As if their feet were glued to the ground, they couldn't move a muscle and found it hard to even breathe properly. Patrick approached them and spoke.
“If you're going to pick a fight, you should see it through to the end. Starting a fight and then asking to stop is the thirty-second thing I hate the most.”
"Ah... no, that's not it...."
“Yes, it is. You bastards!”
Patrick, transformed into an incarnation of merciless violence, descended upon the first-year students. And in their extreme pain, they thought. Why does this bastard hate so many things?
It was a scene reminiscent of a battlefield.
"Ugh... ugh...."
"My arm... my aaarm...."
"Uwaaaah...."
No. No one was dead, so a battlefield wasn't quite appropriate.
Yes.
This was a scene reminiscent of a field hospital after a fierce battle. No one was dead, but no one was unharmed either. Every one of the dozen or so knight faculty first-years had a few broken and shattered bones, their faces swollen and puffy.
If someone were to capture this moment in a painting, the title ‘Tragedy’ would be fitting. Blood dripped, drop by drop, from the fist of Patrick, the one who had created this gruesome scene. It was all someone else's blood.
In that state, Patrick looked around and said.
“Did I beat everyone up evenly? Anyone who didn't get hit, raise your hand?”
“...”
“...”
“Looks like there's no one.”
'That crazy bastard....' 'He's not even human.' 'He's a devil.
He must be a descendant of the demons.' Worse than the pain of their broken and battered bodies was the sight of Patrick, the one who had put them in this state, still looking around as if disappointed. 'If he catches me, I'm dead.'
'I can't even flinch.' 'If I get hit again, I'll die.' They did their best not to move a muscle, as if they were corpses.
But there was one person for whom such efforts were futile...
“You, get over here. You need to be hit more.”
It was Roist, the instigator of this incident. Patrick grabbed the armor of the fallen Roist and lifted him with one hand.
Crunch.
As the metal around his neck crumpled, the lifted Roist was horrified.
"Hic... w-wait.”
“Wait? What's there to wait for when you're getting hit?”
“If... if I get hit more, I'll d…”
“You won't die. You bastard. I said you won't die.”
And Patrick's fist relentlessly hammered into Roist's face.
“Do you.”
Thwack!
“Think I.” Crack!
“Haven't beaten up a person or two before?”
Thwack!
“I'm the one who has done research upon research to inflict the maximum amount of pain without killing someone. You bastard!”
Crack, crack, crack, crack, crack. Was that something a human would do? The fallen ones trembled, and Roist's face was turning into a bloody pulp.
If anyone with some knowledge saw this, it would be quite a surprising sight. His nose was crushed and his eyes and lips swelled up, but with truly exquisite control, he was hitting him in a way that the shock wouldn't reach his brain.
It was violence that made it clear that this beating was purely for the sake of 'pain'. This way, he wouldn't die. Far from dying, he wouldn't even lose consciousness.
His life was not in danger, but he had to vividly feel the sensation of his nerve-concentrated face being slowly, slowly crushed and shattered.
"St... stop.... Ugh... ugh...."
Roist was now crying and begging. This wasn't right. He had only intended to teach a country bumpkin from the east a lesson.
If he had known he was such a monster, he wouldn't have touched him. Above all, wasn't this just a fight between students? Was there a reason to go this far?
Seeing Roist shedding tears of indignation, Patrick spoke coldly.
“You seem to think this is just some kind of power struggle that can happen between students?”
"Y... yes...."
Roist nodded his head inadvertently. And Patrick said.
"That's your perspective, and you shouldn't force your perspective on others, right? Isn't that so?"
“My fath… my father is…”
“Ah, your father? Marquis Panola, was it?”
“Ye… yes.”
“Want me to tell you something good? The sixth thing I hate the most are bastards like you who act tough relying on their background.”
"Uh..."
“And from the single digits, it's no joke. You bastard!”
And in one swift motion, Patrick shattered both of Roist's shoulders.
Crunch!
“Kuaaaaaaaah!”
He shattered both shoulders, which were as good as a swordsman's life. In that moment, Roist screamed, feeling a despair more profound than pain. After the shoulders came the elbows, and then the wrists and fingers....
Crack, crunch!
“Uwaaaaaaaah! Aaaack!”
Amidst the harrowing screams, Patrick completely took away from his opponent the two arms crucial for a swordsman. If left like this, he would have trouble holding utensils properly, let alone a sword.
“Ugh….. ugh…..”
Looking at his own mangled and dangling arms, Roist shed tears of despair and pain. And Patrick spoke to such a Roist.
“Remember this, brat. What it means to pick a fight with me.”
“Ugh… Uwaaaaaaaah!”
