The Traceless One
The forest had withered completely after the events of that day, leaving behind nothing but dry, brittle silence. A man who appeared to be an Academy professor arrived at the site accompanied by several figures dressed in official uniforms.
"The direct confrontation occurred right here," one of them reported.
"Hmm... This information is reliable, I trust?"
"Since the Saintess herself stated it, the information is certain."
The professor adjusted his glasses with an air of absolute confidence, as if there were no room for doubt. The uniformed investigators, who had been watching him closely, began to spread out and examine the area one by one. As he observed their mechanical efficiency, the professor let out a quiet internal sigh.
He was one of the few instructors still remaining at the Academy. Having been assigned to a department completely unrelated to combat, he had narrowly escaped the headmaster's fury. Of course, once the headmaster returned after disciplining the other professors, some form of punishment would likely come his way as well. Still, compared to the scale of the incident itself, it would be a merciful one.
Yet that also meant the remaining faculty would have to shoulder every single complaint and demand flooding into the Academy until the headmaster's return. The deluge of protests and pressure from high-ranking nobles was already overwhelming. And now they even had to deal with investigators dispatched from the Empire itself...
The sheer mountain of work had left every professor sighing endlessly. As the professor swallowed another string of silent curses, one of the investigators approached him.
"Are you feeling all right? You look rather pale..."
"Haha, I'm fine. It's simply because I've been swamped with work lately. Please don't concern yourself."
"I see..."
The investigator, who naturally understood the real reason, nodded in understanding even as his expression filled with sympathy. After a moment of thought, he decided to show some consideration for the exhausted professor by speeding up their investigation.
"The only unusual detail we've found so far is that despite the forest being completely withered, the animals and insects remain strangely energetic..."
"Ah, that would be due to the Saintess deploying holy power on a wide scale. She instructed me to mention that as well, but it slipped my mind."
"Understood. In that case, since everything else matches the reports, we'll conclude the investigation here."
All that remained was a thorough examination of the Myers family grounds, but that fell under another team's jurisdiction. For all intents and purposes, their responsibility for the Academy's internal investigation was complete.
"One more thing. We have a message that must be delivered to the headmaster. Since I understand he is currently absent, I would appreciate it if you could pass it along in his stead."
"......"
"The imperial family has expressed their desire for an urgent direct meeting with the headmaster. The official documents have already been sent to the headmaster's office, so once he returns, if you could please..."
Suddenly, the investigator noticed that the professor had gone completely silent. Did the exhaustion finally catch up to him and put him to sleep...? As that thought crossed his mind and he turned toward the professor...
Thud.
The professor's upper body crumpled limply to the side.
"What the..."
Before the startled investigator could even collect his thoughts, the other investigators began staggering as if their strength had been drained. One by one, they all collapsed to the ground.
His survival instincts screamed in alarm, ringing every warning bell in his mind.
This is dangerous...
In that instant, something unknown shot toward him at terrifying speed.
Whoosh!
Thinking he had barely dodged it, he tried to force his body to move and flee. But the moment he took a single step to escape, his body froze solid.
At the same time, he realized that the thing he thought he had avoided was now latched onto his arm.
A snake...?
What filled his vision was a pure white serpent. Neither large nor small, it had its jaws stretched wide, sinking its fangs deep into his arm. That was the last thing he ever saw.
The forest had grown unnaturally still. The gentle breeze that had been blowing earlier had vanished without a trace, and even the chirping of insects had fallen silent. In the heart of this forest that seemed frozen in time, two men walked slowly forward.
"Was it really necessary to go this far?" The one who broke the silence was the significantly taller of the pair. His massive frame was large enough to intimidate most adult men, yet the man walking beside him merely answered in a tone of mild annoyance.
"Better than causing a commotion and turning the headmaster into an enemy, wouldn't you agree?"
"Haha! Fair enough."
The long-haired man shook his head as he watched the other laugh like an idiot. Anyone with a sharp eye would have immediately concluded that he was looking at his companion as a fool, but the large man either failed to notice or simply didn't care, letting it pass without comment.
After exchanging a few more words of idle chatter, they reached their destination and their conversation naturally shifted.
"Animals full of vitality in a withered forest... It seems the Saintess was involved after all."
"Hm?"
"...You hadn't heard that the Saintess was chosen? It was one of the reasons I decided to stay here..."
"Ah, right! That did happen. I tend not to bother with trivial matters... Hahaha!"
The giant of a man laughed heartily. Just where did all that carefully reinforced memory of his disappear to...! The long-haired man nearly said something, but he knew better than anyone that it would be pointless. With a sigh of resignation, he began scanning their surroundings alone.
Slither...
Countless pure white snakes followed his gaze, slipping into every corner of the forest. Strangely, wherever the snakes passed, they left behind no trace at all. It was a sight terrifying enough to make any child afraid of snakes faint on the spot, yet the large man watched them with the bored indifference of someone who had seen it many times before.
"So, did you find anything in particular? I don't see a thing..."
"Please be quiet."
"Sorry, sorry. Did I disturb your investigation?"
