Chapter 30

“The porridge is starting to smell rotten.”

Drich said while rinsing his mouth with water.

“The sorcery’s effectiveness must have worn off. It’ll completely unravel by tomorrow evening.”

Quilbion wiped the corners of his mouth with the back of his hand.

The black porridge had a faint but disgusting taste.

“They said they’d eat us after a week, right?”

“Was it Dunvel? Every single one except that one had completely lost it. I don’t think we can even last a week.”

They’d been subjected to the Ascetics’ persistent stares until the very moment they escaped the cafeteria. Just how delicious did they look? He wanted to grab one of them and ask.

“If the sorcery breaks tomorrow, we won’t even be able to eat.”

“Then…”

“We have to move tonight.”

Al Terua had disappeared without a word, and there was no contact from Twella.

An isolated state.

The situation wasn’t good enough to wait with hope.

Drich tapped his mouth with his clenched fist. His friend, who’d been deep in thought, looked toward the dormitory.

“If we strike, which one first? Geron, obviously?”

“We have to kill that bastard wandering around alone first.”

“After that? There’s no way we can handle a full-scale battle. We might take down two or three, but we’d end up dead.”

“That’s why we have to hit and run.”

The number of Ascetics residing in the eastern livestock pen fluctuated. At minimum six, at maximum over ten.

“Nine. That’s the number I saw in the cafeteria.”

“Damn it. It just had to be when there are a lot.”

“First, let’s gauge things with Geron. This’ll be our first fight using sorcery.”

Tension began creeping in.

In neighborhood brawls, you’d have to be incredibly unlucky to get broken bones or lose teeth.

But fights in this place meant death if you slipped up even once.

There’d be no putting arms around each other’s shoulders and laughing afterward, either.

Get caught, and you become a meal.

Drich also trembled, probably imagining an unpleasant ending.

“Can you fight?”

Quilbion asked.

“I’ve never gone around getting beaten up.”

“Good enough.”

“You?”

“I’m the type who took hits well without getting hurt, and hit back so it really hurt.”

“Think the goblins will go easy on us?”

Drich said with a smirk.

“I’ll just have to take hits without getting hurt.”

After sharing nervous laughter, they headed to Al Terua’s room. They encountered an Ascetic on the stairs, who smacked its lips ostentatiously.

Disgusting bastards.

“Grab as many talismans as possible, and the sorcery books…”

“These two are enough. I can’t learn the rest anyway.”

He threw two sorcery books containing Yellow Form arts to Drich. Drich stuffed the books inside his shirt.

“Here, take this.”

Drich handed him something. When he caught it, he saw it was a small wooden dagger. The blade and handle combined were smaller than his palm. It looked like a toy kids played with.

“What’s this?”

“Teacher explained it when you weren’t around. Said it’s a pretty useful magical instrument.”

“This? How do you use it?”

“Hell if I know.”

He examined it front and back while holding it.

What could he do with a blunt wooden dagger?

He tried flowing nark into it first.

The nark that had been squirming inside his body transferred through his hand into the dagger. Pure force movement without forming a seal or following a sorcery system.

“This is usel—”

He was squinting at the unchanged dagger when it happened. The nark that had been flowing sluggishly into the dagger suddenly rushed toward it as if going berserk.

Uncontrollable state.

Quilbion’s eyes widened as he twisted the dagger’s direction toward the wall.

That moment.

Swiiiiish!

The toy dagger split into hundreds of strands like a horse’s tail and swept away everything in front of it.

Quilbion collapsed as strength left his knees. Drich, who’d been gathering items behind him, approached with his mouth gaping.

“…Did I almost just die?”

“I got a creepy feeling and turned it away.”

The dagger fell from his grip.

The nark inside his body had dried up completely. His stamina and mental strength seemed to have been sucked out too—his head spun and his vision blurred.

“Hey, hey, are you okay?”

“Whoa, I think I’m dying.”

His fingertips trembled. He lay on the floor with Drich’s help.

“It’s not something serious, right? Your face is blue. I’m not kidding—it’s literally blue.”

“R-really?”

“Hey!”

His eyes slowly closed. He saw Drich’s startled face. He came closer and kept slapping his cheeks, and it hurt like hell.

Stop, you bastard.

He wanted to shout out a bowl of curses, but he didn’t even have the strength to speak.

“Damn… it…”

*

Huff, turbid breath caught sharply in his throat.

Quilbion’s eyes snapped open.

“Quil!”

Drich’s hands touched his face.

“Are you conscious? Can you understand me? Are you okay?”

“…”

Quilbion laboriously raised his hand and slapped Drich’s cheek. A weak smacking sound came out. Dissatisfied, he hit him once more.

“I almost died getting my cheeks smacked.”

“Well, who told you to faint? Do you know how scared I was?”

“If you’re scared, be scared. Why hit someone’s cheeks?”

His cheeks still stung.

Quilbion straightened his body. He immediately looked toward the window, and the outside that should be bright was dim.

“How many hours was I out?”

“Four hours.”

“Fucking great.”

“It’s not that fucked. You woke up before dinner, so it’s fine.”

If they disappeared during mealtime, which was practically roll call, the Ascetics would swarm like bees and ransack the dormitory area.

Quilbion looked at the dagger rolling on the floor, then shifted his gaze to the wall.

The drawer diagonally split, cleanly cut books, and countless scratches on the wall.

“A goblin hit by this would die in one shot, right?”

“It wouldn’t make sense if they survived this.”

“Teacher left us something really useful.”

He stood up with a grunt. He grabbed the dagger and stuffed it into the back of his pants.

“But can you use that? You faint after using it once.”

