The Dark Fantasy Doctor Was Mistaken for a Saint - Chapter 66

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Haruto

◈ The Dark Fantasy Doctor Was Mistaken for a Saint ◈

Chapter 66: What’s Your Name, You Bastard? (4)

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Freya’s group of four, having escaped the prison, moved forward by the dim ceiling lights, keeping their footsteps quiet.

Kal took the lead.

He held his folding sword low, pressed his back to the wall, and checked every corner with practiced movements.

Fresh air, free of opium dust, filled his lungs. Life had already returned to his eyes.

“Grrr...”

Just before they rounded a corner, they came face-to-face with two ghouls in the darkness.

Before the ghouls could react, Kal’s sword sliced through the dark.

Both heads flew into the air in a single strike.

“The guards aren’t particularly strong.”

Kal shook the bodily fluids from his blade and spoke in a whisper.

Valeria, supporting Eli, gave Kal a thumbs-up.

Freya stood watch at the rear with her pistol in hand.

They took down the ghouls one by one.

Before long, the group reached the ground floor.

At the far end of the long corridor, they saw a door leading outside.

Exit.

That hopeful word rose in all four of their minds.

“Good. Now...”

Kal was about to step onto the stairs when,

Thud.

Heavy footsteps sounded from the stairs leading down from the second floor.

All four stopped at once.

Thud. Thud.

Someone was coming down in a slow, heavy rhythm.

Kal signaled to the others with his eyes and pressed them against the stairwell wall.

Once he confirmed they were concealed in the wall’s shadow, Kal gripped his sword in reverse.

The footsteps drew nearer.

A shadow fell across the bend in the stairs first.

Kal held his breath.

The moment the owner of the shadow rounded the corner, Kal kicked off the wall and leaped forward.

His battle aura-laden blade swung for the shadow’s neck.

It was a perfect trajectory, impressive even to Kal himself.

But just before the blade reached its target’s neck, something glinted in the air.

Clang.

With a sharp, unpleasant scraping sound, Kal’s sword was knocked aside.

Only then did Kal see what had deflected it.

‘...Bugs?’

Three tiny beetles.

The three beetles had formed a triangular formation before the giant man’s neck.

Their shells gleamed blackish blue beneath the magic-stone lamp.

Those three thumbnail-sized insects had deflected a sword charged with battle aura.

It took Kal a moment to accept that fact.

“...Damn it.”

“Whew. Look at this cheeky little brat.”

The owner of the shadow came fully into view beneath the magic-stone lamp.

The giant man, whose left forearm was densely covered in black inscriptions, whistled beneath his hood.

“I thought you were sheltered little greenhouse flowers. Didn’t expect you to know how to ambush someone.”

Thud!

When the head of his warhammer struck the floor, spiderweb cracks spread across the stone.

Freya recognized him as the giant Kal had mentioned before.

The giant casually watched the beetles vanish from in front of his neck, then looked back up the stairs.

“Igor. Take a look at these little things. This won’t be easy.”

“We don’t have much time, Boris.”

A gaunt man in a hooded robe slowly descended behind the giant.

The man held an unlit cigarette between his lips.

Freya immediately recognized the gaunt man as a black mage.

‘Igor and Boris. They must be aliases.’

They were incredibly common aliases among mercenaries.

If someone tried looking for an Igor-Boris duo in the Mercenaries’ Guild, hundreds of registered pairs would probably appear.

The man called Igor remained on the stairs and looked over the students.

His gaze stopped on the crest embroidered on Freya’s cape.

“Young lady.”

Igor spoke.

“I regret what happened today. This should never have occurred.”

Freya looked up at Igor while gripping her pistol.

Igor descended one step.

“Let’s do this. Today, you merely lost your way for a while. You were taking a walk outside the Academy and became a little disoriented. Nothing more than that.”

“...”

“You can return to your dormitory, wash up, eat, and attend class tomorrow. You can go back to your peaceful daily life as if nothing happened. Then we can all be happy.”

Freya did not answer.

Instead, she returned a question.

“Then what will happen to my seniors here?”

“Is there any reason for a young lady like you to concern yourself with commoners like these?”

“As expected.”

Freya nodded calmly.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t accept that offer.”

“A noble, yet you won’t stand aside and let others handle things.”

“Because I’m a noble, I have honor to protect.”

Tsk.

Boris clicked his tongue lightly and lifted his warhammer onto his shoulder.

“Igor.”

“Yes. Go, Boris.”

The moment those words fell, Boris moved.

