My Students Regret It After I Retired

43 – Torigal, Dead

Leos’s chainsword pierced right through Torigal’s heart, and Torigal, reaching out a hand, whispered.

“Revenge…I’ll have…revenge…”

But he couldn’t finish his sentence, dying right there. Leos lifted the corpse, walked straight to the gate where the monsters were, and tossed it in.

He started throwing them in one by one, and the monsters swarmed. There were no mutated ones, so Leos finished them all off, smashing them with his mace after they were done with the bodies.

“…”

The vagrants watching from behind swallowed dryly, tense. A man with overwhelming power, plain to see. Not just strong, but something more. The sheer audacity and speed to kill almost ten people in an instant. A worry began to fill their minds – what if he turned his power on them? Then, without a word, Leos slowly walked towards Roczen and Hemina.

Leos first asked Roczen, who’d been beaten worse.

“You alright?”

“Yes… I’m alright. Thank you so much for helping.”

He didn’t add anything to that, and moved on to Hemina right next to him.

“And you?”

“I’m… I’m okay too… Thanks to you… thanks to you I lived…again…”

He showed no particular reaction to Hemina’s words either, and then turned to look at Lacart.

“You want me to help them?”

“Yeah.”

“Paron, get out the mid-grade healing artifact.”

Paron pulled a healing artifact from his inventory, speaking with a worried tone.

“Lord Lacart, mid-grade healing artifacts take a long time to recharge after use. We don’t have many left, are you going to use both?”

“Yeah. If Leos wants them used, then we use them.”

Paron hesitated for a moment, then stuck the needles of the mid-grade healing artifact into Hemina and Roczen, one each. Mana surged in instantly, and the wounds vanished in a flash.

Hemina and Roczen, experiencing a mid-grade healing artifact for the first time, were in awe as they felt their bodies change rapidly, and they bowed their heads repeatedly.

“Thank you… this precious thing…”

Rakart answered simply to that.

“We just did what Leos told us to. If you’re going to thank anyone, thank him.”

With those words, the execution squad moved away to a place where there weren’t any people.

But Leos was still there, and so the vagrants who had been watching still remained nearby, holding their breaths. They were curious about what Leos would say, what he would do.

Leos spoke quietly.

“I won’t say anything about you struggling to survive on your own here. But if I see any of you acting like those b*stards just now, less than human, I’ll make sure you end up the same. If you want to live, don’t beg or steal from others, try your hardest to make it on your own. I won’t stop you from living here.”

With that, Leos turned and left the spot as well.

Heresia, who was next to him, spoke as if whispering.

“Leos-nim, you were so cool just now! You stood up for the people, didn’t you? It was like when you were a Gate Keeper… It’s hard to explain but it was really cool.”

“Heresia’s confessing to Leos hyung! Leos hyung! Will you accept her! No… you should probably think about it. If it’s you, you could definitely find someone prettier and smarter than Heresia…”

“aaah! What confession! What are you talking about, Benedict!”

Heresia began hitting Benedict haphazardly, and Benedict curled up, defending himself. Heresia, realizing her fists were just turning red, huffed and stormed off as if running away.

“I… I didn’t confess. You know?”

Leos didn’t answer, staying quiet, and so Heresia scratched her head roughly and trudged away.

“Isn’t teasing hyung fun? If we had just one pure soul like that back in prison, it would’ve been really interesting, wouldn’t it.”

“Don’t torment him so much.”

“Hehe, I know. Isn’t it a sign of familiarity? You know, most of the guys in our slammer were less than human.”

“Still, a few of them were decent.”

“Well… that’s true. Problem is, only about 4 or 5 out of 100 were normal.”

Benedict grinned, then changed his expression and asked seriously.

“Hyung, you can’t be too good to people. Weak humans, once they find a place to lean on, will try to leech off you however they can. It’s not about good or evil. It’s that the action itself can be harmful to you.”

“…”

“You’ll handle it, I know, but I’m worried. What if they keep coming to you whenever a conflict or problem flares up? Or, what if those pushed to the edge beg you to save their lives? Of course, you don’t have to worry too much. If any shameless b*stards try that, I’ll deal with them myself.”

Leos spoke, looking at Benedict.

“That’s excessive, Benedict.”

Benedict immediately dropped his serious face, grinning as he spoke.

