Extra To Protagonist-Chapter 55: Lamb (1)

They weren't ready.

The courtyard was already stained in the ink of mana.

Purple-black clouds churned overhead where the sky had split, and from the rift, they poured out—limb-stretched aberrants with too many joints and no discernible eyes.

Like marionettes carved from bone.

And they were fast.

Merlin stood at the front of the students, rapier drawn, the tip resting against the cobbled stone. A flicker of lightning whispered across its length.

The other students were still hesitating. Shaking. One girl dropped her staff. Someone screamed.

'Too slow.'

A body slammed into the ground five meters from them—burned, unconscious, still breathing.

"…Fuck," Nathaniel muttered, stepping up beside him. His daggers were already unsheathed, one spinning lazily between his fingers. "They're not waiting around, are they?"

Merlin didn't answer.

'Nine of them. Five heading toward the dorms. Four here.'

'Nathan can handle two.'

'Liliana… one, with support.'

'The others—scared. Not their fault.'

The barrier crackled overhead, and from the far south wall, a deep boom echoed. Somewhere else, far larger monsters were being dealt with.

'That's where the professors are.'

'They won't come yet.'

'It's just us.'

He exhaled slowly, gold eyes narrowing. "Form up."

"What?"

"I said form up!" Merlin's voice cracked through the chaos like a whip. The other first-years flinched.

Adrian's head snapped up from where he was dragging a frozen student away. "Wait, are we fighting?"

"No shit, we're fighting," Nathan muttered. He gave Merlin a sideways glance. "You gonna give them the rallying speech, General Everhart?"

"Shut up," Merlin replied. "Just stay alive."

Nathan laughed. "There he is."

'Always laughing.'

'Always smiling.'

'He makes it look easy.'

The first aberrant lunged, legs bent backward like a deer, mouth gaping where a chest should be.

Merlin moved.

His rapier left the stone and flickered with a crack of blue. He dashed forward—not fast enough to reveal his full speed, but enough to intercept. The blade pierced the aberrant's skull with a snap of bone.

The thing twitched once and collapsed.

Behind him, Liliana raised her hands, mana spinning out in a surge of water. She aimed too high. The spell struck one of the monsters in the arm instead of the head.

"Liliana," Merlin said, breath even, "breathe. Focus."

"I—I'm trying," she replied, shaking.

Another aberrant rounded on Adrian. The boy barely got his axe up in time—blades met with a crash, but the impact knocked him off his feet.

'If I go there, I'll be too exposed.'

'If I don't, he dies.'

Merlin's jaw clenched. Lightning cracked from his palm—he sent a short-range burst not directly at the creature, but into the ground behind it. The resulting shockwave disoriented it for just long enough for Adrian to recover and swing.

Adrian buried his axe in its neck, panting hard. "Th-Thanks!"

"Don't talk," Merlin said.

From his left, a scream.

Ethan and Dorian were back-to-back, blades drawn. Ethan swung wildly, more panic than precision.

Dorian, by contrast, moved coldly, ice coating his daggers in jagged formations. But they were being pushed back.

Nathan slid past them in a blur. "Move!"

He flipped over one of the aberrants, blades flashing. His daggers carved glowing arcs through the air—lightning-enhanced slashes slicing clean through bone. The creature dropped.

"Hey," he called back to them, grinning. "Wanna try stabbing next time instead of flailing?"

Ethan looked like he might throw up.

Merlin didn't look at them.

'Eight left.'

'No casualties yet.'

'But the next wave is coming.'

Behind him, Liliana gathered another spell. This one was stronger. Sharper. The water coiled like a serpent, then lunged with precision into the mouth of a shrieking aberrant.

It drowned from the inside.

"…Nice," Nathan muttered beside Merlin, daggers dripping.

Merlin didn't answer.

He scanned the field. Students struggling. Shouting. Elara had impaled one with her spear, expression blank as ever.

Seraphina was holding up a half-frozen wall of protection. They were lasting. But barely.

Nathan leaned a little closer, voice low. "You're thinking too much."

'Too much? In a situation like this?'

"I'm calculating."

"You're blaming yourself for a fight we weren't supposed to win to begin with."

Merlin's jaw flexed.

"…They'll die," he muttered. "Unless we control this."

Nathan was silent a moment. Then—quietly—he said, "And if you die doing it?"

Merlin didn't answer.

Because he already knew.

