Chapter 5. Welcome to the summoner’s school. (13)
5.25 Their Story
[3]Aris Ril Letia: I saw the devil.
“Now, here are your t…”
We ran the moment the professor opened his mouth. We could hear him shout in annoyance behind us, but we ignored it.
“Don’t fight the professor. Our target is the upper floors. Today, our goal is not to escape!”
-Understood, boss!
I made them call me that since they kept calling me “miss” and talked to me in a respectful tone, but why is this making me feel like a gang leader..?
-I can feel a powerful energy pulsating nearby. Be careful.
[Thank you for the warning.]
God-ranked summons really were something else. While Athena doesn’t have any powerful attacks or anything, she was still a goddess of war and wisdom.
Her experiences and wisdom allowed me to get away from several critical situations, and her weapons allowed me to increase my survivability by a huge amount.
“What the?!”
“Attack!”
When we, who almost always went down when trying to escape, went up, the professors guarding floor five all turned around in shock. But did we wait for them to recover? No! After all, they never did wait for us when we tried to run!
“Appear, Krinn!”
“Out with you, Ahma!”
“Destroy your enemies, Macis!”
The twenty students here all summoned their beasts and began attacking the professors. Even though many of our comrades here contracted weaker beasts, we still had the initiative.
“Boss, please win for our sakes!”
“We believe in you, boss!”
“Word hard, boss!”
“Alright! You can definitely trust me to succeed! Seniors, let’s go!”
I took the ten of our elites and began walking upwards. And the moment we broke into the sixth floor, the voice of the Student Council President began to ring throughout the entire school.
Beep!
-My name is Nerkia Nes Leria. And I want to ask each every one of you students, no, my comrades, a question. Aren’t you… angry?
“Alright, he’s begun! Let’s go!”
The representative of the second years led their grade and joined us. It was now time to take over the seventh floor!
-Sure, us third years are all trying to get out of here, since we’re done with everything. To the first years, who still have much to overcome, and to the second years, who realized the harshness of the world, the great wall known as the faculty might seem impossible to break through. Right, this is reality. After all, the grades you get in your second year determine your entire future. After all, the companies in the empire would recieve your grades after the end of second year. And one of the biggest things that determine your grade in this school are the professors. Because of this, you need to try to look good to the teachers, and you need to try not to rebel in front of them. I get it. This is what reality is like.
“You bastards?!”
The fights began the moment the professors heard us going up to the seventh floor. As we were on the lower ground, we were at the disadvantage, but we still outnumbered them greatly!
[Goddess!]
-Right, you may borrow my power!
“Hero’s armor, appear!”
It becomes easier for a summoner to draw on his or her beast’s power when the two mutually agree to share their power. Of course, when a beast doesn’t agree to lend its power, it takes a lot of strength for the summoner to use the beast’s strength. But as I and the goddess both have a mutual enemy, she is supporting me 100%! She is on my side!
-But… let’s not think about reality for a moment. Aren’t you angry? Aren’t you angry that you have to stay in school even after classes end to study? Do they think we do nothing back in our dorms? Do they think we don’t even study back in our dorms? To be honest, we don’t. Of course we don’t. We don’t do shit even if they tell us to study inside school, so why’d we study in our free time? But even if this makes us angry, we need to stay quiet. But… but then again. It really does get me angry. If you’re trying to get me to study, just make me study. Why are you provoking us to run? If you just tell us to study and end it at that, we’d just study quietly in school. We’d complain, and run every once in a while, but we’d mostly study. But the faculty just decided to tell us to run outright. Who do they think we are? We’re one of the students that go to one of the most prestigious schools in the empire. We outnumber the faculty by ten times. But even so, they’re still provoking us!
Swears began to pop out of the professors’ mouths as soon as the Student Council President said this.
“Bullshit. We all know you’d run even if we didn’t tell you to run!”
“Nerkia was the first to go, damn it! Why the hell is he even the Student Council President?!”
“Did you forget that the Student Council was composed of Yugrasia’s greatest blockheads? Remember how they decided to host a crossdressing contest in the national festival and failed spectacularly?”
