Chapter 31: Sudden Change (1)
"Ha. I really don’t get how the world’s been spinning lately. Does it make sense? The Academy got breached by some thief?"
"Right? It’s so frustrating! Why does this kind of thing have to happen the year our class enrolled?"
"What are the guards even doing?"
"No idea! What’s the point of giving them fancy armor and hefty paychecks? All they do is wander around ogling girls!"
When one female cadet mimicked a certain guard’s behavior, her friends around her clapped their hands and burst into giggles.
"What’s that, Luna? How are you so good at that?"
"Pretty spot-on, right? Like that pervert?"
"Totally! Even the dumb look is perfect!"
"I wasn’t trying to act dumb, though."
"?"
It was lunchtime.
At the Lodge Café located within the Academy grounds, many cadets had gathered, chatting away.
From the 890th class to the 888th.
Though their classes varied, the topic of their conversations was largely the same.
The audacious thief who had infiltrated the Academy.
Not just at the Lodge Café but anywhere on campus, whenever cadets met, they couldn’t stop talking about this subject.
That’s how much the commotion at the Vault and the thief behind it had skyrocketed in interest within the Academy.
That’s when it happened.
The sound of heels clicking—tock, tock—echoed, and someone took a seat at the head of their table.
Even the way she crossed her legs exuded an air of refined elegance.
It was none other than Karina Zain.
The moment Karina sat down, the tables around her fell silent in an instant.
The female cadets who had been giggling moments ago glanced nervously at her.
This was because of her recently prickly demeanor.
Normally, she would have flashed a gentle smile at their jokes, clapped along, or shown some form of engagement.
But since yesterday, she had seemed out of sorts.
Her expression was serious all day, and she barely spoke.
Was it because the thief had disrupted the attention she was supposed to receive on Vision Selection Day?
The exact reason was unclear, but her friends hoped her irritability would pass quickly.
Whether they cared or not, Karina was preoccupied with a concern of her own.
That concern was Yuria.
More precisely, the fact that Yuria, a swordsmanship specialist, had used magic.
‘It was definitely [Storm Blade].’
Manipulating both aura and mana circuits simultaneously wasn’t something just anyone could do.
No. It was unprecedented. History proved it.
Did the countless heroes who left their mark on history focus on either swordsmanship or magic for no reason?
‘Mana circuits and aura can never coexist in one body.’
This was a truth passed down from ancient times.
Of course, as with any field, exceptions existed—freaks of nature like Sigaro Isaac of the Royal Knights occasionally appeared.
Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that Yuria was such an anomaly.
But even then, was Yuria a genius on par with Sigaro? Absolutely not.
Sigaro Isaac.
If he had forsaken his greed for magic and devoted himself solely to the sword, Karina had no doubt the title of the Empire’s greatest swordsman would have been his.
The same applied to magic.
But Yuria?
‘Not even close. Did she make a name for herself as a prodigy from a young age? Or did she enter the Academy as the top student?’
Her entrance exam rank: 32nd.
Karina suddenly found it absurd.
‘Did she think magic was easy?’
The more she thought about it, the more she disliked Yuria.
Looking back, her bad blood with Yuria ran deep.
Their first encounter was during the Academy entrance exam earlier that year.
The exam task was to hunt Imps, dark spirits roaming the testing grounds, and collect their tokens.
Just before the exam ended, Karina had an Imp she’d targeted stolen from her.
The culprit, of course, was Yuria.
Because of that, Karina was pushed to second place by Gwyn, missing the top spot.
‘If it weren’t for that, I would’ve entered as the overall top student.’
Being the top entrant was a title that anyone from the Zain family was expected to claim as a matter of course.
But to miss it by a hair’s breadth… Karina’s hatred for Yuria was inevitably beyond imagination.
‘Ugh. Just thinking about it still makes my blood boil.’
Karina bit her lip hard.
Her goal was singular.
To become a Grand Mage.
To reach that pinnacle, the full support of her family was essential, and among their resources, the elixir ‘Burning Heart’ was an absolute necessity.
The problem was that ‘Burning Heart’ was granted to only one person per generation.
And Karina had an older sibling.
Zairo Zain.
A genius who had never once failed to claim the top rank in his class and even graduated early, he was a distant goal that Karina, in her current state, could only dream of reaching.
‘No. It’s not too late. I just need to get my act together from now on.’
