The Expulsion Committee (2)
"A three hundred thirty-three percent increase. Sixty-five people."
Ian's low but unyielding declaration filled the lecture hall.
The snickers that had been riding along with Marcus's mockery only moments before vanished as if they had never existed.
A suffocating silence settled over the room.
The students stared at Ian, then at the numbers glowing on the magic blackboard he had conjured, their faces blank as if someone had taken a hammer to their skulls.
Even Professor Valerius had lost his usual cool detachment; he fixed Ian with a furrowed brow and a hard, assessing stare.
What broke the quiet was the sound of someone swallowing dryly.
That single noise acted like a signal flare. In an instant the hall erupted into the chaos of a kicked beehive.
"Th-three hundred thirty-three percent?"
"Sixty-five people? In Seorigol? That's impossible!"
"In the middle of the Eclipse disaster, the population actually went up? In a wasteland like that?"
The murmuring was a tangled swirl of disbelief, shock, and even a thin thread of awe.
The three pillars of fief development: money, resources, and manpower.
Seorigol had possessed none of them properly—no, every single one of them had been judged the absolute worst.
For a place like that to explode in population while a catastrophe hammered the entire empire was, by any common sense, impossible.
"It's a lie!"
Marcus Belov shot up from his seat and roared.
His face had gone scarlet with rage and humiliation.
Acting on Lionel Darkest's orders, he had meant to grind Ian into the dirt and add his own spoonful to the expulsion proceedings. Now that plan had slammed into an unexpected reef.
"That is a blatant falsehood, Professor! On barren ground like Seorigol—amid the chaos of the Eclipse—there is simply no way the population could swell like that! Who in their right mind would walk of their own free will into a place with no money, no resources, not even proper houses?!"
Marcus's agitated voice rang through the hall. His argument was sharp and grounded in hard reality, and murmurs of agreement began to bubble up here and there.
"He's right. It doesn't make any sense."
"Seorigol… even refugees would think twice about going there, wouldn't they?"
"There's got to be some kind of trick."
Suspicion crept back into the students' eyes.
Seorigol was infamous among them, after all.
It was the fief that forever occupied dead last in the Department of Territory Management. They knew its particulars for sport, and because of that they were certain of one thing:
The Seorigol they knew could never develop. Not ever.
The numbers Ian had shown were shocking, but to anyone who understood Seorigol's reality, they were impossible to accept.
Marcus seized the opening and pressed harder.
"That bastard is deceiving every one of us—and the Academy itself! We must dispatch an investigation team to Seorigol at once and verify those figures! If they prove false, he must be punished to the full extent of academy law!"
His inflammatory shout turned the atmosphere ugly. Several students were already glaring at Ian with open condemnation.
Ian met every stare with the same calm expression, but inside he was starting to feel the squeeze.
Proof, huh… How am I supposed to handle this?
He couldn't exactly flash the territory status window, and hauling every refugee in for testimony wasn't an option either.
Marcus's claims were forced, yet right this second Ian couldn't think of a clean way to kill the doubt.
That was when it happened.
"I will vouch for him."
A quiet but solid voice cut straight through the uproar.
Every head turned toward the source.
It was Cassian Leonhardt. She rose slowly from her seat, her bandaged arm making the motion awkward.
Marcus and the other students alike looked genuinely startled by her appearance.
"Miss Cassian? What do you mean by—"
Marcus asked, flustered. Cassian was famous for her cold, rational temperament. No one had expected her to step forward in Ian's defense.
She ignored Marcus entirely. After offering Ian a brief, polite nod, she addressed Professor Valerius and the class.
"Ian Darkest's presentation is accurate. Seorigol's population has, in fact, increased."
Ian Darkest?
While Ian blinked at the sudden shift in how she addressed him, Marcus sneered.
"And how would you know that, Cassian? Don't tell me you've fallen for that bastard's ridiculous claims too?"
Cassian answered without a flicker in her gaze.