“…Failed? Didn’t they attract the most amount of people? I mean, we may be lacking in a lot of areas compared to Arucia or Marcis, but it is true that we have more pretty boys…”
“Mm… I don’t know much about the school since I got hired this year. But honestly speaking, this school performed the best in the last year’s festival.”
“So what?! Do you think the elders want to see some crossdressed boys? They want to see sword fights and magic showcases! That’s why we got marked by them!”
“Ah…”
Even while arguing like that, they managed to skillfully block us off with their skills. But!
“The spear of Athena, Aegis, come!”
I summoned the spear and shield and charged forward. Even though these are merely fake versions of the real thing, they are still extremely powerful!
“Haah!”
A single swing of the spear brought down the stone wall that was blocking the staircase. The shield blocked all attacks that were aimed at me and those that were unable to be blocked all got bounced off by my armor!
-Pressure is extremely important in war. If the enemy has a hero capable of killing a thousand, we just have to pressure them with ten thousand. War is not a one-on-one battle. It is a battle numbering between thousands, a battle between nations. And the battle here is something where the students severely outnumber their enemies! As long as we strike at the right moment, even the seemingly invincible faculty can be brought down!
I listened to her instructions, and immediately ran up the staircase. I only had one role. I was to become the goddess of victory who would sweep in the feeling of hope into our soldiers!
-By the way… you know what makes me really angry? They told us to run, and we tried to run, but we failed countless times. That’s what makes me angry. Can’t students win against teachers? Is it impossible for students… no, us… to surpass our teachers?! I don’t think that’s true. If, if we as the students, gather our power. If we decide to unite together! We’d be able to take down any faculty in any of the schools! That’s what I think. And so… I’ll just end this with this one statement.
Clack!
As the president’s speech was about to come to an end, we reached the seventh floor. I swung the spear in a wide arc and shouted.
“This floor is ours!”
The second years charged in as the professors dodged my attack. The ten professors on this floor were unable to suppress the charge, and we were able to push them to the eighth floor’s staircase.
“This is the end!”
But just as we were about to finish it all, “that” appeared.
“Heh~? So master really wasn’t lying? Everyone’s here!”
A little girl was seen, climbing up the path we cleared for freedom.
-U, uhaaa?! R, run!!
A silver hair and a long, white one piece dress. From afar, the girl’s big eyes and smile gave off a feeling of mysteriousness and purity. But I knew that this thing was an evil spirit that could beat up gods and goddesses!
-Those of you who are pissed off about staying after school. Those of you who are pissed about having to be the teacher’s pet. And, those of you who are pissed at seeing us fail all the time, please help. At least a little bit.
Beep!
When everyone’s eyes turned to the little girl walking up, the president’s speech ended. The little girl then looked up to the ceiling with a curious face.
“Eh? Did it end? He’d come down then, right? Since master told me to get the president…”
The little girl scrunched up her face a bit as she thought. After a moment, her face straightened out into a big grin as she reached a conclusion.
“So for now, everyone here’s dead?”
Shup!
As everyone stared at the little girl jump up towards them, I shouted to warn everyone about the impending doom.
“That’s Nicerwin’s summon! Run!”
“Eh? Tha… kuh?”
“Gurgh!”
The two seniors who first came across her screamed, and fell down. Only then did everyone realize what peril they were in, and raised their shields. But of course, that wasn’t enough!
-Don’t even bother using magic shields! That thing can ignore a shield made by god! Just block with physical objects or attack first!
“Attack! We need to take it down!”
When I conveyed the words of the frantic goddess to the students, two third years immediately moved to dispatch the enemy.
“Garett! Go tear her a new one!”
“Nogan! Smash her!”
A giant wolf ran forward with its teeth bared, and an earth elemental raised its colossal arm in order to attack the girl.
The girl was about to be either smashed or ripped apart! However!
-GAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
-Guooooooo!
The wolf cried out in pain as soon as it bit the girl, and the earth elemental returned to dust.
“Kuo?!”
“C, cough! A, a forced unsummon?!”
The senior who summoned the elemental fell forward with a moan and the senior who summoned the wolf shouted in shock as his face paled more than ever.
