An Angel Lives in the Academy
Chapter 206: The Angel Who Spreads Its Wings (1)

With a wave of the boy king’s hand, the darkened sky crumbled, crashing down upon the city below.

The unbelievably dense pressure of karma twisted the layers of the earth, and eventually, those layers shattered, creating fissures.

Truly, it was a time when the sky was falling and the earth was cracking. Anyone who knew the word ‘apocalypse’ would surely think of it.

That this moment was the apocalypse.

That this was the moment to be called the end of ends.

Those in the city who hadn’t already lost their minds now fell into despair.

Some prostrated themselves on the ground, chanting the name of the god they believed in, while another drank cheap moonshine and cursed the gods. And an old man tuned his guitar as if nothing was happening. But… his hands were trembling.

However, people held the hands of their loved ones.

Husbands tightly embraced their wives, and wives tightly embraced their husbands. They turned their backs to the falling sky, shielding their children in their arms, as if their bodies could stop the sky's collapse.

It was a prayer.

Even though the heavens that would answer their prayers no longer existed, there was still someone who was listening.

And so the sky didn’t fall.

Or rather, someone was stopping the falling sky.

A girl, her one arm lost, her body covered in wounds, was standing against the collapsing sky.

“An, angel-nim?”

Someone saw the girl and muttered like this.

Just as a certain angel who fell to earth long ago thought the girl was truly like an angel, the girl still remained in this world with an angelic appearance.

Seeing that, the Demon King couldn’t help but twist the corners of his mouth.

“You've realized something? You, doing such a stupid thing?”

The Demon King’s tone gradually became more intense. He was casually spitting out words that it was unclear who they were directed at.

“Nonsense, nonsense, nonsense! You’ve realized nothing, Yumari! You know nothing about this world!”

The blackened sky began to writhe in response to the Demon King’s anger. It was preparing to collapse once again towards the city, increasing its weight heavily.

“Without knowing anything, just die like that…!”

Unlike the Demon King’s enraged appearance, his action was really nothing special. He just flicked his index finger downward.

However, the sky obeyed such a minor command from the Demon King and was collapsing its body once again to erase the human city.

“I’ve won.”

The demon king muttered while watching the falling sky.

“Even if she blocks this again, I’ll just collapse the sky again, and that’s that.”

The dark karma was infinite. Even if the sky fell over and over again, the darkness that filled this world would gather and create a new sky.

He could capture Yumari just by wiggling his fingers a few times. The Demon King should have been pleased with this situation.

“I’ll just repeat it as many times as needed.”

However, however, what is this feeling.

Bewilderment. No, an emotion that went beyond mere bewilderment.

The sight of that girl, becoming battered and protecting the crumbling world over and over with just one arm.

“Hero…”

Unconsciously, the demon king muttered the word ‘hero.’ And realizing that, even if just for a moment, he had acknowledged Mari as a hero, the demon king felt even more enraged.

“Hero, hero, hero… Hero!”

The demon king gathered his darkness once more.

* * *

While blocking Leffrey’s fierce attacks, Hongwol thought of one expression.

‘It’s heart-wrenching’

Hongwol only learned the word ‘heart-wrenching’ after entering the Central Academy. It was unavoidable that Hongwol, who had lived a life far removed from studying, had a smaller vocabulary than her peers.

But it was strange.

She didn’t remember most of the other words she learned, but somehow the word ‘heart-wrenching’ had stuck with her.

The girl, looking at the tear stains left around Leffrey’s eyes, realized why she kept murmuring the expression ‘It’s heart-wrenching’

Because Hongwol’s heart ached whenever she saw Leffrey’s sadness.

“Boy, do you know this? We cats have a sixth sense?”

On the day she almost died after failing a mission, the day she barely managed to escape as a cat and climb onto a snow-covered wall.

The cat saw a beautiful boy with sad eyes.

“When I first met you, you looked really sad somehow”

He was clearly smiling and had a warm expression, but from within the boy, a deep scent of sadness could be felt.

A truly deep scent of sadness.

“If I were as sad and despairing as you, I would already be on the Demon King’s side, tormenting this world to the fullest.”

Blocking the reddened Flabellum with a parrying dagger, Hongwol continued to speak.

“But you saved Soya, and you saved Yumari, and you saved me, didn’t you? And how much have you done for the people?”

Leffrey took a step back and quickly regained his stance. Knowing that something big was coming, Soya immediately formed hand seals and cast a multi-layered barrier.

“You seemed to think that you are not kind, that you only move for your own benefit. No, that’s not true.”

Leffrey’s angelic ability that illuminates the world with darkness instead of light. When that angelic ability clashed with the barriers, the barriers were easily torn apart like tissue paper.

And from that shockwave, Soya was blown far away.

“Now I know. If you had really only thought of yourself, people would have already seen the Demon King that night.”

Smoke grew from the collision between the angelic ability and the barrier.

And Leffrey hid himself within that smoke. But Soya was more adept at moving within such darkness.

Inside the thick smoke, the red dagger began to clash with the blue dagger once again.

“Someone as angelic as you…”

*Kiiing*- With a chilling sound, the two daggers collided in the air.

“…I have never seen anyone as angelic as you.”

And the dance of daggers ended. One was pierced and bleeding, while the other made one bleed by piercing them.

In the dance of daggers, Hongwol won. But in the other fight, the fight to see who possessed greater killing intent, Leffrey was the victor.

Hongwol couldn’t bring herself to stab.

