Chapter 103
Chapter 103
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 103
Chapter Title: I Want to Know What You Hid
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“I didn’t shed a single drop of blood that day. So why blood?”
“Large amounts of blood—Cale Ace’s—and a very small amount of yours.”
“Why didn’t you say anything until now?”
“Because it was such a tiny amount that it held no meaning as evidence.”
Makina lay on the altar with half-lidded eyes, staring up at the ceiling.
The fact that she was giving an answer I’d never heard before in such a state clearly meant her reason had loosened slightly under extreme fatigue and the threat of death.
‘She really… knew all along.’
That neither I nor the demon beast was the culprit.
I’d expected as much, but hearing it straight from her mouth was worlds apart from mere speculation.
Even though I’d thought deep down that Makina was perfectly capable of this, I was still shocked.
The faint kindness she’d shown on a whim and the slight friendship we’d built as fellow academy cadets suddenly felt utterly pointless.
“Haa… Is that what you call saying something now?”
I’d climbed the back mountain in the dead of night to find Makina.
On top of that, I’d given her my topcoat and cloak to save her from freezing to death.
My own stamina was draining fast, fatigue crashing over me.
All I could do was press my throbbing forehead and sigh—no other way to defend myself.
“Makina. Aren’t you afraid?”
“Of what?”
“That your authority might come crashing down because of your actions.”
“Authority… I never had it to begin with, nor did I want it.”
Even as we spoke, some of her divine power must have recovered, because Makina muttered something again and chanted a spell.
“It’s ridiculous hearing that from someone like you.”
“Cadet Cruise, you’ve seriously misunderstood me.”
Misunderstood…
Well, maybe so.
Ever since enrolling in the academy, I’d watched Makina as student council president for a long time.
But what I really knew about her amounted to maybe one or two things at most.
“Maybe I have.”
I waited a moment for Makina, then pressed her again.
“Makina Christi. Why did you put me on trial when you knew the truth? Just because my blood was there? Is that the only reason?”
“No—that’s a misunderstanding. I would’ve put you on trial even without that.”
At this point, I wondered if Makina was running some kind of experiment to stoke my anger.
What happened afterward wasn’t her fault at all, but after surviving several brushes with death, her blunt honesty felt incredibly cruel.
I swallowed my emotions and probed her a bit more.
“Why? To focus the anger on me and graduate more troublemakers?”
“If they were the kind of troublemakers who’d graduate over something like that, I wouldn’t have used you as a scapegoat.”
Our conversation was grasping at clouds.
Unlike me, growing more anxious by the minute, Makina’s reason was sharpening as her stamina recovered.
Even in this extreme situation, was I no match for Makina?
My so-called survival instincts amounted to nothing more than that of a drifter.
Bullying Theodore and interrogating him skillfully had been less my own power and more the result of its influence.
“Makina Christi.”
I approached Makina.
Her color had returned somewhat, but she didn’t look fully recovered yet.
A cowardly thought crossed my mind: I should take advantage of her now.
“Please be honest.”
Makina lay limply on the altar, looking at a glance like an angel carved on a coffin lid.
The irony of something drowsy and peaceful hiding the flesh of the dead beneath.
Makina responded by merely lifting her eyelids while still staring at the ceiling.
I positioned myself under her arm and forced her to meet my eyes.
Only then did her gaze, which had been fixed on empty air, swivel toward me.
“What do you want to do by using me?”
The question I threw at Makina was pure, without any tricks.
Per the Cruise family teachings, hiding my true intentions and slyly drawing out the answer I wanted wouldn’t work on her, so I asked directly.
Makina had always maintained that ambiguous attitude—enemy or ally?—but she’d never deceived me.
For now, I had no choice but to trust that side of her.
“Hahaha.”
The moment I looked into her deep, clear ice-blue eyes—like a glacier sliced clean— I realized our parallel conversation had ended.
Makina smiled faintly as she rose from the altar where she’d been sprawled limply.
She’d threaded her arms into the cloak meant only to be draped over, making her look at first glance like a saint in a long robe.
“First off—Arma Cruise, the fact that your blood was there was discovered with the demon beast’s help during the final inspection of the crime scene.”
“And about that earlier question—”
“The blood was a minuscule amount because it wasn’t from a wound. We suspect it came from a syringe.”
“…A syringe?”
If things kept going like this, I’d get tangled in Makina’s rhetoric, but it was too crucial to ignore.
