Distrust, and Hatred (7)
The single sheet of paper resting on the office desk was viciously crumpled in Professor Muniher's fist before sailing straight into the wastebasket.
Muniher was already drowning in paperwork he had no desire to see, let alone receive, but this particular document was an utter eyesore. Or rather, it would be far more accurate to say that such a document should never have been drafted in the first place, much less found its way into his hands.
"I'm going to lose my damn mind."
Unable to mentor the boy personally due to his duties with the start-of-semester evaluations, he had swallowed his regret and even gone out of his way to entrust him to Denise. He had been itching with anticipation to take charge of the boy's training himself the moment the exams wrapped up, yet that eager expectation was now dissolving into thin air, leaving behind nothing but a hollow void.
Just this morning, Junon had walked through his door and handed it over.
[ Voluntary Withdrawal Application ]
Those few formal words inscribed on the page had struck Muniher as the pinnacle of absurdity. He had let out so many heavy sighs upon receiving it that he wondered if his desk might wear away beneath his breath. The reason given was practically nonexistent—nothing more than a half-baked excuse claiming he could no longer endure the tyranny of his fellow academy students and wished to depart to make a living elsewhere.
It was a total contradiction.
Considering Junon's true caliber, the number of people in this institution capable of besting him in single combat could be counted on one hand.
"I cannot fathom it in the slightest. Who in this entire academy could possibly pose a threat to you?"
Watching Junon, who for some unfathomable reason looked like a man hunted, Professor Muniher had clicked his tongue in disbelief again and again.
Why the hell won't he just let me go?!
I had chosen the most rational course of action available. Submitting a withdrawal application was hardly unnatural. I had no reason left to linger at the academy, and if those monsters remembered the past timeline, they were more than capable of handling whatever crises lay ahead without me. That way, I could steer clear of the Tembris party in one piece and live my own life.
That was the sole reason I opted to drop out.
Was it even just my own desire pushing me toward leaving? Far from it. Erika had marched right up to me and delivered an explicit warning never to loiter around the Tembris party. On top of that, Aris had outright threatened my life. Having zero justification to remain, I had gone straight to Professor Muniher. And yet...
'Disapproved. Do you intend to abandon the resolve you possessed upon admission?'
He had used that infernal student code of conduct as a shield. Something about having lost my initial zeal for scholarship and forsaking the essential virtues expected of a citizen of the Principality. Boiled down to a single sentence, that needlessly bloated rulebook basically declared: You may enter at your own pleasure, but leaving is not your decision to make.
Even if I left the academy, I could swing a pickaxe on a construction site and have no trouble putting bread on the table. Staying cooped up here was infinitely more perilous, which was why I wanted out so badly. But hearing that my petition was denied because my reasoning wasn't considered valid made my chest tighten with sheer frustration.
Naturally, I couldn't blurt out that my life was being threatened, so I had cooked up a different pretext. Since social friction directly affects academic performance, I figured it was a reasonably sound justification. I thought he would accept it if I simply explained how I was perceived and treated on campus. Students routinely filed for withdrawal around this time of year for precisely those reasons, after all. Yet my expulsion procedure had been flatly rejected.
It was enough to drive a man insane.
If that's how it's going to be, I have no choice.
Thanks to Lady Ophelia's intervention, I had managed to slip past Aris this once, but there was no guarantee fortune would smile on me next time. Worse still, Aris wasn't the only one harboring raw hatred toward me—Erika was cut from the exact same cloth. There was no telling when the two of them might track me down to finish the job. In the worst-case scenario, the entire lot of them would corner me, forcing me to pay the price for their bitter grudges and blame.
Die at your hands a second time? I would never accept that fate.
The only option left is to slip away in secret.
If there were predators gunning for me, all I had to do was vanish from their sight.
Ahead of me, the guard stationed at the academy gates recognized my face and called out warmly.
"Oh! If it isn't Junon. Heading out for some fresh air?"
"No, sir. I just submitted my withdrawal paperwork."
"Huh? Withdrawal? What on earth are you talking about?"
"Excuse me, but I must take my leave."
With that, I marched proudly through the gates, carrying only the meager sum of money I had saved up until now. Remaining in there meant running into their sight no matter what I did, so I intended to walk away on my own two feet.
And yet, right before my eyes, a young woman with billowing platinum-blonde hair touched down lightly from midair. She wore an infuriatingly triumphant expression that practically screamed: See? I was right, wasn't I?
"Withdrawal? Then something really did happen yesterday, didn't it?"
Damn it all. Not a single thing was going my way.
"Have a seat."
"..."
"I simply wish to sit and talk. I have no intention of threatening you."
"...Understood."
I had followed Lady Ophelia all the way to the student council room, but my mind was still a chaotic mess, entirely unprepared with a proper excuse. The second I caught sight of that platinum hair, memories of last evening collided with my present predicament, whipping up a tempest of dread in my head.
She's determined to pry an answer out of me no matter what.
Resting on the table was an activated single-use magical artifact for discerning lies—a tool rarely deployed outside official interrogations. It required only simple yes-or-no answers, but the moment a falsehood passed one's lips, an ear-splitting shriek would pierce the eardrums, even if only once. While I would be writhing and clutching my ears, a perfectly serene Lady Ophelia would use the indisputable evidence to squeeze the truth out of me.
