Academy’S Gumiho Is A Magical Genius [EN]: Chapter 114

Academy Gumiho is a Magical Genius – Episode 114

Academy Gumiho is a Magical Genius 114

The Expanded World (4)

The second night arrived after entering the Otherworld.

Unlike the first day, the second day was uneventful.

There was no reunion with a student separated during entry, nor a fierce battle like the one against the mercenaries.

Following their agreement with the villagers, Isis, Ji, Seong Yeon-hwa, Seo Yerin, and Noh Yura joined forces to hunt hundreds of monsters.

Hunting nearly 1,000 monsters wasn’t easy, but they willingly endured the hardship, knowing that the monsters they hunted weren’t just for achievements, skill confirmation, or showing off, but would be used as food and clothing for the villagers.

Perhaps the only encouraging thing was that Noh Yura, as a hunter, had left for a hunt yesterday morning and would return tomorrow morning.

Excluding that, there was virtually no tangible gain.

Were the students still too young?

They were unnecessarily pure and kind.

It was a bit disappointing that they needed to be a bit more ruthless, but their judgment seemed too lenient.

Of course, I was similar in that soft aspect, so it was hard to lecture them about it.

[Skill, 「Yoma Eye」, activates, scanning through the darkness.]

Still, I make sure to do things properly when I do them.

The sparkling violet eyes pierce through the darkness.

The dense jungle of coniferous trees.
A woman stood among the frozen remains of trees.

No, that was a creature that didn’t even deserve to be called a woman.

I moved slowly towards the horned ‘thing’.

At that very moment.

“Who are you?”

In the empty forest, that thing, a Yuma [a type of demon], spoke.

A woman dressed the same as the villagers.

However, the horns on her head and the inverted colors of her pupils and sclera unmistakably revealed that she was a demon.

There was no one beside the Yuma right now.

Only the presence of nocturnal animals, including owls, could be felt in the dark forest, but no large creatures, including humans, were present.

“Not bad. You’re just a kid, but your senses are quite useful.”

“!!!”

A voice from right behind her.

The voice, as sticky and delicate as sweet honey, seemed to stretch out, stimulating lust and excitement in the listener.

However, Yuma felt fear before being captivated by the sweet voice.

‘Where the hell were they hiding?!’

The opponent appeared suddenly.

In fact, she only sensed that someone was hiding.

Yuma’s face stiffened because she never imagined that the opponent would be so close.

Yuma had a sixth sense that she gained after becoming a demon.

So, she uttered words implying that someone was hiding, but Yuma, who never imagined that the opponent would be near her, had a stiff expression on her face.

At that moment, a blade of demonic energy flickered in her grasp.

The black blade aimed for the opponent’s neck in an instant.

Swish!

The sound of something being cut.

Unlike the sound of simply cutting meat, the sound of bones and flesh being cut and crushed at the same time was heard.

Yuma was a newcomer to swordsmanship and a relatively new demon.

However, if she relied on the speed and sixth sense she gained from transforming into a demon, cutting off someone’s head would be a piece of cake.

“—Your movements are too obvious.”

Thud, the sound of something falling to the ground along with the voice.

What fell was not the opponent’s head but her shoulder.

Her entire shoulder, holding the blade of demonic energy, had been severed.

In an instant, indescribable pain overwhelmed Yuma.

It was true that her body had become stronger by becoming a demon, but she was definitely not insensitive to pain.

She wanted to scream, but a fear greater than the immediate pain gripped her.

“The way you move your body is B-grade, but if you add your unusually sensitive senses, you’re somewhere between an A and S-grade demon.”

A voice muttering alone could be heard not far away, but that was not Yuma’s concern.

Thud, she collapsed because she no longer had the strength to stand.

Then, a shadow rose above her, blocking the only source of light illuminating the dark night forest: the moonlight.

Yuma, trembling all over, slowly raised her head.

To see the face of the one who had made her arm like this.

“……Ah.”

There was an angel.

Beautiful, handsome, and noble.

A person who looked extremely self-assured.

The face and atmosphere, as if compressing all the beauty in the world, were so shocking that they made her forget even the momentary fear.

Her mind was already captivated by 「Unrivaled Beauty」 and 「Allure」.

Yuma’s gaze and attention were directed towards him, but the man who had cut off her arm seemed uninterested in Yuma and was tapping his shoes.

