Chapter 1342: 100. Hellish Start

"Suicide?"

"That's right, suicide."

"Do you mean the kind of suicide I'm thinking of?"

"Exactly the kind of suicide you're thinking of, Master Enmu."

Old Ide gestured around his neck. "He wrapped a rope tightly around it like this and hung himself from the tree. To prevent his body's instinctive reaction from causing the suicide attempt to fail, he even cast a magic-sealing spell on himself. Sigh, Master Alva really was a true talent. What a pity, what a pity......"

"......"

On the crooked-neck tree, the dried-up body swayed back and forth in the wind. Only those hollow eyes stared at Muen, as though silently mocking him.

At that moment, the world seemed to fall silent once again. Old Ide was still rambling on and on, but Muen could no longer hear what he was saying. All he could feel was a heart-wrenching buzzing beginning to circle inside his ears.

O vast heavens, why......

"Wait!"

Muen suddenly came to a realization and slapped his palm.

"This must also be part of the surprise, right? Really, everyone, was there any need to go this far? You even made the performance this realistic. Do you really think something like this can scare your future leader?"

"Scare you? Why would I want to scare you, Master Enmu? I'm delighted to see you. Boss Alva is delighted too, right?"

Old Ide reached out and touched him.

Plop.

Before he had even used any force, the thing that was supposed to be a prop in Muen's eyes simply fell to the ground.

Perhaps because the rope had been wrapped around it for far too long, the moment the body hit the ground, its head separated from its torso and rolled straight to Muen's feet.

Continuing to stare at him.

Then, from within those empty eye sockets, several maggots slowly wriggled out......

"......"

All right.

It wasn't a prop.

It was a real corpse.

A corpse that had been dried out for three years and wouldn't have looked the slightest bit out of place displayed in a museum as a mummy.

"Bastard......"

Muen closed his eyes, feeling a powerful emotion churning inside his chest...... and amid those surging waves, the petite figure of a certain white-haired, red-eyed girl rose and fell......

But as the steady and mature Master Enmu he now was, he still forcibly suppressed the turmoil in his heart and calmly waved a hand.

"All right, you don't need to say anything else. I think I more or less understand how miserable things are here."

In the end, he could no longer keep deceiving himself.

The so-called Enhancement School was nothing like the wonderful place he had imagined.

The desolate interior, the enormous holes in the walls, demonic beasts wandering around with no one managing them, and the former head of the school who had just been cosplaying as a little hanging weather charm on that crooked-neck tree......

Every single thing displayed just how miserable the school was now, how precarious its situation had become.

It could even be said to have reached an extraordinarily pitiful state.

Perhaps a certain someone had told him while selling him this grand dream that the Enhancement School had once been incredibly glorious...... but if he thought about it carefully, how could what it had once been possibly represent what it was now?

If this really were an incomparably glorious school, how could they possibly let someone like him, who basically knew no magic at all, drop out of the sky and directly become its number-one figure?

Surely they weren't expecting him to teach illumination spells.

If that was the case, then this school truly was finished.

"I knew it. There was no way that woman would ever treat me this well. All that nonsense about going to great lengths to help me was definitely a lie."

Muen sighed softly.

And to think that just a moment ago, he'd actually felt a trace of happiness at being that ancient little brat's disciple......

He felt sincere shame toward the version of himself from ten minutes ago.

Still, even Muen had to admit that, thanks to that rotten little monster's training, his heart had now been tempered to an incomparably powerful degree. He wasn't shaken in the slightest by this miserable situation.

So what if the starting conditions were a little difficult?

Just like he'd said before, when had he ever had an easy start?

Besides, this time actually wasn't that bad. As long as his status as head of the school remained intact, then no matter how miserable the Enhancement School itself was, he would still have the qualifications to participate in the Origin Tower's secret affairs.

Once he thought of that, Muen regained his composure and calm.

He pried Ariel away as she secretly dug her fingers viciously into his waist while repeatedly asking with her eyes, "Where are the goodies I was promised?" Then he looked toward Old Ide.

