WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Irevi
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◈ I Became the Academy's Turn-Based Swordsman ◈
Chapter 108: A Conundrum
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In most games, debuffs are just as important as buffs.
Academy of the End was no different. Hadn't I farmed the Shattering Sword for its Defense reduction debuff?
But a debuff-focused build was a little less appealing.
Unlike Red Flame, which specialized in burst damage, Luna's Purple Flame specialized in damage over time.
Over the same period, it dealt less than half the damage Red Flame could.
It seemed the developers had put some thought into it to add variety to combat, but unfortunately, damage over time didn't mesh well with the original game's combat meta.
The heart of combat in Academy of the End was evading or parrying an enemy's attack, then unleashing overwhelming damage during the delay in their movements.
In particular, once you put an enemy into Stagger through Break, you could freely unload powerful Arts on the defenseless enemy.
It was more efficient to use even slightly stronger Arts than to spend time inflicting status ailments or damage over time.
Of course, some debuffs were useful.
Things like Defense reduction or Attack reduction.
But those could easily be replaced by giving other characters equipment like the Shattering series.
To make matters worse, most boss-class monsters had high debuff resistance, while normal monsters were cut down before a debuff could even take hold.
Purple Flame Luna would still be competitive in the early and middle stages, but the fatal problem arose in the final chapter.
Once the final chapter began, the party split into two, and Purple Flame Luna's place became unclear.
In the original, the most reliable composition was main damage dealer, sub-damage dealer, healer, and buffer.
In the final chapter, Luna was usually assigned as the main damage dealer for the second party, the one without Aren.
If Luna was instead made into a debuffer, the second party would be left without a main damage dealer.
That was why players who ran Purple Flame Luna as a novelty build often pounded the ground in regret when they reached the final chapter.
But the reason I was surprised to see Purple Flame wasn't merely because the main magic DPS had disappeared.
"That flame..."
"Ah, it's the Grace Family's secret magic."
Purple Flame and Red Flame weren't something you could switch between with a click, like Lumen & Caligo.
Purple Flame was closer to a class change.
Only after clearing a certain quest at the Mage Tower overseen by the Grace Family could you finally change to the Purple Flame path.
True to its reputation as the Empire's foremost magical family, the Grace Family wielded immense influence throughout the Empire's mage society, and at its center stood the Mage Tower they owned.
A flame of pure mana closest to demonic energy, which could only be learned through the spellbooks hidden within the Mage Tower. That was the premise behind Purple Flame.
In other words, Luna using Purple Flame meant she had already cleared that quest.
At this point in time, which was still only the early to middle part of the original story.
The Purple Flame quest was unbelievably difficult.
Luna had to clear a tower structured like a Shadow Dungeon, where a boss-class monster appeared on every floor, all by herself.
She couldn't even recover midway through, so even veteran players had to approach it carefully.
Only then could I guess why scars covered her body.
'Why?'
There was no reason she needed to clear that quest.
Red Flame was simply stronger.
If, on the first day of enrollment, Luna had taken my hand and I had formed a party with her rather than Cecilia.
I never would have recommended Purple Flame to her.
Yet Luna had chosen the Purple Flame path on her own.
'There must be a reason.'
The hypothesis that she was a stalker was still valid.
But separately from that, I had to consider the possibility that she possessed some kind of information.
'At least I know now.'
I set aside the complicated thoughts and turned my attention back to my original purpose.
When I finished turning the dial and opened the safe, I found bundles of money that appeared to be the cult's budget, several consumables, and a number of ledgers.
"Let's see... Is this a list of cult members?"
Adeline's expression stiffened as she skimmed through the ledgers.
They contained not only entry records for the Getel branch, but maps marking the locations of several other branches as well.
There were even routes for infiltrating the Empire through its western passageways, along with the names of spies planted throughout the Empire.
"Those bastards had even wormed their way into Luft."
"Hand that over to Her Imperial Highness."
"I will."
Clicking her tongue, Adeline put the ledgers into her bag.
Unlike her, what caught my eye was the dark ore hidden between the ledgers.
Despite the torchlight shining upon it, its surface seemed to swallow all light rather than reflect it.
'Just as I thought. There was one.'
[Abyss Fragment]
[A fragment filled with Abyssal demonic energy. It seems it could be made into something if processed.]
Abyss Fragments were farming materials that had a certain chance of dropping from monsters from the middle to late stages of the original onward.
They had no immediate use, but in the final chapter, they were needed to make endgame weapons like Hyperion, rather than weapons such as Savior or Azure Night that awakened through specific methods.
In the original, each weapon required three fragments, and the other two branches we planned to raid this time each had one more fragment.
Later, Elia would awaken as a craftsman and leave the playable party. From then on, you could have Elia process the fragments and create each character's endgame weapon.
I didn't know whether Halibal Velder had an exclusive endgame weapon, but if one existed, I could probably make it with these fragments.
And if not, I could give them to other characters.
Just as I tucked the Abyss Fragment into my clothes, Adeline spoke.
"Ha. Look at these bastards."
The map marked the locations of the other two branches from the schedule, along with the Getel branch.
Adeline's finger pointed to the three branches in turn.
The destination indicated by the lines joining them.
"This is... Nevil."
"That's right."
The journey that had begun in Nevil would end in Nevil once more.
That's right. The last branch we would raid was located inside Nevil.
'Though it doesn't exist yet.'
Before we set off, I told Adeline that we would raid four branches.
Adeline had been puzzled.
There were only three branches on the schedule.
