Sword, Magic and Academic Society

Going back in time, an hour before the fifth scenario began.

I returned to the southern base after luring the hordes of monsters near the western base.

“So, don’t you think it’s the time you tell us what’s that trick up your sleeve, Allen?”

Prompted by Bester, I then explained everything to my classmates: how I abandoned my righteous persona because of the boredom I had to go through in the 4th scenario, and how I left the pass unattended for some time to gather materials for the sleeping and paralyzing drugs I concocted.

“Well, that’s quite a bold move if I say so myself. I guess not even Godorfun-sensei would have thought that you would dare leave the pass unattended for several hours for personal reasons. And by extension, he would never in his wildest dreams think that our side is in possession of those drugs.

Sounds like they’re a good measure that we can use, but being alone back then meant you probably didn't have enough hands to make a great amount of these drugs either. You really think that what we have would be enough to be a killing blow?”

I shook my head.

“Unless they’ve gone senile, they’ll surely be somewhat wary of the cards in our hand after I’ve made my statement— that they would be crushed beneath our feet even if they came at us with their full power. Plus, those two would never step into the battlefield if they saw us struggling with their army. This holds true for Tim-san.

And that result would only delight that old geezer. So we’re going to drag every bit of their forces into the mud, chase them into a desperate corner, and then make them break into tears for the first time. We're not doing this to earn their praise. Everything we do is for that sake alone, in the end.”

Once I was done speaking, Leo nodded and questioned me.

“I understood your reasoning. I see no problem in going for that goal. However, that doesn’t explain how exactly we are going to achieve it. Frankly, they’re obscenely strong. Their resistance to poison or to any foreign substance with mana should be just as strong.”

I had confidence in making Tim-san exit from the scenario using my concocted drugs as long as Godorfun was somehow lured out from the northern base— or so I told him. After all, taking Bester’s plan into account, we would have a huge chance to bag this battle as long as Tim-san was eliminated.

It was a no-brainer. Removing one tiger from the mountain increased your odds of saving your life by a huge margin compared to having two of them chasing after your ass.

Either way, our victory was just a pipe dream if we couldn’t separate that geezer from Tim-san. The geezer was too good at everything— monstrous strength, high analytical ability, and a decisive personality. He was no less than a disaster for his opponent.

This was why we ought to achieve this to make our raid successful.

And once that geezer was out somewhere else, I would chase them to the furthest corner until they were dyed in the color of desperation, making each of them feel the height of loneliness. Oh, I would make them wish for the arms of their comrades to support them. The joy that they had taken for granted, I would thoroughly and meticulously make them feel its loss that they wouldn’t be able to escape as if an albatross was on their neck. Kukuku, fuhahaha!

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Besides that, the prisoners plan had come from Bester in case we somehow managed to capture them. One more option was one more card up our sleeve, and that would come in handy.

And with my understanding of that old geezer, he would try to save them personally.

After learning of my plan, Bester rearranged the strategy into a more refined one. In Bester’s strategy, once Godorfun had been lured out of the hole, we would abandon the southern base and initiate a counterattack on the north. But as Leon wanted to have a direct confrontation with the old geezer, the strategy was slightly changed, utilizing the time that Leo would earn for us.

“I fear that the range of the detection prevention magical tool set up in the northern base would encompass the whole base’s premises, which could expose us. So I’ll quickly dig a burrow nearby and hide there until Godorfun is out. There’s no precise data on what kind of resistance those two monsters have.

Even if we poison them at the same time, if either of them manage to resist the drugs, we would be put at risk. The best place to dig a basement is near the fence by that broken wall, and once Dol has hardened the soil with his magic, it should serve me well.”

Next, it was Coco that posed a question.

“I give in to your abilities, Allen. But we’re talking about Tim-san, a commander level figure. I doubt even your arrows can……. Ah, I see. You’re staking it all on the wind, eh? But then, the question is how are you going to blend your concoction into air? The boiling point of the sleeping drug extracted from doraman mushrooms with the opened umbrella tops, and capone’s leaves is quite high. It's impossible to spread it at normal room temperature. The same is true for the paralyzing drug.

