<583 – Delicious Linked Quest (7)>
Titosso was feeling unjustly wronged.
“Tito, become a saintess and join the Saintess Alliance!”
“No way! You ran off alone to be a third-year without us. What nerve to ask for help!”
“I’ll ask Masugaki to make a strong Light Stand and deliver it! Isn’t that enough?”
“…How many levels?”
“Level 12!”
“Level 15!”
“Ugh. That’s too much.”
“Then how about level 14!”
“Can’t we go with level 13?”
“No way! Oknodie was the one who messed up first, so I can’t go below level 14!”
Titosso was in the middle of negotiating for a level 14 enhancement for the Light Stand when everything went dark in front of her while walking down the street.
She hurriedly turned on the Light Stand, but all she knew was that she had been kidnapped into a huge bundle.
[Tito Beam]
[Light Stand Swing]
[Wild Swing]
[Powerful Swing]
[Flashing]
Even swinging wildly and emitting light did nothing to the opponent.
When she finally peeked out from the bundle, a familiar skull was gazing down at her.
“Gackle, gackle, gackle!”
“EEEKK! Are you seriously going to commit this crime?! Kidnapping a student to turn her into a skeleton—such a wicked criminal instructor!”
“Don’t misunderstand. I don’t engage in coercive undead transformation. It’s only on the condition of the subject’s consent that I separate the flesh!”
“Then why did you kidnap me?!”
“To prevent you from joining the Saintess Alliance. Additionally, I want to find out why the Foundation is establishing the Saintess Alliance.”
“Eeeek! Oknodie just randomly asked! I didn’t agree! I said I wouldn’t do it!”
The skull instructor’s coloration darkened.
“Is that really the truth?”
“Honestly!”
“Can you swear on your human flesh and precious hair?”
“I can!!”
The skull instructor quickly reported this to Professor Sadako, who opened the gate to the catacombs and zoomed in from a distance at an unreal speed, dodging from door to door.
As Titosso burst into tears from fright, undead Professor Sadako, with her sparse human emotions, spoke in her typical chilling voice.
“Tell me when Oknodie proposed joining the Saintess Alliance to you.”
“Today! It was today!”
“Before the Foundation’s directive was delivered…”
Professor Sadako was convinced.
She had full knowledge of the directive routes reaching Oknodie.
In reality, along with Pasible Yep, Jonnas, and Reap—Foundation insiders at the academy—small watchers and summons crafted by dark magic and necromancy were secretly monitoring them.
Only a select few students, including Oknodie, Mosquito Master, and Blood Mage, handled tiny bloodsucking mosquitoes, designed for obtaining information.
All those little bugs would eventually die of old age.
Where do all the corpses that students don’t handle go?
Some are consumed by other animals according to the laws of the ecosystem, while others decay and vanish.
However, some rise through her [Undead Transformation] spell and serve as informants, faithfully gathering information through [Summon Contracts].
– Human 30822 is begging the instructor to be released after learning that bomb tennis was part of the ‘Let’s Learn Tennis’ lecture.
– Human 4119 confessed love in the backyard only to be rejected by Human 5020, who can’t bear the unkempt eyebrows, skin troubles, and uneven teeth of a man who doesn’t know how to groom himself, then ran away in tears.
– Professor 13 is secretly ripping off mana puzzles from fourth-year students’ practical assignments because they’re too lazy to gather Nature Mana needed for practice.
Indiscriminate information gathering without regard for new and senior students, men and women, students and professors!
It’s exceedingly limited space and time for one brain to absorb and organize all this information.
Thus, there exists a deputy intelligence entity receiving reports from the corpses of wingless cicadas, toothless mosquitoes, and legless centipedes.
Clatter.
Thud thud thud.
After many turns, the stone gate of the catacombs opened up to the deep, dark interior.
Professor Sadako, never having stepped into such depths, retrieved a coffin from the undead intelligence repository that did the thinking and processing for her.
[Mindroad]
A collective brain of the dead, formed by the spirits of countless remnants, replaced the thought process of Professor Sadako.
“Oknodie expressed her wish to establish the Saintess Alliance before receiving directives from the Foundation. This implies she wishes to organize the Saintess Alliance herself.”
“…Or she received a special individual directive from the Foundation director before returning to the academy.”
“!”
From Sadako’s perspective, considering Oknodie as a poor child used by the Foundation meant that this was absolutely orchestrated by the Foundation director.
If the Foundation director, who carved a hundred disasters into that little child’s mind, isn’t evil, then who can be labeled as such?
Comparing the possibility of that century’s villain exhibiting wicked cunning to Oknodie, one can firmly state the director’s potential is exceptionally high.
“Moreover, after promoting, Oknodie has approached Warrior Ishtar in earnest. This is more likely seen as a preparatory act for mission achievement rather than sudden emotional cooperation.”
Indeed.
Professor Sadako nodded.
