Magic Academy's Bastard Instructor

Chapter 253: Cthulhu [2]

There was a reason why, out of every nation, only Zyphran possessed a fully dedicated naval regime.

The Zyphran Dominion was the sole Empire built along the open sea, with its capital and major cities located on the portside coasts. While the other nations battled monsters and demons across the land, Zyphran had an additional threat to contend with.

The Cthulhus.

Where land was plagued by fiends, the ocean belonged to these abyssal creatures.

And so, the Dominion had created a navy not merely to traverse the waters, but to wage constant war upon them. Their fleet was built to withstand storms that could swallow cities, and their soldiers were trained to fight upon ever-changing tides and frozen seas.

Naturally, anyone hearing the story for the first time would think the Emperor who founded the Dominion had been a reckless fool for choosing to build an Empire beside the most dangerous waters in the world.

But there was a law to monopolization, and Zyphran understood it better than anyone.

Cthulhus, despite their demonic origins, possessed materials found nowhere else on the continent.

Their bones were used to construct staffs capable of amplifying spells tenfold. Their tendrils could be refined into conduits for high-output mana reactors. Their scales were prized for alchemical research, allowing breakthroughs modern mages relied on.

Everything harvested from a Cthulhu was valuable.

And Zyphran monopolized it completely.

In exchange for risking their lives on the sea, the Dominion secured an economic stronghold no other Empire could challenge. Their resources far-surpassed other nations.

The greatest staves in history had all been crafted with Zyphran materials. Even Aetherion’s elite mages depended on Zyphran exports for their laboratories.

“Freeze!”

Dozens of voices echoed the command as the front line of Zyphran mages struck their staves against the ice.

The Zyphran Navy, the Bundesritter, relied heavily on mages proficient in ice magic. On land, ice magic was often considered rigid and reactionary compared to fire or wind.

But on the ocean, it was king.

Ice mages could create footholds where none existed, forming instant battlefields on the water.

They could freeze incoming waves to prevent ships from capsizing. They could reinforce the hulls of vessels, slowing corrosion from demonic miasma. They could immobilize smaller Cthulhus outright, trapping them in layers of frost long enough for the soldiers to strike them down.

And most importantly, ice mages controlled the battlefield.

Without them, the fleet would sink the moment a Cthulhu dived beneath the water and attacked from below. Without them, the ocean offered no stable terrain and no chance of victory.

Through ice, the Bundesritter could dictate the flow of combat in a domain that naturally belonged to monsters.

Crackle——!

The frozen sea cracked as more layers spread outward, expanding the artificial battlefield. Soldiers advanced across the frost.

Karina raised her staff again, chanting louder while her breath turned to mist.

Battle-hardened, her mastery over ice magic had grown to the point that few could even hope to match her.

* * *

Returning to the mainland was always a difficult transition. Life on solid ground felt foreign after time spent fighting on the waters.

Every hunt came with a price. Dozens of naval officers died each season, sometimes entire squads swallowed whole by the ocean. Most of the privates Karina had trained with were long gone. That was how unforgiving the open sea truly was.

“Careful.”

Karina turned toward the person who had supported her up. The moment she recognized who it was, her eyes widened.

“Vice-Admiral?!”

It was Iridielle Vermillion.

“What?” she asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Ah.”

Naturally, Karina had already heard of what had transpired in the Theocracy. The Great Powers had arrived in force, only to be overwhelmed by an unknown entity. In the aftermath, the entire capital had been reduced to collateral damage. Worse still, there had been no justice for the Theocracy’s citizens.

“That…”

“I’ll be joining the next hunt.”

“Ah?”

“So be prepared.”

“….”

“I’ll work you to the bone.”

Karina noticed the bandages and visible burn marks on her body, but didn’t question it.

True to her words, Iridelle joined the hunt the following day.

It was common knowledge that the higher one climbed in rank, the less time they spent on the battlefield.

That was exactly why Iridelle’s participation felt so unusual.

Excitement spread amongst the officers. This was not just a Vice-Admiral joining them, but a Great Power taking the field in person. To many, it felt like an assurance of victory.

At this rate, wasn’t survival guaranteed?

“Ice mages!”

The officers moved immediately as the colonel issued commands. He had been handpicked by Iridelle herself to lead the operation.

“Front line formation!” he continued. “Stabilize the waters first. No advance until the battlefield is secured!”

