I Became the Academy’s War Hero Chapter 56

“……”

What the hell was this bastard saying right now?

With a look on his face that practically said those very words, Gustav glared straight at me.

“M-Master, I’m sorry!”

Meriel, who had come in late, immediately lowered her head as if she couldn’t bear to look him in the eye.

Without taking his gaze off me, Gustav began scolding Meriel.

“This is what happens when you let someone in you shouldn’t have allowed in the first place, Meriel.”

“T-That’s… it was originally for Agent Rubia’s treatment….”

“Agent? Why are you using that title for a woman who already left Mallet?”

The confident attitude Meriel had shown before was gone; now she looked completely intimidated.

This time, Rubia answered before I could.

“I haven’t left yet.”

“…What?”

“I’m still a ‘dispatched’ mage from Mallet. I haven’t left for good.”

That was a fair point.

“I’d rather not be treated as a complete outsider just because I stepped away for a bit, Gustav.”

“Call me Master.”

At that, Gustav’s gaze finally turned toward Rubia.

“…Attach the title, Agent Rubia.”

His eyes trembled quietly with restrained anger.

Sensing the tense air thickening, I swiftly stepped in between the three of them.

As soon as Gustav turned his head toward me, I placed my hand on the table and spoke.

“I’ll get straight to the point. You’ll have to release the seal on the high-class evil spirit, Clina White.”

The moment the evil spirit was mentioned, his eyes widened slightly.

To hide his surprise, he closed his eyes for a second and lowered his tone.

“…And why, exactly, must I do that?”

“Because that’s the only way Mallet’s abysmal overall evaluation can be renewed.”

He fell silent, as if trying to discern my true intentions.

Meanwhile, Meriel quietly instructed the apprentices to leave the room.

Once everyone but the four of us had left—

“So you’ve decided to play clever. But it’s no use.”

Gustav shook his head, his expression making it clear that he found the idea absurd.

“Do you really think I’d cooperate with you, Eugene Carter?”

Well, I figured it’d come to this anyway.

Instead of replying to him, I glanced sideways at Meriel and muttered softly.

“I don’t like repeating myself… so what do you think, Meriel?”

“…I’ll explain again.”

Even with Meriel stepping in to further persuade him, Gustav remained stubborn as ever.

“Hmph. As long as I am the one guarding Mallet, the seal on Clina White will never be broken.”

Annoying bastard.

There are always those types who won’t understand until things get rough.

‘I knew this was how it would go….’

Leaving the confused Meriel and the increasingly tense Rubia behind, I leaned in until my face was right in front of Gustav’s.

“Hey, Gustav.”

“Wh—what?!”

He clearly hadn’t expected me to drop formal speech; he looked more startled than he had the entire time.

I gave him a cold smirk.

“Do I look like I’m joking to you, huh?”

“W-What’s gotten into you?! I told you, I am—”

“No time. Choose. Are you going to get humiliated at the Academic Conference, or are you going to go to war with Dellowell?”

“……”

“You’re the great Master, right? The final decision should be yours, don’t you think?”

Duel—Mallet’s current Master of the Magic Tower, Gustav—was struggling to gather his chaotic thoughts.

For someone who had once been utterly crushed by Eugene Carter, that very name alone was enough to make his skin crawl.

And now that same man had shown up in person, that brazen face right before him—it was impossible to keep calm.

In the middle of preparing a proposal for the upcoming Academic Conference, Eugene had barged in and suddenly offered “help.”

And now he was resorting to threats.

With the two topics Gustav was most sensitive about, no less.

‘C-Calm down first.’

He didn’t even know whether that bastard had regained his memories or not. It was too early to judge.

So Gustav decided to feign composure.

“Springing such an ultimatum on me like that—surely you understand even Gustav needs some time to think, Eugene Carter.”

“Time to think, huh…”

Of course, his opponent wasn’t the type to fall for such stalling.

“Ten minutes should be enough. Go ahead—starting now.”

“……”

Seeing Eugene’s confident expression, Gustav sighed inwardly.

‘…He knows. Everything.’

There was no way he could make such a proposal otherwise.

Scenes from the past vividly resurfaced in Gustav’s mind, and he swallowed hard.

Even though it had happened twelve years ago, the memories were as clear as day.

Both of them had miraculously survived the Forest of Delusion, but Eugene Carter—who had been in the vanguard—was struck by a scorpion’s venom and had hovered at death’s door.

Master Aleph had intervened late but managed to prevent any lasting physical aftereffects. Even so, Eugene had needed over a week to regain consciousness.

During that long gap, Gustav had made up his mind—to cut away part of Eugene’s memory.

Though it was Agent Meriel who had proposed sending the two into the Forest of Delusion, it had been his decision to approve it.

Rubia Magnus, who had also been harmed at the time, had been unaware of what happened.

A heaven-sent opportunity, or so he had thought.

But Gustav hadn’t stopped there.

He had even repackaged that stroke of luck as a testament to his own “good fortune.”

