Chapter 44

As usual, Amecitia was running around the school with weights attached. But that day, unlike other days, the scenery around her felt like it was swaying.

'I was fine running this much normally, but is my condition bad today?'

Should I take a break? She considered it, but since her legs felt fine, Amecitia continued running around the training yard.

Then Grimory came running from far away and shouted to Amecitia.

"Amecitia! What are you doing right now?!"

"What do you mean... I'm running, why are you suddenly like this."

As Grimory came running, Amecitia stopped in place.

'Hm?'

Even though she had stopped running, she felt the surroundings shaking. The swaying scenery wasn't because her body felt unwell-the Academy was really shaking.

Grimory, who had run toward Amecitia, caught her breath and slowly opened her mouth.

"Huff... huff... Amecitia, right now... there's an uproar about an earthquake at the Academy. But you're still at the training yard...."

Glancing over Grimory's shoulder at the Academy building, she could see students hurriedly escaping outside.

"I guess the earthquake is bigger than I thought?"

"Right now the bookshelves in the library have all collapsed and windows are breaking, it's chaos."

Realizing that the current situation wasn't the time for training, Amecitia removed her weights, put them in her backpack, and took out a towel to wipe her sweat.

"You brought out all your important things, right?"

"No, I left some behind. But the situation seemed serious so I got myself out first."

"What about Carmine?"

"Saying it was a new case, they slipped out faster than me. They're probably running around somewhere looking for the cause of the earthquake right now, don't you think?"

"Well, as long as they're safe, that's good."

As students gathered one by one at the training yard, Amecitia and Grimory looked around searching for someone.

"Where's the Professor?"

"I know right... where is he and what is he doing...."

They were secretly worried, but the Academy buildings were already under the professors' control, so there was no way to go back inside.

"Well, if it's the Professor, he probably got out before the earthquake even happened."

"That's probably right."

At Amecitia's words, Grimory nodded and said.

At that moment, Grimory, who had been looking around, flinched and stopped moving.

"Grimory?"

"......."

Suddenly Grimory's face turned deathly pale. Then, trembling with fear, her teeth chattering, she collapsed sitting down with a thud.

"Hey! What's wrong?"

"The surroundings... the surroundings are bright red...."

"Red, what do you mean-"

Amecitia, who had been questioning Grimory's nonsense, suddenly stopped speaking. Remembering what Grimory's specialty was, Amecitia looked up at the sky.

It was a clear sky without a single cloud, but Grimory was staring blankly up at the sky, trembling.

"It's never been like this... what should I do...."

Meanwhile, in Grimory's muttering vision, the world was completely dyed red. Covered in red fog, the sky, buildings, everything was covered in red.

As if standing in the center of a giant red fog.

A giant red fog that wouldn't scatter even when touched, large enough to envelop the Academy's wide grounds all at once.

At that moment, a giant magic circle began appearing in the sky.

The magic circle, drawing out circles one by one, created a red barrier and began encasing the entire Academy in a single dome.

The barrier flowed down smoothly in a spherical form, like water flowing down.

"Amecitia!"

"I know, I can see that too."

As Grimory grabbed Amecitia's arm, Amecitia looked at the red barrier with a serious face.

One could mistake it for the Academy's defense system, but the two had already witnessed it once before. The Academy's defense system took the form of a blue rectangular barrier. But this was red and dome-shaped.

The red color of the barrier even looked ominous, like the color of blood.

Students who noticed the magic circle began murmuring one by one.

While everyone was pointing at the sky and talking about this and that, Carmine approached the two silently, scratching their head.

"......."

Amecitia made eye contact with them.

She looked like she would normally ask 'where have you been,' but instead she opened her mouth looking at Carmine with an unusually serious face.

"Carmine. Go find the Professor right now."

* * *

Meanwhile, Henrik had come up to the top of the Academy through the secret passage and was heading to his office with William.

-Crunch, crunch.

Stepping on broken glass shards as they entered the building, inside it was silent as a mouse. In contrast, the training yard visible beyond the window was packed with gathered students.

It seemed everyone had evacuated to the training yard because of the earthquake. The collapse of the underground labyrinth must have been felt as tremors even at the Academy above ground.

Henrik opened the door to his office.

It was to treat the curse that had dyed Oliver's chest red.

Inside the office, perhaps due to the tremors from underground, the windows were cracked and several reagent bottles had fallen to the floor and shattered.

He quickly swept the glass shards into a corner with his foot and immediately began searching for something. When William entered after him, Henrik nodded his head and pointed to the sofa with his chin.

"Lay him down there."

William followed Henrik's instructions and laid Oliver down on one side of the office sofa. Oliver was groaning lowly, suffering from the pain of the curse.

