The Overpowered Cult Leader at the Academy Chapter 17

Chapter 17

Episode 1 Mid-Boss (4)

I recalled the pattern. Phase 1 was a ranged attack that launched threads of mana. Phase 2 involved throwing mana threads along with surrounding debris, and occasionally unleashing the Petrifying Gaze. Phase 3 didn’t matter since it was basically a free win.

As soon as we made eye contact, the stage ford. Crystals, clearly summoned by Canis, shot up from the ground. The wall of crystals that grew as if wrapping around sothing blocked the petrified students from Coco.

Thanks to that, I was left to face her alone—but I didn’t mind. I could see the necklace hanging around Coco’s neck. The most valuable item I’d gain once the mid-boss fight was over. I was practically drooling.

“Let’s join forces.”

Soloven had approached before I realized and now stood beside . Everyone here just did whatever they wanted, huh? I glanced behind .

Canis, who had looked like she wasn’t going to move, was instead focused on protecting Winter in her arms. If the vice-head of the Magic Departnt was marking them, then it should be fine.

“Mostly ranged attacks…”

“I know. Just draw aggro.”

“……”

Soloven furrowed her brow as hard as she could. I did feel a little bad, but now wasn’t the ti to chat.

I started running left. Soloven charged straight ahead. She pushed forward with her shield in front, displaying fierce montum.

She skillfully deflected the flying attacks and charged ahead with force.

“Be careful!”

And even in the midst of that, she shouted for to be careful. I couldn’t even respond—I just ran with everything I had.

I had stepped up confidently, but the attacks were faster than I’d expected.

Originally, I was planning to fight up close, but since Soloven had gone in herself, I decided to move things along a bit quicker.

By now, Soloven had closed the gap and slamd into her with full force. A simple move—charging with her shield at full speed. But the power behind it was nothing to scoff at.

Bang!

A thunderous noise, like an explosion, rang out. The simple, solid strike didn’t even scratch Coco’s shield.

Having failed the attack, Soloven quickly retreated. In that brief mont, a glass marble I had thrown dropped near Coco.

Even with the imdiate explosion of lightning, her shield remained firm. Coco sent a mocking sneer at our efforts.

Perhaps finally recovered, Winter's divine magic flew in. A magic arrow filled with divine power flew in a strange trajectory.

“What are you doing?!”

“Just keep her attention!”

Soloven shouted again. Even with Canis and Winter providing ranged support, Soloven had been struggling since her initial shield charge.

She probably didn’t like that I was just circling around Coco instead of doing anything.

“This bastard! Don’t tell —!”

Coco finally caught on and started targeting with attacks. The mana threads she’d been casually throwing turned much more deliberate.

Soloven didn’t understand the reason for the change and gave a puzzled look, but she reacted swiftly. She thrust forward with her shield-wielding hand.

The shield's edge let out a vicious sound as it shook the barrier.

“Ha!”

Only then did Coco begin to show signs of anxiety, his expression twisting. Soloven’s close-range attacks and the perfectly tid incoming chunks of crystal—

it was an effective way to break his concentration.

“You know sothing, don’t you!”

Having orchestrated this situation, I was searching for sothing. Petrification magic wasn’t exactly common.

It had nothing to do with the thread magic created by Coco’s unique trait. That ant there had to be an artifact assisting in casting it.

That was what I was looking for—an artifact, likely a kind of installation-type item. Sothing that couldn’t be worn on the body and had to be well hidden.

“Guh!”

Eventually, a thread of mana I failed to dodge pierced through my body. There was no pain, but the unfamiliar jolt from a part of my body I didn’t expect startled for a mont.

A thin thread had pierced through from my back and out through my collarbone. If it had hurt, I would’ve been screaming bloody murder. I kept my eyes darting around, focusing on evasion.

Sothing that didn’t belong… Cold sweat ran down my back. It was so well hidden that even though I knew what it looked like, it was hard to locate.

“Ha ha! Not finding what you’re looking for, are you?”

