LGHTNOVELBOOK Chapter 33
Chapter 33
—–CROW—–
For an absolute being like Tia, the complaints of others were insignificant.
However, that didn’t mean she was indifferent to their perceptions. Awe and authority. These were the two things Tia desired from humans.
Within Scientia, she gathered awe and authority in exchange for providing knowledge and safety. Awe was to prevent them from disregarding her.
It stemmed from a dragon’s instinct to prove their superiority.
Authority was to avoid bothersome affairs. It was a necessary measure to deter those who dared to challenge her.
“Well… I’m fine with most things, but…”
She was the strongest being in this world. So why did she avoid challenges from others?
“I can’t be seen as weak, you know?”
If she were alone, she wouldn’t have worried about it. But she had someone she had to protect.
“No, it’s not that I’m actually weak or scared or anything. It’s just that it’s annoying when idiots challenge me, right?”
Main Story Chapter 12. The SSR-rank character who joined after Tia’s death.
[SSR Inheritor of Will]
Spina Ereda El Tiamat
Protecting her only family, who was still slumbering deep within Scientia, was Tia’s sole desire.
“But I can’t just kill all the humans, can I? A peaceful world… Yes, a peaceful world is good.”
That’s why she didn’t forgive those who encroached upon Scientia. She wouldn’t forgive those who disturbed her territory.
“You understand what I mean, right?”
“Of course, Headmaster.”
Hundreds of years. That’s how long she had lived alone, without family. What if she *had* family? A being who hadn’t been born yet, but would one day hatch and enter the world? Yes, Scientia was nothing more than a giant nest she had prepared.
“Headmaster, you can say that I removed the magic tool on my own.”
“Huh…?”
“This bracelet… It’s not like I couldn’t remove it with force.”
“Well, that’s true, but… How could you possibly remove it with your strength…?”
*Crack!*
I removed the bracelet to show Tia, who couldn’t fathom a mage like me removing it with brute force. There was a strange sound from my wrist, but it was fine.
“What the…? You… Do you have some kind of mental illness? I think you need to be examined by Arieta later.”
Tia looked at me as if I was disgusting. This was what I got for helping her.
“Now, now, Headmaster. You should choose your words carefully.”
“…”
“Don’t you understand the situation? An incident occurred in Scientia, the safest place there is. If we were to assign blame, whose fault do you think it would be?”
“Yes… It’s my fault for assuming the magic tool was perfect.”
*Grit*—
Tia answered, grinding her teeth. The time of humiliation and oppression… It was finally over. It was time to show this fire-breathing giant lizard who had the upper hand.
“So? What do you want? You know I can’t do anything about the Spellergy succession issue, right?”
“Yes, what I want is…”
The pillar supporting the plan. The premise that had to be established first was set. A condition that upheld Tia’s sense of justice while subtly twisting it.
“The safety of all students.”
I added Marie Sistus to the list of those she had to protect using the phrase “all students.”
“What nonsense…?”
Tia tilted her head, momentarily confused. But her braided hair swayed like a tail, and her expression quickly turned serious. She understood what I meant.
“What do you know?”
“Answer me first.”
“…”
*Grab!*
I found myself caught by the throat by Tia. It was as if time had skipped, leaving only the result. The fact that she hadn’t snapped my neck meant she still had some reason left. Ignoring the acting, it was terrifying.
“…I’ll set a condition.”
“Y-Yes…”
I answered in a strained voice, my throat still in her grasp.
“Well… Ensuring the safety within my territory is my job anyway. But the word ‘all’ is absolutely impossible. No matter how strong and intelligent I am, I can’t protect everyone in this vast territory.”
Tia’s pupils slitted vertically, her horns emitted heat, and wings unfolded behind her back. She was already in battle stance.
“So, I will always leave myself an ‘option.’”
“…”
“When I can’t save ‘all’ as you say, I will choose the next best course of action. Do you understand?”
If I failed to handle the situation, Tia would kill Marie as a last resort.
“…Alright. I’ll make sure to manage that part well.”
This was enough concession from her. My plan was one that put the students in danger. She had already noticed. It was a student who was causing this incident. And the scope of it encompassed all of Scientia.