In that moment, Roist felt a fear more intense than any other moment in his life. He had messed with the wrong person.
Family? Power?
None of that mattered. The man before his eyes was someone who should never have been touched, separate from the logic of the world. 'Should I destroy his dantian now?'
Just as Patrick was about to finish it...
"Stop!"
From one side of the training grounds, a group of professors was rushing over.
“Tsk, did I drag it on for too long?”
A professor ran up to the disappointed Patrick and spoke. It was not Professor Leit, whom Patrick knew, but someone else.
“What… what in the world is going on here?”
He couldn't believe the sight before his eyes. The students of the knight faculty were all lying collapsed in a line, and not a single one was unscathed. And in Roist's case, he was a complete mess, crawling on the ground like a worm, groaning in pain.
The person who created this tragedy was...
“Who are you?”
“Patrick Schneider.”
“... What?”
"I just transferred in yesterday.” "You... you did?” He had heard that one more person had joined through a mid-term admission.
But he didn't know that the person who had joined was the one who had caused such a major incident.
“You… you are…?”
"What about me?"
“... For now, come with me. I need to hear the details.”
“As you wish.”
Patrick obediently followed the professor. Patrick Schneider, first-year of the knight faculty.
Confined.
It wasn't a formal punishment. It was merely a temporary measure imposed before the official punishment was decided, forbidding him from taking a single step out of his dormitory. And the professors of the knight faculty immediately gathered to hold a meeting to decide Patrick's disciplinary action.
“Expulsion. It has to be expulsion!”
“For a mid-term transfer student to cause an incident like this on his first day? This is unprecedented.”
“If we let this go, we won't be able to maintain discipline at the academy.”
The professors strongly insisted on Patrick's expulsion. But there was one person who looked at those professors with a cold gaze.
“What nonsense.”
It was Professor Justin Leit. At his single remark, all the other professors flinched. In truth, even though they were all professors of the same knight faculty, Professor Leit was a man whose presence was different from the others.
He is a knight who has reached the six-star level, one of only five in the kingdom, and is a formidable figure acknowledged even in other kingdoms as Justin Leit, the Unyielding Knight. A single word from such a Professor Leit could not carry the same weight as the words of the other professors.
He looked at the professors insisting on Patrick's expulsion and said.
“Did you all take money from Marquis Panola or something? Seeing you all spout this nonsense when you obviously know the full story.”
“Professor Leit, what are you talking about?”
“That's going too far.”
"As professors of the academy, we..."
Bang!
Professor Leit slammed his fist on the desk and spoke.
“Fifteen people tried to attack one person. And with a personal grudge at that.”
"No, that's..."
“And they call themselves aspiring knights, pulling a stunt like this? If it were up to me right now, I'd feel like shattering all these bastards' aura halls.”
“...”
“...”
“And now what? Expulsion? You want to expel the one who defended himself alone against a group? Are all of you insane?”
At Leit's questioning, the other professors all fell silent. In fact, they roughly knew the whole story. It was a situation impossible not to know unless the professors were complete morons with no sense.
Patrick was alone, and his opponents were a group of more than ten. Roist, in particular, was heavily armed with full armor and a real sword. While Patrick was bare-handed.
Technically speaking, this was an incident where all the conditions for clear self-defense were met. However, as they too were living as knights in the kingdom, they could not ignore the reputation of Marquis Panola, the Royal Knight Commander. However, not all professors were like that.
“I won't even discuss the virtues of a knight. Before that, as a human being with a conscience, how can you say such things when you obviously know the full story?”
Justin Leit.
The Unyielding Knight. As one of only five six-star knights in the kingdom, he was a man who had nothing to lose to Marquis Panola. Moreover, their personal relationship was also bad.
It was a public secret that Professor Leit had left the Royal Knight Order due to friction with Marquis Panola. Therefore, Professor Leit had no reason at all to be wary of the name Marquis Panola. Moreover, though he had not yet revealed it to the world, Professor Leit had now reached the seven-star level.
He had not officially announced it, but the moment he declared he had reached the seven-star level, even Marquis Panola would not dare to touch him. Professor Leit looked around coldly and said.
“As the head professor of the knight faculty, I oppose the expulsion of Patrick Schneider. If you really want to expel him, go ahead and try after a thorough investigation that reveals the full story of the incident.”
“Hmm... Professor Leit, please calm down.”
“We're not trying to cause a scene either.”
As Professor Leit came out this strongly, the others were reluctant to let the matter escalate. In fact, if the whole story were investigated, what Roist had done until now would also be revealed, which would certainly not be beneficial.
If rumors spread that the third son of the Royal Knight Commander had committed misdeeds within the academy, the responsibility would clearly fall on them as well. In the end, the result of the meeting was...