Fated to Die in an Academy Novel – Chapter 124

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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: JayM
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The Succubus Queen assessed the remaining Authority she could wield.

…Not much.

She lacked power, so she ended up using everything except the bare minimum needed to maintain the dream world to bind a single boy.

Even so, she thought it would be enough.

She believed there would be no more interruptions.

“This seems to be the end.”

But during the brief time she was fighting the boy, some people, exploiting the weakened Authority, started waking up from the nightmare.

A beautiful woman with long blonde hair and deep emerald eyes.

The woman instantly recalled the low-ranking succubi she had met before, cautiously observed the Succubus Queen for a moment, and then frowned at the black sphere floating in the air.

…The Succubus Queen had sent the others to manage the dreams, so it seemed like she would have to deal with this herself.

“…Did you do that?”

“I don’t think I have to answer that.”

“Thank you for answering. That’s enough. You would have denied it immediately if it wasn’t you.”

The woman lightly shifted her stance.

“I’ll give you a warning first. Release that and surrender if you don’t want to get hurt.”

She knew who the woman was thanks to observing her through the dream.

Cathy. A woman who, despite being born with a low-ranking talent, honed her skills and became an A-rank hero.

She was one of the people with strong mental fortitude that the Succubus Queen was wary of when she was creating this world. Since Cathy had already overcome her trauma, the Succubus Queen had few ways to control her, so she had forcibly bound the hero with Authority.

However, the Succubus Queen was only wary of Cathy because of her strong mental fortitude. Matchup-wise, martial arts type heroes weren’t that disadvantageous to her.

“I can’t do that.”

The hero refused, then lightly jumped and kicked.

The Succubus Queen’s head was sent flying with a thud and then exploded, turning into pink mist before reforming.

“…Ah, this is a dream. You’re a bad matchup for me.”

‘A dream…? A bad matchup…? You just tried to kill me with that kick. And you’re going to brush it off like that?’

Come to think of it, Cathy suddenly changed in the dream right before she woke up when this kid had appeared.

Should she provoke this woman?

“I wonder? He’s busy having a sweet dream, so would he even want to wake up?”

“…What do you mean?”

There was a reaction.

It was difficult to subdue someone with a strong mental fortitude in a dream.

Since the Succubus Queen couldn’t use Authority anymore, it would be better to break her spirit and corner her.

“What do you mean, what do I mean? What else would a kid that age do when trapped in a dream? He’s already having doing something passionate… with me…”

Bang.

Huh? What was that sound?

The Succubus Queen’s head flew off again.

Her body was bisected, then regenerated, and at the same time, her neck was grabbed.

“I… don’t like lies.”

Cathy’s gaze was intense. The Succubus Queen felt the hand gripping her neck tighten.

“Why is it a lie…?”

Cathy’s fingers dug into her neck with a sickening crunch.

“Even in a dream, there’s no way our So-hyun would do that with someone like you. Don’t lie.”

…It seemed a bit excessive, but the Succubus Queen’s plan to agitate the hero seemed to have worked.

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This was the result of just looking back at my life before middle school.

Come to think of it, I lived quite a dramatic life.

Abandoned by my family, the teacher who gave me hope died in an accident caused by a crime.

Even so, I don’t remember ever thinking about suicide or giving up.

“Snap out of it. Those who are still alive have to live.”

I was unwilling to choose death now partly because she had always been by my side.

“Stop acting tough. It’s obvious that you were crying your eyes out.”

“Yeah, but not as much as you. You liked Ms. Cathy, didn’t you?”

It wasn’t just me. The other kids cried too.

Especially my younger siblings who cried so much that they lost their voices the next day.

Even that asshole director seemed to have reflected on his actions and stopped drinking the money he embezzled from the support funds.

“Ha-neul hyung, where did Ms. Cathy go?”

When one of my younger siblings who didn’t understand death yet asked that, I instinctively answered while imitating Ms. Cathy.

“I wonder. Maybe she’ll come back soon if Min-seo is a good boy!”

It didn’t suit me. It didn’t suit me at all.

Since I only frowned every day before, my muscles twitched when I tried to smile, and it was difficult to speak in a gentle voice since I was used to speaking harshly.

Min-seo even started crying while saying that my face was scary.

