I Became a Genius Mechanic at the Academy

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“Some soldier said that this wall was built a hundred years ago, and it has become so dilapidated from countless maintenance that it could collapse at any moment.”

The wall of the Borsha Kingdom.

Claire stood on the platform, giving a speech in front of tens of thousands of soldiers.

As the representative of the reinforcements dispatched by the Empire, she was there to deliver her final message before the last battle.

“…I see fear in your eyes. Many of you probably think it will be hard to survive through tonight. The number of demons advancing towards us here is nearing 200,000.”

Everyone gathered here believed they would die and not survive until dawn.

This was the prevailing sentiment among the soldiers who had to protect this place tonight.

There was no way this old wall could withstand the fierce assault of the demons.

The atmosphere of defeat loomed over the wall.

“However, there’s a fact you’re overlooking. The fact that this wall has lasted over 100 years means it has endured a lot.”

At that moment, Claire spoke a word of reversal.

She reminded them that the wall was old because it had withstood so much.

“I found out some things. There have been 15 invasions over these 100 years. This wall has really endured many attacks, including those from our Empire.”

“…”

“This wall carries the blood of many. From your ancestors to your fathers, they fought fiercely here, shedding their blood to fend off foreign invaders. The determination to protect the precious land and families they left behind is the very symbol of this wall.”

“…”

“Behind this wall are your families. Your fathers knew this, which is why, despite their fears, they stayed here until the end. They stained the wall with their own blood.”

The expressions of the soldiers darkened.

About 23 years ago.

Many soldiers lost their lives here during the invasion war from a neighboring kingdom.

And many of those soldiers who lost their lives were fathers of some families, and their children, now standing here, were protected by those men.

Claire looked around at everyone.

“Just as your fathers tried to protect you, you must have something precious as well. Protect it. Even if it means shedding blood and falling here, your fathers in the heavens will welcome their sons with pride. If you have protected what you wished to protect, that is enough.”

Flames ignited in the eyes of the soldiers, once filled with fear.

The bond of family.

Nothing could stir emotional flames better than that.

With everyone’s morale rising, Claire continued her next words.

“I am Claire of the Bernhardt family. A clan specialized in buffs and auras. To ensure your resolve is not in vain, I will illuminate your courage.”

With that, Claire began to cast a spell.

Her awakened power began to absorb the mana in the area, forming a gigantic spell circle.

This was a massive magical formation created to provide buffs to all the tens of thousands of soldiers gathered here.

– Fwaaaa!!!

The blue spell circle dyed in the land started creating buffs as it interacted with the mana in the atmosphere.

Soon, the thousands of buffs imbued with Claire’s spirit began to be absorbed into the soldiers’ bodies.

All their latent abilities manifested, and their overall physical abilities increased.

Claire looked around and shouted.

“Tonight, the enemy will not pass this place!”

That was Claire’s last line to boost morale.

However, there was no roar in response.

Rather, their gazes answered instead.

They vowed that the enemies would never cross this place.

“Everyone, to your positions!”

With that command, the soldiers who received Claire’s wide-area buff moved to their respective positions.

Finally, descending from the platform, Claire moved to the camp where Lucas was waiting for her.

Lucas greeted Claire with a grin.

“Nice job! If I were a soldier of the Borsha Kingdom, I’d be a little moved.”

“…Well, it’s just basic… I’m a buffer after all, so a little oratory is the least I can do.”

Blushing and scratching her cheek at Lucas’s praise, Claire’s face turned bright red.

At that moment, Lucas took Claire’s hand.

He pulled her towards him and held her gently.

Claire’s face turned bright red, but she quietly nestled into Lucas’s embrace.

“I’m so glad you’re my girlfriend.”

“…Ugh.”

Claire’s ears were burning like they would explode.

It felt like she had to respond, but her heart was racing so fast that her mind went blank.

How could Lucas casually say such embarrassing things?

– Thump… Thump… Thump… Thump…

But while in Lucas’s arms, she could hear his heartbeat.

Pulsing as quickly as her own.

Claire chuckled as she hugged Lucas back.

As soon as their chests touched, Lucas’s heart began to race even faster.

‘Hehe. You’re the same too. Pretending to be calm.’

