The World After the Bad Ending - Chapter 23



22 – A Stronger Team Than Expected

From noble mtl dot com

The search for team members continues.

Since I couldn’t find anyone special among the second years.

This time, I visited the first-year floor.

Perhaps because they are still freshmen.

Unlike the calm second years, many first years were chattering away.

‘The second years have gone through the labyrinth in their first year.’

There was a clear difference between those who had experienced the labyrinth and those who hadn’t.

But even among these first years, there are exceptional individuals.

The special class of the first year is exactly that.

A level of power that would have no problem being deployed to the second year immediately.

The special class, made up of these individuals, is on a different level from the rest of the first years.

“Huh? A small kid is coming.”

“Yeah, tiny.”

I hear the voices of the kids talking as they look at me.

But soon, they saw my name tag and shut their mouths.

The blue color symbolizing the second year and the student council mark.

These two things made my image heavy.

The first-year students naturally made way.

The treatment was different from when I passed through the second-year corridor.

‘I had already checked the members of the special class.’

And there is someone I need to take with me before that.

“Hey, junior.”

“Yes, yes?”

A flustered junior hurriedly answered when I called out.

As expected of a first-year, he was full of spirit.

“Do you know where Aisha Bizbel is?”

The Iron Lady with the Greatsword.

Aisha Bizbel.

She is a junior who trains with me every morning.

I’ve been indebted to her for a while now.

I plan to take advantage of this opportunity to owe her a bit more.

The junior, upon hearing my question, easily found Aisha for me.

It made sense since she always trains extra during lunchtime.

‘Training in the morning and then again after lunch.’

At this point, Aisha might really be made of steel.

She was more of an iron human than my own steel-like skin.

When I went to the training room, there she was, as expected.

Instead of her school uniform, she was wearing gym clothes and wielding a greatsword.

It was clearly an absurdly large greatsword.

Yet, her greatsword drew a clean arc.

Even looking again, her muscles were absurd.

“Aisha.”

When I called her, Aisha stopped swinging the greatsword.

She turned around belatedly and smiled as if she saw a welcome person.

“Oh, senior, what brings you here?”

When Aisha smiled, the junior who guided me here had a bewildered look on his face.

“The Iron Lady with the Greatsword is smiling?”

Seeing his reaction, I roughly grasped the situation.

Aisha holds a difficult position among the first-years.

The Empire’s Border Count.

The Bizbel Count Family.

Summarizing the Bizbel family, they are the northern battle tribe.

Men and women alike are all tall and have very sturdy physiques.

The moment you actually face a man from the Bizbel family.

Ordinary men realize their biological inferiority and feel intimidated.

Aisha is considered to have been born with exceptional talent even among the direct descendants of the Bizbel family.

Moreover, when she entered Jerion Academy.

She was a student who entered through recommendation instead of the entrance exam.

Her martial arts grades are currently at the top.

As she spends almost every day training, her relationships with other students are not deep.

To the extent that the person who talks the most with Aisha in this school is me, a second-year senior.

So, Aisha was always a difficult presence for the first-year students.

When such Aisha saw me and smiled, the junior who was guiding me was flustered.

The junior looked at me with a blank face.

It was a face that clearly asked, “Who on earth are you?”

‘It seems my reputation hasn’t spread among the first-years.’

Well, everyone is busy with their studies and adapting to the academy.

It’s not the time to care about academy rumors.

“You can go now.”

When I gave him a cue, he finally came to his senses and quietly left.

Even then, the questioning gaze fixed on me did not disappear.

“Senior, what brings you here?”

Meanwhile, Aisha wiped her sweat and approached me brightly.

I handed her the drink I had thoughtfully brought.

I figured she would be doing this anyway.

“Oh, thank you.”

“Aisha, have you decided on your magic team?”

Aisha, who was drinking the beverage, shook her head.

As expected, I thought she wouldn’t have decided yet.

“I’m thinking of forming a team this time. How about joining?”

If someone like Aisha joins, there would be no better vanguard.

So when I suggested it, Aisha finished her drink and gave a healthy, radiant smile.

“Was this drink a bribe for that?”

