Chapter 67
*
Soldiers in black combat uniforms were walking in.
The Ironclad crest was emblazoned on their chests.
Igor's hollow eyes read the emblem.
‘Damn it. Don't tell me the Ironclad special forces are here.’
A famous private military unit in the underworld.
Each ordinary operative had expensive magic inscriptions etched all over their bodies and sprayed bullets without holding back.
The fighting strength of a single such operative was on par with Boris.
What's more, those operatives moved and formed ranks like trained soldiers, operating as a unit.
There was no more obscene display of wealth than this.
No wonder the black mages of the underworld avoided a direct confrontation with Shun Isa.
The moment they appeared, Igor had already finished his calculations.
‘No chance. We retreat.’
Why had they not come here to assassinate Shun Isa, but to abduct someone nearby and offer them as a sacrifice?
Because a head-on fight would never work.
And now that Shun Isa had come in person, retreating was the smartest move.
Igor glanced at Boris.
‘Fall back.’
Boris's vertical pupils moved ever so slightly.
A signal that he understood.
The two of them both took a step back at the same time.
But Chief Shen had no intention of allowing that.
The moment he saw Igor's heel lift off the stone floor, Shen was already feeling for the control panel on the magic device strapped to his back.
With his left hand, he unfolded the gauge panel attached to the side of the device.
Beneath the glass, several gauges were lined up side by side.
Remaining mana stone, air pressure, temperature, humidity, and so on.
Shen's gloved index finger ran once across the gauges.
Shen turned the adjustment valve beside the panel half a turn with his thumb.
With a shriek of metal, the compression of mana inside the nozzle sent a vibration through his arm and up to his shoulder.
The meter climbed.
“Ignite.”
Shen calmly warned his allies and pulled the trigger.
Fwoosh—!
A blaze swallowed the corridor.
A wave of searing crimson flames unlike the fire from moments ago rushed toward Igor and Boris.
“Wh-What….”
The students stared, dazed, at the overwhelming firepower.
They were, after all, the ones called geniuses among the high school division.
But the battles of true adults were on a completely different level.
“This is… what a real magician's fight looks like….”
The bead of sweat on Freya's cheek evaporated before it could even reach the floor.
The stone walls glowed red, and the mana-stone lamps on the ceiling couldn't withstand the heat and began making the sound of cracking glass.
Boris raised his arm to shield his face and stood in front of Igor as if protecting him.
“Igor! I can't hold out for long!”
“Already figured that out.”
Clack!
Igor snapped his fingers.
The flames, as if an entire furnace had been poured out, vanished like a candle going out.
The instant the fire died, Igor sneered at Chief Shen.
“You used far too basic a fire spell. Combustion using oxygen and dust? Isn't that a formula from a hundred years ago?”
“….”
The gaunt mage Igor taunted him with feigned nonchalance.
But Chief Shen didn't take the bait.
Without a word, he simply kept feeling along the magic device's control unit.
Click.
No flame formed.
Click. Click.
Sparks flew from the tip of the nozzle, but no fire took shape.
Chief Shen's eyes narrowed.
“A dispel.”
The device's ignition conditions had changed.
Bzzzz—
The beating wings of insects flying through the air disturbed the dust, interfering with the gathering of combustible material.
On top of that, the bugs crawling along the walls were rapidly changing what this place signified.
At this rate, they couldn't properly ignite the fire.
But Chief Shen wasn't flustered.
“I'll find a bypass route within five minutes. Cover me.”
The brief command rang out.
The operatives immediately scattered.
Hearing that five minutes, Igor clicked his tongue.
‘Five minutes is enough to break through.’
He had realized it from the two brief exchanges just now.
That man was experienced in combat.
His claim that he would find a detour within those five minutes was by no means bluffing.
That was exactly why they had to get out before then.
Igor's gaze turned to Boris standing beside him.
“Five minutes.”
Igor muttered, gnawing on an unlit cigarette.
“Good work, Boris.”
“What…?”
Before Boris could even grasp the situation.
Igor moved his lips and bent one finger.
Snap!
A cracking sound like bones colliding rang out.
At the same time, Boris clutched his temple.
Along with the sensation of something writhing inside his head, the edges of his vision began to tint red.
Instinctively, he knew something had gone wrong.
“Igor… you son of a bitch… don't tell me….”
Boris's vertical pupils trembled.
He had known it ever since he received the chimera procedure from the black mages.
That something had been implanted inside his body.
He had still left it alone because the power granted by the chimera procedure was simply too great.
He had been prepared, and he had plans to run if it came to that.
But now that it had actually happened, curses spilled out of his mouth.
“Fuck… this isn't… right….”
With that, the last spark of reason in Boris's eyes went out.
In its place came a pure urge for violence.
Shun Isa narrowed his eyes.