The more they had physical contact, the faster Lucas’s heart raced.

At that moment, Lucas began to sweat profusely and awkwardly withdrew from her.

Looking up at Lucas, Claire noticed that his face had turned bright red as he hurriedly spoke.

“C-Claire… We might be seen by the soldiers, so how about we stand a bit apart?”

Soldiers?

Claire tilted her head in confusion, looking around.

Wasn’t this a space where only those dispatched from the Empire could be?

‘Huh?’

At that moment, Claire noticed that Lucas’s posture was getting increasingly awkward.

He had shifted his lower body too far back into a ridiculous stance.

Soon, Claire realized that Lucas was… well, puffing in a certain area, making her face flush as she stepped back from him.

An awkward atmosphere enveloped them, and they both looked away, trying to figure out how to handle it.

“Enemies!”

Just then, a demon saved them.

In the midst of the awkward atmosphere, the news came that thousands of demon armies had arrived at their location.

“Lucas!”

“Okay! I’ll be there in a sec!”

Claire nodded and dashed outside.

Lucas kept pinching his thigh, singing the Imperial anthem.

About a minute later, freed from his physiological issue, Lucas dashed towards the place where Claire stood.

– Krrr!!!
– Kyaaaa!!!

The ground was filled with demons.

They surged in without any ceremony or warning.

A black wave of 200,000 poured over the wall.

Lucas turned to Claire and shouted.

“Claire! Do that thing you always do!”

“Okay!”

Ever since they defeated High Demon Cassandra thanks to Edgar’s shenanigans, the two had grown closer.

Lucas and Claire had become a legendary duo after that incident.

They knew what each other was thinking just by exchanging glances.

– Wheeeeng! Flash!

Thus, using Lucas’s spatial magic, they leaped through space.

They distorted the very ground they stood on, allowing them to hover over the enemy’s midst.

– Gooooo…

Hovering above the enemy ranks, Claire immediately began preparing her spells.

Being well-versed in buffs and auras, she also possessed advanced spells for debuffs and dioramas.

Thus, Claire cast a wide-area debuff spell and spread it among the demons.

To put it simply, you could say it had an effect of -20% on defense.

– Fwaaa! Fwaaa!

However, the debuffs didn’t stop there.

Health recovery reduction, stamina decrease, attack power reduction, speed decrease, and all sorts of debuffs were thrown at the demons.

As the fighting strength of the demons diminished, Lucas unleashed his finishing wide-area spell.

– Wee───eeeeeeeeenge! Shooooom!

He invoked ‘Death Space,’ a spell modeled after a black hole that sucked in everything.

– Kreeeaaaaaa!!!

As a result, countless demons were sucked into the black hole and began to disintegrate.

Normally, demons could have escaped, but because of Claire’s debuffs, they were helplessly pulled in.

– Shooooooosh—

However, Lucas’s new technique consumed a lot of mana, and since it wasn’t instantaneous but rather sustained, he had to keep expending mana to maintain the spell.

To compensate for this, Claire continuously replenished Lucas’s mana, providing mana recharge in real-time.

They were a combination that naturally created synergy.

【Krrr! Focus on those guys! Bring them down to the ground and rip their limbs apart!】

However, the demons were not going to just sit back and take it.

The commanding demons with intelligence commanded their subordinates to take down Lucas and Claire first.

– Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Yet, their attacks felt like they were striking a hologram; not a single physical force reached them.

The reason was that Lucas and Claire were floating there as a phenomenon caused by ‘spatial distortion.’

In other words, they were actually elsewhere.

It was like a cowardly tactic of hiding in a safe place and beating up the enemy without consequence.

【Krrr! Break down the wall first!】

Ultimately, the commander ordered to ignore them and break through the wall first.

The Zergling Hydra unit was raining down storms that didn’t seem to tire, but with no means to strike back, they had no choice but to break into the enemy’s stronghold.

Once the wall was down, the demons wouldn’t be able to pull off such cowardly tactics.

“The wall has been breached! Repair team to this side! Block here!”

How many attacks did they endure from the enraged demons?

Ultimately, the walls began to crumble, and the situation transformed into a full-scale war.

Despite Lucas and Claire’s fierce resistance, the sheer number of enemies was overwhelming.

