Eight blades emerged behind me with a sharp whistle.
The scythes formed from the power of the wind hovered in place, waiting for my command.
Perhaps sensing the danger from the sight, the blond man warned Glasses and Buzz Cut in a low voice.
“Be careful. He seems a little different from an ordinary Mage.”
Those words became the signal to begin the battle.
The men kicked off the ground and rushed forward.
Swords swung at me simultaneously from the left, center, and right.
WHOOSH!
The sheer force behind those instantaneous strikes was quite impressive.
With a gesture, I ordered the soldiers of wind waiting behind me to prepare a counterattack.
At that moment, Claire stepped forward, shielding me with her slender body.
CLANG!
All three attacks were stopped by a single swing.
It was a feat impossible without a powerful physique and a high level of swordsmanship.
Without taking her eyes off the men preparing their next attack, Claire spoke to me.
“Young Master Allen. Please stay behind me. I will protect you.”
She looked exactly like a knight protecting her master.
Wow. She certainly was reassuring.
So this was why everyone was so desperate to recruit knights.
‘A knight….’
It was a romantic word, but it did not stir much emotion in me.
I was more comfortable protecting myself anyway.
For the moment, that was also far more reliable.
I firmly rejected her kindness.
“It’s fine. Take Buzz Cut. I’ll handle Blondie and Glasses.”
“By Buzz Cut… do you mean Sir Rivalt?”
I nodded.
Everyone except him had a full head of hair.
Especially me, whose hair was carefully washed by the maids.
“You cannot. No matter how outstanding a Mage you may be, Young Master Allen, they are also knight candidates who have completed three years of training. It would be better if you supported me from the rear—”
“I said it’s fine.”
I understood what she meant, but she was being overprotective.
It would be faster just to show her.
I slipped past her left side and headed toward Blondie and Glasses.
“!?”
Claire stared at me in bewilderment and started toward me.
Buzz Cut strode forward and blocked her path.
Blondie and Glasses exchanged a glance before closing the distance between us.
WHOOSH!
The two swung their swords horizontally at the same time from opposite directions.
Blondie was on my left, aiming for my neck, while Glasses was on my right, aiming for my waist.
This was the body of a noble aristocrat.
With these exceptional eyes, reading their movements was as easy as breathing.
The problem was that my body could not keep up with what my eyes perceived… but fortunately, I had no need to move.
SWISH!
With nothing more than a glance, I overlapped the eight blades floating in the air.
Four blades smoothly layered together and merged.
Two larger, thicker blades formed.
I immediately launched them toward my opponents.
WHOOOSH!
“What a pathetic trick!”
Just before blade and sword collided, Blondie could not suppress a smug grin.
His expression said he had already imagined the wind blades shattering miserably.
But the sound that followed immediately twisted his face.
CLANG!
“!?”
Both men stopped dead in their tracks, blocked by the force of the blades.
Even Claire and Buzz Cut, who had been desperately clashing swords, faltered in surprise.
Blondie quickly recovered and took a step back to create some distance.
He glared at me with bloodshot eyes.
“What the fuck did you do?”
“What do you mean?”
“…….”
Windstorm School magic was characterized by high speed at the cost of poor durability.
A single blade was weaker than even a cheap sword.
An ordinary Mage would probably spend a long incantation summoning just one blade.
But with Word Magic already recorded, I could create as many as I wanted as long as I had enough mana.
If they broke too easily, all I had to do was overlap several of them to compensate.
WHOOOSH!
The two layered blades began dancing through the air.
Their speed had decreased from being stacked together, but not enough to become a serious weakness.
I manipulated them like a pair of arms, swinging them erratically up, down, left, and right.
CLANG!
At first, the two men frantically blocked the blades.
Before long, however, they coordinated with each other and began knocking them aside.
They had adapted to the wild, unrefined swings that contained no real technique.
“You were acting so arrogant over this pathetic magic?”
Having regained some composure, Blondie shouted as he took a step forward.
Each time their swords struck the wind blades, they forced them back little by little.
WHOOSH!
The two swords had nearly reached my chin.
