Hybrid students were monsters to ordinary humans—superhuman bodies, supernatural Word Spirits.
But today, those monsters met the true monster.
A girl?
Whether C-Rank or B-Rank, anyone hit by her bat went flying like a baseball.
At first, students screamed, thinking their classmates had died.
Then they realized everyone was merely knocked out. No one was dead.
So they set the bodies down and charged again.
"Damn it! I don't believe she can knock all of us out!"
"Yeah! There are so many of us—she'll get tired eventually!"
"Don't chicken out! Get her!"
Stelle simply swung faster.
Right now she was experiencing the exquisite joy of a hack-and-slash game.
And these hybrids were the grass.
On the surveillance feeds, von Schneider watched bodies lift off and fall, over and over.
He went silent.
The situation was chaos.
Yes, the intruders were hostile.
But what was their purpose?
Reports said none of the students suffered fatal injuries. At worst, mild concussions—nothing for hybrids.
Yet that only made von Schneider more confused.
"With her strength, she could kill them effortlessly," he murmured. "So why is she holding back?"
He would never guess they were just here for enrollment stamps.
"No matter what, we must take them down!"
At that moment, Executive Department members joined with firearms.
They tried to fire tranquilizer rounds—
Stelle's eyes shifted chillingly.
She looked at their guns and invoked a Word Spirit.
"Blade Control!"
Their weapons snapped and clicked uselessly.
Bullets refused to fire.
"Word Spirit!" everyone who recognized it shouted internally.
Stelle twirled her bat.
"Don't play cheap. Use melee!"
The Executive Department was elite in close combat.
Unlike students.
They charged—
And just like the students, they all got sent into napland.
Today's disaster would definitely reach the Secret Party.
Some elders were already watching the live feed with deep frowns.
Based on what she was doing, anyone they knew—past or present—would've collapsed from exhaustion long ago.
"Have we identified her?" someone asked.
The answer was… basically "no."
No past. No origin. Just appearing out of nowhere.
That made their frowns deepen.
Then another report came in.
And everyone felt like Cassell was about to be finished.
From Yu Jin's perspective, Stelle looked like a god descending.
But her methods were too soft.
Soon enough, they'd realize something was off.
"So this is where I come in."
Yu Jin stood in an open plaza, lips curling.
No one drew eyes better than him.
Why?
"Kids," he said under his breath, "look at the elements."
Rhein was one of the highest-sequence Word Spirits humanity could wield.
Its danger was so legendary that every student knew it by name.
The moment the air's elements started churning, everyone shuddered and turned toward Yu Jin.
Across campus and across screens, people jolted up.
If Rhein went off, Cassell would turn to ruins.
Only one father-and-son pair watching the broadcast stayed weirdly calm.
The father wore a shameless grin. The son's eyes shone with something strange.
"Kaiser," the father said, "don't learn from them."
"Don't tell me what to do."
"Everyone evacuate immediately! Carry the unconscious and clear the area!"
"Rhein! Someone is activating Rhein!"
The campus broadcast spiraled into panic.
Students grabbed fallen classmates and ran.
Within moments, Stelle's battlefield had emptied out completely.
"I was just getting warmed up…" she muttered, tapping her bat on the ground with mild annoyance.
She didn't bother chasing.
Elsewhere, Kevin and the Doctor saw a chubby man leap out a window and sprint in some direction.
He'd clearly glanced at them midair.
"Looks like he didn't have time to stop us," Kevin said wryly. "Yu Jin isn't actually going to blow up the campus, is he?"
"Don't be dumb," the Doctor snorted. "You think Rhein is painless to cast?"
He released a snake to scout ahead.
"Come on. Nobody's here now. We finish and leave. We stirred up way too much trouble."
"Agreed."
Meanwhile, an Executive Department member urged von Schneider:
"Students are evacuating, Professor. You should evacuate too."
"Go ahead. I'll follow."
Von Schneider left the room, heading toward the plaza.
"Yes, Rhein could level the academy. But casting it takes time. If we take down the caster first, we might stop this disaster."
He had no fighting strength left—
But he had the courage to die.
He tightened his grip on the equipment at his side.
Executive Department head von Schneider entered the fray.
The Night Watchman entered the fray.
The masked man entered the fray.
Yu Jin felt eyes on him from everywhere. No way I'm not under a microscope right now.
"Uh… they've all run away, right?" he muttered. "Can I cancel this already?"
He was about to stop—
Then sensed something, whirled—
A cheerful voice popped up right in front of him.
"Ha-ha! Kid, don't be rash. We can talk, right? Why open something that dangerous over a misunderstanding?"
A scruffy old man with a messy white beard and hair, grinning like a lifetime con artist.
The Night Watchman.
"If you don't want me to be rash, stop standing so close," Yu Jin said flatly. "What if I panic and my hands slip?"
"Oh whoa whoa, yeah, good point." The Night Watchman backed off two steps, still smiling. "You're young and handsome like I was. Don't do anything stupid. There's a whole world of fun you haven't even tasted yet!"
Hmph… sharp kid, the Night Watchman thought. Couldn't even sneak close to interrupt the cast.
Yu Jin glanced aside.
From the grass, a silent man in black stepped out.
Another one.