Steeling herself, she lifted her head.
She slowly scanned the cadets in the Lodge Café.
None of them could be her rivals.
Her true competitor was Zairo, and the people here were merely kindling for her to burn brighter.
Yuria was no different.
‘Karina, you’re different from these kids. You’re special. You can do this.’
Regaining her composure, Karina let a faint smile grace her lips as usual.
"What are you guys talking about?"
At Karina’s question, now with a noticeably brighter mood, her friends hurriedly set down their coffee cups.
"Oh! Karina! Are you done with your worries?"
"Worries?"
"You looked so serious all day. I thought you might have something on your mind."
"Me?"
Karina flashed a radiant smile.
"Did it look that way?"
The quick-witted girls frantically waved their hands.
"Huh? No, no way! As if you’d have anything to worry about, Karina! My mistake!"
"Yeah, yeah. Um! We weren’t talking about anything special! Just the thief! The thief stuff!"
"The thief?"
"Yeah! Yeah!"
Karina tapped her coffee cup lightly.
In that moment, steam rose from the previously cold coffee.
With an elegant gesture, she picked up the cup and brought it to her lips.
She was, of course, well aware of the Vault incident and the thief.
What measures the Academy would take in response was unknown.
But she could make an educated guess.
‘They’ll try to catch them, no matter what.’
By now, word of this would have reached the Zain family.
And not just them.
The Central Knights’ headquarters, the Special Magic Corps, and other prominent families.
Everyone would be fixated on this unprecedented event in the Academy’s history.
Then, a brilliant idea flashed through Karina’s mind.
‘What if I were the one to catch the thief in this situation?’
Finishing her thought, Karina set her coffee cup down with a clink.
A satisfied smile now adorned her lips.
"This coffee’s pretty good."
At that, Luna burst into loud laughter.
The family that owned the Lodge Café was none other than hers.
"Right, Karina? Our coffee’s not bad, huh?"
"Yeah. Is this roasted from Runelai beans? The ones limited to 200 kilos a year?"
"Whoa! How’d you know?"
"Hmm. Just a guess? Maybe because I drink coffee so often? I could tell from one sip."
Karina smiled lightly as if it were no big deal and lifted her cup again.
Naturally, Luna and her entourage fussed over her.
"Wow, Karina even knows about coffee. Is there anything she doesn’t know?"
"She’s seriously amazing!"
"I think all coffee tastes the same. Bitter. I don’t get why people drink it. It’s just expensive."
"Hey, you think your taste buds are on par with Karina’s? She’s probably been eating fancy stuff since she was a kid!"
"True. Even her clothes are all designer and she’s gorgeous. Ugh, it’s so unfair."
"I’d give anything to live as Karina for just one day!"
The table, quiet moments ago, became lively again.
Listening to their adoring chatter, Karina set her cup down.
The coffee inside rippled.
Its volume hadn’t changed a bit from before.
* * *
The grand conference hall in the main building.
There, senior professors, department heads, two academic deans, and the Vice-Dean were engaged in a heated meeting.
The topic was, unsurprisingly, the thief shaking up the Academy.
…Or so it was supposed to be.
Somehow, the conference hall had devolved into a chaotic marketplace of shouting, informal speech, and curses.
"So, if you’d managed the facilities properly from the start, we wouldn’t be having this conversation! Huh? Am I wrong?"
"Idiot. The sealing array in the Vault is a flawless magical formation. Do you even know who set it up? If you did, you wouldn’t dare spew such nonsense. Tsk, tsk!"
"Hey! Why’s that coming up now? Who’s responsible for maintaining the Academy’s defense system!? It’s you guys!"
"Ha. You think we’ve got nothing to say? If you’d done your job guarding the place, this wouldn’t have happened."
At the smug retort from the Development Department Head, the Academy Guard Captain leapt to his feet.
His bearded face was flushed red, on the verge of exploding.
"What? You done talking?"
"Yeah. What? Wanna go? Fine. Let’s do it."
The Development Department Head pulled out a wand.
Following suit, the Psychology Department professors seated beside him drew their own magical tools.
In response, the Martial Arts Department professors across from them flinched, then glared back fiercely.
"Have they gone mad from staring at sketchboards in their labs all day? Their brains must’ve melted. Are you guys seriously insane?"
