I Got a Fake Job at the Academy

Chapter 683: Mad Scientist (2)

Victor felt a chill run down his spine the moment he saw Bellaruna's smile.

'A chill ran down my spine? Me?'

Victor couldn't believe it. So he tried to grab Bellaruna with his rough hands.

But his hands failed to grasp her.

His lost hands flailed helplessly in the empty air, as if wandering aimlessly.

"My, my body won't listen to me?"

It wasn't just his hands.

His legs lost strength as well, forcing him to kneel, and an intense feeling of weakness enveloped his entire body.

The powerful life force emanating from his experimentally enhanced body was extinguished in an instant, like a candle in the wind.

His inflated muscles shrank like deflated balloons, and his heightened perspective not only lowered but diminished even further than his original state.

The aftermath of excessively enhancing his body, only to have it nullified, had properly manifested.

The emaciated Victor stared at the empty syringe in Bellaruna's hand.

"What exactly did you do?"

"He, hehehe. You see, I was certain that you would enhance your body at the end to reveal your power. So while Arpa was distracting you, I secretly approached and prepared this."

"That, that's impossible. My body was enhanced with the World Tree's cells. The end of all life. The pinnacle of evolution. There's no way its power could be stolen by merely injecting some solution..."

Victor stopped mid-sentence and closed his mouth.

Seeing his exposed eyes trembling violently after his goggles fell off, Bellaruna nodded, confirming his thoughts.

"That's right. Exactly that."

"To neutralize the power of the World Tree. The only thing capable of that would be..."

"The same power of the World Tree. More precisely, I benefited from an elf who knows how to handle the World Tree's power."

"Oh, hoho. I heard Ventmin was taken down, but I never imagined it was you people. Well, I've been properly beaten this time."

Victor's eyes moved in sequence from Bellaruna to Seridan, who had recovered after drinking a healing potion, and then to Arpa who was looking down at him.

"To think that the ones who defeated someone like me would be a combination without even proper humans. No, perhaps this is the most fitting combination for my end."

Victor lowered his head in resignation.

Then suddenly, he raised his head and pulled out a detonator from his waist.

"But it would be unfair if I went alone! Let's all go together!"

-Click.

Victor pressed the button on the detonator.

Now the entire lab and all passages leading to the entrance would explode, be engulfed in flames, and everyone would be crushed to death under the debris...

"Eh, what?"

-Click. Click.

Victor kept pressing the button, but no explosion occurred.

"Why not?!"

"I knew this would happen."

Seridan smirked and took out a new magnetic cube from her waist to show him.

"With this, I shot a powerful electromagnetic pulse around us, rendering your detonator completely useless."

"Th-that! Wasn't that consumed by the self-destruction earlier?!"

Seridan opened her eyes wide.

"Huh? I never said I only had one?"

"Impossible!"

Seridan revealed her pearly white fangs with a smile.

"Besides, mad scientists like you always try to self-destruct as a last resort before going down."

"That elf, and now you too! How on earth do you know that?!"

"Well, you know..."

As Seridan awkwardly scratched his head, Bellaruna answered instead.

"Because we would have done the same thing in that situation."

"..."

Victor's lips quivered at the unexpectedly candid response.

Who would have imagined that they genuinely understood him and thus were able to thwart all his contingency plans?

"Well, something like that. Too bad for you."

Seridan used the magnetic cube to gather surrounding scraps of metal, creating a powered armor once again.

-Clank! Crunch! Screech!

The powered armor emitted rough operational sounds as it raised its massive right fist high.

"No, wait. I need to know the truth of this world..."

"Whatever."

-Crunch.

-BOOM!

Water splashed and debris scattered in all directions from the explosion's impact.

"This situation is way too serious."

Johann Oceans stepped back, wiping the blood trickling down his lips with his thumb.

"The water is clearly up to our waists, but despite being a beast-folk, he's rampaging even more. Is he actually more of a fish-folk?"

