Into the Basement (2)
Anor Academy's other name was Academy City. The commercial district spreading out from the academy was so vast it could fairly be called a city in its own right.
And a place of that size naturally needed waterways to match. The channel I was walking now was an underground passage with a long, proud history.
The underground waterways fanned out like a spiderweb, reaching not only the academy but the surrounding commercial complexes as well. In other words, anyone using these passages would find them extremely convenient for a raid.
That was why I had kept this in mind and warned Milia and the academy chancellor more than once: that there might be an enemy within, and that they could infiltrate the academy through the underground waterways.
Of course, the chancellor had not looked entirely convinced. An enemy inside the academy? It probably felt a little like I was trying to sow discord.
But what was I supposed to do about that?
Grrrr…!
It was all true.
I confirmed the demonic beasts prowling the underground waterway with a sour look on my face. Why were beasts wandering the sewers of an academy that so loudly advertised its integrity?
I had been told just a few days ago that nothing was amiss, so the whole situation sat poorly with me. Put another way, it meant they had seized this place thoroughly enough to pull something off in the blink of an eye. Anyone besides me would have been in a serious bind.
Kyaaaaaaa!
The heart of the Academy Underground Waterway. At the squelch of my footsteps, the demonic beasts' gazes snapped toward me.
Bloodshot eyes. Bodies stitched together from all manner of beasts. Four arms, standing on two legs — even I had never seen creatures like these in my life. Their presence was vicious, as if they had been born for slaughter. With a bang they kicked off the floor and charged, and I drew my longsword.
Groooaar!
Wolf maws yawned wide. Five of them came at me at once. They did not hunt as a pack — more like each was doing its own thing.
Was there anything to gain from them?
I slipped the lead beast's attack and swung. A clean slicing sound rang out. An arm came off without resistance — ordinary attacks worked on them, then.
But they're dangerous. Not something the male lead's party could handle.
I could tell from the feel through the blade. I could take them without even using sword aura, but for the others, they would have to be ready for serious injury just to bring one down. And with temperaments this savage, they would be a handful.
Demonic beasts optimized for slaughtering civilians, basically. They were not intelligent specimens, so with enough real combat experience you could manage them.
This needed a proper look. I closed one eye and concentrated aura into both.
Contemplation — Insight
See through flesh, bone, blood, and soul.
Closing one eye was to paint my mental image clearly in the darkened field of vision. Keeping the other open was to pierce the opponent's true nature.
The power of Contemplation was to see, through aura, what the naked eye could not. Muscles, organs, bones, blood vessels — and with mastery, even the spiritual. The gap by skill level was enormous, but at my level I could see through even the soul.
I stared into the beasts' bodies. A vast cosmos unfolded within. Multiple fires spread through the dark.
Multiple souls? These aren't ordinary chimeras.
They had not merely been stitched together from different beasts. They were experimental subjects completed by cramming in a variety of souls. Which meant this was Soul Transmutation, one of alchemy's Three Forbidden Arts.
There's a traitor in the Alchemy Faculty?
Wearing a headache of an expression, I parried their attacks and struck back. The blade swept through them and they went down whimpering. I flicked the blood from my sword and swallowed a groan.
I had thought the Magic Faculty, which had a lock on the hidden laboratory, made their professors the prime suspects. If things were like this, the suspect pool had just widened.
Anyone capable of Soul Transmutation would be a recognized figure even within the Alchemy Faculty. And if someone like that was an enemy within…
"Ah, shit. Too many people to deal with."
Meaning everyone involved was likely a traitor. This many enemies on the inside was going to be a problem. I clicked my tongue and was about to pick up my pace when—
A flutter. Someone's hem caught my eye.
…A person?
A woman entered the vision Contemplation had pushed to its limit. Red hair falling to her waist, a pointed witch's hat on her head — a beauty, her face tight with tension, following me. I knew who she was at once.
Professor Laura? Why is she…
Of all people, why her? Supervising the underground waterways was the job of the professor on duty and a handful of mages. Laura had no reason to be here. And I had already gotten search authorization from the chancellor, so there was no reason for her to tail me either.
Had word not reached the duty officer yet? No — Chancellor Lucas had said he would tell them. He was thorough; the message would have gone through. According to him, today's duty officer for the waterways was Professor Kentri of the Alchemy Faculty. And yet Laura, who was not even on duty today, was down here?
They swapped shifts. And only someone highly skilled even by Alchemy Faculty standards could have made these beasts.
But why swap with Professor Laura? He could have asked a subordinate, or someone he trusted.
There was definitely an angle. I put Professor Kentri on the list of prime suspects and ran through the possibilities.
Professor Laura was close with Ruina, and Ruina was my little sister. If he had swapped duty with Laura knowing I would come here, he was likely targeting that relationship. Maybe a plan to breed mutual distrust and split us from within.
Trying to tie my hands?
I snorted a laugh and completely changed direction. The picture was coming together.
Fine. Then I would play along for a bit. If I could see his plan, my performance was already decided.
