Ch.33. Familiarity Becomes Strength

It was a familiar sight.

The school grounds, where I had witnessed countless assemblies, speeches, and presentations, now filled with rows of students.

‘I thought maybe… but I’m the only one.’

As students lined up in their seats waiting for Grand Duke Ardelion, it seemed no one else was like me.

I was the only one who had regressed, the only one with memories of the future.

Meanwhile, the Grand Duke appeared, drawing all the students’ attention, and everyone stood up.

“Grand Duke Ardelion has entered. Students, salute.”

After a brief bow, the Academy Director, who had taken the podium after a long time, began the assembly.

“Greetings, proud students of Levrant Academy.”

Now the students were listening to the Grand Duke’s address in the courtyard. I remembered this vast space as the desolate scene of a temporary refugee shelter.

“The Duchy continues the will of the Artena Empire, striving for the advancement and cultivation of our students.”

I also knew that even the Artena Empire, whose will they claimed to inherit, couldn’t prevent the calamities that would unfold throughout the Duchy.

“You are seeds. Precious seeds containing limitless potential and possibilities to grow into great trees.”

But these are just seeds. Seeds that have yet to take root or unfold their first leaves.

“I sincerely wish for your advancement. May you grow upright, bloom magnificently, and become trees firmly rooted in a lush forest.”

Seeds can be stunted if their sprouts are trampled, and they will die without water and nutrients, never growing into trees.

As a regressor, I overlaid the turbulent present with the desperate scenes of the future, repeating to myself that I would not let that hellish future repeat itself.

-Clap clap clap clap clap!

Applause from all members of Levrant Academy filled the courtyard.

But Grand Duke Ardelion would add a few more words, delivering a proper warning.

“My speech will be a bit longer today. Recently, an unfortunate incident occurred at Levrant Academy. I’m not sure if everyone remembers.”

The Grand Duke closed his eyes.

Simultaneously, some narrowed their eyes slightly, while others exhaled long sighs through their noses, holding their breath.

Even among the professors, reactions were completely divided.

“A student took their own life by jumping—truly a tragic event. We had no way of noticing why a student who usually smiled and studied diligently would choose to jump.”

A few months ago.

A student had thrown themselves from the roof of Alios Hall late at night.

“She was a first-year female student who seemed perfectly fine, always smiling as if nothing was wrong. The Duchy, in investigating the truth behind the incident, found a diary while clearing out her dormitory.”

The perfectly normal student from Class 1-E ended her life holding just a single piece of paper.

[It’s too hard.]

It wasn’t enough to be called a suicide note, yet her choice to jump needed some explanation, and there had been no warning signs in her behavior before death.

The words “It’s too hard” revealed no truth. Those around her could only shake their heads.

Therefore, no one knew if she had been bullied, had family problems, or suffered from mental illness.

To put it bluntly, without even the slightest clue, it would have remained an unsolved case.

If the Duchy hadn’t stepped in to investigate directly.

“After comparing the handwriting in the girl’s diary, it was confirmed to be written by the same person, and it mentioned repeatedly suffering various pressures at Levrant Academy.”

Grand Duke Ardelion’s voice was reaching its limit.

It was time to express his anger.

With wide eyes and an imposing voice, the Grand Duke glared at a group of specific professors and declared:

“Listen well, professors surrounded by corruption. I will surely uncover your evil deeds against Levrant, expose them to the world, and punish your karmic debts.”

An intensely cold atmosphere settled, and the Grand Duke’s voice, laden with anger, pierced the professors’ minds.

Why had his fierce gaze fallen upon the professors?

Because this disaster was a tower of Babel created by those tainted with power, ambition, and greed.

‘It has begun.’

The signal flare of the beginning had been fired.

Along with the Grand Duke’s rebuke, openly declaring judgment on the professors to cleanse the filth clinging to Levrant Academy.

The direction to alter the course of events from their starting point was also set.

The first step was to completely tarnish the collaborative work created by corrupt professors and nobles.

***

As the Grand Duke’s fury erupted, the assembly seemed to be hastily concluded, and students returned to their places.

The professors dismissed the students and announced class cancellations across the board, claiming the assembly could not continue.

However, not all students returned to their proper places.

“You’re following along nicely without complaint today.”

