Chapter 75 - Test Subjects (3)

The sudden halt in my mana startled me, but there was no reason to lose to someone who wasn’t even knight-level.

“That’s impossible...”

He was remarkable enough to create inherited abilities, but apparently he didn’t know much about knights or mercenaries. An inherited ability that stopped mana. What he’d said in my previous life had put me on edge, but fortunately, it was an ability I could handle. Then again, an ordinary knight or noble might have struggled against it.

In any case, he had no other way to stop me. His eyes darted around, searching for an opening, but I subdued him in no time. I’d caught him by surprise, and he had no hostages. His brief counterattack had startled me, but for once, things were going according to plan.

I tied him up, then channeled mana into his throat to muffle his voice and severed the tendons in his arms and legs.

“Ngh... Don’t dream of getting a word out of me.”

He spoke with resolve even as I cut his tendons. Unfortunately for him, I’d already heard plenty from him.

“I already know how much you like to talk. Isn’t that right, Piar and Mirisa’s master? Or should I say you’re a test subject too?”

He stared at me, eyes wide, as if he’d forgotten the pain. “Wh-who are you?”

I was a Royal Academy freshman and an illegitimate son of House Gresia, but I didn’t answer him. Instead, I laid out the things I’d prepared.

“The sun hasn’t even set. We have plenty of time to talk.”

I had a dorm room to myself, and no one was going to come looking for an illegitimate son of the ducal house. I had the rest of the night free—until dawn, if I wanted. His face went pale at the sight of the things I was laying out.

“Honestly, I’m not very good at torture, so I hope you’ll forgive a few mistakes.”

I didn’t intend to get much out of him. A few important pieces of information would be enough. I spent the night listening, and before dawn, I heard a message.

[The crisis has ended. A new ‘save point’ has been set.]

* * *

The bodies were discovered two days later. Wondering why the shop had been closed for two days, the owner of the neighboring shop forced open its door and found the bodies upstairs. The guards were dispatched at once.

The peacekeeping knight and the guards found blood spattered everywhere and unmistakable signs that swords had been driven into the victims by one another. The knight surveyed the scene and spoke in a stiff voice. “Bury it.”

The guards who had come with him looked uneasy. “Will that be all right? It happened right in front of the academy. I heard the princess enrolled there this year.”

“That’s exactly why we bury it. It’s just a knife fight between shop employees. Things like this happen every day in the slums.”

“That’s true, but...”

“You know how tense things are in the capital. There are rumors something happened at the academy entrance ceremony, too. Imagine what happens if this gets out on top of that. You know, don’t you?”

It was a murder right outside the academy. As the man responsible for keeping order in the area, he could lose more than a promotion over it. If things went badly, he might lose his head. Perhaps a knight devoted to the royal family and the cause of justice would have acted differently, but he was a career knight with a family in the capital and a stable life. He had no reason to dig up trouble for himself.

The knight and the guards quickly cleared out the shop and went around silencing the neighbors. And so the murders in the shopping district sank out of sight.

* * *

Honestly, I hadn’t expected much. The scene I’d staged on the off chance it might work had been inspired by thrillers from my previous life. It was such a crude trick that I’d assumed they would see through it, but I heard nothing about a murder.

Neither the princess’s escort knight nor Katrin knew anything had happened when I asked them. I’d thought it would at least reach the royal family before being buried. I hadn’t expected a low-level official to bury it himself. Maybe the lack of developed media made that easier.

I’d spent until nearly dawn burying the body I’d left beside the main road on my way back, so the silence was a relief, at least. That night, I’d managed to get several things out of the man who called himself their master.

He’d been talkative again, but unfortunately, he hadn’t known much. He didn’t even know exactly what organization he belonged to, let alone its future plans or how to contact anyone in it. I did learn where he’d been trained and where he was supposed to return.

A powerful nation to the north: the Tsar Empire, the country the people behind the House Hierro incident had come from.

‘I don’t know whether it was the imperial government’s doing or some other organization within the empire.’

Still, I had a strong feeling that this man belonged to the same organization as the people behind the House Hierro incident. And I had learned some of what I’d wanted to know.

“Y-yes. Those necklaces are conduits that make mana run wild. People with inherited abilities that control mana can use them to make someone else’s mana run wild.”

That answered my questions about the necklaces.

“I got my ability in a laboratory like an underground Dungeon. There’s an item that finds and awakens d-dormant abilities. They collected it once the tests were over.”

And how he and Piar had acquired their abilities.

