Never Die Villain

What was this situation?

How had a practical examination about hunting magical beasts suddenly turned into a hunt for him?

No, quite literally, Ilya had counted more than ten mages trying to take him down, and judging by the spells that continued flying through the forest from directions he couldn’t immediately see, there might have been even more waiting farther away.

Boom——!

Another explosion tore through the ground behind him, sending dirt and broken branches flying through the air.

Ilya threw himself sideways with the blizzard just as a bolt of lightning ripped through the space he had occupied a second earlier, but before he could properly regain his balance, another spell came from his right and forced him to change direction again.

A blade of compressed wind sliced through the trunk of a nearby tree.

"This is getting ridiculous!"

Ilya twisted his body and let the blizzard carry him between the trees, keeping himself low enough that the canopy blocked the students farther away from getting a clear shot.

That didn’t stop the ones closer to him, however, and another Fireball came tearing through the branches ahead before exploding against the ground when he dropped beneath it.

He couldn’t even tell where half the attacks were coming from anymore.

Whoever had organized this had spread the students throughout the surrounding forest instead of gathering everyone in one place, which meant there was no single group for Ilya to attack or avoid.

Escaping one cluster only carried him toward another angle of attack, and whenever he tried to rise above the trees and regain the mobility he had enjoyed earlier, several spells immediately converged on him and forced him back down.

They weren’t just attacking randomly either.

Every time Ilya turned toward one student, another attacked from a different direction.

Whenever he accelerated toward what looked like an opening, someone farther ahead would fire into his path, forcing him to either change direction or take the spell directly.

They knew what they were doing.

"Ugh...!"

Another explosion erupted behind him.

Ilya flew forward with the blast at his back, allowing the blizzard to carry him several meters before planting one foot against the trunk of a tree.

He pushed himself away immediately, changing direction fast enough that the next spell missed him entirely and disappeared into the forest.

For several seconds, Ilya stopped trying to escape and focused entirely on the attacks coming toward him.

He moved left when another spell came from the trees, immediately changed direction when two more came from his right, then tried rising above the canopy only for three attacks to converge on him at once and force him back down.

"...I see."

More than ten students trying to take him down sounded like a serious problem, and being completely surrounded by them sounded even worse, but after paying attention to the pattern of their attacks, Ilya realized that wasn’t actually what he was dealing with.

There might have been more than ten mages positioned throughout the forest, but they were spread across such a large area that only a handful of them could attack him effectively at any given moment.

Three from his left, two somewhere behind him, and another farther ahead.

Everyone else either had to reposition, wait for him to enter their range, or hold their spells until they had a clear line of fire.

Ilya smiled.

"So that’s how you’re doing it."

The encirclement only looked overwhelming because he had remained near its center.

As long as he stayed there, every group surrounding him could take turns attacking whenever he entered their range, giving him the impression that the barrage never stopped.

If he moved toward one side of the formation, however, the students positioned on the opposite side would gradually become too far away to contribute.

They had more people.

So what?

Numbers only mattered if those people could actually reach him.

Ilya’s expression relaxed.

He didn’t need to fight all of them.

He only needed to choose which ones he wanted to fight first.

A Fireball shot through the branches ahead, and this time Ilya didn’t retreat from it.

The blizzard surged behind him as he accelerated directly toward the spell, slipping beneath it before the caster had time to adjust his aim.

"Wait!"

Ilya had already found what he wanted.

There. Two students.

He could sense both of them through the Whiteout, positioned relatively close together near the edge of the formation, and there didn’t appear to be anyone immediately behind them.

They were supposed to prevent him from escaping through that section of the forest.

"Sorry."

Which made them the weakest part of the encirclement.

"I’m going through."

The two students immediately began casting, but Ilya had already started forming the necessary hand signs.

Mana circulated through the predetermined path inside his body as several points of compressed flame appeared around him.

"Glandes Ignis."

The Fire Bullets shot forward.

The students abandoned their spells and immediately raised barriers, but Ilya had never intended to stop and fight them.

The moment their attention shifted toward defending themselves, the narrow space between them opened, and the Whiteout hurled him straight through before either student could recover.

"Hey!"

"He’s breaking through!"

"Stop him!"

"I’m trying!"

Several spells came after him from behind.

Whoosh——!

But they were too late.

The distance was already growing, and the students on the opposite side of the formation no longer had a clear angle to attack him without firing through their own allies.

What had been more than ten people trying to bring him down had become two students behind him desperately attempting to catch up.

"Heh."

The open forest appeared ahead, and Ilya grinned.

"There we go."

That was all an encirclement amounted to in the end.

A line.

Find the weakest part, concentrate everything there, break through before the rest can respond, and suddenly, all those people surrounding you were standing in the wrong place.

Ilya accelerated.

———!

Then a spell came directly from the direction he was escaping toward.

"Goddamn it."

The blizzard dragged him sideways at the last second, and a concentrated beam of fire passed close enough to his face that the heat burned against his cheek.

Unlike the crude explosions the other students had been throwing around, the spell didn’t detonate when it missed him, instead continuing through the forest until it struck a tree behind him and punched cleanly through the trunk.

Ilya immediately slowed down.

That wasn’t like the spells the others had been throwing at him.

Another beam came.

Ilya moved aside again as the attack passed below his arm.

"...."

Ilya landed several meters away, his boots sliding across the dirt before he came to a stop.

The students behind him weren’t pursuing anymore either, and when he glanced back, he found them keeping their distance rather than trying to close the gap he had created.

That was strange.

He turned forward again.

Someone was standing farther ahead between the trees.

Unlike the students who had been desperately firing at him from every direction, this person wasn’t rushing to prepare another spell after missing twice.

He remained between the trees ahead, directly in the path Ilya had chosen to escape through, with his hand already lowered as he waited for Ilya to notice him.

Ilya stared at him.

Then he understood.

The opening hadn’t been left undefended.

Someone had been waiting behind it.

"...You planned for that too?"

The figure stepped forward, finally emerging from the shadows cast by the trees, and Ilya recognized him immediately.

They had crossed paths more than once at Imperial banquets and other gatherings of the Empire’s highest nobility, where the children of the Grand Ducal families were bound to encounter one another sooner or later.

Tristan Amaury de Bellacourt, the heir to the Southern Grand Duchy.

Ilya narrowed his eyes. "So you’re part of this too?"

"Part of it?" Tristan smiled. "I organized it."

Ilya glanced behind himself. The students he had broken through were still there.

He looked toward the forest on either side. The others were beginning to reposition.

Then he looked back at Tristan. The weak point he had chosen hadn’t been a mistake in their formation.

They had known he would choose it.

"Ah..."

Ilya finally understood what had happened.

"So you’re the asshole."

They had left it for him on purpose.