The Academy’s Deceased Ate It All

As expected, getting a spear through the head wasn’t enough to kill Milited.

It wasn’t simply because it was one of the Seven Calamities.

Its true form was a liquid with no fixed shape to begin with, which meant standard vital points like a brain or a heart didn’t exist on it at all.

More than that — an instant before the spear pierced its head, it had deliberately blown its head apart and re-formed it around the shaft, locking the weapon in place.

To anyone who didn’t know better, it would have looked as though it had taken a spear clean through its skull and walked it off. The fact that it had bothered to do something like that for an attack it could have simply let pass through gave me a rough read on its personality.

Even in the original, its personality rolled randomly enough that you couldn’t pin it down….

Sometimes it came across as taciturn, speaking only when necessary. Sometimes it was a flippant smartass who threw out nonsense at every opportunity. Sometimes it was timid, sometimes it had a crude joke perpetually at the ready, and sometimes it was the kind that broke into sobbing wails the moment anyone said a word to it.

And since its preferred attack patterns shifted with its personality, pinning down even a rough read on it was actually pretty important.

”How sad. I extend you a courtesy, and what comes back is a cold spear-point.”

Milited said the words and slowly pulled the spearhead out of its own skull.”So I have to ask — were you planning to leave it lodged in there until the blade warmed up?”

I didn’t answer. I made a short, simple gesture with my hand.

The spear in its grasp wrenched itself free as if it had a will of its own and flew back into mine. Ooh, Milited let out a small noise of admiration. It even broke into a small round of applause.

”In any case, I’d like to have a word with you, Yu Ji-hyeok.”

How the hell does it know my name, I thought — and as if it had caught the question, it tapped a finger against the side of its head. With each tap, tap, nearly half its finger sank into its skull and came back out again.

”Eating up all three at once meant I unintentionally swept their memories into one corner of me. I’ll need to sit down and sort through it all properly later. Mm….”

”There’s nothing I want to talk to a piece of shit like you about.”

I meant it.

In the original, if you asked which of the Seven Calamities people found most unsettling, Milited tied with Sbeungali for an overwhelming top vote. What those two had in common was their knack for sowing discord among comrades, pushing them toward betrayal, turning them against each other — temporarily, sure, but enough to make people drop from the party entirely.

There was nothing to gain from letting it talk in this spot.

The moment I reached that conclusion, I started to activate King of Thorns, ready to come at it with everything from the start and put it down—

”You have to go back, don’t you.”

It simply added the words in a calm, unhurried voice.

”To your real home.”

That stopped me short despite myself, and I found my eyes locked back on it.

Milited — the figure wearing Kath Ryle’s face — grinned at me and tilted its head as if asking how about that?

”Just so we’re clear, this is memory I’ve had since before I was sealed. I know you well, Yu Ji-hyeok. That’s why I called you Saint.”

Its tongue trailed across its lips as it spoke, the tone leisurely.

Its lips couldn’t possibly have been dry or chapped — it was just imitating a human gesture.

”You’re the one who’s going to grant my wish. That alone makes ’Saint’ an entirely fitting name for you.”

It raised its palm at me, as though refusing to entertain any objection.

”The pendant. The thing that accumulates the essence of every one of us Seven Calamities you kill. You’ve got it, don’t you?”

”…….”

”Silence, then. That’s fine. Perhaps all of this is a misunderstanding on my part. In which case, since I’m already misunderstanding, let me ’go a little further with the misunderstanding and ramble on as I please.’ That’s all right with you, isn’t it?”

Milited grinned again.

”That pendant was an item with a designated owner from the start. Yu Ji-hyeok — it belongs to you. You’re the only being capable of bearing the karma and curses of the Seven Calamities. Not even one of us… one of the Seven Calamities, could pull that off.”

”And I want it.”

”Because, as I said earlier, it’s the means to fulfill my wish.”

I found myself murmuring the word almost without thinking.

”…Time.”

”Exactly! That’s it, time!”

It clapped its hands together loudly.

”With that, I can accomplish my will.”

And to command time is, in turn, to command space.

It looked at me with eyes that gleamed wetly.

”Until now, space has been wholly Ahriman’s domain. But — if I’m given just a little more time, then devouring his domain becomes literally child’s play… no, that’s a bit risky… yes, easier than taking candy from a baby.”

