Pinky's So Unfairly Accused (7)
"You little shit! Get back here!"
The instant Hindrastar hurled herself off the rooftop, Dian threw his body after her.
Hindrastar hit the ground, tumbled several times, then lurched to her feet.
"What the hell did I even do wrong?!"
"I'll tell you exactly what you did — now get over here!"
"Are you out of your mind?!"
Hindrastar fled toward the north gate with everything she had, her thoughts spinning wildly.
He doesn't believe a single word I say. The bastard has zero trust in me. To think all the chaos I stirred up during the war would come back around like this.
Just get out of the Academy. If he catches me, I'm dead at minimum. If I run, I might actually live.
He said last time the Hero isn't here, so even if they come after me right away, I'll have enough of a head start. Neither that guy nor this Dian bastard knows how to use tracking magic. If I make it to another kingdom far from here, they'll never find me. If they'd had the ability to track me down, they wouldn't have spent months chasing me during the war.
"Last chance! If you don't stop now, I'll still beat you even after you do!"
Dian's threatening persuasion almost rooted Hindrastar to the spot — but she gritted her teeth and bolted past the north gate anyway.
If I go straight from here, I can enter the city through the eastern corner of downtown. Mix into the crowds and he'll never find me. No matter how much of a Dian he is, he couldn't possibly be stupid enough to beat a pretty, cute schoolgirl and drag her off by the hair in front of witnesses!
Of course, Dian was not that stupid. Which is why he caught Hindrastar before she ever reached the city.
"Aaaagh!"
Hindrastar screamed and skidded to a halt at the sight of Dian, who had blinked into existence right in front of her. She stopped so violently that the paving stones ripped upward like lizard scales, standing on end.
"Help me! A professor is trying to rape a student! Please, someone help!"
Hindrastar cried out with everything she had, but there was no one around to save her. Running this far from the north gate to escape Dian had been a self-inflicted wound.
Run? Kneel? Whatever she chose, a beating from Dian was inevitable.
Terror finally stripped her of all reason, and Hindrastar made the worst possible choice.
She detonated her Aura.
As she wrenched every last ounce of power into herself, veins erupted across her forearms and the nape of her neck like a spiderweb. The Aura boiled through those veins until her entire body looked as though it were wrapped in a luminous, glittering net.
Crunch. Crunch. CRACK!
The paving stones and the ground, unable to bear the weight of her Aura, caved in in patches. Her pink twin-tails blazed upward like volcanic flame.
Birds shrieked and exploded from the nearby forest as Hindrastar unleashed a Dragon Roar from her human body. A frail woman's form by Polymorph — but inside it, a mighty white dragon. If she truly went all out, no one would be able to stop her—
"Kyaaaek!"
Dian's finger tore through her Aura and struck Hindrastar in the forehead. Reeling from the brain-rattling impact, she barely recovered her balance. If she hadn't been wrapped in Aura, she would have gone down instantly—
The second Forehead Flick finally put her down.
About thirty minutes later, we were back at the Academy.
"Waaaaaah!! I'm telling you it's not true!!"
Hindrastar trailing behind me was making a tremendous racket with her crying.
Well, that took care of her attitude adjustment. Now I needed to pull this muddied atmosphere back together and get the kids some training in psychological warfare.
"Pelemiya. I need you to work with me on something."
"What sort of work?"
When I stopped by the faculty office, Pelemiya adjusted her glasses and smiled.
"It's about Student Sophie. Let's turn this into a practical exercise for the psychological warfare course."
"I think I understand. A response to a rumor-spreading situation?"
"Exactly. How did you know?"
"Do this job long enough and you can read a person's mind just from their eyes."
"Guess I'll have to walk around with my eyes closed in front of you."
"There are ways to tell even then. Anyway, how do you want to handle it?"
I laid out what I had in mind. Pelemiya called it a solid idea, added a few suggestions of her own, and together we fleshed it into something concrete.
The problem was that Pelemiya kept asking a few too many questions, angling to meet my eyes. Wondering what that was about, I looked back at her — and felt something sharp and formless shoot toward me, then bounce off.
Pelemiya flinched and took a small step back. Hah. She's using a technique on me.
Once I blocked her skill, Pelemiya never once met my gaze again.
"Professor Ismera. Can we talk for a moment?"
The instant I arrived at the Theory Department Chief Professor's office, Ismera recoiled as if I were a filthy contagious disease, scrambling backward.
"Don't come in!"
"Excuse me?"
"Speak from there!"
Judging by that reaction, Ismera had caught some of the rumors circulating among the students.
"I'm planning to gather every student in the main auditorium tomorrow for some instruction. I thought you should know."
"Tell the Principal!"
"Understood. I've made myself clear."
I left Ismera's office and went straight to the Principal's office, where Kirlin sprang to her feet and greeted me with a bright smile. Under ordinary circumstances, the reactions of Ismera the elf and Kirlin the dark elf should have been reversed.
"Dian! What's going on?"
"Principal. Tomorrow I'd like to gather every student in the main auditorium—"
"Do it."
Kirlin agreed without a second's thought.
"Huh? I haven't even explained yet."
"You're going to clear up the misunderstanding about all this, right? Then I'm all for it."
