13. Academy Terror WWE
13. Academy Terror WWE
The dormitory, after Adam had left.
A place already desolate grew even more forlorn without its owner. Sunlight streaming through the windows caught dust motes drifting in the air, and the faint, stale smell of a room gone too long without proper ventilation hung over everything.
At the center of it all, Rus quietly set to work.
............
A soft click. Then another.
First, the windows were opened to air the place out, and a broom that had clearly been bought and never once used swept the floor and dust away.
The dishes Adam had eaten from were washed. The remaining ingredients were neatly sorted and stored inside the refrigeration magic device, while the low-grade elixirs that had been sitting inside were thrown out without a second thought.
She wet a rag and wiped down every surface, then organized the books and papers that had been piled up haphazardly.
Small as it was, the dormitory still stood two floors tall. The dust had settled deep—a student tackling it alone at a leisurely pace would have had her work cut out for her.
But then.
A faint glow began to coil around the broom in Rus's hands.
Sword Aura.
The power every swordsman and swordswoman aspires to, the mark of the 6th Rank. That extravagant, formidable force—
—was now used for nothing more than cleaning, quickly and precisely.
............
In that silence, the dormitory's first floor was rapidly put in order. She leafed through the documents and papers Adam had left behind, just in case, but found nothing of real consequence. As expected.
Still, cleaning was one thing. Leaving countless books and papers simply shoved into a single pile was something Rus could not abide.
After a moment's thought, she stepped outside and returned carrying a few wooden planks.
Thud! Thud!
She stacked the planks and drove nails through them, improvising a set of bookshelves and a display cabinet on the spot.
It was familiar work. Back when she had wandered the continent alone, she'd often had no choice but to spend the night outdoors, and having this sort of handiness had made those nights more bearable.
In no time at all, the makeshift shelves were finished, and Rus sorted the books and papers into them by category and title.
Then she pulled a chair into the middle of the now-spotless first floor, sat down, and—
"Adam."
—quietly murmured someone's name.
The person she had come to live with again. The person she had been able to meet again. The person she could talk to again.
And yet.
"...Adam."
No matter how kindly she treated him, this was still the man who had, in the end, set the world ablaze.
The man who had slaughtered countless people, driven them to ruin, and at last brought down the Empire itself, plunging the entire continent into chaos.
Sitting in that chair, Rus summoned every image of those sins and that destruction.
As if trying to set her own heart in order.
It was absurd, really.
"Ha."
Moments ago, she had been making breakfast for that very villain. She had cleaned this dormitory for him.
And all this time, she had never once been able to forget him.
She found herself utterly ridiculous, utterly pathetic.
Her head ached—over Adam, over the future that had changed, over the regression itself.
She closed her eyes and sat with those thoughts.
'...Fine.'
At last, she reached a decision.
She had not moved into this dormitory purely out of a desire to look after Adam. She wanted to believe she hadn't.
Hadn't she meant to investigate the academy terror plot she'd learned about the day before? The circumstances made it clear Adam was involved.
An academy terror attack had happened before. Only—
'I stopped it before it ever got going.'
She had stumbled on unidentified figures trying to infiltrate Grandis Academy and had dealt with them herself. At the time, she hadn't known who they were; it was only after the academy fell that she learned they had been the Wish Order.
If a terror attack was coming, it would naturally be similar—
'No. That's wrong.'
She mustn't jump to conclusions. How many times had she thought that way, only to be thrown into confusion when the future shifted? She needed to be more cautious.
She had learned that much after the summoning ritual incident. Her intervention did not always steer things in a good direction.
So this time—
—she would simply watch.
'Stay completely hidden, and observe.'
Fortunately, with the power of the Dark Sword, she could surveil without most people ever noticing her. For this terror plot, she would maintain a strictly detached stance.
She would see how events unfolded, who was involved, and if the attack truly materialized, she would step in then. Observing as long as possible would yield something, surely.
The Wish Order was tangled up in this, after all. If she played it right, she might learn the true state of an order that, unlike before, seemed to be headed for collapse.
And if—purely hypothetically—
Adam turned out to have been complicit in the order's academy terror plot—
"...Pointless speculation. Stop."
Nothing was certain yet. Rus shook off the ominous thought and rose from the chair.
Now, the second floor. She climbed the stairs and stood gazing at her own room and, right beside it, Adam's room.
'Should I drill a hole in the wall?'
With a 6th Rank physique, a single wall might as well not exist, but she wanted certainty. Adam would never notice anyway. She had done it before, in the previous cycle.
Already planning assorted renovations to make to the dormitory while Adam was away, Rus reached for the handle of Adam's door—
—and felt it catch.
"Huh?"
It would not open.
It wasn't simply locked. As a 6th Rank capable of wielding Sword Aura, Rus could feel it distinctly.