She began to intentionally get closer to convince the Warrior to pull Saintess Yufi from the Warrior Party into the Saintess Alliance.
Even leveraging the senior-junior relationship for a natural approach.
This promotion might even be part of the director’s directive to create psychological debt for the Warrior, effortlessly gaining Oknodie’s aid.
No matter how you look at it, this seemed like the beginning of a very terrifying plan.
“Thus, to thwart the Foundation director’s plan, it would be wise to maintain close proximity to Oknodie and position oneself as a ’friend’ in a close relationship that would reveal her inner thoughts, making Mindroad the perfect candidate.”
“I, Mindroad, strongly request the provision and maintenance of a body, financial support, and equipment to execute Oknodie’s friendship operation.”
Professor Sadako ignored Mindroad’s proposition and simply shoved the coffin back into the undead intelligence repository in the catacombs.
As adept as the necromancer was at managing her summons with precision, Sadako was also brilliant in keeping her graduate students like slaves under her watchful eyes.
Thus, Mindroad’s haphazard escape plan was promptly thwarted at the start.
However, what he left behind was quite useful.
“Using Oknodie’s friends…”
At that moment, she had two of Oknodie’s friends in her class.
“Jiang, Titosso. I have a mission for you…”
“No way. Oknodie warned us that if we take the professor’s missions, we’ll become graduate students.”
“Right! We won’t listen to a word from a professor who does scary things like burying us alive or kidnapping us!”
“A down payment of 10,000 points. An additional 40,000 points upon completion…”
“Of course, if the professor stakes 50,000 points, it won’t be considered free labor, so Oknodie should be fine with it.”
“…50,000 points is quite a sum enough to forget fear!”
The two were bestowed with a special mission from Professor Sadako.
“Oknodie was secretly caught getting a suspicious mission from the Foundation director. The mission is to gather three saintesses and reconstruct the Saintess Alliance.”
“Yikes! So that’s why she wanted me to join the Saintess Alliance!”
“Go subtly extract information from Oknodie. Uncover the intention of the director. If you do, I’ll pay the completion bonus…”
As Jiang belatedly realized something, a troubled expression appeared on his face.
Titosso poked Jiang in the side and asked.
“What’s wrong?”
“If the professor thinks this mission is important enough to offer an advance payment, what could the penalty be for failing the mission?”
“…a grave punishment?”
If they failed, it would truly be bad.
The cowardly duo trembled with fear after a long time.
*
“Hey, Oknodie. Why do you want me to join the Saintess Alliance?”
“If I tell you, will you be satisfied with a level 13 Light Stand?”
“Tch. As disappointing as it is, I guess I have no choice. I’ll settle for a level 13!”
“To save Senior Nepher-tem!”
Titosso shed tears, feeling empathy for a senior who had been caught in unfortunate incidents, resembling her but experiencing more bad experiences than her.
It wasn’t exactly moving but rather a truly sad story, yet after hearing it all, a question arose.
“How does the Director know about this situation?”
“Papa? Why is he suddenly brought up?”
“Uh, um…”
As Titosso stammered, Oknodie’s eyes sparkled.
“I got it!”
“What did you…?”
“This is an event clue! Papa was involved in this incident in some way!”
Titosso felt an inexplicably uneasy feeling.
Even though she had suffered from Oknodie’s confusion before, Oknodie had never been swept along by the ambiguous remarks of those around her.
Normally, Oknodie was the one causing trouble, not the one getting caught up in it.
However, if the director, who could have remained uninvolved, became entangled due to her, how monumental could this incident grow?
At the very least, Titosso thought it might reach a point where Professor Sadako would have to intervene instead of merely taking Oknodie’s 50,000-point reward.
In that case, rather than just the 50,000 points, she might receive an enormous punishment for escalating the situation provocatively from Professor Sadako.
“No, no! The Director has nothing to do with it!”
“Tito? Why are you pretending you don’t know after saying that? Did Papa shut you up?”
“N-no, it’s not like that!”
“Right! I can’t forgive you, Papa. Touching my friend without permission!”
What is this?
Gratitude mixed with a sense of fear.
Titosso, trembling in terror, asked.
“What are you going to do to Papa…?”
“I’ll scold him!”
“How…?”
Though those around them often swore revenge against the Foundation when they sufficiently misunderstood Oknodie’s plight, they lacked the power to inflict actual harm, ending up with mere empty vows.
However, unfortunately for Oknodie, she possessed enough wisdom and means to act on that wisdom.
“I’ll expose the Northern Region event to Irene Papa! Foundation event confiscated!”
Unbeknownst to Oknodie, movements from Professor Robert triggered reactions from Nepher-tem and Vice Director Velvet.
This initiated actions to launch the Saintess Alliance and prompted the movements of Professor Sadako.
This, in turn, led to Titosso’s awkward actions and Oknodie’s misconceptions…
A series of events starting and continuing from Oknodie began to grow into a gigantic snowball, inflicting its damage on the Wahyhiemhai Foundation!
