Chapter 264
That night.
The teaching assistants of Toxicology were busier than ever.
They requested permission from the dormitory and visited each and every Toxicology aspirant who participated in the boycott to personally deliver a message from Belya.
—Professor Belya said she has something to tell you in person.
Of course, the message reached Claudia as well. She gathered all the students from each class participating in the boycott in front of the dormitory.
“What now, Claudia?”
A male student with a large bald patch on his head spoke with clear dissatisfaction.
“BMAT’s coming up soon. What’s the point now? Let’s just ignore it.”
“Yeah. She should be apologizing, but instead, she sends TAs to summon us like this? She still thinks we’re beneath her.”
Some students no longer just criticized Belya’s class, they now saw her as an “enemy” to be defeated.
“Let’s go.”
But the de facto leader, Claudia, shook her head.
“If Professor Belya has had a change of heart, then we have no reason not to go.”
The other students nodded.
“But if she just rambles nonsense or keeps forcing us to drink poison, then let’s just walk out.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s the right move.”
Claudia’s expression stiffened slightly. She thought she was the most passionate about the boycott, but before she realized it, the ordinary students had grown far more radical.
She realized she needed to rein things in a little.
“Remember, our goal isn’t to force Professor Belya into retirement. It’s to stop the poison-eating classes and guarantee students’ rights. That’s all.”
With that, Claudia and the students headed to the meeting place the TAs had told them about.
The meeting place was a secluded research building on the Keyzen campus. They descended into the basement via a dark, dusty staircase.
“This place is creepy.”
It was just a bare, empty basement.
“She’s clearly trying to set the tone.”
Claudia put a finger to her lips, signaling the others to stay calm.
Moments later, footsteps echoed from above, and Belya descended the stairs with her teaching assistants.
“……”
The students glared at her with tense eyes. She finally stood before them, and the TAs lined up behind her.
“Everyone here?”
Belya spoke. Claudia stepped forward as the representative.
“Yes, we’re all here. We heard you had something to say, Professor.”
“Yeah, I do.”
Belya replied with a lazy voice. Claudia took the initiative.
“Are you going to stop making students ingest poison in your classes?”
“Do I look insane to you?”
The students’ expressions immediately turned grim.
Claudia was startled, but she quickly regained composure and continued.
“Then why did you call us here?”
Belya scratched her spiky, hedgehog-like ashen hair.
“Someone asked me to.”
“Excuse me?”
“Told me to talk to you guys.”
She walked around with her hands behind her back, speaking cryptically.
“The more I think about it, the funnier it is. I said I’d grant any request, and they went and arranged this whole meeting for people totally unrelated to them.”
Belya was starting to like Simon more and more.
“…I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
“You don’t need to.”
She stopped walking, grinned slyly, and stared directly at Claudia.
“Fine, let’s talk. The poison-ingestion antibody class is ending soon. I’ll tell you what kind of black magic I’ll be teaching afterward.”
“!”
A shock rippled through Claudia’s pupils.
“Let’s go! She said she’s still going to make us eat poison. There’s no point in staying!”
The boy who had objected earlier put a hand on her shoulder, but Claudia brushed it off firmly.
“Please tell us.”
Belya chuckled and opened her palm.
A magic circle formed rapidly in her hand, and from it, an olive-colored thorned vine rose up. She grabbed it and swung.
Bwaaaaaang!
The students ducked instinctively as the vine swept overhead and struck the basement wall.
Ssssssss!
From the point of impact, the wall began to melt like liquid.
“What the hell is that?”
“Was that poison?”
Claudia turned to Belya, demanding an explanation with her eyes.
“It’s a technique you’re all familiar with, ‘Poison Whip’.”
“T-That’s Poison Whip?”
“No way!”
Commonly known as Poison Whip, this technique gathered the poison of potions with Darkness to form a long-range whip attack.
But the Poison Whip Belya had just shown was much larger, thicker, and more powerful, and most notably, she hadn’t used any poison potion.
It was in that moment Claudia realized something.
“…Don’t tell me, Darkness-Toxicology?”
“Knew you were an elite. Nailed it.”
Toxicology was once a subfield of Darkness Dynamics.
There were runes for fire, ice, wind, earth, even magma and unknown elements, of course there had to be one for poison too.
However, this “Darkness-Toxicology” black magic was completely abandoned after the Hundred-Year War with Efnelle. The biggest issue was that the poison concoctions used in Darkness-Toxicology were always uniform.
Priests, familiar with the same poison, could dispel it with one cleansing spell. After a few exposures, they would develop immunity and didn’t even need to cleanse it anymore.
Even monsters had begun adapting to the toxins of Darkness-Toxicology.
Eventually, toxicologists turned to alchemy for survival, mixing poisons in complex, artificial ways to produce toxins that were hard to purify and effective against monsters.
This is how modern toxicologists came to be. They used potions and containers to scatter poison through black magic or enhance its potency.
But now…
“She’s saying she’ll teach us the obsolete Darkness-Toxicology?”
Belya smirked.
“I can see exactly what you’re thinking. Then how about this?”
She opened a magic circle in her other palm.
Claudia could tell it was the same Poison Whip circle, but this time, a pink thorned vine emerged. She grabbed it and swung it at the opposite wall.
Thwack!
The vine hit the wall, but unlike before, the wall didn’t melt. Instead, the surface turned yellow and began to spread.
“The magic circle structure was the same, but the poison was different!”
The other students, realizing this, fell silent.
“What I’ll be teaching isn’t that same old, predictable Darkness-Toxicology.”
Belya lowered her arm.
“It’s my original creation.”
“Ah…!”
