I Became the Academy’s War Hero Chapter 71

Ting! Ting!

Pshh!

Kwaaaang!

A thunderous roar had rung out repeatedly in the middle of the bridge.

The blood gauntlets that had moved like limbs were already almost half destroyed.

The blood fist was the same. After repeated collisions, more than forty percent of it had been lost.

What was astonishing was that when I struck with a palm reinforced by blood magic, the other side had taken it with bare hands.

“If an ordinary human had collided like that, their bones would have been completely crushed on impact.”

Even someone who managed their mana extremely well would have limits.

Abatua Shredder revised his assessment of Eugene Carter upward.

“S-rank… no, close to SS-rank.”

A beast’s rank — determined by combat power, danger, rarity, and so on — went up to SS.

Now that beasts threatened humanity, human strength was measured entirely by how well one could stand against beasts.

A person rated S-rank in overall evaluation could oppose or even have the upper hand against an S-rank beast.

When he had been younger he’d worked mainly as a mercenary who exterminated beasts. He prided himself on being objectively honest about people.

Even he thought the performance Eugene Carter was showing now recalled his prime.

Shreeeek!

The blood barrier spread wide before him shattered into pieces from a single strike.

Before the remnants could even disappear.

Eugene brought his sword down from above.

“Ugh…!”

I barely held on by concentrating blood gauntlets in both arms, but it wasn’t enough to block the gap that caused.

And Eugene never missed that tiny opening.

Screech!

Although the super-strike should have been completely blocked, a deep wound had already appeared on my neck.

It was as if two different sword strikes had been executed at once.

At that unbelievable performance, Shredder asked reflexively.

“…What did you do?”

“You wouldn’t understand even if I explained.”

Bright, sticky blood poured down from the fully exposed carotid artery.

Shredder clamped the wound with his right hand and looked around.

His family and subordinates had already vanished without a trace.

“…….”

“You didn’t really think those brats would risk their lives to take revenge for you like you did, did you?”

“…It would be a lie to say I didn’t expect that.”

He continued firmly with a resolute expression.

“What if a father didn’t respect his children’s choices?”

If the enemy couldn’t be beaten anyway, retreating to buy time to rebuild was the right call.

Even if it wasn’t to rise for revenge, there was nothing to be done.

“Abatua has already disbanded.”

“Then you’d better just die already. My schedule’s pretty tight today.”

“You’ll likely end up that way without me saying it… but let me at least struggle a bit, Eugene Carter.”

With those words, Shredder stabbed his own heart with his dagger.

A smile haunted his lips, and his eyes shone clearly.

At that exact moment.

With a loud pulse, a dense red aura began to coil thickly around Shredder’s entire body.

“…This is insane.”

Why would the head of some gang even have such a dark art?

I wiped the blood from my sword and stared straight ahead.

His whole body was covered in a deep crimson aura, as if it had been coated.

As I watched that sight awkwardly, a voice echoed inside again.

— Oh ho, isn’t that the power of Moloch? I didn’t know a human could use it!

‘Humans could use it, all right.’

The method of use was horribly tricky, and its power was pitiful compared to the real thing — those were the drawbacks.

Moloch, the great beast that had actually existed in the past. Its other name was the Blood Demon King.

Many blood magics had their origins in it; it had wielded exceptional influence in that respect.

Moloch was famous for appearing and disappearing unpredictably.

Moreover, blood magic itself was no easy thing to learn; for humans of that time to wield blood magic at will, they would have had to become thralls.

‘If the first thralls had passed on their sigils and it had been inherited through the bloodline, it might have become commonplace among the kin.’

Well, whatever. It didn’t change much.

I had no way to dig up more information unless I knew his true name.

Anyway, both the family name Abatua and the name Shredder were probably fakes.

None of that mattered, though.

‘Three minutes… maybe that was the limit.’

Because I had used nearly twenty heavy slashes to consume his blood armor and blood barrier, the mana I could operate with was nearly depleted.

It would still be more than enough for daily life, though.

The forbidden art he’d activated, however, was the worst possible matchup for me.

I bit a wry smile as I looked at the deep sigil carved on his chest.

Creak, creak.

A blood mage normally wouldn’t flinch at ordinary bleeding, but after the many injuries I’d already taken — the half-cut throat wound from earlier and the self-inflicted puncture in my heart — Abatua Shredder was already as good as dead.

And the moment the user was declared dead, the spell activated.

Bloody Marionette.

Another name was the Blood-Smeared Clown.

The dead user moved for only one purpose.

That purpose was to take the life of the target.

Until all the blood in the body and the mana carried by that blood were exhausted, the corpse did not stop moving.

Its efficiency was even better than when the lifeline remained; even if the body was torn to shreds, it would regenerate quickly and aim for its target.

There was no better magic for a drown-the-enemy operation.

Of course, every magic had weaknesses.

The best option was, of course, to remove the sigil engraved on my chest…

‘But my aptitude for that sort of thing was completely rubbish. Mine, and this body’s.’

So, what now?

In a few more seconds the marionette would recognize the sigil.