The warhammer cut through the air.

The horizontally swung hammerhead surged forward as though it intended to sweep away the entire corridor where the students stood.

Kal rushed forward.

His battle aura-laden blade barely diverted the hammer’s path.

Boom!

The wall grazed by the hammer was gouged out like tofu.

“Oh, battle aura? They teach that even to undergrads these days? Makes tuition feel worth paying!”

Boris immediately followed with another strike.

Kal realized he did not have much battle aura left.

But he could not block that absurdly heavy warhammer over and over with a self-defense sword.

So Kal chose to evade rather than defend.

“Get back!”

Kal shoved Freya and Valeria behind him as he spoke.

Then he ducked beneath the warhammer’s path and slipped inside Boris’s reach.

The hammer passed over his head, scattering his hair in the wind.

Kal’s sword rose beneath it.

A diagonal upward slash loaded with battle aura.

It was aimed at Boris’s flank.

Boris tried to block it by raising the warhammer’s handle.

But that too was part of Kal’s plan.

‘Good. His movements are simple enough.’

Kal changed the blade’s trajectory, slipping beneath the handle and slicing Boris’s thigh.

Blood sprayed across the floor.

“Oh?”

Boris’s eyes widened.

“I didn’t realize it while you were getting beaten up in prison, but you had this much skill?”

As he spoke, Boris swung his hammer again.

At the same time, the gaunt mage Igor began chanting behind Boris to support him.

But the instant his lips began to move,

“Ventus.”

Wind rose first from Valeria’s staff.

It was a basic wind spell.

Naturally, a basic spell did not have much destructive power.

But it carried enough force to knock out even an adult man if it struck his unguarded jaw.

The gaunt mage Igor leaned his head back and avoided the wind.

But Valeria did not regret missing.

Subduing Igor was not her goal.

Igor attempted another chant.

“Dra...”

“Ventus.”

Her purpose was only to interfere with the black mage’s chants.

Even a high-ranking mage would find it burdensome to cast magic without a chant.

Valeria was simply doing everything she could to exploit that weakness.

“...Clever.”

Having understood her intent, Igor calmly praised Valeria.

While Kal handled Boris and Valeria kept Igor occupied,

Click.

Freya quietly checked the chamber of her revolver from the shadows.

Consecrated silver bullets.

They were said to have assassinated a count-level noble in the past and brought down a Rank 2 black mage.

‘I have to hit him properly.’

Her target was Igor, the Rank 1 mage.

Once they dealt with the mage, Freya could join Kal and they would have enough strength to handle the giant.

Freya steadied her breathing.

After confirming once more that Igor’s attention was focused on Valeria,

she quietly aimed at the center of his chest.

Then, at the moment Valeria’s wind interrupted Igor’s chant,

Bang!

The gunshot tore through the corridor.

A silver bullet flew in a straight line and struck Igor in the chest.

Igor’s upper body bent sharply backward from the direct hit.

“Igor!”

Boris, the warhammer-wielding giant, was startled by Igor being hit.

Kal did not miss the opening.

Stab!

His sword pierced the giant’s abdomen.

It was over.

Certainty flashed through Freya’s glacier-blue eyes.

At least, that was what she thought until Igor, who had staggered as though he were about to fall backward, slowly raised his head.

“Huh?”

“Hngh... No matter how many times I’m hit, pain is something you never get used to.”

Igor spat the cigarette from his mouth onto the floor.

The chest that had been struck by the silver bullet was completely clean.

Looking more closely, the bullet seemed to have stopped after hitting something in front of his chest.

The gaunt mage picked up the silver bullet stopped against his chest.

“...You use expensive bullets.”

Black things poured from inside Igor’s robe.

Bugs.

Black beetles the same size as the ones that had protected Boris’s neck earlier.

The insects densely covered Igor’s chest.

Dozens of beetles that touched the silver burned away with a hiss.

And that was all.

Igor himself did not have a single scratch.

He dropped the silver bullet to the floor.

“The strategy itself was excellent. For students with no real combat experience, that was extremely well-coordinated teamwork.”

Igor slowly applauded.

“But you’re still just students.”

Tap.

His applause stopped.

“I don’t know where a young lady like you acquired such expensive bullets, but perhaps that’s to be expected from nobility. Owning an item and knowing how to use it are different things.”

Crunch.

The mage crushed the silver bullet beneath his foot.

“How many mages do you think this bullet has killed so far? Did you truly think mages would not have developed countermeasures by now, young lady?”

