My Students Regret It After I Retired

45 – Trash Sweep, Heaven’s Society

The liquid that turned people into undead. The reason Leos reacted so sensitively to it was because he had witnessed it before.

“This is Leos, Commander of the Gate Management Headquarters. I heard that you came to recover the corpses by Imperial order. The corpses that haven’t decayed yet are gathered in one place as you requested.”

“Yeah.”

The man was silent. Leos remembers him, just a figure cloaked in a shabby mantle. His face, his appearance—they were unusual, but more than anything, Leos couldn’t forget the stench of blood that emanated from his entire body.

“What’s your name?”

Leos asked, back then, feeling he had to at least get some information on this shady-looking man. The guy replied, looking utterly uninterested.

“Artan.”

With that, Artan immediately moved towards the pile of corpses. As if the Gate Management Headquarters meant nothing to him in the first place.

Then, Artan pulled a syringe from his cloak. He injected the green liquid into each of the corpses, one by one. Soon, one corpse twitched, then jolted upright. But it quickly collapsed back onto the ground, its body completely crumbling to dust.

Dozens of corpses vanished, as if dissolved, in less than ten minutes.

“Another failure.”

Artan said that and turned his head, heading somewhere. Leos asked the man,

“What…what did you just do?”

“An immortal. A potion the Empire’s testing to produce as an artifact.”

Leos flinched at that.

An immortal. A potion that makes humans immortal. In the novel he’d possessed, it had only existed as a setting. A legend, usually dismissed as never to be realized.

The problem wasn’t the immortal itself. It was the group trying to create it. The Celestial Assembly, an arrogant name implying they were above the heavens. While the Empire’s effective emperor was Bermon, the Celestial Assembly were thought to be able to seize power whenever they wanted. Artan was one of them.

‘I remember now…’

In the novel, they were a mere MacGuffin, a group mentioned briefly, but their influence was certainly not small. And the energy radiating from Artan was undeniably powerful.

“Do you know me? No way you would.”

Artan stared intensely into Leos’ eyes for a moment, then rapidly drew his sword.

—*Clang!*

The longsword, arriving in a flash, was instantly met by Leos’ short dagger, drawn from within his tunic. The dagger shattered, but Artan’s attack trajectory was also perfectly thrown off, leaving Leos unharmed, without a scratch.

“You hid your power? I certainly didn’t sense any significant energy.”

‘A strong one.’

Leos swallowed hard, stepping back, as Artan chuckled in response.

“Don’t be so tense. Originally, having witnessed an eternal being, I intended to kill you, but killing you like that would be a waste. You saw, yet did not see, knew, yet did not know. Do that, and I will let you live.”

At the arrogant man’s attitude, Leos remained silent.

Artan made an offer to Leos.

“There is a place called the Heavenly Assembly. Not only myself, but also a select few gather there. If you want money, I can give you hundreds of kilos of gold coins. Would you like to accompany me?”

“I refuse.”

“So quickly? Surely there’s something good in it for you. You don’t even know what the place is really like yet, do you?”

“I am the director of the Gate Management Headquarters. I am satisfied with my current position.”

“You are foolish.”

Artan, as if losing interest, looked at Leos with disdain and asked.

“What is the reason you remain there? If you joined the Heavenly Assembly, you could obtain money, honor, and power beyond comparison.”

“Because my comrades are here. Even if offered ten million, I have no intention of leaving the Gate Management Headquarters.”

Artan, looking at Leos, gave a sinister smile as he spoke.

“All relationships are destined to end someday. You are a foolish man to throw everything away for such paltry ties.”

“Even if it’s foolish, this is how I was taught to live.”

“Time will tell who is right. There will be a day when we meet again.”

The man, with those words, vanished instantly from the spot. Like a teleportation, his form disappearing in a flash. Leos, watching where he’d been, thought.

To protect his comrades, he had to become far stronger, overwhelmingly so.

*

‘The Celestial Assembly…’

Apart from Artan, he’d never even heard a whisper of them, and even Artan he’d only faced once, so he’d forgotten about them until now. But seeing the eternal being instantly brought the name Celestial Assembly to mind.