“Now tell me.”
“Marie Sistus.”
This name alone was enough. Tia spoke as if she understood, yet didn’t understand at the same time.
“That [Hades King] bastard is attacking me…? Is he crazy?”
“He’ll use her as a medium to open the
“…You crazy bastard, that’s not an estimate, you just know, don’t you? Why didn’t you say anything until now?”
“No, I actually tried to tell you before, but the atmosphere seemed too dangerous.”
Tia looked at me suspiciously, touching her cheek. The wound had long since healed, but the memory of it likely lingered in her mind.
“Come to think of it, you… Never mind. This isn’t the time or place for this conversation.”
“…?”
“More importantly, the timing is terrible.”
“He might have planned it that way.”
She was referring to Scientia’s security. Of course, the meticulous Tia would have prepared for this kind of situation. But as she said, the timing was bad. The academy’s security was none other than her dragon soldiers. Perhaps due to the sky issue this year, there were more students enrolled than usual. She must have been short on dragon soldiers to use for training. In other words, her loyal soldiers were currently scattered among the students as practice targets. There was no time to recall them.
“Now, I happen to have a map here marking 472 suspiciously ominous locations.”
“You, you little…!”
She grabbed me by the scruff of my neck. Had I been too playful? I should have spoken more seriously.
“C-Calm… Calm down, Headmaster. A human body is more fragile than it looks. I’ll die if you squeeze that hard…”
Tia threw me to the floor. I thought I was going to die. I couldn’t provoke her any further. Her expressions of displeasure were escalating rapidly.
“I’ve taken some preliminary measures at the 71 locations that seemed most dangerous. I’ve even marked the most efficient route.”
“I don’t need a route. I’ll know just by looking.”
“As expected of the Headmaster. You’re amazing.”
“Sometimes I really want to kill you.”
“…”
“So? What kind of measures did you take?”
“I dug holes right in front of the doors.”
The only preliminary measure I could take was to dig deep holes right in front of the locations where the
“How deep?”
“50 meters?”
“This crazy bastard… What the hell are you doing in the academy?!”
It had been difficult. I didn’t know how many times I had used [Sinkhole] to dig down 50 meters. The [Hades King]’s soldiers would likely fall into a literal hell the moment they crawled out of the
“With your abilities, Headmaster, even if you can’t destroy the gates, you can hold them off for about an hour, right?”
Even she couldn’t easily destroy a fully opened
“No, wait. Did you know about the keys?”
“Do you think I’m called the Mage King’s Successor for nothing?”
“Even so, only the ruler or those involved can even access that information… Wait a minute. Did you get chased out for peeking at that information without permission?”
“Uh… Maybe.”
I didn’t know why Oz was chased out by Salem. As she said, it was plausible that Oz had been caught accessing information about the keys without permission. Oz had been challenging the divine, after all.
“This crazy… Well, forget about that. Can I ask one more thing about the plan?”
“Yes?”
“Why now? You could have told me beforehand.”
It seemed she wouldn’t believe my excuse about not finding the right timing. I wouldn’t have believed it either. Considering when I gave that excuse, it was because the number of suspicious locations I had identified was too high.
“If I had told you, would you have left her alone, Headmaster?”
“I wouldn’t have killed her.”
“But you wouldn’t have left her alone either.”
“Of course not. I can’t keep a ticking time bomb around. I shouldn’t have let her in from the beginning, considering her Sistus name.”
Yes, Marie’s existence was a ticking time bomb from the start. Those bearing the Sistus name were tools of the [Hades King]. They had only assumed Marie wouldn’t be used as a sacrifice because she was exceptionally strong. And if Tia had known the bomb would go off, she would have expelled Marie from Scientia. And Marie, expelled, would have been deemed useless by the [Hades King] and ultimately killed. The only way for her to survive now was to stay in Scientia.
“This will be the only time. The locks created by the [Hades King]’s key can’t be used twice.”
“…But is there a way to close the gates? It would be faster to defeat the locks connected to Thanatos.”
“There is. So, please don’t come to where the [Hades King] is, Headmaster.”
“Why…?”
“What do you think the [Hades King] is aiming for?”
“How would I know what that lunatic is thinking? If he was sane, would he be provoking me?”
