I Refused To Be Reincarnated-Chapter 857: Proper Harvesting of Tantrums

Watching the bastion’s doors, Maxwell gripped the railing so hard the bleachers shook with his trembling. One deep breath after another, he forcefully quelled the anger searing through his veins, restoring a modicum of calmness fueled by the image of a frozen plain.

Without anger to suppress it, worry crept beneath the calm, creasing the folds of his eyes, scrunching his nose. His students couldn’t lose to Adam. Never.

He sent a tentative gust of wind through the closing doors. It barely survived long enough to give him a rough idea about the maze-like architecture before something yanked his mana like fangs chomping meat.

He snorted and raised his palm, already summoning thicker gusts.

Before he could, mana slithered on the bastion’s facade, nestling between the spiralling towers into a broad rectangle. Rough forms filled it before taking the defined shapes of his seven students.

"Please, do not send mana inside, lest they accuse you of helping me or claim that I cheated. Relax, teacher. I’ll show you all something worth the wait." Adam’s voice echoed across the plain, full of mischievous promises.

As soon as the wind blew the echo of Adam’s voice, Maxwell and his stunned students scrutinised the display, not noticing Adam’s strange wording. Bismarck was there, hiding the veins pulsing on his temple by frowning at Tristan. Then, mana carried their voices outside.

"I’m as furious as you are, but your spells are useless. Save your energy. All of you. We’ll need it to leave this damned trap." He looked at each of his six team members in turn, his pale blue eyes moving beyond the anger. To Maxwell’s teachings.

Don’t act on impulse. They had magistrally failed when they fell to Adam’s petty provocations. But they hadn’t lost yet.

The rumbling impact of Tristan’s earth fists stilled. But his face was a mask of rage forged from protruding veins and clenched muscles. "I’ll shatter his legs, arms, and ribs, then bury him up to the neck in the gardens. With earthen hooks, I’ll keep his mouth open and invite everyone to piss in it. You hear me, Bismarck? This won’t end with a simple victory!"

"Sounds great." Bismarck patted Tristan’s shoulder, nodding. "I’ll freeze his eyelids to force him to watch. But we must find him." His voice sharpened as he turned toward the maze of sprawling stairs. "Adam is using anger against us. He’s likely trying to make us spread to cover ground faster. We’ll do the opposite. Slow, methodical. He talked about traps. We can use spells briefly before the enchanted walls devour them. Use short bursts to maximise expenditure. All clear?"

"Clear!" At his companions’ screamed answer, he led the way toward the first room.

Bismarck ascended a flight of crooked stairs. His team spread around the door as he gripped the handle, staves ready to pelt hell on whatever was inside. Slowly, he pushed the handle down.

Through the hairline opening, he peered at a room. A study pushed beneath a window, a bed, and a wardrobe. It seemed like a normal room. No, the blue blanket seemed puffed. Perhaps Adam was hiding there? Unlikely, but they had to check. He waved two fingers, commanding them to barge in together.

As one, they hurled the door open and leapt through the sill. The moment they did, Bismarck heard a wet sound like moving liquid.

From above!

He snapped his gaze up, only for his eyes to widen at a bucket hanging by a thread, jerked by their explosive entrance, and at the yellowish liquid pouring on them.

Damn it. They would suffer if it were acid.

As soon as the thought formed, he felt the mildly warm solution drench his robes. No sizzling, no pain even as it stained his shirt and wetted his chest. Yet, he clenched his jaw, his knuckles whitening. The pungent smell of urea dripping from his hair to the fold of his lips, the color...

Beside him, his companions spew in outrage. "It’s piss!"

And even he felt something snap in his mind and mirrored their reactions. "I WILL MURDER THIS DISGUSTING BASTARD!"

"It wasn’t disgusting when you promised to do me the same, but it is now, right? I hope you enjoy the taste, though. I promise I only drank good tea." Adam chuckled from his throne room, the sound of hammered metal pausing to let his voice through.

"RAHHH!" Bismarck roared, freezing the piss and hurling ice cycles across the room. The furniture splintered into a mist of shards. Even after nothing remained and the walls drained his mana, the scent still clogged his nose.

It was Tristan who tried to calm him down this time, but he gripped his classmate by the collar and barked. "I know! We spread. I swear on the waves, and Leviathan’s name that I will find him!"

"Didn’t you say that was exactly what he wanted?" Tristan growled, sharing the vow. 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

"Look at this... absurdity. He could have severely injured us with acid, poison... with anything." Bismarck huffed so hard, he found it hard to speak. "He’s buying time! Isn’t the dimwit with him? They’re likely increasing their crystal’s defenses."

"And once they’re done, he’ll leave to destroy ours." Tristan twisted his lips. "We can’t waste a second if you’re right."

As they scrambled to the next rooms, the display split into seven.

Maxwell watched Tristan enter a room of swirling symbols that promised a path to Adam as long as he answered the riddle correctly. But when he snorted six as the answer to 3+3, the + symbol shifted to an x and a middle finger, which enraged him enough to blast dozens of earth fists against the walls.

Cream shooting to their faces, ground splitting into basins of water the moment they stepped on it—the humiliation spread to such ridiculous heights that even the students around him began to laugh. No, even his lips twitched when Bismarck swore on every magical creature that he’d hang Adam after he tripped on invisible threads.

Trying to keep his composure, he glanced at Quintella, who cried with laughter beside him. "Isn’t your brother a little petty? He’s humiliating them too much."

"Ah?" Quintella wiped the corner of her eyes, then shook her head. "He’s not humiliating them."

"What then?" Maxwell leaned forward. If not humiliation, then what was Adam’s goal? The question burned his tongue.

"I don’t know." Quintella shrugged as the walls drank spells on the seven displays. "But I’d say he’s angering them. He’s really good at it, you know?"

"I can see that... but why?"

While Maxwell frowned over the question, Adam stretched his shoulders in front of his creation, a nightmare of steel as broad as a third of the bastion’s facade.

In his hand, he threw a gem up and down, the mana saturating it—stolen from the students at each of their outbursts—casting a blinding radiance over the chessboard on the table.

"They should catch Desmond anytime now." He tipped the white rook before three dark pawns. A white bishop formed in his free hand as he ignored the seven pawns trapped around his king. Peering through the window with a smirk, he slammed it beside the rook. "Show them, Elliot!"