The Last Place Hero’s Return - Chapter 150

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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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Chapter 150. The Consecutive Disappearances of Candidates (4)
The School Cafe, tucked away in a secluded corner of the Hero Academy with its weathered interior, was notorious for having no candidates around.
A dull thud echoed through the space, followed by a man’s sharp cry of pain.
“You bastard! What? I told you to search seriously, didn’t I?”
I kicked Berald and twisted my expression into a savage scowl.
“Ugh, ow! I-I’m sorry, sir!”
Berald cowered with his body curled up, taking the beating.
‘Right.’
I suddenly recalled Sophia, who had seemed to harbor some affection for Berald.
Feeling a twinge of guilt, I glanced sideways at her, and she appeared to think ‘Yeah, he deserves that beating’ as she quietly sipped her coffee and flipped through documents with a flutter.
“Sigh.”
I exhaled a short breath and sat back down in my chair.
Berald cautiously picked himself up, gauging my mood.
“Investigate properly.”
“Ahem. Y-yes, understood.”
Berald nodded and examined the documents again.
“Hmm.”
Berald studied the victim list with a serious expression.
“Huh?”
Berald tilted his head while reviewing the documents.
“Sir! Look at this!”
“What now?”
I was already thinking it would be something ridiculous again.
“The number of divine marks on the victims is almost identical!”
“The number of divine marks is the same?”
“Look here. Three candidates with the Sun God’s mark, three with the Star God’s mark, and three with the Sea God’s mark, right?”
“…Wait.”
Dividing the divine marks of the twenty victims as Berald said, except for two with the Earth God’s mark, all others had exactly three victims each.
‘This is no coincidence.’
The number of candidates varied by the type of divine mark.
Due to the nature of divine marks, which had a high probability of being inherited by children, the Moon God’s mark and the Forest God’s mark—commonly called “minority” marks among Continentals—naturally had fewer candidates possessing them.
In particular, the Forest God’s mark that I possessed was so rare that fewer than thirty candidates in my entire year held it.
Yet the victims possessed divine marks in such uniform numbers.
‘The perpetrator deliberately matched the numbers.’
In other words.
‘If this pattern continues, the next target would be…’
Most likely a candidate with the Earth God’s mark, the only one with just two victims so far.
“Nice work, Berald.”
Being able to narrow down who the perpetrator would target next was certainly a significant breakthrough.
“Hehehehe. How’s that? I’m a capable man when I put my mind to it!”
Berald raised his nose proudly, puffing out his chest with self-satisfaction.
I stifled a laugh watching him.
“Even a broken clock is right twice a day, or so they say….”
“Hmm? What do you mean a broken clock is right?”
“…Never mind, forget it.”
I abandoned the explanation and shifted my gaze back to the victim list.
‘So the next target would be a fourth-year candidate bearing the stigma of the Earth God.’
The problem was that the Earth God’s stigma was one of the most common marks, so there were plenty of candidates who possessed it.
Among the five hundred fourth-year candidates, nearly one hundred fifty bore the Earth God’s stigma.
‘This alone isn’t enough to identify the next target.’
I needed to find clues that would narrow the scope further.
“Hmm….”
As I continued sifting through the documents.
“Found it. A clue.”
Sophia, who had been quietly examining the papers, spoke up.
She had laid out the victim list in chronological order.
Following the list she had arranged, I examined the information of each victim candidate, but I couldn’t spot anything that could be called a clue.
“There’s one piece of misinformation in these documents.”
“What is it?”
“The comprehensive evaluation ranking.”
Sophia scanned through the candidate list and continued.
“The comprehensive evaluation ranking listed here is from last year. I placed second in the comprehensive ranking evaluation last semester, but it shows me as third here.”
“…It seems the comprehensive evaluation ranking from last semester hasn’t been updated yet.”
That made sense.
Generally, comprehensive evaluation ranking information was inaccessible to candidates, so updating it inevitably took time.
“If I correct it based on last semester… it becomes like this.”
Sophia corrected the comprehensive evaluation rankings listed on the victim candidate list.
“But how do you know all the other candidates’ grades?”
In principle, candidates couldn’t access other candidates’ grades except their own.
Of course, that was only in principle—ranking tables did circulate openly, but they only revealed who the top performers were. No one memorized every single ranking from first to last place.
“I saw last semester’s ranking table once when I was running errands for the professors.”
“You memorized all of it from just one viewing?”
There were nearly five hundred candidates in a single year, and she claimed to have memorized all of them from seeing it just once?
As I stared at Sophia with an expression of disbelief, she tilted her head and replied.
“Why? It’s not particularly difficult, is it?”
“….”
Ah, right.
Sophia was that kind of person.
Recalling memories from my past life, I smiled wryly as Sophia pointed to the list she had laid out.
“The first victim in this incident is Elika Jung. Her candidate ranking is 438th.”
