The Pen That Cannot Lie
One week remained until the promotion exam. Simon threw himself into intensive training.
When his Jet-Black ran dry, he paid a visit to the home of Farahan, Professor of Divine Defense.
The plants and wards here drew divinity in from the surrounding air and held it fast, refusing to let a trace of it escape outside — which made the place the perfect spot for holy training without worrying about prying eyes.
"Akalion! Wake up!"
At Simon's command, the little teddy-bear-like Akalion was enveloped in holy light and transformed into a hulking, monstrous bear. Simon activated one of the divine magic circles drawn across Akalion's body.
"Run!"
Kicking up a cloud of dust, Akalion charged forward and then leapt high into the air.
Simon was concentrating on the magic circle at that moment. Divinity flowed out of it, spreading rapidly until it coiled around Akalion's forepaw.
CRASH!
And with that downward blow, a massive boulder shattered to pieces.
"Well done!"
Simon broke into a bright grin. Akalion bellowed toward the sky like rolling thunder.
He couldn't neglect his white magic either. As a self-proclaimed aspiring Divine Beast Studies major, he was training hard.
-Nyan!
-Meow! Raooow!
The kitten spectators threw a few wobbly paw-punches of their own before flopping over onto their backs.
Simon burst out laughing at the sight.
"Haha! Did you want to try too?"
He scooped up Whitey and Blackie and held them aloft.
Their size hadn't changed in months, but their horns had grown a little — enough now to show through their fur. They were true Divine Beasts in the making, it seemed.
"When are you two going to grow into proper Divine Beasts and come help me, hmm?"
Simon channeled divinity into the two cats' bodies and tossed them lightly into the air.
Suspended midair, the cats were swallowed by dazzling clusters of light, their forms seeming to distort and shift—
FWOOSH!
—then they snapped right back to normal and dropped with a soft thud onto the grass.
-Meow! Nyaaaaa!
'That was fun! Do it again!'
The cats pranced about, whining and wheedling at Simon to cast the spell again.
So he summoned the light and tossed them again, and they came slinking right back for more; he did it again, and again they came scampering back.
"O-okay, that's enough. I'm tired."
With both his Jet-Black and his divinity spent, Simon flopped down into the grass. Whitey clambered up onto his head and ruffled his hair into a mess, while Blackie settled into the shade beneath his legs and scratched at his uniform with her claws.
Exhausted from preparing for finals, Simon desperately needed a nap. He turned his head.
"Come back, Akalion."
The moment he recalled Akalion's divinity, the bear's muscular body deflated like a punctured balloon, shrinking steadily until it was once more nothing but a tiny bear cub plush toy.
-Uuungh!
The instant they saw the shrunken Akalion, the kittens' eyes gleamed as if they'd been waiting for exactly this, and they came tearing across the field.
"Sorry. Just play with the kids for a bit."
-Uuurgh!
Akalion let out a cry full of reproach as it fled from the swarm of kittens.
All the first-year students of Kizen threw themselves into special training for the promotion exam.
Every class after finals had been shortened. The professors, for their part, boldly cut out lectures and textbook progress altogether and instead put the students through practical exercises they could use in a dungeon.
And then there was Byelya's laboratory.
"Well, well. Never thought I'd see you come looking for me, worm."
The laboratory, which had once been a pigsty of chaos, was now immaculately organized. The trash had been carefully sorted and bundled, and not a speck of dust or a single stain remained.
In the middle of it all stood Dick, dressed in a cleaning maid's outfit, wiping the sweat from his brow with a wide grin.
"Honestly."
Byelya smirked and walked over, plopping down into her freshly cleaned chair.
Dick scurried after her and produced a liquor bottle resting in an antique porcelain dish. He even opened it himself and poured her a glass.
"What's this?"
"Why don't you try it first?"
Dick said with brimming confidence. Byelya tilted her head, then raised the glass and took a sip.
"!!"
Her eyes went wide with surprise — and then she drained the glass in one go. Without pausing, she picked up the entire bottle and tipped it back, gulping down every last drop.
"KYAAHA!"
She let out an uncle-like howl of satisfaction and laughed heartily. Behind her closed eyelids, a hazy old memory drifted past for a moment.
"Worm. Where'd you get this?"
Dick smiled sweetly.
"I heard the Marlart Tribe of the steppes enjoys a special fermented mare's milk wine. From Professor Hong Peng, sir!"
