Reincarnated as the Only Male in an All-Girls Magic Academy!
Chapter 33: Drop Her!

Chapter 33: Drop Her!

The snow-crusted air stung like tiny daggers as Ren and Lia skidded across the ice-riddled floor of the auditorium, their boots crunching over the frozen chaos.

The whole place looked like it had been locked inside the belly of a glacier.

The walls sparkled with thick frost, the ceiling was crusted with icicles longer than spears, and everything glistened in a haunting bluish glow as if someone had pressed the pause button on reality.

It was like walking into a horror museum built by Mother Nature and decorated by Death herself.

Ren slowed, his kusarigama dragging against the floor with a low metallic ring, and though his body screamed from the hundreds of small wounds covering him, his mind was laser-sharp, drinking in every detail.

His breath fogged in front of him, and beside him, Lia stood in her usual grumpy silence, arms crossed but clearly trying to keep her balance on the slick surface.

The girl had ice forming in her hair, for god’s sake. Still, Ren didn’t even flinch.

He just approached Mirabella and said with the same kind of casual calm as someone talking about the weather, "That was impressive... But we’re not done."

Mirabella blinked, tilting her head slightly, her breath coming in controlled puffs. "What do you mean?"

Ren straightened up, brushing snow off his shoulder as if that would help his bleeding situation.

"You forgot something important. We only evacuated the girls who were in class. The dorms still have dozens of prospectives."

Mirabella’s eyes widened for a second, then narrowed in thought.

She turned toward the distorted wound in the distance as if suddenly seeing the entire battlefield like a chessboard. "You’re right."

’Of course I’m right,’ Ren thought but didn’t say. Because he wasn’t a show-off. Well, not entirely.

There wasn’t a moment to waste. In under a minute, Ren, Mirabella, and Lia huddled in front of a frosted-over pillar, shivering slightly but ignoring it while planning.

Ren knelt and began drawing on the frost with his finger; a rough map of the dorm zones, buildings, and the fastest paths to get there from their current location.

"If we split into three search groups, we can reach all six dorm buildings, sweep each hallway, and then meet back at the south side of the arena. But considering as we are all weak and injured, we have to move as one group."

Mirabella nodded. "The arena’s defenses are the strongest. Plus the forcefield is already up. They’ll be safe inside once they get there."

"Exactly," Ren said. Then he jabbed a thumb toward the icy window. "But we’ll have to move fast. If more curses start pouring out..."

As if the universe was eavesdropping, the wound above the sky suddenly convulsed. The sky darkened.

And with an ear-piercing shriek, hundreds of new curses began pouring out like a waterfall of nightmares.

Some were small and scuttling, others massive and shrieking with limbs where there should’ve been none, but two particular curses stood out from the rest.

Their aura was sickening. It made the air feel like it was being sucked out of the lungs. The stage 3s!

They were leading the charge.

"Oh, not again," Ren muttered.

Mirabella’s expression hardened. "Let’s move!"

And just like that, they were off. Lia activated her flame rune, and her body shimmered with orange light, her spear bursting into a trail of fire.

Mirabella conjured shimmering platforms beneath her boots to help her leap over the broken ruins that filled the field outside.

Ren, bruised and battered, gritted his teeth and kept pace with them, blood trickling down his back from where a curse had caught him earlier with a lucky swipe.

They cut through the academy ruins like fire through paper, racing against time, dodging collapsing walls, leaping over clawed remains of shattered curses.

Ren could feel the vibrations of heavy footsteps behind them; the curses were following. The stage 3s surprisingly moved slower than the pack, but their presence alone kept the others in a blood frenzy.

Then it happened.

Ren landed after a wild leap over a broken classroom wall, and the moment his feet hit the floor, he realized he was alone.

Too alone.

He spun.

"Lia? Mirabella?!"

But they’d unknowingly jumped ahead and were too far to help.

Because in front of him, five stage 1 curses surrounded him like wolves. Their skin bubbled. Their eyes were pits of emotion. Rage. Despair. Greed. Fear. And Lust.

Oh good. A buffet of emotional nightmares.

Ren swallowed hard, then forced himself to calm down. Emotions were their weapons, after all. Let them in, and he’d be a puppet.

"Alright then," he muttered, twirling his kusarigama and feeling the chain sing through the air, "Let’s dance."

The first curse lunged. It was a fear-based one, its head flickering with ghost-like faces and Ren sidestepped with perfect timing, swinging the club end of his weapon in a tight arc.

Bang!

The spiked metal smashed through the curse’s shoulder with a squelch, sending it screeching back.

Another tried to leap over him, but Ren activated his rune at once.

