I Got a Fake Job at the Academy

Chapter 760 - Side Story 33: Tying Up Loose Ends (1)

The night is quiet. Night is a time of silence, a period of wordlessness when living creatures fall into deep slumber.

The night is dark. The thick, descending black curtain deceives the eyes of all beings. Light vanishes from sight, and the pitch-black void of nothingness instinctively constricts one's psyche.

Even with eyes, one cannot see, and the constricted mind shakes and confuses the senses more than usual. Everything becomes blurry, a coldness like magic that makes things fade.

Paradoxically, that's why night is also a time when living creatures are active.

Various beasts and insects wander in search of food, evading the eyes of predators. Predators move, targeting such prey.

The eater and the eaten. All hide in the darkness, pursuing secrecy.

Within the pitch-black curtain, a quiet wilderness unfolds. Eating and being eaten. Through the death of something, something else obtains nourishment to survive.

Life disappears, but other life becomes stronger. Even that life becomes new nourishment before higher predators.

It was a revolving cycle.

The night is quiet, but for that very reason, it is also a living moment.

Uninvited guests appeared within the most fiercely yet quietly pulsating space of life.

At their appearance, the forest was enveloped in silence. If the silence before was a hot stillness, now an eternally unfreezing frost had settled.

Though it was a cruel wilderness where they ate and were eaten, even they had their own line. Both the eater and the eaten lived within nature's providence. Therefore, there was no dissatisfaction toward the other.

But those who appeared now were different. They were beings outside the forest's providence.

From them moving stealthily, an intangible energy stretched out like heat haze. It was a dark interior and a desire to achieve something. That blatant momentum encroached on the surroundings and oppressed the forest's inhabitants.

Predators quietly lowered their tails and retreated, and insects stopped their chorus all at once. Even the wind that had been finely shaking the leaves ceased.

-Trudge. Trudge.

Only the footsteps, silenced as much as possible, quietly echoed and repeatedly disappeared.

The remnants of the Bretus Holy Kingdom were not the nation's military corps, but people from the Lumensis Order dispatched to the continent.

However, that didn't mean they lacked ability.

Going outside the home country to preach the Order's doctrine was possible because such ability had been proven.

But compared to their powerful past, their strength now was in a greatly weakened state.

After the holy war, divine power had been gradually weakening. Not a few had lost all their holy power and returned to being ordinary people.

For them, now urgent, there was only one thing to do. Rebuild the Order once more, preach the doctrine, and regain the lost divine power.

"Once we pass this forest, there's the mansion. Don't forget. Our objective is the recapture of the Saintess."

A man who was once a high-ranking holy knight quietly recited. They had already sent people several times to bring back the previous Saintess, but all had failed.

"Even if the opponent has lost her power, she was once a Saintess. That power is still formidable, so exercise extreme caution."

There was no answer. But they had said it sickeningly often on the way here, so everyone was surely well aware. There wasn't a single person here without resolve.

"...!"

The holy knight at the front raised his hand and sent a hand signal. With rustling sounds, the Order's forces that had been moving through the grass all stopped in unison.

—Someone was directly ahead.

In the pitch-black darkness, something even blacker than that darkness sat on a tree trunk, looking this way.

'Who is it?'

At first, he thought he had just seen an illusion. But he could only realize that wasn't the case after the clouds parted and moonlight poured down.

A piercingly blue light poured down like a spotlight, illuminating a man.

He was a long-haired man whose hair lightly passed his shoulders.

The man's appearance, bathed in moonlight, was so beautiful it drew admiration. It was to the extent one might wonder if they were seeing strange hallucinations from extreme tension. But this was neither fantasy nor dream. It was a clear reality.

'What's going on? Why is there a person here?'

Moreover, wasn't that man in a posture as if waiting, as if he had already known they would come?

The blue eyes of the man sitting with both hands supporting himself on a staff turned this way.

His gaze was calm even looking at people of an ominous group. Rather, it was so quiet that it seemed he had anticipated this kind of situation would occur.

'Don't tell me, he was waiting for us?'

It meant that their night raid had been discovered. As soon as he assessed the situation, the commander shouted.

"Enemy! They've moved first!"

From the moment they were discovered, quietly handling the matter went out the window. But it was still hard to say the mission had failed.

Though the surprise attack was discovered, they couldn't stop here.

"Everyone prepare for combat!"

It was not long ago that they had received news of the Demon King's death.

