CHAPTER 250: VIGILANTE IN THE ACADEMY [1]

While the ranking matches continued inside the academy walls—fierce duels, cheers, and silent standoffs captivating the crowds—something else was unfolding beyond the perimeter.

Something much darker.

A storm was coming.

Not the kind born from clouds or thunder.

But a storm nonetheless.

A man, early thirties, was behind the wheel of a large delivery truck barreling down the rural road that led toward the academy.

The vehicle tore through the landscape at a dangerous speed, its engine growling as if angry at the pavement. The trailer bounced with every bump in the road.

On the side of the truck, painted in bold green and white, was a logo: a stylized image of Earth wrapped in leaves.

In the center, neatly written, were the words: Green Earth Produce.

A harmless name.

A harmless disguise.

Inside the cab, the man gripped the wheel with white-knuckled hands. His jaw was clenched tight, eyes focused dead ahead. Sweat trickled down his temple, though the AC blasted cold air.

His finger hovered near a small switch beneath the dash.

Screeeeech—!

The truck skidded suddenly, tires shrieking as he slammed on the brakes just outside the academy’s main entrance gate.

Dust and gravel kicked up into the air.

For a moment, everything was still.

"Hey what was that?!"

"Do you know how to drive? Step out of this damn truck right now!"

Two guards in front of Velcrest’s main gate shouted as they approached the truck, clearly pissed off.

One of them, a broad-shouldered man with a buzz cut and a baton strapped to his thigh, banged the side of the cab with the back of his fist.

"Hey! Step out of the vehicle!" he barked. "You nearly took out the south column—are you drunk or just stupid?"

No answer.

The driver remained inside, unmoving.

The second guard—younger, more cautious—stepped to the side, hand drifting toward the crystal-embedded comm device on his chest.

Something felt... off.

"Sir, step out," he called again, more measured this time.

Still nothing.

Then—click.

The driver opened the door and stepped out.

Slowly.

Deliberately.

He was average-looking, just as you’d expect from someone hauling lettuce and potatoes—blue uniform slightly stained, cap pulled low over his face. Nothing threatening at a glance.

But there was something in his eyes.

Or rather—what wasn’t.

They were glassy. Detached.

Empty.

The older guard moved in, still annoyed. "You deaf or what? I said—"

Then he stopped.

Something clicked in his instincts.

He reached for his baton.

Too late.

The driver smiled.

Not wide.

Not crazed.

Just... wrong.

"Don’t alarmed gentelmen’s. I am here to visit someone that’s all. I meant no harm to anyone."

...At least that was gaurd thought until the man opened his mouth and said in sweet tone that didn’t pose any kind of threat.

They almost fell for his words but today only few selective people from outside of the academy are allowed to enter.

They just can’t let him pass.

The younger guard stepped forward, hand now firmly pressed to his crystal comm.

"No entry allowed today," he said, voice sharp, scanning the stranger. "Turn around. Now."

The man tilted his head, as if surprised.

"But I have a delivery," he said, almost apologetically. "To the chairman. Personal request."

A lie.

There was no mention of a delivery in today’s schedule, much less one for the headmaster.

The buzz-cut guard narrowed his eyes.

"Produce doesn’t come through the main gate," he muttered. "That’s south logistics dock. You think we don’t know the routes?"

The driver blinked slowly.

Then he chuckled. Soft. Low. Almost to himself.

"Ahh... sorry," he said, voice calm but not quite right. "You see, I already said I’d be coming today."

The younger guard furrowed his brow. "Are you a family member of a cadet? If so, you’ll need to fill out the application form, and we’ll—"

"Ah, no," the man interrupted. "Not family."

He looked up. Smile still on his face.

"If I had to say... I’m a comrade."

"A comrade...?"

"Yes."

He pulled out his phone. Opened a saved email. The subject line flashed briefly in the sunlight.

[Shocking Scenes at Velcrest Academy — Is This Really Okay?]

[TheVigilante Spirit of the Farmer: Sweat, Soil, and Wasted Dreams]

He tapped the screen gently.

"There’s a student with a good head on their shoulders in that academy right now," he said, his voice dipping into something almost reverent. "So I came... to help."

He paused. Looked at the guards like they were insects on a leaf.