If that was true, then her Darkness-Toxicology Original was the best of both worlds,retaining the advantages of the past while overcoming its flaws.
And it would no longer be a predictable poison that could be countered easily.
Just like now, when pulling potions from subspace, there will be no more time wasted on such cumbersome actions.
“To use this technique, you must first master ‘Blood Poison’, which transforms your blood into poison. That’s why I had you build up antibodies beforehand, to prepare your bodies. I was planning to teach you this technique before the third BMAT.”
“……”
A heavy silence fell over the basement. Especially Claudia, whose face had turned beet red, couldn’t even meet Belya’s eyes.
“Now, you all have exactly two choices.”
With a snap of her fingers, Belya signaled the teaching assistants, who moved quickly and placed poison sets at the students’ feet.
“Because of that ridiculous boycott, you’ve missed classes. So, catch up by drinking all the missed poisons by tomorrow, build up the antibodies, and come back.”
The word “tomorrow” made the students’ mouths drop open.
“This is the mess you made. If you get side effects from rushing it, I don’t care. But if you manage to catch up, then I’ll teach you my original Darkness-Toxicology before the BMAT, just as planned.”
She crossed her arms and continued.
“Or maybe, I was wrong about you. Maybe you really did boycott my class for some grand cause, something like defending universal human rights, even though you’re necromancers.”
Claudia’s face turned red like an apple upon hearing those words.
“If you’re that kind of person, feel free to turn your back and leave now. I’ll applaud you on your way out, congratulating the birth of a true human rights activist, and admiring the greatness of your conviction.”
“……”
Ten minutes passed like that.
Not a single student who had entered the basement walked out.
Survival at Keyzen, the futility of their protest, and a shred of pride, for a necromancer, these were not values worth weighing.
They all just stood there, heads bowed, unable to utter a word.
“I’ll take that as full compliance.”
Belya gestured briskly.
“Take those with you. Starting tomorrow, I want my class seats completely filled.”
“Yes, ma’am!!”
Claudia and the students hurriedly grabbed their poison cases and rushed up the stairs.
By then, the night air was icy and howling.
“Haah! Haah!”
“Claudia! Wait up!”
Claudia ran, clutching the poison case to her chest like something precious.
‘I’m such an idiot! Utterly hopeless to the point of tears!’
Tears welled up in her eyes, but at least her mouth was smiling wide. She even laughed out loud, “Wahaha!” If someone wanted to call her a crazy woman, let them.
The feeling of liberation, that she could finally stop this miserable group protest. The relief, that she could learn from a professor as amazing as those in the other departments.
Since enrolling at Keyzen, Claudia thought, this was the happiest night of her life.
* * *
The next day.
News that Claudia’s group had been summoned by Belya spread like wildfire through Keyzen.
“Who won?”
“Obviously the students. Didn’t you see? Professor Belya called them first.”
“But their faces were all blotchy this morning. Looked like they drank poison or something.”
From the dormitory hallway, people couldn’t stop talking about Belya and Claudia’s group.
“The students who went with Claudia, every single one of them won’t say a word.”
Dick spoke. He seemed incredibly curious too.
“What the heck happened after they got summoned by Professor Belya? Ugh! I’m dying to know!”
Simon, who had a pretty good guess, stretched with a satisfied grin.
‘Thank you, Professor Belya!’
That morning, they had no class. It was originally Spiritology time, but all four members of Team 7 had dropped the subject, leaving the slot free. They planned to use it for BMAT training.
All members of Team 7 got up early, secured permission to leave campus, and planned to meet at the beach. Simon and Dick picked one of the carriages lined up at Keyzen’s entrance and rode it to the shore.
The beach was crowded as usual. Many students without class were in the sea, training for underwater combat.
“Simon, Dick! Over here!”
“You’re late!”
Kamibarez and Maelyn were already in swimsuits, stretching. After Simon and Dick joined them, team leader Maelyn gathered everyone’s attention.
“Today’s our last beach training before the BMAT! Let’s give it our all with no regrets!”
“Okay!”
“Yes!”
The four of them sprinted across the sand and plunged into the water.
Simon, slicing through the waves fastest, reached his hand over his head.
<Bone Armor – Handgun Mode>
Clack! Clack!
Clack!
Bones from a skeleton flew out of subspace and assembled onto his right arm. Simon dove under the surface.
Gurgle!
First, he checked his connection with the skeleton’s thoughts.
‘Much better now.’
Undead become weaker just from entering saltwater, but with help from Benya of the Mutant Club, he had applied a solution that allowed the bones to endure.
He then created a magic circle at the muzzle of his Handgun. It was a new black magic derived from the formula at the core of Dark Torpedo.
‘Fire!’
As the bones launched from the muzzle, they passed through the magic circle. The speed of the projectile slicing through the water drastically increased.
It was a formula designed to reduce water resistance, just like Dark Torpedo.
‘Okay, first test successful!’
Simon surfaced. This time, he spent a little more time drawing a magic circle, then lowered it directly onto the Handgun.
The magic circle coated the bone bullets like liquid seeping over them.
Simon then aimed just below the surface and gave the firing command.
Thunk! Thunk!
The bones flew out with the same power as before. At this rate, he felt confident even Keyzen students could be hit.
‘No problem with attack magic. Now for the last part……’
Simon opened subspace above his head and summoned a new familiar into the sea.
Sploosh!
A giant splash erupted as the familiar landed in the water.
Climbing onto its back, Simon said,
“Let’s run, Deimos.”
His goal for this third BMAT was first place overall.
Superb.
When are we getting more free chapters?
Thanks for the new chapters
Very good story and translation but half the chapter aren't for free and it is wayyyy too expensive will it stat like tjis foreve or will it get free after some time