"……You brat."
On Roc Island, far removed from the steppes they had once called home, such a thing was nearly impossible to find — like plucking a star from the sky.
She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
"What do you want?"
Dick immediately doubled over in a deep bow, rubbing his palms together with a shhk, shhk.
"Haha! It's not that I want a reward, sir! I just have something I'd like to consult you about!"
"Out with it!"
"My real talent is information warfare, sir. Digging out an opponent's weaknesses and exploiting them — that's my specialty. But the dungeon might spawn monsters that don't exist anywhere else on the continent, right?"
"That's right!"
"So what's the best approach when there's no advance information at all?"
"Raw strength."
Byelya's cheeks were flushed pink with drink as she bared her shark-like teeth.
"That's exactly when you have no choice but to lean on your own pure, unadorned power."
"That's, ah, the area where I'm a bit lacking, sir."
Clack!
Byelya rose from her seat, draped her outer coat over her shoulders, and beckoned.
"Well, what are you waiting for? Hurry up and follow me."
A smile curled across Dick's lips.
"Yes, sir! Professor!"
"Here I go. Kami!"
"Yes! Meilin!"
Meilin swept both arms through the air, and a vast ice storm bloomed outward, filling the entire space ahead of her.
It looked like an ice lion advancing with its jaws spread wide open.
<Frost Nova>
KWAKWAKWAKWAKWA!
On top of the ice storm, Meilin's modified magic circle came into play, and shards of ice came raining down on Camibarez in addition to the storm itself.
"Hah!"
Camibarez fell back, curling her left hand into the shape of a pistol and firing off Blood Bullets in rapid succession. The power of each shot was reduced, but the recoil grew steady and controlled, and she picked off the incoming shards one by one with pinpoint accuracy.
Crack-chak!
Then she planted her feet, spun her whole body in a smooth rotation, and activated a completed magic circle on her right palm.
<Ursula Original — Blood Storm>
GOOOOOWOOO!
A whirlwind made of blood surged forward and slammed into the ice storm. Droplets of blood and shards of ice scattered in every direction.
While this ferocious battle raged on—
"Wow~"
…several hundred meters away, at a glass window of a campus building.
A silver-haired girl had her palms and her face pressed flat against the glass as she watched.
"Everyone's fighting so well! Fight on~ fight on~!"
"……"
The man watching her with a perfectly blank expression — Kajan — was scratching at the scar over his eye, as was his habit.
"It's been a while since you returned to Kizen, Lady Nephthys."
"Yup!"
Nephthys peeled herself away from the window and hopped up onto the sofa.
"I've been so busy lately!"
"I heard the Holy Federation's provocations at the border have been escalating."
"Still manageable for now~ How's school life treating you, Kajan? Having fun?"
Kajan let out a long sigh. The fingers scratching at his scar went limp.
"I'd like to focus on my mission, but keeping up with the schoolwork alone is already too much."
"Awwungh!"
"That is not an 'awwungh' matter. How about creating an environment in which I can actually focus on the mission?"
Nephthys shook her head side to side.
"Nope, nope! Then the entire staff would figure out which of my planted spies you are!"
"……"
"You know repeating a year twice in a row isn't allowed, right? This time you must make it into second year. That's your mission."
Kajan made a pained sound. Nephthys simply grinned her innocent, guileless grin.
"Now then."
Swish.
Kajan held out a set of documents.
"If the Ruler of the Dark Alliance has time enough to meet with a single lowly operative, perhaps you could take a look at this instead."
"What is iiiiit?"
"The contents of the investigation Simon requested. He suspects Professor Walter, the replacement for Silaje."
Nephthys blinked her eyes and then began reading through the documents.
"Walter? But headquarters screened him thoroughly — even ran mind-type curse inspections on him."
"And do you trust how those people handle their work?"
"Not one bit~ Hehe!"
Just then, mid-read, she tilted her head.
"Hmm? But aren't these supposed to be files of suspicion? 'Hematopoiesis Injection — no abnormalities found. Handwriting verification — no abnormalities found.' Things like that?"
"It's not a file of suspicion. I simply gathered every piece of material related to Professor Walter."
"They verified him themselves, and now look at them~"
Nephthys set the documents down with a light tap.
"So why does Kajan suspect Walter?"
"There's a suspect connected to Professor Walter — 'Count Caron.' I was investigating him. He was crossing the sea by ship when he ran into a storm and went missing."
