Chapter 202: Mixed Bath (2)
"...What do you guys think you're doing?"
Student Council President Dolores. The Academy's youngest early entrant and current third-year senior.
The most prominent member of the Faithful Quovadis, one of the seven great Houses of the Empire, and the most influential among the Empire's young nobles.
In her presence, the second-year tremblers froze in their tracks.
Senior students, inferior in skill, in grades, and in family connections.
As long as they weren't idiots, they should be able to read the atmosphere.
The food and water bowls in Dolores' hands, obviously prepared for the stray dogs and cats in the vicinity.
They put one of the abandoned puppies in the center of the space and kicked, spit on, stabbed with broken liquor bottles, and burned with cigarettes.
"...Uh, how long have you been watching?"
The one in the front asked in a shaky voice.
Dolores replied with a grim look and a voice he hadn't seen or heard from in the nearly two years they'd been in school.
"I haven't seen it since the beginning."
The second-year students were slightly relieved.
But.
"But I have seen enough to despise you."
Their faces began to turn white again at Dolores' next words.
The word "saint" could not be more fitting, for Dolores had always had an angelic heart.
Her warm smile, kind demeanor, and gentle voice had always been liked and followed by everyone in the school, whether they liked it or not.
...But what about now?
Dolores's expression was as cold as the wind in the North Sea.
It's always more frightening when someone who doesn't usually get angry gets angry.
No one had ever seen Dolores so angry before.
Then, Dolores pushed her way through the crowd and picked up Vikir from the ground.
Vikir, a small black puppy, squirmed and was picked up by Dolores.
Ko-ok.
Dolores reached out, careful not to touch Vikir in case he felt any pain, and pulled him close to her chest.
"That hurt, didn't it?"
The warm voice in his ear was imbued with a faint holy power.
Just hearing it made the wounds on his body hurt a little less.
Meanwhile, the six second-year students were slowly backing away, looking away.
'Oh dear, we're going to get tarred and feathered for messing with the wrong bastard.'
"I thought President Dolores really hated this kind of thing.'
'Instead of wasting time by harassing it, I should just kill it.'
Then, Dolores looked at the second-year students in front of her and said.
" ... that most serial killers begin their crimes by abusing animals. Do you guys know that?"
Everyone craned their necks between their shoulders at the piercing stare.
But even they had arguments.
"That's too much of an analogy. Aren't we the elite who will lead this country?"
"Yes, and you're accusing us of being a little rough with an ownerless dog because of academic stress."
"We apologize that we were drunk and made a few mistakes, but aren't those dogs just dirty dogs that carry diseases anyway?"
The men's defenses only made Dolores' expression grow even more icy.
"Leading the country, you guys?"
The second-year students' faces drained of all color.
Dolores continued.
"The Academy is where we train people to lead the country. And to graduate from this academy and serve the state, you must have a spirit that is weak to the weak and strong to the strong."
There was a conviction in her words that was harder than steel.
And it was forged and honed by passion, sharpened to a razor-sharp edge.
"But you are the opposite. Strong for the weak and weak for the strong. Such men are everywhere, even outside the Academy. Why should we entrust the affairs of state to such common folk?"
Disqualification from nobility. Yellow sprout. Those who do not deserve to be called elite. A pest that harms more people the more high-ranking people become successful.
To them, Dolores showed no mercy.
"By the authority of the president, I'm giving each of you demerits. I'm giving all six of you all the demerits I can give in a year."
The power of the student council president is enormous because the professors have granted the student council some authority.
This means that the student council president can kick a few students out of school a year if he/she feels the need.
Of course, if this were done to the children of powerful families, it might raise a few eyebrows, but the six bullies here don't have any powerful backers.
There's no way that a small noble family from the countryside would be able to protest against Quovadis, the Faithful.
The six people in front of him realized what was happening.
"Ms. President, this, this, this is not right, is it? How can you expel a junior...."
"Expulsion for harassing a dog, we're from the aristocracy too!"
"I, I belong to the aristocratic faction as well. Please have mercy!"
The second-year students crouched down on the ground, their sobriety gone.
They had every reason to be, admitting a child to the academy was an enormous expense.
It's unimaginable for an ordinary family, and quite a burden even for a well-to-do noble family.
However, the wealth and power that comes with graduating from this academy is so great that it is quite an honor just to be admitted.
... But what if you were to be expelled?
Great honor can only lead to great dishonor.
Moreover, the influence of the Quovadis on the entire nation was immense, and once you were disrespected by them, your path was blocked.
Rune is the state religion of the Empire, and the family that represents the Order of Rune is the Quovadis.