At those words, something flashed through Freya’s mind.

In the past, when Erika had told her about defeating a black mage with silver bullets, Freya had wondered about something.

Why had Otto and Wangcho, rather than Julian, been made to fire the guns?

Why had they not pulled the trigger while the black mage was chanting?

Igor was giving her the answer.

“At the very least, you should have waited until the mage exhausted their mana, or until the backlash immediately after casting struck them. Or you should have loaded the bullet with battle aura.”

Silver bullets only worked if they struck the target directly.

Mages who understood that naturally prepared measures against them.

In Igor’s case, he had sacrificed the insects under his control instead.

“You understand the bullets you use far too poorly, young lady.”

Then an unusual sound came from Boris’s direction.

Squelch.

It came from the abdomen Kal had just pierced.

Freya turned her head.

Kal’s battle aura-laden sword had clearly gone through Boris’s stomach.

The blade had protruded from his back. There was no doubt about it.

But with the blade still lodged inside him, Boris’s flesh began to twitch.

Then flesh rose up and pushed the sword out.

The hole vanished, and the skin knit itself back together.

Kal gripped his expelled sword again and stepped back twice.

“I’ve never heard of an augmentation treatment like that.”

Boris snickered.

Then he tapped the tattoo on his left arm with a finger.

“Augmentation treatment, brat? When did I ever say that?”

Boris’s body began to change.

Scales rose across his skin.

His arms thickened, and his fingernails split and sharpened into claws.

A tail rose behind him.

“Ever heard of chimera treatment?”

His vertically slit pupils reflected the magic-stone lamp.

Valeria reacted immediately.

She pushed Eli against the wall and aimed her staff at the lizard-like giant.

“Prutinis.”

The chant left her lips.

But the spell did not form.

Mana had flowed, the spell formula was accurate, and the conditions were met.

She even had the necessary symbolism.

Yet no miracle formed at the tip of her staff.

Why?

She had fulfilled every condition and symbol...

As Valeria froze in confusion, Boris’s tail swept horizontally toward Valeria and Eli.

Kal reflexively jumped in front of them.

He raised his sword to block it, but the mass of the scaled tail was beyond what the top student of the Swordsmanship Department could handle.

Thump.

Kal’s body flew into the air with a dull impact.

He turned once in midair before crashing back-first into the wall at the end of the corridor.

“Senior Kal!”

Freya screamed.

Valeria’s hand holding her staff trembled.

‘Why isn’t it working? Why?’

A hoarse voice cut into Valeria’s pale thoughts.

“Didn’t I tell you? You’re just students.”

Valeria turned her head.

Igor was slowly waving a finger from side to side.

Like a metronome.

“For a mage, knowledge is power. At your level, you cannot even identify which condition I altered.”

Valeria’s expression hardened.

Dispelling.

A technique that nullified an opponent’s magic by secretly changing conditions and symbols they did not know.

She knew it in theory.

But she had never encountered it in student-level sparring, much less suffered it in real combat.

“When facing a higher-ranking mage, your first priority is to conceal your spell formula. Do they not teach such things in the High Division anymore?”

Igor took out another unlit cigarette and put it between his lips.

“Wind and ice are your main specialties. Easy enough to see. You cast far too much magic. If interrupting chants with nothing but basic magic could solve everything, why would mages bother learning intermediate spells?”

A single strike was important in battles between mages.

The more magic one used, the more one exposed the conditions and symbols they favored.

For mages, whose gap in knowledge was itself a weapon, revealing their specialty became a fatal weakness the longer a battle continued.

That was why mages revealed their true abilities only when they were certain they could land a decisive blow.

Just as Igor was doing now.

“After forcing yourself to cast so much magic, you should be feeling dizzy soon.”

Just as Igor said, Valeria staggered.

Mana sickness.

The earlier barrage of basic spells cast with partially omitted chants, plus the backlash from her final failed spell.

Even basic magic could not leave much mana behind if used that recklessly.

“It seems you have never truly fought in combat.”

“Why are you so happy to explain every little thing, Igor? Did getting expelled make you discover a passion for teaching?”

The lizard man, who had been quietly listening to Igor, grumbled as he dug at his ear.

Igor paused briefly.

“...Even when I stood at the podium, I was sincere.”

“Sure you were.”

“You wouldn’t understand the feeling of a talented student comprehending my class. You can never experience that in this line of work.”

“Says the man who ran off because he couldn’t stand seeing his own students surpass him.”

Grind.