Seeing standing still to catch my breath, Coco sneered. He was now fully fired up, a far cry from the quiet impression he first gave off.

That smug grin, that voice, that tone—there was nothing about him that wasn’t irritating. I started thinking maybe I just needed to overpower him with firepower.

I pulled a glass marble from my pocket, ready to throw—

Then froze.

―Clink.

A chi that cald the body and mind. A wave filled with divine power spread throughout the Disciplinary Room.

Winter, who had been fervently casting divine magic, had now taken out a silent bell and was ringing it.

The resonance, which restored ntal strength and cured abnormal conditions, had an imdiate effect.

“Crafty bastard, huh.”

Sothing I hadn’t considered suddenly ca to mind. A flaw caused by barrier-type magic: impaired cognitive perception. Technically speaking, where we were standing now was the ceiling.

Except for living beings or objects within a certain range of them, everything else was under normal gravity.

It had been hard to notice due to the force behind the throws, but both the glass marbles and the crystals Canis had launched had traced subtle arcs in the air.

I looked up—to the floor that had beco the ceiling. The Disciplinary Room appeared as it had been. The large desk and chair. The bed. The mountain of stacked paperwork.

And among them, on top of the desk, a raptor-shaped statue.

“Stop him!”

“Cover yourselves!”

Coco, realizing where I was looking, shouted in desperation. Every attack now targeted . He even used the petrification magic he had been holding back until now.

A massive raptor, forged from Coco’s mana, roared toward us. I shouted with all the strength I could muster.

Canis reacted first, erecting a wall of crystal to shield herself and Winter. It was a thick defense, shaped like an egg.

“Perfect timing.”

I threw the glass marble straight up over my head. Escaping my imdiate vicinity, the marble obeyed proper gravity and began falling toward the desk.

Coco, having concentrated all his mana threads on offense, had no way of stopping it. I ducked and lay flat on the floor, trying to minimize exposure, but sothing blocked the front of my vision.

“……!”

Soloven had approached before I noticed, drawing up her mana. Flas swirled around her shield, forming a massive vortex.

The rapidly rising heat stole the breath from my lungs. The swirling flas began lting everything that ca near Soloven.

The intense heat not only evaporated flying debris but also Coco’s mana threads and even the raptor’s mana-infused roar.

―Screeeee! Boom!

“Nice work.”

Roughly two seconds until the marble exploded. In that brief mont, the surrounding area had turned into a wasteland.

The buildings lted by Soloven’s flas began to drip toward the “ceiling.”

I patted Soloven’s shoulder as she dropped to one knee, exhausted. It wasn’t like I needed her to block for —but still, she’d saved .

Leaving her behind, I dashed forward. I didn’t care that my skin brushed against the molten remains of the collapsing structure.

Seeing charge through the lingering heat wave, Coco panicked and raised his shield.

“Strike!”

The crystal sword I’d received from Canis. Though crude in craftsmanship, it was as sharp as any top-tier blade. I drew it and slashed a long line across my palm.

The force I applied was minimal, but the blade was sharp—so the cut was deep. As a result, the half-transparent crystal sword soaked up my blood.

In an instant, I was within reach. I leapt high and swung the sword downward. Our eyes t—Coco’s gaze unwavering.

He trusted the shield conjured by a skilled mage like himself. And that was exactly the opening I’d aid for.

Just like when we hunted the Mana-Stone Spider in the past, when Vice-Commander Sheila noticed sothing off from a re handkerchief.

“Die!”

A shield that hadn’t even flinched from Soloven’s strikes or Canis’s crystal assaults—

But now, the blood-soaked crystal sword pierced the tightly woven plane of mana.

Like a toothpick through tofu. The sensation at my fingertips was just about that.

Amazingly, the crystal sword slipped right through the shield and drove into Coco’s chest without resistance.

Blood—the substance that nullifies mana across the area it touches. Finally, it had done its job.

“Huh?”

Coco let out a baffled sound, not expecting pain like this. There was no way soone of his caliber should’ve been pierced by re brats. But the result spoke for itself.

