Ominous Intelligence
Even among third-years, there was a stark disparity in strength.
The truly strong were monstrously powerful, while the weak were so pathetic that you couldn't help but wonder, How on earth did someone like this make it to their third year?
The guy who had just taken Jigoku's bullet and passed out cold happened to be one of the weak ones. In hindsight, it made total sense. How formidable could someone really be if all they did to earn Points was grind out routine patrol daily quests? The genuine monsters never wasted their time on such petty chores; they were out taking part in high-stakes operations loaded with massive point bounties and lucrative privileges.
He's probably around the level of Mob if Mob made it to his third year!
Judging him objectively, that was the exact caliber of this upperclassman.
"A first-year beat a third-year?"
"Must be an Upper Class kid."
"Damn. No wonder she didn't flinch when we tried to shake her down."
The third-years murmured in hushed whispers, but thanks to the modest experience points invested in my Hearing stat, their entire conversation drifted clearly into my ears.
A moment later, Flight Squadron Leader Icarus drifted slowly downward on his broom, taking care to show he had no hostile intent.
"My apologies, underclassmen. It seems one of my squad members suffered a mild touch of heatstroke."
"Don't come any closer! Attack us again and I'm reporting you to the Student Council!"
"Haha. Nothing of the sort, I assure you. I only came down to retrieve our friend who's so disgracefully knocked out over there, so cut us some slack, would you?"
Icarus ordered the other members to haul away their teammate, who remained wedged into a tree trunk, dead to the world.
"You'd best be careful with that Blood Stone, by the way. Anyone who knows its true worth will inevitably covet it."
"I'll take care of it myself!"
Faced with my bristling, airtight guard, Icarus clamped his mouth shut like a nervous civil servant terrified of sparking a citizen complaint, then beat a hasty retreat.
"How'd you pull that off?" Jigoku asked, staring after them. "Those bastards wouldn't back down until I put a hole in one of them, and you chased them away with just a few words."
"I borrowed the power of authority!"
"Authority?"
At Gift Academy, the authority wielded by the Student Council carried every bit as much weight as a royal decree issued by a sovereign king. Take, for instance, the infamous incident where an actual royal princess breached academy regulations and was dragged before the council. When her father sent a long-winded threat warning that he would personally ruin the officer's life if they dared lay a finger on his daughter, the Student Council member had reportedly hit him with the classic: "Cool story, bro. I’ll just emigrate~"
That particular senior hailed from the 979th Cohort, was currently a third-year, and remained an active member of the Student Council.
Compared to a monster like that, upperclassmen running patrol errands are absolute small fry!
A glint of genuine admiration shone in Jigoku's eyes as he looked down at me.
"Guess you would've managed just fine on your own even without my help, huh?"
"Not at all! Things only resolved so easily because you spent an expensive elemental round, Jigoku! If they'd thought we were easy pushovers, they would've snatched it by force and ignored whether we ran to the Student Council or not."
"Is that so? Hmph, well, glad you see it that way." Jigoku leaned down and whispered conspiratorially into my ear. "So, this squares my debt from last time, right?"
"You mean the incident at the magical beast storehouse?"
When I gave an accommodating nod to Jigoku, who was nervously watching my face for a reaction, the anxious tension on his features melted away into an easy grin.
"Orknodi, what happened?" Hestia asked as she and the others came rushing over. "What did they say up there that made those seniors just turn around and leave?"
After I brought everyone up to speed, Rosini voiced a lingering worry.
"What if that stone really is dangerous?"
"Hmph. Absolutely zero chance of that."
"How can you be so sure?"
"I know about this kind of stuff better than anyone in the whole wide world!"
Any material capable of storing concentrated energy was considered precious within the academy. A Blood Stone was an essential catalyst used to channel Blood Magic. It had originally been discovered by mages with shallow mana pools who wondered, What if we tap into the biological mana stored within a living creature's blood?