“The blink engraved on the shoes… Blink doesn’t work as cleanly as I thought. Is it because it’s magic that manipulates space? It needs adjustment.”

Blink.

A lower-level version of instantaneous movement and teleportation, a short-range movement ability specialized for combat, like a movement technique that folds space to run.

It works by simply channeling magic power into the magic circle engraved on the shoes, so I tried using it this time as a test, but is it because it’s a difficult magic?

There were many parts to fix.

In particular, the nausea felt during spatial movement and the overheating of the sole’s formula after only one use, making it unusable for 10 minutes, were problematic.

I wanted to fix it right away.

But there was something I had to do first.

Crack!

With the sound of bones breaking helplessly, Yuma’s ankle was bent in a direction it shouldn’t be bent. It was bent so severely that her ankle turned dark red, and fragments of broken bone pierced through the demon’s tough flesh.

Even with the demon’s unique regenerative power, it was an injury that a low-level demon would have to recover from for days.

“Kkeueuaaaack!!”

Yuma let out a groan of pain, the likes of which she had never felt before.

However, the opponent was not kind enough to let her scream to her heart’s content. Especially not to a demon.

“Haha, why the face? Why, are you upset that you lost to me even with that ability? It was a fatal mistake to come at me with a sword in the first place.”

Swish.

A hand reached towards her waist.

The part hidden by clothing.

Inside, there were several purple things in the shape of insects.

“A special form of life like Gu poison [a type of poison made by sealing many venomous insects in a container and allowing them to devour each other] or Yeonggo [another type of poison using insects]? This is quite interesting. You shouldn’t have flaunted such ingenious things in front of me.”

「Pyrokinesis」

A hand made of flames blazed up.

The hand of flame, possessing both telekinesis and physical force, was the culprit who twisted Yuma’s ankles.

That hand floated towards her.

—Thwack!

It struck her skin hard.

Repeating that several times, her recovery speed and level came into view. At this speed, if important body parts are cut off, she can only recover to the point of healing the wound.

These are roughly the characteristics of C to B-grade demons.

However, the usefulness of the insects that Yuma hid in her waist does not end with the usefulness that a B-grade demon can have.

At least S-grade.

Depending on how it is used, it can have even greater value.

Of course, her skill level is so low that she was caught by me like this.

“I hate things that are no longer human the most.”

A woman whose skin was turning dark red, gradually being stained with demon.

Her face was full of blood and burn marks.

Having her legs broken and unable to move, she begged for death instead.

“Plea, please…… stop it.”

“Rather…… ki, kill me.”

But unfortunately, Baek Seung-woo did not have a kind personality towards beings who had abandoned humanity.

Thwack!

He kicked her.

Borrowing the ring’s power, he kicked her face with only the leg strength of a typical adult male, and a bruise as blue as the dark red demon’s skin appeared.

“Don’t whine about wanting to be saved, you who attach such disgusting things to children indiscriminately.”

Her face was kicked so hard that she fainted instantly.

A normal person would have died with just this much leg strength.

As expected, a demon’s body is convenient.

I shook her body to collect all the purple insects.

These insects, which parasitize others and continue their lives by sucking magic power and vitality, are not something that should be given to someone like this.

After taking everything I needed, the groaning demon came into view.

What should I do with this?

Killing her is certain, but I decided that she might be useful somewhere.

“The kids…… haven’t finished making all the graves yet, right?”

It seemed like I had to add one more.

* * *

Frozen ground filled with blood and flesh.

The snow covering the soil was frozen solid deep into the ground, making it difficult to dig even with a shovel.

As if to prove this, dozens of shovels and about a hundred corpses were lying in a damp area on the outskirts of the village.

“It hasn’t rotted even after a day.”

Seung-woo muttered to himself, carrying a load on his shoulder.

A communal cemetery was to be created to bury all those who had died this time and pray for their souls. Next to it, corpses with flesh that had turned cold and blood that had frozen were neatly laid out one by one.

I wondered how hard the ground was that they still couldn’t make a cemetery, so I touched the soil.

“……The soil is frozen, so it doesn’t come off the ground.”

I put my gloved hand on the ground and understood.

The soil was frozen with the snow, making it as hard as a rock. This wouldn’t work with ordinary methods.

I took my hand off the ground and lightly opened my mouth.

Then, magic power swirled around my mouth.

It was the activation of the lower-level version of the language of the gods.

「Activation Word」.