Leos crushed Nerk’s body several times over, then questioned him. At some point Nerk couldn’t even scream properly, just begging for his life.

“I’ll tell you… I’ll tell you everything. Please… please stop… please…”

His entire body broken, Nerk crawled on the ground as he spoke. Leos began to ask him the questions that burned in his mind, one by one.

“Is your superior Artan?”

“A…Artan… That’s a name I don’t know.”

He suspected it might be a lie, but he was half out of his mind already, not stubborn enough to lie in his current state. Leos moved on to the next question without pause.

“Tell me the name of your raider guild leader.”

“Drik… We call him Drik…”

“Do you know about the Celestial Assembly?”

“I…don’t know…”

It was clearly an effort for Nerk even to open his mouth, his answer labored, and Leos accepted it.

‘They aren’t a guild directly run by the Celestial Assembly.’

Considering Artan’s power at the time, he was on a different level from Nerk and the others here. If they were directly managed, there should be at least a few people on his level visible. But, without a doubt, there wasn’t a single person in Ventaze with comparable ability.

‘So they’re just supplying things for their eternal being experiments?’

“How did you get the eternal life bodies?”

“There’s… someone who supplies them… They contact us through the Distance, and they deliver the goods at regular intervals and then vanish… We report the results of our experiments, and they pay us accordingly. That’s all we know.”

Nek answered, and grabbing Leos’s leg, he begged.

“I… I’ve told you everything I know. I’m not supposed to talk about the eternal life bodies at all, but… everything… I’ve told you everything I know. Please spare me. Please…”

Leos raised his sword at Nek, who was still pleading.

“You think I’d forgive you after seeing such a pathetic display, with the countless corpses you’ve murdered beside you? You’re disgustingly selfish. I never had any intention of sparing you. Die regretting your evil deeds.”

“Ah…”

With a *shick* sound, Nek became a lump of flesh, like the corpses he had killed, and tumbled onto the floor. Leos turned his back on him and slowly walked out of the door.

‘They’re like a cancer.’

If they’ve managed to establish a force of this size, they’re bound to cause trouble even if a safe zone is created. Even if they were just a band of looters it would be a problem, but they’re even connected to the Heavenly Assembly.

‘These guys are as much of a hindrance as the Red Gate.’

Just like how the Red Gate was sealed to block the endlessly respawning monsters, this place had to be completely cleansed to eradicate these human trash that would inevitably keep causing trouble.

‘It would be even better if I could get information about the Heavenly Assembly too.’

Leos thought that as he left the interrogation room, and walked towards the light. There, a bunch of looters were loudly chattering while drinking alcohol and eating snacks.

“Damn it! So the b*tch was doing that, right? Please… please spare me, spare my child. Please… what a joke.”

“And! So what did you do?”

“What did I do? I just killed her.”

“Kuh… Lengo of the Venta Guild, consistently ranked in the top 10, is different, indeed. Killing them all without a drop of blood or tear.”

“It’s thrilling, man. Actually, performance is one thing, but. I just like killing people. Seeing them groveling as they die, it’s like I’m reaffirming my power, you know? I can’t stop feeling that sense of superiority from killing them one by one, more than just having more money.”

Lengo gulped down his fermented liquor and added.

“Ah, that’s the stuff. Should I go sprinkle some on their graves? It’s too good a taste to keep to myself, ya know?”

“Kahaha! You’re truly insane! Even the devil would click his tongue at you.”

Mid-revelry, the members of the Lieutenant Plunderer Guild, Ventaze, turned their heads at the sound of footsteps.

“Nek? Don’t tell me you killed that little shit we were interrogating again? I told you to just cut off his limbs and let me finish him, so you better not have killed him.”

As Leos grew closer from the darkness, Rengos’ expression twisted.

“What the fuck… Why are you here? Nek… what did you do to Nek?”

Leos swung his chainsword, piercing the head of the man standing next to Rengos. Without a flicker of emotion, Leos looked at the corpse falling to the ground and spoke.

“That guy just went to follow Nek. Don’t worry, you’ll be joining him soon.”