I Got Into School for Nothing - Chapter 24
I Got Into School for Nothing (24)
Lesson 6. A Teacher's Grace is as High as the Sky - 3
—Click, click, click, click—
“My goodness.”
Ban Yuwon swore it was the first time he'd ever heard Dokgo Yeon sound so utterly exhausted.
Indeed, endlessly firing off energy blasts against the ceaseless tide of spiders would surely wear out even an iron woman like her.
“There really is no end to them.”
“Dokgo Yeon, don't stop your hands!”
Standing opposite her, Light, who had been swinging his sword of light at the spider horde, heard Dokgo Yeon’s listless voice and cried out, perturbed.
“You worry about yourself. You’ve been inefficiently spewing out Qi since earlier... And Beast, are you holding up?”
“Grrrrrrr...”
Rucell, who was covering the rear alongside Light, responded with a voice closer to that of a beast than a human.
Over seventy percent of her hair was already dyed black.
If it all turned black, what would happen then? It was clear, at the very least, that it wouldn't be anything pleasant.
“She’s lost it.”
“Hah.”
As if agreeing with Dokgo Yeon’s lament, Ban Yuwon also let out a sigh.
He had long since given up on directly confronting the swarming spider horde, focusing instead on assisting Dokgo Yeon with Eve, to minimize her burden.
“Damn it, there’s a limit to how crazy things can get.”
“Grrrk?!”
“No, not you, Rucell, the Tower.”
Though Rucell could no longer speak in a human voice, she still seemed to understand their words.
It was clear from the sulky, glaring look she gave Ban Yuwon, who had inadvertently agreed with Dokgo Yeon’s comment about her "losing it."
She was quite cute, but watching spiders shatter into pieces from the palms she swung in frustration was, admittedly, a little terrifying.
[Heart Furnace 71 — Wrath 22, Madness 38, Sorrow 6, Joy 5]
Ban Yuwon frowned, observing the myriad negative and intense emotions filling her internal code, her Heart Furnace.
‘I absolutely can’t touch it right now. Thanks to the insights I gained in Room 3, I can now manipulate external concepts, but I still can’t interfere with *that*.’
Even amidst the chaos of fending off the surging spider horde, he tried several times, worried about Rucell’s accelerating transformation.
However, his Authority couldn’t affect Rucell’s Heart Furnace, and each attempt only startled Rucell, needlessly provoking her Wildness.
‘Damn it, there has to be a way.’
Of course, he had no leisure to leisurely search for that method right now.
Isn’t Dokgo Yeon retreating right now, her face etched with annoyance?
“Ban Yuwon, I need a breather.”
“Understood, fall back!”
Immediately after Dokgo Yeon’s unilateral declaration, Ban Yuwon pulled a small grenade from his inventory.
Then, with the practiced motion of an assistant instructor that no one would believe belonged to a rookie, he pulled the pin and hurled it forward!
—Ting, Tong, Tong...—
It was one of the secret consumables he had brought from Earth, packed tightly with only the concept of a grenade, infused with magic.
Truly, it was a Magic Bomb, its concept charged right up to the point of explosion.
To that, he added a mere hint of spectral essence, his unique secret to make firearms usable even in the Tower.
With this, not only could he block the interference from the Tower’s mana waves, but he could also detonate the grenade precisely when he desired!
“Eve, block them!”
“Shhhhhhhr!”
Eve transformed into a colossal iron shield, temporarily creating a barrier to protect Ban Yuwon and Dokgo Yeon.
Beyond it, the thrown grenade was swiftly swallowed by the black wave of approaching spiders, vanishing from sight.
‘Is this the third one already? I still have quite a few left, but I really hope this ends soon.’
The price of these meticulously crafted special grenades was enough to make one’s teeth ache just thinking about it, and considering the concepts of magic and spectral essence that would cleanly disintegrate after a single use, employing such weapons long-term was truly ill-advised.
But for now, this was Ban Yuwon’s lifeline.
—Boom!—
—Kiiiiiiiiieek!—
The grenade exploded, instantly annihilating dozens of spiders.