"When are you going to fix that terrible sense of humor?"

Leonhart chided Johan but didn't deny it completely.

After all, Pantos was thrashing about like a fish in water despite the field being filled with water, which was supposed to be a weakness of beast-folk.

"Even two Masters aren't enough. What kind of monster is he?"

He didn't think it would be easy to win alone, but he also didn't expect to be pushed back.

He had no choice but to keenly feel how arrogant that thought had been.

Pantos charged toward the two Master-level knights once again.

At that moment, a freezing cold air rushed in from somewhere, blocking Pantos' path.

If it had been ordinary cold air, he would have plowed right through, but Pantos paused momentarily.

"This is... aura."

What scattered like ice crystals was aura.

Unlike Leonhart who shaped aura to imitate a blizzard, this was aura genuinely imbued with the chill of ice.

"Commander. Are you alright?"

The vice-commander of Cold Steel, Veronica Deville, had arrived at the scene.

Pantos realized that the cold aura from earlier belonged to her—the imposing female knight with long black hair tied in a ponytail.

"I heard there was a knight with a unique constitution who could handle elemental aura, I suppose that's what this is about."

Hearing Pantos' mutter, Veronica stared at him.

Her steadfast eyes trembled slightly when they fell upon Pantos.

"Commander. Were you fighting such a monster?"

"Yeah. Thanks to you, I thought I was going to die."

Veronica wasn't the only one who arrived at the scene.

"Ohhh! Doria! My beautiful adjutant! You've finally come!"

Doria Imiron, the vice-commander of Stella Siren.

Seeing her, Johann shuddered excessively with joy.

"Hmph. You're surprisingly still alive."

Doria stared at Johann coldly from behind her rimless glasses.

Johann opened his eyes wide, looking hurt by her response.

"No, why?! Why do you hate me so much?! Look at how Miss Veronica over there is full of respect for her commander! This is unfair!"

"Are you really asking because you don't know the reason?"

While Doria retorted coldly, she examined Johann's body with a peculiar gaze.

Traces of minor wounds remained all over his body, which had been stripped of his upper garment.

'Two Master-level knights joined forces and were still pushed back. Even that rogue commander, who excels at evasion, has wounds on his body.'

The situation wasn't looking good.

The proof was that Johann, who would normally try to embrace her the moment he saw her, only responded verbally this time.

The water surrounding them had begun to form waves.

It meant they were being pushed back despite using their Gladius Arts to the fullest extent.

That was evidence of how strong the beast-folk wielding the anchor and harpoon was.

"I'll help."

The two commanders didn't stop Doria and Veronica.

They had faced the reality that the two of them alone were no match for Pantos.

"Pull the regular members back. They'll only get in the way."

"We're much less organized compared to the Night Crawler."

Seeing the two newcomers, Pantos spoke.

"Is the chitchat over?"

He spoke as if he had deliberately waited for them, but everyone knew it wasn't a bluff but genuine sincerity.

"Now I'm going all out."

Pantos pushed the ground with the soles of his feet, exerting force in his thighs.

The water that had been up to his waist was pushed outward, revealing the ground before surging back toward the empty space.

But by then, Pantos was already gone from that spot.

"Veronica!"

"I know!"

Veronica extracted aura from her sword and swung it widely like a fan.

The white aura spread widely, turning into crystals of frost and freezing the surroundings.

The same applied to the waves created by Johann Oceans.

She couldn't freeze everything at once, but parts of the surging waves transformed into ice, scattering sharp fragments in all directions.

A scene of the rough sea now included a biting cold.

But Pantos broke through the freezing waves with his bare body.

Although he tried to minimize damage by wrapping Spirit around his body, he couldn't completely block the freezing waves imbued with Johan and Veronica's aura.

Cuts appeared all over Pantos' skin, and red blood flowed.

But Pantos showed no signs of hesitation.