“The tests were over, so they were going to dispose of us. Or maybe you could call it one last test. I didn’t know what would happen to me when I went back, either. Maybe this is the right ending after all.”

I’d even learned why they had carried out the attack. The reason was far simpler than I’d expected.

“It was a disposal. We were all going to pull out anyway. If everyone dies, no one else will come. And without the necklaces, they can’t make anyone’s mana run wild.”

Knowing how the aftermath would be handled let me finish the job with some peace of mind. ‘He seemed to have given up on everything, so I don’t think he was lying.’

After I finished the job, I waited a few days, then quietly took Piar’s and Mirisa’s necklaces. I slipped into Piar’s room at night, knocked him unconscious, and took his. For Mirisa, I pretended to bump into her in the corridor and swapped hers for Piar’s necklace after removing its jewel. The necklaces were identical, so Mirisa thought the jewel had simply fallen out of hers.

The necklaces caused quite a commotion for the two of them, but I enjoyed a remarkably peaceful stretch of time. No one else appeared around Piar and Mirisa, and no one came after the princess.

The general education classes all the freshmen took were terribly dull. My knight training classes were frustrating for another reason: I couldn’t show what I was truly capable of. All I could do was wait for the practical training to begin.

Then one day, during that peaceful stretch, another freshman enrolled. “Family circumstances delayed her admission. Since she’s starting later than everyone else, please help her catch up.”

It was Introduction to Inherited Abilities, a general education class. The female Professor introduced the student standing beside her.

“I’m Valea de Mesesia. My father passed away suddenly, so my admission was delayed.”

The strikingly beautiful girl introduced herself to the class, meeting each person’s eyes as she spoke. When her gaze reached me, she gave me a small smile. I couldn’t smile back.

I knew her well enough that we could greet each other. You might even call us close. But she had killed me once. And I had killed her father. A month after the academy entrance ceremony, the daughter of the baron I’d killed had enrolled.

“Go on in and take a seat.” Once the introduction was over, the Professor sent Valea to find a seat.

Valea scanned the lecture hall, then walked toward me. As usual, the seats around me were empty, but she didn’t seem to mind. “Hello.”

She greeted me warmly, as if we’d parted only yesterday. “Hello,” I replied.

“Did the funeral go well?”

“It was so sudden that things were rather hectic, but I suppose what we did was enough for Father.” No one else might have noticed, but I could hear the barbs in her words.

“You came alone, though.”

“Now that the old baron is dead, someone has to become the new one. He’ll serve as acting baron on the estate until the royal family gives its approval.” She was talking about her brother, but she sounded as though she were discussing a stranger.

“I felt too uncomfortable to stay. If Father were alive, I could at least have remained on the estate as the baron’s daughter. But my half brother is acting baron now. I fled straight to the academy to avoid being sold off cheaply to another noble house.”

She spoke cheerfully, tapping her fingers on the desk.

“And the baroness...?”

“Mother plans to return to her family home. I suppose she’ll live there, putting up with her family’s scorn.”

She hadn’t become entangled with me in this life, but that hadn’t changed who she was. I could hear how deeply disillusioned she was with her family.

“And another thing...” Somehow, the conversation kept flowing. It felt strange to chat so easily with a woman who had killed me, but I was enjoying talking to her too. Apparently, we’d become a little too absorbed in it.

“You two. Class has started. Save the chatter for later.” As the Professor spoke, pieces of chalk flew toward us. Was her ability telekinesis?

SNATCH!

The chalk flew fast, wrapped in mana, but I caught the piece aimed at me between my fingers. It trembled in my grip.

TAP!

The piece aimed at Valea settled gently onto the desk right in front of her. It was Valea’s ability, known as “Declaration of Domain.” She must have activated it during our brief conversation. She seemed to have improved since the last time I’d seen her, which put me a little more on edge.

The Professor seemed a little surprised that we’d stopped the chalk, but the other students laughed at us for being scolded.

“Look around. Talking to me won’t do you any favors,” I whispered. She glanced around and grinned.

“From what I can see, talking to you would do me far more good than making friends with those fools, young master.” She leaned toward me and whispered back.

If I hadn’t known what she was really like, I would have been deeply touched. No, if I’d been my original age, I might even have fallen for her. As it was, trying to work out what she was after was giving me a headache.

Her show of friendliness ruined the rest of that day’s class for me. The one student I could actually talk to had killed me, and I had killed her father. Then there was what the baron had done that day, and her unusual ability. If I hadn’t had something more immediate to worry about, the Valea problem might have made me tear my hair out.

But the princess’s awakening day was drawing near.