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Chapter - 3: Since When Is a Werewolf a Shining Knight?
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After parting ways with Moka once we reached our dormitories—positioned facing each other on opposite sides of the central walkway—I returned to my room. I wanted to make sure everything was in order, that my luggage had arrived without issue, and that nothing was missing.
Fortunately, it seemed the school staff was at least competent, which gave me a small sense of relief as I grabbed one of my bags to pull out a frame with a photo inside.
As I gripped it between my fingers, I felt a slight tremor run through my hand, as if that simple gesture had suddenly become heavier than expected. In the image, we were all together, united in a moment I had considered normal, almost insignificant back then, but which now appeared wrapped in a silent, stinging nostalgia that tightened my chest.
Our smiles were natural, sincere, unaware of everything that would happen afterward. For a moment, I stood there staring at those faces as if, by looking long enough, they might offer answers to the questions that continued to haunt me.
I felt a pang in my chest—a tangle of regret and determination as I thought about what I had lost and how far I was willing to push myself just to ensure something so precious would never be torn away from me again.
I shook my head to banish those dark thoughts and realized I still had some time before classes began. I had no intention of staying cooped up in my room waiting, especially since I loathed wasting even a single moment that could be dedicated to something productive whether training or learning something new to exploit in the future.
Every minute allowed to slip by doing nothing gave me the nagging sensation of falling behind.
I decided to head back out for a walk around the campus; it seemed like the best way to familiarize myself with the school, memorize the paths, and get a clearer idea of this place that, whether I liked it or not, would become my new daily reality.
I left the dormitory without haste, letting my gaze settle on the surroundings. I couldn't help but notice several students casting curious glances my way, some more insistent than others. It wasn't surprising; I was the newcomer, and in a place like this, they were likely already trying to figure out what kind of monster I was.
I never liked being the center of attention, so I steered away from the crowded areas and headed toward a more isolated part of the campus where the physical education facilities were located.
Observing those buildings, I couldn't help but wonder if there was equipment designed specifically for monsters. Such tools would be extremely useful for my future training, one way or another.
Though, I seriously doubted it.
Mikogami's goal was to promote coexistence between humans and monsters, and I struggled to believe he would ever allow the distribution of tools capable of making monsters stronger than necessary with such ease—even if I doubted a monster would accept such a thing without first suffering a defeat humiliating enough to break their pride to truly increase their strength.
If he could choose freely, he would probably do the exact opposite...
My thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a disgusting smell that hit my nose, in sharp contrast to the clean air of the campus: sweat, metal, and a sharp sting of nervousness made me clench my jaw, and I stopped instantly.
The silence around me suggested no one else was there, yet my hearing caught irregular movements, a dull impact, and breaths too heavy for a simple workout. Every fiber of my body tensed, warning me that something anomalous was happening nearby.
I inhaled slowly, letting my senses work; the sensation was similar to those first times I had experienced something like this, right after becoming a hybrid, when every sound, smell, and movement overwhelmed me with an almost unbearable intensity.
Over time, however, I had learned to filter out the noise, to ignore what I didn't need and focus all my attention only on relevant stimuli and gradually, the direction became clear: the gym warehouse.
My pace changed without me realizing it, becoming faster and more decisive as I felt my muscles stiffen and my jaw tighten. The closer I got, the clearer and more distinct those noises became. In front of the door, I didn't hesitate for a second; I pushed it open, and the scene before me required no explanation.
I saw the back of an adult man in a gym uniform, bent forward on all fours in a position that left very little room for doubt. Beneath him, pinned to the ground, was a girl with long dark purple hair tied in two side braids, her arms raised above her head, her breath gasping and her body rigid as she struggled uselessly to free herself.
Beside the girl were two objects that immediately caught my attention: a large witch's hat and a thick, decorated book—likely a grimoire a witch. It was the only explanation I could give for the scene.
Not that it mattered much to me at that moment.
For an instant, no one moved. Then the man turned toward me, clearly annoyed by the interruption.
He looked me up and down with an irritated expression. "Mhm?" he said. "I've never seen you before... Are you a new student?" A crooked smile cracked his lips. "Well, it doesn't really matter. Get lost before I—" He didn't even have time to finish the sentence before I had already lunged forward.
My kick launched before I could even think about it and struck his face with violence, hurling him against the wall behind him, which gave way with a dull roar, forming a crater around his body.
The silence that followed was broken only by the girl's heavy breathing.
"Are you okay?" I asked, turning my gaze to the girl after a final look at the collapsed wall.
I decided not to get closer, since it was obvious that, after what had just happened, any gesture too close would be out of place, and for that reason I kept my distance, doing my best not to linger on the neckline of her unbuttoned shirt, which revealed just a glimpse of her cute white and light-blue horizontally striped.
She nodded slowly, still a bit dazed, with a visible blush on her cheeks. "T-thank you..." she murmured, adjusting her skirt and school uniform, then quickly grabbed the witch's hat and the book, positioning herself behind me as if for protection, yet staying close.
