Chapter 127

Bang.

When an unusual loud sound echoed, Alexander immediately came out of the church to see what was happening.

“What the…?”

He looked up at the black smoke rising into the sky from a distance and shivered. He wondered how long it had been since the Hero’s rampage and if someone else had made a pact with a vile deity. But soon he realized that other people were also looking up at the sky and realized that it was not the aura of evil.

There was nothing else that could produce such a ominous color other than the aura of evil.

“Monsters…!”

Magic.

In other words, it was the energy emitted by monsters.

“It’s coming from the school?!”

It took him a moment to notice that the source of the smoke was St. Sophia. What could possibly be causing so many monsters to manifest there? No matter how much he thought about it, nothing came to mind except for a terror from the opposing forces.

He had to prevent the mass death of students at any cost.

“Priestess?”

“I’ll be right back!”

Alexander released all limits on his body and dashed towards St. Sophia. At this speed, it would take at least twenty minutes. It would be great if the teachers inside the school could respond, but there weren’t many who could fight against a large number of monsters.

The only person he could hope for was…

“Tiamat.”

Unfortunately, it was just Tia, that little girl.

“Please let me go, Tia! I will defeat those monsters!”

“Hmm? If I let you go, can you sweep them all away?”

“Of course! Despite appearances, I’m a great spirit! If you let me go, can you fix my wings too…?”

“Hmm? I don’t know how to fix that?”

“How could that be…?”

It was a desperate situation. Lara had no choice but to conclude that.

In the middle of the monsters, the black dogs pouring out of the warehouse like a swarm were something she could do nothing about, despite being a great spirit.

The magic of monsters has a way of dragging down anyone who lacks sufficient courage and preparation into a panic.

So most of the students and faculty would surely die pitifully without even being able to resist when confronted with those monsters.

“Zizi! Help me!”

“Zhak!”

As soon as Tia yelled at the top of her lungs, a gigantic phoenix flew down from the sky, leaving flames in its wake.

As Zizi leaped into the air, a mirage shimmered around its beak. With a bang, the flames that spewed forth from its beak engulfed the warehouse.

The warehouse of St. Sophia was instantly covered in a bright red flame, and no monsters could be seen emerging from inside anymore.

‘I destroyed the source. But what about the monsters that have already been released?’

It was good that no more monsters would increase. However, the issue was the monsters that had already been released and were rampaging throughout St. Sophia.

There was no way to prevent a catastrophe.

At that moment, Lara sank down in despair.

“Ugh! I have no choice! Tia has to step in!”

“…?!”

Clunk.

Tia picked up a birdcage with a serious expression on her face.

It was a resolute face, free of fear. How could a first-year student not be suppressed by magic while the senior students were running away in terror?

For a moment, Lara was surprised by Tia’s boldness.

“Are you not scared?”

“I am scared! But it’s okay! This is all a test, right?”

“Y-yes…?”

“Tia did this before! Before enrolling! A test where black dogs that look just like those monsters came pouring in! Last time, I was too scared to do anything, but not now!”

“…”

This was bad.

It wasn’t that she wasn’t afraid; she simply didn’t comprehend the situation properly.

She never expected to confuse reality with the holograms of the testing room.

“Um…!”

“Hm? Zizi, why?”

“Ah, never mind…”

Lara hesitated to enlighten Tia that this was all reality. There was no need for her to feel that way.

It was an opportunity for the daughter of a dragon to deal with the monsters without fear, and there was no need to scare her unnecessarily.

As she looked up at Tia, who was running off excitedly, Lara thought about that.

“Everyone, run quickly!”

“Hey! There’s a monster ahead too!”

“Damn…”

Meanwhile, Isaac, who was leading the children in evacuation, came to a sudden halt.

Monsters were slowly approaching from the only escape route, growling.

Soon, the monsters chasing from behind began to encircle them.

Seeing the black energy and the crazed eyes approaching quickly made him feel like his legs would give out and he would collapse at any moment.

Some children were already frozen in place, having wet their pants in fear.

‘I must confront them.’

Isaac gritted his teeth and made a desperate effort to overcome the fear.

If he fell apart here, everyone would be stuck and die.

He had to do something.

But having just exhausted all his magical energy, he had no way to counterattack with magic.

With no other choice, Isaac clenched his fists tightly and stepped forward.

He had to hold out until a teacher came to rescue them.

“Ugh…!”

The moment the monsters pounced on him, Isaac instinctively thought,

“I’m done for.”