Staves struck wood in unison as chants rose. Frost crackled outward from the hull, spreading across the waves and hardening the ocean into a field of white.

Behind them, Iridelle crossed her arms in silence.

“Yes, sir!”

The frozen sea expanded, layer by layer, until the fleet rested atop a tenuous battlefield of ice. Beyond it, dark silhouettes formed below the water.

Iridelle’s gaze narrowed.

The objective of the recent expeditions was simple. They were to locate the leyline haunting these waters. If it could be destroyed, Cthulhu appearances would diminish, delaying what could otherwise become a full invasion along Zyphran’s borders.

From a distance, a massive silhouette rose from the sea.

The moment the Cthulhu’s head breached the surface, Iridelle lifted her hand and pointed her index finger.

A gauntlet encased her arm as she muttered a brief chant. Flames burst from her fingertips in rapid succession.

———!

Explosions detonated across the water. The ice painstakingly formed by the mages evaporated in an instant. Steam surged upward as the ocean boiled, shrouding the battlefield in a veil of smoke.

The Cthulhu roared.

Indeed, ice mages were highly sought after within the Bundesritter. They created battlefields, preserved fleets, and restrained abyssal creatures long enough for armies to survive.

But Iridelle had risen to the rank of Admiral, and to the status of a Great Power, for a very different reason.

Fire did not control the battlefield.

It erased it.

Her pyro magic burned through demons’ flesh, destabilized leyline distortions, and disrupted the regenerative cores that allowed Cthulhus to persist. Against creatures born of the deep, overwhelming heat was one of the few forces that could truly kill.

The steam parted.

The Cthulhu’s upper body collapsed back into the water, chunks of charred flesh sinking along with it.

Silence followed, broken only by the crackle of residual flames.

Behind her, the officers watched the sea churn where the monster had been moments before.

Iridelle lowered her hand.

The ocean answered with another tremor.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

With every explosion, Iridelle’s frustration only deepened further. The awe-filled gazes around her felt meaningless, borderline insulting, as memories of the Theocracy surfaced again and again.

For the first time since she had come into power, Iridelle felt powerless.

She knew it. Against Fyodor, she had been the weakest among them. Every explosion that obliterated Cthulhu after Cthulhu on this battlefield had failed to leave even a single mark on him.

The disparity gnawed at her.

How was humanity meant to fight something like that? When not even the combined strength of the Great Powers, humanity’s greatest pride, could do a single thing against him?

As for how they had even made it out alive, Iridelle could only speculate.

“Vanitas Astrea…”

That man, who had knocked them out at their weakest, had also been the one who ultimately saved them. If not for Fyodor’s interest in him, Iridelle knew she would have drawn her final breath in the ruins of the Theocracy.

Vanitas Astrea, the son of the man who had taken everything from her.

“Tsk.”

The thought left a bitter taste. It was frustrating.

Looking down, Iridelle saw Karina reinforcing the battlefield again and again, restoring the ice each time it shattered or melted, all while launching attacks of her own.

Iridelle dropped down beside her and placed a hand on Karina’s shoulder.

“Are you still thinking of revenge?”

“….”

Karina didn’t answer.

The silence said enough.

There was little that could mend something once it had been broken that thoroughly. Some relationships did not heal through words or apologies. They never truly returned to what they once were.

Perhaps only time could touch them.

Time, the slow and indifferent force. The only thing capable of mending wounds that refused to close, and softening even relationships that could never be fixed.

Whether someone prayed for healing or begged for an end. It did not apologize for what it took. It did not explain why it allowed some to be saved and others to be buried.

It only passed, leaving everything behind in different shapes than before.

People liked to call time a cure because it made the unbearable bearable. But that was not kindness. That was deterioration. A slow wearing down of the heart until it no longer had the strength to bleed the way it used to.

Sometimes time healed. Sometimes it simply made people forget what it felt like to be whole.

That was what made it terrifying.

Because time could soften hatred into exhaustion, love into familiarity, grief into numb routine. It could turn vows into distant thoughts, and turn scars into something a person stopped noticing, even when they still ached in the cold.

It could make even the most righteous anger feel pointless.

Because the people involved eventually stopped reaching for what they lost.

Time.

Karina had enough it.

