The Academy’s Deceased Ate It All

Belluna sat down with a sullen expression and watched the fight between the lich and the humans.

There were five humans.

Except for one, they were all old, but they moved more agilely than ordinary humans.

The lich was being pushed back all the time, even as he summoned undead.

“You completely smashed half of Gracius’s skull. That’s why he hasn’t fully recovered yet.”

“Ah.”

Belluna nodded at the giant’s answer.

So that’s why he was struggling so much.

“Do you have any Colana popcorn?”

Belluna asked, and Natalia looked annoyed.

She tore off the human ankle she had attached instead of her severed one and muttered.

“That woman’s ankle looks sturdy.”

As she said that, she turned into mist and headed for the battlefield.

Belluna even hummed a little tune.

“Are you not going to help?”

“Who?”

“Either side.”

He sounded like he was testing her, but Belluna didn’t care.

His question was as trivial as asking her what the weather was like today.

“I don’t like that, Gra… Anyway, him and Natalia. Gra smells and is gloomy. And he always acts like he’s something when he sees me. He always gets beaten up by me.”

The giant’s man nodded in agreement at Belluna’s grumbling.

“Gracius does have that side to him.”

“Natalia annoys me too. She always tells me what to do. She got beaten by that ankle human, right? She always acts like she’s something, but she always gets beaten by the humans she used to curse. And she always surrounds herself with human minions.”

The giant’s man nodded silently.

He stood next to Belluna and looked at the battlefield where Natalia had joined.

“The enemy is very cunning.”

“Natalia will die too.”

Belluna muttered in a sullen voice.

Honestly, she didn’t care who died, whether it was the three she met now or the five humans over there.

“So you’re not going to help the humans? Because they have the advantage?”

“Are you stupid? Why would I save the humans?”

Belluna said as if she couldn’t believe it.

“I don’t care if the humans die, or if you die.”

“I guess so.”

He nodded.

“The only one you were interested in was that Brix Hunt…”

Suddenly, he barely dodged a blade of wind that flew at his neck.

He quickly retreated and looked anxiously at the back of Belluna’s head, who was still turning her head.

“If you say that person’s name one more time.”

Belluna said, still turning her head.

“I’ll really kill you.”

She slowly turned her head and looked at the giant’s man.

He shivered as the empty eyes of the spirit touched him.

“Or you’ll kill me. I swear, Randish.”

“…I misspoke. I apologize, Belluna Hunt.”

The dragon knew how heavy a promise and a vow were for a spirit.

So he quickly chose to bow his head rather than his pride.

It was not beneficial to fight her in this situation.

“Good. Be careful from now on.”

Belluna nodded and said.

The man, Randish, came back to her side.

“I heard you’ve been hanging out with humans for a while. I wondered if you became friendly with the humans because you participated in the Minerva’s subjugation and drove out Gracius.”

“It was a favor from my son’s friend.”

“Your son’s friend?”

“Yeah.”

Belluna answered with a sullen attitude and closed her mouth as if she didn’t want to answer any more.

Randish didn’t ask any more either.

They watched the scene where Nam Hyun-hwa and her colleagues, and Gracius and Natalia fought for a while.

“They’ll both die at this rate.”

Belluna was still sullen.

She glanced at the dragon, Randish, who had led the children of Milited in reality.

“Are you not going to help?”

“No need to help.”

Randish muttered quietly.

“We have more heads on our side.”

“Huh? Do you have worms in your head?”

Belluna couldn’t understand why they had the upper hand when it was two against five.

As soon as she said that, one of the humans suddenly grabbed the neck of another human next to him and snapped it in an instant.

“Look.”

Randish said in an indifferent voice, as if he already knew.

Belluna watched the interesting development without a word.

As a high-ranking spirit who controlled the wind, she could hear their conversation as if she was right next to them.

-David, you crazy…! What the hell are you doing?!

-I’m sorry, but I have no choice. You’ll understand me.-Cut the crap!

The young woman shouted angrily and rushed at him.

Belluna clapped her hands as the man who broke his colleague’s neck split into two.

