I Am the Variable
The rumors spread like wildfire.
“Did you hear? They caught the culprit behind yesterday’s intruder incident.”
“But I heard it wasn’t even a person. It was a monster.”
“What? You’re telling me a monster appeared inside the Academy?”
The next day, the entire Academy was in an uproar. The truth behind the so-called “Intruder Incident” had finally come to light. What everyone had assumed was a simple attack by some thug had turned out to be the work of a monster. No wonder the campus was buzzing. Monsters weren’t the kind of thing you ran into every day. They weren’t quite legendary creatures, but they weren’t exactly neighborhood strays either. If anything, it felt like hearing that a bear had wandered down from the mountain behind the village. In short, it was a rare event.
That aside.
Judging by how quickly the story was circulating, it seemed Elion and his party had reported the monster’s existence to the Academy straight away. That matched the original storyline I remembered. In the game, Elion’s group would defeat the monster and immediately notify the Academy.
However.
Hmm.
Even though events were unfolding exactly as they had in the game, I couldn’t relax. I had witnessed a phenomenon with my own eyes that had never appeared in the original. The cornered cat monster’s combat ability had suddenly spiked. That had never happened in the game. It was an unexpected variable, and not the kind I could simply shrug off. If I hadn’t been watching, Elion’s party would have taken serious damage. An anomaly on this scale couldn’t be ignored. I needed to uncover its cause.
There was one obvious suspect. What was different between the world I knew from the game and the one I was living in now?
Me.
Exactly. The introduction of someone who had never existed in the game—me—had begun to change things. Kyle, who should have died, was alive and moving freely. The girls who should have been dragged off by the Dark Cult and turned into villainesses had been rescued. Therefore, the odds were high that the anomaly during the Intruder Incident had originated from me.
The problem was, I couldn’t figure out how I had triggered it. The cat monster’s birth had been pure coincidence. This Academy had been built atop a special secret realm. At its center lay a lake. A place where mana gathered on its own, something found nowhere else on the continent—the Magic Lake.
The Empire had chosen that spot to establish the Academy. The reasoning was sound. Where mana converged, its density in the surrounding area naturally rose. In such places, simply breathing increased the rate at which one absorbed mana. Add to that intentional training methods designed to draw mana in, and the speed of accumulation became incomparable to anywhere else. In simple terms, growth was faster here. From that perspective, building an educational institution in such a location seemed like an incredibly shrewd decision.
The issue, however, was that the Magic Lake didn’t merely raise mana density. High concentrations of mana caused all sorts of abnormal phenomena. The perfect example was the culprit behind this Intruder Incident—the cat monster. An ordinary cat that had mutated into a monster under the influence of the dense mana. That was its true nature.
Which made the situation even more puzzling. The cat monster was a naturally occurring being, not something created by human hands. Even if my presence had introduced changes, I couldn’t see any clear link that would have affected it.
Hmm…
It looked like I would need to dig deeper.
“The results are in.”
Belka had summoned me. The moment she spoke, my heart gave a heavy thud. The words were brief, but I didn’t need to ask what she meant. There had only been one piece of information I’d asked her to find.
It had to be about the children.
How did it turn out? Did she find them? Are they safe? Or… did something go wrong?
A storm of thoughts tore through my mind. Belka’s lips seemed to move in slow motion. Then, after what felt like an eternity compressed into a single instant—
“To put it simply, I couldn’t find them.”
“……”
The wild pounding in my chest gradually settled. The storm inside my head quieted as well.
“…I see.”
My voice came out calmer than I expected. It was within the range of outcomes I had anticipated. If the children had followed my instructions properly, finding them this way would have been nearly impossible.
“Just to be sure, I checked records going back several years, but there were no incidents involving anyone matching the traits you described.”
“…I see.”
Those words lifted a small weight from my chest. The chance that the children were safe had risen, even if only slightly. Of course, it was still far from certainty. Until I confirmed their safety with my own eyes, I couldn’t truly relax.