Apparently, this alone would not be enough, so I summoned another eight blades.
“!?”
I once again overlapped them in groups of four, forming another pair of wind swords.
Two blades now attacked Blondie, and another two attacked Glasses.
Those bastards did not possess any sophisticated swordsmanship.
In that case, I would simply overwhelm them with numbers.
“You look pretty exhausted. Take it easy.”
“Shut your mouth!”
With considerably more breathing room now, I left the blades practically running on auto-hunt and checked on Claire, who was facing Buzz Cut.
Even after seeing my situation, Claire still looked anxious and impatient, while Buzz Cut was sweating profusely beneath her relentless assault.
It seemed safe enough to leave him to Claire.
“Raaaagh!”
As though desperate to escape their one-sided defensive position, Blondie and Glasses roared and swung their swords.
CLANG!
“Damn it… stop hiding back there and come forward!”
Blondie’s words made me snort.
What kind of ridiculous bullshit was that?
Apparently, he still thought he had a chance.
For the last time, I summoned another eight blades.
WHOOOSH!
Six blades wrapped around the swords of the two men.
By now, they had completely abandoned attacking and were concentrating entirely on defense.
It seemed like too many blades for their level of skill, so I withdrew two of them.
The blades hovered in the air like snakes waiting for an opening.
SWISH!
The wind began leaving small cuts across Blondie and Glasses.
Minor wounds accumulated across their faces and the backs of their hands.
Blood dripped onto the floor.
Blondie groaned as he endured the pain.
The moment his movements slowed, I concentrated mana into one blade.
WHOOSH!
The wind blade shot toward Blondie’s right ear.
SLASH!
His right ear was severed and fell onto the cold stone floor.
At the same moment, an agonized scream rang out.
“AAAAARGH!!”
The pain froze Blondie in place.
I did not miss the opening and severed his weakened right hand as well.
His scream rose into an even louder howl, and the sword he had been holding dropped from his grasp.
I immediately left only one blade on Blondie and sent the rest toward Glasses.
CLANG!
Glasses lasted only three seconds against five blades.
One wind blade pierced straight through his left hand.
“AAARGH!!”
Their will to fight was already gone.
Two swords lay abandoned on the floor.
When the battle ended, Claire approached me.
“Young Master Allen! You are not injured… it seems.”
Buzz Cut had already collapsed some distance away.
The armor around both of his hands had been completely crushed.
Both arms were probably broken.
“Did… Young Master Allen do all of this?”
“Can’t you tell by looking? I told you not to worry.”
“…This is somewhat different from the magic I know.”
Claire frowned and sank into thought.
The only magic she had encountered at the academy had probably come from Mages with little connection to actual combat.
They were likely the sort who had to ramble through long incantations every time they cast something.
“Huff… huff….”
Once the battle was over, the difference between the three men lined up before us was obvious.
The two I had fought, especially Blondie, were almost in a state of panic.
Buzz Cut had suffered fractures, but he still seemed mentally sound.
Although every time Claire raised a hand, he became far more terrified than necessary.
“E-Eek!”
After that, we had no choice but to wait for a while.
We needed Blondie, the one who possessed the most information, to regain his senses.
Of course, I did not spend that time staring blankly at a wall.
After leaving Claire to watch the three men, I quietly returned to the passage near the entrance.
Hiding had not been the only reason I came here.
‘It should be somewhere around here….’
Statues were piled beneath the torches like heaps of stone.
I carefully searched through them without damaging any.
Every statue had exactly the same shape.
They depicted a human sitting upright with enormous wings folded behind its back.
The face, however, was that of a goat with massive horns.
‘Apsilon.’
One of the Thirteen Gods that existed in this world.
An evil god recognized throughout the continent, presiding over darkness and curses.
This place was both a thieves’ hideout and an altar dedicated to an evil god.
And I was currently rummaging through a god’s altar without the slightest hesitation.
‘…Found it.’
One statue looked slightly different from all the others.
Unlike the expressionless goat faces of the others, this one alone wore a grin stretching almost from ear to ear.
Distinct tear tracks marked the corners of its eyes.
