The Royal Military Academy's Impostor Owns a Dungeon [BL] - Chapter 822

Chapter 822: When Strength Meets Design

Reeve couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Actually, no. It was more accurate to say that he couldn’t believe what he wasn’t seeing.

Just how fast were those sticks falling?!

The first one had been expected because they heard that sticks would be falling, sure, but even so, it still felt like a shock when it actually happened.

Fwip!

The sound was sharp and sudden, cutting through the stillness of the dome that resulted from people’s curiosity.

They wanted to see what it meant to choose games based on their strengths.

But they didn’t expect to see this kind of strength.

A single stick dropped from above, moving far too fast to be reasonable. See, Reeve was a civilian. And he could only pray that the falling stick was falling like that based on a personalized calibration.

Surely they can’t possibly expect everyone to be able to catch any of that, right?

Because really, that was the kind of speed designed for monsters who lived and breathed combat and not someone whose steps were mainly earned by walking from the office down to the mail room.

The crowd collectively inhaled. But even that was several beats later than the man they were watching.

Duke Leander moved.

There was no buildup. No adjustment. His body reacted before thought could even form. One moment he was standing there, still looking slightly dazed and wounded in spirit, and the next his arm snapped up with terrifying precision.

Clack.

The black stick was caught cleanly.

And just as it was clasped, the color shifted from black to green as if registering success.

That alone should have earned applause.

And really, they would have, people had even been prepared for it.

But before anyone could even do it, the machine was at it again.

Fwip. Fwip. Fwip.

No.

They weren’t simply dropping anymore.

They were raining down.

Several more sticks shot down from every direction, forming a brutal storm around the Duke. They came from all angles, in front of him, from behind him, from the sides, some shaking at the connection before delaying the fall as if mocking anyone foolish enough to rely on patterns.

One flashed red mid drop.

Gasps broke out.

The red stick struck the ground untouched and instantly turned green, harmless now but proof of how unforgiving the game truly was.

Duke Leander didn’t spare the fallen stick a second glance.

His hands moved in a blur.

Two. Five. Eight.

Green lights kept flaring again and again as instinct took over. He twisted, stepped, leaned, and pivoted with the smooth lethality of someone who had survived real battlefields.

To think this was without spiritual energy or enhancements.

Probably just instincts, awareness, and experience honed through war.

The moment several sticks in his hands turned green, a chute slid open before him.

He threw them in without looking.

Clack. Drop. Fwip.

More fell.

More were caught.

His expression had changed completely.

The sulking, defeated Duke was gone. In his place stood something colder, sharper, and terrifyingly focused. This was the man who had once been called a war god, moving as if the world itself had slowed down for him.

And then, just as suddenly as it began, it ended.

Silence fell.

The entire sequence had taken only seconds.

Seconds.

No one had spoken the entire time.

Reeve stared, mouth open, brain completely blank.

“…Wow,” he said.

The word echoed far louder than he intended in the stunned quiet.

But then Luca Kyros—who had the same golden eyes as the prominent warlord—turned toward him with a bright, utterly proud grin, eyes shining like a child showing off their favorite thing.

“Right?!” he said happily. “My Papa is so cool, right?”

Every head snapped toward Luca.

Yes.

Cool.

Undeniably cool.

Even as the very cool Duke of House Kyros looked evidently discombobulated as he plastered his back against the machine while holding his heart.

He looked ready to faint in shock.

Was he possibly surprised by himself?

Or maybe it was because he was surprised by the sudden whirring of the machine?

Well, if only Reeve knew that it was really because his precious son had said such words in front of literally everyone. But he wasn’t all that wrong. Because the Duke was also surprised by the sudden shaking.

Lights exploded to life and alarms chimed.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

The sound rang out bright and triumphant, echoing through the Activity Center like a victory fanfare. The counter above the ring spun wildly, numbers racing past too fast to follow as the machine celebrated a flawless performance.

The suspense stretched, and the crowd leaned forward.

Then it slowed.

Stopped.

Two hundred.

In one round.

Golden tickets burst forth in a glorious cascade, spilling out in an unstoppable stream.

Reeve swallowed hard.

Because it was at that moment that the war for ten thousand tickets truly began.

__

In truth, they really would not have needed that much.

Frankly speaking, if someone simply wanted the plushie of a specific member, they only needed to fork over five thousand golden tickets. That alone was already enough to make many people grit their teeth and start counting.

But Duke Leander, and unfortunately every other interested party, could no longer bring themselves to do something so uncouth after Princess Kira casually mentioned something she referred to as playsets.

This revelation came right after the plushies had very nearly claimed several lives.

Just when everyone thought they could finally recover, the enterprising orc princess brightened and announced that there was still something important she had yet to show.

Something critical.

It was unheard of.

And truthfully speaking, it was also something Princess Kira herself had never known existed until Luca had shown and explained the concept to them. But once she learned what it was and what it could do, she found that she simply could not go back to the way things were before.

And as someone who had experienced such a life-changing realization, how could she possibly keep it to herself?