"As for you, Old Ide...... call the other members of the school out. I know you showed me this first because you wanted me to understand how miserable the school is. Perhaps you even intended to scare me away. But what I want to say is that I've never cared about any of that. Call them out. No matter how few people there are, we still have to get acquainted first, don't we?"

"Eh?"

Old Ide tilted his head.

"Call who?"

"I mean the other members of the Enhancement School. The game is over. No matter how painful the past was, the past is still the past. We have to look forward."

Muen shook his head helplessly. This man's eccentric, half-crazed personality was probably also the result of the school's difficult environment.

One could only imagine just how much pressure the others had been living under.

Under circumstances like these, it was perfectly normal for them to keep hiding.

"Hurry up. Time is tight. We need to pull ourselves together as soon as possible and start working together for the sake of this broken-down school."

"Eh?" Old Ide still looked completely confused. "But...... I've already called the school's people."

"Hm? When did you call them?"

"Just now."

As he spoke, Old Ide crouched down and shouted toward the corpse:

"Boss Alva!" ⅇ

"......"

Alva did not answer.

Of course he did not answer.

He was dead.

He had been dead for three years.

"See."

Yet Old Ide pointed at the dead man and said with an utterly innocent expression:

"Aren't all four members of our school right here?"

"Four? But even if you count this corpse, that only makes two......"

Muen's voice suddenly stopped.

He looked at Old Ide's sincere expression, which showed no sign whatsoever of lying.

Then he looked at Ariel beside him, whose eyes were slowly widening.

Then he lowered his head and looked at the severed head.

"One...... two...... three......"

Finally, he pointed at himself in shock.

"Four?"

"That's right! The four of us!"

Old Ide clapped excitedly.

"Our school actually has four people now! We're finally prospering! Boss Alva, did you see that? Even our Enhancement School, hated by everyone, finally has a bright future!"

"......"

Muen's cheek twitched.

Bright future, my ass!

What kind of bright future could four people possibly have?

He knew perfectly well that the other major schools had hundreds, even thousands of members at the drop of a hat!

How the hell were they supposed to have a bright future?

And that wasn't even mentioning the fact that, among these four people......

One was half-crazy, one had been dead for three years, one had nothing but treasure on her mind, and one...... didn't actually know magic at all.

"The Enhancement School really is finished."

Muen wore the expression of a man who had finally understood everything.

So that was how it was.

Now he finally understood why those people at the bottom of the tower had looked at him with those expressions not long ago.

Curiosity.

Shock.

Awe.

Yes, of course they were in awe.

After all, who wouldn't be awed by someone willing to jump into a pit this deep?

"But...... it's fine, it's fine. Everything is still under control."

Muen gritted his teeth and hurriedly drove away all the emotions he shouldn't be having.

The Enhancement School had no future—what did that have to do with Muen Campbell?

That ancient little menace might have screwed him over, but the school crest she'd given him was absolutely genuine!

In other words, no matter what happened to the school itself, as long as he possessed the identity of its head, he could still carry out his work afterward!

He was still technically part of the upper ranks of the Origin Tower!

Although he still needed to placate a certain little minx he'd tricked into coming here with him, everything remained under his control.

That's right!

The Enhancement School's future might be dark, but his own future......

"Oh, right, Master Enmu. Since you're the head of the school now, there's something I have to give you," Old Ide suddenly said.

"What is it?"

"The tower sent it over a few days ago. They said it was for whoever was in charge here...... I gave it to Boss Alva, but Boss Alva doesn't have any eyeballs anymore, so he doesn't seem able to read it. I've been troubled about what to do. Fortunately, you came."

"Hm?"

Muen looked at the object Old Ide handed over.

A letter.

The Origin Tower's insignia was printed on it, and the faint aura of magic surrounding it could not be faked.

It had never been opened.

"This formal? Don't tell me my luck is actually this good and the tower finally sent the school's subsidy?"

Muen cracked a joke to ease the less-than-pleasant atmosphere.

Then, feeling slightly more relaxed, he tore open the envelope and read its contents.

"Huh?"

And then he froze again.

This time, he was genuinely dumbstruck.

"Abolish the school...... at the end of this month?"

His mind was still blank, but Muen's brain had already begun calculating at high speed.

"There's only three fucking days left until the end of the month?"