“Information gathering. He’s trying to assess your strength and learn something.”
Tia frowned, as if she had an idea of what I meant. She must have suspected something as well. The [Hades King] knew the information of both the living and the dead. That’s why he was suspicious. The existence of another dragon, dead or alive, didn’t appear anywhere in his records. Yes, the [Hades King]’s objective was to confirm Spina’s existence.
“I see…”
Tia’s eyes filled with a murderous intent I had never seen before. But it quickly disappeared. She had forcibly suppressed it. She could even suppress her fiery temper for her family.
“Is there a reason you’re going this far for that child?”
“I don’t like the [Hades King]… And for personal reasons, I needed proof.”
“Proof?”
Marie Sistus, destined to be killed at the end of the [Hades King]’s plan. And Oz, destined to die mysteriously in Main Story Chapter 15. Yes, we were both destined to die.
Main Story Chapter 1. I had managed to twist it somehow. I succeeded in separating Gerard from Eleanor and subduing him before he could hurt her. But I couldn’t change the flow. Gerard still died. The direction was slightly different from the main story, but he died nonetheless. I had originally intended to kill Gerard, but the result, as if death was predetermined, was chilling.
“I have to prove that there’s no such thing as fate.”
Perhaps no matter how I intervened, the main plot of the main story wouldn’t change. That was what scared me. I needed to be certain that I could defy the predetermined fate of death. Yes, I needed proof that I could overturn that fate.
“Wait a minute? I’m just asking, but how old are you? Uh… Were you 15?”
Tia, who had been listening to my resolve, spoke with a surprised expression. The solemn atmosphere was shattered.
“Headmaster, I’m not a chuunibyou.”
“Uh, well… Yeah, they say you don’t always know when you are one. Don’t think too hard about it.”
This damn fire-breathing lizard? She was trying to dismiss my heartfelt resolve as chuunibyou, even though she didn’t know my situation. But from the perspective of a third party who didn’t know my secret, she was right, so I couldn’t argue, even if it was unfair.
“Well, whatever… I get it. In short, you didn’t want to let Marie die. Isn’t that it?”
“That’s the gist of it.”
“Alright, let’s do that. And don’t make Arieta cry.”
“Why would I make Arieta cry?”
“It seems like you’re making her cry in real time right now…”
“…?”
I didn’t understand what she meant. Arieta, as the Saintess, would surely be proud of me for trying to save people. That was disrespectful to Arieta.
*Flap*—
Tia spread her wings and soared into the air. The gates hadn’t opened yet, but perhaps she was preparing something, just like I had done with [Sinkhole].
“But Oz.”
“Yes, Headmaster.”
“You better remember this.”
Tia, floating in the air, grabbed my chin and lifted my face. It could have been a romantic scene, but looking at her blazing eyes, I felt like a subordinate about to be executed.
“No human soul is special.”
“Yes…?”
“At least to me, all human lives are the same. There might be differences in how much I like them, but their lives are all equal. Do you understand?”
Her words struck a nerve. Contrary to her words, perhaps I hadn’t been seeing people as equals. My eyes had been labeling people with ranks.
“One life is one life. By my standards, it’s not the life of some special someone, but just one person dying. Even if you have exceptional talent, your worth is equal to everyone else’s.”
“…”
“So, if even one life is lost because of your plan… you will pay for it with your own life.”
“…I understand.”
She didn’t discriminate between humans. While her methods were extreme, equating the value of lives, her will was respectable.
“Really? Then pray.”
“I don’t believe in God.”
God was too ambiguous a being to pray to. There might be a God in this world, but I doubted they would answer my prayers. If they did, the probability of [Mana Dominator] wouldn’t be so terrible. So, I believed it was better to trust myself and work hard than to rely on such an unreliable being.
“Then pray to me. Pray that I save all the students and protect your life.”
But the being she spoke of was different. She was infinitely similar to God, yet closer to a demon.
“Pray like that.”
An arrogant and tyrannical, but at least capable, transcendent being.
“…Then hear this foolish human’s prayer and protect everyone’s safety.”
And she was a being who answered prayers.
The dragon spread her wings.
—–CROW—–
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