The news that the culprit who destroyed the home country, the most powerful danger and enemy, had finally disappeared conversely planted hope in the Order's people who had been holding their breath.

The biggest potential obstacle had disappeared. Now was the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to move.

They had brought all the forces they could mobilize. Failure was something they had never even imagined.

Everything was to completely tie up the loose ends of three years of decline.

Toward the enemies revealing fighting spirit and murderous intent, Rudger spoke as if pathetic.

"Shouting in the middle of such a night. Even if you weren't invited, your manners are utterly the worst."

His voice wasn't loud but miraculously it echoed in everyone's ears. The resonance of mana naturally amplified his voice. It was not intentional, but a natural phenomenon.

The commanding holy knight bit his lips.

"The opponent is a mage! And estimated to possess considerable skill! Use all means to bring him down!"

If they had handled things quietly, it would have ended without much damage, but since they were discovered, that option was gone.

"Don't forget! Our goal is the recapture of the Saintess! And tonight, at this place, this unseemly incident never happened!"

There are no witnesses. No, there must be none. That's right. Even if it meant erasing this entire village.

"Yes!"

No one objected to those words since they were already like-minded individuals. They were prepared to not discriminate for their purpose even if that meant killing innocent and blameless people.

"You're making the wrong choice."

Rudger's blue eyes, seeing their resolute gazes, sank even colder. It was as if a storm imbued with frost would sweep through at any moment.

"Rather, the moment you faced me, you should have knelt and begged for mercy and leniency." 

"O God!"

The Order's priests recited holy spells. Though God no longer existed, they cried out God's name, truly an ironic thing.

Though weakened, they were still those who possessed holy power.

Brilliant golden light arose and transformed into attacks imbued with lethality. The light tore through the forest's darkness. The sharp light blade's target was Rudger sitting on the trunk.

The light spreading to burn the darkness was shot toward Rudger in forms like spears, pillars, and masses of energy.

It was violence far too massive to be used against just one person but the moment it was about to touch Rudger's body.

"Aether Nocturnus."

Pitch-black shadows rose like waves around Rudger's body.

The darkness like jet-black canceled out all the incoming holy spells. In a way, it looked like it had swallowed them. Darkness had overcome light.

The expressions of the priests and holy knights hardened stiffly.

"This is, what on earth..."

Their heads gradually turned upward. Aether Nocturnus kept growing larger. Like a massive tsunami occurring after an earthquake, its height exceeded 10 meters and approached 20 meters.

The shadow spreading widely left and right formed a huge barrier. That barrier surrounded the entire forest, encircling the Order's people.

"This is possible?"

That writhing shadow barrier was estimated to be a magic beast. But the magic beast was exerting influence encompassing the entire forest. They had heard that a magic beast's strength was proportional to its master's strength. That meant the man's strength also exceeded imagination.

"It's time when everyone has finished their hard work and is taking rest."

Rudger, who had raised the wave of shadows, spoke in a cold voice.

"When it's not even enough to be quiet, I won't tolerate being noisy and painfully bright."

The massive shadow barrier created by Aether Nocturnus swallowed not only the holy spells created by the Order's remnants but even that noise and light.

Right now, at this moment, no matter what happened in the forest, no sound would leak outside, even if large-scale bombardment was poured on this place.

"For the Order's revival!"

The holy knight at the front grasped at empty air. In his hand was now held a massive hammer made of dazzling gold.

It was the technique of holy knights to turn holy power into weapons. That brilliance and hardness differed according to the holy knight's level. And the holy knight now gripping the hammer appeared to be at a considerable level.

"Die!"

He kicked off the ground and charged at Rudger. Even if holy power had diminished, holy knights had trained their bodies for a long time, so that alone already far exceeded ordinary people.

Moreover, he was a high-ranking holy knight. His movement was truly comparable to a superhuman.

Kwang!

The holy hammer swung at Rudger's head spread a shockwave with enormous noise.

It was truly power no different from a siege ram, so a head hit by this wouldn't leave even a trace.

"What the...!"

However, Rudger was unharmed. He had raised his staff and was blocking that hammer with one hand. Far too lightly at that.

A mage blocking this? And not even with defensive magic, but purely by simply raising his staff?

The knight tried to push force to push down the staff, but the hammer only trembled and wouldn't move.

"H-how can a mage block my attack..." 

"You seem to have deep pride in your ability. The reason is simple."

