Chapter 211: Private Qingteng High School Sports Special Talent Student (Patreon)

As Mitsuhashi declared himself president, the gymnasium began to change in eerie ways.

A beam of light dropped from the ceiling and washed over Mitsuhashi, who stood at center court.

The circle drawn in white lines around his feet started to give off a faint red glow, like a domain of absolute authority.

Mitsuhashi swaggered, eyeing the three people who still hadn't moved. Shido Makoto and the others stood there, unmoved.

"What? Didn't you hear me?"

"Rule One: the president's orders must be obeyed absolutely! Do you want to break the rule and die right now?"

Yukinoshita Yukino clenched her fists. Kneel to a creature like Mitsuhashi? She'd rather die.

Lin's muscles went rigid, too. His hand crept toward his waist, ready.

"Good. You've got backbone."

Mitsuhashi clapped, and his smile turned cold.

"Since you won't do it on your own, I'll give you a push."

He pointed at Lin. "I order you to jump over that vaulting horse for me."

He was pointing at a vaulting horse in the corner of the court.

It looked no different from an ordinary one, but a player's experience said there was definitely a trap on it: invisible wire blades, perhaps, or some high-grade corrosive liquid.

Lin glared at Mitsuhashi, his chest heaving.

"What? Still not moving?" Mitsuhashi snapped impatiently. "My patience is limited."

Meanwhile, under Mitsuhashi's stunned gaze, Shido Makoto was walking toward him, one step at a time.

Makoto's stare unnerved Mitsuhashi. He instinctively backed up half a step, then caught himself.

He was the president now! He was the embodiment of the rules! What was there to be afraid of?

"Y-you… what do you think you're doing?" he shouted, all bluster and no nerve.

"I'm warning you, I'm the president! If you defy my order, you're defying the rules!"

"Fang Si! I order you! Stop right now! Then kneel and kowtow to me!"

But Makoto turned a deaf ear to the command and kept closing the distance.

Mitsuhashi panicked completely.

He couldn't understand it. Why hadn't the rules' power of erasure come down on this man? Could he truly not fear death?

"He's breaking the rules! He disobeyed the president's order!" Mitsuhashi screamed, pointing at the approaching Makoto.

"Rules! Hurry! Erase him! Erase him already!"

Nothing happened.

Makoto didn't slow in the slightest.

As Mitsuhashi stared in terror, Makoto lifted his foot and stepped into the red circle, the emblem of the president's authority!

The erasure Mitsuhashi expected never came.

Makoto stood unharmed inside the red ring, as if he were the true master of the domain.

"W-why?" Mitsuhashi cried.

"Why haven't you been erased? You defied my order! You…"

His words were cut off as a hand clamped around his throat.

He didn't even see how Makoto moved. His vision blurred, and then a tremendous force took hold of his collar and hoisted him off the ground like a chick.

The weightlessness of dangling in midair left Mitsuhashi's mind blank.

"The rule says the president must be obeyed absolutely."

"But it never said the president can't be replaced."

Before the words had faded, Makoto's fingernails slashed across the arm that wore Mitsuhashi's Honor Armband.

Rip!

The Honor Armband Mitsuhashi treasured as the symbol of his power was sliced open down the middle.

On the inside of the armband, the leech that had always hidden beneath the fabric was exposed.

It was a full size larger than the one they'd seen in the canteen.

Countless tiny suckers ringed its front end, biting deep into Mitsuhashi's blood vessels.

With the armband cut open and its outer restraint gone, the leech's body convulsed, as if startled.

Its mouth contracted around the vein, and a gush of blood mixed with black matter sprayed from the wound!

"Aaah! My arm! My arm!"

Only now did Mitsuhashi see the true face of the "reward" on his arm.

Only now did he understand why he'd felt so exhilarated and full of energy lately.

All this time, he'd been feeding a disgusting parasite with his own life force and sanity!

"AAAAAH!"

Mitsuhashi flung his arm wildly, trying to shake the leech off. But it had clamped on too tightly. No matter how he thrashed, it did no good. He only tore the wound wider and bled more.

"Monster! You monster!"

Makoto raised his foot and drove it into Mitsuhashi's stomach.

Thud!

Like a torn sack, Mitsuhashi was kicked out of the red circle and rolled across the floor several times before he stopped.

"Honor Student?"

Makoto looked down at Mitsuhashi, who was curled up and howling, clutching his arm.

"You're nothing but a pig waiting on the chopping block."

Once Mitsuhashi was kicked out of the circle, the leech on his arm shriveled rapidly, cut off from its host's life force.

The rules judged that he had lost his qualification as an Honor Student.

Makoto stepped out of the circle as well.

The red ring flickered a few times and vanished.

Lin and Yukino stared at the dramatic scene, unable to react for a long moment.

They'd even prepared for a vicious fight.

They hadn't expected it to be this easy.

Was that all it took? The players just had to stand together and refuse to volunteer as president?

But at that moment, the scoreboard on the gymnasium wall, the one with the rules written on it, began to flash red, now that it had lost its core, the president.

ROAR!

A roar came from the equipment room deep inside the gymnasium.

A moment later, several enormous monsters burst out of the darkness.

They were different from the lackey wraiths the players had met before. These monsters kept a human outline, but every part of their bodies had mutated horribly.

One stood nearly three meters tall, dragging a blood-soaked shot put that was bigger than a normal person's head.

Another had limbs grown long and thin like a spider's legs, and scuttled across the floor and walls at high speed.

These were the so-called athletic specialists.

With the president's rules no longer restraining them, their targets were every living thing in the arena.

Clutching his bleeding arm, Mitsuhashi rolled on the floor in terror, trying to hide behind the vaulting horse. But his movements had already drawn a monster's attention.

A moment later, Mitsuhashi was torn apart.

Lin and Yukino's faces turned grim. Back to back, they watched warily as the monsters closed in from every side.

"Move."

Makoto seized the wrist of the still-dazed Yukino with one hand, grabbed Lin with the other, and dashed for the open doors without looking back.

With these monsters out, the so-called club activity was over anyway. There was no need to fight them head-on.

…