Her face flushed and her ears drooped. She looked like a puppy waiting to be praised, which was rather adorable.
The next day, I assembled every student and staff member in the main auditorium, just as I had reported to Kirlin. When I stepped onto the podium, the students began to murmur, and I waited in silence for it to die down.
When the noise showed no sign of stopping, Brog the orc unleashed a battle cry that froze the blood in everyone's veins. The students clamped their mouths shut, all the color draining from their faces, and even some of the Theory Department professors staggered and nearly sat down.
"As Chief Combat Professor, I am disappointed in every last one of you."
Once the auditorium was quiet, I began to speak, slowly.
"I never imagined you were only this much. Everything I have poured myself into, day and night, feels like it has gone up in smoke."
The students, still reeling from the battle cry, could only glance at each other in silence.
"There's been a strange rumor going around lately. I don't need to say out loud what it is — you all know."
I swept my gaze over them, then continued.
"That content was a false rumor the Combat Department deliberately leaked onto campus."
"Huk…?!"
A choking sound came from somewhere in the hall.
"You all learned about agitation in psychological warfare class. You there."
"Y-yes, sir…!"
The student I had pointed to in the front row stood up, rigid with tension.
"What is agitation?"
"I-it's encouraging others to take some action or engage in some behavior…!"
"And manipulating public opinion?"
"It's when an individual or group distorts public opinion through factual distortion or false information, for personal purposes or the benefit of their own group!"
"You know it well!!"
The students flinched as I raised my voice.
"You are cadets of the Special Operations Academy — future core agents of the Empire. So why did every last one of you fall for such a ridiculous, baseless rumor? Not a single one of you recalled your psychological warfare lessons and showed even a shred of skepticism. This Chief Combat Professor is disappointed. Did you get dragged here against your will?!"
"No, sir!"
"Professor!"
Someone bravely raised a hand.
"I understood everything you've said so far. But a lot of students witnessed Professor Dian together with the graduating class valedictorian. How do you explain that? You're not going to tell us that was acting too — part of this whole setup — are you?"
"Of course not. That's true."
"Kyaaaaah! No way!"
A scream rang out from somewhere in the crowd.
"I have been teaching an advanced curriculum to Knightly, the Academy's top student. She was the only one who met my extremely strict standards, and I have kept it secret until now because it could be seen as special treatment."
"An advanced curriculum? You mean the night infiltration, the Brun Plateau wild horses, the troll at the Academy's east gate — all of that? Do you have proof?"
"The Combat Department professors here are my witnesses. Professor Waiver. Professor Anna. Professor Orendi."
The professors I had named each came forward and testified that they had been present at every one of those incidents, and the students began to murmur.
"Do you understand now? All of you were fooled. And that makes a mockery of everything this Chief Combat Professor has poured his soul into reforming since taking this post."
The students hung their heads one by one. Funnily enough, Kirlin standing beside me also dropped her head, as if engaging in some kind of self-criticism.
"But it is not too late."
I drove the tip of a practice wooden sword into the podium floor with a sharp crack.
"The ringleader who spread these rumors and threw the Academy into chaos is still active. This Chief Combat Professor has a proposal."
Every student looked at me. I paused, then went on.
"Applying what you learned in class to sift out the truth and find the ringleader — that will be the first-half practical exercise for psychological warfare. Whoever finds them gets a perfect score in the first-half psychological warfare course. The exam is, of course, waived."
"A p-perfect score?!"
"You'll need solid evidence, of course. I don't want anyone pinning this on an innocent person. Deadline is next week. Given the Academy's size and population, a week should be plenty."
Pelemiya was notorious for being a harsh grader — apparently not a single student had ever received a perfect score in psychological warfare. In a situation like this, finding the rumor-spreader meant a perfect score without even taking the exam. That was a pretty extraordinary reward.
Sure enough, the students grew excited, chattering among themselves until the auditorium was buzzing.
The root of this whole uproar was the ambiguous relationship between me and Knightly. With even the Combat Department professors personally stepping forward to explain it, the rumor had become utterly baseless nonsense. Which meant the students would genuinely believe my lie that I had deliberately spread the rumor as a practical exercise — and with that extraordinary reward on the table, they would be hunting the ringleader with fire in their eyes.
Of course, no student was likely to point to Hindrastar as the ringleader. She had already prepared her escape routes in case I caught her, and students who didn't know her true nature would never figure it out.
Instead, through the process of hunting the ringleader, the kids would quickly learn how to handle a situation where rumors were used to sow social chaos. That alone was enough.
Unlike the other combat courses, I had been struggling with how to run practicals for psychological warfare. I never expected another good opportunity like this to fall into my lap.
Well, now that I had cleaned this up to some degree, maybe I should start getting ready to visit Linus's place? We had already promised to go this coming weekend.
But first, one more knock on that head.
"Why'd you hit me?!"
"Looking at your face pissed me off all over again."
I gave Hindrastar, who was lingering outside the auditorium, a knuckle to the skull, and she started wailing all over again.
Wait a second… she might run off again while I'm gone…
Should I just throw her in the troll prison with it? But magic doesn't work well on dragons…
Then do I have to drag her along to Linus's house this weekend?
