Chapter 39
“Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
─Flutter-flutter.
Body hair whiter than the racist’s white skin decorated the sky above the Mages’ Guild.
I watched the hair scattering like Senbonzakura with an indifferent gaze. The blood-red streaks visible among the falling white hair must have been the death throes of his mangled hair follicles.
“Gyaaah!!!!! M-my hair!!!! My haaaaaair!!!!!!!!”
Ouslate fell to his knees and clutched his head. The emotional precum overflowing from his eyes probably wasn’t caused by pain alone.
Even as I watched his pathetic behavior, I felt neither sympathy nor satisfaction. It was downright disgusting, like watching a passing insect writhe after losing a leg.
I approached Ouslate with a frigid gaze. My boot mercilessly trampled the dirt in the garden.
─Step.
Flinch!
Hearing my footsteps, Ouslate trembled and raised his head. The greatest fucking bastard under heaven and I met each other’s eyes through my mask. Like the idiot he was, he soon lit a fire in both eyes and started ranting.
“You damned barbarian!!!!! How dare you touch me when you don’t even know who I am?!”
Kiiing!
Ouslate lost his temper and cast a spell. A translucent spherical shield activated and covered his body.
“I’ll kill you!! If it hadn’t been a surprise attack, there’s no way someone like me, Lord Ouslate, could have been defeated by a barbaric warrior like you──!!”
“What an ugly excuse. Were you unable to come up with even one polished excuse because you used your remaining brain cells to berate others?”
I snorted and closed the distance. A seventh-star alchemist. Going by the words alone, he seemed like a powerful opponent.
But Ouslate was an alchemist, first and foremost. Magic was nothing more than a secondary concern for him.
Could a bodybuilder beat a boxer? It wouldn’t be impossible. A bodybuilder’s maximum strength would be far greater, after all. Even so, I knew there was an enormous gap between someone accustomed to fighting and someone who wasn’t.
Ouslate wasn’t a warrior. Even as a mage, he clearly had no experience with combat.
A posture clumsy enough to disgust me, and fucking awful reflexes!
Even though a mage, as someone who handled mana, should possess at least a minimum level of physical ability, he had been completely unable to respond to my surprise hair-removal attack.
A skilled mage would have stopped me with an instantly cast spell the moment I grabbed his hair roots. The reason Ouslate had failed to do so was that he was an idiot unused to fighting!
Even as a seventh-star alchemist──he was ultimately nothing more than a slaughterhouse chicken living smugly inside a narrow cage!!
“Vector—Straight Punch!!”
Boom!!
My full-force punch shook the shield. The ache that shot through my wrist made me scream!!
“Gyaaah!!!”
Fuck!!! That hurts like hell!!!!
Come to think of it, physical combat techniques were pretty meaningless once the shield was in place! If I couldn’t break through it, then even his shitty reflexes weren’t a disadvantage!!
“Mana of flames flowing in the south──”
That fucking bastard was chanting in the middle of all this!! I realized I was fucked!! That crazy bastard had gone berserk after taking only a few cheap shots and was planning to fire magic at me!!
“I told you to shut your mouth!!! Consecutive Serious Punches!!!”
Kwa-gwa-gwa-gwa-gwang!!!
I went completely serious and unleashed a barrage of full-power punches without a trace of humor. Beast Regression, whose proficiency had risen like crazy without my doing anything in particular, drank up my mana like a sponge and increased its output.
Shwoooosh!!
Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud!!
─Craack!
“Ghk, khk?!”
Ouslate, who had been chanting a spell, saw cracks spreading across his shield and stopped chanting in surprise. He really was an idiot! If he could see that the situation was going to shit, he should have started chanting sooner. Why the hell had his mouth stopped moving?!
It was like a hit-and-run victim standing frozen in a daze even three seconds before a car illegally crossing the street ran them over! His body, unable to understand the situation, was refusing to make a rational judgment!!
