Chapter 87
“Wa… water… bi—! Cough, urk!”
Diego couldn’t regain his senses.
The blow had come far too suddenly.
It had landed squarely in his solar plexus.
And it was powerful—overwhelmingly so.
His stomach churned like twisted dough. He couldn’t breathe. His lungs refused to function.
His whole body ached. He’d been flung flat on his back, crashing through two tables. There was no way his back was fine.
Still, Diego stood up.
That bastard who kicked him.
Whoever he was, Diego couldn’t afford to look weak now.
After all, who was he?
A Mana user with a Mana Heart.
“G-Guh…!”
Diego pushed himself up on one knee, face red with fury.
He glared at Lloyd, who had dared to strike him first.
But in that moment, he should’ve realized it.
Lloyd’s fist was already hurtling toward his face at blinding speed.
‘Too fast—’
Crack!
Stars exploded in front of his eyes.
His nose felt like it had been smashed by a hammer.
His head jerked sharply to the side.
And in that brief, slow-motion interval of time, he saw something strange.
‘Are those… my front teeth?’
A pair of wide, white front teeth spun through the air.
Mixed with a bit of blood and spit.
But Diego had no time to marvel at it.
Because another merciless fist came slamming into his solar plexus.
Crack!
“Gugh!”
His body folded like a hinge again.
His knees buckled inward.
Then a cold voice rang in his ear.
“You don’t even know why you’re getting hit, do you? Huh?”
“I… cough, guh—!”
Smack!
An open palm slammed into the side of his face.
His ear went numb.
The world spun wildly.
He couldn’t tell up from down anymore.
And still, that cold voice kept coming.
“You don’t even know why this is happening to you, do you? Huh?”
“Guh—!”
Crack!
This time it was his right shin.
Was it a shoe?
Or maybe something else?
He didn’t know.
All he knew was that it hurt like hell.
His waist bent forward instinctively. Both hands dropped toward the ground.
That’s when the voice drilled in again.
“Wise and merciful Viscount of Lacona? Don’t make me laugh.”
Wham!
“……!”
He saw the ceiling.
Had his head been lifted?
Or had it been knocked back?
Why did his jaw hurt so much?
“Like father, like son, huh? What is it—bullying weaklings runs in your family or something?”
Crack!
This time it was his left collarbone.
A ruthless knifehand chop crashed down from above.
“……Guh!”
Pain like he’d never felt before surged through him.
His mouth hung open uncontrollably. His curled tongue scraped desperately at the roof of his mouth.
‘Why! Why is this happening!’
Diego couldn’t make sense of it.
He was a Mana user, damn it.
He’d been trained in swordsmanship by a senior knight in his territory since he was eleven.
He’d practiced Mana refinement techniques diligently.
He managed to form a Mana Heart in just four years.
He still remembered the look of shock on the senior knight’s face.
Back then, Sir Courno had said it himself.
Young Master Diego was a genius.
So when it came to raw strength, brawling, or fighting, he’d always been confident.
Big build, Mana Heart—there was nothing to fear among his peers.
But now?
‘How dare—how dare someone do this to me—!’
He was furious.
And it hurt. A lot.
Still, he tried to fight back.
He swung his tightly clenched fist with everything he had.
But his opponent didn’t even bother dodging.
Whack!
Lloyd’s head turned sharply from Diego’s punch.
A hopeful smile flickered on Diego’s lips.
Did… did that work?
But that hope shattered in less than three seconds.
Lloyd’s face slowly turned back toward him.
He casually wiped the blood off his lip with the back of his hand.
Then flashed a wicked grin.
“So now it’s mutual assault, huh?”
Crack!
Lloyd’s punches grew even more merciless.
What followed was a brutal beating.
He punched, and punched, and punched.
He struck with his elbows—slam, slam, slam.
He kicked—hard, and again, and again.
When Diego fell, Lloyd picked him up and beat him some more.
When Diego resisted, Lloyd welcomed it—and beat him harder.
When Diego begged, Lloyd ignored him—and stomped him worse.
“P-Please! I was wrong! Please stop!”
“‘Stop’? Screw that.”
Crack! Crack! Thud!
Lloyd stomped on the crumpled figure’s back and head without hesitation.
His eyes were filled with cold, calculating malice.
‘This way, he’ll never even think about pulling that crap on Julian again.’
