I Possessed a Character in an Academy Without a Protagonist – Chapter 26

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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: FusionX
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I felt something constantly leaking out from my stomach and my body gradually getting colder.

So this is what dying feels like.

Ms. Mary must have felt this pain as she died too.

Even while feeling this pain, she left her last words for her son. All I could do was make strange groaning noises.

Various stray thoughts kept flashing through my mind.

Is this what they call life flashing before your eyes?

No, it’s a bit different. Doesn’t life flashing before your eyes mean your past memories flash by?

Anyway.

I thought I was really dying like that.

“…… I knew this would happen.”

Until I felt a warm touch on my fingertips and a sweet voice flowed in.

As if I had endured all this time just to hear this voice, my consciousness immediately faded away.

I really thought I had died then.

“Ugh……”

I woke up with a groan.

As soon as my vision was restored, I quickly grasped the situation.

I was lying on a bed. Judging by the atmosphere of the room, it seemed to be a hospital room.

In my perception, I had woken up right after losing consciousness, but the dark sky outside the window told me that quite some time had passed.

My fingers felt slippery. Did they get wet?

I struggled to turn my head to the side.

Because there was a constant rustle of movement coming from the right.

“How are you feeling?”

“Ha……”

As expected, it was Iris.

As soon as I saw her face with a smile, a laugh that was almost like a sigh burst out.

Had she used her specialty, the original recovery magic that was called a miracle?

According to the setting, it was a magic that consumed an enormous amount of mana and stamina, so I was simply grateful that she willingly used it to save me.

…… Putting aside for what purpose she had saved me.

“I’ll live.”

“That’s good then.”

Iris smiled brightly.

Even Iris’ recovery magic wasn’t omnipotent.

Naturally, it couldn’t revive the dead.

And I was a body that had gone to the brink of death.

It was inevitable that my whole body was still not moving an inch as if paralyzed.

After about a day, I should be able to move my body to some extent.

Although the pain in my abdomen would still remain.

“Schlus.”

“Why are you calling me?”

“You asked me what kind of future I saw.”

That’s right.

On the first day of the semester. The moment I first saw Iris.

I had rudely spoken to her out of nowhere, asking what kind of future she had seen.

At that time, Iris had found it difficult to answer.

“Schlus. I saw a future where you die. Bleeding from your stomach, dying miserably behind the event venue.”

“……”

“Without anyone knowing. I saw a future where you fought alone against a threat no one noticed and died lonely.”

A future where I die.

Then it means the future has changed.

I realized for the first time that the future observed by future sight could also change.

It was a setting I hadn’t thought deeply about myself.

“Iris.”

“Yes. What is it?”

“…… Thank you.”

I turned my head and expressed my gratitude.

I never dreamed that a day would come when I would sincerely feel grateful to a character I had created in a novel.

Iris must have had some purpose for saving me, of course, but even considering that, it wasn’t that I wasn’t grateful.

Iris was also undoubtedly a savior of my life.

Perhaps she was the one I owed the second biggest debt to after Ms. Mary.

“You’re welcome.”

“Did you wait until I woke up?”

“Well, maybe. Or maybe not.”

“……?”

Iris smiled and got up from the bed.

It was a smile that felt full of discomfort, like a little devil.

Only then did I realize.

That something was going wrong.

“Schlus! You’re awake!”

“Mr. Hainkel! Do you remember the incident when you stopped the terror attack?”

“We heard you had a confrontation with the intruder! Can you tell us more about how you fought……”

The door opened roughly and people poured in like a flood.

They all seemed to be reporters, judging by the notebooks and pens in their hands.

But how the hell did these guys know that I had stopped the terror attack?

I abruptly turned my head and glared at Iris.

‘It was you.’

But Iris only shrugged her shoulders and left the room through the door.

Iris had spilled everything.

That I had disabled the spell that was about to blow up the entire event venue. That I had prevented the worst terror attack.

She had deliberately brought up something that everyone would have overlooked if she had just kept quiet.

Thanks to that, I was about to become a celebrity.

Although I was already quite famous before……

“Iris! What is this nonsense-”

“Schlus! Please answer us!”

“Mr. Hainkel! How did you notice the existence of the spell……”

My urgent voice calling out to Iris was drowned out by the reporters’ shouting.

And Iris soon disappeared from my sight.

So this is how she’s going to play it.

“Ha…… This is driving me crazy.”

I’ll pay her back the same way someday.

I gritted my teeth and vowed.

***

“Hertlocker.”

“……”

“Youngsuk.”

“Don’t talk to me. I’m reviewing right now.”

Eric sighed and turned around.

Sometimes, when he experienced a shocking event, Hertlocker would close his eyes and become lost in thought like that.