"I have to get in. Even if I have to force my way through."

With that, he reached into his delivery bag.

The guards tensed.

Buzz-cut drew half his baton again, body going rigid. The younger guard’s fingers hovered over his communicator.

Then the man pulled out...

A leek.

And a heavy, spotted yam.

The two guards stared at him.

"...What the hell?"

The man’s expression didn’t change.

"Guardsmen," he said solemnly, holding the vegetables like sacred relics, "did either of you eat biased meals yesterday?"

They blinked.

"One of you," he continued, stepping forward, "left the steamed cabbage untouched. And the other one... threw out his eggplant."

"What?"

Buzz-cut looked genuinely confused now. "Are you seriously trying to threaten us—with vegetables?"

The man tilted his head.

"Not just any vegetables," he said softly. "These are righteous crops. Raised with love. Disrespected by ignorance."

The yam in his left hand began to glow.

No—pulse.

As if something inside it was alive.

"What the fu—"

The younger guard didn’t get to finish.

The leek lashed forward like a whip. It sliced through the air with unnatural speed, smacking the communicator crystal clean off his chest.

"Device disabled," the man whispered.

Buzz-cut lunged in, baton raised.

But the man ducked, rolled forward, and slammed the yam straight into the guard’s ribs.

It exploded.

Not like a vegetable.

Like a curse.

A concussive shockwave blasted outward, hurling Buzz-cut several meters into the wall with a grunt.

The young guard scrambled backward on instinct, sheer disbelief freezing his movements.

The man stood now in front of the gate, clothes rustling in the breeze, a second yam already in hand.

"Waste not, want not," he said calmly.

"...You’re insane," the guard muttered, eyes wide.

"No."

He looked up.

"I’m early."

The silence that followed was deafening.

Smoke drifted from the crater where the yam had detonated, its remnants sizzling faintly against the scorched earth.

Shards of stone and dust hung in the air, casting long shadows as the sun flickered behind the smoke like a nervous bystander.

The young guard stared, heart hammering, mouth dry. Buzz-cut wasn’t moving—at least not yet.

This man... whoever he was...

He wasn’t bluffing.

The second yam pulsed ominously in the stranger’s grip, like a heart that beat not with life, but with something older, crueler—magic that had no business being fused with crops.

The young guard pressed his trembling fingers to the shattered remains of his communicator crystal.

Nothing. Fried. Useless.

He was on his own.

The stranger stepped forward again, each footfall slow and deliberate.

Not hurried.

Not desperate.

Inevitable.

"Step aside," he said, voice as calm as a monk delivering a sermon. "There’s a rot in your soil. I’m just here to pull the weeds."

"Y-You’re not getting through," the guard managed, voice shaking, but stance lowering into a defensive crouch. "Not while I’m standing here."

The man paused.

Something in his eyes flickered. Not pity.

Respect, maybe.

But only the kind given to a dying tree before the axe falls.

"Then you will fall," he said quietly, and tossed the second yam into the air.

Thunk.

It landed in his palm with a soft, meaty slap.

The guard lunged forward—training kicking in, baton crackling with stored kinetic energy. A desperate strike toward the stranger’s jaw—

Swish.

The man sidestepped with unsettling grace, ducked low, and brought the yam up again—this time slamming it into the ground with both hands.

BOOM!

Another pulse erupted, this time laced with blinding light. The young guard was flung backward, skidding across the gravel like a ragdoll.

He groaned, ears ringing, body aching—but he was alive. That was more than he could say for Buzz-cut, still slumped unconscious near the wall.

The man didn’t look back.

He turned to the gate.

And it opened.

Not from the inside.

Not from any code or override.

But from the outside—unfolding like a flower to the sun as the yam’s detonation echoed through some latent mechanism embedded in its ancient foundation.

It responded to his energy.

To him.

Or to what he carried.

The stranger looked up at the looming campus of Velcrest Academy beyond the threshold—its proud towers rising like watchful sentinels, its wards shimmering faintly in the air, disturbed now like ripples across still water.

And then he spoke—not to the guards, but to the academy itself.

To those inside.

To the student he had come to find.

"I have arrived," he said.

Then he stepped through the gate.

Unchallenged.

Unstopped.

Like a shadow at noon.