Even if he managed to handle the monsters charging at him from the front, he would surely be bitten and turned into a bloody mess by the ones attacking from the sides and behind…

He lamented that he had only managed to buy himself a second and squeezed his eyes shut tightly.

“Yip!”

With a horrible sound, blood splattered across Isaac’s face.

Boom. Bang. Bang.

It sounded like an air cannon was firing, and pieces of the monster’s body scattered everywhere.

Isaac’s body shuddered when he caught a glimpse of the monster’s head rolling and its lifeless eyes meeting his.

It was wind magic.

An incredibly skilled type of magic at that.

That meant it must have been cast by the vice-principal, who was a former great magician.

With a bright expression on his face, Isaac turned around.

“Vice-principal…?”

“Hm?”

In a complete twist, it was Tia standing there with a puzzled expression.

At first, he thought the teacher who had cast the magic was far away, and Tia had just coincidentally found her way here.

“Tiamat! Behind you!”

“Yikes!”

But when Tia punched with precise movements, Isaac gaped in shock.

Despite not even touching, the air pressure from her punch shattered the monsters into pieces.

Now he noticed that Tia’s school uniform was stained with pieces and blood of monsters, making a mess of her attire.

After Tia wiped out all the monsters, she smiled brightly.

‘I almost took that punch earlier.’

If he hadn’t known better and had joked around, he might have ended up collecting pieces of flesh and bone with a pair of tweezers for a funeral.

Thinking this, a chill ran down Isaac’s spine.

“Guys! You should also use your fists!”

“Uh? At this distance?”

“Hmm! Like this! You can punch like this!”

“Uh…?”

With each of Tia’s punches, the monsters that had been charging from afar exploded.

The children stood in awe, unable to comprehend, while Tia sighed as if frustrated by the kids’ bewilderment.

There was an excellent long-range attack that could be executed with just their bare hands; why were they not using it?

If they had just received some training from Sister Leo, they wouldn’t need to flee like this.

Tia sighed genuinely, feeling regret.

“I’m going to go! I’ll take care of the rest! Just watch over Zizi for a second!”

“Uh, uh…”

After confirming the safety of the children and Isaac, Tia swiftly tossed the birdcage to Isaac and vanished over the building in a single bound.

The children watching her back were filled with awe and admiration.

Even though she was around the same age as them, she was so strong and courageous.

They could never imagine that Tia was mistaking all of this for a virtual reality test and was sprinting around to score high points.

‘I think this test score will turn out great!’

She was truly everywhere at once.

Wherever she sensed magic, Tia darted out and crushed the monsters.

Her control of strength was both clean and precise.

Thanks to Tia’s power, not only did no one get hurt, but not even a single scratch appeared on the walls.

It was as if the teachers didn’t even think to stop a student from going in and out of such a dangerous place.

“That girl…”

Nikolai clicked his tongue as he watched Tia skip around excitedly from a distance.

Having closely observed Tia for a long time, Nikolai felt that the current Tia was very different from usual.

Though she seemed unstoppable and courageous, Tia was usually easily startled by minor things.

Something was wrong.

Conclusively, Nikolai got up abruptly.

“Your Highness? Where are you going?”

“There are still monsters lurking over there!”

“Don’t follow me. I need to go take care of a foolish girl.”

“Your Highness!”

Having just managed to evacuate outside of the school, Nikolai entered back in without any weapons, completely unarmed.

There was a guy who was on the brink of death, and he couldn’t just let him be because that guy was stronger than him.

Nikolai gritted his teeth and started running.

“W-what the heck…?”

As he crossed over the wall and entered the school, Alexander let out a gasp.

Monster corpses were littered everywhere.

He had no idea how to make sense of this situation.

It was too unrefined to be called terrorism and too incongruent to be deemed an accident.

Alexander soon gave up on trying to sort the situation and decided to respond first.

“What the…?!”

At that moment, he spied Tia quickly leaping from building to building.

What in the world was a first-year student doing in a place full of monsters?

However, upon closer inspection, Tia appeared to be excited.

“If she keeps that up, she’s bound to get hurt or die.”

A jubilant girl often messes things up.

No matter how strong she was, it was clear she would make a mistake and get seriously hurt.

That rule had applied universally to everyone on countless battlefields without exception.

With a dagger drawn from his sleeve, Alexander started sprinting towards the direction that the splitting sounds were coming from.

He didn’t want to see Julia crying over Tia’s dead body.

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