Chapter 72
Chapter 72
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 72
Chapter Title: Always Watching (1)
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“This is….”
I couldn’t help voicing my bewilderment in surprise.
Dylan, who had been preparing to leave, scratched his head awkwardly and flipped over the cooperation request I was looking at.
“You can pretend you didn’t see it, right? It’s not supposed to be public.”
“What the hell is this request?”
“I said pretend you didn’t… Ugh, too late for that, huh.”
A look of embarrassment I’d never seen on Dylan before clouded his face.
Then he slung an arm around my shoulder and strode out the door.
“Everything from now on is just me talking to myself.”
“…Okay.”
With no intention of properly securing the door, Dylan tucked me under his arm, reached back to close the open door, and started walking briskly.
The wind blowing through the broken window pushed against the closed door, making an ominous creaking sound.
“Makina lifted every single magic ban in the academy. And now everyone’s carrying weapons around.”
As he spoke, Dylan flicked the strap of the holster crossing my shoulder over my jacket.
I’d always carried this pistol regardless of the rules on weapons, though.
“Everyone sympathizes with Makina’s intentions, but deep down, they’re all anxious about each other. Right? Imagine living blades moving around together in a closed space called the academy.”
*Whoosh… Splash.*
A faint sound of waves came from far away.
Aegis Academy was an elite training officer school built on an island surrounded on all sides.
To leave the academy without permission, you had to be prepared to swim across the ocean bare-handed.
In this environment, if the living blades Dylan mentioned went berserk, as he said, we could be reduced to ruins in an instant.
“Even so, we all have equal rights—”
“Equal? You really believe that?”
Dylan’s grip on my shoulder tightened sharply.
I could feel the pressure.
Right, this man facing me alone right now was actually a mage from Thorn Crown House.
I had no idea what level Dylan’s academic achievements were at.
All I knew was that even if I shot him right now, a mage with his training wouldn’t go down easily.
“Every cadet at Aegis Academy is a weapon being forged. You know that full well.”
“There are cadets who aren’t. You know Aegis Academy’s achievements aren’t limited to martial or magical power.”
“Cut the model student crap, Arma. Tell me what you really think.”
The surroundings were completely shrouded in darkness, and Dylan and I were moving very slowly toward my dorm room.
Under the unusually black night sky, the shadows of the camellia trees twitched as if trying to eavesdrop on our conversation.
At those probing words, like a test, I nearly spilled my true feelings without thinking.
That was when I realized Dylan was changing the subject.
“This doesn’t seem like a situation where my opinion matters, Dylan. You were just going to mutter to yourself.”
“Tch. Didn’t work, huh~”
Dylan dropped his arm from my shoulder and shrugged.
“When your opponent’s focused on your words, tossing in a loaded topic usually drags them in, and they forget what they were going to press you on.”
“That only works on underclassmen, probably.”
To be honest, psychologically cornered as I was, it had been the perfect moment to get swept up—dangerously so.
At my words, Dylan grinned, baring his canines, and said,
“That list? It’s no big deal. Just selected cadets close to master level among those who sneak out at night a lot.”
Coincidentally, four of the people on that list were deeply connected to me.
Dylan knew that, which was why he’d tried to dodge with vague answers.
I decided to press him a bit more on it.
“Sneaking out at night… I knew Shirley does it sometimes, but the other three—”
“I get what you’re trying to say.”
Dylan cut me off, pondered for a moment, then added,
“Including Cadet Shirley Spencer, all five are repeat offenders caught sneaking out at night. Especially the two from Thorn Crown House—they’re top stars among the rising problem children.”
“…”
Those two didn’t seem like the type to sneak out at night at all.
*‘Sneaking out. This must be related to Theodore’s sleepwalking too.’*
Originally, Arthur had seen the murder scene of Cale Ace because he’d chased after Theodore, who was sleepwalking, all the way to the chapel.
No matter how much of a rule-breaking outing it was, for someone to detect Arthur, who was deliberately hiding his presence—that took real skill.
That part didn’t seem like something a peer could pull off.
“Anyway, think about what I said.”
“What?”
“What I said earlier.”
Dylan said it with all amusement wiped from his face.
*‘Equal rights or whatever…?’*
I recalled the conversation where he’d talked as if Aegis Academy cadets were dangerous bombs.
Dylan was warning me about something.
That loaded meaning was starting to scare me now.
The situation I was in seemed to be veering further from ordinary daily life into an irreversible abnormality.
*Click.*
After that tense exchange.