“There was no syringe as evidence, but based on your testimony of lying there drugged with suspicious medicine, and the tiny blood drops that fell in irregular arcs, that’s our guess.”
Blood drops in arcs. The demon beast was impressive for tracking my blood in that hellish mess, but Makina was impressive too for analyzing the bloodstains that way.
If I’d dropped a syringe on the floor without wiping it after it drew my blood, as Makina described, that trace would remain.
“We didn’t know if someone deliberately sedated you with an injection or if you did it yourself. So we put you on trial.”
“…And your conclusion?”
“There must be a clear reason Arma Cruise got caught up in this incident.”
Makina added this with a smile that hollowed her cheeks.
Unlike moments ago when I’d kept pressing her, this time I clamped my mouth shut.
‘She hasn’t guessed about Yvon’s existence…’
If Makina started suspecting me in a completely different direction, that would be a danger signal.
For someone with normal thinking, guessing the connection between me and Yvon from clues this scant was nearly impossible.
But that power—beyond my current understanding—was slowly casting its shadow here, wielding itself.
I couldn’t see it, but I felt it.
That it was pondering above this academy, mouth agape, ready to swallow me, us, everything alive in one gulp.
“I thought then that the demon beast probably wasn’t the real culprit. A demon beast using a syringe would be a research subject.”
“…”
“So the culprit’s probably human. Inspector Julia Anne Smith seems to suspect a human for different reasons.”
Come to think of it, that was odd.
If my bloodstains were at the scene, Inspector Julia wouldn’t have just suspected me—she’d have interrogated me assuming I was the culprit.
As if reading my thoughts, Makina spoke.
“We’ve already submitted the data to Inspector Smith. Curious why she didn’t interrogate you?”
“Tell me.”
“The inspector’s a seasoned investigator. Unlike me, she accurately assessed your state under the crude drug. If you’d gone berserk from it, the bleeding wouldn’t have stopped there.”
“…Meaning she thought I might not have known if I got injured in excitement?”
“Exactly. And in that state, you wouldn’t notice bumping into things or skin tearing on a blade, so there should’ve been more wounds on you at the time of restraint. That’s from Inspector Julia Anne Smith’s second investigation.”
In the end, it was like repeating what I’d said over months.
I felt my lips dry out.
Since the dream two days ago, I’d been sleepless, wondering if I might be a murderer.
“Anyway, in conclusion, despite investigating you so thoroughly, we found no link to the incident. Funny, isn’t it? I thought there was nothing I couldn’t do in this academy.”
…Was it right to suspect me like that when no decisive proof I was the criminal had turned up?
Makina scanned my face up and down, as if reading my expression.
“Arma, that’s why I decided to keep you close. It’s strange and fascinating. Not much experience with this, so why not enjoy it?”
When Makina asked so casually, I was at a loss for words.
“You’re quite the eccentric yourself.”
“First time hearing that too.”
Her curiosity felt unsettling in its direction.
It seemed less interest in me as a person and more in the phenomenon.
Whether that meant no interest in me or if I was overthinking it, I couldn’t tell…
Makina properly threaded her arms into the cloak meant for draping and slowly walked ahead.
She wouldn’t reveal any more of her true feelings now.
I followed her toward the temporary lodging, the Black Lily House.
“Makina, we didn’t get to any of the important talk.”
“What talk?”
I looked at Makina’s bare feet splashing through the winter dew with uneasy eyes, then spoke.
“Why were you in a place like that?”
It was an unused well, sealed off, surrounded by walls to block access, and full of cold water.
No one in their right mind would go in there voluntarily.
“Of all the questions today, that’s the toughest one.”
Even in her delirium, she’d avoided self-incriminating answers, yet Makina said that.
I thought she’d ignore my question again and shut my mouth.
‘Pull Makina to my side. Can I really do it?’
In an academy full of top elites from the kingdom, she stood out.
With her innate talents in multiple fields beyond measurement, I had just over four months to bring someone like Makina to my side.
If she graduated after that, I’d have to find another way to downgrade the guardian angel.
“Do you remember me mentioning ‘rebound’?”
“Unlike the student council president, I was in my right mind.”
Makina chuckled softly and stopped abruptly.
Under the moonlight beaming intense blue light, Makina looked less human and more like some other being.
“It seems like it was a counterattack from the guardian angel because someone tried to attack you.”
“…What?”