The defense line had to be pushed back by the enemy’s swarm tactics.

“Damn, if only my spells had a little more destructive power…”

Lucas lamented his firepower as he watched the increasingly thinning defense line.

Although from the demons’ perspective, it was a reckless statement to complain about being bombarded with infinite storms, he desired to unleash endless nuclear attacks instead.

If that had occurred, he could have saved many more people.

“…Lucas, you’re strong enough. Of course, you’ll become even stronger in the future.”

At that moment, Claire held Lucas’s hand.

Seeing him troubled by his inadequacy, Lucas smiled as he looked at Claire.

When he was with her, he felt as though this imperfect world was becoming perfect.

“…It’s coming.”

At that moment, Claire’s aura began to shine with a yellow light.

The buffs she had imprinted onto the soldiers had reached their maximum growth.

– Hooong! Hooong! Hooong! Hooong! Hooong!

Thus, the buffs, significantly magnified, began to return to Claire bit by bit.

She could feel the sincerity of the soldiers within each buff, reflecting their true intentions.

Their willingness to risk their lives while thinking of their loved ones.

That genuine strength converted into an incredible energy, lifting Claire into a profound superior domain.

Today, she was about to present ‘Descend,’ a spell only the first head of the Bernhardt family, Iris, could use.

– Fwaaaah!

The last buff to return was the one she had placed on Lucas.

His genuine love for her.

“…Thank you, Lucas. Your buff… is always so sweet.”

“Pfft. How embarrassing. So, is it time to switch roles now?”

“Yeah. Let’s wipe them all out.”

Surrounded by thousands of golden lights, Claire emerged.

The two, who had been hiding away with cowardly tactics, finally charged into the battlefield.

As countless demon armies breached the defense line and began slaughtering the soldiers,

A golden flash began to erase the demons below.

Claire floated in the air like a goddess, casting judgment.

– Kwaaah! Kwaaah! Kwaaah!

And the judgment she cast was overwhelming.

Claire’s light, burning demons like vampires exposed to sunlight.

【Kill that b*tch immediately!!!】

At that moment, Lucas’s role was focused on ‘defense.’

Blocking all physical attacks aimed at her with ‘spatial distortion.’

– Kwaaah! Kwaaah! Kwaaah!

– Kweeee!!!

Additionally, blocking the demons so they couldn’t escape was also Lucas’s duty.

Since the space momentarily separated, the walls of that space blocked any retreat.

– Kwaaah! Kwaaah! Kwaaah!

Thanks to that, Claire could focus all her efforts solely on offense.

With a single flash, she could wipe out hundreds of demons in a display of insane firepower.

【N-no way… how can I kill that crazy b*tch…】

She was too powerful to be ignored, and her attacks were effective.

The demon commander, who thought he could easily conquer the Borsha Kingdom with his 200,000 troops, looked up at Claire with a bewildered expression.

And as soon as his eyes met Claire’s, a golden flash swept towards him.

That was the last vision he would ever see.

***

At that moment, Edgar’s air carrier arrived at the Borsha Kingdom.

The soldiers of the Borsha Kingdom, who had praised Claire and Lucas, stared blankly at the gigantic whale-like airship that cast a shadow over the entire capital.

As Edgar descended to the ground, he patted Lucas and Claire on the shoulder, thanking them for their hard work.

Then he immediately went to talk with the king of the Borsha Kingdom and made a deal.

They had to move the entire kingdom.

Naturally, the king of Borsha vehemently rejected Edgar’s proposal.

“Well, that’s impossible! We have fought for centuries to protect this land—”

“Hey, friend.”

But just then, silhouettes of several other monarchs approaching, calling for the king of Borsha, interrupted him.

As soon as the bewildered king of Borsha saw them, King Altusen patted him on the shoulder and said,

“Listen, friend. My kingdom also agreed to Lord Fix’s suggestion. It’s not a bad proposal at all.”

“We decided early on to enter Lord Fix’s fortress. Such opportunities are rare, aren’t they?”

The three kings actively persuaded the utterly bewildered king of Borsha.

Finally, the Borsha king, swayed by their eloquent words, decided to move.

It was the moment when the ‘friend added’ event that offered a 10% debt reduction for inviting other kings finally bore fruit.