“You… filthy worm!”

I must’ve been grinning the most satisfying smile in the world, because Coco’s expression twisted with fury. He scread, and an enormous surge of mana exploded out of him.

Caught in close range, I was swept up in the torrent and hurled backward. Just then, Canis appeared nearby, carrying Winter on her back.

“Gasp! Oh my god—your wounds!”

Winter quickly rushed over after getting off Canis’s back. Her face turned pale as she looked at my wounds.

Blood continued to pour from the hole in my shoulder, and part of my left side had sustained severe burns from touching the lted structure. On top of that, I had countless lacerations from the mana explosion just monts ago.

“Don’t make a fuss.”

I spat out the stone dust in my mouth. Along with it ca thick clumps of half-coagulated blood. It was from inhaling Soloven’s full blast of heat.

I was drenched in blood, but it wasn’t anything life-threatening. Upon hearing , Winter grabbed by the back of the neck.

“Disinfect, please.”

Coco, who must have received his first-ever serious wound, was flailing in a frenzy of mana. We had a brief window to rest.

With tears streaming down her face, Winter pulled out her backpack. All sorts of dical supplies ca tumbling out. I snatched the most familiar one.

“Aaagh! That’s gonna send into shock!”

I poured disinfectant alcohol directly onto the wound. Winter shrieked at the sheer amount I was using.

In this world, there’s no such thing as healing magic. You treat wounds manually. What we’d call a doctor in the modern world, here they call a priest.

Winter, who lacked the Divine Power to properly learn holy magic, had spent more ti in this field than most priests her age.

“Alright, get ready.”

“Get ready for what?! No—at least let check the burn!”

I stood up. Winter, her face stunned, shouted at in disbelief.

With nearly 40 centiters of height difference between us, she couldn’t even see the wounds when I stood up. It didn’t matter. Natural healing would take care of it. I’d disinfected it—that was enough.

Eventually, Winter gave up on hitting my lower back and instead pulled out the silent bell, swinging it energetically. It was because of its effect: enhancing the regeneration of believers in the Anaye Order.

“What do you an, ‘get ready’? That one’s completely lost it. Just gonna burn out on his own?”

“Are you stupid?”

Canis asked while looking at Coco, who was thrashing around with the crystal sword still stuck in him. I gestured at the surroundings with a finger, wondering why she was even asking.

Only then did Canis look around. Ah. She seed to understand and nodded. Then she dispelled the do-shaped crystal barrier she’d constructed.

“Wow~ What a ss this is.”

A man moved toward us, gliding like a breeze. His khaki-colored hair swayed handsoly as he called out with cheerful energy.

“Huh? People are…”

The ones who’d been petrified were starting to wake up one by one. Winter’s mouth dropped open. She finally realized what I’d intended.

I shot a glance at the smiling pretty boy. At a glance, he looked like soone on a leisurely outing.

“Well, look who it is. The infamous second-year troublemaker.”

“Calling yourself vice-head and you got hit by petrification magic?”

“Hey, I’m a warrior, rember? It just went zap! and I was stone, man!”

“Shut it and go help Soloven.”

He was the vice-head of the second-year Combat Departnt. A friendly guy, and he even spoke gently to .

I rubbed my aching shoulder and walked forward.

“You have a plan, right?”

“What plan?”

The vice-head followed behind, nodding toward Coco with his chin. Plan? As if.

“No one survives a dogpile.”

“He still looks pretty lively for soone with a sword in his chest.”

There’s no way he could be lively with a sword stuck in his chest—or so I thought. But Coco, his icy eyes fixed on , didn’t look that bad off.

Still, the preparations were already complete.

“Just get ready to beat the hell out of him.”

“Hm?”

I gave a slight smile and clapped my hands loudly. The people who had just co to their senses looked at in confusion.

The shift happened soon after. When I’d stabbed Coco in the chest, I had accounted for several things.

The countless glass marbles scattered beneath Coco’s feet, and the two Thunder Horn Marks engraved on the crystal sword.

All of them detonated simultaneously.