Chương 57: "Search and Rescue (3)"

"C-Celestia von Reingarde?" The young man's voice cracked. He took a step back, his eyes darting between the spear pointed at him and the hole in the wall.

"How did you find me?" It was a fair question, he had been careful after all. The room he'd chosen was in an unused room within the main building, one that had been closed for renovations since the start of the semester. The windows were covered and the door was locked from the inside; there was nothing he did that could lead people to this location; after all, the darkest spot was underneath the lamb. And yet Celestia was standing in front of him.

Instead of answering like a normal person would, she shifted her weight onto her front foot and launched forward. The distance between them closed in less than a second. Celestia drove the spear forward with her full body behind it, and the tip flared with a concentrated burst of force. Noblesse Oblitère. Her strongest skill, used on the very first strike. The young man's eyes went wide. He hadn't expected her to attack without a word. His arm came up on instinct to defend himself and Celestia's skill connected.

The impact sent him off his feet as his body flew backward and slammed into the far wall hard enough to crack the stone behind him. Dust and fragments of cement rained down around him. On the other side of the room, Liana was already moving. She had followed Celestia through the breach in the wall and gone straight for Anna. The girl was slumped in the chair, her chin resting against her chest, unconscious. Blood had pooled beneath the chair and along the carved lines of the circle on the floor.

The bindings on Anna's wrists were tied in simple knots. And Liana, being the goody-two-shoes she was, followed the academy rules to the dot and hadn't carried anything sharp with her. Eventually, she struggled before finally managing to work them loose as fast as she could. The gash on Anna's wrist was still bleeding. Liana tore a strip from the hem of her own sleeve and wrapped it tightly around the wound, pressing down hard. Liana glanced back toward the fight. Celestia was advancing on the man's position.

The dust from the wall impact was still settling. Safety first; Archmage Elena had drilled this into her from the beginning. Healers were the first to be targeted in a fight. So, the best course of action from someone of her level was to grab the injured, move them out of the combat area, and treat them outside of the vicinity of the battle. She hooked her arms under Anna's and pulled her off the chair.

Anna's body was limp and heavier than Liana expected, and her feet dragged across the stone floor as Liana hauled her backward toward the breach in the wall. She got Anna through the hole and into the corridor outside. Back inside the room, the dust had cleared from where the man had hit the wall. He was on his feet, though barely. His left arm was gone. The newly-added stump was just below the shoulder, and blood was running freely down his side, soaking into his uniform.

The arm itself lay on the floor a few paces away, severed clean. Celestia stopped. She had expected the skill to go through him entirely. Noblesse Oblitere should have killed him outright, until she realized why. Even though he was a lesser noble that lowered the output of her skill, it was because the power he'd accumulated from the sacrifices had reinforced his body further. Combined, it had been just enough to keep the strike from going clean through his torso. He'd lost an arm instead of his life.

Celestia adjusted her grip on the spear and stepped forward.

"Celestia…!" The man screamed her name. His skin started darkening, starting from his face, a deep purple spread across his body in uneven patches, crawling down his body. His remaining hand clenched, and his veins bulged visibly beneath the discolored skin. A dark haze steamed off body, showing dark-attribute mana. Celestia's eyes narrowed.' He's weaker than the original story.'

That made complete sense, considering that in the original story, it was only in the mountain-forest during the semester's final exam that Arthur faced off against him. Celestia lowered her stance and raised the spear. And she rushed forward and closed the distance before the transformation finished. She thrust the spear at his chest. And the man threw himself sideways, barely dodging the tip, and the spear punched into the wall where he'd been standing.

Celestia pulled the spear free and pressed forward. She slashed horizontally, and he ducked to a crawl. She reversed the arc and cut downward, and he jerked back, the blade passing close enough to nick his uniform. She stepped in and thrust again, aiming for his throat. However, he twisted his torso and the tip scraped past his neck. Every dodge was desperate, his body throwing itself out of the way with no technique behind it. He was committing everything he had to not getting hit by what demolished his arm.

Celestia adjusted and started throwing in feints, before driving the spear at his midsection. He tried to sidestep, but Celestia pivoted to sweep at his legs. This caught him off-guard as his foot caught on a piece of rubble. He stumbled and his weight shifted backward, his balance was gone for a brief moment. Celestia saw this opening and managed to thrust straight at his chest. The spear hit, the tip struck him dead center, right below the sternum.

And it just stopped; it pressed against his skin, unable to pierce through it. The dark mana had hardened his body into something her weapon couldn't pierce. This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work. The young man looked down at the spear tip pressing against his chest. His eyes widened, then a grin split across his purple-tinted face.

"You—!" He grabbed the spear shaft with his remaining hand and pulled. The motion was meant to drag Celestia forward, to close the distance and put her within arm's reach. Instead, Celestia let go. The man's own strength carried him backward. With nothing to pull against, he stumbled, lost his footing, and crashed into the wall behind him. The spear was still in his grip, held awkwardly with one arm. He didn't notice the small objects attached to the shaft.

Three cylindrical objects, each no larger than a finger, had been stuck to the spear's shaft. They detonated, and a large explosion tore through the far side of the room. The wall behind the man collapsed inward, and a cloud of dust, stone, and heat blew outward in every direction. Celestia had already moved back toward the breach she'd entered through, shielding her face with her arm as the shockwave passed. When the noise faded, she lowered her arm and looked at the damage.