"Mm-hm. And?"
"The deeper I dug into his death, the more things failed to add up."
Purchases that never appeared in the family ledger.
Evidence that the family warehouse had been rented out to outsiders.
Signs that he had run a monster farm for the purpose of harvesting hearts, despite being no necromancer.
Servants' testimony that unidentified figures had come and gone from the estate.
And then — a week before the storm swallowed his ship — even his wife's testimony that he had been paralyzed with terror, muttering, 'I'm going to die soon. I'm going to die.'
"But these are traces, not records, and testimony, not evidence. It carries no real weight, I'll admit. Connecting it to Professor Walter is a stretch as well."
"It looks that way to me too."
Nephthys swung her short legs back and forth.
"So why bring this story to my face when you already know all that?"
"Grant me investigative authority."
"Hmmm~ You do realize that using this evidence to investigate a Kizen professor is out of the question?"
"Unofficial investigative authority will suffice."
"In that case — fine."
Nephthys rested her chin on her hands and nodded.
"If something felt off to you, no harm in clearing it up this once. Go ahead. You've always had good instincts, kiddo."
At those words, Kajan bowed with perfect formality.
"Thank you."
The next day.
Kajan quietly summoned one of Walter's teaching assistants — and not just any one of them, but the newest recruit.
"Wh-what can I do for you, student?"
The summoned assistant looked somewhat flustered.
She was a Kizen student, yes, but for a first-year to order a teaching assistant around like this — the sheer audacity of it.
"There's a matter you'll need to cooperate with."
"……Pardon?"
A vein popped at her temple with a distinct throb.
'I swear, one day I really will quit this job.'
She was long past sick of fielding the shameless nonsense of aristocratic brats who didn't know the first thing about manners.
But she had endured countless incidents like this as an assistant, so she kept her business smile fixed in place and spoke.
"Student? If you have questions, please come to the department office and follow the proper procedu—"
"This isn't a matter for proper procedure."
Kajan dug into his coat and then held up a note from a memo pad as proudly as if it were a warrant of investigation.
It was covered in distinctly childish doodles — flowers, trees, clouds, the kind of drawing an elementary schooler might produce.
"S-student. This joke has gone too far."
The assistant's face flushed red as she trembled with anger.
Kajan, silent, pointed to the bottom of the doodle.
All faculty and staff shall cooperate with the investigation of Kajan Edvalt! — Nephthys —
And beneath it, the signature of Nephthys herself.
The assistant, who had been about to erupt and tell him to stop fooling around, looked at the signature. Then she looked again. And again.
This childish, kindergarten-level art style.
Yet beneath it sat a signature steeped in an utterly serene, unhurried penmanship.
And now that she looked closely, there was Jet-Black seeping from that signature. A sinister, overwhelming, suffocating Jet-Black. It was unmistakably her.
The assistant's face drained to the color of blank paper, and she shrieked:
"C-c-c-comme, command me with anything at all!"
Having secured the assistant's trust, Kajan finally explained the plan.
There was hardly anything to it. It was simple.
"All you need to do is obtain Professor Walter's signature using this quill."
Kajan opened a black case. Inside lay a single quill pen made from a crow's feather.
"……What is this?"
"It looks like an ordinary quill, but it's something of an artifact. It has one effect."
Kajan continued in a grave voice.
"It is a quill that compels the holder to write their own name — no matter what."
Since she needed to understand the task, Kajan had her grip the quill and write something — anything.
She wrote with great enthusiasm about what she wanted to eat for lunch that day, but what appeared on the paper was none other than her own name: Amirette Mashani.
"Wow……! That's incredible."
"Now I'll explain the plan."
Currently, Nephthys had set Kizen headquarters in motion and dropped a mountain of work on Walter's desk. He was right now buried in his own office, frantically processing it all.
At that moment, the assistant would go in and obtain the signature of a Walter at his busiest. And Walter would be compelled to write his own name.
If he wrote Walter Hahn — his own name, even while holding this quill — then he was innocent.
But if any other name came out, then Walter had entered Kizen under a false name and identity, and an official investigation by Kizen headquarters would become possible.
Either way, Kajan's goal was to hand Walter over for official investigation. Of course, if the name 'Judah' came out, so much the better. It would confirm Simon's suspicions exactly.
"Does Professor Walter happen to be the type to take care with his signature?"
"N-no, sir. He's the type who just scrawls it down without even looking."