It was a sight that brought a sense of relief, but watching the vacant spots immediately filled by a fresh surge of spiders made all traces of humor vanish.
[You plunder Life 5.4, Body 7.6, Demonic Essence 4, and Carapace 7 from numerous Tower Spiders. Carapace is a concept humans cannot possess.]
Golden strings of text simultaneously surged from the Tower Spiders Ban Yuwon had just eliminated.
It was a number that could never be ignored, but considering it was obtained by killing dozens of Tower Spiders, it was merely bitter.
What did this mean? It meant that he had plundered so many concepts from the Tower Spiders that the depth of the concepts he could steal from them was now decreasing.
Furthermore, for Life, a half-reduction was applied here.
The ‘experience point reduction’ he had experienced while hunting goblins had begun again.
[Life 182
Body 138.5
Mana 156.4
Soul 372]
He summoned and checked only the four core elements of his internal code, sighing inwardly.
‘I’ve grown tremendously compared to before this damned assault began. But the problem is that even this much isn’t enough to directly confront and defeat that spider horde.’
Could anything be more infuriating than this?
He had entered the Tower and achieved growth so rapid it far surpassed the academy’s average, yet despite all that, he couldn't effectively contribute in this situation!
Moreover, the concepts he could extract from the Tower Spiders were starting to dwindle, so Ban Yuwon couldn’t help but feel anxious.
“Well done, Ban Yuwon. Thanks to you, I got a little rest.”
Whether she sensed his anxiety or not, Dokgo Yeon, having briefly recovered her stamina, stepped forward with a noticeably refreshed expression.
But Ban Yuwon stopped her, pulled a sports drink from his pocket, handed it to her, and said,
“Rest a little longer and at least drink this. It’s important that you fully recover.”
“But that’s not something easily made, is it? In the Martial World, when a Thunderclap Bomb appears, even once...”
“Rest.”
“Oh.”
As Ban Yuwon spoke somewhat forcefully, placing the bottle in her arms and turning away, Dokgo Yeon let out a small laugh.
While Dokgo Yeon obediently rested and drank the beverage as he instructed, Ban Yuwon threw another Magic Bomb over Eve’s sturdy barrier, then summoned Lilyth and mounted it.
“I’m going to cut down as many of them as possible when they’re caught in the explosion, then pull back. Understood?”
Vrooom, Lilyth responded reliably.
Immediately after, a magnificent explosion erupted beyond, and golden strings of text simultaneously flowed into Ban Yuwon, strengthening him once more.
“Here I go!”
Eve, having read Ban Yuwon’s intention, instantly shrunk her shield, opening a path for Lilyth and Ban Yuwon to pass through.
Clutching the Executioner's Longsword, Ban Yuwon spurred Lilyth forward, charging towards the spiders scattered by the explosion’s aftermath.
“—Hup!”
With a battle cry escaping him at such a crucial moment, there was no room to criticize Light.
The spiders would only be disoriented by the explosion for a very brief moment.
To cut down as many of them as possible and escape within that time, he had no leisure to care about battle cries or anything else.
‘Cut them down! Many at once...!’
Leaning his body low, he relied on Lilyth’s explosive speed, extending his sword as far as it could reach and swinging it.
Desperately praying that the power of severance imbued in his sword would cut down everything in its path!
—Swaaaaah—
The moment his intense will dominated the sword, the Executioner’s Longsword emitted an eerie red light.
Ban Yuwon felt something being drawn from his body into the sword, and the energy manifesting on the blade was unmistakably blood.
‘This...?!’
—Kueeeek!—
—Kihhiiit!—
At that instant, the trajectory of the red sword stretched long, uniformly cleaving all monsters caught within it.
While Ban Yuwon stood dumbfounded by the sight, Lilyth quickly made a U-turn, carrying him back.
Returning beyond Eve’s shield barrier, Ban Yuwon felt his head throb as he saw the Babylonia Code notifications appearing before his eyes.
[The depth of Blood Poison possessed by the Executioner's Longsword increases to 15.]
[You faintly grasp and assimilate the concept of Severance. The depth of Severance is now 2.]