“What a waste, the numbers were even.”

“Well.”

Randish wiped the blood from the wound he got from Belluna with his finger and said.

“I didn’t say it was only one.”

-Behind!

-What… Ugh?!

He was right.

Another man behind the young woman swung his arm in a flash.

The young woman was caught off guard by his attack and fell off the edge, and the old woman who warned her of the danger fell to the ground as her heart was pierced while trying to protect her.

-You, Arthur, you too…!

-…

“Wow. Old habits die hard.”

Belluna muttered nostalgically.

This way of messing with the enemy and making them devour each other was a method that Randish, who used to be Milited’s adviser and right-hand man, liked to use.

-Nam Hyun-hwa, you don’t know…!

Belluna listened with interest to the trembling voice of the man called Arthur.

-I’m, I’m afraid of dying…! Damn it, I’m scared out of my mind…!

Belluna naturally clenched her chin and sparkled her eyes at his desperate voice.

-You, you don’t know! You can get younger anytime with that ridiculous thing called reincarnation! You don’t know how we feel, aging and growing old every day!

-I feel it every day, the fact that I’m dying, the fact that I don’t have much time left! Look, look at this, my skin that’s sagging and ugly from old age…! My hair that’s all fallen out and worthless…! I, I don’t want to die yet. Why are you so cowardly…!

-They promised me, if I cooperate with them, if I only swear loyalty to their master, they’ll give me an immortal body that’s young…!

“Same old, same old.”

Belluna snorted in amazement.

“Humans are obsessed with immortality.”

“Their time is short.”

Randish looked at them with contempt.

“They call their life and existence a short time of living and a long time of dying. You can see how much they’re obsessed with immortality just by looking at this.”

“Hmm…”

Belluna shrugged her shoulders with indifference.

She licked her lips as she saw the young woman fighting with her injured body and eventually falling off the cliff with a fatal wound.

“Did she die?”

“There’s a river below, so she might survive if she’s lucky.”

“Why don’t you make sure? She’ll die if her neck is cut, so why don’t you tell them to bring her neck or something.”

“It doesn’t matter if one human dies or not. If she survives after that, it means she’s not destined to die yet.”

Belluna nodded boredly at his words.

She stretched and made a purring sound like a cat.

“Ugh…”

“…”

“So, why did you call me?”

She asked, and Randish moved his head slightly.

“I didn’t call you to show you something like that.”

“I want to make a pact with you.”

“A pact?”

“Yes.”

He closed his eyes and opened them, and his human eyes turned into reptilian ones.

“You and I both know what a promise, a vow, and a pact mean, so there’s no need to explain.”

“So?”

“I’ll ask you here, Belluna Hunt.”

Randish looked at her, who used to be his colleague.

“Do you have no intention of serving him with us again?”

“No.”

“I see.”

He nodded slightly, as if he didn’t expect it.

“As you know, our goal is the man named Yoo Jihyuk.”

“Huh?”

She raised her voice as if to ask him to say more.

Randish continued in a quiet but low voice.

“There are many reasons. He has the pendant that he was looking for, he also took Minerva’s heart, and most importantly, he killed three of the seven evils.”

“Margo, Svengali, and Minerva?”

“Yes, that can’t be overlooked. His blade might point at him. It’s impossible that he would fall to a human, but we can’t leave him alone as his servants.”

“So what, you want me to kill him?”

“No. I’m not asking you to be a hitman.”

Randish opened his mouth quietly, but with a firm will.

“It’s too risky to kill him with so many people around him. It would also cause a lot of bleeding for us. We need to get rid of some of the people who are protecting him.”

“Hmm… It sounds like you want me to listen to you.”

“That’s right, Belluna. You’re also one of the forces that protect him, as I calculated.”

The dragon, who was famous for killing his own kind and extracting their hearts, made a proposal.

“Don’t interfere with our business, Belluna. That’s why I called you. If you do, we won’t touch your blood when we eliminate the people around him.”

“Oh.”

Belluna blinked her eyes.

