Academy’s New Guard is Unusual - Chapter 60

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 60
I possessed this body twelve years before the story’s timeline.
Twelve years was a long span, yet pathetically short for raising every attribute—Aura, Magic, Black Magic, and Holy Power—all to High Rank.
And yet this damned game had made all my attributes reach High Rank “somehow.”
Side effects were inevitable.
Sword Domain was one of them.
I was a High Knight, but I couldn’t use Sword Domain.
It was serious business. Sword Domain was proof of a High Knight, a gateway toward becoming a Sword Master.
Being unable to use Sword Domain was a truly fatal flaw for a knight.
But not anymore.
In exchange for consuming the Fragment of Outer God, I could wield Sword Domain for about three seconds.
‘I need to finish this fast.’
I adjusted my grip on the Guard Staff and whispered to myself.
“Sword Domain.”
The moment the words left my lips, my Aura drained away like a receding tide.
The sudden emptiness made my mind reel for an instant.
I clamped my teeth shut and gripped the Guard Staff harder.
A deep, resonant hum—
The Guard Staff began vibrating with violent intensity.
My hands and arms trembled as if begging for mercy.
My muscles screamed in agony. Each fiber felt as though it was being torn apart, the pain excruciating beyond measure.
Even I, who prided myself on familiarity with suffering, found it almost unbearable.
But pain was still pain.
I ignored it and poured more Aura into the staff.
Eventually, the Aura, unable to be contained, burst past the Guard Staff and expanded outward.
A blade materialized in my hand.
It bore no ornamentation—only the single purpose of cutting.
A pale blue radiance began to spray from the blade. At first it filled the space like mist, then gradually took shape.
Soon it began to sweep outward in all directions like waves.
Waves of power rippling in every direction—a sight truly intoxicating.
As the scattered Aura covered everything around us, the rain of spells falling from above began to slow.
Soon it appeared almost frozen.
It wasn’t only the magic.
Everything moved at a pace so slow it was almost yawn-inducing.
The spells, Milo watching from the side, even me.
The only thing moving at full speed was the blade itself.
Of course.
This was the Sword Domain—the blade’s realm.
That was when I understood.
Three seconds wasn’t enough.
In fact—
I was overflowing with power.
* * *
‘Sword Domain?’
Darkin’s eyes went wide as saucers.
Blue Aura covered everything before him.
It was unmistakably Sword Domain—Aura that transcended the blade itself to encompass an entire domain, the mark of a High Knight.
The problem was the clothing of the one who’d unleashed it.
A shabby blue shirt visible everywhere at the Academy, Security Corps uniform.
He’d been taught that even professors struggled to manifest Sword Domain, yet here a mere Security Corps member had done it.
Darkin was deeply unsettled.
Still, the confusion was short-lived.
His desire to witness Sword Domain was far greater.
By nature, knights’ battles are far from flashy.
Their Aura and Swordsmanship are purely pragmatic in design.
But Sword Domain was different.
Sword Domain was more brilliant than Magic, more radiant than Holy Power.
The Iron-Blooded Knight of the North raises a colossal fortress with his Aura, while some notorious pirate admiral’s Sword Domain summons waves.
This was why Sword Domain was called the Flower of Knights.
‘What kind of Sword Domain will it be?’
Then the blue Aura scattered around the space began gradually taking form.
The true Sword Domain was awakening.
Darkin held his breath in anticipation.
But what unfurled in the next moment was worlds away from his expectations.
The Aura didn’t rise like waves, didn’t stand firm like a fortress.
Instead, what appeared was a desolate wasteland.
A land so saturated with blood that not a single blade of grass could grow—rotted earth.
Across that barren, festering ground, broken weapons and corpses writhing with maggots lay scattered.
It was a battlefield.
An abandoned battlefield with not a trace of brilliance.
And at its center stood Grave.
Grave looked oddly at ease.
As if he’d come home.
‘A battlefield for a Sword Domain?’
What kind of life had he lived for his Sword Domain to manifest as a battlefield?
Darkin swallowed hard, throat suddenly dry.
Then he felt intense heat from above. Looking up, he saw the cascade of spells.
Aura holds advantage against Magic.
There’s even a saying that knights don’t ask for payment when facing mages.
But these spells were an exception.
Fireballs larger than houses, lightning that split the sky into hundreds of fractures, shards of ice raining down the size of fists—
Each spell alone was enough to make one’s spine freeze, and countless formidable spells now filled the sky.
Yet Grave, standing directly in their path, remained calm.
He merely looked up, as if admiring the view.
Soon the spells reached the battlefield.
Against such a deluge, the battlefield seemed impossibly frail and hollow—as if it would be swept away any moment.
But the outcome was the opposite.
The moment the spells entered the battlefield, their forms changed.
The house-sized fireball became a tattered shield.
The fractured lightning became a spear with a broken tip.
The sharp ice shards became a rusted dagger.
The brilliant spells transformed into broken weapons and fell helplessly.
Those fearsome magics didn’t even reach Grave’s feet.
‘What in the—’
Darkin’s jaw dropped.
“Sword Domain! So it was of the Wuji lineage!”
The other side cried out in horror as well.
Wuji? Darkin frowned at the unfamiliar term.
“Filthy Wuji bastard!”
