I Broke Off My Engagement and Got a Job at the Academy

27 – Survival

The Black Ocean.

True to its name, its form was that of a floating black sea.

But in reality, it was a vast assembly of countless spirits. They gathered and clumped together to form the black sea.

“…Damn it.”

I unconsciously cursed. The tentacles reaching towards me were not even tools for fighting.

They were simply at the level of digesting the humans inside their own bodies.

Can we really resist against such a thing?

Can we truly survive against such a creature?

Cold sweat trickled down. The space was filled with oppressive black magic, making it hard to breathe.

I tried to burst one of the tentacles somehow. But as if mocking my efforts, the black tentacle returned to its original state without leaving a trace.

The pure white woman… no, Vanessa Delphius looked at me and said, “Is there a way?”

Is there a way?

I don’t know. And I can’t know. Or rather, saying there is no answer might be as easy.

But I can’t accept that. I can’t give up on life so easily.

I burst another tentacle and said, “Let’s at least cut through these tentacles! We have to withstand the attack to do anything, right?”

Vanessa, who heard my words, nodded and burst the tentacles with a sword dripping in darkness.

What can be done in this situation? We can’t continue to withstand this. Even if we burst or cut the tentacles, they only hesitate for a moment. There is no fundamental way to stop their advance.

Perhaps, the only way is to reconstruct the tentacles using the souls stored within the Black Ocean.

In that case, it could be said that there is no way to completely remove the tentacles.

The amount of souls within the Black Ocean is like the sea itself, never drying up.

Because of this, there was no way to dry out the souls that make up the tentacles used by the Black Ocean.

Once we fail to block those tentacles, it’s game over.

I’m somehow managing to block them, but it’s not something that can be sustained forever.

I gritted my teeth.

Is it really the case that we have to give up without any solution?

“Urgh!”

Vanessa Delfierus collapsed.

I shouted towards her.

“Are you okay!?”

Vanessa sat down, breathing heavily. Her mask had been torn away, revealing her face.

“Ah…!”

Fumbling with her unmasked face, Vanessa realized it wasn’t important and bit her lip.

“Get up quickly. Sitting like this will only lead to defeat.”

Vanessa, after hearing my words, bowed her head deeply and said,

“No, no matter how hard we try, we won’t survive. It’s a monster that has ruled for thousands of years as a calamity on the continent. Even if you’re a master, can you escape…”

Vanessa’s words were, from a rational perspective, undeniably correct.

However, no. Even though it may be rational, it was fundamentally wrong.

“Don’t talk nonsense and get up. It means there’s a limit to the tentacles I can stop!”

Therefore, I dismissed Vanessa’s words as nonsense.

“No… we’re definitely going to die. There’s no way left to resist…”

It seemed as if his spirit had been broken when something like an unexpected natural disaster occurred.

I bit my lip and took a deep breath. Then, I approached her and grabbed her collar.

I had to make her come to her senses, even if by force.

With a determined calculation, I slapped her cheek.

“Wake up!”

Vanessa, after being slapped, opened her eyes wide and bit her lip.

Then, she began to take deep breaths. After closing her eyes tightly and reopening them, Vanessa spoke.

“Phew… I’ve come to my senses.”

Whether the slap had an excessively good effect or not, Vanessa quickly regained her composure.

I looked at her and said.

“…First, let’s figure out how to stop those tentacles. There might be a solution, even if it’s a long shot.”

Vanessa, hearing my words, opened her determined blue eyes and replied.

“Yes!”

Vanessa desperately began to swing her sword.

I closed my eyes and started to concentrate.

Focus, Edun Kainus.

There were many magic stones, but they weren’t helpful in the current situation. So, I began to construct a spell purely with my mind.

I can’t use magic of the 5th circle.

But, even if it meant using magic, I had to somehow narrow that gap.

Kying, a spell I was using for the first time, resonated.

“Eyes of Twilight.”

