Abandoned by my Childhood Friend, I Became a War Hero

32 – The Future of the Empire #3

Titania couldn’t understand the situation.

It was difficult for her to come to her senses from the moment the happy daily life disappeared in an instant and turned into a scene full of violence and screams. But her defining moment was when she heard that a man with a scar on her face had targeted her.

You targeted me from the beginning? Why?

Titania’s heart was stained with fear and guilt. She didn’t know why, but she knew for sure that men were after her. It also meant that her dear friend and her instructor were in danger because of her.

Titania knew that Instructor Ion was strong, but she didn’t know how strong it was. She was so insecure. She had the ability to read people’s emotions thanks to her high spirit affinity. Although she did, at least she could roughly feel what the other person was feeling.

The spirit of the men standing in front of Ion was frightening and very rough. It was like the momentum of a murderer who killed countless people.

On the other hand, Instructor Ion’s momentum was like a calm lake. It was so quiet that I couldn’t tell what he was thinking or how strong he was.

Contrary to Titania’s anxious expression, Oznia was very calm. She seemed resentful that she couldn’t help in the situation, but she didn’t seem to think that Ion was in any danger.

Titania could not understand Oznia’s confidence.

“Knives?”

One of the men in the crowd said with a sneer.

“What kind of bullsh*t is a guy without a sword?”

“Sure. Are you a man without a weapon? It looks too easy.”

Ion didn’t react at all to the mocking laughter of the men.

He just stared blankly at the sword in the hand of the man mocking him.

The gaze must have touched the man’s heart, and he shouted without hesitation any longer and rushed toward Ion.

“This bastard… die!”

Ion was just staring at the man with the knife running towards him, despite his bare hands.

The moment Titania thought that Ion would be attacked at this rate, her body suddenly spun like lightning and delivered a powerful kick to the man’s jaw.

“Keep it off!”

And Titania saw humans flying.

The man hit by the jaw rose almost 3 meters in the air, but as if proving that humans can’t fly, he quickly fell to the ground. The sword the man was holding also flew up, spun and fell, and finally landed on Ion’s palm.

Ion looked at the men with the same attitude as the first time.

What was different was that, in a brief moment, one fell, and now he had a sharp sword in his hand.

“Ah….”

Titania couldn’t see Ion’s face, but she felt a certain sense of security in his steadfast back. She had no clear reason, but when she looked at his back, she somehow got the feeling that everything would be okay.

The scarred man’s expression was suddenly distorted. He sent one to test Ion’s skills, but he didn’t have time to check anything, and it ended in an instant, and he had an angry expression on his face.

“This is no ordinary guy.”

But he didn’t seem to want to just give up just because his opponent was strong.

“Brother. What should I do?”

“Don’t be scared. That’s right, he’s a guy. Even if he is strong, how can he block 4 swords with one sword?”

The scar man said that, but he couldn’t approach Shambouli Ion. The four men looked at Ion nervously as they hesitated to attack.

“Isn’t it coming?”

After the confrontation continued for quite some time, Ion said with a sneer.

“Then I go.”

At those words, the men all held their breath and tightened their grip on the sword. They nervously prepared for Ion’s attack, but they couldn’t even follow Ion’s movements with their eyes.

“Ugh… !?”

The moment I thought Ion had lightly kicked him, he reached a few steps ahead before I knew it.

Ion narrowed the distance in an instant, cut off the man’s sword with an idiotic expression, and swung the sword at his defenseless body.

However, the sword’s trajectory paused in the air for a moment. Ion unconsciously tried to cut his neck, but perhaps realized that the students were watching him from behind.

“Quaaa!!”

However, that alone was enough to incapacitate the man. The other men’s expressions turned wild as they saw their colleague screaming and grabbing his bloody wrist.

“Now! Jerky!”

The flowing blood was enough to infuriate the three remaining men. Letting out a furious cry, they charged Ion in unison.

Titania exclaimed in amazement.

“Instructor! Dangerous!”

In contrast to Titania’s tense voice, Ion swung his sword surprisingly calmly. His movements were unmistakably precise, and he always cut off his opponent’s arms and legs with each blow.

Although it was a bloody scene, Titania inadvertently admired Ion’s efficient and restrained movements.

“Ah! My arms!!”

“Quaaagh!!”

In the blink of an eye, all the men fell to the floor, bleeding and incapacitated. The scarred man was no exception. He dropped his sword powerlessly to the floor, apparently unable to grip his hand properly due to the wounds on his wrists.

The scar man let out a laugh as if it was hard to believe that his party had suffered at the hands of just one person.

“Ha ha ha… What the hell are you freaking bastard doing… ?”

Ion asked calmly, in the same tone as the first time, whether there was no inspiration from the fact that he had subdued five men in an instant.