“Berserker transformation using Toxoplasma as a catalyst, huh.”
“…?”
The gaunt mage wanted to ask what the meaning of the word that had slipped from Shun Isa's mouth was.
As someone who studied black magic, the knowledge Shun Isa possessed was highly desirable.
But now was not the time.
“Boris. I need you. Hold them off for as long as you can with this.”
Igor snapped the finger that had not been broken.
The beetles that had been covering the mage's body swarmed over Boris instead.
Their dark blue shells gleamed like oil in the dim light from the mana lamps.
“Grrrr….”
Boris's vertical pupils swept down the corridor.
The reptilian instinct and brutality left in him made the answer obvious.
Break the most dangerous thing first.
And the most dangerous thing here was Chief Shen's flamethrower.
“Graaah!!”
He seized the war hammer and charged.
Every time the scaled leg struck the stone floor, cracks split the ground.
“Fire.”
Tatatatata!
The muzzles of the operatives' guns spat fire in unison.
When the bullets struck Boris's shoulder, two beetles crumpled and were knocked away.
Occasionally, blood sprayed from the skin that had been pierced.
But Boris did not stop.
His pupils remained fixed on Chief Shen from start to finish.
Shen let go of the magic device he had been dismantling and lifted his head.
“…Tough.”
As the war hammer rose, a shadow fell across Chief Shen's gas mask.
Then, with no technique at all and relying only on gravity and brute strength, the hammerhead fell toward the crown of Shen's head.
But,
Kaang!
Before it could land, the hammer stopped in midair.
What had wedged between the hammerhead and Chief Shen's skull was a hand axe.
At the end of the axe handle stood a red-haired girl wearing a gas mask.
Boris's vertical pupils widened.
He felt more of a threat from the girl than from Chief Shen.
Gagagak!
Immediately afterward, the hand axe slid along the war hammer's handle.
The red-haired girl—Erica—hooked the axe head like a claw and, putting her full weight behind it, slammed down hard.
“Ugh.”
Boris, who had not let go of the handle, naturally bent forward with a jerk.
Watching that sight, Chief Shen clicked his tongue in admiration.
“To use mana and battle aura at the same time. She's already basically a knight apprentice.”
The reptilian body pitched forward.
And using the recoil of her downward strike, Erica leapt cleanly over the lizard's head.
Her hand axe hooked under Boris's thick jaw.
“They said not to kill him.”
Krrrk!
The lizard's neck twisted at an angle unlike that of a human.
The sound of the cervical vertebrae screaming beneath the scales echoed through the entire corridor.
Boris's eyes lost focus.
His massive body collapsed to the floor with the war hammer.
Kuuung——
The red-haired girl lightly hopped down from Boris's fallen back and gave her axe one shake, as if brushing off dust.
“What about the mage?”
Erica's gaze turned to the stairs at the end of the corridor.
She could see Igor's back as he ran toward them.
“Where do you think you're going. <Cruor>”
Hiss.
Erica drew her palm across the axe blade.
Vermilion blood ran along the edge.
Erica set her stance and threw the axe.
The axe, slick with dark red battle aura, tore through the air.
Thwack!
The axe blade skimmed Igor's thigh as he rounded the corner of the stairs and buried itself in the hem of his robe.
“Hngh!”
Igor gritted his teeth and hurried his steps.
Tearing off the robe that had been firmly nailed to the wall, the black mage kept descending underground.
Watching his back vanish into the darkness, Erica clicked her tongue.
“I'm sorry, Shun Isa. I lost him again.”
There was irritation and self-reproach in Erica's voice.
But Shun Isa waved a hand at her.
“It's fine. He won't get away this time.”
His gaze fell on the robe that had dropped to the floor.
He walked over to it, muttered a few words, and then turned toward Chief Shen.
“Chief, please keep pursuing him. If the mage disappears, don't chase him. Come back and report instead.”
“Understood.”
Chief Shen gave a short nod.
The enhancement circuits etched beneath his combat uniform glowed red.
Two operatives followed behind him.
The three-man pursuit team disappeared into the darkness along Igor's bloodstains.
Shun Isa watched their backs for a moment.
Then he readjusted the brim of his fedora and walked toward the students collapsed against the wall.
His gaze remained fixed on one student the entire time.
“Cal.”
There was no answer.
All that came from his mouth was a metallic rasp.
His lips had turned a dusky purple, and cold sweat was streaming down his forehead.
Shun Isa quickly diagnosed Cal's condition.
“Pneumothorax. Did he get hit in the chest?”
Cal managed a difficult nod.
Shun Isa knelt and sat down beside Cal.
“Fortunately, you're still conscious.”
Shun Isa's gaze stopped on Cal's left chest.
“Eli.”
Eli.
A scholarship student from the Department of Alchemy.
