The Scheme (3)
"Ugh… where on earth is she hiding?"
Late afternoon. Kallen trudged back into his office and sank into his chair with a weary sigh. He had spent the entire day searching for Garnet, and nowhere could he catch so much as a glimpse of her.
"Damn it. I'll just have to look again later."
Ruffling his hair in frustration, Kallen let out a light complaint. "It's not like I can just trail after her alone… ugh."
He popped open his canteen and gulped it down in one go — the very picture of a shameless drunkard. Outside the office door, the female students of the Magic Department had been watching through the gap, breath held, and now their faces twisted in horror.
"That's… that's definitely alcohol, right?"
"Wow… there's no bigger degenerate alive… drinking like that, right there in his office, bold as brass…"
"I almost feel sorry for the Sword Department kids…"
Beside the girls whispering among themselves, one student facing Judith was hopping from foot to foot, her face crumpled on the verge of tears.
"J-Judith… do I really have to…?"
"I told you it's fine, Hanna."
Despite Hanna's worry — she was the very girl who'd once found an ice blade pressed to her throat by Garnet — Judith only wore a gentle smile.
"If it were me, it'd be far too obvious. And out of all of us, you've got the best looks."
"B-But still… asking me to seduce a professor, of all things…"
Hanna's cheeks were already flushed scarlet as the words tumbled out. "I've—I've never even dated a man in my life… I don't even know how…"
"We rehearsed the lines together just a while ago, didn't we? All you have to do is do it exactly like that. What's so hard about it?"
"But… but what if he really does pounce on me…"
"That will never happen."
At Hanna's tearful trembling, Judith shook her head and softly stroked her shoulders, as if to calm her. "I already told you I'd go fetch Professor Ziya if it came to that. And if things get bad, I'll step in myself. So don't worry."
The corners of Judith's mouth curved toward the sky. "Hanna. You know I take good care of my friends."
Looking at the girl with tears welling in her eyes, Judith pressed on once more with added emphasis. "No one knows your worth better than I do. Pull this off, and you'll become a scholarship student under official Vitelles patronage. I swear it on my name."
"R-Really…?"
"A dragon never lies."
Only at Judith's vow did some of the fear finally drain from Hanna's face. Having wiped her tears at last, Hanna nodded resolutely and exchanged a silent glance with the other girls.
Soon she stood alone before the office door, drawing two or three deep breaths. Then, with a knock-knock at the door, she poked her head gingerly inside.
"Um… i-is this Professor Kallen's office…?"
"Hm?"
Kallen's eyes, half-lidded as he lolled back in his chair, cracked open blearily. A familiar-looking girl's face — and the day's earlier incident flickered through his mind.
"You're…"
"I-I'm Hanna, a first-year in the Magic Department…"
Even under his openly sweeping gaze, she only swallowed hard and shuffled forward in small, hesitant steps. "I, um… I have something I'd like to discuss with you, Professor…"
"…A consultation?"
"Y-Yes…"
"…"
Kallen narrowed his eyes with a moment's suspicion.
"Uh, umm."
Hanna showed not the slightest sign of retreating, standing awkwardly rooted as she waited for his answer.
"…"
Watching her for a long moment, Kallen finally let out a light sigh and waved a hand. "…Have a seat."
At his gesture, Hanna scurried over and plopped down on the sofa across from him. Judith, observing from outside the door, shot an urgent glance at the girl behind her. At the signal, the student slipped away without a sound into the shadows of the corridor.
Judith turned her attention back to the scene inside. Hanna, head ducked low, was rubbing her thighs together in a restless, embarrassed fidget. And Kallen, seated across the table from her, was just about to begin.
"So, what's this consultation about…"
"P-Professor, the truth is… I've admired you for so long…!"
Hanna, who had been pressing her lips together with her eyes squeezed shut, suddenly blurted it out with tremendous force.
"…What?"
"A-awhile back, I passed by the training grounds by chance and saw you for the first time… and the way you taught your students, so gallant… I just couldn't stop thinking about it…"
Even in the face of Kallen's utterly bewildered expression, Hanna only stammered on. "And then today, when I ran into you up close again… I f-feel like I can't hold these feelings back any longer…"
"…"
"Th-these feelings of mine…"
Shhlk— the sound of fabric whispering. Hanna hiked her skirt up to her thighs, baring her smooth skin plainly before Kallen.
"Please… could you… accept me…?"
As she breathed out the pitiful plea, her other hand began popping the buttons of her shirt one by one. Before long, Hanna was daringly exposing everything from her collarbone down to the ample curve beneath it.
Even Judith, who hadn't expected her to go this far, felt a flush of mortified heat surge up her face. But she soon settled into a satisfied smile.
"Not bad at all, Hanna. That's exactly why the boys fall head over heels for you…"
"W-will he really fall for it, Judith…?"
The girl watching alongside her asked back, still wearing a worried expression.
"Of course he will."
Judith nodded again, brimming with certainty. "A fair-skinned noble beauty smelling of perfume, seducing him outright — how could a commoner possibly resist? He'll come charging over like a dog in heat."
"B-But… then Hanna really will get pounced on…"
"I told you not to worry. You think I'd actually let it get that far?"
Judith shook her head decisively, as if the idea were absurd. "Just wait a little and Professor Ziya will be here any minute. And if it truly gets desperate, I'll step in and feed him a fireball myself."