And the difference between Ouslate and a hit-and-run victim was that the racist bastard was the perpetrator!!
─Shiiing!!
The immutable law that justice must always prevail took my side. The hastily erected, shoddy shield met its explosive finale beneath my barrage.
Pap-pap-pat!!
I closed in faster than the shield could shatter and grabbed Ouslate, who had been hiding inside it.
Grab!!
“Gaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!”
Only after pulling without thinking did I realize that what I had grabbed was Ouslate’s forelock.
The white hair barely clinging to his blood-soaked, exposed crown!!
“L-let go!! Let go of this!! You primitive master’s student!!”
“M-master’s student?! This fucking bastard is provoking me without even understanding the situation!!!”
Calling a master’s student a master’s student was just as likely to make him touchy as calling a bald man bald!! Almost no master’s student took pride in their degree!!
With all those doctors and professors packed into a university, why the hell would a master’s student brag about being a master’s student?!
This bastard would have been just as furious if a younger higher-ranking mage called him a seventh-star alchemist!!
“Someone like you needs to experience baldness firsthand!!!!”
And yet he dared call me a master’s student without putting himself in my shoes!!!
I lost my reason and raged!! A bastard like this needed to become bald and feel inferior at every single silent glance from others before he would learn to be careful with his mouth!!!
I tightened my grip on his hair!! It was time to unleash the Earth Hero’s ultimate technique again, following the same procedure as before!!!!
“Vector—M-Shaped Baldness Wave!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
“Stooooop!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Brrrbrbrbrbrk!!!!
Ratatatat!
A highway was carved through Ouslate’s crown. It was my highway, meant to tear down his Bricky supremacist racial worldview like the Berlin Wall.
I shook out my hand, hoping that this would allow him to accept a new wave like South Korea did after its highways were built. I couldn’t get filthy hair on the gloves Frang had made for me, after all.
─Drip-drip-drip-drip.
Because I had forcibly torn out the hair from his forelock to his crown, blood continued leaking from Ouslate’s head. When blood entered one eye, he closed it and became one-eyed.
─Step.
I stepped toward Ouslate as he rolled through the dirt. At the indifferent thud of my boot, the even more unsightly motherfucking alchemist began to convulse.
“Hik, huff, hwaaaagh!! W-wait! No, please wait!! Mr. Wayne!!”
His appearance, made ugly like a zombie by blood and dirt, was beginning to match the bastard’s personality.
“I’m sorry for everything! I must have been blinded by a moment of anger!! I sincerely apologize like this!! Please, forgive me!!”
“Enough with the fucking groveling, you bastard.”
If you apologize twice, I’ll pour liquor over my own grave, you son of a bitch.
What the fuck was I supposed to do just because he was sorry? We had already crossed a river from which there was no return.
We had paid Charon his fare and boarded a boat to the Sanzu River alongside a peculiar lawyer. Just as the dead and shed hair never return, we had suffered a catastrophe and had no choice but to keep moving forward.
─Step-step.
“G-gyaaah!!!! Don’t come any closer! I said don’t come near me!!!”
Ouslate gave up on chanting and pressed himself against the wall, trembling. He knew that even if he started chanting, I would immediately charge in and beat the shit out of him.
For him, chanting now was more foolish than taking jerky out in front of a cheetah crouched at the starting line.
But no matter what Ouslate did… I would never stop.
─Halt.
I stopped right in front of Ouslate’s nose.
Then I clenched my fist and said:
“──Whenever you look at your crown, remember me.”
“Kiyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!!!!!!”
The racist baldy clutched his head and let out a banshee-like scream!! I used that scream as BGM and stamped down hard with a powerful foot stomp!!
──Ultimate Death Blow.
“Vector—Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Friday Friday(月火水木金金金)!!!”
Vector—Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Friday Friday(月火水木金金金)! It was an unprecedented barrage in which every blow carried the Earth Hero’s strength and the hardships of a graduate student!