After checking Oliver's condition, Henrik immediately rummaged through the drawer, filled a large syringe with medicine from the workbench, and then plunged it straight into Oliver's chest.

"Kuhk!"

Then, his eyes snapped open at the sudden pain digging into his flesh.

"Ugh... urgh, ughhh!"

"Just endure it a little."

Confirming that Oliver had opened his eyes, Henrik slowly pushed in the medicine from the syringe.

As the medicine was injected, Oliver's chest, which had been dyed red, slowly began regaining its original skin color.

Oliver gradually regained consciousness.

"...Where is this."

"It's my office. Are you coming to your senses?"

"Office... Ah! Henrik?!"

Oliver, startled to see Henrik, soon opened his eyes wide seeing that his chest had returned to normal. The curse that had been dyed red and continuously causing him pain had disappeared as if washed away.

He fumbled and checked his chest. There was a slight scar left from the curse's influence, but there wasn't a single painful spot.

"How did you cure this curse...."

"......."

As Oliver let out a groan and looked at Henrik, William also expressed his admiration.

A medicine that cures curses-such a thing did not exist in this world. To be precise, it was a medicine that didn't exist at this point in time.

The medicine that cures curses was something developed after the war with the demons broke out.

Naturally, for Henrik who had experienced regression, it was an utterly ordinary item. He had merely refined it to enhance its effects and added ingredients tailored to the necklace's curse.

Oliver's questioning gaze at Henrik lasted only a moment before he suddenly snapped to attention, hurriedly stood up, and rushed to the window.

"It's begun."

The sky was, quite literally, pure chaos itself.

Red and blue barriers collided with each other, throwing off sparks, and a massive magic circle was carved into the empty air above.

"That's...."

Just then, Oliver reacted upon seeing the magic circle.

He seemed to know something about it.

"Do you know anything about that magic circle?"

"Well...."

Oliver hesitated for a moment, biting his lip hard, but then nodded as if he'd made up his mind and looked at Henrik.

Henrik calmly replenished his pouch with potions and checked his equipment, meeting Oliver's eyes as if telling him to continue.

Oliver clenched both fists and slowly opened his mouth.

"Carlo Mandolin, my father, is the source of all this."

"......."

At Oliver's words, Henrik nodded as if it were obvious.

"I know."

"What?"

Thanks to Henrik's refreshingly matter-of-fact response, Oliver stared at him blankly.

Henrik, on the other hand, shrugged as if he'd saved time by not needing to explain.

"There was someone who informed me of this before you did."

Henrik calmly placed the broken necklace fragments from his pocket onto the table.

It was the artifact that had been eroding Oliver, which he'd brought for analysis.

At Henrik's behavior, acting as if he already knew everything, Oliver stared at him intently.

Then Oliver swallowed hard and said,

"I have one suspicion about the demon."

"......!"

At that, Henrik turned his head to look at Oliver with interest. Information about the ritual, the magic circle, and Nebiross had been gathered, but the most important piece-where the creature had possessed someone-was still lacking.

When Henrik tilted his head as if telling him to speak, Oliver slowly opened his mouth.

"My mother was alive."

"Your mother? But previously, didn't you say...?"

"Yes, she passed away before. But she was alive before my eyes. However... that was no longer my mother. Something more sinister... emanating an aura like that of a demon."

"......."

At Oliver's words, Henrik continued asking as if to confirm.

"Are you certain your mother passed away?"

"Yes. Because of that, my father shut himself in his study for several years and wouldn't come out. But the mother I saw underground looked exactly as she did just before she died."

"......."

It's him.

The puzzle pieces began to fall into place.

Nebiross was the Sovereign of Necromancy-for him, using someone already dead as a vessel wouldn't be much of a problem.

No, rather, since he tended to prefer the dead, the demon eroding Oliver's mother was undoubtedly Nebiross.

'The future has changed because of my actions.'

Henrik quietly nodded.

By obtaining the Sephirum, Nebiross's plan had been accelerated, and it was an unexpected stroke of luck.

A creature that would have become extremely troublesome was now in a considerably weakened state.

The premature and still incomplete magic circle and the unprepared Legion-these were proof that Nebiross was not yet complete.

For Nebiross, whose Legion was his power, this was practically being naked.

'If I can somehow deal with the Undead Legion, I can definitely eliminate Nebiross.'

Even so, he was still a Demon Duke, a vessel that transcended individual power, so caution was necessary.

Moreover, though incomplete, he still possessed a Legion.

'I can stop him now.'

Currently, Nebiross's ritual was in progress, and there was no one here who could break through the red barrier.

Furthermore, it was only a matter of time before the Academy's defensive barrier collapsed.

If the defensive barrier disappeared?

'Something will come out.'

He had to move immediately.

'Nebiross....'

Henrik recalled the creature's name again and looked up at the magic circle in the sky.