Given that people were already running around illegally cultivating and gobbling down Mana Spore Sacs like snacks, there was no reason a Blood Stone couldn't be put to good use. What made it even better was that, unlike Mana Spore Sacs, which everyone recognized as valuable, Blood Stones were currently treated with contempt. The prevailing attitude in the magical community was: Who even bothers with such archaic, crude techniques these days?
Easy to get your hands on, yet ridiculously undervalued. In other words, a prime lottery ticket waiting to hit the jackpot!
Soon enough, an external guest lecturer—a Blood Mage—would join the academy's faculty. In fact, some of the higher-year students might have already begun receiving private instruction from him. Once Blood Magic surged in popularity—with students eagerly draining their own blood whenever they ran out of mana—the market price of Blood Stones would skyrocket day after day!
Of course, dangerous magic always brings fatal accidents, which means ruthless regulations will inevitably follow.
Before long, strict restrictions and licensing requirements would come crashing down to prevent mishaps, and when that happened, the value of Blood Stones would plummet right back to rock bottom. But as a seasoned veteran gamer, all I had to do was dump my stock before the crash. Even if I didn't diamond-hand all the way to the absolute peak, selling during the initial rally would easily net me enough Points to buy a carriage commuter pass.
Rosini was an aspiring applicant for the Department of Magic. Beyond attending lectures by Professor Weird, a master of Nature Magic, she sat in on classes held by several other instructors as well. Because she showed genuine promise, a few senior teaching assistants took a liking to her, occasionally sharing gossip and helpful tips.
"Rosini, you're taking Professor Weird's class, right? You'd better watch your step."
"Why?"
"Rumor has it she's testing whether feeding rocks to fourth-years boosts their nature affinity."
Remembering that whispered warning suddenly made all the bizarre rumors surrounding Orknodi click into place.
So Orknodi wasn't eating rocks because she was simple-minded—she was ingesting them to raise her nature affinity!
Surely she wasn't just swallowing raw gravel. Even in the Magic Tower, whenever researchers pursued an eccentric project, they approached it with surprisingly pragmatic methodologies. There had to be spells to break down stone, specialized elixirs to alter stomach acidity, or unique constitutions and secret techniques involved. Would the foremost academy in the world really let a professor force-feed rocks to fourth-years like mindless brutes? Without a single safety measure?
No, there's no way.
No one could possibly be that reckless. As a matter of basic physiology, humans couldn't digest stones. Naturally, Rosini had no intention of imitating such insanity. Even so, she had reached an epiphany: when it came to rocks, Orknodi truly was an extraordinary authority. And since the girl adored eating, imagine how much she had to know about edible stones!
What Orknodi had obtained today was, after all, a Blood Stone. It was an item she had desired so desperately that she paid each of them fifty Points—a small fortune equivalent to ten square meals—just to hire them as temporary party members. Whether she ended up eating it or using it for esoteric research, she would handle it herself!
"Those mosquitoes were seriously horrifying," Zeallot mumbled, shivering.
"...Do you have any idea how bad my ears are ringing from you screaming right next to me the entire time?" Rosini snapped.
"What was I supposed to do? It was terrifying! I've never seen bugs that gigantic in my entire life."
Cowardly Zeallot aside, the sharp-tongued Echo had essentially scammed her way into free Points.
"How could you just stand there without lifting a single finger?" Rosini glared at her.
"If an employer hires the wrong worker and lets them slack off on the clock, that's the boss's fault, not the employee's."
"If I'd hired you with my own money, I would've forced you to spit every single point back out. Orknodi really is far too soft-hearted for her own good."
Having pocketed fifty Points for doing absolutely nothing, Echo stuck her tongue out playfully and sauntered away. Regardless, a profit was a profit, so Rosini headed back toward the dorms in high spirits.
"What are Orknodi and Hestia discussing?" Arcadia asked.
"She mentioned they were going to scout for prospective buyers for the Blood Stone and test the waters," replied Nise.