But I didn’t give up.

So, I kept smiling…

Until I could smile like her. So that we wouldn’t forget her smile even if we forgot her face and voice.

I smiled while imitating her as much as possible.

Ironically, life in the orphanage didn’t change much after she was gone.

The director didn’t do anything drastic, but he also didn’t cause any more trouble.

The new teacher wasn’t as passionate as Ms. Cathy, but she wasn’t abusive either.

The older brothers and sisters who graduated high school left the orphanage, and we who remained became middle school students.

“…I want to be an adult soon. I want to get out of this shitty orphanage.”

“What are you going to do when you get out?”

“Be an author. Being a children’s book author is the craze these days. I’ll write web novels.”

“…Do you think anyone would pay to read your boring novels?”

“That’s crossing the line. Do you want to get hit by your noona?”

“Who’s your noona, bitch! We’re the same age.”

“Yeah, right. The little crybaby in the corner of the orphanage? You lost to me.”

“Are you proud of resorting to violence? You’d be dead by now if you were a guy.”

“Hey, you’re so nice to everyone else these days, so why are you still such an asshole to me?”

“…Think carefully. Why do you think that I’m only like this to you?”

Well, we were quite close.

Perhaps because we knew each other since we were young, and because we were both orphans, which wasn’t viewed favorably by society, we didn’t get along well with the other kids.

Well, the open disdain was fine, but the hypocritical gazes of those who pitied us made us feel even more miserable.

Ah, I should mention that there were also genuinely kind people who helped us.

The hypocrites I mentioned were truly just hypocrites.

The teachers at school always said that they were on our side, but they always suspected us whenever something went missing. And even when the items were found later, they never apologized.

‘Adults act like apologizing is something to be ashamed of.’

When one of the older kids who graduated from the orphanage came to visit and muttered that, we burst out laughing.

And every time that happened, we would say…

…that we wanted to become adults like him soon.

At least back then, we thought things would be different when we became adults.

He told us that things wouldn’t change dramatically just because we became adults.

That it was the gazes of those around us that changed, not ourselves.

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“…Why don’t you give up?”

“Give up?”

Cathy, who was impaled through the shoulder by a spike that appeared out of nowhere, looked at her shoulder for a moment, then violently pulled the spike out.

Blood splattered, but she didn’t even flinch and just stared at her opponent.

The Succubus Queen shook her head at the resentful gaze directed at her.

“…It still hurts even in a dream.”

“Yes, but I don’t have to worry about dislocating bones or tearing muscles. I can still endure it, so don’t worry.”

Crazy.

This woman was definitely crazy.

What kind of person would endure the pain of broken bones and injured organs and keep attacking just because they weren’t actually injured?

It wasn’t just once or twice. She had already sustained fatal injuries more than ten times, but after realizing that she wouldn’t die after the first hit, she focused on crushing the Succubus Queen’s head even while injured.

‘I really picked the wrong fight.’

“I’m telling you again, wake up So-hyun.”

And the reason wasn’t even a sense of justice or duty, but just to wake up that boy.

“I wonder? He seems to be enjoying a sweet dream, so would he want to wake up? Ah, is it because of you that he likes breasts? They are big.”

The Succubus Queen didn’t know if he liked breasts or not.

It was a bluff, of course, but how many men disliked breasts?

The Succubus Queen’s guess was correct, and perhaps because Cathy thought that her words were more plausible, the hero attacked her even more fiercely.

In a battle of attrition in the dream world, she, a succubus, would eventually win.

But…

“Shut up.”

That was that, but this woman’s gaze when she attacked was terrifying.

It wasn’t like it actually hurt, and the Succubus Queen had blocked out the pain, but the hero’s fierce gaze still made her flinch right before the impact.

The Succubus Queen searched through Cathy’s nightmares and found a memory that would disgust the woman even more.

“Well, you must have really liked him to turn him into a donut.”

“…What?”

“You’re passionate. Not only did you try to destroy what you couldn’t have, but you even put a hole through the stomach of the person you liked?”

The Succubus Queen deliberately used formal language to provoke the hero so that she would be even more agitated.

“Huu.”

But contrary to the Succubus Queen’s expectations, Cathy just took a deep breath and adjusted her posture, as if calming herself down.