Afterward, he used memory alteration and oblivion magic to solidify his position within the Tower.

His uniquely authoritarian and coercive speech had turned his apprentices into obedient lambs.

He erased or distorted anything disadvantageous and amplified anything favorable.

After Master Aleph left the Tower for reasons unknown, he became even more reckless.

And now, twelve long years later, there were too many victims to even count.

Among all the senior mages of Mallet, only seven had not fallen under his control.

At what point had things started to go so wrong?

Would things have been different if he had just confessed and apologized back then?

No matter how many times he asked himself, no clear answer came.

Only one thing was certain.

The moment the current facts reached Duel’s side, there would be no future for him.

‘I had no way of knowing how he had recovered his memories….’

If he had restored his memories on his own,

there was no way for me to refuse this proposal.

‘I couldn’t stake the rest of my life on a single high-class evil spirit.’

Even if the one across from me was that detestable Eugene Carter, I had no choice but to cooperate for now.

Having reached that conclusion, Gustav let out a deep sigh and looked up at Eugene.

“All right, all right. I’ll cooperate—so spit it out in more detail. Why do you want to break that spirit’s seal?”

“That’s none of your business. Just guide me.”

“You bastard….”

“Sulk if you like. I have nothing to lose.”

“…You haven’t changed a bit in the twelve years.”

“Thanks for the compliment.”

Gustav pretended not to hear Eugene’s refusal to explain and rose from his seat.

“If things go wrong and we’re forced to subdue the spirit… you understand what will happen, right?”

“That won’t happen. Lead the way if you’re so sure.”

“Phew… fine. Let’s go.”

The four of them, led by Gustav, left the room and headed underground.

They passed the first basement floor where all manner of artifacts and rations were stored, crossed the second basement floor where various creatures and summons dwelled, and reached the third basement floor.

Most of the third basement floor consisted of a huge arena.

Inside the arena, Gustav paused in front of a small corridor situated between four or five antechambers.

He drew his wand and swung it lightly upward; the mana that gushed out from there dispersed into the air.

“I issued an evacuation order limited to those in the underground. Just in case of any possibility.”

Then, with a resolute look, he was the first to step toward the corridor.

Step, step.

The corridor led straight to a stairway.

They followed the spiral stairs down and a large gate came into view.

Gustav brought his wand close to the lock and poured mana into it; the lock sprang open in an instant.

With a loud clang, the gate opened automatically.

Drip, drip.

The interior, shrouded in darkness, revealed nothing.

Only the faint sound of dripping water echoed softly.

Gustav snapped his fingers lightly and the lamps lining the interior perimeter all flared to life at once.

“T-That is….”

“……”

Although much smaller than the arena on basement three, the space easily exceeded a diameter of a hundred meters.

“It’s a prison for uncontrollable malignant entities.”

Each cell divided by iron bars held lifeforms of various shapes.

Most of them were bound so thoroughly they couldn’t even emit a cry.

In the largest penned chamber lay the target this time.

The high-class evil spirit, Clina White.

‘…Seeing it in person felt strangely new.’

The figure visible through the bars was the very definition of grotesque.

It stood upright wrapped in countless chains and pitch-black bandages.

Dark red fluid clung thickly between the wrappings, the same fluid smeared across the floor.

The lingering traces of mana in the air were so dense and malevolent that merely brushing past them made my head spin.

Its appearance was so obscured by various restraints that it was impossible to infer much, but I remembered its true form.

Clina White. One of only eleven high-class evil spirits existing within MAGA.

Its exterior was a skeleton clad in deep black rags, but that was merely a shell.

If that shell could be stripped away perfectly, commanding it would not be a difficult problem.

In other words,

peeling off that shell was the mission’s biggest challenge.

‘We kept trying to command it in that state before, which explained the frequent failures.’

The wisdom of high-class evil spirits far exceeded that of ordinary humans; they weren’t incapable of understanding speech.

If they seemed not to, it meant the spirit itself had no will to communicate.

‘…This time, though, the chance of that was less than one percent.’

With me—Eugene Carter—bearing both the accumulated MAGA knowledge and a body bound to an incurable curse, and

with Rubia Magnus possessing the talent for holy magic,

there was finally a method we could choose.

I ran that method through my head one more time and looked at Gustav.

“What are you waiting for?”

“…How about you reconsider now, Carter? With most of your combat power lost to that curse….”

“Perhaps. If you don’t break the seal now, I think the one who will be locked in here a month from now will be you.”

“…I warned you.”

He never ran out of words to say, that one.

His future value as a combatant was considerable; I’d prefer to leave the full-scale war with Dellowell for later, but depending on the situation, making this public could be an option.

‘If only Master Aleph were back, I could do it at any time.’

Well, that worry could wait until after the summit and the Hockma incident were neatly resolved.

For now, I needed to think about how to subdue this cantankerous brat.

I shoved Gustav roughly by the back and took a step forward.