Following fierce wage negotiations, Nun Nise of the Lightning Holy Heavenly Sect had accepted honey candies instead of catnip as her payment. She answered while noisily sucking on a piece of sweet amber confection.
"Truly remarkable," Arcadia murmured. "To think she actually carried out such a reckless operation, succeeded, and returned safely without a single casualty—even after clashing with third-years."
"Third-years are upperclassmen, not wild monsters. Why did you expect fatalities from a skirmish with seniors rather than the battle with the mosquitoes?"
"Because Orknodi's demeanor was unsettling."
Arcadia recalled it all. The Orknodi who was no longer just an innocent, harmless child. Now that the rose-tinted lens had shattered, every sinister rumor surrounding the girl surged back into the forefront of her mind. Even if Orknodi wasn't the ruthless, cold-blooded assassin whispered of in rumors, if she wasn't the sweet child Arcadia had believed her to be, she might truly harbor the instincts of a killer.
In truth, what Arcadia had feared was the possibility that Orknodi might slaughter the upperclassmen in cold blood.
"Have you heard of the Weihimhai Foundation?" Arcadia asked quietly.
"I know it as a charitable scholarship foundation that cultivates talented individuals across the continent."
"Recently, rumors have begun circulating that Orknodi was threatened by them—that if she refused to be trained as their assassin, she would be cast aside into prostitution."
The students who attended the Discernment lectures had sworn an oath of strict secrecy, but Arcadia, adept at navigating high-society gossip, had pried the truth from them anyway.
"I was terrified that a child molded by such a merciless organization might endanger her classmates or murder her seniors without a second thought."
Faced with an unexpectedly grim subject, Nise ceased savoring her honey candy.
"Lady Arcadia, do you fear that child, or do you worry for her?"
"Both. I worry she will walk down an irredeemable path, and I fear what will happen if she does."
"Why do you care so deeply about Orknodi?"
Nise's question was entirely reasonable.
"She is neither the only Foundation scholar, nor the only youth forced to choose between the path of a whore or an assassin, nor the only soul shackled to a cruel fate. What makes her so special in your eyes, Lady Arcadia?"
"At first, I simply adored her because she was cute. But as time went on, I saw the genuine kindness in her heart."
Even though Orknodi knew the embarrassing reality of the Florence Kingdom—lacking both military power and cultural prestige, an upstart realm without roots—she had spoken warmly of it, showing deep consideration for Arcadia's pride. She shielded the weak, stood up for the oppressed, and never hesitated to confront injustice.
Princess Arcadia of the Florence Kingdom.
Hestia the berserker, whom everyone avoided like the plague.
Mob the underachiever, whom no one spared a second glance.
Whether through the rumors or her own firsthand experiences, Arcadia knew Orknodi possessed an innocent, tender heart that seemed almost impossible given her brutal upbringing.
"Of course, innocence does not last forever," Arcadia said softly. "Battered in the grasp of that Foundation, her heart will slowly be stained, chipped away, and distorted until it loses its original shape entirely."
"So you wish to protect her. That child."
"Yes."
Hearing Arcadia's earnest confession, Nise found the reasoning acceptable.
"Do you understand now?" Arcadia asked.
"I understand," Nise replied with a slow nod. "I understand that you will soon be deeply hurt, my lady."
"...Pardon?"
"There is a piece of intelligence I purchased from an instructor with Points." Nise leveled her gaze at the noblewoman. "Starting next week, the academy will officially publish the evaluation scores and comprehensive rankings for every academic year."
"Rankings...? What does that have to do with me or Orknodi?"
"I obtained intelligence that every year around this time, the lowest-ranking underachievers of the Weihimhai Foundation cause an incident."
The student falling furthest behind among those hailing from the very same Foundation as Orknodi would inevitably trigger a catastrophe.
"For Orknodi, who belongs to that foundation, and for Lady Arcadia, who cherishes her so dearly, this will mark a turning point—one that pulls you far away from the peaceful academy life you have known until now."