"You don't even have to say it..." I was clenching my teeth so hard I could feel every nerve in my face stiffen and the veins in my neck bulging with rage. "You should just go to the infirmary to get checked out. I'll take care of talking to this piece of shit." I looked at her, waiting for a positive response.
But she shook her head decisively, refusing to move. "I'm staying here with you," she said, tilting her head slightly and staring at me with an intense gaze, as if she wanted to witness everything that was about to happen.
"As you wish," I replied, cracking my knuckles and my neck. "If you want to watch me take out the trash that badly..." I took a step forward, aware through my senses that the fight wasn't over yet.
"Take out the trash? Arrogant as they come for a first-year!" he growled, emerging from the rubble of the wall with blood dripping down his face and staining his clothes. "I don't know what kind of monster you are, but you should have finished it with that attack before I could transform. Now I'll make you regret every single moment you dared to ruin my chance to fuck her!"
As soon as he finished speaking, his body began to swell and grow before my eyes. The school uniform ripped with a dull tear, revealing a massive bulk of bulging muscles and a torso covered in sharp spikes.
And then… several tentacles began to emerge, thrashing in the air like the arms of a squid, while a pungent smell of sweat and iron saturated the room, making the atmosphere even more disgusting than it already was.
"Be careful," I said, slowly tilting my head down when I felt the girl pull on my uniform to get my attention. I turned toward her and saw her calm face staring at me as she whispered in a low voice, "Professor Kotsubo… is a Kraken."
Professor Kotsubo…
So he really was a teacher?
A teacher who had just tried to rape one of his students…
In that moment, something inside me snapped. It wasn't just anger, but a violent mix of emotions that hit me like a punch to the stomach, shifting from pure disgust to a burning, uncontrollable hatred.
I felt the blood boiling in my veins, my stomach tightening, my muscles tensed like ropes on the verge of snapping. The idea that someone entrusted with the protection and guidance of students had dared to cross such a line made my desire to kill him stronger than anything I had ever felt before.
Seriously, how could Mikogami have found someone like this?
The more I thought about it, the harder it became to understand, especially since some of his decisions seemed incomprehensible to me, almost in open contradiction to everything he claimed to want for the future.
Was it possible he hadn't noticed what kind of monster he was allowing to thrive under his own roof? Or worse… did he know from the beginning?
For a brief instant, an uncomfortable, almost blasphemous thought crossed my mind: what if all this was part of his plan? A convoluted, cruel but effective method to draw out the trash hidden among the monsters—those who didn't fit his idea of coexistence in the "ideal" world he was trying to build.
Let them believe they are safe, give them enough rope, and then watch them hang themselves.
I didn't know if Mikogami was truly that calculating or if I was just trying to justify something that couldn't be justified, but one thing was certain: if that was the method, I didn't mind helping in this way at all.
A Kraken, of all things.
If my memory served me right, according to the bestiary, they were legendary creatures, monsters so vast they reached sizes impossible to imagine: kilometers of flesh and tentacles, the living terror of the northern seas, scary enough to make even Vikings tremble.
Stories described them as generally peaceful beings, ancient and detached from the world of men. But when their wrath awakened, they dragged everything into the abyss with them, crushing ships, lives, and hopes beneath the depths of the ocean.
Yet, looking at him there in front of me, I understood one thing with absolute clarity: evidently, like many other monsters, the stories about Krakens had been exaggerated not to make them nobler or more terrifying, but to hide that sometimes even legends can rot.
"Thanks," I said to the girl without hesitation, noticing a slight blush on her cheeks. She was cute, and at the same time, my senses flared instantly. A tentacle lunged toward us, and without thinking, I lifted her in a princess carry as I stepped aside to dodge it.
She let out a small, shy sound that pulled a slight smile from me.
"Stop talking like two fucking lovers in front of me!" Kotsubo screamed, his voice thick with rage as his tentacles contorted more and more in the air, lashing out in every direction like bloodthirsty snakes trying to grab me.
I snorted, tilting my head slightly and staring at him with a contempt so blatant it could be cut with a knife. "Eh… and I thought you couldn't get any uglier... A form like that should at least make you much stronger, and instead, you're not even that," I murmured calmly with evident amusement.
"What did you say, you little bastard?!" His eyes widened, filled with blind fury, as a beastly roar tore through the air. He hurled himself at us with violence, lashing the enormous tentacles against the ground like clubs, causing the stone to crack and shatter under the force of the blows.
I dodged them effortlessly, step by step, observing every movement with calm detachment. "Is that all?" I asked in a steady, almost bored voice.
Then, in a flash, I grabbed one of the tentacles and ripped it away from his body with extreme ease. A high-pitched scream tore from his throat as blood exploded in crimson sprays, soaking the floor and splashing the walls, leaving behind a sticky, viscous trail; the severed tentacle pulsed and contracted still in my hand while his body staggered, completely helpless.
"W-what the hell… how? Why?! What are you?!" It was almost funny to see all that bravado dissolve so quickly. In its place remained only terror as he staggered back, staring at the severed tentacle writhing on the ground as if it had a life of its own.
