From Doubt to Conviction
The shockwaves from the incident in the Magician's Forest were considerable. It was the faculty, more than the cadets, who found the flames licking at their heels, and an emergency summons went out at once. At a session that mobilized even those professors famously glued to their chairs, Olberus the Headmaster released a long, troubled sigh.
"So this news is indeed the truth."
As his eyes swept over the report, the deep lines carved into Olberus's face grew only deeper, and the air in the room grew heavy in an instant. The matter was grave enough to warrant it.
"It is, Headmaster."
When Professor Wilhelm, who had accompanied the party into the Magician's Forest, answered on behalf of those present, the eyes of the assembled faculty darkened further. Not one of the report's other contents even reached them. Only a single word — Followers — sat embedded there, enormous, filling their vision to the brim.
"No evidence was recovered from the scene, and the only thing we can trust is the testimony of a single cadet..."
Reciting the report's contents in brief, Olberus let out a low rumble of thought. There had been a residue of mana, but it was impossible to trace, and so the enemy's identity remained unknown. The other three cadets who had been present hadn't the faintest guess as to who their attackers were. And yet amid it all, one person had held a conversation that allowed for a deduction as to the enemy's identity — and according to him, the enemies had called themselves Followers.
Far too much about this feels wrong.
Stroking his white beard, Olberus leaned back into his chair, his expression clouded with thought. On its face, there was nothing so strange about the matter. The Followers had always schemed from behind the scenes, it was true — but they had also shown, time and again, a vanity that drove them to broadcast the existence of the one they served as widely as possible. They seemed to take considerable pride in naming themselves Followers, at that. If they had behaved in much the same way this time, there was a measure of it one could accept.
And yet Olberus found one thing deeply strange about it all.
Then why did they try so desperately to leave no trace behind?
Setting aside the faint residue of mana, they had left behind nothing to prove they had ever existed at all. They had erased even the most trivial scraps of evidence — fragments of cloth torn loose mid-battle — down to the last thread. And yet, to a single cadet and him alone, they had revealed that they were Followers.
Which was to say, their actions lacked all consistency.
"Headmaster. Is it not difficult to pass judgment on the testimony of a single cadet alone?"
"I agree. Even granting that they kept quiet about whether they still survived, this report alone leaves far too much unaccounted for."
One objection after another rose from the faculty toward Olberus, still sunk deep in thought. None of it was wrong, of course. Strictly speaking, with no physical evidence and even the accounts of those present at odds with one another, lending an ear to one cadet's word might well have been absurd. But there was a reason none of them could wave this particular matter aside so lightly.
"You are not wrong, Professor Rubel. But if that is so, are we not left with only one assumption to make — that this cadet already knew of the Followers' existence?"
"That is..."
At Olberus's sharp rejoinder, the middle-aged professor who had risen from his seat found nothing more to say. It was true. Officially, the Followers were known to have been annihilated in the Great War thirty years ago. Those few insiders who knew the full story did whisper that they might not be extinct after all — that somewhere, seeds of evil might be sown once more. But that talk was confined, quite literally, to those insiders. For a mere student of the Academy to reach that information would be impossible without some extraordinary point of contact. Had he been someone whose station afforded him the chance to hear rumors from many quarters, he might at least have hazarded a guess — but this cadet was a commoner by birth, nothing more.
Besides, the details are far too precise. Unless he heard it from the Followers' own mouths, none of this can be explained.
Reading closely once more the testimony of Cadet Bell Dinauer, written dense and unbroken down to the last syllable, Olberus slowly inclined his head, his mind already tipping toward a decision. Had the testimony mentioned nothing beyond the word Followers, there might have been grounds to doubt its reliability. But this report recorded even the intimate inner workings that no outsider could ever have known — down to the very reason the Followers had sought to take the Blessing of Astesia. In that case, only two possibilities remained. Either this cadet was in league with the Followers, or everything written in this report was true. Between the two, Olberus raised his hand for the latter. One further possibility remained open as well — but he chose to let it lie, filed away unspoken. To voice it here, before the faculty, would have been premature.
"For now, I shall see that this news reaches all who fought in the Great War. There is no harm in vigilance kept in advance."
Olberus was one of the three survivors among the five heroes who had shone brightest in that war. Thanks to that, he remained in contact with most of those who had served in it — the finest possible man to carry this urgent news.
"And what of the cadets?"
Before long Anetra, Dean of the Magic Faculty, posed the final question, and a heavy silence fell over the assembly. Olberus drew the line firmly, in a tone that suggested he had never needed to consider it at all.
"Silence. Those children are seedlings we are meant to protect — not sprouts to be planted on a battlefield."
The faculty nodded in firm agreement.
Just as it seemed the matter was settled, Professor Vanessa — who stood ever at Olberus's side — stepped cautiously to his side and murmured into his ear.
"Begging your pardon, Headmaster, but the young lady of House Crochel has requested an audience. She says she has a personal question she wishes to ask regarding this affair..."
