The Magic Academy's Physicist
Chapter 262: [Boss Fight] Strikeout (4)

Chapter 262: [Boss Fight] Strikeout (4)

0% “Uwaaaaaagh!”

Wilbur literally shed tears of blood and collapsed. Blood was oozing from both his burst eyes.

“......!”

“Kyaaaa!”

The male students shut their mouths, and the female students let out strangled screams. Aether was watching this happen right in front of her.

“...He’s dead.”

She quickly took his pulse, but it was too late. The destruction of the eyeballs not only impacted the brain, but he died from instantaneous blood loss.

But this was only the beginning.

Pa-blat!

Before they could even think, people started exploding all around.

Some their arms, and others their legs.

The unfortunate ones had their hearts or heads burst and died instantly on the spot.

It had all happened too quickly, no one could grasp the situation. The students were thrown into chaos and fled.

But, to where?

Where could they run to live? When Leviathan was outside?

Spla-blat!

In the meantime, casualties were mounting. The altar leading to the Elemental Realm was stained with bright red blood.

Those who had been working above were also hit. A few of them lost their strength and fell to the ground. With a splat, blood splashed everywhere.

“M-Miss...! What do we do! What do we do......!”

The students who had nowhere to go crowded around Aether. She was now their only support

“Miss!”

“Miss!”

“Miss...!”

Miss (teacher)–this was the first time the word felt so heavy.

Even now there were people around them dying or getting seriously injured. She had to make a decision quickly.

“Spring Heaven....”

Aether clenched her teeth.

All the calculations went through her head. Pasmo was trying to pin her as the main culprit of this massacre.

The crime of carrying out his own agenda, going back on his words, slandering her.

And even stabbing her spectacularly in the back as an officer of the Demon Army.

I will not forget a single one of these and kill you.

But she had something to do before that, which was to somehow calm down this damn situation.

“Everyone get down, and don’t even look at the lanterns!”

Aether gave orders on an instant judgment.

In a crisis, people depended on direction and control. The students obeyed Aether without objections.

Originally, these students were her enemies, but at the moment she was undercover as a ‘teacher’.

So she had no intentions of letting her students get hurt.

“...Huu.”

Shifting her eyes around, she examined each lantern.

The first target was the lantern Wilbur messed with.

“This is....”

The lantern was filled unlike a moment ago.

When she took a closer look inside, there were bloody eyeballs within. The color of the irises indicated that they were Wilbur Vierbein’s.

“Is this how he snatches them.”

Aether thought of Pasmo back at the Demon Castle.

The way he went around with floating lanterns with organs like hearts and brains insides. Back then, she hadn’t known why such organs were in the lanterns.

─ watch out for lanterns and shadows.

Aether was now able to determine what ability Pasmo had.

“So he controls brightness.”

Spring Heaven Pasmo’s alias was ‘Lantern’.

As per the word, he controlled light. Vermel said to watch out for lanterns as well as shadows, so broadly speaking he could have influence on anything that light and shade affect.

For example, it was like this.

Bash!

Aether smacked the lantern, and something flashed past the spot where the light blinked.

A ray, a cluster of beams that appeared when the light went out.

In the next moment, she felt something stinging on her arm.

She got the idea.

Light and shadow were his weapons. It sensed change when the light went out or the lantern was shaken, causing a biological explosion. Realizing this, Aether stomped on the lantern.

“Ah, if we smash the lantern...!”

Just then, a worker who had been watching Aether stood up. With a long stick in his hands, he leapt towards a nearby lantern.

“No, don’t!”

Aether shouted quickly, but it was too late.

“Hyaaaa!”

The man struck down the gently floating lantern with all that he had.

But he couldn’t see the ray, and–

Fwaaa!

The shadow scattered. Darkness fell where the light went out.

“Wha–ahhhhhhhgh!”

The rays radiated out, and the man had to take them all. His entire body was cut up into pieces and minced into a hexahedron.

Blood splattered on the faces of the students who were seeing this up close. This time, screams came from boys and girls alike.

Not knowing the principle caused fear. Aether had seen the rays, but the students hadn’t. That was what choked them.

“Everyone, there’s a Cataclysm here with us. If you don’t panic and listen to me, you’ll survive. So until I tell you otherwise, keep quiet and stay here. Understand?”

The students nodded vigorously.

They all shook like a cat in the rain. Freyr was shaking especially hard.

“Ah, ugh.... What do we do.......”

“It’s okay. Let’s trust her.”

Besides Aether, the calmest person was Lotte. She encouraged the other kids around her in a way that didn’t fit her age.

Meanwhile, Aether took the opportunity to destroy all the lanterns while the students kept their eyes down.

Each time, the ‘trap’ was triggered. The traps targeted Aether’s head, eyes, body, and limbs.

The way to deal with it was simple.

Ting, ting, ting!

Just take the hits.

“...Hsss.”

The ray dug into her skin. In the areas where the light and shadow intersected, there was a pain like an axe had been brought down.

The parts where it was hit bad even smelled burnt. She got the angle wrong and gained a slightly deep wound on her arm. It stung like when she got hit with Flare. Black blood dripped through the tissue.

But even so, she extinguished the lanterns one by one. With each one she broke, the inside of the World Tree was gradually taken over by darkness.

“This is the last one.”

It was as Aether was about to destroy the last lantern.

Clack.

The smashed lanterns flowed towards the exit like water, and they lit up again, all her efforts until now wasted.

This time, however, it was different. The lanterns that had been lighting up in their broken state spit out the organs.

Glop, squelch!

