Chapter 585: Supplementary Class (3)

“[Quick. Tell me who Evan is.]”

Even with the shotgun waving in front of them, the undergraduates averted their gazes, refusing to answer.

They knew that handing over Evan wouldn’t improve the situation.

Before the enraged Leopard could rashly pull the trigger again, Lennok rose first.

“I am here.”

“[What, you were the teacher?]”

The Leopard mumbled, then scratched his chin as if just remembering.

“[Right, you said something about publishing a paper. So these brats gathered here wouldn’t be him.]”

‘He’s not interested in Anti-gravity Technology. Yet he’s looking for Evan Vylun… What’s the reason?’

Indeed, if Evan’s abilities or achievements were the target, there would be no reason for such a grand spectacle.

Targeting Evan alone would be efficient and low-risk, a natural course of action, rather than orchestrating a terror attack on the entire school.

From the moment things escalated this far, it was clear that the focus was on something other than Evan.

However, the reason they specifically called out Evan in the midst of this operation…

‘Was there something about the abilities or characteristics I displayed as Evan Vylun that caught the sorcerers’ attention?’

Lost in thought, Lennok felt the Leopard poke his back with the shotgun.

“[Step forward and wait. Someone will come to pick you up.]”

“If I go, can you release the students?”

It was a meaningless question, but at this point, he needed to ask it once to gauge the opponent’s reaction.

“[…No.]”

The Leopard, perhaps not expecting such a question, stared at Lennok’s face as if to strike him, then shook his head.

“[Ask one more question, and I’ll blow your head off. Just do as you’re told quietly.]”

Screech!!

At that moment, the back door of the lecture hall burst open noisily.

A pure white fat man, wearing a pig mask.

Like the Leopard, he had taken the head of a living beast, seemingly gutted its insides and shoved his own head in, a bizarre sight.

He swept his gaze over the trembling undergraduates, then let out a low, greedy chuckle.

“[These kids look much tastier than the ones I ate earlier. Typical magic school students, I guess.]”

“[Pig. Stop talking nonsense and take this one.]”

The Leopard nudged Lennok’s shoulder with the shotgun from behind.

“[This bastard is Evan Vylun. They said he’s a valuable asset, so he’ll be kept separately. You get the rest, right?]”

But the Pig seemed to barely listen to the Leopard’s words, then tossed out a question.

“[You take him. I’ll stay here and guard.]”

“[What?]”

“[It doesn’t matter who does it, anyway.]”

The Pig’s eyes glowed murkily.

“[I just finished cleaning up the research wing, so you take him to the Elephant. Do you not understand what I’m saying?]”

“[Don’t talk nonsense. Do you think I don’t know what you’re trying to do?]”

The Leopard and the Pig glared sharply at each other.

“[I’m not interested in your crude eating habits, so just do as you’re told. Do you want to get on the Lion’s bad side?]”

‘The Elephant and the Lion, too… It’s a regular zoo.’

Thanks to this, he confirmed that Ghost God Palace had at least four members present.

All that remained was to find out why they committed a terror attack in District 34, then continued unceasingly to infiltrate the magic university.

Unfortunately, the conflict between the Leopard and the Pig ended faster than expected.

The Pig eventually conceded once the Leopard mentioned the Lion’s name.

“[Damn it… You’re really dead once this is over.]”

The Pig, after a chilling threat, grabbed Lennok’s collar and dragged him out of the lecture hall.

Seeing Lennok being dragged away, Priscilla gritted her teeth and tried to gather her magic, but Lennok instead brought a finger to his lips, stopping her.

He pointed to himself and Cassia, then gestured with his eyes towards the shotgun held by the Leopard.

The shotgun’s power itself was weak, not a weapon that could inflict fatal wounds.

“….!!”

Only then, as if realizing something, Priscilla nodded with a stiff face.

The series of non-verbal communications took place in a mere instant.

While Priscilla and Cassia alone might struggle to resolve the situation, Lennok wasn’t worried.

If Lennok’s predictions were correct, unseen reinforcements would surely be moving towards them.

Elemental Studies Lecture Hall Corridor.

The Pig roughly led Lennok, beginning to walk across the spacious marble floor.

“[For a school, the facilities are really good, huh?]”

The Pig grumbled as he dragged Lennok along.

“[Thinking of young prey being nurtured in a place like this makes my stomach churn. I’m hungry…]”

Lennok asked, watching the fat man sway, drooling through the pig mask.

“Is eating people your hobby?”

“[What?]”

As soon as Lennok heard that indifferent reply, he changed the subject.

“No, rather, you just prefer meat filled with mana. It’s more like you don’t care whether it’s human or animal.”