Leffrey could bring himself to stab.

“My angel…”

Hongwol, stabbed by Flabellum, slowly caressed Leffrey’s cheek. Hongwol’s heart broke once again.

“Don’t be too sad…”

Leffrey’s unfocused eyes were looking at Soya.

* * *

“Hmph, that was quick.”

The demon king muttered while looking at the crumbling buildings.

“Did you think you could hold out forever? You said you realized, but you didn’t even know this.”

The city wasn’t smeared. It was just gradually collapsing, unable to withstand the pressure from the sky. Nevertheless, seeing Yumari standing up like a roly-poly, the Demon King said mockingly.

“How foolish, stupid. You really know nothing!”

It was already the thirtieth time, the Demon King had collapsed the sky thirty times already. Feeling anxious for the first time in a long while, the Demon King tried to collapse the sky once again.

It was at that moment.

A terrible wave of karma was felt from far away.

“Leffrey…!”

As if he had been anxiously waiting for that wave, the Demon King couldn’t hide his joy.

“My little angel, my only kin, Leffrey. You finally understood my truth…!”

That wave from earlier, it was the wave of birth. It could also be called the wave of joy, the joy of a clueless boy finally realizing the truth.

It was also the cry of an angel who had stabbed the hero he was supposed to protect and had fallen as far as he could.

Feeling that joyful wave, the Demon King trembled. The thought of ‘finally, at last’ did not leave his mind.

The demon king smiled brightly and slowly opened his mouth.

“Did you think I wouldn’t know why you’re doing such foolish things?”

A girl who lost her mother to the schemes of humans, a young dragon who had lived a hellish life trapped by her family, a hero used as a tool and eventually plunged into darkness. No matter how he thought about it, there’s no reason for a being like that to fight for this world.

If there was a reason, it would naturally be.

“Naturally, it’s because of Leffrey.”

There would be no other reason. Absolutely not.

If that’s the reason why she was continuously damaging her body, even losing an arm, then shouldn’t he kindly remove that reason.

Glance—That dragon… no, that girl, covered in blood, waiting for the next attack to fly at her. The way she looked at him with an expression of having realized something really didn’t sit well with him.

“Hehehe.”

But now it’s different. Thinking that that expression would now turn into despair, the Demon King couldn’t hold back his laughter.

“Leffrey, come to me.”

The Demon King muttered towards the empty air as if whispering. However, the whisper of the Demon King, who ruled over dark karma, was not a simple whisper.

To the extent that Leffrey, who was hundreds of kilometers away from the Demon King, turned his head immediately upon hearing those words, the Demon King’s whisper was inaudible yet certain.

Thus, Leffrey left the place without looking back. Leaving Soya behind.

The girl with gray hair wearing a witch’s hat, Soya. Soya lifted the brim of her hat to see Leffrey leaving a little better.

The pitch-black sky, as if ink had been spilled on it.

Not much was visible under such a sky. But as if she could see something, the girl stood there motionlessly for a long time.

“Leffrey…”

* * *

The boy had a nightmare.

No, he was in the midst of having a nightmare.

Hmm, this expression doesn’t seem right either. Yes, the boy was just dreaming. Perhaps a dream more terrible than a nightmare.

The dream was simple. It was a dream where the boy and another boy met and talked to each other.

“Leffriel…?”

“No, I’m Leffrey.”

That boy was a boy who looked so much like himself. No, with his hair and eyes dyed black, he looked exactly like himself now.

That boy smiled brightly and lightly waved his hand.

“Perhaps I can be called a Leffrey who is more Leffrey-like than you. Nice to meet you.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“What I mean is, it’s like this.”

When the boy who claimed to be Leffrey spread his hand, the figures of the boy’s mother and a young boy appeared from afar.

“You, have you ever thought about that?”

“What thought…”

“The thought that you were born just as a tool. That, just as your biological father had said, it would have been better if you had never been born.”

‘Haven’t you ever thought that?’ the other Leffrey asked lightly. Leffrey stood there blankly and couldn’t answer anything to that question.

“Ah, of course I understand. Becoming the daughter-in-law of a rich family is what people call turning your life around, right? How could your mom give up on such an opportunity. Of course, the problem was that she didn’t expect your biological father would be this brutal. But did she really not imagine, even a little, that the child she was about to give birth to would live such a miserable life?”

“Shut up…”

“Then shouldn’t you shut up yourself? I am you. So, this is your thought.”

Leffrey looked up at ‘Leffrey.’

That expression looked so sad.

“Then you know this too. That love was real.”

“But the darkness that you were born as a tool was also real.”

‘Leffrey’ looked down at Leffrey.

“And the irresponsibility of giving birth to you in such a cruel world, in a cruel family, was also real. Darkness exists everywhere. Therefore, darkness is the truth.”

Before he knew it, the boy’s hand was wet with red.

The boy instinctively realized whose blood it was.

“This blood, no way, no. It can’t be… it can’t be…!”

A hand from the darkness caressed Leffrey, who was shedding tears.

“It’s not that it can’t be.”

The darkness that took Leffrey’s form said.

“Hongwol, Mari, Soya. They are all children who cannot wake up from their nightmares. No one can wake them from their nightmares. Just like the nightmares we have…”

The darkness passed judgment on the three girls without any hesitation.

“What we have done is the only way to end their nightmares.”

And then the darkness pointed at Mari.

“Now, let’s put an end to that child’s nightmare as well.”