A part of Celestia was angry, because she knew there were limits to fighting like this. Until she was able to control aura, she would have to use artifacts and makeshift explosives to compensate. And against someone whose body was being reinforced by dark mana, it barely closed that gap. Mana and aura were fundamentally different. A mage used mana, and a warrior used aura. And according to the laws in this world, a human who trained in one could not access the other.

Demons were not an exception, but their species processed mana the way other races processed aura, being able to run it within their body, through their muscles and bones, in addition to being able to use it outward too. This was why demons had physical characteristics that no other race could match. However, this student wasn't born a demon, but rather only managed to temporarily attain the characteristics of one through the sacrificial ritual, even forcefully turning his elemental attribute.

Of course, such transgressions towards the very nature of the laws of the world had its price.

'At the very least, the noise should bring the faculty here.' Celestia reached into her sleeve and pulled out another fan. She gripped it and twisted the guard, ready to extend it into a second spear. The smoke from the explosion still hung thick across the room. And before she noticed, he came rushing out of it. His body, covered with soot and burn wounds, was far faster than before the explosion. His remaining arm was outstretched, fingers straightened with his nails lengthened and sharpened.

He aimed for Celestia's neck. She wasn't fast enough to react. Her hands were still mid-twist on the fan to turn it into as pear when his arm nearly reached her. Clang! A wooden sword covered in a weak white light had intercepted the strike. It caught the man's sharpened nails and deflected them sideways, sending the blow wide. The man's hand scraped across stone instead of flesh. Arthur stood between Celestia and the man, his sword held in both hands.

He was breathing hard, and his uniform was disheveled, as if he'd sprinted the entire way here. His eyes were locked on the transformed student in front of him.

"Liana told me what's happening," Arthur said, not looking back.

"Are you okay?" Celestia stared at the back of his head. His sword was held out in front of her, blocking the path between her and the enemy. Her expression twisted with open disgust. Synchronization: 20%... 21% She had expected someone to come here with all the commotion, but definitely not Arthur. But what's done was done. Though the confrontation might be earlier than expected, with the Arc 2 Boss weakened, it would still be good enough for Arthur's growth, right?

Celestia ignored him and turned to walk through the breach in the wall without a word. Behind her, she heard the man lunge at Arthur, and the crack of the wooden sword meeting his claws again. The fight continued, but it was no longer hers. Liana was in the corridor outside, kneeling beside Anna. She had propped the unconscious girl against the wall. Liana's hands were glowing faintly, a soft green light pressed against Anna's forearm as she channeled healing magic into the wound.

Celestia crouched down beside them. Anna's face was pale, and her breathing was shallow, but it was steady. Finding her had been simple. When Beatrice had activated her eyes in the tea club parlor, she'd seen through Anna's eyes for only a few seconds before the strain forced her to cut it, but those seconds had been enough; Beatrice had recognized the room. It was on this floor.

The same building as the tea club, in fact, just far further down the corridor in a section that had been recently closed off for renovations. A noble club had previously occupied the space, and the room had been shut down after the club disbanded the previous year. Beatrice apparently knew the exact location, as she had entered the room before, looking for different clubs to join in. And so, Celestia had gone there and found the doors locked from the inside. She couldn't get in through the normal entrance.

So she'd used an explosive. A small magic item she'd bought in bulk weeks ago, originally intended for mining work in the Tower, but she carried it around in case it had other uses. She'd stuck quite a bit of them to the wall, stepped back, and let them do the work. Before the wall had gone down, she'd informed Liana what to do, and then prepared her spear. After the explosion, she'd walked through.

Currently, while sitting in the corridor with Anna unconscious beside her and Liana's healing magic doing its work, Celestia could still hear the fight continuing inside. Arthur's sword against hardened skin, stone cracking, and the man screaming things she couldn't fully make out.

"She's okay now," Liana said, pulling her hands back from Anna's wrist. The glow faded.

"She's lost a lot of blood, so she needs rest. But the wound is closed." She paused and looked up at Celestia.

"A-and you… are you okay?" Celestia's face was difficult to read. To most people, it would have looked like her usual flat expression. But Liana had noticed the way her eyes kept going back to Anna's, clearly worried despite acting like she wasn't.

"I'm fine," Celestia said. A crash erupted from inside the room, and the wall beside the breach buckled outward, and a body came through it, slamming into the opposite wall of the corridor. The man slid to the floor, his purple skin cracked and bleeding in several places. He pushed himself up with his remaining arm, his breath coming in shallow, uneven gasps. Arthur walked out through the breach.

His wooden sword was chipped along one edge, and there was a cut across his left forearm that was bleeding through his sleeve.

"It's over," Arthur said.

"You don't have to keep fighting. Turn yourself in." The man's head snapped up. His violet-ringed eyes were wild, and his teeth were bared at the commoner before him.

"Turn myself in?" He let out a laugh that sounded more like choking. Arthur continued talking, "What you've done to those students—""What I've done?" The man spat blood onto the stone floor.

"I did what I had to. I was born above you. Above all of you! And yet the world keeps handing everything to a commoner with no name and no blood!"

"That's not how it works," Arthur said.

"Being born into something doesn't mean you're owed anything by the world. And it doesn't give you the right to take someone else's life because you feel like you're falling behind. You don't get to blame our birth for what you decided to do." The man's remaining hand clawed against the stone floor. His mouth opened, but whatever he was going to say came out as a snarl. Celestia felt like she was watching a horribly written soap opera.

'Just kill him already.' Arthur raised his sword again.

"Surrender. The faculty will be here any minute. You can still—"'Oh, for the love of—'