Coffin Burial (櫃埋葬) [a spell to create graves]

What was activated through my mouth was a type of elemental magic.

It was 「Earth Magic」, specialized in various fields such as defense, reclamation, and construction.

The magic power rode the language, seeped into the ground, and gradually changed the shape of the land in the direction I wanted along the ley lines.

A suitable-sized cavity dug under the tomb.

It was a cavity large enough to hold one human-shaped life form. In addition, I consumed a considerable amount of magic power to create air holes so that the sound inside would not be heard from the outside while making the tomb, but they could breathe.

Hmm, [Fire Magic] is the easiest for me after all.

“…….”

“Hey, get up quickly. I know you’re awake.”

“…….”

“Should I just kill you?”

“I, I’m awake, so. No, no violence……!!”

The one with the ruined face and broken legs desperately waved its hands.

A plea not to hurt her anymore.

She planted insects that suck the life out of children, yet she makes such strange demands.

At that time, she felt that the pain in her body was gradually subsiding.

It was as if her natural regeneration had become several times faster.

I can see what she’s thinking.

I grinned and opened my mouth.

“I degraded you to a complete demon right before you died.”

A complete demon?

The woman had no idea what he was talking about.

In the first place, it was relatively recent that she gained a unique ability using insects and senses, and that she became a demon.

No, she became a demon just last night.

And she had finished preparing to massacre the hateful village, starting with the children.

Before she could even carry it out, she was about to die first.

I, who couldn’t have known that far, smiled with my mouth but continued to speak, not hiding the disgust in my eyes.

“Usually, demons are born by injecting serums or other by-products made by processing specific monsters in a special way into the body. Most of them fuse the powers or characteristics of the monsters with the techniques they trained during their human days and handle them.”

Each person has a monster that matches their wavelength.

Most people have good wavelengths with low-level monsters of the 8th to 10th rank, but sometimes there are cases where they match high-level monsters such as the 3rd or 4th rank.

In such cases, it’s as if there is a backlash against becoming a powerful demon, so they don’t easily fall into being a demon.

However, with the help of external forces, there were often cases where a weak ordinary person was reborn as a strong person they could never have imagined.

‘And those people almost always became criminals.’

She had a wavelength that matched a high-ranking monster, but it wasn’t a perfect match. So, she had abilities, but she was in an awkward state with insufficient power.

But I pushed her.

To have complete abilities.

I completely pushed her out of the wall of humanity, turning her into a trash-like demon who was no better than beasts or livestock.

And the reason for that is not for nothing.

It’s not special or great.

It’s extremely simple.

“Tell me your desire.”

“My…… desire?”

“Yes, the desire you want to achieve even by giving up being human.”

Humans are a race that craves desire.

Each has their own desires, and people live each day enduring to achieve those desires someday.

That is a fact that everyone knows.

But one thing that people often get confused about.

“You demons are very honest with your desires. More so than humans.”

“Th, that’s because they’re exposed to demonic energy……!”

“Ah, the person who degraded you never told you about the mechanism of demons, huh.”

Demons are a race that maximizes desire.

The culmination of that is magic energy, and it is the extreme of energy that boasts much stronger power and efficiency by repeatedly adding desire to magic power.

In order to obtain such magic energy and become a demon, a strong desire is needed that can drive a person to the edge of a cliff, whether it is base or noble.

It is the disgusting demons who dig into that and expand their power.

A race that increases its numbers through reproduction that is dirtier than rats.

I also told her various information about demons.

In the end, the point is.

“I’ll fulfill your desire to the extent that you become a demon, for my goal. In return, I want your abilities and, in the end, even your neck.”

“Crazy bastard……!”

“I’m originally a crazy bastard. Nothing new.”

I’m used to being treated like a crazy bastard, so I don’t think much of it.

“Oh, you were so kind to the little kids, but it seems you can’t hide your true nature after all. I wonder what would happen if I revealed your true nature to them……!”

“Try it.”

“What would…… what did you just say?”

“Try it if you can.”

Do whatever you can, whether it’s squeezing out your last strength or whatever.

I was calm.

I already know that she can’t do it in this state, and in the first place, I don’t care much about other people’s opinions.

More than anything.

“I don’t like little kids. I actually hate them.”

“What……? I clearly saw it!”

What is she talking about.

I hate things that are noisy and chaotic.

Some of the things that meet those conditions are war and children, so I don’t particularly like children.