“…….”
As I reached toward the statue, an inexplicably unpleasant sensation crawled over me.
In a way, it was an instinctive reaction.
After all, somewhere out there, something was undoubtedly watching me right now.
I suppressed my reluctance, pulled the statue free, and took it.
[You have obtained the Statue of Nihility.]
At the same moment, something began bubbling inside my head and heart.
An intangible energy that could neither be seen nor touched increased in mass.
When that boiling presence filled a small portion of the emptiness within me, a voice rang out.
[You have obtained the blessing of the Evil God ‘Apsilon’.]
[Your mana capacity and mana recovery increase slightly.]
I immediately drew up my mana and checked my capacity.
Until now, my mana had amounted to little more than a small puddle.
That puddle had grown by roughly twenty percent.
‘As expected….’
It was exactly the same as in the game.
A miserably stingy reward.
The setup looked impressive enough that anyone would have been disappointed by it.
Before I discovered the truth myself, I used to kick the altar in frustration too.
If that had truly been all there was to it.
Slide.
I temporarily placed the statue on the floor.
The grotesquely smiling goat stared back at me.
Using the mana I had gained from it, I recorded new Word Magic in the Library.
『Black Body』
[2 Soul Power is consumed to record new Word Magic.]
Black Body.
The fundamental and core spell of the Darkness School.
Soon, pitch-black darkness took shape above my palm.
It was only about the size of the tip of my little finger, yet not even the faintest trace of light could be seen within that absolute darkness.
As carefully as if I were handling a baby, I slowly moved Black Body toward the statue.
HISSSS.
The defining characteristic of the Darkness School was complete annihilation.
Every time the darkness touched the statue, it devoured a little more of its existence.
It was one of the most powerful forces among all the schools of magic.
Before long, the statue had been entirely consumed by darkness, vanishing without leaving even a trace.
CRACK!
At that moment, the space where the statue had stood split open.
Darkness rose like smoke from the tiny fissure.
The ominous darkness began taking the forms of evil itself.
[AAAAAAAAAAAA—!]
Countless scenes born from malice flashed before my eyes.
Theft, fraud, threats, kidnapping, assault, arson, rape, murder.
The people committing them all looked different, but every one of them wore the same expression.
They were all smiling brightly, the corners of their mouths stretching almost to their eyes.
[AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA—!]
The androgynous laughter pierced my ears, and my head suddenly spun.
I closed my eyes for a moment and opened them again.
The darkness that had been forming countless shapes was gone.
Its final image had been my own smiling face.
[The Evil God ‘Apsilon’ reveals his wrath.]
[The blessing of the Evil God ‘Apsilon’ disperses.]
The twenty-percent increase in my mana capacity vanished.
[The character becomes a target of the Evil God ‘Apsilon’.]
[The character bears a portion of the Evil God ‘Apsilon’s Original Sin.]
I could clearly feel a gaze fixed upon me, as though someone were watching from somewhere.
There was no mistaking this sticky sensation.
It was Apsilon.
[The character takes twice as much damage from Darkness School magic.]
This was the penalty incurred for destroying the statue.
During the game, there was no way to escape this curse.
If I absolutely had to name one, I could screw over the God of Light, ‘Garm,’ but the cost-benefit ratio made that pointless.
At this rate, encountering a Black Mage or one of Apsilon’s followers would put me at a serious disadvantage.
After all, I had become vulnerable to Darkness School magic.
But things were different when the target was me.
[The Evil God ‘Apsilon’ sees through the character’s faith.]
[The Evil God ‘Apsilon’ smiles upon the character’s talent and faith.]
This was a kind of conditional Hidden Piece.
A special privilege available only to someone with talent for Darkness School magic.
A reward that could normally only be obtained on the Black Mage route.
[The Evil God ‘Apsilon’ forgives the character’s sin.]
[Damage taken from Darkness School magic is reduced by half.]
[The power of Darkness School magic is doubled.]
[The character’s mana capacity increases.]
The pitifully small puddle of mana I had possessed.
Before I knew it, that puddle had doubled in size.