; most of them were covered in wounds, and their clothes were so soaked in sweat that they were emitting a faint steam.

“Let's get out of here first!”

At the Head of Department’s shout, they began to lead the students out of the canyon.

Swaaa—!

As if on cue, raindrops began to pour from the sky filled with dark clouds.

It was a rain that would melt all their blood, sweat, and even tears into the ground.

While all the teachers were escaping with the students of Class C and F, only Berlis walked towards her purpose.

“Oh my~”

In a dark cave.

Berlis, walking on the damp cave floor, smiled faintly at the body she finally faced.

There, a huge body that seemed to be 8m long lay on the ground, hardened like a fossil.

“A basilisk. I thought I'd be lucky to even get a Cyclops, but I’m fortunate~. Is this a blessing for doing good deeds~?”

Inside the canyon.

She knew that a large demon lived here.

However, it would have required a lot of preparation to deal with hundreds of harpies and Beholders to get here.

‘I thought I’d have to prepare for about two more years.’

But thanks to the Chairman, Avril, and the other teachers doing something interesting, an opportunity like this had arisen.

She smiled sweetly and placed her hand on the basilisk's corpse.

“I think I'll get a nice doll...”

Berlis's gaze turned towards the inside of the cave.

The evil mana that filled the entire cave vibrated lowly.

With a thudding sound, something else was approaching from a distance.

And that was probably another basilisk.

In the first place, the fact that there were five Beholders meant that there were more than five eyes.

“One is lonely, right? Two dolls~ not bad.”

A basilisk poked its head out from the darkness of the cave, and at the same time, dozens of dolls began to rise from Berlis's shadow.

Meanwhile, a little far from their small battle, in the grand temple of the Holy Kingdom, a person was preparing for a journey.

“Are you leaving?”

“Yes. I received a somewhat strange message through a Goldline scroll.”

A height of about 165, with orange, straight hair.

Large, round glasses, and a simple and intellectual impression beyond them.

She had an ordinary appearance, but within the grand temple, there were only three people who could stand before her with their heads held high.

Saint Ganemia.

“My youngest who left home is a little sick… Hmm, I think I should go.”

She began to make her way to Akarind Academy.

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