No Dark Secrets In This Book

Episode 39

When our lips parted, my butler was standing beside me. I smiled thinly, seeing the butler with his empty hands raised, indicating he had no intention of attacking me. 

“The smell of burning is terrible.”

My lips that spoke those words were wet. Ryuseong and my saliva glistened and damply smeared my mouth. I tried to wipe it with my sleeve, but it was soaked in blood, so I just licked it. So this is what the smell of a corpse is like. The smell of blackened, charred meat.

Disgusting, fishy, makes me want to vomit.

“It seems all the security personnel have been wiped out. Considering the skinned faces, there may still be living guards, so search for them. They may have only peeled off the facial skin.”

“……Yes, Young Master.” 

“Call the personnel to handle the corpses. I understand we can’t trust the escort forces, but even if we gain new enemies, we need to clear the streets first-.”

At that moment, my keenly honed senses felt someone approaching.

I tried to squeeze my forearm to draw blood, but Ryuseong, who twisted his body and stepped one foot out of the car, was faster.

-Swish.

No, what was that?

I couldn’t even read it with my eyes. It must have been hard to maintain proper balance in that posture, but a sword was swung at an unbelievable speed, drawing sword qi in the air.

A horizontal straight line.

The intense inner energy, like a bright blue will-o’-the-wisp, struck someone directly.

Smash, thud!

Was Ryuseong this strong at this point in time?

The surprisingly powerful strike cut a 4-story concrete building in half. The building, with its foundation stone cut, began to collapse.

However, seeing a sharp and annoying sound from the other side, it seemed to have been defended against. Since there was no sound of metal, I judged that the opponent was likely a mage. Just as I was about to call upon my control over my blood that had been scattered all around,

In an instant, a magic circle nimbly drawn in the air supported the collapsing building. 

And then, a thunderbolt crossed the space.

“Oh my! Don’t worry. It’s me, the genius students’ Magic Engineering professor! Hahaha, with so many people killed, there’s no way the Academy wouldn’t send out patrols, right? Despite appearances, the Academy is prestigious and contributes to maintaining public order in Seoul!”

Anyone could tell from that speech pattern, it was that professor. Professor Eipl, famous for never giving A+’s.

Smiling while scattering dozens of dizzying, shining mint-colored magic circles and cutting through the thick, black smoke, he appeared.

“But boy, you’ve done a tremendous thing!”

What he said was true, but the butler furrowed his brows. He seemed pissed off about something.

“This is not on a scale you can cover up no matter what you do, Duke Cassice. Is it my duty to send you to prison by express delivery?”

“…How dare you speak recklessly to my master, you erased name of Kazen…”

As the butler spoke gravely, Eipl made a fuss.

“Oh, damn it. Vincent! You were still alive! But don’t call me ‘Kazen’. There’s nothing I despise more than Kazen! I’m the one who cut ties, so why am I the erased name? Kazen is the erased family name!”

Honestly, Eipl seemed to be making a fair point, but I decided to stay quiet since it was interesting that the butler was taking my side. No, isn’t it fun? I’m the only one who likes this? The flunky of power VS the truth-teller. Am I the only one who enjoys this? Go, power, let’s win. 

Anyway, since Professor Eipl revealed the butler’s name that even I didn’t know, I should be grateful. But instead, the butler’s experienced face gradually began to fill with anger.

“If you had not acted rudely towards the young master, I would have treated you as a professor guiding the young master. But you, as a professor of the Academy, did not inquire about your student’s injuries and instead began intimidating with nonsensical words!”

“Aha, that was definitely my mistake… Huh? Wait, injury?”

Eipl’s eyes widened as if he had just noticed my wounds.

“Duke Cassice, why are you injured?”

…Dear God, are you listening? Please let me punch this guy in the head just once.

“With your skills, there’s no way you’d get hurt against small fries like this, right? Ah, maybe you softened up because your lover was next to you? My, my.”

‘Is that something you say to an injured person?!’

That’s what I wanted to say, but I couldn’t answer as Jeong Ian’s alter ego. I quickly decided to make an excuse.

“Haha, don’t say such ridiculous things. I’ve been sealing magic other than blood magic recently, so my response was delayed. Once my blood magic reaches an adequate level, I plan to use other magic as well.”

“Hek, focus and concentration? But for focusing, the price seems too high! No, wait… You used blood magic for the first time in real combat and did this-? …You really are a genius, Duke Cassice.”

No, this isn’t a matter of genius, it’s thanks to Cassice’ blood being a damn valuable offering. Anyway, Eipl, who was staring at me as if I was possessed, said that and shook his head, waving his staff to summon a carpet.

“…Get on. Let’s go to the infirmary for treatment. Vincent over there, I’ll issue you a permit later, so come along. You wouldn’t allow it anyway if I told you to just leave Duke Cassice to me, right?”