We arrived at my room, lips pressed shut like clamshells as we walked.
Dylan released my shoulder and patted it playfully.
“Alright, I’ll get that guy out.”
Theodore was lying on the bed exactly as I’d left him.
Dylan, solidly built just by looking at him, easily hoisted Theodore onto his back.
“Oh, his room is—”
“I know, I know. I keep tabs on where the famous ones stay.”
As expected of a famously nosy senior, he knew even what he didn’t need to…
Anyway, I draped the coat I’d been wearing over Theodore’s soundly sleeping back and said,
“Please take good care of him.”
“Don’t worry. Roll call tonight, so he’ll stay put.”
“Yeah.”
Dylan nodded at my response, then added, *‘See you next week.’*
I planned to show up at the Classical Culture Club around then too, so I nodded.
Good thing Dylan was being nice, or I’d have nearly sent the dead-to-the-world Theodore off on some stranger’s back.
I watched the two of them walk away, then closed the door.
“…”
The room felt bitterly cold after Dylan and Theodore left.
An inexplicable fatigue washed over me, so I hurried to wash up and sat on the bed.
Water droplets trailing from my hair soaked the floor in round spots.
*‘Gonna catch a cold.’*
The cold night air hit my wet body, and my temperature dropped in an instant.
I wrapped myself in a blanket and shuffled to the fireplace, plopping down on the bare floor.
The well-maintained carpet blocked the chill rising from the floorboards, but for some reason, I still felt cold.
*‘What have I done.’*
No matter how gripped by fear of the future, to think I’d try something like that to Theodore.
If I’d given him the sedative in that bizarre frenzy and attempted hypnosis, could I have ever forgiven myself?
I hugged my knees, resting my forehead on them, and the crackling of the flames in the fireplace sounded unusually loud.
*‘Better avoid Theodore for a while. I feel bad since he’s been following me around a lot lately.’*
*Crackle, pop.*
The fire kept burning, and as I felt the flames flicker over my closed eyelids, my consciousness began to fade.
Just like before, the underlying awareness crept up slowly.
Two flames burned, and I endlessly repeated Aegis Academy’s entrance oath to myself.
〔Oath. I, Arma Cruise, swear to live as a strong and wise cadet loyal to the kingdom.
I swear, for all, we all for the kingdom, to make choices for the whole with loyalty and faith.〕
Was this overthinking the oath unconsciously?
I raked my hands through my hair wildly and threw off the blanket.
Alone, I wasn’t getting anywhere.
*Clack, clack, clack.*
*Roll call.*
Not sure if a lot of time had passed or if Dylan walked fast, but roll call had started.
Dylan roamed the halls tapping his wooden stick here and there, and in front of my door, he scratched it lightly with a cheerful *tap-tap* before moving on.
*‘Looks like Theodore made it back safe.’*
Only then did I crawl into bed.
In that strangely vivid yet not-quite-awake state, I couldn’t fall asleep easily.
*Rustle.*
After tossing and turning like that, the moment I turned toward the window—
“Diary….”
I’d taken out my diary to open the secret compartment behind the drawer and left it on the desk.
And there it was, open on the desk.
*‘Did I leave it open?’*
A chill ran down my spine in an instant.
My diary was a hardcover with a thick cover, and the window was closed.
No way a capricious night breeze had flipped it open and left.
“…!”
Any sleepiness I had vanished in a flash.
I bolted up, rushed to the desk, and grabbed the diary.
*Flip, flip, flip.*
Skipping past the early pages of mundane daily logs meant for cover, I reached the page that had made me hide the diary in the first place.
〔─…To Arma Cruise,
Arma Cruise.〕
Right, even if I’d absentmindedly left it open, I wouldn’t have stopped at this page.
How much effort had I put into not thinking about this ominous apocalypse written with that creepy future?
“Theodore—”
Did he see it?
In my panic, I’d left the diary out and gone to Dylan’s dorm—that was the problem.
Still, just in case, with trembling hands I thoroughly checked the diary for any other changes.
Unhappily or fortunately, there were no other anomalies.
I put the sedative and diary back in the drawer as before, then covered the false bottom.
*Thud.*
Hiding the diary now changed nothing.
I imagined Theodore seeing my diary, then closing his eyes and pretending to sleep when he returned to bed.
Should I explain? Or pretend I didn’t know?
My mind was a mess.
And absurdly, it wasn’t so much worry about how Theodore would take it, but fear that a “guardian angel” somewhere had been watching this scene.