“Are you blackmailing me with my son’s life in front of me?”

“That’s right.”

“So, you want me to pretend I don’t know about your schemes for my son’s safety?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm…”

The wind spirit, who was once revered as a god in a certain region, answered.

“Sure, why not.”

“…So you accept?”

“Yes, the reason I agreed to your summons in the first place was to warn you not to touch my son.”

At that, Landish showed a satisfied smile.

“Tell them both not to mess with your son either.”

“Alright, then. I should get going. Oh, but before that, let me make one thing clear.”

Belluna blinked her eyes and said.

“If you or your son do anything hostile to me or my son first, I’ll act as if this never happened, got it?”

“Of course. I, Landish, swear on my heart in boiling lava.”

He straightened his posture solemnly, and Belluna looked down at his head and muttered quietly.

“I was a superstition and an object of faith. So I believe in superstitions.”

“…”

“Who knows, maybe if something unjust happens to him, or he gets hurt by some coincidence, I’ll blame it all on you. Remember that too.”

“…I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Good, then I really have to go now.”

Belluna dusted off the dirt on her hips and tilted her head.

“Can I ask you something?”

“What is it?”

“What’s your goal, breaking the seal and releasing Milted?”

Belluna called her lord Milted, and Landish flared up for a moment, but he managed to control his anger.

“No, even if we don’t do that, once the three seals are broken, he will rise on his own when the time comes.”

“Then what is it, getting the pendant and Minerva’s heart?”

“That’s one of the reasons, but there’s a bigger one.”

Landish murmured quietly.

And then he gazed at the empty air with a faint look and whispered.

“The saint and the saintess.”

“…?”

“The beings he said we must find.”

He opened his mouth, captivated by a fierce and blind emotion.

“For their sake, and for our lord’s wish to come true… Yoo Ji-hyuk must be eliminated.”

“Hmm…”

Belluna nodded quietly.

She knew what was hiding in his shadow, and she found it ridiculous, but she said nothing.

As she had said before, she had no obligation to do anything for them.

***

“And above all, touching my believers is also considered a hostile act to me~”

After parting with Landish and Milted’s children, Belluna muttered as she headed to Yoo Ji-hyuk’s lodging.

Offering a tribute meant that they revered the target.

And Yoo Ji-hyuk had already offered her several tributes.

That meant he revered her, and he was her believer, so she had a reason to help him.

“Hehehe.”

She was looking forward to eating the tributes left for her in his room.

She was humming a tune, thinking of eating as much as she wanted, since she could only eat a little bit because of Ivan’s pressure.

“…Huh?”

In the middle of that, she saw a man sneaking into Yoo Ji-hyuk’s lodging.

What was that, she looked at him and realized right away that the man with a bad physique had come with a bad intention.

Ugh, how annoying.

She thought so and raised her hand without any thought to cut off his neck.

“…Ee, eek!?”

She was startled by the energy she felt and ran away in a hurry.

Not only her.

“…!?”

Laune, who was trying to warn Yoo Ji-hyuk of the danger, shivered and pretended to be dead on the spot.

― !?

The branch of the world tree, which was about to pierce the heart of the intruder who dared to harm his master, also flinched and stopped.

[…]

Svangali, who had noticed from the beginning, just kept his mouth shut as if he knew nothing.

“Huh, he’s sleeping like a log.”

The man who sneaked into Yoo Ji-hyuk’s lodging, Manchas, chuckled and laughed.

He looked down at Yoo Ji-hyuk, who was in a deep sleep after taking painkillers and sleeping pills, and took out an ampoule he had received from Yoon Seul-hye.

“Don’t blame me. Blame yourself for being hated by that wicked bitch.”

“…”

And as he muttered that, behind him, Minerva, who had appeared out of nowhere, quietly looked at him with a blank face.

“I heard he’s going to make you his slave and treat you like a dog… You’d better bite your tongue than be his toy.”

Manchas sneered and pitied Yoo Ji-hyuk.

“…!”

As soon as he heard his words, her eyes, which were no different from humans, turned blood red and split vertically.