With both hands covered in blood, she was pressing the quill-tube into Cal's chest.
Her glasses were crooked, and the fingers gripping the tube were trembling.
“Sir…!”
Eli called out to Shun Isa with tears in her voice.
Shun Isa smiled to reassure her.
“You handled it well. Thanks to you, you saved Cal's life.”
The tube was lodged between Cal's second and third ribs.
Every time Cal's chest rose and fell, a thin hiss came from the end of the tube.
That meant the improvised thoracic decompression device was working properly.
“You didn't ignore what I said at the dining table after all.”
“B-But why can't Cal breathe?”
Shun Isa didn't answer and lowered his gaze a little further.
At a glance, there didn't seem to be any problem.
But,
Tap-tap — thud.
When he alternately tapped the left and right sides of the chest, different sounds came back.
The right side gave off a clear sound, but the left side returned a dull, heavy one.
“… Blood has pooled inside the chest. A hemothorax is developing.”
Shun Isa quickly opened his bag.
First he took out a brown bottle with a Latin label.
[Erythroxylum Coca]
Pop!
After flicking the stopper off with his finger, he drew the liquid from the brown bottle into a syringe.
As he expelled the air from the syringe, Shun Isa said,
“Cal. Don't fall asleep.”
Cal's left rib cage. Between the fourth and fifth ribs.
Shun Isa's fingers felt along the lower edge of the rib to find the spot.
Then he drove the needle in.
“It won't hurt as much now. Even so, don't fall asleep. Eli. Keep talking to Cal so he doesn't doze off.”
“Huh?”
“I mean the two of you should talk about the day you first met.”
As they spoke, Cal's expression grew noticeably more relaxed.
He had been anesthetized by the shot just now.
Julian immediately prepared the next procedure.
He opened the surgical instrument case, changed into fresh gloves, and poured disinfectant into his hands.
Then he picked up a custom razor blade shaped like a scalpel.
“Cal. Don't be surprised now.”
The razor blade split the flesh between the ribs.
It cut through the subcutaneous tissue and incised the skin along the fibers of the serratus anterior and intercostal muscles.
It took less than a minute to open the pleura.
“Cal.”
“….”
“It's going to hurt a bit.”
The instant he finished speaking.
Shun Isa's index and middle fingers slipped in between the ribs.
And his entire wrist went into Cal's chest.
“…!!”
“…!”
The students and Ironclad operatives on site all held their breath at once.
Hot blood soaked Shun Isa's sleeves a vivid red.
He relied only on the sensation in his fingertips and began searching for the torn section.
‘It should be around here somewhere… hmm… ah, found it.’
The lung had been torn.
A broken rib had ripped the lung open, and blood had pooled inside the chest cavity.
When that happened, the solution was simple.
If a faucet leaked?
You shut it tight.
The human body was no different.
‘Here.’
Shun Isa clamped his hand tightly around the root of the bleeding lung (the hilum).
And then he twisted the root of the lung a full 180 degrees.
Crk!
“????”
“????”
An unsettling sound effect echoed from Cal's chest.
The students watching all dropped their jaws.
One of the Ironclad operatives let his gun fall with a clunk.
But what was even more astonishing was that Cal's condition began to improve rapidly afterward.
“Huuah!”
Wheeze—wheeze—
Cal's breathing, which had seemed about to stop just moments ago, returned.
Color began to come back to lips that had been turning purple.
“My God….”
While the students and operatives rubbed their eyes at the unbelievable sight,
Shun Isa had already finished stitching the skin.
“This should do it. The rest should be fine once you go back and receive healing magic at the temple.”
Shun Isa smiled brightly as he tidied away his bloodstained gloves.
Having managed to make use of his specialty, he felt a rare sense of satisfaction.
‘As expected, I'm a surgeon. I haven't lost my touch yet.’
He had worried he might make a mistake after so long without doing this.
Maybe it was because in his past life he'd spent hundreds of meals' worth of time doing nothing but this sort of surgery,
but the moment he tried, his body moved on its own.
At that moment, Eli, who was gripping Cal's hand tightly, asked in a trembling voice,
“S-Sir… could that just now have been….”
“?”
“I-is that some kind of black magic? A chimera procedure or something….”
Shun Isa shook his head from side to side.
“No. This isn't magic… hmm. Right. It's a basic technique. With practice, everyone here can do it.”
To Julian, surgery was a field that could be mastered through effort, unlike magic.
He didn't need ridiculous talents like sensing some symbol of arrogance or an aura of fury or whatever.
In other words, surgery was a field reachable by human effort, even without superhuman talent.
Shun Isa had spoken to the group with that intention in mind.
‘No. I don't think I could do that, sir.’
‘Isn't that some kind of secret magic?’
‘Brother. You're amazing as always…!’
Though that intention didn't quite come across.