"I confirmed it myself. Immediately after the Eclipse ended, I was assessing the damage to my own territory and formulating countermeasures. In the middle of that work, I found myself curious about Ian Darkest's fief. He had also foreseen the disaster, and somehow he had survived in the wretched conditions of Seorigol. I thought there might be something worth learning from his methods of territory management—especially his crisis response."
She paused to draw a breath.
"So for several days I sent people to observe Seorigol from a distance. What I saw with my own eyes was this: large numbers of refugees were heading toward Seorigol, and Ian Darkest took them in. He… led them in a truly remarkable way. Without any compensation at all, using only their own labor, he had them build the shelters they would live in."
"Unpaid?!"
Shocked exclamations burst out across the hall.
After the Eclipse, labor costs had skyrocketed. Forcing unpaid work out of desperate refugees under those conditions was almost unimaginable.
"How… how do you even get people to work for free? Is something that dreamlike actually possible?"
One student muttered in disbelief. Cassian gave a firm nod.
"Yes. Ian Darkest did it. To refugees drowning in despair he offered not mere material aid, but the more fundamental values of survival and safety—and he drew out their voluntary cooperation. I was deeply impressed by the process."
Cassian's testimony carried weight. Her objective, clear-eyed assessment poured enormous credibility into Ian's presentation.
This was Cassian, after all!
Marcus's eyes began to twitch violently.
If this keeps up, I lose. I lose to that Ian bastard!
Think of something—anything!
"Th-that can't be! Did you take money from Ian Darkest?! Or does he have something on you?! Unless you're a stalker, there's no way you'd sneak around watching someone else's territory like that!"
Marcus shrieked, his face flaming red. The last-ditch flailing was pitiful.
Hmm… the stalker part might not be entirely off base.
Ian thought it privately and flicked a glance at Cassian.
Her expression was still blank, yet somehow her cheeks seemed faintly flushed.
Marcus was winding up for another outburst when a second voice cut him off.
"I can testify as well."
This time it was Roella Amelia.
She rose with her arms folded, wearing her trademark prickly scowl.
At her appearance Marcus's face drained even whiter. The Amelia family was a long-standing rival house to the Darkests, and even Lionel could not treat them lightly.
"Even Roella…?"
"Not long ago I received a report that large numbers of refugees heading for my territory—Loreal City—had suddenly changed course. At first I assumed it was simple fickleness, or sabotage by another fief. But after hearing Miss Cassian, it all makes sense."
Roella shot Ian a sharp look, then continued.
"They almost certainly headed for Seorigol. Either they were offered better terms than my territory could give, or… they saw some other possibility in the lord named Ian Darkest. Either way, it doesn't look like that bastard is lying."
Roella's testimony was the finishing blow.
Coming from the young lady of a rival house—someone who had always been openly hostile toward Ian—her words carried more persuasive force than any hard evidence.
"Th-this is insane… It's all a conspiracy! They're in on it together! When Lord Lionel learns of this—!"
Marcus had lost all reason and was simply spewing whatever came to mind. Terror and despair flooded his eyes. Fear of failing Lionel's orders, and sheer confusion at the unbelievable scene unfolding in front of him, seemed to have swallowed him whole.
"That will be enough, Belov."
Professor Valerius's low, stern voice finally reined him in.
"Cause any further disturbance and it will be you facing the disciplinary committee. Remember that."
Marcus's mouth worked soundlessly, like a mute's.
Where did it all go wrong?
Smearing Ian—that half-wit—had been the easiest mission imaginable.
In the old days, simply insulting the guy for no reason at all would have been enough.
But now…
Marcus turned his head with a creak and looked at Ian.
Behind that calm face he could see Cassian and Roella staring at him as if he were pathetic.
"Ah."
Only then did Marcus understand.
Ian was no longer the person everyone in this lecture hall could safely ignore.
Ian was different now.
And so was the way people saw him.
Thud.
Like a puppet whose strings had been cut, Marcus collapsed back into his seat.