138. Slave Liberation
138. Slave Liberation
"That's enough."
"Is a Holy Knight allowed to do this?!"
"Have you forgotten the code of conduct proclaimed by the Bishop-nim?"
I went outside because of the commotion and saw a Holy Knight entering the lab next door.
"Oh my, Professor Baker? Are you alright?"
"I'm not alright, Professor Praha!! Please help me!"
"What's the matter?"
"Ugh... that Holy Knight suddenly opened the door, came in, and twisted my arm!"
A person who appeared to be a professor was being restrained by the Holy Knight.
'Five people in total... Looks like the one restrained is the supervisor and the four below are undergrads.'
Professor Praha had just confirmed the person caught was the professor, and judging by the other four, the atmosphere suggested they were undergraduates.
The undergraduates were all in rough shape.
They had deep dark circles under their eyes, and their skin condition was strange, as if they hadn't slept for days.
"Did a patrolling Holy Knight restrain him because of corruption in the lab?"
"Corruption! I've been wronged!"
"Then you shouldn't have done it."
He must have been struck, or so it seemed.
The professor claimed he was wronged, but looking at the state of the undergrads, he looked guilty as sin.
Even though the professor was caught by the Holy Knight, the undergrads showed no particular emotional change and just stood there blankly like zombies.
"Everyone, we are acting with the Academy's best interests sincerely in mind.
Look at those undergraduates—aren't they so worn out they look ready to summon a demon at any moment?
You must cooperate at least until the Demon Church's threat is deemed eliminated.
Especially at times like this, solidarity is important. Our Red Flag Holy Knight Order will not tolerate such incidents."
As the Holy Knight spoke forcefully, the restrained professor grumbled.
"What corruption... It's only natural for undergrads to work..."
"Professor!!"
"Ugh... fine... Everyone go in and rest today..."
As soon as the professor finally surrendered to the Holy Knight's rebuke and told them to rest, a tremendous change occurred.
"Uh... we can leave work...?"
"Wow... this'll be the first time I've gone to the dorm in a month..."
"Thank you, Professor..."
Life began to return to the eyes of the undergrads who had been standing there lifelessly like zombies.
'He ran them ragged in the lab for a month? Isn't that guy a lunatic?'
But I was horrified to hear that undergrads hadn't left the lab for a month.
Didn't that mean they'd been trapped in the lab and hadn't come out once since practically the start of the semester?
"...I don't leave the lab either..."
"Professor Praha, you're in a position of responsibility."
Professor Praha, who had been listening beside me, spoke up, but no one paid him any mind.
Even when the knight order worked new recruits to the bone, they still sent them back to the barracks.
"Professor Praha, you're lucky you don't have undergrads, right?"
"For a professor to be threatened just for using some undergrads... it's the end times, the end times..."
"Wow, he put it as 'using' them."
————————————
What had just happened a moment ago was only the beginning.
"A junior carrying a senior's load. That's common sense, isn't it?"
"Carry your own loads."
"The tuition I paid goes into these guys' scholarships, so they can at least do this much."
"The scholarship is something the student earned through effort, not something you give. Students, will you keep doing these reckless things, knowing full well it could come back as a demon?"
The Holy Knights patrolling the academy did not tolerate injustice.
Academy students and professors who performed corrupt acts as naturally as breathing were annoyed by the Holy Knights nitpicking their every move, but they couldn't properly voice their complaints.
Hardly anyone dared think of resisting the Holy Knights, who roamed around in mithril alloy armor with thighs thick as logs, forearms the thickness of a head, and trapezius muscles so thick you couldn't tell where the neck ended and the torso began.
When the Holy Knights restrained someone, they grabbed and subdued the target's arm, and from that moment on, you could feel just how strong they were.
They were all capable individuals at the upper-level Expert rank at the very least.
When those doing the bullying were suppressed, the number of people being saved as a result inevitably increased.
Most of the students being restrained were recommendation admit students, and most of the students being saved were exam admission students.
They all knew how much they were being oppressed, but most endured it, knowing that getting on a recommendation admit student's bad side would get them nowhere even after graduation. The sheer number of bullied students everywhere was staggering.
"The Holy Knights are working incredibly hard... I'd better be careful."
"They're not catching demons, they're going around catching people."
The recommendation admit students couldn't make a peep when the Holy Knights passed by, but once they disappeared out of sight, they started badmouthing like crazy behind their backs.
Against a force of arms that didn't care about their greatest weapon—their background—all they could do was talk behind their backs.
It wasn't like they were just randomly grabbing innocent people, either.
"Aagh?? A Holy Knight is grabbing people!!!"
Looking toward the source of the commotion, a Holy Knight had a male student's arm twisted behind his back and was restraining him.
'This damn Academy never gives you a break.'
Other students nearby tried to stop him, but the Holy Knight didn't budge an inch.
"Gah?! What the hell are you guys doing!! I didn't do anything!!"
