Chapter 47

The alley of the Street of Learning, adjacent to Magic Street, was a cave that even the guards avoided.

It was a place where one could easily face the wrath of hundreds of angry students.

Buildings rising five stories or more were densely packed together, entangled with illegally expanded structures, basements, and secret passages.

As darkness fell in the evening, about thirty students lined up and exited the entrance of one of the buildings.

“Confirmation?”

“Confirmation.”

“No problem.”

Though they differed in their affiliated academy, academic year, gender, names, and the lives they lived, they were all royal illegitimate children.

Sometimes disguised as sponsored orphans, sometimes as adopted children of some rural noble, they had learned magic at the academy thanks to their innate bloodline.

Among them were faces that other students could hardly imagine.

They hid the royal blood coursing through their veins, disguised themselves as diligent overachievers, and lived as elites of the department of magic.

“Damn. Life was going so well for me.”

“The professor said he’d submit a recommendation to Duke Planiaties this time.”

“I was on the verge of becoming an exchange student at the Ivory Tower.”

“Hang in there. Life is the most important thing, after all.”

They packed only the essentials in their bags: expensive reagents, forged IDs, grimoires, and cash.

“What should we do about this?”

“Isn’t it too big to take?”

“No. We have to take it. It’s something you can’t buy for any amount of money.”

Jin, acting as their leader among them, spoke.

With wild orange hair and black piercings in his earlobes, Ban wore a ring entwined with two tentacles on his finger.

The object they were discussing was a grimoire bound in leather with a thickness of a fist and stains that looked like human faces, heavy enough to be difficult to carry by oneself.

However, Ban wrapped it in oiled paper and lifted it lightly.

With a flicker, blue and purple lights shone briefly from his wrist and forearm.

Jin approached, casting a wary glance at it.

“Ban. You’re disposing of that, right?”

Beneath his gray hair, his blue eyes were icy.

“Why?”

“That’s why the royal family is hunting us. A run-in with the old ones. We don’t need to create a justification for them to hunt us down, do we?”

“That’s not a justification for them hunting us; it’s power that will save us. Haven’t we all lived comfortably thanks to this power?”

Jin shook his head without even noticing the reactions of the other students.

“We lived enjoying it. Memorizing what others study in five hours in just one hour. Isn’t that enough to enjoy life?”

Ban shook his head defiantly.

His green eyes glimmered coolly beneath his orange hair.

“Why should we stop when we can become more special?”

Jin sighed softly.

“What we desire is a normal life and enough power to achieve that, isn’t it?”

Ban made an exaggerated gesture.

“What’s with you? It’s surprising. Didn’t you top all three majors last semester? What’s so normal about that? Are you scared because of the fight with Valenciaunos today? Come on, friend. Today we’re leaving the capital and will go to another kingdom to live well. We’ll gain the title of court mage.”

Jin finally glanced around.

Dozens of eyes, suffused with subtle malice, were watching him.

Among them, there were several wearing entwined tentacle rings.

‘Since when?’

Feeling a sense of unease, Jin debated whether he should draw his sword.

The grimoire Ban was holding was the forbidden book among forbidden books.

It was quicker to offer a sacrifice to the old ones and receive a new book directly than to try and obtain it from somewhere.

“Let’s go for now.”

“Yeah. We should go. But there are too many people.”

“Hmm?”

Ban grinned wickedly.

“The fifteen people I told I’d exit the city are over by the red-light district.”

Crunch!

In the next moment, Ban’s right hand transformed into a long tentacle that shot out.

It coiled around one student’s body like a snake, squeezing tightly.

“Ahhhhh!”

The blood flowing from that body was sucked into the suction cup-like mouth at the tip of the tentacle without a drop hitting the floor.

At the same time, the students wearing the tentacle rings transformed their hands or heads into tentacles mixed with blue and purple and targeted the nearby students.

“Crazy!”

“These bastards!”

“Ahhhhh!”

The illegitimate children all drew swords or began chanting spells to resist, but the momentum had already shifted.

Jin drew his sword to slice a flying tentacle and broke into a cold sweat.

“Damn.”

‘Was this a trap from the beginning?’

Ban approached him, mouth agape.

“Jin. Come here. Let’s go together.”

His tongue elongated endlessly, the tip intertwining to form a ring shape.

“Take it.”

A voice so firm that it couldn’t be refused flowed from within him.

Jin gritted his teeth and took a step back.

“Then it can’t be helped.”

Ban grinned wickedly.

Once again, his arm transformed into a massive tentacle.

And then—

“Reinforce and push out with a jolt!”

Crackle!

A blue electric current burst forth from the alley and struck Ban, sending him flying.

“I knew this would happen.”

Jin hurriedly looked back at the voice he heard during the day.

With striking platinum blonde hair tossed back, pale cheeks contrasting with a greedy gaze.

A man dressed in a white uniform with golden embroidery, flaunting a long sword, laughed arrogantly.

Valenciaunos.

“Burn, consume the enemy. …Not to kill but to roll around a bit painfully.”

The mage’s voice echoed once again, and a blue electric current sparked from Valenciaunos’s sword.

He raised his sword and shouted.

“Everyone, drop to the ground with your hands up!”

Both the transformed royal illegitimate students and those fighting against them were left dumbfounded.

They already knew through their information networks that Valenciaunos had fought and won against the followers of Abaddon alongside the saint.

“Damn.”

“That bandit bastard, all the way from the red-light district!”

“Kill them! We have the numbers on our side!”

“What the hell are you saying! Run! The guards are coming! We need to live!”

Amid the chaos of the scrambling illegitimate children, Valenciaunos leaped into action.

* * *

Bastatin watched the brawl unfolding before him, emitting a quiet sound.

“Ahhhhh!”

