“Schlus Hainkel. Let’s return.”
“I have already submitted the artifact used in the exam.”
“I know. Still, let’s return.”
“May I ask why?”
“I refuse.”
“You refuse…?”
Ludwig is blocking my way.
I asked why, but my question was ignored.
So I had no choice but to guess the reason myself.
If it’s because I am aligned with a hostile faction, that might be a sufficiently rational reason.
“What is happening outside right now?”
“If you don’t know, then you definitely should not go, Schlus Hainkel. Follow the order.”
“The head professor has no authority over me.”
“If you do not obey the order, I will have you expelled.”
“Go ahead. If you can.”
“……”
Ludwig is a perfectionist and a thorough principled person.
He is certainly no exception himself.
He is not someone who would abuse the head professor’s power to expel me for a reason that is not even in the regulations.
“Schlus Hainkel.”
“Yes.”
“You will regret it.”
“……”
This is the path Iris told me to take.
There’s no guarantee I won’t regret it at the end, but at least I was certain that this path was the best one.
“I think Count Vermainstein has a tongue too long. If you want to stop me, stop me with your skills.”
“You little…!”
I grimaced and left the building behind Ludwig, who was growling.
Even though I provoked him, there was no sudden Barrier appearing to block my way.
It seems that Ludwig intends to let me go.
“Ah……”
There was a reason that it was ‘Ludwig.’
I had to stop before I even reached the front gate.
Sergey was standing in my way, grinning.
He just seemed to be standing still, but the sound of the internal circuits whirring wildly inside him made him look different.
“Professor. Please move.”
“Huh? Move? What do you mean? Both sides of me are clear.”
Logically, that may be true.
But no matter how much I simulated it in my head, I only saw a future where I’d get hit in the side by Sergey’s charge if I tried to pass by.
I immediately pulled my right arm back and prepared to draw Vafe.
“I’ll make it easy to understand. If you go out, you’ll die.”
“By whose hand?”
“If I say that, it gets complicated. So please just stay quietly in the Imperial University. Your safety will be our responsibility and guarantee.”
“Who guarantees whose safety?”
“Wha…?”
“If I surpass the professor, then I would no longer be someone guaranteed safety. I suggest a rematch.”
“Kuuh… Hahaha!”
Sergey’s loud laughter made my pride take a hit.
It was something I said seriously.
Indeed, Sergey is much stronger than me.
However, if it’s a fight to kill rather than a duel, the story would change.
There would be at least a slight chance of victory.
“Let’s call it a forfeit.”
“What?”
“Go ahead and die or do whatever, it’s up to you.”
“……”
Sergey raised his hands and stepped aside.
Does he really just let me pass this easily?
I began to suspect his intentions.
Is he trying to catch me off guard and suddenly put me in Mana Suppression cuffs?
I passed by Sergey without lowering my guard.
But he never attacked me in the end.
“Ah! This isn’t my advice, but someone said to be cautious of the sky!”
“……?”
Sergey shouted in an exaggerated voice.
It seemed to be information that shouldn’t be casually spoken about.
The sky.
I couldn’t guess anything, but since Sergey risked his safety to tell me, it must be a helpful warning.
I decided to take note.
“Thank you for the advice.”
“……”
I nodded at Sergey and headed toward the front gate.
First, I needed to grasp the situation.
I had to confirm what kind of dangerous situation was happening outside for Sergey to have stood in my way.
*
“I really took in a tiger cub.”
Sergey sighed as he flopped onto a bench.
Until now, there had been no one who could bravely face me when I was blocking their path with my fighting spirit.
No matter how high-born the noble was, they would at least flinch in surprise.
Yet, Schlus Hainkel seems to want to charge forward instead.
That wasn’t just reckless bravery.
Schlus Hainkel isn’t someone who would engage in a fight with no chance of victory.
“The outside must be a complete mess by now.”
Sergey imagined the situation outside and tightly closed his eyes.
There would surely be smoke rising from everywhere, and blood spilling all over.
Today was the day the great hunt was ordered by the Emperor.
The Imperial police and the intelligence agency had angered the Emperor with repeated failures.
With the spies from the kingdom failing to root out completely, the Imperial University had been attacked twice by a fanatic group.
Moreover, one of those attacks was such a massive threat that if Schlus Hainkel hadn’t been there, the entire Imperial University could have been annihilated.
Consequently, the Emperor judged that the institution was overly influenced by fanatic cults and decided to take extreme measures.
The order was to raid and capture all suspicious gatherings and individuals that had been under surveillance and to execute anyone who resisted.
Of course, among them, there would certainly be innocent citizens, so the Imperial police couldn’t carry out a full-scale hunt.
Thus, they temporarily hired the organization known as Crow at an astronomical cost.