Once you've been stampeded by Saintess Dolores here in Quovadis, your life as a noble within the Empire is effectively over.
You will never be able to take a new name.
What's more, the plight of a young, junior member of the family means that even the family itself is in decline.
The stock price will plummet and the market capitalization will evaporate.
There was a strong possibility that all trade routes and jobs within the family would be cut off.
"I'm sorry, President!"
"Please cut me some slack! Please! Please!"
"Help me, my father is going to beat me to death, please have mercy!"
The second year students, who finally understood exactly what was happening, fell to their knees in unison and begged.
"Did you have mercy on this poor puppy?"
Dolores was still firm.
Not even a needle could get in.
* * *
Bathroom.
Puddle-
Vikir stepped into the warm water.
Splashing.
Who doesn't like warm water? His tail wags against his will.
Night hound. Wounded and exhausted. Still a black pup.
Vikir closed his eyes and recalled the events of earlier.
'Did you have mercy on this poor puppy?'
Dolores was unusually firm.
It was as if there was a glimpse, however slight, of the woman who had been known as the 'Iron Saint' on the battlefield before the regression.
'Surprisingly. Until the war of destruction with the demons began, she was often evaluated as indecisive.'
Apparently, the fight with Dantalian had changed her a lot.
Boggle.
Vikir thought to himself as he submerged his nose in the tub.
He could feel his body slowly recovering.
It was no wonder, then, that the waters of Dolores's favored baths had a slight but holy power, to the point of being considered holy water.
Vikir soaked in it, lost in thought.
The Eighth Corpse. The Corpse Queen.
He hadn't been able to kill her in the end.
'If only my cultivation had been higher.'
Peak Graduator. A power powerful enough to represent an entire country, but still, it would be a struggle to face her in single combat.
Moreover, the fact that he had struggled so much against a corpse queen who could only use about half of her power, no matter how unexpected the encounter, was something to reflect on.
'Well, during Andromalius, I borrowed the knights of the House of Baskerville, and during Dantalian, I had Saintess Dolores with me.'
After all, it takes strength to hunt demons one-on-one.
Vikir began to explore the path to Swordmaster while also perfecting his still-imperfect mastery of the Baskerville Seven.
The incisors, central incisors, lateral incisors, and molars of the upper jaw.
The upper incisors, central incisors, lateral incisors, and molars.
The sixth and seventh teeth must be in proper harmony to form a true seven, but the seventh tooth that Vikir can produce is still small and unstable.
'The sixth and seventh teeth of the 10th ambush tooth as the 'ambush horizontal bicuspids'. This is the ultimate killing technique that can only be mastered by understanding the subtleties between the sixth and seventh teeth....'
The 6th Form manual clearly states the following.
-In order to cross the barrier of the Sixth Form, one must abandon all human emotions of happiness, joy, and pleasure.
And in the 7th Form manual, the twin swordsmanship manual, which is an exquisite combination of the 6th Form, the following was described.
-To reach the seventh level, one must regain the human emotions of joy and happiness.
Only by abandoning the emotion of happiness can one cross the barrier to the highest level of the Graduator.
But in order to become a Swordmaster, he would have to reclaim his feelings of happiness and joy.
'I don't understand what this means. Are you telling me that I have to revive an emotion that I've already killed?'
In his previous life, Vikir had also become a Graduator.
As he crossed countless lines and lost countless companions, Vikir became an increasingly precise and cold-blooded killing machine, and was even able to step onto the level of a Graduator with ease.
But that was all.
Vikir could never become a Swordmaster. He didn't know the theory, and he didn't know how to become one.
But now is different. The path to mastery and beyond was paved.
Vikir was lost in thought, recalling Hugo's inaction in slaughtering Andromalius.
'To become an Iron Man, I killed all my emotions. But to become a superhuman, I need emotions? What is this....'
Vikir had been trained by Hugo to kill his emotions.
It was the way hounds are bred, not to be good, but to be used and discarded.
'Now that I think about it, it's a way to quickly raise a character to a certain level of power. It's a method of training to create an entry-level Graduator army, so it doesn't really suit me now.'
I realized that I needed to change the way I was training, which was based on hands-on experience.
How could I bring back the emotions that were already dried up and worn out?
"...."
When Vikir was really thinking about it.
kkiiig-
A small noise made Vikir's ears perk up.
And then.
"...!"
All of Vikir's thoughts were interrupted in an instant.
Something so startling that even the veteran Vikir lost his composure for a moment.
"Choco, your sister is here, let's wash together!"
Saintess Dolores, she came into the bathroom.
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