“Yes, you can’t escape once you’ve already drunk it. If you run away, I’ll threaten you with accusations of accepting a bribe.”

“That’s scary. If it’s you, senpai, you’d probably make strange threats.”

“I’m thinking of starting with the threat of reducing your morning training.”

“I’ll stop that even if I have to throw my body in the way.”

The thought of Aisha body-slamming me makes me fearful.

“So, the team?”

“I’ll join. I think I’ll work well with you, senpai.”

We’ve spent time training together.

At least within the academy, no one matches with Aisha as well as I do.

With this, I’ve secured two vanguards.

What’s left is.

‘The healer.’

A student of divine studies.

* * *

Time flows again.

The season when summer slowly approaches and early summer begins to be felt.

Jerion Academy was more tense than ever.

The birth of an apostle by the evil lord is known through the astrology of the four seasons.

The best weather day in spring.

The day summer begins.

The day when the night in autumn becomes longer than the day.

The coldest day of winter.

When a season reaches its peak.

An apostle is born.

A newly born apostle has weak power.

So, academies around the world are sending students into the demon palace according to this timing.

And today.

The time of Ip-ha, when summer truly begins to heat up.

The entrance to the demon palace in the western area, managed by Jerion Academy.

There were numerous students gathered under the guidance of professors and teaching assistants.

Of course, such a large number of people cannot enter the labyrinth at once.

Starting with the top-ranking third-year students.

They are deployed in order.

‘The labyrinth has a bizarre structure.’

The ultimate goal of the apostles is to emerge from the labyrinth, harm the world, and hatch the evil lord.

Therefore, all apostles are born in the hatchery on the first floor.

However, to emerge, the apostles need to reach the side of the evil lord.

The power of a newly born apostle is weak.

In this state, even if they emerge, they will only be hunted by the knights guarding the front of the labyrinth and those belonging to the final labyrinth front.

So, they chose to descend the labyrinth.

To absorb the power of the evil lord below and become stronger.

Therefore, the apostles who reach the lower floors possess even greater power.

And the moment they become complete as apostles.

The apostles begin their reverse journey towards the surface.

The purpose of academies around the world is to stop these apostles before they start their reverse journey.

For this, students are deployed four times a year.

‘Even thinking about it again, it’s a bizarre structure.’

In front of the labyrinth entrance.

Watching the third-year students being deployed first, I was quietly staring at the labyrinth.

As if it would swallow everything on the surface.

An entrance as hideous as the mouth of hell.

That was the entrance to the labyrinth.

‘If I were the evil lord, I would have created the apostles by my side from the beginning.’

Was it necessary to create apostles at the entrance of the labyrinth?

Even I, who have played the game for a long time, do not know why the labyrinth has such a structure.

‘In the first place.’

The existence of the evil lord itself is full of questions.

Even in the ending of the Flame Butterfly arc, it was ambiguous whether the evil lord was truly defeated or not.

‘Deus Ex Machina.’

The god of machinery.

It is called a kind of device inserted for smooth progress in the story.

Users called Akzon that.

‘Some say that Akzon was left ambiguous to be used in the final chapter of the sequel to Magung Slayer.’

It’s a sad story, but the developer of Magung Slayer hasn’t released any news for over five years since then.

In the end, only users’ speculations ran rampant.

There was no official information about Akzon anywhere.

“Burnt sweet potato, are you going to keep ignoring me?”

While looking at Magung, a nagging voice came from beside me.

There was a girl with red ponytail hair.

“When are our team members coming? Honestly, you tricked me, didn’t you? It was all a lie, wasn’t it!”

Seron Parmia.

She came to me the day before I finalized the team.

She found me around dinner time.

“Uh, ahem, hey, burnt sweet potato, I heard your team is short of one person.”

I wondered what she was going to say when she called me out.

Seron kept clearing her throat and continued talking.

“Well, it might be okay if I join your team. Hmm.”

Seron wandered around looking for another team until the very end.

But no team ended up calling her.

If things went on like this, she would have to join the leftover team assigned by the professor.

For Seron, there was nothing more humiliating than that.

In the end, her eyes turned to my team.