”Which is why I’m extending you a proposal, right here and now.”

”Join hands with me.”

Milited watched me with eyes that had turned strikingly serious.

”If you wish, I’ll stake my name as one of the Seven Calamities.”

”I swear it.”

”If you accept, I’ll do whatever it takes — and the very first thing I’ll do is send you back to your real home.”

”And before you leave, the pendant… by then it’ll be useless to you anyway. Just hand it over to me. That’s all I ask.”

For a moment it felt like the breath had gone out of me.

The way it had pointedly said real home — it clearly knew everything, from my true purpose to the fact that I’d come from another world.

I didn’t even have the space to wonder how.

Its sudden offer to help me return to my original home had set off too violent a tremor inside me.

”In that case…!?”

Just then, something came flying out of my shadow and tore at Milited with vicious speed.

Minerva.

Both hands gripping her glaive, she swung it straight at Milited, and Milited — whose leisurely manner up to this point fell away in an instant, as though it had been a lie — scrambled back to dodge her strike.

”Shut your mouth, Milited.”

”…Minerva. It’s been a while. Not that I’m pleased to see you.”

With a heavy thud, Minerva slammed her glaive down.

It was rare to see Milited make that kind of expression — well, rare on Kath Ryle’s face, anyway — the unmistakable look of pure irritation.

”You — do not be taken in by this one’s snake-tongued tricks. I told you, didn’t I? That one may well be more troublesome to deal with than I was.”

Minerva spat the words out in a cold voice.

”And one of the reasons was exactly this. It’ll dig its way into someone’s heart by any means and slip into the cracks. A massive boulder splits with just a few drops of dew. Never forget that the smallest fissure can give rise to the greatest of consequences.”

She slowly raised her glaive and leveled it at it.

”In the first place, for this one, an oath sworn on its own name is nothing more than empty words dressed up to look like something meaningful.”

A piece slotted into place at that.

Milited — among the seven of the Seven Calamities, it was the only one whose names were so numerous that even in the original work, the setting had it pegged as randomly chosen.

That was what name meant to it. That was what an oath sworn on its name meant.

Something it could overturn or change whenever it pleased.

”…Quite the guardian’s arrived. Why don’t you offer the boy a teat to suckle on while you’re at it?”

Milited shot back at Minerva in a sneering, irritated voice.

Minerva snorted as if the suggestion didn’t even merit a real reaction.

”To think you, with your nose always in the air, are now reduced to groveling and parasitizing on a human…! It’s just like watching the lot that used to follow me — bowing your own head, wagging your tail. Truly a sight. Then again, given your ability, I should’ve known you were a masochist from the start.”

”Vulgar wretch. Go on, say another word.”

Minerva murmured the words and lifted her glaive high, twirling it slowly as she advanced — and that was when it happened.

”Hup!”

At some point, Jin Ye-seul had circled around behind it, and she slammed Milited across the head with everything she had.

Her right hand was stained black, but what wrapped around her arm wasn’t Henir’s Shadow. It was armor forged from my scale.

”Kuh-hagh?!”

And her strike landed cleanly on Milited’s main body.

It had known from the start that Jin Ye-seul was closing in — but it had dismissed her entirely as not worth tracking, and so the blow caught it completely off guard.

”Wh, ugh…? Wait, hold on — Shadow Walker’s…!?”

Jin Ye-seul kept on it relentlessly, and Milited — which had been turning its body to liquid to let her attacks slide through — abruptly muttered something that sounded like genuine panic. Right behind her, Choi Hyun-woo lunged in with his sword raised, and Lee Yu-na followed, the mana churning visibly around both her hands.

”Danu, wife of the Dagda — Danu. Don’t be coy with me, please lend me whatever power you can spare.”

”Your descendant offers this fervent prayer in this very spot, ancestor mine….”

From behind me, the voices of Ivan and Lee Ye-eun came in turns.

A moment later, the assorted voices chanting their spells layered together into a strange, choir-like harmony.

”Get clear!”

At Han Su-yeong’s shout, Choi Hyun-woo, Jin Ye-seul, and Lee Yu-na — who had been pressing Milited in seamless coordination — leapt back as one.

Evangelline and Han Su-yeong called out something in sharp voices, and the ground Milited stood on began to ice over in an instant.

