Chapter 220 — Toward the End of a Semester

1

“So Gospel has died.”

“Yes. It’s regrettable.”

“Already two of our core forces are gone.”

“It seems the enemy’s abilities exceed our expectations.”

In a dark space.

The one who had led the Wanderer couldn’t hide their regret.

He had been a loyal minion who held an important position handling teleportation.

It bothered them that he was lost faster than expected.

But it was fine.

He had made many arrangements, and it was time for one of them to move.

Especially the man he had carefully nurtured was starting to shine.

“Then we too must prepare more aggressive countermeasures.”

“Indeed.”

“What about the preparations?”

“The infiltration was successful.”

He nodded.

It seems not everything had ended in failure.

Where there is failure, there must also be success.

Don’t all things flow toward an average value?

Believing in that truth and acting accordingly would eventually achieve what they wanted.

The man believed in that truth.

Thus confidence permeated his actions.

After all, things hadn’t strayed from the grand plan.

“Please handle matters without error.”

“Yes. What about the Order?”

“They can still be controlled. Therefore, watch Caesar.”

“Understood.”

Right now the most dangerous was Caesar.

The family, or rather the duchy itself was a massive threat.

Without them there would be no problems with the plan.

Eresis.

It was a story meaning death spread across the world, and would soon be the name that devours this world.

The man spoke again.

“Now it’s time for me to step forward. I must handle matters before He becomes angry.”

He muttered to himself as he stood up.

Soon the seeds he had sown would bear fruit.

Good days awaited to obtain even riper fruit.

While enemies were distracted elsewhere, this place would peacefully wait for harvest time.

It wasn’t time to give up hope yet.

So they could only quietly build up power.

“We still have many minions.”

He looked at the night sky shining brilliantly.

Two full moons began setting.

Now it was time to prepare again.

2

Manus returned to daily life.

After resting a few days, it would be time to return to the Warrior’s Desert.

Final exams were scheduled for the second week of June.

A time to comprehensively test everything learned during the semester.

The biggest event among them would be facing the great warriors sent from each family.

The written exam covered everything learned in the first semester, and the practical evaluation was replaced with facing the great warriors.

Despite such an important period, Manus couldn’t concentrate at all.

“Sigh…”

Alano.

And others.

With so much to worry about, his desire to study disappeared.

So he decided to use the rewards he had been saving.

The path for both Albion and himself to grow was surely diligently consuming rewards.

Magic stones, and XXL grade ones at that — twenty of them.

This was enough mana to cast 6th-Class magic with some left over.

If fully absorbed, he should be able to cast 6th-Class magic quite properly now.

Plus he could steal and learn exclusive skills from minions, meaning Demonium.

Just what kind of trials were they planning to give such rewards?

Manus opened his eyes after absorbing all the magic stones.

“Huuuu…”

A massive wave of mana swept through.

If it wasn’t a large room, and if this wasn’t Manus’s own room, it would have caused an uproar in the surroundings.

Students in neighboring rooms must have all felt his mana.

A key position in a magic tower.

He had reached the level of top leadership.

Even if he entered the Caesar magic tower right now, he could handle leading a department.

[Grrrr!]

“Now it’s your turn.”

Special nutritional supplement.

A medicinal pill that smelled both pungent and refreshing.

Sniff sniff, Albion smelled it like a cat then swallowed it whole in one gulp.

Then he went to his spot and curled up.

Seems he instinctively realized it was time to grow.

He probably wouldn’t evolve right now.

His size would probably increase a bit and his mana capacity would grow.

“Now then…”

Now the truly important things remained.

Skill slot enhancement and acquisition ticket.

Without hesitation, he first enhanced the second skill slot.

[Second skill slot enhanced.]

[Skill power increased by 30% and acquisition time reduced by 20%.]

[Applied Skill: Rain of Elements]

Rain of Elements was a skill that tremendously increased the power of all elemental magic.

Those elemental magics included Cadenza excluding ancient magic, black magic, and holy magic.

Naturally it would become much stronger with increased power.

“Search, Demonium skills under 100 years.”