"Even if you fooled everyone, you cannot fool the Almighty Parent. The revolting stench of a demon is coming from your body."
"This crazy Holy Knight...!! Get your hands off me!!!"
The student struggling in the Holy Knight's grip was a recommendation admit student.
He was a rich kid, so he probably never imagined he'd be restrained like this.
"That's enough."
"Le.. Lemnos!! Help me... these guys aren't listening to a word I say!!"
While everyone was murmuring about the restrained student, Edgar stopped the Holy Knight.
"The Holy Knights said they'd protect the students, so what the hell is this!"
"We are proceeding with the purge operation based on lawful procedures. Do not interfere."
Edgar Lemnos blocked the Holy Knight's path.
It seemed he intended to stop him.
"You know, since we're in the same class... thanks to someone already flipping things over once, if more classmates disappear from here, the class will face an existential crisis."
"It seems you have no intention of stepping aside quietly.... I didn't want to do this, as it is not pleasant, but I will show you proof that this person belongs to the Demon Church."
When he didn't step aside quietly, the Holy Knight, as if having no choice, reached his hand into the student's chest pocket.
"Yah... YAH!! Where are you touching..!!"
Then, after rummaging a bit, he pulled out a small necklace.
Attached to the necklace was a small mermaid carving made of stone.
It was an item I recognized, too.
'Whoa, that's the Church's symbol...'
The mermaid was a symbol representing the Great Demon, Leviathan.
It seemed he'd been caught carrying the symbol somewhere on him.
"You...."
As the Holy Knight spoke firmly, Edgar coldly looked down at the restrained student.
"No!! I don't know anything about this!! I don't know why that thing is on me!! It's a trap..! Yeah, it's a trap set by bastards trying to frame my family!! Damn it, let go..!! Believe me, it's not me!! Hey, why are you all looking at me with those eyes, huh?? I'm telling you, it's really not me!!!"
"It will only be to your disadvantage if you act like this. Follow meekly."
The captured student struggled and screamed his final protests.
Edgar watched the student being dragged away with a complicated expression.
I slipped over to his side and spoke to him.
"Were you close?"
"Atlas, it wasn't like that.... but colluding with a demon... I can't believe it."
The fact that he wasn't scowling the moment he saw me, but rather looked stunned, meant he was extremely shocked.
"Just this morning, and yesterday, too, we were in the same class... and he was a collaborator...?"
"It might be a bit much to say this now... but there are probably more."
"What?!"
Edgar was surprised, but I had already taken my leave.
Edgar's expression upon hearing there were more collaborators looked complicated.
—————————-
"Everyone, the final skill assessment will be tough since the midterm skill assessment was cancelled, so be on your toes. The professors were all raring to go."
Andy once again told us that since the chaos from the dungeon training was settling down, midterms had been glossed over, and they'd decided to cram everything into the finals.
"Ugh, that's really just too much."
"Now, now, I said it a lot in my lectures, right? That I'll only be looking at basic physical strength, so everyone work hard on your training. If you work hard starting now, you can improve a lot, so how easy is that! It's a class that's practically handed to you, so you should be grateful."
Andy puffed out his chest proudly.
Since it was the freshmen's first semester, he was keeping his promise that the skill assessment would strictly only test basic physical strength.
Students who had reached the Expert realm all grinned as they listened to Andy's words, while students of uncertain skill sighed.
"Can't we do it with something like sparring instead?"
"Physical verification is an absolute evaluation, but sparring is a relative evaluation. A relative evaluation with extremely unfair luck factored in, at that. You, the one who just spoke—could you say the same if you drew Atlas or Russell as your sparring opponent?"
"Urk... I could just not meet them, couldn't I?"
"If you're just going to pray like that, go outside and run some more."
Sitting together, we muttered to each other as we watched Andy speak.
"It's nice not having to worry about this one. What a relief."
"It's an event where you get a perfect score as long as you're mid-level Expert or above, so there's no need to worry."
"Then shall we all start studying the overlapping subjects together first?"
We all had separate classes, but there were also many overlapping lectures.
I had absolutely no intention of studying properly, but I wanted to savor the feeling of properly being a student again for the first time in a while.
"Overlapping classes... I don't have many..."
"The required ones all overlap though. Let's do those together at least."
"Okay...."
With Lucia joining, a study group of four was formed.
Since one person was only thinking about messing around and playing, maybe it would be more accurate to call it a study group of three?
"This'll be fun."
"We're gathering to study, what kind of fun are you looking for? I'll get angry if you disrupt things, okay?"
"With all these grim incidents happening lately, it's really nice to do something student-like. Right, Amy?"
"Me? Hmm... it is nice."
The Holy Knights were working hard, so things should be fine for now.
I was really confident in one thing: messing around during exam period.
Human nature is such that the more you're told to study, the more you want to play.
Surely nothing else would happen on the exam day, right?