Never Die Villain

It had to be said that the hunting field was wide.

To the north, the Basilisk Tyrant had appeared and was drawing students from across the surrounding area toward it.

Far to the south, another powerful monster had emerged as well, turning what had originally been a relatively straightforward examination into something that was beginning to test exactly where the limits of the first-year students lay.

The professors, however, simply sat back and watched.

The examination was still proceeding within acceptable limits, and the identification seals existed for situations where a student could no longer safely continue.

Several students had already been escorted out after their seals were destroyed, and although none had suffered any serious injuries, that did little to improve the mood among those who had been eliminated.

In fact, nearly half of them were angry.

"P-Professor, this can’t be right! That Ilya Belozersky must be playing dirty!"

"He eliminated our entire group!"

"How is a First Circle wizard even allowed to do something like that?!"

The complaints quickly piled on top of one another as more of the eliminated students joined in.

Most of them had been part of the group Tristan had gathered against Ilya, and after being removed from the examination within minutes of one another, accepting that they had simply lost was apparently much harder than finding something else to blame.

"He has to be using something that wasn’t approved for the examination!"

"Exactly! There’s no way someone who transferred into the Magic Department only three weeks ago should be able to fight like that!"

"Professor, shouldn’t you investigate him?"

"Ridiculous."

The room immediately fell silent.

Vera sat comfortably on one of the couches with her legs crossed, barely looking interested in the growing commotion around her.

She had been watching the projections throughout most of the examination without saying much, but after listening to the same complaints for several minutes, she had apparently heard enough.

"If you’re frustrated because someone defeated you, then work harder."

Vera rested her cheek against one hand.

"Complaining that he must have cheated just because you can’t understand how he beat you is embarrassing."

Nobody answered.

Several students looked toward one another before their attention slowly returned to Vera.

By now, it wasn’t exactly a secret within the Magic Department that Assistant Professor Adelheid and Ilya were unusually close, especially when the two could frequently be seen together outside ordinary classes.

One of the students eventually gathered enough courage to speak.

"Assistant Professor Adelheid... are you personally training him?"

Vera glanced toward him.

Then she chuckled.

"Training him?" She leaned farther back against the couch. "Giving me that much credit would be unfair."

The student frowned. "What do you mean?"

Vera raised one hand and pointed toward one of the projections.

"Look."

Everyone followed her finger.

The projection was displaying Ilya.

For several seconds, nobody understood what Vera wanted them to see.

Ilya was standing somewhere in the forest with Tristan several meters away from him, but unlike when the fight had begun, what remained of his academy shirt was now lying discarded on the ground.

His upper body was completely bare.

"Look properly," Vera said.

The students looked more closely, and whatever reaction they might have initially had quickly disappeared.

Without his uniform covering him, it was impossible to mistake Ilya’s physique for something he had simply been born with.

There were scars.

Scars ran across the body of a seventeen-year-old student, with old cuts along his arms and torso, marks across his shoulders, and several wounds that had long since healed but never completely disappeared.

None of them were particularly dramatic on their own, yet there were enough that it became difficult to imagine how many hours of training had been required to leave that many behind.

This was the Magic Department.

Most of the students gathered there had spent their childhoods studying spell formulas, practicing mana circulation, and developing their Circles.

They trained their bodies as well, particularly those interested in combat magic, but there wasn’t a single student present whose physique looked anything like Ilya’s.

Then they remembered where he had come from.

The Knight Department.

No, even that wasn’t quite enough.

The Belozersky family.

Before Ilya had ever stepped into a classroom and seriously studied magic, he had already spent most of his life training under one of the Empire’s most demanding martial families.

He had done it without Aura, and despite knowing that no amount of effort would change the fact that he lacked the one thing his family valued most, he had continued anyway.

"...I see."

And not once had he failed a single class.

* * *

For a while, the sudden increase in numbers actually seemed to work.

Spells continued raining down on the Basilisk from every direction, forcing it to divide its attention between more than a dozen students as barriers repeatedly appeared whenever it tried to charge.

The students surrounding Solenne and Elise weren’t weak either, and once the initial chaos settled, several of them began coordinating their attacks well enough to target the wounds Elise had already discovered along the creature’s armored body.

