The Academy’s Ankle Reaper

That evening, there was a drinking party at my senior’s place.

There wasn’t any grand reason for the party; it just so happened that I had something to tell Andy, making it a great opportunity.

“Hey, senior, the dungeon exploration practical is next week, right?”

“Dungeon exploration…? You should call it a dungeon field trip. I went for a preliminary visit yesterday, so why are you asking all of a sudden?”

Andy, sipping from his glass of wine, looked puzzled.

The dungeon exploration was just a trivial class that was held every year as a rite of passage for new students.

“Preliminary visit…? Did you find anything unusual?”

“It’s a place we visit once a year; there’s nothing strange about it.”

Dungeons are full of unpredictable traps and monsters that could pop up from anywhere. Because of their confined spaces, if you’re not used to it, it’s tough even to wield your weapon properly—a real ant hole.

The dungeon exploration practical is designed to give students that experience by removing almost all the dangerous elements and setting up the dungeon as if it were a theme park, just for them to walk in and look around.

After defeating the boss of the dungeon, the place collapses, so they seal the boss room and cast magic to lower the difficulty of the entire dungeon.

How easy is it now? Even farmers who have never held a knife in their lives can saunter around that dungeon without breaking a sweat.

As long as you don’t trip and break your nose, there’s absolutely no problem.

This is no picnic – it’s about the easiest outing you can imagine.

“Senior, did you know there are demon church fanatics hiding in the academy?”

If it weren’t for those heretics…

“Pfft! W-what??? How did they get in?”

As soon as Andy heard my warning, he spewed out the wine he had just sipped.

“They probably snuck in one by one, pretending to be staff. By now, they might be preparing for a descent ceremony.”

“This is serious!! What are we going to do…? There haven’t been any incidents in five years, so why this year… why am I hearing this now!!”

If students from our class end up getting killed by the demon church, the future looks grim.

While Andy had known about it all along, I could only think that if we didn’t gather, we couldn’t respond.

“This is where it gets important. We can’t catch them one or two at a time; taking out the demon church even once isn’t easy.”

“I thought you did it a couple of times…!!”

The demon church, an insurrectionist organization bent on overthrowing the state, is constantly being hunted by both the Empire and the Royal Knight Order. During my time in the Order, I took out countless heretics.

Naturally, I figured Andy had been part of that too, but it seems like he was only dealing with the top guys. What a shock!

“Just listen, okay? I did some digging, and these guys that were scattered are gathering now to hold their ceremony. This is our chance.”

“Shouldn’t we inform the academy?”

“No, if they catch on, everyone will hide, and we won’t catch even half of them.”

The demon church is like cockroaches.

Even catching one or two won’t make an impact.

Once they realize they’re being hunted, they’ll hide as if nothing happened and regroup later.

You should treat them like cockroaches in that regard.

Catching them little by little is pointless… we need to wipe them out all at once.

“Making them think they were not detected makes catching them easier. That’s today.”

Assuming they’ve chosen the dungeon exploration practical as their execution day, there’s no better day for them to gather than today.

“I’m going to kill them all today.”

With the scattered cockroaches now gathered in one spot, it’s time to exterminate them.

—

The demon church is an unauthorized cult that worships the Great Demons of Hell.

Unlike churches that promise a paradise where all believers can be happy and a posthumous world of heaven after worshiping God,

the demon church worships the Great Demons, promising that non-believers will be burned in boiling oil while believers will enjoy a paradise… and that they will manifest hell in this world.

Rejecting all doctrines of the church and denying God, the fanatics claim that the hell of the Great Demons will descend upon the earth, going to any lengths to prove their “faith.”

They insult God, who proves existence through the undeniable power of miracles… and the demon church has been officially designated as a state subversive force.

The church’s inquisitioners and various knight orders of the Empire run around sweating to hunt them down, yet like cockroaches, they continue to grow in power unseen.

“Just… a bunch of multi-level scammers.”

I believe in the church rather than the demon church.

The holy power gained through faith, while not omnipotent, truly brings about effective miracles.

While the demon church claims that its followers can fulfill wishes by contracting with demons in exchange for costs… if demons kept their promises, would they even be called demons in the first place?

Even in the original story, all the demons who contracted with real demons had terrible outcomes.

I’ve wiped out countless heretics when I was with the Royal Knight Order.

The demon church is an extremely bothersome group.

They disguise themselves as normal people, hiding their entire bodies under black robes, making it hard to tell who’s who, so once you catch one, you can’t really root them out.

They’re not a weak organization either.

There are fallen humans who have summoned demons or contracted with them, gaining demonic powers, making it difficult to deal with them if you don’t have a proper counter.