"Excellent!"

Rather, his face was filled with an ecstatic smile.

"I was getting bored with just waves, but you've cooled it down perfectly!"

The four people who saw this felt a sense of dread.

Pantos was genuinely enjoying this situation.

For Pantos, even this life-threatening field created by Veronica and Johan's combined powers was merely a trivial obstacle.

The more intense it was.

The harsher it was.

Because there were trials that grabbed his ankles, blocked his path, and weighed down his shoulders.

By overcoming and surpassing all of them, he could take one more step forward.

That's why Pantos felt grateful for this moment.

He was only thankful to Rudger who had led him here.

He had endured a long period of patience for this fight.

-Whoosh.

The rough waves that rushed in pulled Pantos' memories back to the past.

The northern sea.

The memory of that day was vivid before his eyes—wielding a harpoon to capture whales in a place where endless waves and blizzards raged, with pieces of ice floating around.

The potential ferocity that had been tempered in that harsh environment.

At this moment, it had fully awakened.

"More! Come more! You're still not enough!"

-Slash.

The Gladius Arts Copy Cat transformed into the shape of a greatsword and swept the surroundings.

With a single slash, buildings and the ground were sliced like radishes, creating fault lines.

Faced with such power, the Night Crawler Knights had to break their encirclement and retreat.

Only Terina Ryanhowl was able to withstand it from the front.

'Damn it. Even though I'm seeing it with my own eyes and facing it directly, I still can't believe it.'

Terina was inwardly shocked.

The swordsmanship displayed by Alex was clearly her own.

He hadn't just imitated the form of the sword but had perfectly replicated the swordsmanship she had demonstrated.

It wasn't just mimicking the appearance, but he had completely grasped the essence imbued in the swordsmanship.

Terina felt like she was fighting against a mirror.

It wasn't a particularly good feeling.

'The only way would be to end it in one go with a different swordsmanship that I haven't shown yet, but even that wouldn't be easy.'

She had already failed more than three times trying to pierce Alex's weak spots by revealing hidden swordsmanship one by one.

And those three failures meant that Alex had learned three new sword techniques.

The more they fought, the more of her techniques would be stolen.

To think that someone could completely grasp sword techniques that others had practiced for over ten years just by crossing blades a few times in actual combat.

'How could someone with such talent have remained unknown until now?!'

Terina thought Alex's talent had always been like this, but that was a misconception.

During his days as a cadet, Alex was definitely skilled, but he wasn't capable of perfectly replicating others' techniques like he was now.

The reason he had become like this was due to the absence of a characteristic Vision Swordsmanship that knights possessed.

Most knights had Vision Swordsmanship, and typically they received it through transmission from a powerful knight family or an excellent master.

But Alex, being a commoner, was never given such an opportunity.

Most incomplete knights who couldn't become full knights were of commoner origin, and the reason they turned to illegal activities to earn money was because of this.

Their limits were determined by birth.

That's why Alex had wanted to work hard.

He believed that if he worked hard, he would eventually see the light, that he would surely be rewarded.

But when he was completely stripped of his cadet qualifications.

And as he wandered, moving from place to place, getting into fights, he realized:

In this cursed reality, he should give up on expectations.

Then he met Rudger and once again picked up a sword.

At that time, Alex vowed:

If he didn't have Vision Swordsmanship, he would create one even if he had to steal from someone else.

That's how he got here.

The path Alex had walked couldn't be dismissed as simple effort.

It was something more desperate.

Or more earnest.

With innate talent, determination, environment, and all the mental factors aimed at a goal coming together in one place.

Finally, Alex was able to bloom the flower of complete talent in this place.

Something that had never existed before in this continent and would never exist again.

In a state of fully understanding the path of the sword.

-Clang!

Two swords of identical form collided.

The contest, which had maintained equal power until then, gradually began to crack.

Alex held his ground, but.

Terina had taken one step back.