“[…]”

“I’ve seen several types who gain satisfaction and power through consumption, but without exception, they all struggled to control their appetite. Perhaps that itself is closer to the price of choosing a convenient method…”

Thud!!

While listening to Lennok, the Pig suddenly kicked him directly in the abdomen.

Lennok’s waist bent in half, and he flew backward, collapsing.

The Pig grabbed the squirming Lennok by the collar, pulled him up, and said.

“[They said not to kill you, but listening to you, you just babble idiotic nonsense. Is this really a top researcher in Vulcan?]”

“Hmph…”

“[If you’re so smart, you should know what not to say.]”

The Pig said this, gripping Lennok’s shoulder as if to crush it, and began striding down the corridor.

“[If I take you to the Elephant and you’re useless, I’ll eat your limbs right away. I’m annoyed enough as it is, you pathetic academic brat…]”

“Ah, wait.”

From Lennok’s mouth, as he was being dragged by the Pig, a quiet voice emerged.

“My shirt is about to tear. Could you perhaps not touch my shoulder?”

“[Haaah…]”

The Pig let out a deep sigh and whirled around.

“[I can’t stand it, you arrogant bas…!!]”

Slice!!

At that instant, the Pig’s five fingers, gripping Lennok’s shoulder, were cleanly severed before his eyes and fell to the corridor floor.

The Pig’s right hand, with only the palm remaining, was raised blankly.

Lennok, having risen, dusted off his shirt and adjusted his collar.

“[You…]”

A cutting spell so swift, the Pig himself hadn’t even noticed it.

Realizing his opponent wasn’t a mere researcher, the Pig’s eyes instantly changed completely.

From a beast preying on its hunt, the Pig reverted to a seasoned veteran sorcerer, and the moment he swiftly channeled his power to activate a spell…

A sharp steel beam, driven down from the corridor ceiling, pierced directly through the Pig’s shoulder, impaling his body like a skewer.

CRUNCH!!

“[…!!]”

Unable to even scream, the Pig was impaled and pinned against the corridor wall as if being displayed, taxidermied.

Even then, he desperately tried to form hand seals to complete his spell, ignoring the pain.

His intact left arm was also pierced and severed at the muscle by another fragment of steel beam that crashed down.

“[Ughaaaah…!!]”

Only then did the sorcerer thrash wildly, letting out a scream like a pig being slaughtered.

“You’re being noisy. Be quiet. No one can hear you screaming like that.”

Lennok said this, then pulled hard on the animal mask of the Pig, who was impaled like a skewer on the wall.

A face with a strange impression: matted hair, and all sorts of piercings, including earrings.

Around his mouth, someone’s dried blood clung as if he had been eating something for a long time and then suddenly stopped.

“Ughh…!!”

Perhaps the animal mask even had a voice modulation function, as a low groan leaked unadulterated from the fat man’s mouth.

Lennok pulled out his phone, took a picture of the fat man’s face, and mumbled.

“It’s fortunate I knew that the lecture hall’s internal structures could be arbitrarily manipulated. Things could have gotten troublesome.”

The method Lennok just used to subdue the Pig didn’t involve special magic or artifacts.

It was the authority granted to school faculty members to manipulate internal school facilities.

Originally, it was a spell formation designed for conveniently controlling lecture hall seats, ceiling lights, or speakers.

But Lennok had slightly expanded the scale of that authority, manipulating it to collapse the architectural structures within the lecture hall itself.

If, as he suspected, there was a force behind Ghost God Palace, the possibility that they were observing the ongoing terror attack at Rebatenon Magic University from outside could not be ignored.

Unless he was confident he could resolve the situation by using his true magic, risking exposure of both his Van and Evan identities,

he needed to handle things here using only the abilities and magic known to be Evan’s, as much as possible.

“Typically, sorcerers use a ‘trigger’ gesture to draw out power beyond their limits,”

Lennok said this, meeting the Pig’s eyes.

“If I sever all the fingers on one hand and all the tendons in your limbs, will it become difficult to use sorcery, or will it become more powerful? Aren’t you curious…?”

Lennok’s right eye closed and opened, his pupil swirling, beginning to stream black occult light.

As soon as he met Lennok’s mystic eye, the sorcerer’s expression, which had only been groaning, changed completely.

“S-save me.”

“Save you?”

“What do you want? I’ll tell you everything you want to know. Please…!!”

As he spoke, the Pig’s tongue moved stickily inside his mouth, then shot something out from between his uvula.

A tiny, almost invisible needle-like dart flew towards Lennok’s glabella at bullet-like speed.

CRUNCH!!

It stopped right in front of him, as if caught by an invisible force, and crumpled.

The Pig’s face contorted as he realized his last resort had failed futilely, and Lennok picked up the crumpled dart with mana threads, levitating it, and mumbled.