“Hehe, is that so? I’m a fool, my thoughts always jump around, so please understand! Hyung, speaking of which, you wanna eat meat today? I tried it, and if you cook jerky, it actually tastes like boiled beef!”

“You eat it.”

Leaving the chattering Benedict behind, Leos gazed at the sky.

“Benedict.”

“Yes! Hyung!”

“Once Redgate is completely gone, what do you want to do?”

“I’m gonna open up a restaurant. I may not have learned much else, but I sure as hell can cook.”

“A guy who boils jerky in water?”

“Is there a problem with that?”

“It’s meant to be eaten dried, why are you rehydrating it so inefficiently.”

“Hee… Hyung, inefficient cooking is what makes food delicious. I’ll make you something sometime.”

Benedict naturally stood behind Leos and asked,

“What are you going to do, Hyung?”

“What?”

“Red Gate… These things, they’re all gonna be wiped out someday, right? The fight with the Empire’s gonna end someday too…”

“Either way, I’m screwed for a normal life. If we lose to the Empire, I’ll be executed on the spot.”

“We can win, can’t we? If we win, what’ll you do?”

“…”

Leos hesitated for a moment, then tossed out the words.

“I’ll just set up a diner next to you, I guess. If I’m next to someone tasteless, I’ll look relatively delicious, right?”

“Hyungnim! That’s going too far!”

Leos chuckled, a rare sound, and walked on.

What the man desired was this kind of small, everyday life. Talking and joking with close friends, just a simple, easy existence.

A normal life he could never go back to.

‘Bellen… The Empire’s Shadow Squad… Even the Empire’s trash groups, acting on the Emperor’s orders.’

There were too many people he had to take revenge on, so a normal life was a luxury he could no longer afford.

*

Leos and his group cleared the Red Gates one by one, sealing them as they slowly moved forward. It was a significantly slower pace than just running or walking, but it meant they were creating a perfectly safe zone as they advanced. So, the usable space was continuously increasing, and so was the stability of the entire troop formation.

“The 25th Red Gate is sealed!”

One of the extermination squad members shouted loudly, and Leos shook off the monster blood that covered his whole body before trying to move to the next gate. But Lakart stopped him, saying,

“Let’s rest for today. The sun’s completely gone down.”

“Nah. I want to finish everything as soon as possible.”

“War is a long-distance marathon. If you sprint for a bit and collapse from exhaustion, you won’t gain anything. Even if you have superhuman strength, you can’t keep up this pace during a civil war that could last hundreds of days, or maybe even years. You have to get proper rest to be able to move efficiently.”

Leos paused, then conceded.

“Understood.”

“First, get to the temporary shelter and rest comfortably. I’ll look around for a place to set up a base. We could just pitch tents on the ground right now, but the stench of monster rot and blood is just too intense around here.”

Rakarth finished speaking and led the extermination squad out to scout the perimeter. With a total of twenty-five Red Gates sealed, the safe zone was surprisingly large, meaning they’d have to walk quite a bit to find any monsters.

‘Safe from monsters, but not from people.’

Leos made that judgment and first set out to identify the location of all the vagrants. He suspected there might be spies planted by the Empire, and secondly, he explored the surrounding terrain.

He even launched his Spirelle to survey both the ground and sky, so that even if someone ambushed him from a secluded spot, he could react. While doing so…

-Rustle

The sound of something living moving made Leos turn his head, and masked figures crept out of the shadows and quickly surrounded him.

“What the hell? Just one guy? He doesn’t even have any gear. You b*stard, I told you to track down as many as possible!”

“I…I’m sorry, Chief.”

Leos didn’t say a word, just assessed the situation.

‘A band of raiders, perhaps?’

They all had the same tattoo on their collarbones. More accurately, they were burn marks like the brands used on slaves.

“Hey, you got anything on you?”

One of the scrawny ones started walking towards him, and Leos spoke to him.

“What if I don’t?”

“If you don’t, you pay with your body.”

The man gestured, and the other raiders started to close in. Then, the man continued.

“You gonna come quietly? Or die right here?”

Around five men. He was confident he could beat them all to death in under thirty seconds. Leos hesitated for a moment. Whether to kill them all here.

The answer, of course, was no.

“Lead the way. I’ll take you wherever you want to go.”

He had no intention of just killing the small fry. These bug-like b*stards were like monsters; kill some and more just keep popping up.

There was only one solution. Find their base and wipe them all out.

That was all.