“Right, I shouldn’t get excited. I shouldn’t be swayed by your nonsense.”

Cathy calmed down when she should have been more agitated. There must have been something even stronger than trauma behind this memory.

The Succubus Queen followed the dream’s memories further and finally understood the whole story.

…Oh my god, how romantic. How could she say such things so confidently?

Was it because she was still young?

No, that wasn’t important right now.

“So? I’m disappointed you calmed down, but what difference does it make?”

The situation hadn’t changed. Cathy still couldn’t harm the Succubus Queen, but the latter could still damage her, even if it was just a little.

There was no need for the Succubus Queen to be agitated.

“Hmm?”

But soon after she thought that, the Succubus Queen sensed someone approaching.

Someone just as dangerous as this woman was coming.

Another entrance opened, and two people entered through different doors.

One was a boy with a golden spear.

He fiddled with his spear with a confident expression, frowned for a moment when he saw the black sphere, and then returned to his usual expression while pointing his spear towards her.

“…The nightmare must be his weakness.”

The other was a girl dressed like a boy.

“…Is that So-hyun? He’s often captured like a princess.”

She caressed her pure white sword, didn’t even look at me, and just stared at the black sphere.

“He’ll have a fit if he hears you call him a princess. Thanks. I’ll tease him later while saying you told me about it.”

“Ah, you bastard, that’s unfair. Are you holding a grudge just because I teased you a bit?”

They acted like they were joking around, but their fighting spirit intensified.

“It seems like a troublesome opponent since even the professor couldn’t handle this on her own.”

“Well, it seems so, but what does it matter?”

“…That’s true.”

And the two figures disappeared.

A golden lightning bolt and a chilling slash led the Succubus Queen to her death once more.

The Succubus Queen hurriedly reconstructed her body, but Cathy, as if anticipating her location, stomped down with a raised foot, crushing her head.

“…Be careful, everyone. Physical attacks aren’t very effective against her in this space.”

The Succubus Queen couldn’t endure this in a normal fight.

She wanted to use illusions, but most of her magical power, like her Authority, was being used to bind the boy in a nightmare.

This was dangerous.

It didn’t make sense that she, a Queen-level succubus, was being pushed back in a dream even if she didn’t have access to her magical power at the moment.

The Succubus Queen couldn’t draw on the Authority until she could control the boy.

She had no choice.

She had to go for a short, decisive battle.

If she couldn’t use Authority or magical power, then she would have to draw power from elsewhere.

The Succubus Queen didn’t want to use this, but if she waited any longer, this world itself might collapse.

Thinking so, the Succubus Queen started drawing power from people’s nightmares.

Of course, using the power of nightmares and their vital energy would weaken the dream’s connection, but it was better than the world completely collapsing.

They backed away, sensing the sudden surge in power, but it wouldn’t be easy to block this attack.

That is, if a brilliant light hadn’t suddenly erupted from beyond the passage.

A holy aura approached them while purifying the demonic energy and magical power created from nightmares.

What was this now?

“I’m not too late, am I?”

Holy power surged from the sword engraved with a beautiful rose.

The magical power the Succubus Queen had unleashed in desperation, unable to hold on any longer, was cut down, and a boy with a gentle aura emerged from beyond the exploding magical power.

“No, you’re late. Well, it wouldn’t have changed anything even if you weren’t here.”

“…Is that So-hyun?”

“Everyone else already did that once.”

“Ah, I see. I understand what to do.”

“…Isn’t it a bit unfair for the four of you to gang up on me?”

“There’s a saying in Reilan Academy’s Trash Talk class: ‘It’s okay to gang up on villains.’ Don’t you think it’s a good saying, everyone?”

As Cathy finished speaking, four pairs of eyes pierced the Succubus Queen.

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T/N – I honestly don’t like the Succubus Queen. The way she fights as if she was superior, the way she dismisses the people who are legitimate threats to her, and the way she uses the nightmares of others while only having a superficial understanding of them makes her quite a punchable villain. Which is why I can’t wait for the four of them to gang up on her JoJo style.

Also, this chapter all but confirms that the bully girl is the author friend the MC was talking about. So I’ll be referring to the author friend and the Creator as a woman from now on unless this is otherwise stated.

If you find any mistakes, feel free to point them out in the comments.