There was a sudden glow on his body, and Ren’s momentum, instead of dying in the air, shifted directions.

He twisted mid-air like a human top, using the force of his prior dodge to slam downward with crushing speed. His foot smashed a curse’s face straight into the rubble.

But it wasn’t over. He kept moving.

The rune didn’t make him faster or stronger when activated. It simply let him use his own momentum like a tool.

And with a kusarigama, momentum was everything. He spun, flipped, rebounded off a ruined statue, let the chain wrap around a curse’s throat, and then yanked it forward while bringing the club down with bone-cracking force.

Bang!

Three down.

He was panting. Staggering. Bleeding. But not done.

A rage curse charged next, massive and red-skinned with muscle lumps like rocks. It roared and swung a spiked limb at his head.

Ren ducked.

But not just ducked, he flowed, redirecting his dodge into a sweeping movement.

His kusarigama wrapped around the monster’s leg, and using his rune again, he shifted all his falling momentum into a pull.

The curse flipped.

It flipped!

Mid-air, Ren yanked the chain and flung the beast straight into another curse trying to sneak him from the side.

They collided. Messily.

Ren landed hard, staggered, but remained standing. His knees shook. His breath rattled.

But they were all down.

For now.

And the journey was still long!

.....

They reached the first dorm building like streaks of lightning against the backdrop of a blood-red sky.

The chill from the earlier battlefield still clung to their clothes, Mirabella’s armor frosted at the edges, and Ren’s breath fogged the air in steady bursts.

Lia said nothing as usual, but her gaze was sharp, scanning every shadow, every rooftop. The dorm building looked like it had been partially mauled.

Chunks of its walls were missing, glass scattered across the pavement, and one of the doors had been completely blown off its hinges.

Inside, the girls were huddled in terror, about thirty of them, some crying, some trembling, and others clutching weakly onto their weapons or anything they could find.

A few had talismans gripped with shaking fingers, items that was most likely the reasons they were even still alive till this point.

The moment they saw Ren and the others, the atmosphere snapped like dry twine.

"They’re here!" someone cried. "They came back for us!"

A chorus of sobs and relieved squeals filled the cracked hallway. Some of the girls bolted forward to hug Mirabella, who gently peeled them off with a grunt.

Ren gave them all a brisk once-over, then started barking orders in that calm, precise tone of his.

"Form a line. If you can fight, stand at the rear. If you can’t walk, we’ll carry you. Fast, quiet, minimal noise. Got it?"

"Y-yes!"

They moved like frightened ducklings under the wings of dragons.

Ren, Mirabella, and Lia led them down the fractured corridor, sweeping rooms, gathering more girls along the way.

Some had hidden in closets, some under beds. One girl had curled up inside a laundry chute, shaking so hard her teeth clacked.

Soon they moved to the next dorm.

They entered a side wing of the dorm, and there, lying just outside a trashed bathroom was a girl slumped in a pool of blood.

Her auburn hair was matted, her uniform ripped in three places, and there was a huge gash along her side that had bled out unnaturally fast.

Her breathing was shallow, lips pale, eyes closed. The sight pulled a gasp from two girls behind Ren.

"Oh no, it’s Adelle! She’s still alive!"

Two of them rushed over before anyone could stop them and knelt to lift her carefully. Mirabella moved to help, her face tight with urgency.

But Ren... Ren just stood still.

His eyes narrowed.

His thoughts spun like gears soaked in oil. Slowly. Carefully. Sharply.

He had scanned that area on entry. There had been too much blood for someone still alive to lose.

The blood trail was wrong. It was dry at the start and fresh near the end, like it had been painted backwards.

Her wound... it didn’t look like a tear or slash. It looked carved, in a neat, clean curve. Too perfect for something done in a panic.

And her expression, no pain. No twitch. No tears. Just... flat. Like a wax doll pretending to sleep.

Then he saw it. The tiniest thing. Something no average person would catch.

There was no shadow under her. None. Even though the lights flickered above, casting shadows on the floor, she had nothing beneath her.

As if her body wasn’t really there in the way it should be. No physical presence!

Ren’s pupils shrank. "Drop her," he said sharply.

The girls didn’t hear him.

He stepped forward. "I said DROP HER, NOW!"

Too late.

’Adelle’s’ head twisted at an impossible angle, mouth stretching like a yawning void with jagged teeth that had no business being in a human skull.

Her body cracked as her arms spasmed unnaturally wide, like a marionette breaking its own strings.

The nearest girl didn’t even scream, she only had time to gasp before those monstrous teeth lunged forward, aiming for her throat.