Not far off. I muttered it just loud enough for Laura to hear. Then I checked her with Contemplation-enhanced sight.
"…!"
She had heard me, all right — her face was full of shock. She had taken the bait. She would follow me on her own from here.
Slowly, then more slowly still, I turned toward the hidden laboratory, considerate of Laura, who would be working so hard to tail me.
Damp humidity rose from the underground waterway. Laura followed Eugene as he walked the squelching path. Even after pouring stealth magic onto herself without restraint, she held her breath against a nameless unease.
The waterway was heaped with the dismembered corpses of demonic beasts. As she picked her way through them, Laura's face grew paler and paler.
He's just beating down beasts with elemental damage resistance AND physical damage reduction?
Every last one of them was no ordinary creature. Monsters with physical-attack immunity that reduced a set amount of damage, plus elemental resistance. Even Laura would have had a hard time with them.
And he was taking them down with a single sword, without even using sword aura? That was a level of force that had nothing to do with common sense. The sheer, imagination-defying brutishness of it was enough to make her go weak.
And on top of that, what had he said?
For my sister…?
Not for anyone else — for his little sister.
The words kept circling in her head. Didn't that sound like he was here for Ruina? Coming from a man known as a heartless kin-slayer, the disconnect was jarring.
And what else had he said?
Too many people to deal with.
Who was he dealing with, and for whose sake? Put his words together and an inference she did not want to admit rose up. That maybe, in truth, his little sister was the one he worried about most.
She did not know everything about Ruina. The genius who had come in as her successor and flaunted her talent had been an eyesore of a rival. But even Laura knew this much for certain: how desperately Ruina had worried about her older brother, how badly she had wanted to see him.
A dense little fool who just waited, insisting her brother could not possibly be a bad person. Watching her stubbornly wait for one man was enough to make Laura's chest burst with frustration.
Eugene, you bastard. What the hell are you even thinking?
Your little sister is that worried, and you never once think to go talk to her? Think about the shock she will feel later, when she learns the hidden truth and that her so-called brother is mixed up in it.
If he really doted on his sister, shouldn't he be thinking about repairing the relationship first? Instead of wandering off somewhere else claiming it was for her?
Looking at those two dense humans, she felt something beyond exasperation — pity, even. And as she walked on through the waterway, the hidden laboratory appeared.
Lab - 001
The oldest of all the laboratories, yet a place whose existence was never publicized. Only a handful of people, Laura included, even knew it was here. Professors even took secret shifts among themselves to keep unauthorized people out, so its security was stricter than any other lab.
Laura sucked in a shallow breath and watched Eugene stop in front of the laboratory.
There are forbidden grimoires in there. What's he going in for?
A laboratory packed with the Alchemy Faculty's Three Forbidden Arts, and with magics the Magic Faculty had banned for their danger as well. A mage might approach out of interest — but Eugene could not even use magic. Why was he going near a hidden laboratory? She checked the security systems again.
The security's intact. Which means the chancellor already authorized his access.
The alarm system that should have gone off on the way to the lab was silent. Meaning Eugene's visit was a scheduled event in the system.
Had the senior officers and the chancellor been threatened into giving him the lab's location?
Right. You wouldn't be Eugene if you just sat still. You came to the academy for a reason.
It would have been suspicious enough if anyone else went in. Eugene walking into the lab only made her more uneasy.
Should she jump him right now?
No. No.
No matter how I fight, I'd lose…
If the opponent was Eugene, there was no one in the academy who could stand against him. Unless the Ivory Tower Master of the Magic Tower showed up, maybe.
So there was only one thing she could do right now. Hope that Eugene would not take a turn for the worse and go on a rampage.
That was the only thing Laura could do.
And then — creeeak…
The door opened slowly. As the thick steel-reinforced laboratory door swung wide, mana-stone lighting revealed the interior in a bright wash.
And at the same time.
Whoosh!
Huh?
A sharp dagger flew at Eugene.
CLANG!
"…Right. An academy ought to have at least one traitor on the inside."
As if he had been waiting for it, he drew his longsword and knocked the dagger aside. Sparks bloomed where the two metals met in the dark waterway. The man waiting inside the laboratory smiled a vicious smile.
"…They said Eugene was at the academy, and it was true? Jackpot. To think I'd get a shot at that Eugene's head."
An ashen-gray cape. A face covered in scars. Around him, several daggers floated in midair — not by sorcery, not by magic, but by some other power.
Eugene put Laura — frozen stiff from the surprise attack — behind him and curled his lips in a thin smirk.
An ability that looked like some grade-school superpower, neither magic nor sorcery. The arrogance of a man who knew exactly who he was facing and still acted cocky. Clothes that looked like they came with a rank.
That was enough. No need to probe further.
"Perfect. I was just thinking I needed a decent new identity anyway."
Eugene stepped into the laboratory, pouring aura into his longsword.
At that, Laura could not hide her incredulous face as she muttered to herself.
W-what is this lunatic even saying…
Laura had no words for the scene of Eugene farming a new identity.