The Eyes of Twilight, a 4th-circle magic, was Professor Cordelia’s creation along with the Eyes of the Sky.

I had never used it before, but somehow, it was taking shape.

The effect of the Eyes of Twilight was completely opposite to the Eyes of the Sky, which helped analyze and reverse-engineer the opponent’s spell.

Unlike the Eyes of the Sky, the Eyes of Twilight made it easy to compose one’s own spell.

If used as intended, it would be a spell for manipulating available magic for spellcasting. But I decided to use it differently.

I aimed to make unusable magic usable.

My eyes changed to the color of twilight. I gripped the staff and began to compose the spell.

My heart raced as if it might burst. My head throbbed painfully, an urge to claw at it immediately.

But I held back. I had to.

I felt the rotation of magical energy coursing through my body along the bloodstream accelerate.

A drip of blood from my nose. The brain had suffered considerable damage.

I felt like I was dying. Vision blurred. But finally— the spell was complete.

As soon as I finished the fifth circle of the spell, I could feel it. I had crossed a barrier.

But that didn’t matter now. What mattered was the effect.

“Go… ‘Devourer’.”

The spell I created. It absorbed the abilities within its radius, rendering anyone but me unable to use those abilities.

In short, no matter the Black Ocean’s tentacles… it targeted abilities, namely the dark magic, as the prey of a Devourer.

“Now come here!”

Vanessa swiftly entered the Devourer’s domain.

The tentacles moved towards the Devourer’s domain but began to vanish as they reached its perimeter.

“…How long can you keep this up?”

Vanessa asked me. I furrowed my brow and replied.

“Don’t worry. I can hold out for quite a while.”

I said that and took out a mana stone.

Crack. I wedged the stone between my teeth and bit down. In an instant, mana and dark magic began to surge within me.

If it’s mana stones, I still have over ninety of them.

I focused all my strength on maintaining the Devourer, continuing to chew on the mana stones.

The reason I ended up in the north had disappeared, but what was more important than that was surviving.

Fortunately, the Black Ocean didn’t linger in one place for long. It vanished in an instant after causing a considerable amount of devastation.

In essence, as long as I could endure this, there was a chance to escape from the Black Ocean.

However… with a throbbing sensation in my head, I scratched my face.

The dark magic inside the marble was corroding my body. Due to the dark magic within the marble, my head ached.

Not only that. The sensations throughout my body began to lose their essence. Suddenly, sensations of heat and cold started to permeate my entire being.

“Ugh…”

I groaned involuntarily. My entire body was filled with pain. Nevertheless, I bit into the marble once again.

And, at that moment when I endured the pain, temporarily losing my focus.

At an incredible speed, an exceptionally massive tentacle approached. Unlike the others, witnessing its form remaining intact within the range of the Devourer, for an instant,

I experienced death.

No, to be precise, a near-death experience. Time slowed down, and in an instant, I glimpsed my own past life.

And then, that tentacle… Vanessa leaped in front of me and cut it in a split second.

The severed tentacle left no trace, devoured by the Devourer.

And then, as if deciding that killing humans was no longer challenging or as if questioning its very existence, the Black Ocean vanished.

The sky was shining brightly.

“…Did we survive?”

Vanessa muttered as if in disbelief. I looked at her that way.

“Yeah. Somehow.”

Although the village was in ruins, with only Vanessa and me remaining in the vicinity – I survived.

And at that very moment.

Whether it was the consequence of forcing the use of a Level 5 spell or the result of biting into the marble,

My body felt strange. It was as if my eyes were tightening, and my entire body was painfully on the verge of death.

“Huh.”

Abruptly, as if a circuit had been severed, consciousness blurred.

Vanessa felt like she was running towards me. However, gradually, consciousness faded away.

Without being able to lift a finger, both my physical and mental functions came to a complete halt.

Yes, I had fainted.

And when I opened my eyes… I saw the ceiling of a strange mansion.

“…Where is this?”