Then farther away, von Schneider approached steadily.
Three men, forming a triangle around him.
"What do you want?" von Schneider asked directly.
"Simple. In a few minutes I'll cancel Rhein—I don't want to die either."
The three found it absurd.
He spoke like he could walk away from this and no one could touch him after.
The whole Secret Party already knew four intruders had stormed Cassell and turned it upside down.
Yes, the girl was terrifying. Yes, this boy with Rhein was no joke.
So what?
Their enemy was Dragon Kings.
Strength had never been a reason for them to stop resisting.
"Kid, can you at least tell us what you're after?" the Night Watchman coaxed. "We can negotiate. No need for this, right?"
"I already saw your two companions," he added. "I didn't stop them. That's my sincerity. Fair?"
"Thanks for the generosity," Yu Jin said dryly. "And yeah, we're basically done."
He looked left, then right.
"Honestly, I'm scared."
"You're scared?"
"Yeah. You guys are all here. If I cancel this, I'm worried you'll just chop me into sashimi."
The Night Watchman was about to reply—
von Schneider cut in.
"You two. Leave."
The Night Watchman frowned, then noticed the device strapped to von Schneider's body. His eyes shifted at once.
"I'm already a cripple who needs a respirator to stay alive," von Schneider said to Yu Jin. "Let them go. I stay. You cancel. Deal?"
"Sure." Yu Jin agreed so fast it startled everyone.
"Please hurry up. I'm about to hit my stamina limit."
The Night Watchman and the masked man retreated instantly.
The plaza emptied, leaving only two people.
Yu Jin did the one thing he'd wanted to do this whole time—
he canceled Rhein.
Holding it in was agony.
The turbulent elements settled, slowly returning to calm.
"…What is your purpose at Cassell?" von Schneider asked again.
Yu Jin gave the same answer he knew no one would believe.
"Honestly? We just wanted to enroll."
It was true.
They had come to join Cassell… to complete a quest… to get stronger.
So how did it become this?
Yu Jin was baffled himself—
until he realized.
"Wait. Isn't this the chat group's fault?!"
If they hadn't been dropped on that overpass, they wouldn't be seen as dragons.
Their identities wouldn't be such a mess.
They wouldn't have had to brute-force enrollment like this.
Watching Yu Jin's expression change mid-thought, von Schneider silently activated something.
At the same time—
Kevin and the Doctor broke into the principal's office.
Following the forum photo, they found the seal.
"…This was totally left here on purpose," Kevin said, half laughing.
"Who cares? Stamp them and see if it works." The Doctor pressed the seal down.
Immediately, all four of them saw their quest update.
Completed 1/4.
Kevin and the Doctor exchanged delighted looks.
"Finally."
They stamped all four documents.
Just as the last seal landed, the ground shook.
"What was that?" Kevin frowned toward the direction of Yu Jin.
—
Von Schneider was sitting on the ground, stunned.
He stared into the crater.
Why did he push me?
He had activated a bomb, fully intending to die to stop Rhein.
Yu Jin had seen it and instead of fleeing—
he'd moved closer, cursed "idiot," snatched the bomb into his arms—
and it exploded.
Von Schneider lived.
Yu Jin… was gone.
Looking at the mangled body in the crater, von Schneider felt no joy at all.
He should've been happy.
The academy survived.
The intruder died.
That was the ideal outcome.
But he didn't even know their purpose.
Then he heard a faint crackling, like flame.
He looked up.
The shredded body… was pulling itself up.
"Goddamn that hurt," Yu Jin grumbled as he climbed out. "So in the end I still had to die once."
Von Schneider stared like he'd been struck by lightning.
Dead man resurrecting.
The two men who'd retreated earlier rushed back in.
They saw Yu Jin standing and von Schneider on the ground—
and instantly assumed Yu Jin was attacking him.
"Stop him!" the Night Watchman snapped.
They charged—
A girl's crisp voice rang out at their side.
"Why don't you check behind you first?"
Both men's pupils widened.
They spun—
and found Stelle smiling at them, wrapped in crackling purple energy.
The masked man tried to block with an arm hardened by some Word Spirit.
He overestimated himself and underestimated her.
Stelle's bat, carrying the Path's power, smashed him into the air.
She slid to Yu Jin's side, bat resting on her shoulder.
"Why're you so beat up?"
"Fate's a jerk."
Kevin arrived in a blur, dragging the Doctor with him.
"Why're you so beat up?" Kevin immediately added.
Yu Jin's face twitched. "What, is that your arrival line now? Everyone gets one free 'why're you so beat up?' on me?"
"I didn't say it," the Doctor muttered, then pulled out a one-time teleport card from the shop. "Alright. We're done. Let's go."
In front of the three Cassell veterans—
the four intruders vanished on the spot.
They came suddenly.
They left even more suddenly.
When Cassell investigated what had been stolen, they found only one thing:
Kevin and the Doctor had taken the seal, stamped their enrollment papers, and hadn't touched anything else.
As though they truly had only wanted to enroll.
Campus life resumed—aside from the endless searches for those four.
Von Schneider often went still, lost in thought, the mystery etched into him for reasons even he couldn't explain.
Maybe it was because when the boy shoved him away, the urgency on his face had been so real.
-------
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