The World After the Bad Ending

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Chapter 81: Professor, Want to Get Hit?

The professors of Zerion Academy.

They are among the most skilled individuals in the Empire.

Zerion Academy is dedicated to training heroes who defend against the greatest enemy of the world: the Demon Dungeon.n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

Naturally, the academy could not afford to hire its professors carelessly.

Thus, every professor at Zerion Academy is exceptionally skilled.

Many of them were heroes who once fought valiantly against the Demon Dungeon.

Their reputations are unparalleled.

But water that stagnates inevitably becomes tainted.

And so, among those who were once hailed as heroes, some had become corrupted.

Human greed knows no bounds.

Living as a professor at Zerion Academy, they possessed both wealth and honor.

Yet there were those who craved even more.

During his school days,

there was a man who lived in the shadow of perpetual second place and obsessively pursued first.

The third-year professor of magic arts, Barquio Lavlician.

Currently overshadowed by the Blue Tower Master, he was the tragic genius who lost the title of the century's prodigy.

He was also a figure deeply disliked by students.

He often belittled less skilled students and openly mocked them without hesitation.

Among the students, his reputation was the worst.

Now, with age catching up to him, his body had grown heavier and slower.

But his memories of the past were still vivid.

The humiliating memory of losing the Tower Master position to an unreachable genius.

For years, he had dreamed of building his own magic tower.

To him, it seemed the only way to restore his trampled pride from his school days.

However, the Empire already had the Blue Tower and the Yellow Tower at the pinnacle of magic.

It was no longer feasible to establish a new tower.

So he joined hands with a kingdom outside the Empire.

In exchange for smuggling imperial secrets and siphoning off Zerion Academy's funds,

the kingdom promised to build a magic tower for him.

Now, all that remained was to defect to the kingdom.

But then, an irreversible event occurred.

The Student Council Boycott—a seemingly insignificant group of students—

had exposed his corruption and deeds during the Founding Festival.

Barquio's mind snapped.

If the incident had occurred after his defection, it might have been fine.

But if the truth spread now, the chances of him being executed were almost certain.

‘Not yet. It’s not over yet.’

For now, the news had only circulated within Zerion Academy.

If he could silence those who spread it and buy time, he could still escape.

‘More importantly…’

The classified materials prepared for his final transaction with the kingdom were in his personal office.

Zerion Academy was tightly secured, making it nearly impossible for outsiders to infiltrate.

Thus, his office was the perfect place to hide sensitive information.

He never expected trouble to arise from within.

He hurriedly opened the door to his office.

On his way there, he had vented his frustration by lashing out at every member of the Student Council Boycott he encountered.

A fitting punishment for those insignificant brats.

Now, he just needed to retrieve the materials and eliminate the remaining troublemakers.

As he reached for the documents, a sound interrupted him.

Click.

The door to his office, which he had just entered, closed again.

In the dimly lit room, the moonlight streaming through the window illuminated the interior.

Barquio slowly turned his head, and there stood a man with a familiar face.

“Huh?”

A chuckle escaped Barquio's lips.

A man with striking white hair and amber eyes stood before him.

Though his face was undeniably handsome, his magic skills had always been abysmal.

“Vikamon?”

Vikamon Niflheim.

The pitiful dropout who had been expelled from Zerion Academy was now standing in front of him.

To Barquio, Vikamon was the most talentless individual he had ever encountered in magic.

So much so that he had been the subject of the most ridicule in magic arts classes.

Yet here he was, standing in Barquio's office.

Barquio’s gaze turned icy.

“So that’s it. I see now.”

A twisted smile appeared on Barquio's face.

“You were the one behind this. You did this to get revenge on me.”

He recalled mocking Vikamon in the past.

In retaliation, Vikamon had revealed the truth behind his corruption through the Boycott.

Barquio had no idea how Vikamon had discovered his crimes.

But he had no intention of forgiving someone who dared to oppose him.

“You reckless fool. Do you even know who you’re messing with? I’ll teach you a lesson.”

Barquio drew a staff from his waist.

Vikamon, narrowing his eyes slightly, soon replied:

“What nonsense are you spewing?”

“Deny it all you want. Your rage is clear. But if you must resent something, resent your pathetic magic skills!”

With those words, Barquio unleashed his signature lightning magic.

The torrent of mana that burst forth demonstrated why he was a third-year professor of magic arts.

Boom!

Black lightning filled the room in an instant.

As the electricity surged toward Vikamon, he stood motionless, doing nothing.

The moment Barquio was convinced of his death—

Crackle!

The lightning was suddenly absorbed into a ring on Vikamon’s hand.

Barquio had no way of knowing.

He and Vikamon were the worst possible matchup.

