A building in the faculty wing of the School of Magic.
Professor of Potions, Kyler Schutzman, was calmly organizing his belongings.
His icy-cold demeanor would have felt out of place to anyone who knew him. In truth, he hadn't had to rush to pack since his identity hadn't been discovered yet, but the news that Prince Grace of the Kingdom of Meirn had been killed in an incident had forced him to hurry.
'Gardian Fell. I didn't expect the guy in charge of my potions to stab me in the back, he should have already fled by now.''
Snap!
"Hey, Professor. We're here."
The rest of the students who had called as soon as they heard what had happened had arrived.
At the sound of their voices on the other side of the door, Kyler flicked his hand to break the locking spell and paused.
He chalked up the apprentice's shaky tone to panic over the events at the academy, but something was off.
Before opening the door, Kyler called out his name for confirmation.
"Alexander."
"Yes, Professor."
"Did you bring anyone with you?"
"...."
There was a moment of silence, and Kyler sensed something was amiss, so he quickly gathered up his things and activated a disposable portal circle he'd created for emergencies.
"Well, that's.... It's just me and the net, Professor?"
Ignoring the sounds from beyond the door, Kyler disappeared through the portal.
After a moment of silence, the door rattled violently and was soon shattered by a blast of black energy.
"You missed."
It was Adrias Cromwell who stepped into the room.
Behind him were Kyler's trembling students.
"I, I don't know anything. I don't know where the professor went, or that there was a fire escape like that!"
Alexander Tibburn, one of the students, said as he fell to his knees, sobbing.
Next to him, a student who was only a sophomore looked terrified, almost fainting.
Ignoring their reactions, Adrias entered the room and scanned the area.
"There must be some kind of hidden laboratory with Karon.
In the center of the room was an emergency portal that still had a faint trace of mana.
It didn't matter, though, because I knew where Kyler had run off to.
Now it was time to destroy the clues.
Adrias searched the room for a moment, then turned to Alexander.
"Me, me?"
"There must be a device or place Kyler hid it. Where is it?"
"Uh, how do we get to...."
Kyler's students expressed surprise that Adrias knew where he was hiding. Whether he was surprised or not, Adrias was urgent.
"Tell me quickly."
"Yes, yes."
Alexander had been as cooperative as he could be with Adrias, realizing that he'd been a lame duck since he'd been abandoned by Kyler.
He'd already proven that he had a tremendous amount of information, and that he'd found them, Kyler's students, so quickly, so he had to be cautious.
"I, Student Adrias, if you give this to me, you're really letting us go, aren't you?"
The hidden device was on Kyler's desk.
As he revealed its location, Alexander looked at Adrias uneasily.
Without answering, Adrias read the magic circle embedded in the device and used his gift of seeing mana to force it open.
"Ah, Adrias, student?"
"Yes. Now go."
Adrias didn't care that Kyler's students didn't know his identity.
All he cared about was what would give away his identity.
For now, he had to erase the clues in this place and track down Kyler, who had fled.
'Along with Karon, he's the only one in the academy who knows my identity. He's a possible flashpoint, so I'll have to deal with him.
I activated a hidden device and the bottom of the desk opened to reveal a staircase.
He rushed down to check it out, but there were signs that everything important had already been taken.
Adrias had to get after Kyler, so he stopped searching and set the lab on fire. The magically created fire was mixed with the power of his mana and would not be easily extinguished, so he turned around without worry.
When I stepped outside, Kyler's students were long gone.
'Just in case, here's ....'
Adrias neatly set the office on fire and leisurely left the scene.
* * *
Woo-woo.
An owl hooted across the deserted forest.
Where I am now is outdoors, not in the academy.
I took advantage of the chaos at the Academy and slipped outside.
'I'm relieved to see that all the playables are alive.
I'm told there were more potion drinkers I didn't find, and it took the sacrifice of a professor and three assistant professors to stop them. It was an unfortunate sacrifice, but I don't have two bodies, so I can't know everything and stop them.
As a result, the academy was in chaos and out of control, and I was able to clear Kyler's office and sneak out quietly.
'In the original game scenario, I would have been walking down this path with the other characters.
I already knew the hideout Kyler had fled to.
If the first round of the game took place inside the academy, the second round was the fight that took place in his hideout after he fled.
While the first part of the fight uses only ordinary elemental magic, the second part of the fight reveals black magic, and the patterns become more varied and tricky. Honestly, it was almost impossible to beat without a companion NPC.
"I skipped the first round, so what's the point?
I'd always lost Kyler in the second game, but I had no intention of losing him now that it was real life and not a game.
I slowly approached Kyler's hideout.
I donned my Bloody Dan mask and hid my identity.
It wasn't necessary, but it was better to be thorough.
Kyler's lair was a small cabin in the woods that looked like an abandoned house.
Even inside the cabin, I could only enter the hideout through a magic circle, which was no problem as I'd already been through it many times in the game.
I entered the dilapidated cabin, drew Galakshur, and infused mana into the circle's hiding place.
Yay.
The circle activated, revealing the hidden passage.
He immediately felt a surge of mana and cocked his head to the side.
Whiz-bang!
The magic that passed through the mask shattered the walls of the hut.
"How did you know to come here?"
A voice called from the passageway, revealing Kyler from the shadows.
I didn't bother to answer Kyler's question, just bolted out the door.
Whoa.
I raced to the inside of the passageway and unleashed a blast of sword wind, but Kyler moved his shadow to lightly block it. His shadow was three-dimensional, writhing and moving as if it were alive, a tricky black magic that I'd encountered in the game.
As my opponent blocked the sword wind, I reached Kyler in a flash and pierced his shadow.
