Cornelia and Dekan didn't head anywhere else right away after being kicked out of the infirmary.
They had already successfully gained exploration progress in the infirmary.
But when Cornelia saw the look on Dekan's face,
she knew he was playing a much bigger game.
Dekan was pressing his ear against the infirmary door, eavesdropping on what was happening inside.
Every now and then, he also tried to peek through the crack in the door.
Cornelia stood nearby, keeping watch for him.
"Screech! Screech!"
Dekan heard the occasional shrill, grating sound of metal sawing coming from the infirmary. It sounded just like the Demon School Doctor cutting through Baron Batchelor's flesh, tendons, and bones with a sharp instrument.
The Demon School Doctor was currently subjecting Baron Batchelor to a terrifying transformation.
If it succeeded, Baron Batchelor might even reach a combat strength close to the sixth rank.
The Baron's muffled groans of pain rose and fell in counterpoint with the buzzing saw as it cut through his scales.
After a while, Baron Batchelor's cries grew louder and louder until they turned into anguished roars.
"Aaaah!! Why am I here?!"
At last, Baron Batchelor regained consciousness during the Demon School Doctor's "reconstructive surgery."
His mind was still in a complete muddle.
But the pain of having his flesh carved away and his bones scraped clean was gradually bringing him back to his senses.
He realized he wasn't in the Cooking Classroom. He had been brought to a place so terrifying that even teachers dreaded it.
"Heh heh, Batchel, just hang in there a little longer. You're going to become my masterpiece."
As the Demon School Doctor stitched monster parts and metal components onto Batchel, he deliberately used rough methods to aggravate his wounds.
It was the Demon School Doctor's peculiar hobby. Not only did he dislike giving patients anesthetics, he even tried to keep them conscious.
"Stop it already!!"
Baron Batchelor couldn't accept that his elegant self had become such a horrifying sight, like some school doctor's test subject.
His mind was a tangled mess.
But one thing was clear: terror seemed to have clogged his heart, nearly suffocating him.
He was trapped in a nightmare he couldn't escape.
It seemed he had suffered pain far worse than this before.
The fear that came with that pain pointed to a being far more terrifying than the principal.
But he couldn't remember what that terrifying being looked like.
It was as if his brain were protecting itself, stopping him from remembering.
Baron Batchelor begged the Demon School Doctor in despair. "Please, let me go! You've been targeted too! There's still time to escape!!"
"Heh heh, Batchel, don't talk nonsense. I'm treating an injured person who came to the infirmary in accordance with school rules. You can't blame me."
The Demon School Doctor paid Batchel no mind, absorbed in his reconstruction work.
"You're breaking the rules!! Why would I ever come here of my own accord?!"
Batchel seemed to remember something and cried out in alarm.
"Two students brought you here. I didn't capture you."
The Demon School Doctor grinned wickedly.
"Two students... Aaaah!!!"
Batchel seemed to remember something. His memories grew a little clearer, and he howled in pain, his voice utterly wretched.
The Demon School Doctor was thoroughly enjoying himself. He was very pleased with Baron Batchelor's condition.
The tools in his hands began cutting even faster.
Some dozens of minutes passed like this, until Baron Batchelor's increasingly frenzied screams finally reached their peak.
Dekan figured it was about time.
Whether they'd turned a live horse into a dead one or a dead horse into a live one, the reconstruction should be nearing its end. It was time to see how things turned out.
"Cornelia, you've memorized the escape route, right?"
Dekan asked softly.
Cornelia nodded seriously.
She had been carefully studying the map Dekan had drawn.
Dekan said, "Watch your volume up ahead."
Cornelia covered her ears. "Okay."
Then Dekan summoned the Ruined Poet outside the infirmary door.
"Pain! It hurts so much!"
Black mist flooded the corridor in an instant, even spreading into the infirmary.
"Aaaah—" (voice cracking)
At the same time, Batchel's scream inside the infirmary became broken and ragged. The piercing sound even startled the Demon School Doctor.
He didn't think he'd done anything to make Baron Batchelor hurt that badly just now.
"Hm? What's this black mist?"
The Demon School Doctor stared in astonishment at the black fog spreading across the floor.
By now, he had more or less realized that Batchel's abnormal agony seemed to be connected to the black mist.
"Him! It's him!!"
At that moment, Baron Batchelor finally remembered the terror of being controlled by this black mist while he had been in a daze.
He finally remembered the demon standing within the black mist.
It was the most terrifying demon he had ever seen.
It had toyed with him as if he were putty in its hands, tortured him without end, and utterly destroyed his mind.
As the pain in his body and the fear in his heart both reached their limits, Batchel felt something in his mind snap and shatter into pieces.
"Aaaaah! Hahahaha!!!"
Baron Batchelor actually began to laugh, growing increasingly deranged.
He laughed and cried, as if he'd gone mad.
He threw his head back and roared, his eyes bloodshot as his body continued to swell.
A power far more terrifying than anything he had shown before burst from him. In an instant, he broke free of the operating table and lunged at the Demon School Doctor.
A terrifying crash rang out from the infirmary, echoing again and again down the corridor.
Batchel had gone completely berserk—or rather, he had gone completely insane.
"Batchel! Calm down! I'm following the rules! I'm in the right as far as the principal's concerned!"
The Demon School Doctor tried to fend off Batchel, who had completely lost his mind, and shouted in panic.
But Batchel seemed not to hear him at all, brutally mauling the Demon School Doctor.
Outside the infirmary, Dekan had already recalled the Ruined Poet and run off with Cornelia.
"Baron Batchelor's evolution went wrong. There goes Batchelor!"
Dekan was back to saying things Cornelia couldn't understand.
Cornelia noticed that Dekan wasn't afraid of Baron Batchelor's rampage at all.
Judging by how pleased he looked, his plan had succeeded again.
The two hid around the corner of the corridor and waited for a while.
Then a three-meter-tall monster crashed out of the infirmary. Baron Batchelor no longer looked human at all.
There were a few wounds on his body, and he was chewing and swallowing the Demon School Doctor.
"Roar!!!"
A roar rang through the corridor, filled with despair and bewilderment.
After his fury had burned itself out, Batchel was left with nothing but a hollow, indescribable confusion.
"Hiya!"
Just then,
a short figure appeared in Baron Batchelor's field of vision.
The short figure stood at the end of the corridor and gave a little wobble.
A smile full of mockery was plastered across its face.
"Hee hee hee, come and get me!"
Its voice was full of teasing, with just a hint of deranged wisdom.
As Baron Batchelor's gaze focused completely on the short figure in the distance, his whole body began to tremble.
It was a half-meter-tall humanoid doll.
Its body was round and cute.
And the doll's face...
was Chibi Dekan's!
Before you continue