Each organ turned dark gray like processed ebony wood, and moved in an indescribable, uncanny way to form a body.

Now the students weren’t even freaking out or screaming.

“......What is that.”

They only stood frozen in their spots.

What formed was an enormous human.

But it wasn’t human. It looked human, but it just wasn’t the form of a human.

There was one exposed brain but two heads. An ear was hanging off of the mouth, and behind the arms were deformed intestines and other limbs.

The eyeballs were protruding, and a set of five fingers were sticking out from the glass membrane. On the chest, someone’s head sat there instead of a heart.

The lower half was just as grotesque. Both legs were on one side, where the other leg should be was genitalia and a bundle of nerves, making up a third leg.

[Grrk, grrk.]

And as something like that was growing in size over time–

“Ah....”

Of course the students would be scared.

**The size of the monster reached several meters. The thing blocked the exit to the World Tree, waiting.

“Uuuuu....”

Freyr hugged Lotte tight. Lotte, too, patted Freyr with shaking hands.

Lotte knew.

She was no match for that thing. Trying to attack it would only get her killed....

But even as she thought that, she tried to find a way to overcome it.

All she could do, however, was gather Freyr, Yufiel, Leninya, the other students and take care of them.

She was afraid, and also angry.

Really, it was despicable. How weak she was. That she could only comfort her friends in this way. That she was helpless against a sudden attack by a Beast. That she wasn’t brave enough to cast magic in the face of a monster like that.

At the same time, her shaking arms and legs told her.

Know your place.

Shut up and get away from here.

A high-level Beast? How on earth was that a high-level Beast?

It definitely had to be a Calamity or a Cataclysm. Without Flare, you couldn’t take down a Calamity let alone a Cataclysm. She was still learning at the academy. How was she supposed to go up against that?

She was scared. Terrified. Her breath was catching.

But she wanted to stand. Stand up and fight.

Why?

Because my friend was stepping forward.

Craaack.

“......What’s this damn mutt.”

Miss Asteya... no, Aether cracked her fingers and moved.

Before them was a writing monster. In comparison, Aether was only a delicate and weak female professor.

And so, Lotte clearly saw–the despair that began creeping into everyone’s eyes.

“Can the teacher beat it?”

“We... we have to hope she can.......”

“Sniffle, sniff.”

“Please....”

Aether turned her head and looked at her pupils. Then her eyes suddenly locked with Lotte’s.

Fwip. Aether turned away immediately.

“What the hell are you?”

Aether made a strange attempt to talk to the monster, and as expected, it didn’t respond. The squelching thing swelled like a cotton absorbing water and walked forward.

Boom, boom, boom.

Flesh and lantern, darkness and machine. This mashup of an alien being moved its feet.

“I’ve never seen a Beast like you before.”

[Grrk.]

“Tell me why you’re here.”

[Grrk, grrk.]

“So you won’t answer, is that it.”

Aether was almost done her cigarette. She, too, took a step forward.

In the next moment–

Whiiiz!

Something caught Lotte’s eye.

She realized, for a brief moment, that it was something like a thread.

“Watch out!”

Lotte shouted. Fortunately, Aether quickly twisted her body and dodged the beam of light.

Clutch.

She even caught one of them. Lotte’s mouth opened wide to the size of a bowl.

“I’ll give it back to you.”

[Eightfold Way Sixth Form ─ Decay]

Smaack! It resounded. The monster squelched and stumbled, nearly falling backwards. Something invisible had struck it.

It didn’t end there.

Aether immediately pulled out her staff, then she combined the techniques into a single form. It was a type of martial arts used by the Golden-Eyed and beastkin.

The staff was thrust forward in a highly strange trajectory. Smack, smack, thwack! The bladed tip of the caliper kept stabbing in and out of the monster’s entire body.

[Grruk!]

“One more.”

The caliper slammed down on the head this time. Aether leapt into the air and put weight on the staff. Thwack! The ground on which the monster was standing sank.

[Eightfold Way Second Form ─ Avalanche]

This time, a bunch of electric currents flowed. The Beast convulsed as it spewed black blood. The way it trembled looked like a prisoner being tortured with electricity.

Whiiiz!

The rays rushed in once again, thicker and clearer than before. Aether blocked or dodged all of them this time as well.

It was the movement of a skilled person. She was driving the monster so perfectly into a corner that it couldn’t be seen as coming from a young and inexperienced mage.

As Aether continued on the offensive, the eyes of the students who had been shaking in fear regained their brightness. One by one, they raised their heads and watched the fight. Some even picked up their staff.

“Should we help her...?”

“No, if we step in now, it’ll only cause her trouble.”

She did want to help.

But Lotte held herself back because she knew she’d only get in the way. Unless the situation was really urgent, staying still was the way to help.

The monster’s appearance was becoming more and more of a mess. Brain fluid was oozing, and its eyeballs were gouged out. One the arms had already been cut off.

[Grrk.]

The thing’s tone changed.

[Grruk, grrk.]

It seemed to have noticed something.

“...Oh!”

The thing that had been moving slowly suddenly started to run. It was too fast to catch.

It didn’t run on the ground, but grabbed the wall with hands that sprouted from its back and climbed up the wall. The bizarre, gravity-defying movement quickly started to accelerate.

“This bastard....”

Aether reacted immediately.

Now the monster reached the ceiling and ran upside down. The students’ heads turned up.

One tar-like solid, and some ten or so blinking lanterns hovering around it like celestial satellites.

The flickering of the lanterns meant an imminent release of rays–

“......!”

And now Lotte was about to be pierced.