At least this guy won’t.
So while he was at it—he’d make it stick.
Forget mercy. Mercy had no place here.
This needed to be thorough.
Lloyd knew that better than anyone.
Thanks to what he’d gone through in school back in Korea.
‘Guys like you only understand one thing—this.’
Suddenly, an old memory came to mind.
He was in his first year of high school.
There had been bullies in his class back then too.
And once, he had become their target.
At that time, he responded the same way—radically.
When they told him to go buy bread from the convenience store, he said no.
They slapped him with a slipper.
Slap, slap—six times, back and forth.
Punch, punch—two to the gut.
Afterward, he said “okay” and walked to the back of the classroom.
There, leaning against the wall, was a used fluorescent lightbulb someone had set aside to throw out.
He picked it up like a wooden stick and returned to the bully.
Then swung it straight into the back of the bastard’s head while he was laughing with his goons.
Smash, crash—blood everywhere. Chaos.
But he didn’t stop.
If you’re going to do something, do it properly.
Remembering that, he grabbed a chair. Slammed it. Stomped on him.
That day, he sent the guy to the hospital.
He got suspended.
His parents were called to the school.
They apologized to the injured kid’s parents and even paid for the medical bills.
But strangely enough, there weren’t any lasting consequences.
All the backlash amounted to was some murmuring about him being crazy.
After that, he was able to spend the rest of high school quietly and peacefully. That guy never came back. No other bullies came for him again. No one ever told him to go buy bread at the convenience store.
It had been a violent method, but it was a moment where he’d proven and secured an intangible authority—one that protected him from mockery or bullying by anyone.
‘Same thing now.’
Touch Julian, and you’ll die by my hands.
Insult our family, and you’ll die by my hands.
Each punch and kick from Lloyd carried that cold, cutting message.
With every blow, he engraved it into Diego’s body with dark, blooming bruises.
Watching it, Julian Frontera’s chest thumped with panic.
‘Lloyd’s insane!’
Julian was horrified.
Seeing the brutal violence unfolding before his eyes made him want to bury his head in his hands.
Was it just from shock?
No.
It was because everything had gone dark—his future was suddenly a fog of dread.
‘Lloyd Frontera… I knew he was nuts, but what the hell is he doing right now?’
He had desperately given Lloyd looks telling him not to get involved.
Begged him silently to pretend he didn’t see anything.
And Lloyd had nodded faintly in response.
That had reassured him.
He thought Lloyd had finally learned to restrain himself. That the wild trash of a brother who always gave their parents headaches had, for once, shown restraint in a serious moment.
But now, he realized that wasn’t the case.
Restraint, my ass.
He was completely unhinged, brutally beating Diego—no, trying to beat him to death!
“Hey! Stop it already!”
Julian couldn’t take it anymore and shouted.
He had to stop this.
It had to end now.
No, it had already gone too far.
What would Viscount Lacona say when he hears his son was beaten to a pulp?
And what punishment would Lloyd receive for assaulting a student here at the academy?
And what new torment would Julian face afterward?
The more he thought about it, the more he felt like he’d plunged into a frozen cavern.
Unable to bear it anymore, he grabbed Lloyd’s arm.
“I said stop!”
He shouted roughly.
And then, Julian had an unexpected experience.
“Sorry. Just a little more.”
“……Huh?”
A chill.
Lloyd briefly turned to him.
The moment their eyes met, Julian’s whole body broke out in goosebumps.
Because Lloyd had a murderous look?
No.
Not at all.
On the contrary, his expression was…
‘Cold. Completely rational, not even slightly out of control.’
It was completely unexpected.
Julian couldn’t understand it.
This was nothing like the delinquent older brother he knew—Lloyd Frontera.
Even his response just now was unexpected.
“If I stop halfway here, you’ll just suffer more later. Still okay with that?”
“That’s…”
“So trust me a little.”
Wham!
The assault on Diego resumed.
The calm yet violent contradiction in Lloyd’s actions overwhelmed Julian.
And finally, he saw it—
Diego losing consciousness.
Crack!
At the last punch, Diego’s head dropped.
Foam had started to gather in his half-open mouth.
And now, many eyes were turned toward them.
A panicked voice cried out—belonging to a supervisor who had rushed to the scene.
“What in the world is this violence!”
A scrawny, middle-aged man yelled with a sharp tone.