Vikamon possessed the Lightning Caller,

a relic that consumed all lightning except that sent by the goddess of thunder herself.

In other words, Barquio’s signature lightning magic was utterly useless against him.

Bang!

Before Barquio could process his shock, Vikamon had already closed the distance between them.

He propelled himself forward with an explosion beneath his feet.

As Vikamon approached, Barquio’s instincts kicked in, unleashing a wall of flames from his staff.

No fool would charge through such scorching heat unprotected.

Surely, Vikamon would retreat.

“Looks like you came prepared to counter me, but—”

But Vikamon charged straight through the flames.

“What?!”

Barquio’s second wave of shock left him reeling.

Vikamon delivered a crushing blow to Barquio’s head, sending him crashing into the office furniture.

Though flustered, he managed to swiftly cast a protective magic shield around his face.

"Ugh... You maniac."

Who in their right mind would dive headfirst through a wall of fire?

The sheer absurdity of the situation left him too shaken to cast his spells properly.

But Vikamon had indeed leapt through the flames.

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His body, no doubt burned by the searing heat, should have left him incapacitated.

"Heh... Fool,"

Barquio muttered, a smirk creeping onto his face as he began to rise.

Thunk!

Suddenly, he felt a crushing weight pin him down.

Startled, he looked up.

There, bathed in moonlight streaming through the window, stood Vikamon.

His clothes were scorched in several places, yet his body bore no signs of burns.

The sight left Barquio visibly shaken.

How could someone emerge unscathed after passing through his wall of fire?

It was inconceivable.

"Not bad. Felt kinda warm,"

Vikamon said nonchalantly.

His body, forged from steel and imbued with the essence of fire, possessed a natural resistance to flames.

Over time, and with constant exposure to magical engravings that caused his body to erupt, Vikamon’s immunity to fire had grown to extraordinary levels.

Now, ordinary flames couldn’t even faze him.

Under the cold moonlight, his amber eyes glinted ominously.

Boom—

Barquio felt his heart sink involuntarily.

Twice now, his prized magic had failed to inflict any damage.

The attacks that would have electrocuted and incinerated any ordinary student had been rendered utterly useless against Vikamon.

Faced with such irrational defiance of logic, fear crept into Barquio’s heart.

“You insolent little—how dare you tread where you don’t belong!”

Barquio bellowed, swinging his staff in desperation.

His lightning had failed, and his fire wall had failed.

Only one option remained.

"Fine! Let’s see if you can withstand this and live!"

A storm of icy winds engulfed the office as Barquio unleashed his freezing magic.

His expertise in rapid spellcasting gave him the upper hand, leaving even Vikamon little time to react.

Crack-crack—

The room transformed into an icy hell, freezing everything in sight, including Vikamon himself.

Standing rigid atop Barquio, Vikamon’s figure was completely encased in ice.

Barquio, trembling from the cold, let out a malicious chuckle as he surveyed his handiwork.

“Heh… You thought you could defy me?”

To finish him off, Barquio began conjuring a powerful bolt of light.

“Die!”

Just as he prepared to launch the attack—

Crash!

A crack echoed through the room as Vikamon’s frozen foot suddenly broke free and lashed out.

Smash!

“Aaagh!”

Vikamon’s foot came down hard, crushing the hand gripping Barquio’s staff.

The searing pain forced Barquio to release his weapon, the magic dissipating unfinished.

Crack-crack—

With his body slowly breaking free of the ice, Vikamon began to move.

His right eye flashed a vivid yellow, revealing a lizard-like pupil that glimmered with primal ferocity.

Chills shot down Barquio’s spine.

Those eyes were a warning.

How dare you challenge me with such trivial ice magic?

They burned with indignation.

An instinctive fear, deeply etched into living creatures, surged through Barquio.

It was the innate ability of an awakened draconic remnant: Dragon Fear.

No mage was more vulnerable to this ability than Barquio, whose heart and mind were unguarded against such a presence.

Unlike someone like Sharin, who wielded the miraculous “Milky Way” mirinae eyes, Barquio had no defenses against it.

Moreover, his own negligence had left him woefully unprepared.

Drunk on the fleeting glory of his past, he had long neglected his magical research, obsessed instead with building his precious Magic Tower.

For years, he had deluded himself into thinking he was merely a hair’s breadth behind the Blue Tower Master.

In truth, countless skilled mages had long surpassed him.

A man intoxicated by power and prestige ultimately becomes his own downfall.

Vikamon raised a clenched fist.

The kingdom, too, had only used Barquio for its own ends.

It was unlikely they ever intended to let him build his tower.

"A guy who scams kids for a living sure dreams big."

He was here to put an end to those dreams.

“Wake up.”

And with that, Vikamon brought his fist crashing down.

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