An overwhelmingly dense and solid energy. A power enveloping and protecting this entire room.
Its source was obvious.
'Chairwoman.'
In some ways, it was a perfectly natural precaution. But—why?
Why was it that the very moment Rus moved in, Adam announced he would not be returning to the dormitory for two weeks? He'd said it was work, but who in their right mind never clocked out and simply ate and slept at the office?
There were few people who could give such orders to someone at the rank of Finance Director. Precisely one, to be exact.
And on top of that—
'Given the density of the ki, this was laid down very recently, just before she left.'
She could guess when. Yesterday, no doubt.
The Chairwoman had probably come the very day Adam told her about Rus's change of residence. The fact that she had calibrated this barrier so that only those of 6th Rank and above could perceive it made the intent blatantly clear.
—Do not lay a hand on the Finance Director.
Since Rus was disguised as a man, the warning carried no romantic implication; it simply meant that a fighter of 6th Rank caliber could threaten the physically frail Adam.
Rus found it deeply, viscerally irritating.
'And whose fault is it that Adam is run ragged...?'
She didn't know the reason, but Adam worked overtime every single day, yet never hired more finance staff, and was more exhausted than ever. The cause was unmistakably the Chairwoman. Of that, Rus was certain.
In any case, this room was now off-limits. And yet, as if unable to let go, Rus's hand remained on the handle of Adam's door.
And so.
She simply stood before that closed door.
That thin door, which felt like the very wall standing between Adam and herself.
Suddenly, a wave of melancholy washed over her.
...It was all so tangled.
*
Milia had changed. I hadn't been certain yesterday, but now I was.
There was something in her manner that felt like an act, the sincerity from the day before nowhere to be found. A gut feeling told me I'd simply gotten lucky—whatever internal upheaval she'd suffered had briefly left a crack in her facade.
An opportunity gained by chance. Without letting it show, I pressed Milia immediately. She seemed, after all, more desperate about the terror plan than I'd expected.
And this changed Milia was, well—in several respects.
Convenient.
"Here is the plan for the attack. This is the initial draft, the revised draft, and this one compiles the addenda separately. I've also brought several pages of the academy's construction layout and blueprints as supporting documentation."
"...You claimed you'd given no thought whatsoever to a terror attack, yet you prepared all of this in a single day?"
"Yes, I worked through the night. Please read them over and then share your thoughts."
"Hah... To start, here is our side's roster of personnel participating in the attack and a detailed operational plan."
"I didn't expect this."
"Surely you didn't think the order would come with no preparations at all?"
"Well said."
Milia was remarkably easy to talk to. Or rather—as a fellow administrator, something just clicked between us.
I'd thought I'd built up a fair bit of experience serving as Finance Director, but for some reason Milia appeared far more seasoned than I was. She wasn't just an administrator; she carried the air of someone who had stood above others before.
We had both brought documents so thick the desk threatened to buckle under their weight, and with that much material to work through, the business proceeded at a rapid clip.
"Here, on page 39—the section on the current disposition of the Guard Corps. Is there a verifiable source for this?"
"Refer to appendix page 142. You'll find the patrol routes of the 3rd Guard Corps and their personnel roster from last year's final exams. The 1st Guard Unit and the 2nd Guard Corps, additionally, accompany the students for their safety during finals."
"Hm... This section on the infiltration method—the initial draft seems better than the current version. Why was it revised?"
"To minimize the chance of encountering the 3rd Guard Corps. This terror attack must end as nothing more than an attempt by the order to recover the sacred relic. The moment blood is shed, events will spiral beyond anyone's control. The order, after all, has no desire to face Chairwoman-nim in genuine fury."
"A terror attack seems like it'd be more than enough to provoke her fury already."
"If all that happens is a building or two collapsing, that's manageable. Is Chairwoman-nim not the wealthiest person in the kingdom? So long as nobody dies."
"Coming from the Finance Director, her closest aide, I suppose such words do carry weight...."
We pored over each other's plans and documents, questioning any points that seemed off and providing answers.
Given the sheer volume I had prepared in a single day (?), the questions mostly came my way, but there were a fair number in reverse as well.
"According to the order's personnel roster, an archbishop will be joining the operation. Is that confirmed?"
"Yes. With a combatant of the archbishop's caliber present, handling any contingencies will be far simpler."
"And by 'joining,' you don't mean he's already here?"
"Pardon? What do you mean by—?"
"Let me be direct. Is Student Milia the sole infiltrator within the academy? Truly?"
"That does not seem relevant to the plan at hand. I have no obligation to answer."
"That will break the trust between us."
"Was there ever trust to begin with? We are here to recover a sacred relic, and Finance Director-nim has his own private aims. This is nothing more than a transactional relationship."
"And if you fail to recover the relic, will you simply abandon the academy? Of course not. It seems likely our relationship will continue beyond this. Sharing at least this much as a gesture of building that trust—would that not be possible?"