'It doesn't matter.'

'As long as they live.'

'This world isn't supposed to survive. But I will make it survive at all costs.'

'Even if I have to burn myself out to rewrite the ending.'

To his left, the rift in the sky expanded. A low howl echoed across the courtyard.

The second wave was arriving.

Merlin raised his rapier.

"Position yourselves," he ordered.

Liliana turned to him, eyes wide. "How many?"

"…Doesn't matter."

Nathan exhaled, cracking his neck. "This is gonna suck."

Merlin nodded. "Hold the line."

'Don't break. Don't waver. They're watching. All of them. And if I fail now. We don't get a second chance.'

—

The storm cracked.

Not just in the sky—but across the boundary of the world.

The portal widened even further.

'It's exactly like the one in my training..'

Not smooth like a spellgate, not even jagged like a summoning rupture—it was splintered. A dozen threads of mana tearing at the seams, spilling smoke and whispering voices into the world that didn't belong.

The humanoids weren't just crawling through now.

They were sprinting through the damned gate like their lives depended on it.

Three at a time. Five.

Too many.

And behind them, something bigger moved.

Merlin didn't hesitate.

He knew the moment. He'd read it a hundred times.

'Chapter 44, I remember it as clear as day.'

The breach point accelerates. The main cast is overwhelmed. Reinforcements arrive after the first death.

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The timeline was a stone in his gut.

The logic was cruel and perfect.

'But things have changed, what if one of the main cast dies here? I won't be able to bring them back.'

Merlin's eyes twitched.

'If someone dies, the professors will come.'

So someone had to die.

Or at least make it look like they would die.

Merlin spun, slicing through a shrieking creature—his rapier catching a flicker of mana before it could lunge at Liliana's side.

She turned to shout something—but he was already backing away.

Wind surged beneath his feet.

A step. Then two. The world blurred. Space folded.

Nathan noticed first. "Merlin. What are you—?"

"I'll stop the portal. I have a plan."

"What?!"

Merlin didn't answer.

He stepped onto the broken flagstones ahead of the rift—his silhouette framed in the raw glow of the breach.

The pressure made his ears ring. The mana density clawed at his lungs. The runes spinning inside the portal turned faster.

'It's a partial summoning gate. No anchor. If I reverse the flow—'

Another crash of lightning. A creature lunged from the tear—and Merlin caught it mid-air with a twist of space and wind, folding the air around its body until it imploded into itself.

He staggered slightly.

Too much mana.

Not enough time.

"Get back!" he shouted behind him.

"NO!" Liliana's voice cracked, but it was swallowed by the wind. "You can't—!"

"NOW!"

He raised his hand, drawing the last threads of lightning from above, threading it with wind—then water, pulling from the ambient moisture until the very air hissed.

The ground shook.

Another beast tried to crawl through.

He met it halfway.

A single thrust. Lightning-enhanced. Piercing. Absolute.

The creature screeched—and fell apart into static and smoke.

Then Merlin stepped forward.

Into the breach.

"MERLIN!" Nathan screamed.

Time slowed.

'This is the best option. If I can seal it from the other side, the rebound should trigger the failsafe ward. They'll survive. That's all that matters.'

Mana warped around him like a second skin. He could feel space bend, the current of the leyline raging beneath his boots like a river. The breach tried to pull him apart at the edges.

But he held.

He kept his mind clear.

Focused.

'I have to do this in order to win. In order to keep them alive.'

He saw Nathan's expression through the swirl of smoke—eyes wide, hand reaching forward.

'Don't look back. If you look back, you won't go.'

Merlin smiled faintly.

Then vanished into the portal.

The breach screamed.

Lightning slammed into its core from within.

And then—

Silence.

The portal collapsed inward completely disappearing.

The monsters still alive shrieked once—twitched—and dropped like marionettes with cut strings.

The courtyard went still.

Broken stone. Scorched grass.

Nathan stood frozen in place.

His hand was still reaching out towards the vanished portal.

"…He—" Liliana's voice shook as tears prickled at the corners of her eyes. "He went in. He went in—"

Nathan didn't answer.

His throat worked around nothing. His voice didn't come out.

From the walls above, a wardstone flared.

And at last, the professors arrived.

Too late.

Too late.

They were too late so Merlin had to go in and sacrifice himself in order to save them.

'I…'

Nathan's thoughts spun as he dropped to his knees clutching his daggers.