"It is a tea known for soothing the mind. Would you care for a cup?"
As if I had any appetite for tea right now. Wishing she would just cut to the chase and state her business, I met her offer with silence. Ophelia seemed to catch on to my mood; after swallowing a sip of tea, a faint sigh escaped her lips.
"Even from your own perspective, wouldn't it be fairly accurate to say you are withdrawing because you were wronged yesterday?"
"I wonder. I don't recall ever claiming it was related to that incident."
"A fair point. However, I do hope you aren't about to claim the word 'withdrawal' was merely a slip of the tongue or a mispronunciation."
"Nothing of the sort. I have already handed my withdrawal application to Professor Muniher."
"Hmm, is that so?"
I hadn't spoken a single lie. Even if my withdrawal hadn't been granted, the fact that I submitted the application remained unaltered. I hadn't deceived her. Consequently, the interrogation artifact beside us remained completely silent.
Taking another sip from her cup, the highborn lady pressed on in the same composed, measured cadence.
"What was your relationship with Miss Aris?"
The question I dreaded most had arrived. She had dragged me into this room precisely to corner me with this. But that didn't mean there wasn't a way to bypass the artifact.
"At the very least, it is an entirely separate matter from the disparity in combat positions that your ladyship is familiar with."
"That is precisely what I am asking about at this very moment, Cadet Junon."
"I hardly believe I've committed a grave crime that warrants laying bare my personal affairs. Or is it your wish to treat me as a criminal?"
This room was not an interrogation cell meant for detaining felons; it was merely a school office. Even the Disciplinary Committee, which existed solely to guide and assist students in their campus life through autonomous regulation, had no legal right to pry deeply into personal matters. When Ophelia hesitated to rebut, I knew my countermeasure had hit the mark.
"If it is personal, I shall let it pass for now," she conceded. "However, you must disclose the reason for your withdrawal."
"Is that not also fundamentally a personal matter?"
"Withdrawal is permitted only when there is a valid justification for abandoning one's studies. If such a standard had been met, Cadet Junon, your name would have already been struck from the dormitory registry."
Without the slightest flicker of emotion, she rose and walked toward the storage closet. She unlatched a crate, and a metallic clattering echoed through the room.
Crack!
"Wait, what in the—!"
The whip she routinely favored lashed forward, coiling tightly around my body until I couldn't budge an inch. When she emerged from the storage closet, her hands held a pair of heavy restraints.
Clack. Snap.
Before I could react, cold metal clamped shut around both my wrists. A low, ominous hum began to vibrate from the metal, signalling that the device was on the verge of activation.
"What do you think you're doing?!"
The moment she fastened the cuffs, my vision went red with disbelief. Those were confession shackles—a specialized artifact designed for extracting admissions from actual criminals.
"I normally never take an investigation to such lengths, but occasionally there are students who refuse to speak candidly. This is solely to uncover the facts they insist on concealing."
"How is this a conversation?! This is outright blackmail!"
"I will certainly receive a reprimand if word gets out, but for now, I possess the authority to do so. In the name of Lady Ardelion."
Evading the lie detector was easy enough since it possessed no coercive force. But the activation of confession shackles meant she intended to forcibly wrest the truth from my lips by hijacking my free will.
"Now, answer me. For what reason are you attempting to withdraw?"
Her sharp ultimatum fell upon my ears, demanding I confess everything about yesterday's events without further resistance.
Ophelia felt a surge of certainty; her instincts had not betrayed her. Henna's testimony had proven entirely accurate as well.
You should understand by now.
If he refused to speak the truth willingly, the detector would expose his deceit. And if he refused to disclose his reasons for leaving, the artifact would compel him to confess. She was deliberately backing him into a corner.
Because you chose to evade me in that manner.
In truth, even brandishing such an artifact carried severe political repercussions. Confession shackles were, by definition, devices engineered to compel admissions from suspects. Principality law explicitly forbade their use for private matters. However, so long as she didn't actually activate them, no crime was committed—much like how he had subtly danced around her questions.
Ophelia merely intended to exert enough pressure to extract the truth, but the young man before her was visibly trembling, trapped in a checkmate. Everything was unfolding according to her design. When dealing with students who stubbornly held their tongues, it took pressure of this magnitude to draw out the agony festering at the bottom of their hearts.
His fists clenched white, Junon kept his lips sealed for a long, agonizing moment before he finally spoke.
Yet the words that emerged defied all expectations.
"I am... attempting to withdraw because my life is being threatened."
"Wh-what did you say?"
The answer hit her completely out of left field, shattering the dignified poise Ophelia had maintained to keep him under her thumb.
"You expect me to believe such an absurd—"
Before she could finish the sentence, his expression, his demeanor, and the silence of the room provided the verdict.
The interrogation artifact remained dead quiet.
His fists remained clenched so tightly that deep creases bunched in his uniform trousers.
And finally, his dark eyes stared directly ahead, unyielding and serene as a mirror of polished glass.
Every shred of evidence declared that his claim of being hunted for his life did not contain a single grain of deceit.