The Academy’s Ankle Reaper – Chapter 135

[What are you doing?!]

Someone whose identity remains a mystery just killed Demon Bishop Belphegor, who had just revealed himself.

Even if he’s a rookie Demon Bishop, he’s still a Demon protected by a Great Demon.

Especially since the Great Demon Belphegor’s power is dominion, there are very few beings across the continent that can withstand it.

Even an expert at the highest level would become nothing more than a puppet under the power of domination.

[You guys don’t need to know… ]

The modulated voice crackles.

It was a regrettable moment when the security enforced on all participants for the meeting felt inadequate.

In a meeting of Demon Bishops, they could only ascertain who the Demon was based on their position, and all other information remained confidential.

Race, gender, height, appearance, voice, location—all information was private, meaning that the Uninvited Guest didn’t know the identities of the Demon Bishops, and vice versa.

[Seems like life is treating you well these days? Given how you’re continuously pumping people into the Empire, it seems like there’s an overflow of human resources.

So I thought I’d lend you a hand. If you want to keep grinding people, I’ll gladly do it for you.]

“Grinding people into the Empire.”

It seemed to refer to the recent invasions on the Academy.

[Just now, Gluttony and Sloth both bit the dust. So you can expect to be next.]

[You bastard… who do you think you are to us?!]

[Doesn’t matter, but… if you’re that curious, I’ll let you know… I am….]

The Uninvited Guest stopped there and vanished.

After he left, the atmosphere in the conference room was grim.

Everyone didn’t want to believe what the Uninvited Guest had said.

[Even Gluttony…?!]

The claim that a Demon Bishop of Beelzebub, who wasn’t even present at the meeting, had been killed couldn’t be easily dismissed as nonsense.

Since everyone kept their strongholds a secret from one another, there was no way to confirm if it was true, but coming from someone who had just casually taken down Belphegor’s Demon Bishop, it felt credible.

Confusion spread.

Despite the Demon Church’s doctrine claiming that one could achieve eternal life serving the Great Demon in Hell after death for fighting valiantly for the Great Demon, a meaningless death was out of the question.

The terror against the Academy had turned some anxieties into reality.

Having not achieved any significant results and repeatedly failing, they had merely brought attention to the existence of the Demon Church.

[Surely, that wasn’t in Satan’s prophecies, was it? Why don’t we take care of this before launching another attack on the Academy!]

Breaking the thick silence, Leviathan’s Demon Bishop boldly declared.

[We must stop here for today. It’s time to change the location of the hideout once more.]

[…Then I’ll see myself out.]

One by one, the others followed Leviathan’s Demon Bishop out of the meeting room.

Left alone in the conference room, Satan’s Demon Bishop stood frozen, pondering the events that had just transpired.

[The Master has moved.]

He muttered to himself.

Was there ever a prophecy like that among the ones he had seen?

Every prophecy of Satan had always been accurate until now.

The rise and fall of the Demon Church and all the experiences he had gone through had aligned perfectly with Satan’s prophecies.

But something had gone awry.

The turning point had been when the first invasion on the Academy went south.

From that moment, he could distinctly sense that something had changed.

According to the original prophecy, during the first terror attack, the Great Demon Belphegor would descend upon the Academy, and everyone within would become his slaves.

Of course, even that alone wouldn’t cause the Empire to crumble.

The Belphegor that descended upon the mortal realm and the dominated individuals would be suppressed by the Empire’s finest knights and Holy Knight Orders, but that would be the beginning of the downfall.

Countless prodigies who were supposed to secure the Empire’s future would die, and the Empire would plunge into despair and begin to fracture.

Using the chaos and suffering of humanity, who would foolishly start fighting amongst themselves despite having a common enemy in the Demon Church, he had planned to spread the Demons further and further, setting the stage for more and more Great Demons to descend upon this continent and turn it into hell, but the prophecy had gone awry.

And even now, things were becoming increasingly distorted.

[Yes, my Satan. I will devise a countermeasure.]

After a long moment of contemplation, Satan’s Demon Bishop seemed to have heard a voice from somewhere and bowed his head.

[Remember the Master of the Five Kingdoms Alliance… I’ll keep it in mind.]

He reflected on the words of the one who attacked them as the last residual specter vanished, leaving only silence in the conference hall.

—————————————————

After the Demon Bishop was killed, the hideout fell remarkably easily.

The absence of the pivotal Demon Bishop was significant, but they were hiding, which meant there weren’t many combat-capable individuals around.

There were a few Demons around, but they were quickly suppressed.

The Demon Church’s strength lay in having so many regular believers that made it easy to disguise themselves, but when the situation demanded combat, they were of no use at all.

Regular believers, dressed in black robes resembling burlap sacks, were being dragged away like dried fish.

Despite wearing wide robes, their meager frames showed just how hard their lives had been.

“Went smoothly.”

“Looks wrapped up, so let’s head back.”

One Holy Knight approached and bowed.

“We’ll take care of the cleanup. Since they were just believers alongside the Bishops, I’ve heard the Church will send people from the Church Country. Thank you, Shadow, for your eternal commitment to humanity.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Naturally, he was wearing Squirette’s black armor as he was working as the Master.

He could leave the cleanup to them and return.

He placed a hand on Amy’s shoulder and headed toward where Beelzebub’s Demon Bishop was located.

“I’m glad he wasn’t a Great Demon with an obvious weakness.”

“More than that… it worries me that as soon as we killed Belphegor’s Demon Bishop, another one sprang up immediately.”

It bothered him that another Demon Bishop of Belphegor was created so quickly.