They decided to dirty the hands of the Crow to clean out the dangerous factors.
“Ha… If that guy goes out, it’s only going to get messier.”
But what would happen if Schlus Hainkel intervened?
The one who technically commissioned the Crow was the Emperor.
Then, as a knight directly under the Emperor, Schlus Hainkel would have command over the Crow, even more so than the Imperial police.
Would Schlus simply stand by if he saw the Crows capturing and killing ‘seemingly innocent’ civilians?
It would be a relief if he could merely block the Crows, but if he started a fight with them, a catastrophe would unfold.
This would give the Emperor a perfect pretext to purge Schlus.
“Is there a reason you must go out?”
Schlus can’t be stupid.
Even if he didn’t reveal his reason, he probably sensed that it was not just an ordinary situation with two professors blocking his way.
Yet, he chose to go out anyway.
It wasn’t just because he was stubborn, Sergey knew that well.
He must have had his own reasons.
“I wish you luck.”
The cost of ignoring all the warnings would start to be paid from now on.
It would be entirely Schlus’s responsibility to bear that burden.
Still, just in case, he offered a piece of advice that was not classified, but whether Schlus understood it correctly was a doubt.
If he didn’t get it, it would be no surprise if Schlus ended up being blown to pieces unrecognizably…
.
.
.
In the Old Town café.
Amidst the smoke, Eric struggled to clear the wooden debris and rise to his feet.
The café was completely destroyed and caving in.
“Damn it…”
Eric touched his head in agony and rewound his memories.
He remembered cornering an agent that had been elusive up until now and questioning him.
Then, suddenly, the guy started muttering a strange prayer and his body turned beet red.
Feeling something was off, Hertlocker shouted at him to get down.
As soon as Eric instinctively threw up an emergency Barrier around the guy, an explosion went off…
And after that, there was nothing but darkness.
Suddenly, his vision spun and he lost consciousness, only to wake up in this situation.
“Hertlocker… Hertlocker…!”
Eric stumbled towards the debris and started pulling it aside.
More and more horrific corpses emerged from inside.
‘Could it be that they were all wiped out!’
In his growing anxiety, Eric recklessly began to shovel away the debris.
Even as his fingernails broke and fingers tore, bleeding profusely, he paid no mind and kept digging out the bodies inside.
“What are you doing, sir? There are no survivors in there. It’s right at the epicenter of the explosion.”
“I… I thought they were dead…”
Eric’s strength gave out from the sheer emptiness.
Emilia appeared unharmed behind Hertlocker.
It seemed that those two had set up their own Barrier and escaped the explosion.
“This was the suicide weapon that attacked the Imperial University…”
The three of them, looking around, let out a collective sigh.
There were a total of ten intelligence agents gathered for a meeting in the café, but aside from three, they all went up in flames.
Though hastily made, this level of firepower was able to pierce through the Barrier.
Hertlocker thought that if Eric hadn’t responded quickly, perhaps the three of them wouldn’t be alive.
“Shouldn’t we escape? The Imperial police will swarm in due to the explosions—”
*BANG!*
Before Emilia could finish her sentence, an explosion rang out from a distance.
Then another.
And yet another…
The explosions continued, and black smoke rose from various places in the Old Town.
The mouths of the three watching this were left agape.
“Hertlocker! Didn’t you say there was a call from the Crows earlier!”
“Yes. All Crows within the institution were called.”
“Oh my god. It seems the Empire has finally gone insane.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“They’re sweeping everything away right now…!”
Eric’s voice trembled.
He had always anticipated that such a day would come.
The Empire would stop at nothing to root out spies and was bound to raze the Old Town to the ground…
One of the means he had expected was to employ the Crows’ information and might.
Furthermore, if they used the Crows, they could feign that the chaos was the work of unidentified clients, concealing the fact that the Empire was brutally capturing and executing its own citizens.
“We’ll use Escape Route 3.”
“Understood.”
What is exploding now must be the suicide bombs from the asylum, but the Crows would not only raid the asylum.
We had to escape before the Crows came to capture us.
As the three of them calmly made their way through an alley toward the sewers…
*THUD…!*
“Uh-oh.”
Something landed from the roof and blocked their path.
The same happened at the back.
Dressed in black hoods, Eric immediately guessed who they were.
The fanatics from the asylum.
Even so, Eric decided to pretend not to know for now.
“Wh-who are you?”
“……”
“Would you kindly clear the way—”
“That’s enough, sir. They have no intention of talking. Just draw your sword.”
“Damn it.”
Hertlocker grunted and handed a dagger to Eric.
At that, the figures in black hoods drew their weapons from within their cloaks.
There was no room for conversation.
The only choice was to fight.
The three of them stood back to back, tightening their formation as the encirclement drew closer.