"..."
Of all houses, it had to be Crochel. He thought, not without bitterness, that a request for an audience from the imperial princess herself would have sat easier on his heart — and with that, Olberus let out a heavy sigh. It was going to be a very long day.
The Crochel family was a ducal house ruling an enormous territory in the northwest of the Arcadia Empire. Since ancient times it had been a renowned martial house hailed as the Sword of the Empire, and its current head was none other than Balzac Ponter Crochel — the Red Sword, one of the great heroes who had survived the Great War thirty years past. The middle name Ponter was itself a title bestowed personally by the Emperor upon the finest living sword in the empire, so that name alone was enough to gauge the caliber of the man called Balzac.
And thanks to Balzac's renown, the deference shown to members of his house ranked just below that accorded the imperial family — even the most insufferably proud nobles bowed their heads to them as a matter of course.
Of all houses, it had to be that one.
The person Olberus was about to receive was the second daughter of that very house. The moment the fact settled in, he felt his chest grow tight. He had resolved to keep the truth buried where the Academy's cadets were concerned, but if she pressed her question not as a cadet of the Academy but as Elisha Crochel, simply letting it pass would be no easy thing. And pretending he could keep the matter hidden forever, when word had already reached her father, was nothing more than covering his eyes and pretending the world was blind.
Knock, knock.
Just as Olberus was deep in his deliberations, someone knocked at the headmaster's door — as if determined to grant him no respite. Realizing the visitor could only be one person, he waved his permission with an air of resignation.
"Do come in."
Ordinarily he would hardly have needed to speak so formally to a cadet, but it depended on the capacity in which one approached the headmaster's office, and so for now he raised his speech. Though it was established custom that outside rank carried no weight within the Academy, no one knew better than Olberus himself how hollow that convention had become in practice. Hierarchies truly were a confounded thing.
"Pardon the intrusion, Headmaster."
The slender blonde woman who entered — Elisha — offered her greeting first, then fixed him with calm, steady eyes. But to an old man who had lived nearly a century, no amount of concealment could hide the feelings churning beneath them. He could sense her straining to hold herself back despite the dozen questions burning on her tongue, and at the sight, Olberus swallowed a faint, wry smile. Age, it seemed, could not be disguised after all.
"Yes, I was told of your visit in advance. Sit wherever you're comfortable."
"Thank you. Though before that — please, there is no need to stand on formality with me. This is the Academy, after all, and I cannot in good conscience receive honorifics from a comrade of my father's while standing here as a private individual."
Not even the office of Headmaster, nor the renown of a seat among the Five Heroes, could lift a man above his station. They earned him deference, nothing more — and reckoned strictly by the ranks of noble society, Olberus stood below a daughter counted among the heirs of a ducal house. To Elisha, this was a deeply uncomfortable arrangement. In years lived, in deeds, in standing, Olberus towered far above her — and yet it seemed only the backdrop of the Crochel name allowed her to stand above him at all. To her, the courtesy was nothing but empty ceremony. So while they exchanged honorifics and mutual respect in equal measure, even that sat ill with her, and Elisha boldly demanded the formalities be set aside.
"...Then so I shall. I hear you've been curious about the incident in the Magician's Forest?"
"Yes. Though I'm certainly not asking you to reveal every detail. I imagine the Academy has its own reasons for what it chose not to make public to the cadets."
"I see. My thanks for your understanding."
For Olberus, who had been at a loss as to where to even begin, the answer could not have been more welcome — rain upon drought. Satisfied, he had tea brought in himself and came around toward the sofa where Elisha sat. His right hand, Vanessa, had already gone home for the day, so today there was no help for it.
"Judging by those eyes, something has been gnawing at you, and you mean to confirm it."
At Olberus's probing remark as he set a teacup before her, Elisha hastily waved both hands. It wasn't entirely wrong, but it was a shade off the mark.
"I wouldn't call it gnawing, exactly. Only... one doubt has occurred to me."
"Speak it, then."
Clink.
Elisha raised her teacup and took a sip of the fragrant black tea — and her hand trembled, ever so slightly. If her suspicion was true, then every hypothesis she had built might prove correct after all.
Hoo.
Only after drawing one long, slow breath could Elisha meet the eyes of the old man across from her. And when her lips finally parted, her voice came out lower, heavier than before.
"...Could this incident be connected to the Followers?"
It was as though time itself had frozen solid. Olberus, who had been on the point of tilting his own teacup, stopped dead, and a heavy silence settled over the room. Feeling those emerald eyes fixed squarely upon him, Olberus hesitated to let the words out — and then, at last—
without a word, he raised his teacup and lowered his gaze to the table.
Though every window in the room was shut fast, it felt somehow as though a single cold current of northwestern wind had slipped inside.
At that wordless answer, Elisha too brought her cup to her lips and gave a slow nod, as if in acceptance.
Because, at least in part, she had expected as much.