No Dark Secrets In This Book

Episode 54

‘The ruined nation joke seems a bit more critical.’

Both are rotten, but at least Cassice Demillang thinks the ruined nation joke is slightly stronger. More precisely, it got bonus points for striking first. Was that why? In their battle where they rushed at each other with the intention to kill, the one who quickly gained the upper hand was Logan.

“Is that all the skill you have? Isn’t it a national disgrace?”

“This bastard, every single word he says…!”

Logan is a spear knight. He also uses the trick of contracting a divine beast sealed by a shaman in an artifact, like Diedrich, to command a unicorn despite not being born with a shaman’s talent.

Handling a typical knight’s spear, the interval between his attacks is longer than others. He can also aim to increase destructive power with the divine beast’s charge. So Lee Hyang, who had to avoid the unicorn and spear with his bare body, looked almost out of his mind.

As a sorcerer, he needed to buy time to cast sorcery, but the unicorn’s speed was burdensome enough just to avoid, so he was rolling on the floor covered in dust.

“Hey, you son of a bitch! Let me smoke the last one! I’m suffocating!”

“Says the one holding a smoking pipe.”

The last one refers to the slang for the last cigarette in a pack, and it’s an unspoken rule that everyone accommodates the person when they smoke the last one.

But Logan smirked and increased his speed again.

The spear he wielded was different from the Eastern ones. It was a lance-type weapon, relatively thick with three triangular awls attached to the end.

Since it deals damage even when swung sideways and when hit by the awls, Lee Hyang avoided it by half-rolling on the ground again this time, but he didn’t expect the unicorn’s head to also become a weapon.

Because of that, he properly got hit in the torso.

Bam!

Hae Yuna couldn’t even scream, and Lee Hyang was lifted into the air and then fell flat on the ground. Even when hit with the lance, he limply collapsed as if unconscious. The outcome was already sufficiently decided.

But Logan didn’t stop. He commanded the divine beast to firmly press down on the ankle with its hoof.

As if contemplating whether to break it or not.

“The price of rudeness must be paid…”

“Hyang… Hey, you guys take the exam paper. I said take it. So stop. Stop it!”

“What should we do, comrades?”

At the plain question, Capone laughed cruelly.

“You’re asking all sorts of things after already deciding.”

“That’s right. But won’t the ankle be too noticeable? How about just kicking him in the solar plexus and ending it?”

“Not bad.”

“Still, to make an example…”

Hae Yuna tried to throw herself at them without another word. As if she had already prepared herself to fight three-to-one and get beaten up.

But Shin Myohan grabbed Hae Yuna’s shoulder as if stopping her.

And at the same time.

“Devour it.”

An unbelievable thing happened.

The unicorn Logan was riding suddenly disappeared as if it evaporated.

Feeling a mental shock as the connection with the divine beast was cut off, he felt tinnitus vibrating in his ears and tried to land by propping the lance on the floor, but even the lance scattered into ashes.

Logan, who forcibly took a falling posture, sprained his wrist. But there was no time to rest. When he came to his senses, his coat was gone, his shoes were gone, his socks were gone, and even his shirt was gone. Everything happened in an instant, so there was no way to respond. In the end, only his pants remained.

“What the hell is this…!”

When the half-naked Logan swung the lance in the air while shuddering, someone leisurely raised his upper body.

“Ah, my back hurts. It’s not good to lie on a cold floor like this. Ondol (heated floor) is the best.”

Lee Hyang, who had been pretending to be unconscious and told the phoenix to devour everything, smirked.

“Lee Hyang! You deceiver…!”

“You idiots, if you fooled us with illusions, you should have known we could fool you too.”

In fact, from the very beginning, when he took a puff from the smoking pipe, the outcome of the fight was already decided. That was Lee Hyang’s level that was not known to the world.

Lee Hyang didn’t even mention such secrets and shamelessly grinned.

“Don’t make me laugh. The duel isn’t over yet…!”

“Oh, really?”

At those words, Lee Hyang snapped his fingers. Then, flames that circled Logan like a donut began to blaze and burn. The fire narrowed the circular boundary as if to devour Logan.

He couldn’t back away anywhere.

“So should I keep the fire going? Tell me straight. Did you lose or not?”

The fact that the phoenix is the contractor of Lee Hyang, a descendant of Gukseong, means many things.

Everyone treated him as a descendant who would revive Korea from the fact that the legendary divine beast encompassing East Asia chose Lee Hyang.

Lee Hyang found their expectations burdensome, but he also wanted to fulfill them. So he consistently smoked the smoking pipe.