“And next is Darian Vigilio. Candidate ranking: 387th.”
“Next is Hollis Buto. Candidate ranking: 273rd.”
At this point, I could finally understand what “clue” Sophia had mentioned.
“So the culprit is progressively targeting candidates with higher rankings…is that right?”
“Exactly.”
Sophia nodded in agreement.
‘Targeting progressively higher-ranked candidates, indeed.’
I turned to Sophia and asked.
“What was the ranking of the most recent victim?”
“7th. A candidate named Bertrand Jin from the Republic.”
“Then someone in the top 6 would be next in line.”
“That’s right, if our deduction is correct.”
Fourth year.
A bearer of the Earth God’s stigma, ranked within the top 6 in overall evaluation.
With this much information gathered, I could predict who the next victim of the “Candidate Disappearance Incident” would be.
“Based on these conditions… the culprit’s next target would be Laios Ryu.”
Laios Ryu.
Grandson of Raonel Ryu, the current principal of Hero Academy, the “Thunder God.”
True to the Ryu family name, he bore the Earth God’s stigma, and among the fourth-year candidates—a class so exceptional that they were called legendary—he confidently held the 4th place in overall ranking.
“W-wait, you’re saying Laios is the next target?!”
Berald asked back in shock.
Sophia flinched as Berald’s face drew closer, letting out a small gasp before turning her head away sharply and answering.
“Y-yes. If our deduction is correct, the next target is Laios Ryu.”
“Hmm. So Laios is the target…”
Berald trailed off with a worried tone.
Though the relationship between him and Laios couldn’t be called good, they were still family, sharing the same Ryu surname.
I lightly patted Berald’s shoulder and spoke.
“Well, even if he becomes a victim of the disappearance incident, he’ll just pass out for a few hours and wake up, so don’t worry too much.”
“Ah, you’re right when you think about it.”
Berald nodded with a relieved expression.
He flashed a spirited smile and slammed the table with a thud, shouting.
“Alright! Now that we know who the next target is, let’s gather our thoughts on how to catch the culprit and do some brain breaking!”
“You mean brainstorming.”
Why would you break your brain, you idiot.
“And I already have a method in mind for catching the culprit.”
“Ooh! As expected of you, sir!”
“Well, it’s not exactly a grand plan.”
I turned to Berald and Sophia, a sly smile spreading across my face.
“To catch fish, you need bait, don’t you?”
“…You’re planning to use Laios as bait?”
“That’s right. We’ll attach a tracking magic device to Laios beforehand and wait quietly until the culprit makes a move.”
“Hmm.”
Sophia opened her eyes narrowly, her arms crossed.
“It’s a good method, but… how are you planning to attach the tracking device? Given Laios’s personality, there’s no way he’d cooperate willingly, right?”
As Sophia said, there was no possibility that Laios Ryu would cooperate with us.
I’d learned more than enough about his personality from the previous friction with Berald.
But.
“You don’t need to worry about that.”
I smiled and placed my hand on Berald’s shoulder.
“With Berald’s ‘magic,’ attaching a tracking device is hardly a problem.”
“Really?”
Sophia’s eyes sparkled with anticipation as she looked at Berald, curious about what magic he would use.
* * *
The next day.
Near Laios’s dormitory.
Berald and I exchanged glances while masks covered our faces.
“You’re done with the voice modulation?”
“Yes.”
Berald nodded, and from his lips came not his familiar voice but that of an unfamiliar man.
We waited silently near the dormitory entrance for about ten minutes.
Then Laios emerged from the dormitory.
“Let’s begin.”
I quietly pursued Laios and signaled Berald with a glance.
First, I would start.
“Hah.”
Berald’s martial arts.
Wind Step.
I approached Laios at blinding speed and immediately deployed a barrier spell.
An advanced version of the mana-blocking barrier I’d used before.
A barrier that blocked all mana within a specific area.
Of course, it had the fatal drawback that even the user couldn’t use mana.
‘It doesn’t matter.’
We had a hero who could use ‘magic’ even without mana.
“What—what is this?”
Perhaps he sensed the sudden abnormality in his mana.
Laios looked around in confusion.
Before he could urgently move outside the barrier, Berald planted his feet.
“Tch! Who are you…?”
“Silence!”
“Ugh!”
Berald silenced Laios with a sharp strike to the nape of his neck using the edge of his hand.
Gripping Laios by the throat as he choked and sputtered, Berald brought his hand down in a knife-edge strike toward the back of his head.
“Sliiiiip!”
Crack!
With a dull thud, Laios crumpled to the ground, unconscious.
Berald looked down at the fallen Laios and flashed me a thumbs-up.
I quickly approached the unconscious Laios and slipped a tracking magical device into the inner pocket of his uniform.
And Sophia, who had been watching the entire scene unfold beside us, was—
“…Magic?”
Her eyes narrowed in confusion, utterly unable to comprehend the spectacle unfolding before her.

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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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