“It’d be a suicide tool if I were alone. But there’s two of us, right?”

Quilbion placed his hand on Drich’s shoulder.

“I’m not that heavy, so carry me on your back and run if it comes to it.”

“I really hope that doesn’t happen.”

When cornered, just once, the wooden dagger would save their lives.

Quilbion checked the nark inside his body.

He’d been worried since the dagger had voraciously devoured it, but fortunately it was in the same state as usual.

“That’s strange.”

Drich said.

“What?”

“Your nark. It was definitely completely empty earlier. But while you were lying down, it rapidly filled back up.”

“Teacher said something like that too. Other people’s nark is generated inside their bodies, but mine flows in from somewhere.”

If Drich had used the dagger, he might have been unconscious for much longer.

“First, let’s hide these things in the room.”

Quilbion gripped the talismans hidden inside his clothes.

“After dinner, once the sun goes down, we’re going immediately?”

“Let’s see where Geron is first.”

Drich glanced out the window.

“We can’t handle them all anyway.”

“One or two. Let’s reduce their numbers and head west.”

They had to rendezvous with Al Terua, and with Twella.

“If that damn thing called fate really exists and is on Twella’s side, it’ll help us with everything.”

“Teacher said supporting characters don’t apply.”

“Then we’ll have to struggle to get some consideration. We can’t just sit here and get eaten.”

He recalled the pigs that had cried pitifully while looking at him the day before slaughter. Had those bastards vaguely known their death day too?

Quilbion had no intention of being a pig dragged docilely to the work table to die.

“Let’s go.”

After gathering their belongings, they descended the stairs. Fortunately, they didn’t encounter any Ascetics.

They entered the bedroom, lightly pulled the drawer attached to the wall, and hid the tools in the gap.

“What about carrying that dagger? Just in case.”

Drich said.

“We might get caught for nothing. It might not look like much to us, but the goblins might react sensitively.”

“Going back to the cafeteria barehanded. This is insane.”

Drich pulled out the talismans hidden inside his clothing and placed them behind the drawer.

“Hyodan—the other goblins seemed to fear that bitch. Dunvel warned them, so at least today should be okay. Or maybe not.”

“Sticking my head in a lion’s mouth would be more pleasant.”

He left the room with Drich.

They mixed in with the students moving according to schedule and headed to the cafeteria.

They ate the feed while receiving the Ascetics’ piercing stares. It was so nerve-wracking that he barely noticed the disgusting taste of the feed.

“There.”

Drich gave him a look.

He saw Geron leaving the cafeteria first.

“We grab that bastard and run, or just run. One of those two.”

“Just running doesn’t look bad either.”

“We need to know how much power we have. This is those bastards’ livestock pen. We’ll clash eventually, so confirmation is essential.”

“Right, we need to properly experience it once. Are they monsters we absolutely can’t defeat, or are they manageable?”

Al Terua had eliminated a Yellow Form goblin with a single sorcery.

They were monsters incomparable to ordinary people, true, but that didn’t make them immortal beings that couldn’t die.

Stab them and they’d die.

“Let’s go.”

They placed their empty bowls on the return rack and left the cafeteria.

He could see the ‘Sun’ moving in the distance.

Night would arrive soon.

After finishing evening cleaning, they returned to the bedroom. The moment they closed the door, they pulled the drawer and grabbed the tools hidden behind it.

Tension began rising as he gripped talismans in his hand.

Tonight, they leave this place.

“It’s getting dark.”

The light illuminating the dormitory was receding. He pressed against the wall and checked outside through the window.

The Ascetics who’d been loitering in front of the dormitory entered the building one by one.

He crawled into the blanket and steadied his breathing.

How much time had passed?

His sensitized ears caught the sound of footsteps walking down the corridor.

He gave Drich a look.

“I think it’s Geron?”

“Yeah.”

With a creaking sound, the bedroom door opened. Lamplight flickered over his eyelids.

Just like last time, Geron looked around the room once, then closed the door and left.

“Let’s go.”

He put on his shoes and gently opened the door.

The dim corridor greeted them.

The dormitory at midnight.

It felt like a completely different space from daytime.

Drich gestured. It was the direction where footsteps could be heard.

After exchanging glances, they moved.

They pressed against the wall as they moved and exited the building.

He glanced at the 3rd and 4th floors where lights hadn’t gone out yet. There didn’t seem to be any surveillance personnel.

“Should we just slip away? It’s too dangerous.”

Just as he was about to answer ‘Let’s do that,’ Quilbion’s eyes widened as he raised his head.

He saw Geron stuck to the 2nd floor wall with the lamp extinguished. The bastard moved its limbs rapidly like a salamander as it approached.

The moment he reflexively gripped a talisman to use sorcery.

“Shh.”

Geron brought its index finger to its lips.

A gesture far too human.

“You’ll get caught if you go that way. Follow me.”

Geron descended to the ground and turned its body. The rags draped over Geron’s body swayed gently, revealing the body hidden inside.

Four thorn-covered tails were attached to its lower back.

“Quil.”

Drich raised his hand gripping a talisman to chest level. It meant he was ready to fight.

Geron turned its head.

“If there’s a commotion, they’ll wake up. That’s not what you want, is it?”

Quilbion looked around.

It was still quiet. But the moment it got noisy, just as Geron said, the Ascetics would rush out. Monsters that used people as health tonics.

“Hurry!”

It was an urging voice, yet one containing worry. Quilbion placed his hand on Drich’s shoulder.

“Let’s follow for now. Like that bastard said, there’s no answer if we fight here.”

He didn’t know what scheme this was, but they had to avoid fighting in the heart of enemy territory.