I Got a Fake Job at the Academy
Chapter 519

"W-what's there? What are you saying, Flora? Don't scare me~"

"Step back, Cheryl."

Perhaps reading the seriousness in Flora's voice, Cheryl trembled.

Aidan also drew out his sword-shaped staff from his waist.

Perhaps realizing that they had detected their presence the hidden ones revealed themselves.

The rocks making up the rocky mountain stirred, and from beneath them emerged solid pincers.

"What are those?"

"They look like some kind of crabs."

The crabs that had been camouflaged as rocks approached this way, clicking their pincers.

Flora's expression hardened when she saw a large rock blocking the path get cut away by the pincers.

The cross-section of the cut rock was too smooth.

It wasn't just blunt pincers, but cutting power comparable to industrial cutting tools.

"Tch!"

Flora immediately drew up her magical power without even assessing the situation.

The creatures had been hiding camouflaged, but once discovered, they began approaching.

Flora wove her magical power like thread as usual to implement her spell, a spell that would normally take less than a second to complete.

Now the speed of drawing the spell was significantly slower, as if submerged in water.

'It's not working as I want!'

Flora gritted her teeth and forcefully continued drawing the spell.

Having both the [Source Code] received from Rudger, and more importantly, the experience of opening mana paths through mana suppression helped.

The method of forcefully squeezing out mana that wouldn't move well wasn't a big concern, as she had experienced it before.

Even in the unique environment of Dreamland, Flora's magic demonstrated considerable completeness.

Hot beasts of fire rose and charged at the rock crabs.

The rock crab leading the charge swung its pincers, but the beast of flames burned the rock crab along with its pincers.

Seeing this, the other rock crabs immediately crouched down.

-Whoosh!

A wave of hot air passed by, but the rock crabs wearing their shell armor were fine.

The rock crabs that had blocked the attack charged again.

Flora bit her lip at their speed, which was even faster than before.

"What on earth is this!"

She quickly prepared the next spell, but there wasn't enough time.

Having noticed their camouflage too late, the distance with the creatures had been reduced too much.

'I need to buy time.'

What Flora saw before her eyes was Aidan's back as he charged toward the rock crabs.

"Wait! You...!"

Before Flora could shout anything, Aidan swung his sword-shaped staff at the rock crabs.

It wasn't even a real sword, just a staff shaped like one.

It was woefully inadequate to cut through the rock crabs' hard shells that weren't even fazed by 3rd-tier fire magic.

However,

-Slash!

Aidan's staff cut through the rock crab's shell far too easily.

More than just cutting, it split the rock crab's body in half like firewood.

Flora's pupils dilated at the unbelievable sight.

"Huh?"

The same went for Aidan who had swung the sword.

"This works?"

Though puzzled, Aidan didn't stop swinging his sword.

The rock crabs swung their pincers, but Aidan dodged their attacks with incredibly fluid movements while launching counterattacks.

The rock crabs were cut down with each swing of the staff.

Leo, Tracy, and Iona also watched with disbelieving eyes at the sight of Aidan helping them.

'That Aidan. Even though he got stronger, he wasn't this strong.'

Leo's pupils reflected Aidan's form as he moved like a wolf among sheep.

Aidan had grown stronger during the break.

However, what Aidan was showing now went beyond just getting stronger, it seemed like something else entirely.

It was as if this restrictive environment was actually empowering Aidan more than anyone else.

-Swoosh!

When Aidan swung his sword horizontally, three rock crabs that charged together were cut down at once.

With each swing, condensed magical power burst from the tip of the sword-shaped staff, sweeping across a wide area.

A sight that made one wonder if he had even cut through space itself.

It was a technique that would have been impossible normally.

'My body feels light. Power keeps overflowing. More certainly, I feel like I can do even more here.'

Aidan didn't understand why he had become this strong.

He didn't try to understand it.

The only thing running through his mind now was the determination to cut down the enemies before him.

Like a single straight line, that series of mindsets connected with the special environment of Dreamland to awaken his talent.

Aidan gained courage from his body that moved better than usual.

That he could sufficiently handle this.

Stronger.

Faster.

Aidan didn't just swing his sword.

At the same time, he imagined magic in his mind and implemented it with earnest wishes.

The rock crabs trying to target Aidan while avoiding the sword's trajectory couldn't react to the magic that followed.

'Is this about done?'

The moment he thought that, a rock crab that had been camouflaged on the ground suddenly rose and pounced on Aidan.

Sharp and powerful pincers were gleaming through the rising dust and even Aidan was slow to react as he hadn't expected this.

As the pincers flew toward his face.

-Crackle!

A sharp lightning spear pierced through and blew away the pincers.

When Aidan looked back, he saw Flora with her hand stretched toward him.

"..."

"..."

Aidan nodded gratefully toward Flora before charging at the rock crab.

For Flora as well, having an excellent vanguard made it easier to implement her next spell.

Thanks to the efforts of these two people, they were able to subdue the rock crabs without any casualties but no one considered it fortunate.

They didn't know when and where other creatures might attack.

One might say they could just stay still, but the atmosphere didn't seem to suggest that would work because something began to appear casting a huge shadow in the sky above.

The faces of the people who had barely survived turned pale.

Though they didn't know exactly what it was, they could tell it was hundreds of times more dangerous than the rock crabs from earlier.

The creature was floating around above, but they didn't know when it might suddenly come here.

"F-Flora. What should we do?"

"Stay still. I'm thinking."

Flora fell into thought for a moment.

Honestly, she didn't know what to do in this situation either.