"Keep hitting the damaged scales!" Elise shouted. "Don’t waste your mana attacking the rest of its armor!"

A barrage of spells immediately followed her command, striking the same section along the Basilisk’s side until several damaged scales finally broke away.

The creature roared and swung its tail across the clearing in response, smashing through two barriers before the students behind them could reinforce their defenses.

The first identification seal shattered.

A student disappeared from the hunting field before the Basilisk’s tail could reach him, and another seal activated seconds later when one of its claws came down toward a girl who had failed to retreat in time.

Two students were gone immediately, but there were still enough remaining that the others simply closed the gaps they had left behind.

"Don’t stop! We can actually kill it!"

"Protect Lady Elise!"

"Stop saying that and cast!"

Another wave of magic struck the Basilisk.

For several minutes, it almost looked possible.

Then the Basilisk stopped retreating.

Its massive body lowered toward the ground as mana began gathering around its scales, and Elise immediately recognized the change before most of the others did.

The wounds covering its body hadn’t made it helpless, and if anything, the constant attacks had only pushed the creature far enough that it stopped reacting and started fighting properly.

"Everyone, spread out!"

The Basilisk slammed both of its front legs into the ground.

The earth between the students broke apart.

Several lost their footing at once, destroying the formation they had spent the last few minutes establishing, and the Basilisk charged directly through the opening.

Barriers appeared in its path, but the creature broke through them one after another, forcing identification seals to activate across the clearing as students were thrown aside or came dangerously close to being crushed beneath its weight.

"Move!"

Elise grabbed one student and pulled him away before a claw came down, but she couldn’t reach everyone.

Another flash marked someone being removed from the examination, then another appeared farther across the clearing, until the group that had arrived so confidently only minutes ago had been reduced to less than half its original number.

Solenne backed away.

"This isn’t working!"

"Then do you have another plan?!"

"I’m thinking!"

"You’ve been saying that for five minutes!"

The Basilisk turned toward them.

Solenne stopped complaining.

"...Elise."

"I know."

The remaining students immediately moved to intercept it, throwing barriers and offensive spells into its path, but the Basilisk no longer seemed interested in being distracted.

It pushed through the barrage with its head lowered, allowing spells to break against its scales as it charged straight toward Solenne.

"Lady Solenne!"

Someone jumped between them.

His barrier lasted less than a second.

The Basilisk broke through it, and the student’s identification seal activated immediately, his body disappearing in a flash before the creature could trample him.

Another student attempted to attack from the side and suffered the same fate when the Basilisk swung its tail around, leaving Solenne with nothing between herself and the enormous creature.

She raised both hands.

Magic circles formed in front of her, but she already knew they wouldn’t be enough.

"Shit..."

The Basilisk’s claw came down. Solenne saw the identification seal around her wrist begin to glow.

It was then.

Crackle——!

The temperature suddenly dropped, and frost scattered through the air.

Solenne flinched, expecting her identification seal to activate at any moment, but the blow never reached her.

"...."

When she looked up, ice had already formed around the Basilisk’s enormous limb.

The creature roared and forced its way through the restraint, shattering the ice.

But before it could bring its claw down again, something shot through the clearing and slammed directly into the side of its head.

Boom——!

The impact knocked the Basilisk away from Solenne. Its enormous body lurched sideways, tearing through the ground before it managed to catch itself.

Solenne remained where she was for several seconds before slowly looking toward the person who had landed between her and the creature.

A figure stood with his back to her.

"...Ilya?"

Ilya Valentinovich Belozersky.

Frost had begun creeping across his skin, and with every breath he took, more ice formed along his body before breaking away into tiny crystals.

Solenne stared.

"Are you hurt?" he asked.

"N-No..."

"Good." Ilya glanced back at her. "Then that’s fifty gold coins."

"...."

Before Solenne could even begin to ask how saving her life had somehow become a financial transaction, the Basilisk recovered from the blow and forced itself upright again.

It turned toward Ilya with a low growl, but just as it began moving forward, several translucent planes appeared above the clearing.

Ilya looked up, and smiled.

"Took you long enough."

Tristan emerged from between the trees.

"Unlike you, I can’t fly like an idiot!"