Only then did Lloyd straighten up.
He raised one hand and swept his soaked bangs back with the other. Breathing heavily, drenched in sweat, he looked toward the supervisor.
“Restoring damaged honor.”
“What?”
The supervisor flinched.
He was thrown off by the unexpected answer.
But then he saw Diego’s battered, unconscious body on the floor, and bit his lip hard.
“Have you forgotten where you are? This is Magentano University. An academy sponsored by Her Majesty the Queen. You’ve caused a disturbance, used violence, and harmed a fellow student in such a place.”
“So?”
“If there is no justifiable reason for this violence, you will be handed over to the guard and face serious punishment.”
Murmur, murmur.
Behind the supervisor, a crowd had gathered.
Staff from the cafeteria.
Young faces that appeared to be students.
People who seemed to be school officials.
Some clicked their tongues, others looked appalled, alternating their gaze between the unconscious Diego and Lloyd.
Perhaps that’s why.
A bitter smile formed on Lloyd’s lips.
‘I bet they didn’t act like this when Julian was being attacked.’
Probably not.
They must have turned a blind eye.
Brushed it off as a student scuffle.
Or worse, sided with the perpetrators.
‘Because the bullies’ families were probably powerful.’
It was the kind of injustice that was all too common.
That’s why—
Lloyd proudly straightened his back.
He smirked as he recalled the calculation he had completed before laying a hand on Diego.
“Justifiable reason, you said?”
“Do you have one?”
The supervisor’s tone grew severe.
Lloyd chuckled.
“Yes.”
“And what is it?”
“Defamation.”
“…What?”
“This guy insulted me.”
“You’re saying you did all this just because of that—”
“It’s not ‘just.’ Me being insulted is the same as insulting Her Majesty the Queen.”
“…What are you talking about?”
The supervisor’s eyes narrowed with suspicion.
It sounded like absolute nonsense.
Understandably so.
‘Why bring Her Majesty into this? You’re just some country baron’s son.’
The supervisor’s gaze turned cold.
Insult, defamation—what nonsense.
From what he was hearing, Lloyd sounded like a clown.
He had no idea yet what Lloyd had accomplished in the trade city of Cremo.
The news hadn’t yet reached the royal capital.
So naturally, he underestimated Lloyd.
Because of his family.
‘That visitor… wasn’t he said to be a relative of Julian Frontera?’
Yes, that’s right.
The Frontera family.
The baron of that house had never slipped him a single coin under the table.
Was it lack of manners?
Or just plain ignorance?
Compared to Viscount Lacona—who had politely handed him a thick envelope asking him to take care of his lacking son—the Frontera family was, in the supervisor’s mind, of a disgracefully low class.
He made up his mind.
He would make sure this incident became a problem, and that this visitor received the harshest punishment. That way, Viscount Lacona, who had handed him that envelope, would have no reason to scold him.
“Explain clearly why you mentioned Her Majesty just now. What did you mean by that?”
He bore down on Lloyd with a stern gaze.
The others behind him were looking at Lloyd in much the same way.
Eyes filled with blame and condemnation.
But Lloyd remained unshaken.
“What do you think I meant? The reason is simple.”
He casually reached into the inside pocket of his coat, as if nothing was wrong.
And pulled out a round golden pendant.
He held it out for all to see.
“It’s because I’m someone like this.”
“Gasp.”
The supervisor involuntarily sucked in a breath.
The others standing behind him widened their eyes in shock.
All that over a pendant?
Lloyd’s bitter smirk deepened.
“This is a special token of invitation given to me personally by Her Majesty the Queen. Since you’re all associated with the university, I trust you’re wise enough to understand what this means.”
“……”
The golden pendant in Lloyd’s hand burned into everyone’s eyes.
At its center, the eyes of a twin-headed eagle glinted sharply.
In that moment, everyone thought the same thing.
That was unmistakably a royal guest’s token. Something that couldn’t possibly be forged—meaning there wasn’t even room for suspicion.
No one dared to speak. Silence took over.
Only the supervisor, his face pale, bit his lip hard.
And so, the once-chaotic dining hall fell into an eerie stillness.
Lloyd’s voice rang out, firm and resonant.
A voice like a whip, chastising everyone’s silent complicity.
(T/N: Damn! This is soooooo satisfying to read!)