Naturally, she would be.
The final target, the Nevil branch, was a place that would not be established until about a month from now.
In the original, the appearance of the Nevil branch was the turning point where the story truly began to grow bleak.
The bishops originally began operating openly in the first semester of the second year.
While Aren's group spent their first year tirelessly traveling all across the Empire and cleaning up after others, the bishops built branches throughout the Empire out of their sight.
Then they turned Imperial citizens into cultists or drained their vitality to grow stronger, until they finally succeeded in planting a tumor within Nevil.
That place was the Nevil branch.
That branch became a passageway that allowed bishops, including Malias, to infiltrate the Academy freely.
But the greatest problem was that the Nevil branch was where they abducted students and carried out Monsterization experiments.
When Aren's group was dispatched to the front lines in their second year, the cult used this branch as a base to expand its power within the Academy.
In the process, some noble children became victims of the experiments. Then Yusra Reygal revealed his fangs amid the chaos, naturally leading into the noble civil war scenario.
The three branches marked on the map, Getel, Rainport, and Ashfall, were key supply routes for creating the Nevil branch.
In particular, Ashfall, the final branch, was also the branch where the original Halibal Velder had been held by the cult.
I decided that I would investigate Halibal's past during this vacation.
I recalled as much as I could of my memories wandering the wasteland without direction and retraced how I had reached Belheim.
Only after remembering a signpost I had glimpsed did I become certain that Ashfall was where I had been held.
If I hadn't escaped then, I would have undergone brainwashing there before being sent into the Academy through the Nevil branch.
Didn't being held at the Ashfall branch mean that the original Halibal's hometown was also near Ashfall?
I would search for traces of him and uproot the Nevil branch ahead of time. It was a plan to kill two birds with one stone.
"These little rats..."
Adeline's face twisted after she saw the connections on the map.
It was an expression I had never seen from her, even when we were in the unit.
At heart, she was a person with a strong sense of professional duty.
Not only as the commander of the Raid Corps, but as an Academy instructor as well.
She always seemed laid-back, yet she had received high marks in the faculty evaluations during the first semester.
For someone like her, learning that the cult intended to lay eggs in Nevil, practically her own front yard, must have felt like an insult she couldn't tolerate.
"Halibal."
Adeline turned to me.
"I won't ask any longer how you know this information. What matters is that if it weren't for you, we would have let the enemy reach the heart of the Academy right before our eyes."
She added,
"So this is enough. At least I know you're not on the cult's side. I won't doubt you anymore."
Adeline looked at me with an expression full of trust.
Luna only listened to our conversation, her expression impossible to read.
⁎⁎⁎
A little later, we returned to the entrance of the branch.
On the way up, we searched the bodies of the fallen cultists, but found nothing of note.
They were obsessed with demonic energy anyway. Even if we kept them alive and interrogated them, they wouldn't speak sensibly.
"Good. I'll report the evidence we've secured to Her Imperial Highness immediately."
"What will you do with this place?"
"Destroy it."
Adeline looked down at the underground entrance.
"So they won't even think of rebuilding it."
A good idea. But burying an underground facility like this would take quite a while.
Then Adeline drew her sword.
"Everyone, cover your ears."
After confirming that Luna and I had covered our ears, she gathered power into her right arm.
The muscles in her arm swelled like balloons, and the veins beneath her skin stood out sharply.
A fierce storm of pure sunlight swirled around her, radiant as a Buddha statue.
The forest, thick with darkness, was instantly washed in sunlight.
Soon, a mass of solar sword aura shaped like a lion descended from the sky like a falling meteor.
"Arrival of a Hundred Kings."
KRAAAAAASH!
A thunderous roar that seemed ready to tear apart my eardrums, even with my ears covered.
The instant the lion collided with the ground, it swallowed the surrounding area in a blinding flash.
When I opened my eyes much later, everything within several dozen meters of us, aside from the small clearing where we stood, had been hollowed out.
The branch had vanished without a trace.
With a single blast of sword aura, she had collapsed the ground around here and buried the branch alive.
"All right, cleaning complete."
Yeah. That certainly finished the cleaning.
'She used a Secret Art without warning.'
In the original, the concept of a finishing move had been replaced by Break.
However, there were Secret Arts, the strongest Arts comparable to finishing moves.
The Art Adeline had just displayed was her Secret Art, one that could only be seen once in the entire game.
In the original's setting, using a Secret Art came with the penalty of draining all strength from the user's body, but for some reason, Adeline wasn't even out of breath.
'...This is what it means to get carried.'
The class of the Empire’s Greatest Sword.
"Did you see that?"
"It was too bright. I couldn't see it."
"Hm? Then shall I show you again?"
"No..."
At my immediate refusal, Adeline chuckled and sheathed her sword.
"Great! So where did you say the next place was?"
"Next is... Rainport."
"Rainport, the port city. Were we taking a ship from there to Baran? Are we going straight there?"
"No. There's somewhere we need to stop first."
I glanced at Luna, who stood behind me.
She, too, looked unable to hide her shock at Adeline's divine might.
'What should I do?'
Normally, I wouldn't even have considered it, but seeing Adeline's power had stirred my greed.
Luna would be useful enough at this point, too.
My gaze shifted to the part of the schedule I had specially underlined as "on hold."
Gravner, Elia's hometown, a city of mines and craftsmen where the fourth Evil God Dungeon was located.
Would we clear the fourth Evil God Dungeon, the Demon Dungeon, before moving on? Or would we skip it?
It was a conundrum.
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