“A potent venom. I’ve heard stories of similar weapons being used in the South Continent’s jungles.”

An ordinary sorcerer wouldn’t have the skill or perception to hide such a long, sharp dart in their throat and use it as a secret technique.

Despite his somewhat dull appearance, had he been hiding a trump card?

But the Pig, having failed even his last desperate struggle, seemed to have lost all will to live.

“Kill me. I have nothing more to say.”

His detached attitude was completely different from his earlier trembling pleas for life.

However, Lennok thought this was likely closer to the man’s true nature.

He was an executive of a criminal organization that, despite different origins, had bombed District 34 in the megacity and infiltrated Rebatenon.

Regardless of his gruesome habit of consuming human flesh, it was highly probable that he wasn’t someone who feared death or would rashly betray his organization.

His recent begging for his life from Lennok was likely because he thought it might induce Lennok’s carelessness.

So, instead of bothering to answer, Lennok asked something else.

“Tell me what you know about the Elephant and the Lion.”

“….”

“How many Ghost God Palace executives infiltrated Rebatenon University for this operation?”

The Pig, who had been trying to ignore the questions, stared intently at Lennok after hearing that.

The mere fact that Lennok knew the name ‘Ghost God Palace’ was proof that he had seen through their operation.

“That monkey bastard completely misread the situation.”

The Pig gnashed his teeth, mumbling.

“He’s not just some ordinary researcher, damn it…!! If this is the case, the operation is completely…!!”

“If you don’t intend to answer, then fine.”

Lennok said this, then directly shoved the mystic eye’s occult light into the Pig’s mouth.

“Ughhh…!!”

“You seem to like mana-infused meat.”

Lennok smiled, watching the Pig’s complexion rapidly darken to black.

“Then why don’t you eat until your stomach bursts?”

“Ughhhh…!!”

The magical power flowing within the Pig’s body rampaged wildly, corroding and exploding his own flesh.

Blackened blood oozed profusely from between his chubby nose and ears, and his bloodshot eyes slowly rolled back.

With a final shudder, the sorcerer spewed black blood from all his orifices and instantly perished.

Lennok rose, leaving the Pig, quietly dead and impaled by steel fragments on the corridor wall.

As long as his opponent was off guard, there were plenty of ways to simply kill him.

However, the reason Lennok went through the trouble of dealing with the Pig in such a complicated manner was his concern for someone else who might be observing the lecture hall at this very moment.

If Evan, known as a spirit user but not a high-tier wizard, were to suddenly drop a saint-tier lightning strike on the lecture hall, what would happen?

Lennok had no confidence or intention of dealing with the fallout if things went that way.

His only option was to quietly kill the Pig using mana threads and his mystic eye, leaving as few traces as possible.

‘Considering the Leopard’s attitude, the undergraduates probably won’t be harmed further. I should focus on finding the Ghost God Palace executives.’

Although he had left Cassia, Priscilla, and the other students in the lecture hall with the Leopard, Lennok had something he trusted.

If Priscilla had properly understood the meaning of the hand gesture Lennok made at the end, she would surely be able to react appropriately.

Thinking this, Lennok took out a bottle of blue powder from his pocket and sprinkled it evenly over the animal mask he had taken from the Pig.

It was one of the experimental tools used in the lecture he had given today, filling in for Bailla.

Desky Powder, which visibly highlights traces of identical mana.

The Desky Powder clinging to the animal mask glowed faintly, turning a hazy fluorescent color.

At the same time, as if in response, the path on the other side of the corridor, which Lennok hadn’t yet walked, began to glow a similar color.

It must be showing the path the Pig had walked alone to the lecture hall controlled by the Leopard.

Following the direction where the power glowed, he moved towards the research wing, where professors’ labs were gathered.

Lennok’s face subtly stiffened as he identified the lab located at the end of the glowing trail.

The fluorescent glow led into Bailla’s lab, where she was temporarily serving as a professor in Aris’s place.

While Lennok hesitated at the lab door, a voice echoed from beyond the door.

“[If you’ve arrived, come in quickly. What are you dawdling for?]”

“….”

Lennok discreetly tossed the pig mask he had been holding into a corridor trash can, then immediately opened the lab door and stepped inside.

Inside the lab, an expansive scene of countless papers and research materials piled high.

Had Bailla also not abandoned her own research while performing her duties as a temporary professor?

Beyond the textbooks and research equipment piled everywhere, someone wearing an elephant mask stood with their back turned.

“[Evan Vylun. Aris Richellen’s most trusted associate professor, I hear?]”

The sorcerer stood up, adjusted his elephant mask, and spoke to Lennok in a strangely amused tone.

“[I want to know about her. You’ll have to do one job with us.]”