Recalling the combat situation and considering all the possible scenarios that could have occurred at that time.

Hertlocker called it “reviewing”.

‘Well, it must have been a shock.’

Hertlocker had been defeated.

Hertlocker, who could be called the strongest assassin in the Kingdom’s army without exaggeration.

Moreover, his opponent wasn’t even an Elste-level magician or a high-ranking knight.

It was a freshman at the Imperial Academy. And a commoner at that.

Furthermore, the opponent wasn’t even fully prepared, while Hertlocker was armed with a dagger when he was defeated.

He would need time to recover from the shock.

Eric decided to leave Hertlocker alone for a while.

On the other hand, Hertlocker was-

‘Why the hell did I lose……?’

Gritting his teeth and desperately analyzing the cause of his defeat.

The moment he encountered Schlus. He had felt that something was off about him.

But wasn’t that the case every day or two?

That dead-eyed man would have looked suspicious no matter where or when you saw him.

The moment he truly felt something was amiss was when he crossed paths with Schlus.

Hertlocker reacted by twisting his body when he felt a threatening presence, but he ended up giving away the first move.

That meant Schlus knew from the beginning that Hertlocker was the culprit behind the terror attack.

How on earth? By what means?

These doubts were useless to ponder over a hundred times.

To begin with, it was incomprehensible how he had disabled the spell in the first place.

Anyway, Schlus had known from the start that Hertlocker was the culprit and intentionally interfered to stop the terror attack.

Let’s say that’s the case up to this point. I don’t understand it at all, but let’s say it is.

But the real problem started after that.

‘I was definitely at an overwhelming advantage.’

Hertlocker was armed with a dagger.

It was an item he had smuggled into the event venue by concealing it in the form of mana using matter decomposition magic.

On the other hand, Schlus was barehanded.

Barehanded versus a dagger. Unless there was external intervention, the outcome was obvious.

At least, that’s what Hertlocker thought at the time.

Because Hertlocker’s internal circuit was said to be optimized for close combat, appearing only once every thousand years.

It would be a lie to say he wasn’t shocked to see Schlus keep up with his movements.

Moreover, didn’t Schlus even overwhelm Hertlocker in terms of speed at one point?

It was a phenomenon that couldn’t be explained unless he had been able to move like that from the beginning and had intentionally held back.

“Damn it……”

Hertlocker felt both frustration and humiliation.

Schlus had dismantled all of Hertlocker’s specialty magic that was activated simultaneously with close combat.

There were 5 light-attribute magic bullets designed to be fired at Schlus from all directions. Even if they were low-level magic, it was an abnormal calculation speed.

He wanted to believe that someone had secretly helped Schlus.

Because otherwise, it meant that Schlus was overwhelming Hertlocker in terms of multitasking as well.

“Ha……”

Hertlocker sighed deeply, looking at his arms wrapped in bandages.

Eric’s opinion was that the bones had all been set, so they would heal in a few days if left alone.

It was the first time he had lost both arms during combat.

In a situation where he couldn’t use both arms, Hertlocker, whose face was grabbed by Schlus, felt a sensation he had momentarily forgotten.

The fear of death.

As the thought that he might really die became reality, his life even flashed before his eyes.

But Schlus let Hertlocker go.

If he had applied a little more force, he could have killed him.

Was it because his strength had run out? Probably not.

Schlus had clearly intentionally spared his life.

Why on earth……?

Hertlocker’s mind instantly became complicated-

“Ah, I don’t know!”

He soon stopped reviewing, messing up his hair.

No matter how much he thought about it, there was no better scenario.

Hertlocker had made the best move.

Still, he had been defeated.

Hertlocker felt like he was going to burst with frustration because he couldn’t accept the fact that Schlus was simply stronger.

‘At least I eliminated him, so that’s a relief.’

One way or another, he had succeeded in killing Schlus.

Although it was because Schlus had held back, Schlus was dead and Hertlocker was alive like this, so couldn’t it be considered a victory rather than a defeat?

This kind of self-consolation-

“Hertlocker! Youngsuk! Schlus Hainkel is alive, you know?”

“What?!”

Was shattered by Eric’s urgent voice.

“It’s in the news? That he survived?”

“That can’t be. I stabbed his liver. There’s no way to stop liver bleeding with any magic.”

“Are you sure you stabbed his liver?”

“I’m sure.”

“Then why is he alive?”

“……”

“Wow. The day has come when even you make a mistake.”

At Eric’s sneer, Hertlocker gritted his teeth.

How could he fail to stab a person’s liver when he had done it dozens, hundreds of times? How could he have mistaken it after stabbing?

That sensation was definitely the feeling of piercing the liver.