[Search Results: 3 items]

[Counter: Murciélago — 99 years]

[Ark of Pride: 88 years]

[Descent of Death: 57 years]

‘Ark of Pride… that was quite a tricky skill.’

A skill that resets all buffs and debuffs.

After being hit by this skill, having to build up again was really annoying.

Descent of Death was a skill that had a chance to instantly kill enemies, and [Counter: Murciélago] was a skill that blocked either magic or physical attacks with 50/50 probability.

There was no choice.

Ark of Pride.

Selecting it, Manus equipped a new weapon.

[Ark of Pride]

[This ark will protect us all.]

[Doubt? That is for the weak. You need only board my glorious ark.]

[This ark shall lead us to a new world.]

[Completely resets all buffs and debuffs on target.]

Though a simple description, it had incredibly unbelievable performance.

Playable characters always start from a position of weakness.

Players overcome power differences through ingenuity, while the base power remains hopelessly weak.

Limited number of skills.

Limited power.

But opponents would sweep us away with tremendous skills.

Manus was becoming an existence that eliminated such unfairness.

‘No, doesn’t this make me a balance breaker?’

Cloud of Oblivion, Ark of Pride.

Such skills were main culprits in angering users.

Right, you too should experience the frustration and anger we went through.

His smile deepened.

New knowledge pierced his head.

Why Demonium came to use such skills, why they came to have such thoughts…

“Ugh-!”

He thought he was used to the pain that struck whenever learning skills.

But this time was different.

He was accepting the background of something that wasn’t human to begin with.

Naturally common sense and thinking itself was wrong, which came as tremendous dissonance.

He vaguely saw Demonium’s past.

It was truly… a strange experience.

Twelve beasts sitting in a circle.

And in the middle…

“Argh-!”

Thrown back to reality as if bounced out, Manus groaned while sweating cold.

Hearing the sound, Aden sprang out from within the shadows.

At some point she had been staying inside Manus’s shadow after work.

She said it was an unavoidable choice for close protection.

Fortunately she said she couldn’t peek at Manus’s private life from inside the shadow, so he was at ease.

Close protection that could only detect danger.

How could this not be convenient?

“Young Master!”

“Ugh… I’m fine.”

“What suddenly happened?”

“Seems I studied too intensely. Had a bit of a headache.”

Manus barely regained his senses and reassured Aden.

It was a peculiar experience.

Though he never wanted to experience it again… why?

He even felt strangely nostalgic.

“I’m really fine, so you can rest easy.”

“I cannot do that. I will wait and escort you to the infirmary.”

Manus smiled softly.

Aden’s feelings of caring deeply for him came through clearly.

Could there be anyone who thought of him as purely as she did?

“I said I’m fine.”

“But…”

“Will you make me say it twice?”

Aden bit her lip briefly then shook her head.

Realizing her excessive worry was burdening him, she bowed her head.

“I apologize. If you’re truly alright… I’ll withdraw.”

“Sorry for worrying you. But I’m really fine so you can go back.”

“Yes. Then…”

Aden disappearing back into the shadows.

Manus sat back down feeling apologetic toward her.

That experience just now was… truly strange and peculiar.

He closed his eyes and immersed in thought, reviewing that scene.

It was like a scene from some ninja manga.

There, creatures with tails were gathered in one place.

Did the creators think of that when making Demonium?

‘Just starting but already such serious foreshadowing.’

And one more thing.

He was curious what kind of distortion Alano had.

She was definitely an ordinary helper and excellent party member in the original work…

Just what happened between her and Manus?

Nia was gradually being forgotten, and Alano had memory distortions.

His head throbbed thinking about the flaws appearing one by one.

Still, there would always be a way to solve it.

‘This is a game’s story after all.’

Game developers were beings who disliked tragic endings.

Even in the original work, they hinted at a hopeful tomorrow and told players to look forward to DLC.

So there must surely be a solution.

Manus added more tasks to his mental notepad, then completely relaxed for sleep.

Just one hurdle overcome.

Countless events would unfold ahead.

“Let’s take it easy.”

Manus spoke briefly as if giving himself a suggestion, then surrendered to sleep.

It had been a day where many things passed.

–TL Notes–
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