In this frozen expanse, where Iridelle could clearly see that no one was moving anymore, Karina had had enough of time. The battlefield seemed suspended in an absolute state of motionlessness, ice stretching outward as far as the eye could see.

Ice so cold that even time itself seemed frozen.

——You’re a good girl, aren’t you, Karina?

Smack——!

——You know I would never hit Karina on purpose, right?

——Yes… because Father loves me.

——That’s right. You’re a good girl, Karina.

Time was locked so thoroughly that the past seemed to overlap with the present, echoes bleeding within this frozen entity called time.

Iridelle blinked.

“….”

For a second, she was certain she had heard a voice. It came from nowhere, and from everywhere at once. Then it faded, just as suddenly as time resumed its flow.

She turned to look at Karina.

Karina did not look back.

“….”

* * *

“I see. So even the cult has joined our hands. We truly are headed for hell, aren’t we, Vanitas?”

“In the end, there’s only one destination,” Vanitas said. “If heaven were real, then it’s nothing but a sick joke.”

At least hell had always shown itself in different forms.

Sometimes it was a battlefield. Sometimes it was a city reduced to ash, with survivors begging the sky for answers. Sometimes it was a hospital room, where prayers met empty walls.

Hell did not need horns or fire. Hell was simply what the world became when people were pushed far enough.

Humans were hell. Not because they were born evil, but because they were capable of turning grief into cruelty with easily. Because they could watch tragedy happen and still demand more blood. Because they could justify anything as long as it made the pain feel smaller for a moment.

The irreversible. The realization that no amount of screaming could undo what had already been done.

And time was its own kind of hell, too.

The world kept moving, even when it should not have been allowed to.

Walking through the Imperial Palace, Franz stopped before a large painting. It depicted a woman with pink hair and dazzling golden eyes.

“What do you think of my mother, Vanitas?” Franz asked. “Do you think she was a good person?”

Vanitas turned his gaze toward the portrait. It was none other than Julia Barielle.

His hand clenched. The air warped.

———!

Wind burst forth, tearing through the canvas and ripping it clean from the wall. What remained fell to the floor in tatters.

Franz only laughed.

“Haha! I feel the same way.” He stepped forward, crushing the ruined painting under his heel. “This cursed woman I call mother. She was the reason for all of this hell.”

The echo of his laughter faded down the corridor.

“She was loved,” Franz continued. “Praised. Worshipped. People called her the embodiment of beauty.”

He glanced at Vanitas from the corner of his eye.

“Isn’t it funny?” he said. “How easily hell is born from people like that?”

The fragments of the painting remained scattered at their feet. Vanitas didn’t look up.

“I loved her.”

“Oh?” Franz blinked. “I didn’t expect such a blunt confession.”

He let out a short laugh.

“Well, it makes sense. My mother held a kind of beauty that drove most men in power mad. Though I suggest you don’t mention things like that in front of your fiancée.”

“It’s fine,” Vanitas replied. “Margaret is quite tolerant of me.”

“Cut from the same cloth,” Franz said. “A man like you deserves a woman like her. Congratulations. I’ll be sure to bless your wedding.”

“Thank you.”

Outside, the protests were growing wilder. Guards struggled to hold the crowds back as voices rose in unison, demanding the release of the Imperial Princess, Irene Barielle Aetherion.

Of all the mockery Irene had endured in Aetherion, it was only after Franz’s tyranny came to light that the people finally realized which power they wished to cling to.

Irene, the one they believed should sit upon the throne. It was deeply ironic. The same people who had cast her aside now wished to depend on her, even as she remained imprisoned underneath the Imperial Palace.

“But still, Vanitas,” Franz said, glancing toward the distant noise, “you really don’t leave things unfinished, do you? You should pay more attention to your woman rather than another woman. Seriously.”

“….”

“While I don’t mind it, it leaves a bitter taste knowing my little sister was right all along.” Franz paused, then added, “Ah, speaking of sisters, do you happen to know where our Astrid is?”

“I have an idea.”

“Is that so?” Franz asked. “Should I be worried?”

“As long as I’m alive, Franz, Astrid will come around.”

Franz clicked his tongue. “This is exactly what I’m talking about. Should I just kill your fiancée and marry you off to my two little sisters instead?”

“….”

“Relax,” Franz added with a laugh. “I’m just joking.”

A knock echoed against the door.

“It seems the Zyphran delegates are here.”