Hertlocker felt like he was going to go crazy with the sense of injustice.

“By the way, what will happen to Schlus?”

“What do you mean?”

“Shouldn’t we change his status from surveillance target to assassination target?”

“Hmm……”

Eric grabbed his chin and pondered for a moment.

Schlus was indeed a dangerous individual.

Calculation ability to single-handedly detect and dismantle a concealed massive spell.

On top of that, he possessed close combat ability that overwhelmed Hertlocker.

But that didn’t mean he had to be killed right away.

“No. It’s not time for a change yet.”

“Why? His danger level is on par with Roman! We have to eliminate him right away-”

“We don’t know that yet. Because we don’t know if Schlus was stopping us today or stopping the terror attack.”

“……”

Hertlocker’s mouth closed.

In other words, they didn’t know if Schlus was hostile to the Intelligence Agency or if he had acted simply to prevent human casualties.

If it was the latter, Schlus might not be such a big threat to the Intelligence Agency.

“To eliminate Schlus as well, the Intelligence Agency will have to be prepared for quite a bit of bleeding. So let’s pray. Let’s hope Schlus doesn’t know much about the Intelligence Agency.”

“……”

It was a wise response.

It was never a pleasant thing to increase the number of powerful enemies.

But Hertlocker felt a corner of his heart become stuffy.

The thought that Schlus was an enemy of the Intelligence Agency kept getting stronger.

There was no basis for it.

It wasn’t a wish either.

It was just an instinctive feeling.

***

“Phew……”

Standing in front of the hospital room door.

Erica let out a deep sigh.

Just facing the person who would be beyond this door made her nervous.

He was someone she had been reluctant to meet from the beginning, but even more so because of the scene she had witnessed earlier.

About 4 hours ago. When she came to find Schlus Hainkel and peeked inside through the half-open door.

“Huh?”

“……”

It was when she saw Schlus lying asleep.

And when she witnessed the scene of Iris sucking on his fingers.

Erica was so surprised that she blushed and slammed the door shut.

But before she could even run away-

“Where are you going, Miss Erica? Didn’t you come to see Schlus?”

She was caught by Iris, who had opened the door and come out.

Even in this situation, Iris still had a meaningful smile on her face.

“That…… what were you doing just now? Did I see it wrong?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You…… put Schlus Hainkel’s fingers…… in your mouth.”

“Ah, that? You didn’t see it wrong.”

So I didn’t see it wrong.

But then why……?

Erica cautiously parted her lips again, watching Iris’ reaction.

“If you don’t mind me asking…… could you tell me why you did that?”

“Why, you ask? It was just a medical procedure.”

“Huh? What do you mean……”

“My recovery magic uses saliva as a medium. The more it’s applied, the greater the effect.”

“Ah! I see!”

Erica made a fuss, fanning her face.

It was to maximize the effect of the recovery magic.

She was so embarrassed that she felt like her face was going to burn up for having strange imaginations.

‘But if you only needed to apply saliva, was it necessary to directly suck on his fingers?’

Erica had a reasonable suspicion-

‘Well, I guess she did it because it was all necessary.’

But she had already become unable to think properly due to the embarrassment and ended up accepting it as it was.

“You were…… treating him.”

“Yes. What did you imagine we were doing?”

“No, I thought you two were…… No. I should ask this first. What’s your relationship?”

“Between me and Schlus?”

“Yes.”

“Who knows? I think it’s probably the relationship you imagined, Erica.”

“The, the relationship I imagined?”

Erica became dizzy by Iris’ counterattack that came with a relaxed smile.

And that was the last scene of the flashback.

Because Erica had gone straight home after that.

It was only now that she had come back to the hospital room after hearing the news that Schlus had woken up.

Thinking carefully, the relationship between Iris and Schlus seemed to be unusual.

The two of them looked so close that it was unbelievable they had only met recently, and even more so considering it was between a commoner and a noble.

Perhaps their relationship was……

“Phew.”

Erica shook her head and knocked on the hospital room door.

It was a speculation that had almost become a certainty, but she erased it from her mind for now. There was something more important.

Although all those heroic deeds were possible thanks to selling his lifespan to a demon, it was true that Schlus had saved many people.

Erica’s mother, Madam Lichtenburg, was also at the event venue.

Putting aside her dislike for Schlus, she had to properly express her gratitude for saving her mother’s life.

But……

“……?”

There was no sound coming from beyond the door.

Erica opened the door with a puzzled expression.

And at that moment, Erica felt like she was suffocating.

“Freeze.”

“……!”

Next to the bed where Schlus was lying.

There sat a man in a black suit.

Roman von Byrne.

The legend of the Imperial Army was there.

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