"Good. If anything goes wrong, signal me like this."
After a moment's thought, Kajan gave her the code word.
"Say 'wine.'"
"Understood."
Quill and paperwork in hand, the assistant headed for Walter's office.
She was complying because it was an order from someone far above her, but she did find it a little odd that they were investigating Walter in secret.
'Well, if this clears Professor Walter's name, I suppose it doesn't matter.'
Even this Kajan fellow in charge of the investigation didn't seem to expect much. Honestly — what could anyone possibly learn just from writing a name?
Feeling considerably lighter, she stopped in front of Walter's office.
Kof, kof!
The sound of coughing came from beyond the door. Walter had been in poor health lately.
"Professor Walter, it's your junior assistant. May I come in?"
"Ah, come in. Kof!"
She opened the door and stepped inside to find Walter buried under an avalanche of documents, frantically scrawling signatures without pause.
Exactly as Kajan had described.
"What can I do for you? I'm a bit busy at the moment……"
"Oh, I'm so sorry to trouble you! These are the quarterly account ledgers — we can't file them without your signature."
She set the documents, still in their tray, down on his desk along with the quill, and slid them gently toward Walter.
Walter skimmed the document's title, then — without a shred of suspicion — signed the last page with the quill she had handed him and passed it back.
"Here you are."
Autumn-leaf-colored hair, scholarly glasses, and even that smile he offered her despite being crushed under the weight of a sudden mountain of work.
It was a face she saw every day, yet one she never tired of.
Cheeks glowing pink, the assistant accepted the folder and the quill.
"Thank you, Professor!"
Just as she was hurrying toward the door—
"Assistant Amirette Mashani."
She turned around. Walter was wearing an exceptionally handsome smile.
"Thank you for your hard work today, as always."
"Ah, thank you!"
Yes! He called me by my name!
She felt as though she might float off the floor. Walter smiled at her once more before burying himself back in his paperwork. Scratch, scratch — the sound of a moving quill filled the room.
'How could a person this upright have any suspicions against him? Investigating a newly appointed professor — what is wrong with them?'
Grumbling inwardly, the assistant lifted the folder from the document tray.
Checking that every signature was accounted for was part of an assistant's duties, after all.
She turned the pages slowly, one by one — and then, quite suddenly, a question occurred to her.
Flit—
When had Professor Walter ever learned her full name?
Flit—
At their first meet-and-greet, the assistants had all simply mentioned their names in passing. After that, she'd been nothing but "the junior one."
Was his memory just that good?
Flit—
A grim premonition.
It always came on suddenly, welling up without warning.
She couldn't explain it herself. The hand turning the pages began to tremble. The paper slipping past her fingers felt, somehow, like the days of her own life running out.
Flit—
At last, the final page arrived.
The document was mid-flip, and only a single character was visible.
-Si
She still couldn't tell what it meant.
-la
The page peeled further open, and a second character came into view.
And then, at last, she felt it.
Something was terribly wrong. Kajan's voice surfaced in her memory.
-It is a quill that compels the holder to write their own name, no matter what.
The page turned completely over.
And the signature Walter had written stood plainly before her eyes.
It read—
-Silaje Bisavar.
It was a nightmare.
Goosebumps erupted across her entire body. Every drop of blood in her veins froze solid. She let out a soundless scream.
'Pr-Pr-Professor Walter is…… Professor Silaje?'
Her neck creaked like a broken doll's as she turned to look behind her.
Walter, who had been buried in his paperwork just moments before—
"……"
—was staring directly at her with eyes of pure, skin-crawling menace.
She felt a terror so total she could not breathe.
"Is something the matter, Assistant Amirette?"
The frigid expression melted, in an instant, into a warm and kindly smile.
She had to leave. She had to leave.
She had to get out of this room, right now.
"Ah—ah! N-nothing at all, Professor! Then I'll just be going—!"
She whipped her head around and darted for the door of Walter's office—
Drip.
A drop of blood fell onto the documents in her hands.
Drip. Drip.
The drops spread outward, and the papers bloomed red.
She was bleeding.
Blood dripped steadily from her nose — and then she realized that blood was streaming from her eyes as well, and from her ears.
"You were always like this."
A voice she had never once heard from Walter — and yet one that was somehow, horribly, familiar — flowed from his lips.
"Far too curious for your own good. Rest now."
Her consciousness sank down into the deep, dark abyss.