It sounds strange, but it means he increased his intimacy with the phoenix…

The phoenix is a high-ranking divine beast among divine beasts, so when he was young, due to his low intimacy with it, there was a risk of him almost becoming immortal because he couldn’t handle the excessively overwhelming power, but now it was different. If Lee Hyang wished, the phoenix’s flames could easily devour someone like a human.

“If you don’t admit it quickly, you’ll really die. Will you admit defeat? Or not?”

However, Logan chose a third path.

“…Capone! Diedrich! Release the magic!”

“What?”

That’s right, by breaking the magic that blocks the mana waves pulsating inside the barrier.

[ The scent of magic fills the air ]

[ The scent of sorcery fills the air ]

[ Unauthorized ]

“You crazy bastards…!”

“Let’s all die together!”

[ Catch the intruders ]

[ Catch and roast them ]

It was a grand scheme to turn everyone into water ghosts to be caught by the guardian statues.

***

“…”

“…”

Just like that, my idiot squad and Ryuseong’s friends were caught. Really. For real. There were attempts to escape, but everything was futile in the face of the guardian statues’ running skills.

“…Will they really be roasted?”

“…At least they won’t need to gather firewood from afar.”

I nodded my head grimly. Probably. After all, the guardian statues are made of wood.

“…But it seems they finished agreeing before getting caught.”

This time, Ryuseong nodded his head. He must have been recalling them reaching a minimum agreement before getting caught.

“Hey…! We came out to duel because we hate the sight of each other!”

“What are you saying?”

“That would result in fewer penalty points than a theft case…!”

It was true, so that’s what they decided to do. Even while being tied up like dried pollack with the ropes of the guardian statues and dragged away, they continued to spew hateful words at each other as if they despised each other, so the evidence would be excellent too. The fact that it’s sincere makes me dumbfounded, though.

It would be nothing compared to the frustration we experienced when Logan was about to cross the line.

Ryuseong tried to jump down right then, and I tore him away because I ‘saw’ the phoenix hiding in the air. But in Ryuseong’s eyes, I must have looked like someone who, as a Demillang, agreed with the subordinates trying to break Lee Hyang’s ankle, and because of that, we almost fought like crazy people on top of the chandelier. If Lee Hyang hadn’t gotten up quickly, the gem-like things attached to the chandelier would have all shattered.

Anyway, the corridor of dawn where the students were dragged away became tranquil again. It became quiet, just as the guardian statues wanted.

“…How anticlimactic. To think this huge incident would end like this. It was fun, though.”

“…What’s wrong with your personality?”

I’m not sure about that. Shall we go back now, since there’s nothing to see here, as I was about to say that to him, I heard some footsteps. Ryuseong must have heard something too, as he placed his index finger on his lips.

We held our breath and listened to the sound, feeling strangely anxious even though the barrier was still up.

The pitter-patter of footsteps eventually stopped in front of Professor Goedecke’s office.

I thought it might be another student who came to steal, but judging by the bald head, it was clearly Professor Goedecke himself.

“Phew. Phew. Hurry, hurry.”

Perhaps he woke up from his nap due to the noise from the statues. He was panting as if he had run in a hurry, crouching down and then rushing into the office with fingerprint recognition. And he opened a certain drawer. The drawer label shone in the moonlight. D3.

From that moment, I started to feel strange.

“Oh, thank goodness, thank goodness.”

Because Professor Goedecke was holding a stack of papers and sighed in relief as if stroking his chest.

“I thought, since the guardian statues were causing a ruckus here, they might have been stolen…”

“…”

“The exam papers are safe. Phew.”

Professor Goedecke, who exaggeratedly wiped his sweat, put the exam papers back into that drawer and came out again, disappearing beyond the dark corridor.

And at that moment, we truly couldn’t say a word.

“…”

“…”

…From where was that senior’s story true?

We couldn’t ignore the fact that we witnessed with our own eyes that the exam papers were indeed in the D3 drawer. Then, did Professor Goedecke really designate today as the day for the exam papers to be stolen?

Is there really a professor who does such a crazy thing?

But to say it’s nothing, can’t we not understand the reason why the seniors call him the weirdo Goedecke even though he doesn’t usually do eccentric things compared to others?

Then, if so, all of that is the truth…?

“…”

“…”

It was endless if we tried to investigate. But we were students who had no intention of stealing the exam papers, and after looking at each other, we implicitly agreed.

So we slowly descended from the chandelier. And we ran to the dormitory without looking back. Perhaps because the night was chilly, it felt somewhat eerie…

By the way, to tell a story about the future, strangely, that senior did well on the exam for this subject, according to later rumors. Even though he didn’t study at all normally, how he was able to do that, we just…

Decided to live on without knowing.

‘How could a normal person like me understand crazy people…’