"Well, that's a relief… but what if he doesn't fall for it…?"
"Well then, that's a good thing, isn't it? It just means he isn't quite as low as we thought."
Judith continued on with an easy smile. "This is a test. A trial to see whether that drunkard is fit to be a professor at all. As students of Elysion, we're simply exercising our rightful authority."
"Then…"
"Of course, I don't imagine that pathetic man is capable of overcoming temptation."
Despite her upturned smirk, her eyes remained cold. Then Judith bit her lip slightly, recalling the humiliation of earlier that day, and murmured icily.
"The bloodline of a traitor, an unmannered drunkard… such unqualified people cannot be allowed to defile this sacred academy."
All of this was, after all, Judith's plan to personally educate the shameless degenerate of a professor. As a member of the empire's high nobility, she felt it her duty to weed out the irreverent sorts who stained Elysion's dignity and eroded its discipline.
There could be no greater disgrace than a professor being caught in the very act of assaulting a female student. If fortune favored them, they might even aim for something far more devastating.
"…"
The two of them turned their eyes to the office once more.
"Hoooo…"
Hanna, flushed crimson, her breath gone ragged and heavy, waited for Kallen's answer with her whole face.
"…Why is her face like that? Did she get too into character…"
Judith was just furrowing her brow at the sight when—
"Haah…"
Kallen, who had shown no inkling of what he was thinking this whole time, abruptly let out a long, deep sigh. It was, on any glance, the sigh of a man in profound anguish. And then his gaze settled back on Hanna across from him.
"Hehe…"
Feeling somehow as though she were about to be devoured whole, Hanna ducked her head all the way down to the floor without meaning to.
"P-Professor…"
Her plaintive voice — was it seduction or supplication? — was strange enough to send an odd thrill even down Judith's spine. And then Kallen, silently looking down at Hanna, finally began undoing the buttons of his own shirt.
Shock flared up in Judith's eyes.
"H-He's…!"
"He's actually going to do it…! I knew he wou—huh?"
Judith, who had been flailing soundlessly, suddenly tilted her head in confusion. Kallen's hands had stopped at precisely three buttons. It fell far short of even her expectations.
Rather than undo any more, he gripped his collar as if to cool himself and shook it out lightly a couple of times. And then, rising at last from his seat, he slowly approached Hanna.
"Huh?"
His right hand was opening and closing its fingers repeatedly, as if warming up for exercise. Hanna, still buried in her bow, hadn't noticed his strange movements at all.
And as the situation took this bizarre turn, Judith was just about to knit her brow. "What on earth is he doing right now—"
It happened in an instant.
Suddenly, Kallen's right hand — the one that had been flexing all along — clenched shut so hard the veins bulged. And with his upper body dropping low, he drove his fist squarely into Hanna's solar plexus.
"Gahk…!"
"…!!"
Hanna crumpled straight to the floor without so much as a proper scream. Seeing it, Judith clamped both hands over her mouth and let out a soundless shriek.
"Hrk… ghh, hukk…"
Not a trace remained of the pitiful allure and seductive display of moments before. Like a fish out of water, Hanna lay on the floor foaming at the mouth, eyes rolled back, body twitching. Kallen simply stood over her, fist still clenched tight, looking down in silence.
"Whew…"
And it kept going.
Letting out a heavy sigh, Kallen roughly seized the throat of Hanna — who couldn't even draw a proper breath — and hauled her up.
"Khk, kehhk… help me… please, help…"
Ignoring her pleas entirely, he began raining merciless blows on her cheeks, alternating left and right.
—Smack! Smack! SMAACK!
Judith could bear to watch no longer. Forgetting all about her fireball plan, she rushed out, shouting. "Wh-what do you think you're doing right now!! Stop it this instant—gyaah!!"
She strained and squirmed, trying to tear Hanna away from him, but the man's thick frame didn't budge an inch. Instead, she was shoved back by Kallen's strength and went tumbling across the office floor.
"…Heek."
Staggering back to her feet, Judith involuntarily hiccupped. Kallen glanced at her briefly, his eyes nothing but cold and still. The muddled, dim-witted demeanor he'd shown all along was nowhere to be found now.
Only then did Judith intuit that something had gone very, very wrong. And as Kallen pushed her aside, he was just raising his hand to strike Hanna's cheek hard once more.
Creak— the sound of the door opening. And at last, the person Judith had been waiting for all this time appeared.
"What in the world could be so urgent that you send for me like—"
Ziya, who had arrived in her nightclothes, went wide-eyed for a moment. "…Huh?"
Hanna, hanging limp as a corpse from Kallen's grip on her throat. And Judith, frozen stiff on the floor, her face drained of all color. Professor Ziya was quite certain she had seen this exact scene somewhere not long ago.
Horrified, she raised a trembling finger, on the verge of screaming. "Y-you!! What impossible nonsense is it this time—!"
"Ah. Finally, someone's come to help."
Shooting her a sidelong glance, Kallen raised his eyebrows with perfect calm and spoke.
"Hurry and go fetch a priest, would you."
"What…?"
"She's a Possessed Person."
Still not releasing Hanna from his grip, he gave a slight nod of his head toward her.
"She's got a demon in her."