Chapter 30

Episode 30: A C-Class Magic Student’s Afternoon

After the third period class ended, Shion headed to the school cafeteria to grab lunch.

Since the cafeteria’s peak crowd was during the lunch break after the second period, there were plenty of seats available after the third period.

After picking up his order at the first-floor counter, he made his way to his usual spot on the second floor.

When Shion reached the second floor, there were far fewer students there—only about a dozen or so.

Amid the mostly empty seats, he sat down at a spot with some distance from the others and was about to start eating when…

—Suddenly, tragedy struck.

A loud explosion and violent tremor erupted from the floor below.

The peaceful afternoon was instantly shattered as the second floor of the cafeteria was engulfed in chaos.

Everyone wore puzzled expressions, muttering things like “What’s going on?” and “What happened?” One of the students near the staircase leading to the first floor went to check out the situation.

When the student returned, they were pale and muttered:

“A… a dragon…”

“Huh?”

The student’s friends reacted with disbelief, but the student ignored them and shouted:

“A dragon’s here! Everyone, run!!”

Right after, another loud explosion echoed from the floor below.

Amid the screams, the student who had checked the first floor immediately bolted toward the connecting walkway to the adjacent building.

“…!! Hey, wait!”

The student’s friend called out, but they didn’t stop, running away toward the next building.

“Waaaaah! It’s really a dragon!!”

Then, another student who had checked the first floor, visibly terrified, followed the first student, sprinting toward the walkway.

A third explosion, louder and more violent than before, shook the building.

“…Seriously, a dragon?!”

“This is bad! We gotta run too…!”

The atmosphere shifted from confusion to outright terror as students began fleeing one after another.

Amid the explosions, tremors, and screams from below, tables, chairs, and dishes scattered everywhere.

—Yet, there was one student who continued eating as if nothing unusual was happening.

“(…I feel like such a big shot right now…)”

That student was none other than Shion Kurosaki.

While maintaining a completely expressionless face, Shion was internally hyped, feeling like a true badass for not flinching in the face of an emergency.

From the first explosion, he hadn’t shown a hint of panic. Instead, he calmly started his meal, and the more chaotic things got around him, the more he enjoyed his lunch.

A man as abnormal as a dragon attacking the school cafeteria—that was Shion.

“(Ah…!! This feels so good…!!)”

In the midst of the violent tremors shaking the chairs, tables, and dishes, Shion found the experience “comfortable.” No one else would likely feel the same.

As Shion continued eating amidst the ongoing chaos, the floor near his seat suddenly exploded, and a student tumbled to the ground.

“(Whoa…?!)”

While internally shaken, Shion maintained his calm demeanor and glanced at the student who had fallen.

The boy had beautiful blond hair and blue eyes. Even Shion, who wasn’t well-versed in the school’s celebrities, knew his face and name.

Alphonse Fried.

A descendant of the great hero Sieg Fried, who bore the blood of dragons. He was the second-ranked second-year student at Crawford Magic Academy and one of only two S-Class magic students currently at the school.

“Ugh… ow…”

Alphonse, battered and bruised, struggled to get up from the floor.

…When he looked up and saw Shion, he couldn’t help but blurt out:

“W-wait, huh…? What?”

With wide eyes, as if unable to comprehend the situation, he asked Shion:

“W-what are you doing here…?”

“…What does it look like? I’m eating lunch,” Shion replied matter-of-factly.

“…Huh?”

Alphonse looked even more confused, but Shion continued eating without a care.

“(Hehe…)”

Shion acted as if the question was ridiculous, but deep down, he was thrilled to have been asked.

Unaware of Shion’s inner glee, Alphonse was at a loss for words, unable to process the bizarre scene. But he quickly snapped back to the seriousness of the situation and called out to Shion:

“This isn’t the time for that!!”

◆

All things must come to an end.

And that included Shion Kurosaki’s lunch today.

To fully savor the feeling of “acting like a big shot,” Shion took his time, chewing carefully and eating slowly. But no matter how long he took, he couldn’t avoid the inevitable conclusion: finishing his meal.

After swallowing the last bite, Shion quietly stood up.

It seemed like the time had finally come for him to leave the cafeteria.

…But then.

“Alright, seconds.”

Lunch, continued—.

Despite the ongoing tremors from the floor below, Shion, reluctant to end his meal, decided to go for seconds.

While there was no kitchen on the second floor, there was a self-service area with bread and soup. Shion headed there to grab more food.

The soup had mostly spilled from the overturned pot, and much of the bread in the basket had fallen to the floor and gotten dirty. But Shion managed to grab a few pieces of bread still in the basket, placed them on a tray, and returned to his seat to continue eating.

“(That interaction earlier was great… Hehe.)”

After explaining the situation to Shion, Alphonse had urged him to evacuate before jumping down to the first floor.

Recalling how he had acted like an unshakable badass in the face of a dragon attack, Shion was practically floating on cloud nine.

“(The world’s strongest dragon, the Black Annihilation Dragon, is rampaging right below me, and here I am eating like nothing’s wrong. …Am I not just the coolest?)”

“Wait, hold on…”

In the midst of his trembling excitement, Shion suddenly came to his senses.

“The Black Annihilation Dragon…? Seriously?”

…Finally, he realized the gravity of the situation.

Having loved reading heroic tales since childhood, Shion had read and reread the stories of the great hero Sieg Fried and had gone through many documents about Sieg and the Black Annihilation Dragon.

As such, he was well aware of just how powerful the black dragon was.

The dragon, said to have been completely eradicated four hundred years ago, was actually sealed away. The idea that the seal had been broken was hard to believe, but if the descendant of the great hero said it was true, then it likely was.

It seemed that to avoid causing panic, the Fried family—or perhaps only a select few in the world—had been guarding the seal.

But if the seal had been broken and the Black Annihilation Dragon had returned, it truly was a global crisis.

Only now, really only now, did Shion realize this.

“…This isn’t the time to leisurely eat.”

Amid the increasingly violent explosions and tremors, Shion finally stood up.

At any moment, the cafeteria—or even the entire school—could be obliterated.

As a C-Class magic student with no hope of fighting the Black Annihilation Dragon, there was only one course of action: evacuate as quickly as possible.

The direction he should head was the walkway to the adjacent building. From there, he could escape and use a magic broom to fly as far away as possible.

But instead, Shion didn’t head toward the walkway.

He headed toward the staircase leading to the first floor.

“The Black Annihilation Dragon, huh…”

With a fearless grin, he muttered:

“—Let’s see what you’ve got.”

Without stopping, he made his way down the stairs.

In this abnormal situation, he was just as abnormal as the chaos around him…

Click the heart to easily show your support. (Login required)

Support

Log in if you have an account.

Learn more about the reading experience available on Kakuyomu.