“What is the purpose of targeting Titania?”

“What is the purpose of targeting that elf girl? hehehe… Kuhhhhh….”

The man let out a grim laugh with his head bowed as his blood gushed out.

Suddenly, the mood of the scarred man changed. Dark blue magic radiated from his whole body as if exploding, and the wound on his wrist became tight and swollen, stopping the bleeding on its own.

That is a state that only a few masters can reach even among those who practice swords. Titania did not know that it was a technique called rigid body art that strengthens one’s own body with magical power.

He tore his blood-soaked clothes at once, revealing his upper body. He had two crossed swords tattooed on his shoulder. Ion narrowed his eyes as if he recognized the tattoo at once.

“It must have been the 5th Corps.”

“Yes! It’s a bag that served as a meat shield in front of the Dark Elves to chew on! If you recognized this mark, you would know our end, right?”

“… The 5th Corps suffered devastating losses during the war and was disbanded.”

“Words like that cannot explain the hell I went through!”

The scar man quickly rushed at Ion, exploding his whole body’s mana. The man no longer had a sword in his hand, but his magically strengthened body was already a sharp weapon.

“They’re poisoning the well! Dig traps with your comrades’ corpses! Torture a captured colleague just for fun! Scatter those intestines everywhere like some kind of art!! It even raises corpses as undead, and the living hell where dead comrades eat living comrades!! If you’ve been through it!!”

The man threw indiscriminate punches at Ion, roughly like a wild boar, and Ion calmly blocked those punches. However, with each swing of the man’s fist, an aftershock hit the air, causing Titania’s hair to flutter.

“You understand my hatred! Isn’t it!! Huh!?”

The scar man clenched his fists with both hands and slammed them hard on the floor.

Boom! The floor cracked like a spider’s web, and dust rose into the sky.

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However, Ion had already stepped back from the man’s attack.

The man took a deep breath in the mist and said,

“Heo Eok, Heo Eok… Since the war is over, it is now a peaceful world, and some elf princess enters the academy. Long live the peaceful world. Right? My dead comrades are unable to come back from that hell because even their corpses have been burned….”

The man with the scars glared at Titania with a thick bloody intent. The sincere hatred of others she experienced for the first time in her life made Titania frozen in place, unable to breathe.

Ion said, putting his body between Titania and the man.

“Titania is not a dark elf. You will know when you see it.”

“Heh, hehehe…” But what? When the Dark Elves joined the Demon King’s army, did the Elves side with the humans? Isn’t it? I shut myself up in the woods and looked on as if it was someone else’s business and didn’t do anything until the war was over!”

The scarred man, who had been breathing slowly, took up his combat stance again.

His voice was as cold as ice.

“If you are a soldier, if you have been through that hellish war, you will not know. This race is not human. After all, they are enemies of humans. It’s no different from a monster. No, rather than monsters.”

Ion stood silently with a firm expression on his face. The longer his silence went on, the more anxious Titania grew.

Ion slowly opened his mouth in silence in front of a man who was discussing the extreme dichotomy that heterogeneous people who did not become allies of humans were just enemies.

“Yes. I also lost my family to the war.”

“Was it the work of a monster? Or heterogeneous? If you’ve been through that too-“

“No, human.”

The surrounding atmosphere instantly froze at Ion’s words.

Oznia and Titania had expressions of surprise and astonishment mixed together, but Ion, who actually spoke, looked very calm as if nothing had happened.

“My hometown was far from the front line. So I was relieved As long as I’m fighting on the front line, my family won’t be in danger.”

Ion continued to speak calmly.

“They were attacked by bandits made up of deserters. When I arrived late, there was only ashes.”

“… You guys What do you want to say?”

Ion made a sarcastic sneer.

“No one asked about your circumstances.”

The scarred man’s face was distorted to the point where it couldn’t be worse. He breathed heavily, as if he had been hit by a misfortune, and as if he couldn’t stand it anymore, he lunged at Ion with all his might and brandished his fists.

“You bastard!! I will kill you!!”

Ion’s arm moved like lightning. Ion’s sword cut the man’s thigh as it was running.

The scar man did not dodge the sword even when he lost his temper. Because he thought that a sword without magical energy would not be able to pierce his rigid body anyway.

However.

Kwajangchang!!

“Keep it off!!”

Ion’s sword shattered, and a sharp fragment pierced the man’s thigh. The body strengthened by rigid body art was cut with pure power, and rather the sword could not withstand the power of ion and broke.

It was unbelievable unless the power was a giant, but the scar man had no choice but to understand when he saw that it had actually happened.

That the man in front of me is truly a monster.

“Tell me.”

Ion aimed his half-broken sword at the scarred man’s neck.

“Who is the real culprit behind this protest against Titania?”