"No. The investigation ended some time ago. I simply asked you to be quiet because you were being too loud."
"......?"
Ignoring the giant man who tilted his head in confusion, he began his explanation.
"There is nothing particularly unusual here. Not even the slightest trace of him."
"Tsk. Another dead end, then?"
"Not at all. I actually obtained quite a useful hint from an unexpected angle."
"What...???"
At the word hint, the large man pressed forward excitedly.
"Really? You found something connected to that bastard? For real???"
"Yes, it's true. So please calm down first..."
"Stop dragging it out and explain already!!!"
"Yes, yes. Understood."
He summoned one of the snakes from earlier and placed it on his palm.
"As you know, my Mystery is specialized in analyzing targets."
"It wasn't much help last time, but I remember!"
"...Anyway. The only times I fail to find traces are when the opponent has completely erased them, or when they truly never came here at all."
In truth, his Mystery was capable of detecting even the most trivial details. If the person he sought had so much as breathed in a suspicious location, that alone would become a trace his power could uncover. And that wasn't all.
"Reading history... It is one of the useful abilities possessed by Transcendents."
"I'm not sure. I don't think I've ever found it particularly useful..."
"...That's simply because you're ignorant. The important point is that history itself is treated as one of the traces I can detect."
No matter how minor an event, history records everything in meticulous detail. And history is itself a form of trace. Therefore, if someone had come to this place, he could detect that history in the form of a trace.
"Of course, the traces grow fainter with time... but that also allows me to determine exactly how long ago they were here."
"But can't any Transcendent with a bit of experience erase something like that?"
"Correct."
As he said, powerful Transcendents could not only read history but influence it as well. It was an extremely difficult technique that even the headmaster had yet to master, but all the Great Pioneers had acquired it.
"If a Transcendent altered history to erase their traces... then simply reading history wouldn't reveal who had been here."
Reading history was something any Transcendent could do. Even the fool beside him, who was nodding as if he understood everything, could discover who had come and gone if he focused.
"However, I am able to read history in the form of traces."
"Isn't that basically the same thing?"
"I can't deny the similarity, but they are distinctly different."
"In what way?"
"Unlike Transcendents who read history directly, the traces I detect bring that history forth exactly as it is."
In other words...
"If someone erased the portion of history where they were recorded, that erased section would remain as a blank. Most Transcendents only read history and would fail to notice such a blank, but because I read it as traces, the blank becomes visible to me."
Because he read history in the form of traces rather than directly, he could detect any blanks that appeared within it. If someone at the Academy had arbitrarily erased history, a blank would have been left in its place...
"Don't tell me... you found a blank?!"
Anyone who could read traces should have been able to discover it. The large man spoke in excitement, but the answer that came back completely shattered his expectations.
"No. In this place... no, throughout the entire Academy, there is no trace of him at all."
"...What?"
"To be precise, there is neither a trace of him nor a blank... Nothing whatsoever."
"......"
The decisive tone of his companion turned the large man's anticipation into disappointment in an instant.
"Ha... So he really never came after all?"
Thinking it was yet another dead end, he spoke in a dejected voice. But once again, the reply defied his expectations.
"That shouldn't be the case."
"...What the hell are you saying now?"
"Since both the headmaster and the Saintess spoke of it directly, unless they coordinated their stories beforehand, the fact that someone intruded upon the Academy must be true."
"Maybe they just got the wrong person? It's not like he's the only one who wears black clothes and hunts for treasure."
"Yes, under normal circumstances I would have thought the same. Or simply dismissed it as someone impersonating him and paid it no mind."
But this time was different.
"There are no traces. No blanks... No history at all!"
"...So like I said, doesn't that just mean he never came in the first place?"
"An intruder who entered the Academy and neutralized the headmaster... The complete absence of history and blanks... Doesn't that strike you as strange?"
"...!!!"
A flaw flashed through the large man's mind. Before he could even voice it, a perfectly organized explanation reached his ears.
"Exactly. If the intruder had not been a Transcendent, the headmaster and Saintess would have stopped them. Conversely, if it was a Transcendent who erased their own history, a blank should have remained."
"The pieces don't fit... The only one capable of such an impossible feat would be..."
"Precisely."
A Transcendent who could erase history and then perfectly fill in even the resulting blank...
"The only one capable of such a thing is the one we've been pursuing all this time, is it not?"
"Ha, haha, hahahahaha!!!"
The moment the explanation finished, the large man burst into joyous laughter. His face lit up with the ecstasy of finally finding what they sought. After having all their treasures stolen, they had gathered every piece of information and placed bounties, yet had never been able to find their enemy...! At last, they had discovered his footprint.
"We must deliver this news at once!"
"We'll inform Paern separately since he's currently away. For now, let's call everyone together!"
With that, the two Transcendents... no, the two Great Pioneers hurriedly departed. Soon after, the insects began chirping again and a breeze carrying the breath of grass and trees started blowing once more. The forest returned to its original state as if nothing had happened.
This was but a small disturbance that occurred while Hestia was away from the Academy, busy with mercenary work alongside her friend... and an intrusion by a Transcendent that not even the headmaster had noticed.