Rudger pressed force on his staff with a thud and pushed away the hammer. The holy knight with bulky muscles was pushed back so easily it was pathetic.

"Because I'm stronger. Far more so than the likes of you." 

"Y-you! Shut up!"

He swung the hammer again, faster and stronger than before. There was no carelessness. To produce results exceeding the training he'd done until now, the muscles of his entire body squeezed out power as if exploding.

Rudger drew a sword stick from his staff and cut the hammer.

-Slash!

The hammer made of holy power split in half with a crack. The same went for the arm of the holy knight holding it.

The arm, cut with a smooth cross-section, fell. Rudger spoke toward the holy knight who was looking at his severed arm with an expression of disbelief.

"Even the bastards famously called the Three Grand Masters, cardinals, and even the Pope couldn't kill me, so how does a guy who couldn't even make his name known plan to catch me?" 

"Protect the commander!"

From behind, priests cast healing holy spells on the severed arm, and other holy knights rushed at Rudger.

"You said it yourselves. That today, here, nothing happened."

Rudger gripped the sword stick and took a stance. Blue mana dwelled on the sharp blade of the sword stick and compressed to its limit. The roaring, howling mana struggled as if it would burst out at any moment.

Rudger suppressed such mana with overwhelming control and compressed it further. And based on the compressed mana, he created a spell on the blade.

"I agree." 

"Block it!"

The remnants who instinctively felt a sense of crisis all activated holy spells at once. Because they sensed a dangerous attack was coming from Rudger, they squeezed out even the strength from when they suckled.

Hwaaaaat!

Though it couldn't match the shadow curtain spread by Aether Nocturnus, a quite magnificent and sturdy-looking castle wall of light appeared.

"Today, nothing happened in this forest."

However, unconcerned even with that magnificent fortress, Rudger swung his sword stick. Along with the activation of the magic engraved in the sword stick.

Space magic [Severance]

There was nothing in the trajectory where the sword stick was swung. The blue mana that had been rippling as if about to surge had disappeared like a mirage.

The moment everyone was puzzled by that sight, they discovered an anomaly. Their vision was somehow distorted.

"Huh?"

It was a kind of death rattle that came out instinctively. That was because, centered on Rudger, a diagonal line was engraved.

And following that line, the world created a fault as if shifting left and right. A natural phenomenon from powerful mana? If not that, then an extreme hallucination?

It wasn't that.

-Craaack.

Space itself was split following the trajectory where Rudger swung his sword.

The fortress of holy spells, the priests and holy knights beyond it, and even the forest trees beyond that.

Caught up in the space fault, they produced the same result. The castle of light was cut in half and disappeared into powder. Corpses with upper and lower bodies separated all collapsed at once.

Space Severance. His magic, further refined from what he had used during the holy war, demonstrated its true value.

"It's still troublesome to use."

He had thought it was hard to use because of restrictions at that time, but indeed that was just a misconception.

Even with restrictions removed, space magic was still quite troublesome to handle.

Wrapping massive mana around the sword stick as a medium for severance to minimize risks as much as possible was all. Of course, that alone was sufficient. Because the strongest attack that pierced through any defense was born.

"Grrrr." 

"Still not dead. As expected, your vitality alone is tenacious."

Even in this space severance, there was a survivor. It was the commander whose arm had been cut by Rudger, and he was now alive even without a lower body.

It was a part where one could understand the tenacious vitality of holy knights who possessed holy power.

"Cough. N-not over yet. Besides us, other comrades have already..." 

"I know. You're talking about the ones who went around separately while buying time." 

"...!" 

"You have the look of wondering how I know. From the moment you bastards set foot in this forest, I knew everything."

Rudger turned his head.

"The fight over there seems to be ending soon too."

As soon as those words ended, an explosion occurred in one part of the forest. It wasn't an explosion using gunpowder, but a phenomenon appearing due to massive physical force.

Successive explosions gradually drew closer, then soon a giant tree broke and a pure white shadow was flung out.

What rolled on the ground was a high priest whose bones throughout his body were shattered. The high-ranking holy knight who saw that appearance opened his eyes wide.

It was the commander of the other unit sent separately to kidnap the Saintess. Who on earth?

"Phew. Because these guys this time were strong, there was some satisfaction in beating them up."

From beyond the debris of the broken tree, Catherine revealed herself. Her expression looked more exhilarated than ever before.