“With this, I’ll tie up each of your necks and drag you to the Imperial Palace! Hahaha!”

Just as Valenciaunos was preparing to extract a long tongue from one of the transformed illegitimate children.

He was also a member of the gathering meant to help one another, but he never dreamed such transformations could occur.

Sererassie, hiding between the buildings, gently nudged his back with her staff.

“Keep your distance. If they come this way, you have to be my shield, right?”

“Right from the start… did you think it would end up like this?”

Sererassie shook her head.

However, ironically, she uttered no definitive words of denial.

“There are many who think they can do whatever they want in this world.”

“I have no argument. I thought I could live a normal life.”

“But most interpret that as being able to do whatever they want if they can start it. In fact, being able means being able to bring it to an end.”

“Is that how it’s interpreted?”

Sererassie fired another bolt of electricity, taking down an illegitimate child aiming for Valenciaunos’s back, creating spikes from the ground to impale the feet of the illegitimate children.

“If you can, you can do it. This is the logic of us mages.”

The logic of mages was a phrase packed with meaning.

“It’s not something that illegitimate children who don’t want to be tied down by things like royal blood would use.”

“Exactly. Ordinary? That’s a laughable statement. We’ve been special from the moment we were born.”

She murmured dreamily.

“It would have been nice if we could have enjoyed that blissfully.”

Crackle!

Sererassie unleashed a wide-ranging bolt of electricity, taking down several illegitimate children rushing at them.

Bastatin sighed deeply.

“It’s a difficult era for that.”

“Can’t you see the reason with your own eyes right now?”

Bastatin had no choice but to nod.

Just as Valenciaunos slashed the head of an illegitimate child, struck by a particularly severe transformation, he seared the neck before a second could sprout.

“Which maggots dare to come out in this crap? Leave Emperor’s territory at once! I’ll tear your entrails out and let the eagles and crows feast on them!”

Bastatin sighed deeply.

“It’s all our karma. How should we have lived?”

Sererassie replied unusually seriously.

“A mage must dream. They should look to the sky. But… sometimes they need to return to reality and check their feet.”

It went without saying that this was a lesson learned from experience.

“In the end, it’s about immersion and responsibility.”

“Right. To be recognized for their usefulness, one must immerse themselves and build their skills, and to be recognized for their harmlessness, they must take responsibility.”

Gurgle!

Their brief conversation ended with that immense sound.

Just then, Valenciaunos, having just pierced another illegitimate child’s neck, cried out like a scream.

“Sis! I think we’re all going to die!”

* * *

Valenciaunos dragged Jin, who was about to leap towards Ban, back.

“Run away now! You dumbass, packed full of pasta! Do you think you can win against that?”

“Scala was devoured! We have to save him!”

“Do you want to be devoured too? That thing is getting stronger by feasting on royal blood. If you get devoured, it’ll only make it stronger.”

Ban was transforming.

Purple tentacles sprouted from his legs, arms, and crown.

“Ah!”

“Help me!”

He coiled tentacles around both ordinary and changing illegitimate children, sweeping them into his body.

The thickest one sprouting from his crown now reached three stories high.

With two more sprouting for every one he cut down, Valenciaunos had to hastily retreat while blocking with the imperial swordsmanship technique ‘Foolish Memory’.

“If you hadn’t just tried to tear Ban in half, he wouldn’t have grown this much!”

“It’s my fault he went berserk?”

“Yes!”

Suddenly, Valenciaunos stopped pulling Jin.

“?”

Then he seemed to try and throw Jin towards Ban, pushing him backwards.

“W-wha?”

“There’s no need to spare the one who will give unfavorable testimony!”

“Ahhh!”

Jin panicked, swinging his elbows and fists wildly.

Valenciaunos chuckled as he let go of Jin.

With a bump, he tripped Jin, making him roll on the ground while desperately trying to escape.

Seeing that, Valenciaunos laughed sadistically.

Though he would deny it, it was a smile that closely resembled his younger sister’s.

“A person who was disengaging when I told him to back off and now wanting to retreat when I tell him to charge. Humans really are fun.”

Valenciaunos knew that when provided a stage, no one would play along.

Fully mocked, Jin’s face turned beet red.

“Valen!”

Sererassie charged in with Bastatin in front.

“Sis, do you have a plan?”

“Do you think I have experience dealing with something like that?”

“Sis, don’t you have any thoughts?”

She rolled her eyes.

“You really know how to speak nicely! Tentacle types and the ancient ones with great recovery abilities generally have a core. I think we need to target that core.”

“My flames are nowhere near enough. Can I burn it out with electric current to expose the core?”

Sererassie looked up at the starry sky without a single cloud.

A wry smile formed at the corners of her mouth.

“To drop a lightning bolt on such a sky… would take about 30 minutes of casting time. Can you endure that? I don’t think so.”

Valenciaunos shook his head.

“At this rate, there won’t be a distance left in 30 minutes. If I ordered a few illegitimate children to go and they wrecked the place, I’d be the one beheaded by the Emperor. I should’ve killed it before it transformed.”

Sererassie touched her forehead.

“Or we could collapse it from the inside. With poison or something.”

“Poison?”

Valenciaunos, Jin, and Sererassie all turned to look at Bastatin simultaneously.

Bastatin said with a lighthearted smile.

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I’m just an ordinary pharmacy owner.”

Valenciaunos raised his sword as if to behead him, but Sererassie stopped him and recited clearly.

“Isn’t it your chance to live as an ordinary pharmacy owner now?”

“!”

Bastatin looked as if he had been hit on the back of his head with a hammer.

After sighing deeply about blood and responsibility, he lit up his eyes and covered his forearms with scales.

Then he charged out, raising a yellow-green poisonous mist.