He knew that Demon Bishops couldn’t just appear in this world easily, so what was going on?

“I was under the impression that Demon Bishops couldn’t be created that easily…

I don’t know; tracking the remaining Bishops more steadily might reveal a clue.”

“Are you going to continue this? Didn’t I say this was just a warning?”

“If they don’t show any signs after this one, they’d think it was a bluff. Since we’ve managed to clean up the two most suspicious spots in one go, we need to look for others too.


And the condition I gave Wendy was that we’d find all the Demon Bishops.”

As they moved, they spotted the Holy Knights and Casey who had once again bound the regular believers together like dried fish.

“Hey, did you finish over there too?”

“Yep. No issues at all.”

“Really? It’s my first time wielding a sword imbued with that much Holy Power, and it felt pretty good.”

Having decided to leave the rest of the cleanup to the Church folks, the three returned.

.

.

.

As soon as the work was done, he sent Amy back to the Academy first.

“Am I going alone??”

“It’s not quite over yet… but I’ll let you come back again, so just wait for now.”

“Ugh…”

“That’s right. If you go to the capital, you’ll also have to be investigated, and being in a coat under Recognition Interference Magic won’t look good for you in that regard. So just wait patiently.”

While Amy pouted, Casey, who had come along, proudly puffed out her chest.

She spoke the words he wanted to say.

But there was one thing missing.

“Casey, you too.”

“Me?”

“You’ve finished your investigation already. I’ll be back today, so just wait for me.”

Leaving the two alone at the Academy, he made his way back to the capital alone.

He had to report that it was finished.

.

.

.

“Already done?!”

About two days into tidying up two strongholds, the Saint blinked in surprise.

“Even so, you can’t be serious… you’ve already located and repelled two strongholds with Demon Bishops?”

Even so, you can’t be serious; speeding through locating and repelling strongholds in completely different regions far from the capital is quite a feat.

The Saint looked surprised at first, but soon smirked in understanding.

“Hehe, I was a bit surprised, but that’s because you had some confidence, I see. Here, I’ll give you a compliment.”

“Don’t just hug me out of nowhere…!!”

Carmel had somehow hugged him again.

He couldn’t evade it; even if he reached a superhuman level, he couldn’t react to her movements.

It was probably due to the Saintess’s traits.

Having endured the powers of the Great Demons, she still appeared to be a stretch.

He gathered his breath after managing to shove her away.

“Huff… huff… enough of that! Remember what I mentioned!”

“Yes, yes. I’ll make sure to prioritize the task force consisting of those who don’t possess Holy Power for your Holiness, so no need to worry.”

“Even if they weren’t visible, they must’ve gotten bigger while we wasted time. Their power might be greater than what the Church estimates.”

He mentioned it, but he didn’t really believe they’d discover an actual stronghold.

The continent is vast, and there’s a limit to how many personnel can be mobilized.

If they’re holed up somewhere really uncharted, then there’s nothing that could be done.

Still, if they could outline the basics of searching, it would help suppress their expanding influence.

“I heard McKinto proposed holding a summit soon concerning the previous incident.”

A summit.

It’s a meeting where the Masters gather under Saint McKinto and the Pope’s banner.

It was a precious occasion where Masters scattered across the continent convened in one place, but of course, those people had never gathered altogether not even once.

Neither I nor my teacher usually went except for the Commander, nor had the Sword Master attended due to his reluctance, and the wandering Masters hadn’t shown up either, meaning already four were absent.

But some representatives from other countries attended, making it no different from the heads of each country meeting together, so it became known as a summit.

It’s finally here.

I’ve been waiting for this.

“Well, it’s quite fortunate; I’ll need the other Demon Bishops to deal with the remaining ones.”

“Hehe, but that won’t be an easy task, you know?”

I’m not doing this for free; I plan to guide the other Masters to proactively attack the Demon Church.

Since I’ve killed Demon Bishops three times by myself, it would be nice if the rest handled the remaining ones.

I know it won’t all flow as I wish but I’d like that to happen.

‘What’s done is done though.’

As I left the meeting of the Demon Bishops, I mentioned the name of the Master from the Five Kingdoms Alliance, “Highness.”

They would have no choice but to associate him with the culprit who attacked them.

As for laying the blame on Highness… I feel no guilt.

If I can manipulate them well, I might encourage the Masters to act to protect their own nations.

“You were away, and the principal’s treatment concerning the Academy has been established.”

Carmel brought up a rather sensitive issue.

It seems the treatment regarding the principal who couldn’t adequately safeguard the Academy has been decided.

“Is he facing execution or something?”

“Nothing that drastic. His property will be seized on the grounds that he neglected the demon threat, and compensation will go to the victims of the incident… and the Church’s forces will be additionally sent to the Academy for surveillance.”

It appeared there wouldn’t be any direct punishment for the principal after all.

That person had established many merits in the past, and there wouldn’t be anyone suitable to take his place at this point.

“If the Church’s forces… Does that mean they’ll be sending Holy Knights or Inquisitioners as reinforcements?”

“Yeah, they’re also sending a Bishop.”

Sending the Church’s forces to the Academy is welcome news.

It seems they haven’t entirely given up on the Academy yet, so it’s best to be prepared.

They’ve likely been planting moles in the Academy trying to create Demons and such.

Even just two Inquisitioners and six Holy Knights would be enough to cover the entire Academy.

If the Holy Knights or Inquisitioners are joined by a Bishop…

Wait a minute, a Bishop?

“A Bishop is coming?”

“It’s a done deal; there’s nothing I can do about it~”

One of those narrow-minded old heads is going to arrive?