“With a potion…”

“If you just suture the flesh with the bones and cartilage shattered like that, you won’t even be able to treat it later! If it’s not just one or two fractures and you pour a potion, it’s straight to amputation ending. So even if you lose flesh, you need to protect the bones to some extent to handle it on the battlefield without professional medical personnel… Hmm, this isn’t something to say in front of a patient with excessive bleeding, is it? It’ll be words to live by when you become a raider later, but Duke Cassice is ‘already’ a raider.”

…I was about to head straight to the amputation ending route. Potions don’t work for comminuted fractures, I see. Makes sense, according to the original settings, potions attach and regenerate flesh, so it feels like attaching the bones while they’re still broken. So that’s why healers and medical staff were treated so well. I wondered why healers and medics got such good treatment when there were potions, but this is why. That’s why there are medical professors too. Wow. Wow. So that’s how it was…

I nearly got screwed…

“Then who will clean up the corpses?”

“Well, now that things have escalated this much, we won’t be able to avoid a police investigation. The fire was huge enough to be seen from the Academy grounds. It’ll be difficult to secretly dispose of the bodies and pretend nothing happened like you’ve been doing.”

…Uh, well, I didn’t want to pretend nothing happened, I was just saying I’d help with the cleaning crew because the streets are so dirty.

I could tell there were a lot of misunderstandings about Cassice Demillang.

‘So you’re saying I don’t have to help, right?’

Since it was something that made things easier for me, I got on Eipl’s carpet with a light heart. Soon, Ryuseong and Vincent also got on, and the carpet slowly took off. Looking down from the air, the police had the area densely surrounded. I guess I really could have been sent straight to prison if I wasn’t careful.

Anyway, Eipl sent them some kind of signal, and the police responded. And we departed.

Fortunately, there was a transparent dome-shaped wind resistance magic, so the wounds didn’t burst open from the wind pressure. But since I couldn’t fully trust Eipl, I was on edge thinking this might actually be an arrest, and my stomach started churning a bit.

I thought I might get acrophobia and motion sickness at the same time after eating and going up high. But it would be embarrassing to throw up in front of Ryuseong. No matter how thick-faced I am, there’s a limit. I don’t want to hurl in front of a handsome guy. So I forcibly held back even as my vision spun. Damn acrophobia, why are you acting up? You were gone for a while. Is it okay in a car but not okay on a carpet? Well, I guess that makes sense.

The carpet is open on all sides… Damn it!

‘Does this bastard Eipl not even have a license?’

As I got rapidly pissed off to the point my breathing became rough, Ryuseong gently let my head rest on his shoulder. In this situation, I absolutely must not throw up. If I puke, it’ll go straight on Ryuseong’s thigh…

‘Just kill me…’

Only after enduring a deathly period of time did we finally arrive at the Academy. Perhaps Eipl had contacted them in advance, but the guardian statues of the Academy didn’t beat up the butler. Thanks to that, we were able to meet the medical professor safely.

And the medical professor, our homeroom teacher, who took my pulse, spoke to me for the first time.

You know, not the words meant for the group, but the words meant for me personally. He spoke them for the first time. Finally, the steadfast silence was broken. 

“Why didn’t you vomit it out?”

Huh? What are you talking about? The motion sickness? That’s for the sake of Ryuseong’s thigh’s cleanliness…?

“A lethal poison is dissolving your internal organs. How did you endure this while staying sane…”

…What?

“Start preparing for surgery!”

I still hadn’t accepted reality, but the teaching assistants and associate professors in the infirmary began to move in perfect order. No, no, wait a minute. Lethal poison? My organs are being dissolved? Huh?

‘I really had no f*cking clue…’

I don’t even know when I was poisoned. As I was standing there dumbfounded, doing as they told me, the butler blocked the associate professor who was trying to pull the bed I was lying on into the operating room.

Seeing the butler like that, the hazy original story’s setting began to come to mind. Yeah, that’s right.

‘Cassice really hates having his body handled while unconscious.’

I remember the scene where he went off on Ryuseong like a chihuahua after waking up, asking why he touched him when treating his wounds after a battle.

And one more piece of information.

“Can’t you handle it with just the antidote without surgery?”

“His body is in a critical condition.”

“It’s fine. Just tell me if there’s a way. I’ll prepare the medicinal ingredients separately anyway.” 

“Every second counts right now-.”

“How does Demillang trust the Academy?”

A situation where a doctor would likely get pissed off.

But instead, Ryuseong moved as if he was about to do something. To be exact, the fist he had clenched loosened and his angry expression became calm.

This wasn’t about anger anymore, he was seriously saying he would do something, so I had to somehow handle the situation.

“Um, everyone, calm down. I’m fine.”

“You didn’t even know you were in this state…!”

“I have a tolerance to poisons. I don’t die easily.”

Original story information. Although Ryuseong was never told, according to what was revealed from the principal’s perspective, Cassice has a tolerance to almost all poisons! Even if it’s not a mild poison, he doesn’t die easily! The mystery of the human body for the win!

“What is that-.”

But the expressions of the people who heard my words somehow turned horrifically grim.

Uh, huh? Why are you like that?

‘Why are you acting like you’re the one who ate poison?’