"You're ignoring me too much."
The shadows I thought I'd pierced slipped right back in.
The shadows held tight, binding my arms and the rest of my torso except for the mana-laden Galakshur. Seeing me in such a state of limpness, Kyler relaxed and approached me.
['Pure original sin' feels the power of 'charitable greed'].
I was surprised by the sudden phrase, but I didn't let it bother me.
I've found greed in an unexpected place. Does he have the rest of the jewels?
"I wonder how the hell you got here, let's see your face first."
Kyler approached me, immobilized as if caught in a spider's web, and reached for my mask.
And just as his hand was about to touch my mask.
Pop.
Something skeletal and pure white grabbed Kyler's shoulder.
"Huh?"
Kyler's panicked voice met Nickel's eyes as he appeared out of thin air.
A tongue!
"Off!"
After slashing at his captor's shoulder, Nickel rushed toward Kyler without stopping.
In the meantime, I used fusion magic to create a fire with Galakshur.
Flames.
The black flames, made of Auror, began to consume the shadows that enveloped me with nothing more than a burning nature.
A deadly blow that caught my opponent off guard.
I wanted to kill him right away, but alas, I failed.
'This is getting to be a bit of a headache.
Without an instant kill, there's no such thing as luck.
Now it's pure skill.
The good news is that Nickel's attack was just as deadly, if not more so.
Passacaglia!
Kyler's right arm is severed, and his pale complexion is barely clotting as he blocks Nickel's attack. Nickel, unable to land a decisive blow, chased after him, blocked by shadows.
"Earth Shield.
I blocked my opponent's retreat.
Suddenly, Nickel's sword fell toward Kyler, who was in the way.
Quadruple!
Shadows swirled out of nowhere to parry Nickel's blade, and Kyler, still pale, rode the shadows out of the way.
"Phase two.
It shouldn't be.
He was forced to use a summon he'd been saving for sudden situations like Nickel's.
"Hmph!"
Timur, who had become stronger through evolution, let out a huge roar.
[Revenant Berserker (Legendary)]
-Timur
-Undead
-6 tiers
-Mana: 2010
-Talent: Ego/Polarity: Kwon, Berserk
Unlike when Nickel evolved, he didn't change species, but he did move up a tier.
Perhaps it was a sin-related evolution, or perhaps it was the fact that the number of evolutionary branches increased depending on what he had experienced, but in any case, Timur became a sixth-tier undead.
"I still feel like a nickel, though.
Tiers were like jobs in other games.
Tier 6 was like a sixth class.
However, Nickel was stronger than Timur and Ludo, who were Tier 6, because it was as if he had a Hidden Transformation even though he was Tier 5.
As soon as Timur was summoned, he activated Berserk and ran.
His physical abilities outclassed Nickel's, so he quickly reached Kyler, who was acting suspiciously.
Kugugung!
Pow!
Kyler was in such a hurry that he even used elemental magic to block Timur's charge, but Timur activated Berserk and swung his fists against the magic.
Pow!
Shadows wrapped around Timur's fist, absorbing the impact.
In that brief moment, I could see Kyler hastily downing the potion.
"You didn't stop him.
I had it all figured out, but it's a shame.
By the time the shadowy Timur lunged once more, his opponent's magic had already ramped up.
Thud. Pow!
Timur's arm was caught in the shadows and twisted like a pretzel.
His brow furrowed as he watched it bounce back like vomit.
"Hmph. Now I know who that is."
Kyler, whose body was becoming grotesque under the effects of the potion, smiled at me through blackened eyes.
"Adrias' student, right?"
I didn't bother to answer.
I was just trying to focus on the new fusion magic I'd been working on earlier.
"Hmph. You may have hit the nail on the head, but it's too obvious. Sword and magic at the same time, plus necromancy. If you're going to do that, why bother with a mask....?"
Nickel, now closer, swung his sword at Kyler.
But his shadow magic, now stronger than ever, blocked it with ease.
"When the hell did you get into ministering to these undead, they seem to be superior to the ones your master, Karon, has."
"Shut up."
I walked away, holding the sword with the fusion magic I had almost completed.
At the same time, I summoned Rudo.
"Grrrrrr!"
Koo-koo-koo-koo-!
The passageway shattered into pieces as the giant Ludo was summoned.
Kyler, seeing the giant undead, made a surprised face and blocked the falling debris.
"What is that undead, a flesh golem?"
Before he could finish his sentence, Rudo's greatsword swung down.
Its overwhelming mass caught even the most potioned Kyler off guard, and he parried it with a burst of mana and a shadow.
With Nickel on one side, Timur on the other, and Ludo's greatsword swinging above me, I slowly completed the enchantment on my sword.
'It's the first time I've used it in real life, but....'
New fusion magic with unexpected results.
Chirp.
The magic that finally appeared was 'Bone'.
This fusion magic was a combination of necromancy and swords.
Sharp bones sprouted from my sword, which stretched and swung like a whip.
Quadruple!
Sensing danger, Kyler quickly summoned shadows to surround him.
But my bone whip with the Auror in it was impenetrable, embedded in the shadows.
"What is this, auror or magic?"
I twirled my sword without answering.
Bones sprouted from the long whip-like twigs sprouting from a tree.
It pierced through the shadows and reached Kyler.
But they couldn't pierce Kyler's potion-hardened flesh.
"Hahaha, I thought you had something big planned, but that's all you got?"
"Like I said."
My head was overloaded.
At the same time, my nose was dripping, but I didn't stop the mana array.
"Huh?"
Kyler, who had just realized something was amiss, tried to back away, but I had already finished casting.
"You're too loud."
Quang-!
Quang-!
Double cast.
This expedition.