She judged that it was better to join my team, which had the skill to win against the class, rather than the leftover team.

I tilted my head as I looked at Seron for a moment.

“Why are you talking as if you’re doing us a favor?”

Does this girl not know her position right now?

“W-what? I’m specially joining your team, you know. As if you could gather proper team members anyway!”

And then I finally understood.

Seron did not know how our team was composed.

That’s why he was acting so brazenly.

「Our team’s rear guard is Poara Silin.」

「Huh?」

As the next words followed, Seron made a bewildered face.

Seron must have heard Poara’s name before.

The entire academy was abuzz with the Spirit Lord incident.

They even tried to recruit Poara from the second-year to the third-year.

It would be stranger not to know Poara’s name.

That Poara is in our team.

Just this alone raised our team’s value instantly.

「And the vanguard is a first-year, Aisha Bizbel.」

「W-What?」

Seron is an imperial noble.

If you’re a noble, you can’t not know the name Bizbel.

Her face slowly began to turn pale.

It was only then that she realized.

The team I had gathered was much stronger than she had thought.

She must have thought I had just roughly gathered some people to form a team.

「Even now, there are quite a few people who want to join my team.」

After the rumor spread that the first-year prodigy Aisha and Poara had joined our team.

I occasionally heard people say they wanted to join the team.

Even if we don’t know how our team’s results will turn out.

Many judged it was good to get acquainted with Aisha and Poara in advance.

This is why a person’s name value is important.

But Seron had been almost alone for a while.

Since being expelled from the Four, there were no people who would associate with Seron.

So Seron hadn’t heard how my team was composed.

And now.

Is there any reason for me to take Seron in?

Seron finally realized her position and took a step back.

“Seron Parmia.”

I mentioned Seron’s full name.

Her shoulders flinched, and her confident demeanor faltered.

“If you want to join the team, you shouldn’t speak like that.”

I smiled gently.

“Say it again, properly.”

Do you want to join the loser team?

Or do you want to join our strong team?

If you join the loser team, your grades will be a mess, and who knows what kind of ridicule you’ll face from others.

Seron, with her high pride, wouldn’t be able to endure that.

Her shoulders flinched again.

She looked at me with wide eyes and then bit her lips tightly.

Her forehead started to turn red, almost steaming.

But she somehow suppressed her shame and quietly bowed her head to me.

“P-please, let me join the team.”

“Louder. Properly.”

“Please let me join the team!”

“More earnestly.”

“Please, I beg you, let me join the team! Please, let me in! Hiiing!”

Is this her limit?

“Dad said he’d kick me out if I don’t get good grades this time, please, let me join.”

Watching Seron start to cry and sit down, I nodded specially.

And so, Seron became part of our team.

“Well, it was obvious that someone like Poara or Aisha wouldn’t team up with a burnt-out sweet potato like her. I was fooled, fooled!”

…Is this girl an idiot?

Even after being humiliated by me yesterday.

From noble mtl dot com

Suddenly, she was acting up again this morning.

At this point, I wondered if she had erased yesterday’s events from her mind.

I raised my hand and grabbed her snout firmly.

Seron widened her eyes, about to shout what I was doing.

I turned her snout to redirect her gaze.

“Open your eyes and look carefully. They’re coming.”

There, Aisha and Poara were approaching.

When our eyes met, Poara bowed her head, and Aisha gave a short smile.

“…Jin-jwa-ne.”

With her snout held, Seron mumbled in a daze.

I let go of her snout and wiped her saliva on Seron’s clothes.

“Then, what about the other one?”

Come to think of it, I hadn’t mentioned the last one.

As I turned my head, someone was walking towards us.

One by one, the students’ gazes started to gather in that direction.

As surprise and respect mixed into the students’ faces,

Seron’s face, in contrast, began to open her mouth wide and her eyes grew larger.

“Uh, uh, what?”

Seron was completely dumbfounded.

“Let me introduce.”

I showed the person who had walked over to Seron.

With pure white blonde hair, wearing the only white outfit with golden embroidery allowed at Jerion Academy.

“This is the Saint.”

The last healer of our team.

Saint, Sir Miel of Saint Eden.