It was an ultimate technique capable of up to 108 combos, as well as a deadly skill that absolutely wasn’t over until everything was finished!
Above all, this technique became even more powerful when the opponent was a professor or some equivalent life-form!!
This was my divine punishment for a piece of trash who exploited and used an innocent student, even sexually harassing them!!!
Purrbubububububububub!!
Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud!!
As a mana user, Ouslate’s body had been enhanced and was quite tough. Thanks to that, I also raised Beast Regression’s power and kept pounding every inch of his body without leaving a single spot untouched!!
“Villain!!!!!! Do you know this saying!!!!!!!!”
“Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
I shouted while repeatedly beating Ouslate’s entire body!!
“Please go somewhere else!!!!!!!!! Recommended mandatory retirement!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Kwa-gwa-gwaaaang!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
My finishing uppercut, spewing green mana, caught Ouslate under the chin and launched him upward!!!
──Flop.
The old man eligible for mandatory retirement, struck by a fist like a rising dragon, spewed a nosebleed and collapsed on the spot. I had desperately scraped together my evaporated reason and controlled my strength, but getting hit hard in the chin had knocked him out.
Ssshhh──.
Green mana from Beast Regression rose like gun smoke from my tightly clenched fists.
─Victory.
I could practically grasp the feeling of victory in both hands. The fact that this technique had ended meant the enemy had been beaten to the point where recovery was impossible.
I exhaled with zanshin and brought both fists to my waist like a taekwondo practitioner.
Then I muttered.
“……Fuck. Did I go a little too far?”
Seeing Ouslate sprawled like a mannequin with broken joints, I felt a twinge of regret. I had stomped him too hard without thinking about the consequences. Fuck, I should have hit the brakes at a reasonable point!
But separate from that self-reproach, my chest felt wonderfully refreshed.
That refreshing coolness felt as if it were blasting open my completely clogged stomach!
“──Ahh. Is this ‘cider’?”
…Not really.
It was definitely cider, but it felt like someone had injected it directly into my veins through an IV. It was the textbook pattern of drug abuse.
‘What the hell am I going to do about the aftermath?’
A Carmine-affiliated archaeology master’s student had beaten the shit out of a seventh-star alchemist from the Mages’ Guild. Would this really end as a personal matter between two individuals? No, there was no way it would.
The Mages’ Guild had its pride too. If the idiot belonging to their guild got the shit beaten out of him and they simply said, ‘Handle it yourself,’ and swept it under the rug, they wouldn’t be setting an example for other organizations.
Carmine University, on the other hand, would cut me loose. Leaving a grudge with the Mages’ Guild over one measly master’s student would be a huge loss from the perspective of the university’s long-term interests.
“Um, excuse me….”
Just as I began wondering whether I should abandon my identity as Arthur Wayne and run, Tirsi spoke to me. Oh, right. She was here too.
“Thank you for helping me. I’m Tirsi Armashnas.”
“…Arthur Wayne.”
I knew that perfectly well, but I nodded as though I didn’t. It was my painstakingly cultivated Vector—Speak Solemnly.
Tirsi had surely long forgotten the voice of a man she had worked with for only one day, but I decided to be careful anyway.
Fortunately, Tirsi continued speaking as though she hadn’t noticed my identity.
“Thank you so much. If it weren’t for you, Mr. Wayne, I might have fallen prey to that man’s venomous fangs and ended up in serious trouble.”
“I’m glad I could help. I happened to overhear you while passing by. …It seems there are other victims as well.”
“…Yes. A colleague I was close to and her lover both suffered because of that man.”
Tirsi said this gloomily as she removed her nurse’s cap. I regretted bringing up something unnecessary, but she soon shook off her emotions.
“But are you all right, Mr. Wayne? That man deserves to be beaten to death, but… he’ll surely try to retaliate against you too.”
Tirsi spoke with a worried look in her eyes.
“I heard about you from that man. You’re the field-based master’s graduate from Carmine University who came here to request an analysis of magic, right?”