The opponent’s hands moved swiftly, tracing bizarre patterns in succession.
Mana began coalescing with visible intensity.
Soon it surged up like a typhoon.
“Descended heat, reversed rain, crimson earth fallen. Hellfire!”
A small flame ignited across from him—a meager fire unlike the grand spells from before.
But its power was of a different dimension.
The space around the flame began to warp.
The fire was burning space itself.
The heat was truly savage.
Yet the result was unchanged.
Though the fire burned space, the moment it entered the battlefield, it became nothing more than a rusted blade.
Of course.
This was a knight’s battlefield.
Unrighteous magic could not exist here.
“You—!”
In an instant, Grave was before his opponent. The movement was so natural, as if he’d been there all along.
But the opponent was no pushover.
Rather than yield, he pulled his staff back. Mana surged violently again, seeming ready to burst.
But that was all.
What he held was no longer a staff but a blade—so rusted that handling it was distasteful.
“Altering the concept itself—? I’ve never heard of a Sword Domain like this…”
Grave’s blade moved without emotion.
A sharp crack.
The blade pierced the opponent’s throat.
A dull sound.
The lifeless body collapsed.
A wet thud.
There was no corpse.
Only a single broken blade was added to the pile.
‘So all these blades are—’
Darkin looked around in shock. The battlefield was filled with countless broken weapons.
“Thousand Bone Sword Grave.”
Grave spoke the name flatly.
‘A tomb made of a thousand corpses and blades?’
Truly a grim name, yet it fit this desolate wasteland perfectly.
Soon the battlefield began to fade.
The desolate wasteland dissolved, and the familiar dense forest returned.
Only then could Darkin breathe.
Grave stood in his original spot as if he’d never moved.
Not a bead of sweat on him, his clothes not even disheveled.
His opponent had been at least a High Mage, fully prepared for this confrontation.
Yet he’d defeated such an opponent so effortlessly.
No matter how much of an advantage knights held over mages, this made no sense.
‘What exactly is he?’
How could someone so powerful be doing Security Corps work?
Darkin couldn’t fathom it.
Then a rough voice came from behind.
“Sorry about this.”
A sharp pain exploded from the back of his head.
‘There was an enemy behind me—’
Darkin spun around frantically. He saw a rough-looking man.
It was Milo, the Security Corps member. He’d struck Darkin from behind.
It was betrayal. Darkin didn’t know why, but he had to warn Grave about it.
With the last of his strength, Darkin managed to shout.
“Betrayal—!!”
Grave turned to look at him.
He had no idea why this idiot of a Security Corps member had betrayed them, but it was over now.
A mere Security Corps grunt couldn’t stand against a High Knight.
Then Grave furrowed his brows and scolded.
“Can’t you even do one thing right?”
“I’m sorry. He was too tall.”
“Too tall? You’re the short one.”
“I’m not a dwarf!”
“Didn’t ask.”
Wait, what—
Darkin’s eyes widened as he watched Grave and Milo converse casually, as if nothing was wrong.
“Never mind. Finish him quickly.”
“Yes, sir. Go limp. It’ll hurt less.”
A dull thud.
Darkin blacked out.
* * *
‘So this is what Sword Domain was.’
I muttered to myself as I shook out my numb hands.
I’d only used Sword Domain for three seconds, yet my Aura was completely drained, and exhaustion permeated my entire body.
My muscles wailed in protest.
The efficiency was absurdly low, but the effect was undeniable.
My opponent was a High Mage who’d made every preparation. I ended him in three seconds.
I could finally understand why Sword Domain was called the Flower of Knights.
But there was one problem.
‘Why am I chanting on my own?’
Unlike Magic and Black Magic, Aura didn’t require separate incantations or technique names.
Of course, some knights did recite technique names, but most of them were style-obsessed amateurs.
It made sense. When every moment of combat mattered, who’d waste breath on technique names?
Shouting technique names during a fight was a certification of being a fraud.
And yet—
‘I was the one chanting.’
It wasn’t intentional. The moment I completed the Sword Domain, my mouth moved of its own accord.
The reason was obvious.
‘Because I didn’t awaken and unfold it myself.’
Like when playing the game, the technique name came automatically.
It wasn’t a major side effect, but it was irritating regardless.
Thousand Bone Sword Grave, of all things.
What a pretentious name.
“But why do we need a thousand gold?”
Milo, who’d been tilting his head, scratched it and asked. I couldn’t help but sigh.
“It’s not thousand gold, it’s Thousand Bone Sword Grave. Never mind. Just make sure you handle Darkin properly.”
“Yes, I did. But why do we need a thousand gold?”
“Then let’s move immediately.”
“Should we head for the exit?”
“If we go out, the students and staff will all be waiting. Did you forget we’re in the middle of a kidnapping?”
“Right, good point. So what do we do?”
I clicked my tongue at Milo’s dumb realization and answered.
“It’s the Forest of the Lost. We get lost in it.”
Get lost?
Milo seemed not to understand, but he nodded anyway.
Doesn’t matter. He wouldn’t understand even if I explained.
Instead, Milo asked something else.
“So what was that Thousand Bone… whatever again?”
“Just move.”
“No, what’s the thousand gold thing?”
“Shut up, Milo.”
I said it with rare seriousness.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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