If I ran away, I wasn’t confident I could lose its pursuit.

I lacked the mana and time to bring it down.

And if I stood and stalled, excessive mana expenditure would cut off my consciousness.

I could ask Klina to relock the limiter and prevent consciousness loss.

But that would drastically lower my specs and make it hard even to stand off against it.

“…As I thought, it had to be a short decisive battle.”

That path had the highest chance of success.

Once I decided, there was no reason to hesitate.

‘I had to shatter him in one blow, then burn him right away.’

To maximize lethality, I needed to close the distance for the finishing slash as much as possible.

Then, with no delay, I would use an ignition spell to slow the body’s regeneration timing.

After that I would keep pounding the parts trying to regenerate and squeeze out whatever mana remained.

I devised the countermeasure and ran the simulation through twice as I kept timing my moves.

In one hand I held Lukesax, and in the other I held a wand.

Whether unlucky or lucky, the wait wasn’t long.

Creak, creak.

The marionette turned its body toward me quickly, drawn by the sigil.

The moment it locked onto my position, red light flashed in its two eyes.

Clatter, clatter!

Just as the marionette lunged at me—

Clank!

A carriage stamped with the imperial seal thundered up right in front of us.

“Gah!”

Because I’d been watching the carriage coming, I barely dodged it in time.

The marionette, however, got blasted and was thrown off the bridge, falling down under it with a bang.

I stood there for a moment in stunned silence, then hurriedly signaled Klina.

At the same instant, the surge of mana that had been flooding my entire body cut off.

My vision blurred sharply and my breathing came ragged; I braced myself using the sword like a staff.

The carriage that had knocked the marionette flew another hundred meters and came to a stop.

Those who emerged from it were faces I was very glad to see.

“…So I didn’t imagine it.”

“What are you doing in a place like this…?”

“More importantly, what on earth happened here?”

Carvena’s senior figures looked at me with their own different expressions.

I walked slowly toward Frederick and spoke softly.

“…The sigil hasn’t been removed yet. It’ll be climbing up the bridge soon.”

“Climbing up? Who?”

“…You mean the corpse you just blew away, right?”

At Dale’s words I only nodded.

He assessed the situation in an instant, drew a wand, aimed it at the sigil on my chest, and spoke.

“Wait! What are you going to do to Carter?”

“I have to erase the engraved sigil for the marionette to stop. It’ll hurt, but bear with it a bit.”

Ignoring Frederick’s attempting restraint, Dale activated a healing spell.

For an instant a pain struck me as if the entire bundle of nerves in my chest had been ripped out.

The pain didn’t last ten seconds, but during it my legs gave out and I almost collapsed.

“Huff… huff…”

“Are you okay, Carter?”

Only when I grabbed Dale’s hand, which he offered quietly, could I barely pull myself up.

‘…We survived because we’d been moving together.’

Dale Wedmeyer—head of the pro-Bernhardt faction.

He had no reason to be friendly toward me, so if I’d faced him alone I would’ve lost my life there and then.

Left alone, I would have died to the marionette.

But there were a lot of eyes watching now.

Even if the cadet captain was on our side, Frederick and the other three captains were another matter.

‘It would be strange if a master of manipulation magic couldn’t handle a simple healing spell.’

Perhaps because things hadn’t gone his way, Dale’s expression looked even more sour than before.

While I gasped for breath, Frederick forcibly supported my shoulder and asked.

“What happened to the others who left with you?”

“They headed for the capital first. I’m the only one left here.”

“…The chairman too?”

“Yes.”

Frederick exhaled a sigh of relief.

This time the cadet captain spoke up from beside him.

“Tell us everything, Carter. Were they targeting the chairman? Or you?”

“…….”

All eyes turned to me.

Supported, I pointed toward the carriage.

“…Let’s talk while we go.”

Clack, clack.

The carriage squeaked even more from the earlier collision, and I fell into thought for a moment.

‘It was fine to have a skill check before the conference… but why did it have to be with these annoying guys?’

Should I tell the truth, or should I come up with something evasive?

One thing was certain: the head of planning and the cadet captain didn’t know about this.

If they’d known even a little, they wouldn’t have worn those expressions.

‘Maybe it was deliberately hidden, or the message simply didn’t reach them.’

Either way, it didn’t harm me.

In any case, Dale Wedmeyer saving me was an unchanging fact.

What if Chloe Bernhardt found out about that?

She was already boiling from repeated failures.

If the person she trusted, Dale, saved Eugene Carter—

Before verifying facts, she’d probably erupt in fury.

If external pressure from the Hokma incident got piled on top of that, she definitely wouldn’t be able to judge things normally.

‘I’m curious what kind of face she’d make.’

When I opened my eyes with a faint smile, Frederick and Dale spoke at the same time.

“Start talking, Carter.”

“What happened exactly?”

After pretending to hesitate for a long moment and touching my mouth, I answered the questions with a resolute look.

“I’d prefer this story not leak out. It’s directly tied to Carvena’s honor.”

So then….

“Where should I start?”