I let out a small, inward sigh and spoke again.
“Then I’d like to request something else.”
“Another request?”
Belka fixed me with those characteristically dull, lightless eyes. “Let me be clear—the information you asked for was expensive. Investigating an entire continent required me to use the family’s resources.”
That was fair. I nodded quietly. Asking someone to find a few people might sound simple, but once the scope expanded across the whole continent, the effort required became absurd. Strictly speaking, the search had been limited to areas within Dustveil’s reach, but that was more than sufficient. Given the family’s power, the only places beyond their influence were desolate wastelands where people could hardly survive. And to cover such a vast range in such a short time, they must have mobilized a considerable number of agents.
“You haven’t even paid for the last one, and now you want to add another request? Are you even capable of paying the fee? Given your situation, I find that rather doubtful.”
Her words were entirely reasonable. Information personally gathered by Belka Dustveil would come at a staggering price. The old Kyle, still affiliated with the Berwen family, might have managed it, but the disowned version of me could never afford it.
“Come on, no need to be so strict. We’re practically partners.”
I smiled shamelessly.
But—
“I don’t believe our relationship has reached the point where you can say that.”
Her reply was firm.
“Why not? I’m helping with your business, aren’t I?”
“That’s nowhere near enough.”
“…Hmm.”
She was right. While I had been handling some of her smaller tasks, they were still trivial. She clearly wasn’t ready to entrust me with anything truly important. Besides, my current physical condition made accepting major jobs awkward.
Tsk. No choice, then.
I decided to play one of my cards.
“Then I’ll give you a piece of information. This should more than cover it.”
“Information?”
For a brief moment, doubt flickered in Belka’s hazy eyes.
“…If you’re planning to brush me off with something worthless, don’t bother. It’ll only put me in a bad mood.”
A fair warning. Offering information to Belka was like trying to sell oil to an oil magnate. She operated one of the continent’s premier intelligence networks, while I was nothing more than a disowned Academy student with zero backing. There was no logical reason I could possibly possess anything useful to her.
Normally, that would be true.
“The Fourth is running some kind of business, isn’t he?”
“……!”
A sharp glint flashed across Belka’s eyes. Seeing her reaction, I smiled and continued.
“You should look into what’s behind it.”
“……”
Belka stared straight through me. “You expect me to take a risk based on your unreliable information?”
As expected, she had understood immediately. The “Fourth” referred to the fourth child of the current Dustveil family head—Belka’s direct rival in the succession race. I had just told her to investigate the business he was currently operating. On the surface it was simply background research, but the risks were considerable. If he discovered she was digging into him, it could be used as leverage to undermine her position. Especially now, while the succession struggle was in full swing. Even the smallest opening could prove fatal.
Still—
“Why would it be unreliable? It’s more than enough.”
To her sharp question, I answered with a smile.
“If I truly had nothing, there’s no way I could have uncovered your identity.”
“……!”
Once again, the corners of her eyes trembled faintly. Though she had never shown it openly, Belka had undoubtedly been investigating me ever since our first meeting, trying to figure out how I had learned who she really was. Naturally, she had found nothing. I had obtained that knowledge through the game. No amount of time, money, or effort on her part could have revealed it. In other words, from her perspective, I was someone who possessed an information source even she couldn’t trace. She might not trust me completely, but my words were at least worth considering.
“Think of it as a gamble. Trust me this once. You won’t regret it.”
It wasn’t a bluff. In fact, beyond simply not regretting it, Belka would end up feeling grateful. This information would allow her to seize a critical weakness in the Fourth’s armor.
“……”
Belka continued to study me in silence.
“I’ll take that as acceptance. Here are my conditions.”
The information I needed was clear.
“All the major incidents that have occurred across the continent in recent years, and…”
If an inexplicable variable had appeared…
“Everything about the Academy.”
I had to find the cause.