“Finally learning to listen. But can we do something about that arrogant face?”

Vesta and Pallas, two male students who had been bullying Juno, brought him to a blind spot of the academy.

The two belonged to the noble faction, one of the two starkly divided factions in the Duchy, which believed that superior nobles should set examples for commoners.

However, the current noble faction focused on oppressing the weak to rise above them, so these two had essentially come to pressure Juno openly.

Because they were nobles, they bullied commoners based on social status, and because he was from Class E.

They intended to crush him with their power difference and demand submission while flaunting their superiority as always.

But Juno was merely rolling his eyes, slowly assessing the terrain.

‘Against just these two… I might stand a chance.’

Given the location, there was no cover to speak of.

Both Vesta and Pallas were elemental mages who used ranged magic, putting Juno, a vanguard, at a disadvantage.

Basically, if they attacked with magic, Juno couldn’t match their firepower and would be one-sidedly hit.

He could counter with a weapon, but according to school rules, weapons and armor could only be carried in special circumstances, so now he had no choice but to take hits bare-handed.

The uniform itself absorbed a certain amount of magical damage and converted the rest to physical damage, but still, the opponents were elemental mages—two sorcerers.

It would be tough either way.

But that was only in a formal duel.

“Look at this guy? Still doesn’t get it.”

“That’s because he comes from lowly origins. Tsk.”

“Hey, you should be grateful. Do you know how much we’re—”

THUD!

“…!”

As Vesta tapped Juno’s shoulder carelessly, a fist landed squarely in his solar plexus.

Caught off guard, Vesta couldn’t even make a sound before his eyes rolled back and he fainted.

There’s a limit to nonsense.

These guys only come to their senses after getting hit.

“You bastard! Even when we’re being nice to you!!”

Since Vesta was the one ambushed, Pallas immediately created distance, drew a magic circle, and fired a fireball.

If hit directly, even with the resistance runes embedded in the uniform reducing its power, it would still push him back at least ten to fifteen steps.

Yet, Juno charged straight into the fireball.

“Haha! What an idiot!”

Pallas looked at Juno as if he were a moth flying into a flame.

As Juno’s body was engulfed by the blazing fireball, Pallas was confident he had successfully created distance and sneered.

A sorcerer who creates distance almost never loses to a vanguard, so he raised the corners of his mouth, certain of victory.

However, Pallas’s expression froze as he saw the figure of the boy deflecting the fireball with a mana shield on the back of his hand and charging from the lower right.

“S-still, you can’t block this!”

Sorcerers focus solely on firepower, so they fundamentally shouldn’t allow close approaches.

That’s why they typically prepare the next magic circle for multi-casting.

But Pallas, who had been pondering what to say to the fallen Juno while gloating, had no such preparation.

The hastily drawn magic circle would fire much too late.

Keeeng-!

The veil on the back of Juno’s hand made precise contact with Pallas’s forming magic circle, and mana collided with mana.

Juno’s unique magic barrier touched Pallas’s incomplete magic circle faster than he could complete it, preventing its completion.

He had disrupted the magic by flowing mana in the opposite direction of the magic circle, stopping its completion.

Pallas could only be bewildered.

“Wh-what’s happening…?”

The mana circuit flowing through his body stopped.

When this happens during the drawing of a magic circle, mana panic occurs, and mana cannot circulate through the disrupted circuit.

In other words, he couldn’t use magic.

It was an ingenious tactic—accurately identifying the direction of the circle’s development, extending the mana field in his arm as far as possible to pierce it, and then flowing mana in the reverse direction to break the opponent’s magic circle.

His unique magic wasn’t just used to create a shield to block and defend against mana, but as a power to seal the opponent’s mana.

For someone who casts magic by drawing magic circles, having their mana sealed inevitably leads to defeat.

The Anti-Cast technique, which he had researched painstakingly before regression, remained a lethal attack against those who handled magic circles even in the present.

“Huff…”

With a thud, Pallas, still bewildered with dilated pupils, followed the same path as Vesta.

In the short, intense battle, it was not Juno who lay unconscious on the ground, but the two who had always bullied him.

The victor in the 2:1 situation sighed lightly once more, then muttered quietly:

“Next is Silvia.”

Silvia. The name of the next opponent was someone Juno had never defeated before.