It should be late by then, and you’ll need air to stay in the basement. You’ll faint if you use fire, you know?”

Heh, that was a sharp question, Coco.

“You’re right, Coco. I had been thinking about that the whole night yesterday— how to effectively make them take the drug. In the end, there’s just no other way except through air, and that would require wind magic. I thought of the same problem as you had, and that’s where I’m going to use a certain magic I had discovered and had been researching on.”

Well, except that it was actually something I knew, not discovered.

Then, I laid out my plan to them, which I came up with after trying it out on monsters last night. They didn’t speak, but their expression did shout ‘Ya taking us fer a ride, yeah?’ that I could hear in an accented voice.

◆

“If you want your 120 soldiers back safely, then take your army and return to your nation! Otherwise, it’ll be our sword against their necks!”

Inferring that it was about time, I awakened from my nap, and was listening to the outside situation with my enhanced hearing, when Parry-kun, who served as our messenger, shouted, his voice echoing out.

It had also been our pre-established signal for the situation. After waiting for a while, Godorfun left the place along with one company as we expected.

Leo was protecting the southern base alone while the others should have already vacated that place by this point, going for the enemy’s weak points that Dan had been looking out for.

Dan had been everyone’s eyes all this time, sneaking around to take note of the enemy's war might and troop deployment. And as long as it was him, I bet he could easily make his way out in case the enemy discovered him. Well, given he wasn’t really that strong compared to many of our classmates, he would merely be cannon fodder against Godorfun, and he wouldn’t even have a proper drawing of himself had this been manga.

But on the plus side, he had keen eyes, and he even had decent mastery over wind magic which he had gained from the research club. He could trek through the mountain easily, and could infer at least ten ways through even with just one option with his analytical prowess.

Of course, Bester would never let such a precious asset meet a laughable dead-end.

Anyway, back to the matter at hand: this was my signal, eh?

I slightly shaved off the ventilation on the soil roof that was hardened by Dol’s earth magic, and quietly placed the phial of the concentrated sleeping drug through it.

The phial — originally for a potion — was from the foreign spy Zetsu-san, which I had borrowed after healing his leg wound due to my attack.

This phial was the very key that I required to effectively poison the enemy.

The point was to have the enemies inhale enough sleeping gas, but how to turn it into gas was the question. No one would think of doing it in an open-fire while the enemies were on your back.

After much brainstorming, I stumbled upon the technique of ‘creating vacuum’, something that I had cultivated while training the basics of my wind magic— wind cutter.

One must have heard of how at the summit of a mountain, the temperature of water never topped 90c, or how noodles also felt different in that atmosphere.

Basically, air pressure fell down the higher the altitude, which in turn also lowered the boiling point.

So basically, what I had pointed out to my classmates was— the liquid’s boiling point could be lowered as long as air pressure had been manipulated, which in other terms also meant to create a situation closer to a vacuum.

It was also why the boiling was possible even in the minus temperature of space. Well, it also endangered people in space the most should their space suit be damaged.

A pity I was still far from being able to create a hollow wind construct, aka a wind cutter, like in those light novels, but creating a vacuum was somewhat possible.

I held my hand atop the phial on the ground outside.

I had already tested yesterday what should be the air pressure to cause the sleeping drug to spontaneously evaporate. It was quite effective actually due to the fact that it only needed a short time to affect the target— a merit I discovered.

I presume it was because the air was directly taken into the lungs, then we only had to wait for the liquid to completely circulate through the nervous system and the brain. In hindsight, it lowered the drug's duration due to the proportionally small amount I used, and needed a lot of effort to expel it using mana technique, but it was still effective because of how quickly it could slip by the opponent's senses and affect them.

Slowly, I directed the vaporized sleeping drug toward the crevice of broken walls using wind magic.

Strictly speaking, the sleeping drug, just removed from the vacuum state, was still in liquid form, so it didn’t burst off into gas immediately, which made it easier to control it with wind magic.

E/N - Dang, MC talking like a super villain in this chapter. It even ended with the guy doing chemical warfare 😅