Was Blood Poison not poison that flows into blood, but poison that consumes one’s own blood to create poison?
No, that’s not right.
Perhaps the ‘poison’ in Blood Poison didn’t mean ‘venom,’ but rather ‘poison’ in the sense of ‘harming and killing’ enemies.
The elongated red strike just now was too far from being mere poison, so this interpretation must be correct.
‘I still have a long way to go.’
Now that he thought about it, Blood Poison hadn't seen much action since he defeated the Goblin Warrior.
Could it have been due to a misunderstanding of language concepts?
Perhaps even then, an attack consuming Ban Yuwon’s own blood had occurred.
Yet he had failed to realize such a principle and had been letting this treasure rot all this time!
It was fortunate that, even belatedly, he had grasped this concept, clearly understanding what it meant to cut down an enemy, and thereby assimilating the concept of Severance.
‘Though I’m exhausted from having fresh blood drawn.’
He always felt this way after donating blood, and now, he couldn’t even get a Choco Pie!
As Ban Yuwon gasped for breath, feeling wronged, Dokgo Yeon passed by his slumped form and tossed him the empty bottle.
“I saw something good, and I drank it well too.”
“You drank all of this?!”
“It has a unique, but not bad, taste. No, what was truly not bad was what you just showed me, that...”
Dokgo Yeon glanced at the longsword in his hand for a moment, then, unable to finish her sentence, shrugged her shoulders and turned her gaze forward.
Only then did Ban Yuwon also realize that something unusual was happening up ahead.
Two consecutive grenade explosions and Ban Yuwon’s charge.
It was a situation where the spiders should have been charging in a frenzy, yet they were inexplicably retreating little by little.
That meant something was coming.
Probably a strong one.
“So, I hope you don’t think of what I’m about to show you as a debt. I’m merely repaying a favor.”
“You...?”
Ban Yuwon looked at the black short sword in her hand, his expression one of surprise.
When had she ever drawn a sword before?
She was someone who could face anything that appeared before her with bare hands.
If she had drawn her sword solely to show him, it would honestly be touching.
“I merely didn’t want to get my hands dirty, so don’t make any unnecessary assumptions.”
“Ah, right.”
At Dokgo Yeon’s blunt tone, Ban Yuwon quickly regained his composure.
But his eyes remained fixed on her movements.
Although he had already assimilated the concept of Severance, he knew himself that it was far from its true essence.
If he could gain something from her movements, it would be a great help in wielding his sword in the future.
—Thump, Thuuump—
It wasn’t the chilling clicking sound of the Tower Spiders, but the heavy thud of something massive taking a step.
Ban Yuwon felt a part of the room expanding in real-time.
As that thing crawled closer, the room itself began to change.
“Elite Stage.”
Ban Yuwon muttered, recalling what he’d read in the manual.
“It said that it’s a room that changes in real-time to match the characteristics of the Elite Monsters that appear, pressuring climbers. I heard they only appear after at least... Room 50.”
“I’ve heard that story so much today that I’m getting calluses on my ears.”
“Instead, it said that if you defeat them, the Tower grants rewards.”
“That’s the first I’ve heard of it.”
Of course, with an Irregular involved, he couldn’t say for sure what would happen, but Ban Yuwon felt certain the rewards would only get better, not worse.
‘Moreover, the appearance of Elites means this tiresome battle will finally end, right...?!’
But perhaps his inner relief was the problem, for a hurried voice called out to him from behind.
“Ban!”
“What is it, Light?”
“Does this ‘Elite Stage’ usually have several Elites appear at once?!”
“Damn it, that’s new to me too.”
With Light’s single remark, Ban Yuwon grasped the entire situation, glanced behind him, and let out a dismal sigh.
—Thump—
—Thump, Crash!—
Before they knew it, a pristine white dust settled throughout the entire room.
No, it wasn't dust—it was spider webs.
It was the moment the room was completely taken over by the appearance of three Elite Monsters: giant spiders.
“Ban Yuwon, I told you to watch me.”
“Right, I’m watchi—”
—Swoosh—
...And now, two remained.
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