The reason she was still thinking despite this was because of the gazes fixed on her.

'Except for me and Cheryl, they're all first-years. Am I the oldest one here?'

It was only a one-year difference, but even a straw can feel like a lifeline to a drowning person.

'I don't like this.'

Receiving admiring gazes and actually being responsible for someone while living up to that were entirely different matters.

In a situation like this where surviving alone was challenging enough, having to protect juniors who weren't helpful?

From Flora's perspective, her survival chances would be much higher if she just moved separately with Cheryl, her close friend.

The reason she couldn't bring herself to say such harsh words was because Rudger's image kept flickering before her eyes.

'What would teacher have done?'

Though it was a question she asked herself, the answer came easily.

He would speak coldly and intimidate the students with sharp gazes but he wouldn't abandon anyone.

He would try to save everyone.

Realizing this, Flora relaxed her shoulders.

"Can't be helped."

Flora, who had sorted out her thoughts, looked at her juniors.

Burdensome gazes looking at her desperately like baby birds wanting food from their mother.

I might not be able to achieve the best results, but I'll do my best.

"We're going down."

It was a dogmatic statement that wouldn't allow any objections but that confidence and intense charisma gave persuasiveness to this unreasonable proposal.

"If you don't want to die, follow me."

Cheryl opened her eyes wide at Flora's confident demeanor.

That appearance somehow resembled Rudger.

* * *

"Ughh. Oh my aching body."

Hans groaned in pain.

There wasn't a single part of his body that didn't hurt.

What on earth happened?

Hans slowly raised his upper body.

"You're awake."

"...Brother? What, this isn't a dream, right?"

"It is a dream."

Hans belatedly recalled that this was Dreamland.

Right. He had certainly opened his eyes to find himself in an unfamiliar forest, and while wandering there, the ground had collapsed and he fell down.

And then...

What happened?

"Ugh. My head..."

"You should rest a bit. It'll still be hard to maintain consciousness."

"What exactly happened?"

Rudger explained everything that had happened to Hans.

The sudden sleeping sickness one day. The demon called Nirva who caused it.

And that this place was the middle layer of the Dreamland where the unconscious manifests.

"...I see. No wonder I couldn't remember, it was this cursed beast nature acting up again. Was anyone hurt?"

"Fortunately I stopped it before that happened."

Hans let out a sigh of relief.

"Thank you. I almost hurt innocent people again."

For Hans, situations like this were no different from trauma.

If the same thing had happened this time, it would have been hard for Hans to forgive himself.

"I'm sorry. You were needlessly endangered because of me."

Hans apologized to Sedina and Seridan as well.

Though it wasn't intentional, this was a kind of karma that he had to bear, that's why Hans felt a sense of responsibility.

"You idiot! What do you have to apologize for!"

"That's right. Senior, it couldn't be helped because of your constitution..."

"No, even so..."

"Rather than making such weak excuses, we should first decide what to do next!"

When Seridan pushed strongly, Hans blinked.

"I agree with Seridan."

"Brother..."

"It's fortunate that you've regained consciousness, but we need to be careful since we don't know when your beast nature might suddenly overflow again."

"You don't need to worry about that. Maybe because I got beaten up a lot by brother, but my mind is clear now."

"Is that so?"

"Earlier, it happened because I suddenly fell into this environment and in that instant, but it's different if I stay alert."

Hans got up from his spot, dusting himself off.

His body that had ached like it had muscle pain quickly recovered in the meantime.

He felt that his body was starting to exceed human limits.

"So, we need to defeat that one called Nirva?"

"Yes."

"And that one is down below in Dreamland?"

"It will be waiting for us in the deepest depths."

"...Do we really have to go?"

Hans' cowardly tendency activated again.

When Seridan raised her eyebrows, Hans explained as if making excuses.

"N-no. If it's like this in the middle layer, what about the depths? I'm saying can we carelessly go to such a place? From what I hear it's an extremely dangerous place, right?"

"Even if we don't go, we can't avoid death. Even if we don't try to go, we'll end up falling to the depths anyway. In the end, it's just a matter of time."

"...Damn it. There's no choice except fighting it out cleanly."

Hans checked his body condition.

Perhaps because it was a world influenced by the unconscious, there was a strange sensation that kept bothering him when he clenched and unclenched his hands.

It felt like moving a beast's arms rather than human hands.

Probably the beast factors embedded in his body were overflowing along with the beast's instincts.

"Don't worry too much about it."

Hans flinched at Rudger's words that saw through his condition.

"W-what do you mean?"

"As I said before, that's a power you can use differently depending on how you think about it. You can't keep being swayed by the sword in your hand forever."

"That..."

"Recall the sense of handling that power when you transformed into the spirit king recently. Though the Beast of Gevaudan is clearly different from the spirit king, the essence isn't different."

Hans decided to engrave Rudger's advice in his bones.

Actually, even without that advice, he vaguely had thoughts of 'maybe?'

Just, he lacked confidence in whether he could achieve it alone.

His mind felt lighter as Rudger's words made him think it might be worth trying.

"What about the others?"

"I told the other Owens to evacuate if it's dangerous, but looking at the situation, it doesn't seem that way."

The entire city of Leathervelk was affected.

Even with emergency escape routes, we had to assume the other members were caught up in it too.

"Then they're in the upper layer now. Should we wait for them to come and join us?"

"How would they find us among these many islands?"

"That's true. Then are we going down with just these members?"

At that moment, Seridan, who had been quietly listening, spoke up.

"Um, sir. I think I should drop out here."