Igor gritted his teeth and glared at Boris.

The lizard man snickered and raised his middle finger.

“Quit yapping and finish them already. The fire upstairs will be coming down soon. What are you doing with the young lady?”

“We will not stray far from the original plan.”

The hooded mage turned his gaze toward Freya.

“We deal with the rest. As for the young lady... persuasion seems impossible, so we erase her memories at the hideout and send her back.”

“What a hassle.”

“If the baron pursues us to the end, it will become troublesome.”

“Fair enough.”

Boris raised his warhammer vertically.

His target was Kal, collapsed against the wall.

Kal’s breathing was ragged.

Every time he inhaled, a sound like something tearing escaped from deep in his chest.

Beside Kal was the girl who had done nothing but curl up until now.

“Kal! Try to breathe! What do I do?”

“Hngh... Cough...”

“Your breathing... What do I do? What did Director Schun say we should do in a situation like this...?”

Eli, who had been too overwhelmed by the opium dust to move, had somehow crawled to Kal’s side.

She struck her own head while desperately trying to remember something.

Then Eli’s hands began doing something over Kal’s chest.

And Freya stepped in front of Boris as though shielding them both.

“You can’t do this.”

Glacier-blue mana rose from the muzzle of Freya’s pistol.

Boris frowned as though irritated and looked at Igor.

“Igor. Can’t you dispel this too? This is getting tiring.”

Igor shook his head.

“It is arcane magic.”

“So?”

“Dispelling it is impossible. She must be using conditions that only someone who can inherit that house’s blood can read. Why else would it be arcane magic?”

“Fuck. Nobles are a pain in the ass everywhere.”

Resting his warhammer against his shoulder, Boris looked down at Freya.

His vertically slit lizard pupils met Freya’s glacier-blue eyes.

“I want to ask you just one thing, young lady.”

The hostility had left Boris’s voice.

“Are they really people worth risking your life to protect? I’ve never seen school seniors and juniors so close.”

Freya answered without hesitation.

“You don’t protect people because they are precious.”

One person passed through her mind.

The only person she admired beyond measure, the person who scattered goodwill throughout this dark world.

His selfless goodwill had saved countless people.

It had saved Freya as well.

The girl who had grown up watching that miracle nearby said,

“They become precious because you protect them. Bonds cannot even begin unless someone reaches out first.”

She wanted to follow that person’s back forever.

That was why she could not retreat, even now.

Because if he were here, she knew he would do the same.

“...”

Boris raised an eyebrow.

A short silence filled the corridor.

Haa...

The lizard man’s deep sigh echoed through the corridor.

“If they are still breathing, the elders will handle the rest.”

He raised his warhammer again.

Freya placed her finger on the trigger in response.

That was when the voice Freya had so desperately wanted to hear echoed through the corridor.

“I agree with those words, Lady Freya.”

“Ignus tacto.”

A low chant cut into the beloved voice.

Whoosh!

A red torrent of fire raced down the second-floor stairs and engulfed Igor and Boris.

Heat flooded the entire corridor.

Freya’s cheeks grew hot.

Yet although the students were exposed to the heat from so close by, not one of them was burned.

The spell formula and exception handling woven into those flames were too delicate to measure.

“Igor!”

“I know.”

Insects poured from the walls and ceiling.

Hundreds of beetles formed a wall before Igor and Boris.

The bugs burned away as they absorbed the flames.

Sizzle.

The smell of burning insects filled the corridor.

The fire subsided.

But the price was high.

“Tsk... Half have been used up.”

More than half of Igor’s insects had become ash.

He looked toward the end of the corridor with hollow eyes.

“They confirmed my Rank and used an existing fire rather than displaying their own magic. An excellent decision.”

“What are you admiring every little thing for, bastard?”

“Be careful, Boris. That side is accustomed to battle between mages. My Rank may be higher, but if we are careless, they could still catch us off guard.”

At some point, the door by the exit had opened.

Men in black combat uniforms walked in through it.

The Ironclad emblem was embroidered on their chests.

They spread out in perfect coordination while wearing gas masks.

The sound of combat boots striking stone echoed at steady intervals.

At the front of those members, two people emerged side by side.

One held a gun-like magical tool connected by a nozzle to an enormous magical device.

Captain Shen.

“We came after receiving contact from House Nihirit, my lady.”

The captain of Ironclad gave Freya a light salute, then stepped to the side.

The man beside the captain stepped forward.

A man in a suit and fedora, attire entirely unsuited to the battlefield.