"...I am the sole infiltrator. And the implication in your words—as though the order is certain to fail in recovering the relic—is, I should point out, detrimental to the very relationship of trust you keep invoking."
"I misspoke. My apologies."
I had seen that being—the one who wielded the Dark Sword's power—with my own eyes. And she claimed there were no other infiltrators?
The conversation continued, and the cracks in Milia's performance smoothed away, making it impossible to read her true intent. In times like this, it was best to assume the worst.
I will proceed as though a combatant of archbishop rank is already on academy grounds.
'Still, the speed of this is a blessing.'
Given that we were planning a terror attack, I'd assumed even two weeks might not be enough—but Milia's processing speed exceeded all expectations.
...She's good. I want her.
'Is there any way I can poach her?'
She'd be perfect, slotted into the Finance Department under me. Running her alongside Kirke, who was already halfway to being a slave, would be immensely satisfying.
But Milia hadn't screwed up the way Kirke had—there was no leverage yet. I was just clicking my tongue in appetite when—
—Milia, who had been examining the plans I'd brought, lifted her eyes to mine.
Her gaze held a decision.
"If we proceed with the terror attack, as for the date...."
"As stated in the plan, we are looking at the final exam period. Grandis Academy's finals have traditionally been held as outdoor training exercises. With nearly all students and professors off-campus, the attack will be far simpler in multiple respects."
"And this attack that will supposedly be so 'simple'—I assume the Chairwoman's office is included in the target?"
"You are quite blunt."
Even asking me about something already written in the plan.
Wanting my explicit confirmation.
They were openly, brazenly after the sacred relic. From the order's perspective, that was only natural.
"It is the very reason we have opposed the academy for so long. I do not know what Finance Director-nim seeks to gain from this terror attack, but what our order desires is not infamy or reputation—it is the relic."
"Regrettably, Chairwoman-nim remains unaware of this affair. However, she will be absent during the final exam period, so it should be possible."
"Such a hopelessly vague assurance is—"
"Are you seriously claiming it will be difficult, even with Chairwoman-nim absent and only a skeleton crew of the Guard Corps on duty? I see the Wish Order is as formidable as its reputation suggests."
"My apologies, but I am not so easily provoked. The order is not composed of mindless fanatics."
For a moment, our eyes locked. We stared each other down.
Whatever the reason, Milia and the order were clearly desperate about this terror plan, which meant they would not let the matter of the relic slide. It was, after all, the very purpose for which the order had accepted this attack in the first place.
And my position required me to deflect on this point, however I could. Relic or no relic, it had long since been melted into the walls of a dwarven city.
Milia's gaze sharpened as she realized I had no intention of giving an easy answer.
Amid the tension—
"The actual object."
"Mm."
"Might I see the actual object?"
Milia asked it with a smile.
"Haha, I will trust that you don't truly mean that. Unless—perhaps I might see the Dark Sword in person?"
"For someone who professes such fondness for a relationship of trust, you are awfully stingy."
"Still, I understand the order's need for caution. So, in lieu of that, I will give you information instead."
"Information?"
I was not supposed to say this.
But it was information that no longer held any meaning.
"It seems you are targeting the Chairwoman's office to recover the relic, but it's not there."
"...Pardon? But it was definitely there before."
"That was decades ago, when the order raided and confirmed its presence. Truly precious artifacts are, of course, kept in the Chairwoman's office, but the sacred relic of the Wish Order is currently in a different location."
Milia seemed momentarily thrown, but quickly pressed her lips shut. And I hadn't lied. It really was in a different place.
If one examined the bricks in the dwarven city carefully enough, one might just find it.
Naturally, I couldn't put it that way. So—
"It is right here."
"Here... you say? This decrepit old building with nothing in it?"
"It is one of the secret locations where Chairwoman-nim stores artifacts. A place known only to the Chairwoman and myself."
I pressed my finger to the spot I had marked in advance on the map. Not a lecture hall. Not a dormitory. As Milia had said, it was merely an old, run-down building.
So, was it truly a secret vault?
Of course not.
'After the terror attack, we'll be receiving assorted donations and reconstruction subsidies.'
If we're building with that money anyway, why not build something better?
The place I had indicated was exactly such a location—a building that needed replacing but had been abandoned due to prohibitive costs. A site in need of redevelopment, so to speak.
If we could demolish it and construct a new, high-quality dormitory or research facility, the academy's income would rise accordingly. The academy had many dormitories, but the number of truly comfortable, high-end accommodations for nobles could be counted on one hand. Nobles would likely pay a premium to secure rooms in a brand-new dormitory.
So. Go ahead and smash this place up for me.
It's a terror attack, isn't it? Make it spectacular. Go all out.
Wish Order—I'm counting on you.