Demons, as beings from another world, are almost impossible to injure through conventional means.

To deal with demons, there are generally three methods:

The first is holy power from miracles.

The second is pure substances.

And not just any pure substance, but only a few specialized ones.

Pure chunks of woodwon’t cut it, but pure silver and salt are easy to find around…

Rare metals like Atamantaite and Mithril can also deal significant damage to demons, especially in high purity.

And the third is….

“Gah…!!”

“Ugh, disgusting.”

With the fanatical scream of one of the zealots, blood spewed out.

The blood splattered all over me is quite unpleasant.

Since I had to carry out a surprise attack, the blackened long sword didn’t show the blood as clearly, but I was soaked in it.

A quick glance around made it clear where all this blood came from.

In the gloomy cave, many people lay headless.

The relentless focus on just cutting off heads was due to their peculiar nature…

Occasionally, zealots who have absorbed demonic powers can quickly regenerate even if their limbs are severed, so I focused on the heads that couldn’t regenerate.

Cutting off heads sounds easy in theory, but it’s quite a challenge in practice.

But I can do it without breaking a sweat.

To a stranger, the sight of corpses with heads cleanly severed might be terrifying, but anyone who walks the path of the sword would applaud my skill.

“Or was that a bit too psychotic of a thought? I should rethink that.”

This cave is near a deep forest and hard to spot.

Though this isn’t the dungeon where incidents occur… the ones trying to pull their tricks were all gathered here.

At least, they were.

“Well, it ended quicker than I expected.”

Most were like lives of flies.

There were no demonic beings, nor were there any formidable combatants around.

Preparing for a ceremony doesn’t necessarily require strength.

With the most troublesome ones gone before the dungeon exploration practical day, I can finally breathe easy.

“Hmm? What’s this feeling…? There’s a leak of magic energy…”

Suddenly, an ominous feeling washed over me.

Magic energy began pouring out from the Omangsung like dark smoke from a fire disaster.

No one is here, yet the ceremony is starting.

“Did all the people die…? Those crazy bastards set it to activate upon their deaths!”

It occasionally happens.

They set it up so that if they die, they’d become the sacrifice to activate the ceremony.

The magic circle glowed, soaked in the blood of the slain zealots.

The dark magic began to coalesce around the lifeless bodies, forming a shape.

Emerging, the demon showcased the horn on its crown with pride.

[Who called for me…?]

– Rustle

“Uh, I didn’t call you. Just go away.”

Following a white trajectory, the demon’s head was swiftly severed.

I don’t need to deal with demons, so I could kill it right away.

In my hand, there was a short dagger made of shining silver.

The headless low-grade demon was in shock, trying to cover the magic energy spewing out from its neck.

[Ugh…! How… can a human…!]

“Why are you so slow on the uptake? I told you to go away.”

– Thunk, thunk, thunk

Grabbing the demon’s horn and stabbing it repeatedly with the silver dagger felt as easy as poking at a sandbag.

Entities like these come around frequently.

Demons, as beings from another world, are largely immune to conventional damage, so many of them let their guard down.

But once you know how to injure them, you can deal with them adequately.

It seems I’ve summoned a nameless low-grade demon in a hurry.

The demon, unable to resist, was sliced apart, returning to smoke as it dissolved into darkness.

“Things like that die from mere silver weapons? How naive.”

Using a low-grade demon’s pride to make noise is laughable.

Higher-ranked demons won’t be damaged properly unless you have rare metals.

I’ve taken down demons, wiped out the zealots of the demon church, and now it’s time to sneak back to my dorm for a shower and wash out all this disgusting blood.

With this, the likelihood of a demon appearing during the dungeon exploration practical should be nil.

“Hmm…?”

Someone’s there.

Someone is stealthily approaching this way.

Is it part of the remaining rabble I haven’t dealt with yet?Or perhaps a staff member from the academy…?

Curious about who it was, I waited quietly, only to suddenly feel a surge of killing intent.

– Bang clang!!

‘… Gunshots??’

Through the thick magic energy, the sound of thunderous gunfire echoed throughout the cave.

I was too slow to dodge, so as I deflected all the incoming bullets with my sword, I got a clear look at one of them upon contact.

‘This isn’t just any bullet. It’s… for Great Demons… silver bullets!’

I could see the white silver bullet, with the words of God etched lightly on its surface.

These bullets are not easy to come by.

Throwing precious silver away like this is absurd, and they take additional craftsmanship to be made into bullets.

Moreover, it’s rare to find someone in this world carrying weapons as rare as guns.

To me, this signifies only one thing.

‘Hayden has finally shown himself, huh?’