Eventually, I set the girl down, making sure she was out of danger. "Nothing special," I replied with a sly smile. "I'm simply much stronger than trash like you." Then I tilted my head slightly. "And as for what you said before, I could have just killed you before you transformed, but it wouldn't have been as fun as tearing you apart."
"W-what…?" he stared at me, mouth agape.
"In other words," I said, narrowing my eyes as murderous intent flashed through my gaze, "Die." My hand began to glow as I gathered the Yōki from my body and concentrated it at my fingertips, transforming my energy into claws as sharp as blades, pointed directly at him.
Kotsubo screamed, desperately trying to defend himself with his tentacles, but it was useless: one after another, they were severed and torn away by my attack, shredded like soft meat. Every limb lost drew more hysterical screams from him—a mixture of pain and desperate rage that, I must admit, amused me more than it should have.
But it wasn't over yet.
Before he could react, I grabbed the last remaining tentacle and pulled it violently toward me, closing the distance in an instant. I spun around and delivered a devastating kick to his chest, feeling the bones shatter under the force of the impact before the blow lifted him off the ground and hurled him through the collapsed wall, toward the edge of the forest.
His body hit the ground with a dull thud, disappearing among broken branches and a cloud of dust that rose slowly, leaving him motionless but still alive, since I had held back—at least for the moment.
I began to approach him, whistling with an unnatural calm, as if I were simply taking a stroll on any ordinary day. It was a habit I had picked up from my father; he always did it when stalking prey during a hunt, whistling softly as he approached and letting fear do half the work for him.
In that moment, it felt natural to imitate him.
Moving toward him, every step was slow and calculated, designed to prolong the wait, to stretch out those few remaining moments and feed the terror inside him, giving him all the time necessary to understand that there was no escape and that the end was inevitable one way or another.
When I arrived in front of him, I looked down at his devastated and broken body without feeling any particular emotion. "Any last words to apologize to the world for your miserable life?" I asked, staring down at him.
Kotsubo had nothing left of the legendary Kraken: he writhed and trembled like a trapped rat, his eyes wide with the fear of death. "I-I'm sorry… I-I won't do it again…" he implored, his voice breaking, desperately clinging to life.
"That's not even remotely enough for what you were about to do." I raised my hand, feeling the Yōki condense again around my fingers, preparing to unleash my signature attack to end that wretched existence.
But my arm was stopped abruptly, and looking down in surprise, I saw the purple-haired girl wrapping herself around my arm, suddenly pressing it against her body and preventing any offensive move.
For an instant, I had to force myself to focus on the situation, ignoring the strange awareness of her body pressed against mine—naturally a detail out of place, yet impossible for me to ignore.
I turned toward her. "Why are you defending him?" I asked, my voice clearly confused by such a choice. "He was trying to rape you!" She slowly shook her head, her gaze firm and determined, devoid of fear or hesitation.
"If that's what you want..." I muttered, stopping completely, letting the final decision be hers. Even if I didn't like it at all, she was the victim, and if this was her decision, it had to be respected.
She nodded, visibly relieved, as if a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders.
"T-thank you, Y-Yue... I promise I'll never do anything like that again..." Kotsubo stammered, his voice broken with emotion, accompanied by a clear sigh of relief at not dying.
But she didn't even look at him; she ignored him as if he didn't exist.
"So, if you don't want to kill him, what do you intend to do?" I asked. "Do you want the headmaster to decide his punishment, or do you have something else in mind?"
Yue remained silent for a moment, her eyes lost in a void as she reflected. But then she moved slowly in front of the Kraken, as if she wanted to speak to him—or at least, that was the impression she gave me initially.
But I raised an eyebrow, confused, when I saw her slowly open the book in her hands. The pages moved on their own until stopping at an illustration depicting a mage intent on casting an electric spell.
"Iaculatio Fulgoris," she pronounced calmly. Immediately, the book glowed with a blinding light, and beside her, a javelin of pure magic materialized, crackling with electricity, pointed straight at Kotsubo.
I didn't even have time to react, even if I had wanted to.
With a lightning flash, the javelin shot forward, hitting Kotsubo full force. In an instant, flesh, bone, and blood were vaporized, erased as if they had never existed, along with an entire section of the tree that was swept away.
I stood staring at the scene for a few seconds, incredulous at what I had just seen. Then, breaking the silence, I couldn't help but ask the only thing that came to mind at that moment: "I might be wrong, but... did you ask me not to kill him because you wanted to do it yourself?"
Yue closed the book calmly, as if she had just handled a simple formality, and looked at me. A faint, surprisingly gentle smile appeared on her face after what had just happened, leaving me speechless for a moment.
"Yes," she muttered in a low voice, almost a whisper. "A-after all, he hurt me… And if there was to be a punishment for what happened, it had to fall on me, not on you who helped me." Her tone was calm, but inside there was a determination trembling just beneath the surface, like a fire that refused to go out.
She was truly too adorable for her own good.
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