“Hehe, are you idiots? Attacks aren’t much. An attack counts when two things collide, and pain rises as a result. Think about it, if a person punches a brick wall, would the fist hurt, or would the wall hurt?”
The girl raised her finger and went “tsk tsk” as she spoke.
“The answer is, the person who hit the wall is the one hurting!”
As soon as the sentence came to an end, the girl balled up her hands and jumped up.
“Meaning that, you’ll feel hurt no matter what you do!”
“Kwek?!”
“Whoosh! Vuun!”
“Sound effects from your m… gah!”
“R, run!”
“B, block her!”
The students either ran or attempted to block the girl, no, the silver demon who advanced while shooting out sound effects from her mouth. But most, if not all of them all turned into a living sacrifice.
“Eh? It’s the girl who contracted with the woman who felt really good to beat up?”
“Hmph!”
Crack!
I barely managed to block the girl’s attack with my shield. The shock that I got from the strength of her attack was nearly indescribable.
‘H, her strength?!’
-D, dodge! Y, you mustn’t allow yourself to get hit by that!
[B, but it looks like I can block her attacks as long as I don’t get a direct hit from her!]
-E, eh? So physical defenses work? But it’s still best to just dodge! We still don’t have a foolproof plan against her!
“Heh, you blocked?”
“Hii?!”
“Too weak~!”
I immediately attempted to stab her with my spear when she grinned at me, but the girl simply dodged the attack and aimed for my wrist.
-Throw away your weapon!
When I threw away the spear as instructed, the girl immediately grabbed the spear and stabbed it down on the ground.
“A good spear! But I dun need!”
The girl leaped forward!
“Hmph?!”
I tried to move further away from her, but then the girl stopped in her place. She jumped back towards her spear.
“The reason I moved back was!”
The moment her feet landed on the spear, the weapon bent back, and sprung her forward!
“To gain speed!”
Bang!
The girl’s flying kick was nearing me at an extreme speed.
[Goddess, please grant me strength and power!]
-Ah, wait! I’m gonna be damaged if you use that! N, no!
[I’m gonna use it!]
I decided that I would not be able to block her attack with my own power, and decided to merge my soul with that of the goddess’ using a technique known as spirit merging.
-I, I don’t like you!
My body let in half of the goddess’ soul into it. As I was unable to take in all of her soul, I was only able to use a portion of her power.
“Haah!”
Our wills to survive worked together for now and the Aegis Shield began to shine.
Bang!
“Kuh!”
I was sent flying from the kick, but I still managed to block it!
-Ugh, t, too strong! I can’t block the next one!
My legs were already trembling. This was dangerous. Even though I borrowed strength from the goddess, my body was that of an average female. It was insufficient to block an attack from something that could destroy immortals!
“Hehe? Did you block it? You blocked twice! As expected, you’re fun?!”
When the girl began to laugh out of excitement, both my face as well as the goddess’ turned pale.
-Aris, stop using spirit merge.
[G, goddess!]
-G, go die alone.. I don’t want to get beat up…
[We’re contracted together, though!]
-T, this was a cheat! It was a cheat!
Just as the friendship between a summoner and her summon was about to break, a miracle occurred.
Rustle!
“…Eh? What’s this?”
The eyes of the girl met with that of a single student who had just stood up.
“What? Did you pretend to be passed out? Is that it? What a !”
“H, huaaaa!”
As the boy tried to run from fear, the girl smiled an evil smile and kicked the boy down from behind. She then promptly mounted herself onto the boy!
“Bad kids need to be punished!”
“Kueee?! Uaaaah! I’m, I’m sor… Geeeh!”
Crack crack crack!
Seeing the boy faint and come back to life again and again from each hit made me paler by the second.
“Comrade Aris, just what is going on?”
At that moment, the student council arrived.
“…A demon. A demon is here.”
I managed to spit out a few words after swallowing my fear. Then, I pointed to a single place.
“Heehee! Wham wham! Yap! Hiya!”
There was a drooling human who was repeatedly trying to say “forgive me..” along with a silver demon who was beating up the human mercilessly.