“Pardon? Ah, yes, that’s right. Then you’re the student McLoyber said he would call in his place….”
“That’s me. Magic history is my minor. But my field of study isn’t important right now.”
Tirsi frowned as she looked at McLoyber, who was unconscious and sprawled on the ground.
“Once that man comes to his senses, he’ll surely try to report you to your university. Do you have any plan in mind?”
“…I’m thinking about it now.”
Though I hadn’t come up with any clear answer.
I desperately overworked my brain. I was running it at 3,000 percent. Watching me do so, Tirsi spoke.
“If you don’t have a suitable solution──would you be willing to leave this to us?”
“Leave it to you?”
“I’m not the only one who wants that man punished.”
Tirsi said this. Come to think of it, the conversation I had overheard earlier had also mentioned that something was being plotted behind the scenes.
“Many people besides me have been victimized by his tyranny. I was preparing to combine their testimonies and evidence and have him expelled from the guild.”
“…McLoyber claimed he could stop you by using his connections. Will that be all right?”
“His connections aren’t anything special. He just shamelessly groveled before an executive at another Mages’ Guild and created a connection that way. But while he’s unconscious, he can’t object to his arrest or hearing, nor can he contact them and ask for help, right?”
Tirsi spoke calmly while counting on her fingers.
“That’s why now, while he’s unconscious, is the perfect time. Originally, we planned to execute the plan while he was away at a seminar, but recently, he hasn’t been going out.”
“So he noticed your plan and was trying to prepare a countermeasure.”
“I think that’s highly likely. The fact that he deliberately revealed the truth to me means he must already have nearly finished preparing his counterattack. I should have realized something was wrong when he bought one more carrier pigeon….”
Tirsi sighed, then regained her determined expression.
“But we can do it now. I don’t know what scheme he was planning, but if we have just half a day, we can resolve the matter ourselves.”
Tirsi’s eyes shone as though she had seized her opportunity.
“If we hide that unconscious man and report to the guildmaster, he won’t be able to appear as a witness, so he won’t be able to make excuses either.”
“…I see. I understand. For now, that seems like the best course of action.”
I was convinced. As with these things, if you were going to make trouble anyway, it was advantageous to make the stage as large as possible.
It was the same principle as reporting military abuse through an entire regiment during leave instead of using the Heart Letter Box, or making a Blue House petition meaningful only by drawing sufficient public attention.
‘There wouldn’t be much point in secretly running away from here.’
Even if I abandoned my identity as Arthur Wayne and disappeared from here, there would surely be people who pursued me.
Fuck, I wasn’t a murderer. Living in constant fear of what might be behind me just because I had pursuers would be absurd. With Frang in the picture, was I supposed to spend my entire life running from someone? That was absolutely out of the question.
In that sense, Tirsi’s proposal was quite timely.
Rather than screaming that I could handle everything myself and making a complete mess of things, it was safer to ride along with a plan someone else had already prepared. Thinking that, I nodded.
“I’ll leave it to you. …Ah, but I have one request.”
As I said that, I pointed at the fallen Ouslate.
“Could you add to the testimony that he insulted my Ulsterian friend and tried to sully my honor?”
“Hehe. Will you be satisfied with just that?”
Tirsi, still wearing her nurse’s uniform, crooked her index finger and spoke.
“Do you really not need the touching story about how you couldn’t stand his vile attempt to lay hands on even me, so you displayed chivalry and fought back?”
“Heh heh. Sounds good. Since things have come this far, please add that too.”
──Thus, before evening, we expelled that piece of human garbage and racist bastard from the Mages’ Guild and threw him in prison.
Justice had been served in this absurdly unjust Mages’ Guild.
I did have one small complaint, though.
“Haah, fuck. So when are you going to examine my dick?”
After a long round of testimony, I was cleared of all charges and muttered this.
Apparently, the magical urology clinic in my neighborhood had an insanely long waiting time.