”…Looks like you and I are going to have a lot to talk about later, hm?”

Evangelline shot the line out, glancing between me and Minerva.

Then she turned her head back, stretched a hand toward Milited, and walked forward murmuring something. Minerva, meanwhile, slipped quietly to my side, glancing around as she came.

”…I’m sorry. You did tell me not to make a move….”

”No.”

It wasn’t so much that her cover had been blown — it was more that she was worried about what that might cost me, and her face had taken on a deep, glum cast. I shook my head at her.

”You saved me. If it had kept talking like that any longer… I might’ve gotten swept up in its line.”

…And, embarrassingly, I half meant it.

After warning everyone else not to listen to a word out of its mouth, and then having me react like that — I couldn’t bear the shame. Apparently my homesickness for my original world ran deeper than I’d thought. I decided to stop the train of thought there.

”And it wasn’t something we could’ve hidden forever. Don’t worry about it. There’s no need to apologize like that.”

”…Mm. Thank you. For saying that.”

Minerva said it and gave me a faint smile.

Even so, she said staying out here with me would only cause me trouble, and slipped quietly back into my shadow.

”Hideous.”

Right about then, Alice Blesbuck’s cold voice cut in.

I turned my head to look, and I could see exactly why she’d chosen that word.

Milited — its entire body cracked, broken, and gouged in, ground into a sorry state in that brief stretch of time — was hauling in ragged breaths.

”You crazy bastards — what the hell is even going on? How are every single one of you holding gear….”

It muttered the words, sounding genuinely incredulous.

It probably hadn’t been given a single second to reconstitute or evolve its body before everyone started laying into it from every direction.

If we just kept driving it like this, it was going to die right there without managing a thing.

”…So the numbers really are too lopsided.”

The moment it said it, something came welling up and bursting out of its body.

And each of those things began writhing and taking on a human shape.

”In that case, let’s even up the numbers a bit, shall we.”

…Contrary to its expectations, I’d already warned everyone about this in advance, and no one looked rattled.

I knew what kind of ability that was the moment I saw it.

It was one of Milited’s signature abilities — generating doppelgangers — but not quite the standard doppelgangers Esmeralda or Landschi created.

Its version generated a doppelganger of anyone whose blood or hair it had consumed.

It looked nasty and dangerous on paper, but doppelgangers being doppelgangers, they came in at well under half the strength of the original. And on top of that, the ability carried a huge restriction: it could only summon doppelgangers of people who were no longer in this world.

In the original, the doppelgangers of long-dead Ten Powerhouses kept popping out — apparently its followers had scrounged the materials together — and that had made things hellish. But with every single one of them alive in this timeline, there was nothing to fear.

The most it could probably pull out was the occasional hero from ages past.

”My pride and joy — my collection.”

I’d seen enough of the smug murmuring from it.

I wrapped King of Thorns around myself and started walking toward it slowly.

”The first priestess of the World Tree.”

At those words, Lee Ye-eun’s eyes narrowed.

One of the fragments that had burst out of Milited’s body settled into the form of a woman who looked startlingly like Lee Ye-eun.

”The founder of the Magic Tower.”

A young boy with a cold expression appeared.

”The wandering knight who led the mercenary band that became the Association’s predecessor.”

A man swung a sword and took a peculiar stance facing us.

One after another, more doppelgangers took shape, and roughly when the count of fragments matched our own numbers—

”And lastly.”

Milited dragged in ragged breaths and looked over at Jin Ye-seul, who was watching it with bored, flat eyes.

”Shadow Walker.”

The moment it said it, Jin Ye-seul gave a small, involuntary twitch.

I started walking with the attitude that I didn’t care whether it was Shadow Walker or anyone else, channeling mana into my sword.

The idea was to just cut every one of them in half in a single sweep, since this was already a pain.

But.

His.

Face.

A face.

That absolutely.

Couldn’t be here.

Was, right.

Now.

In front of me.

”……Huh?”

My sword slid from my hand and a sharp metallic ring went up.

The others looked over at me, wondering what was wrong, and even Sbeungali — somewhere inside me — was saying something to me, I could feel it.

But I couldn’t see anything. I couldn’t hear anything.

The only thing in my field of vision was the last doppelganger it had produced.

”……Ji-na?”

Standing in front of me was her.