"Yeah, we’re insane. So if you’re confident, just draw those blades at your waists. Got it?"
No matter that they now held professor titles, their origins lay with the Special Magic Corps and the Central Knights’ headquarters.
The ongoing rivalry between these two, the Empire’s most powerful factions, was something even the Academy couldn’t escape.
But a meeting this overheated was unprecedented.
The trigger: the thief incident.
More specifically, the question of the thief’s existence.
It hadn’t been made public yet, but during the investigation of the three Vault librarians, the guards had identified a prime suspect believed to be the thief.
That librarian’s name was Ged.
Indeed, Ged had been bribed by the Beltus Cult, transcribing Secret Tomes and sending them to the cult—a traitor.
Naturally, all of Ged’s criminal activities had been uncovered in this investigation.
Thus, the Academy concluded that Ged was the true culprit behind the theft of the Secret Tomes, and the thief incident seemed poised to conclude.
But then.
[I’m not the one, Captain! Captain! Think about it. Think! Even a passing dog knows that if something happens, the first person they’d investigate is me, the administrator!]
[So why would I steal the Secret Tomes and then put blank notebooks back in their place? Especially with Vision Selection right around the corner!]
[Have you ever seen a thief advertise that they’re a thief? It’s not me! Absolutely not!]
Ged’s desperate protests continued throughout.
And the Academy couldn’t ignore his claims.
They were plausible.
While Ged was greedy for money, his colleagues who had worked with him for years knew he was far from stupid.
Would someone like him deliberately set himself up to be caught as a thief?
When a flood of reports about missing items from within the Academy surfaced, the Guard Captain reported the situation to the Vice-Dean, leading to the current meeting.
The Guard Captain insisted there was a separate thief.
The Martial Arts Department professors, who had various ties to him, shared his stance.
But the Psychology Department professors outright denied it.
For one reason.
Acknowledging it would mean admitting the incompetence of magic and magitech.
The Vault was a masterpiece of magitech, a culmination of countless magical barriers and intricate spell formations.
And yet, it was breached?
By a mere thief?
For those who hailed magitech as the revolution of a new era, this was a fact they couldn’t accept, even with a blade to their throats.
"Ha. Stop acting tough and take a look at this. If your so-called defense system was working properly, would all these items have vanished at once? Does that make sense?"
One Martial Arts Department professor waved a document back and forth.
It was a list of all the items that had gone missing so far.
"I told you. Those were lost due to negligence by the staff of those departments."
"Oh, simple misplacement? Fine, maybe some of them could be. But what about the artifacts? Are you saying the artifact ‘Might of the Giant’ was just carelessly lost by a researcher?"
"So what are you trying to say? That there’s actually a thief?"
"That’s already a given and I’d add that the Academy’s defense system, which you’re so proud of, is actually full of holes. Come to think of it, something similar happened during the entrance ceremony, didn’t it?"
"I told you. That was because the terrorists’ weapons were special, not a system failure."
"Oh, ‘special weapons.’ I was just about to ask. By now, you must have come up with countermeasures for those ‘special weapons,’ right?"
"Uh, well…"
As the Development Department Head stammered, the Guard Captain seized the chance to mock him.
"Ha. From your expression, I guess not. So with just those weapons, not only a thief but any random citizen could waltz into the Vault. Some ‘ultimate defense system.’ It’s worse than a lock from a general store."
"What did you say?"
"What, am I wrong? Look, Development Head. There’s a limit to incompetence! As the head of the Development Department, what have you even done? Huh? You still haven’t prepared any defenses against it! Does that make sense!?"
Once again, shouts and curses erupted.
Watching the fiercely clashing professors, the Vice-Dean, seated at the head, pressed his fingers to his temples.
In moments like these, he couldn’t help but resent the Dean, who spent more time gallivanting outside than at the Academy.
Did the existence of the thief even matter to these people?
It seemed their real concern was how to tear each other down further.
"This meeting will never end at this rate."
The Vice-Dean glanced alternately at the two men seated beside him.
The department heads, Allen Desico and Pirion Lil.
They nodded, and soon the raucous conference hall was silenced by their shouts.
"Everyone, quiet!"
The fiery uproar was extinguished in an instant.
The professors looked at the two department heads with wide eyes.
Then, noticing the Vice-Dean’s exasperated expression, they realized their breach of decorum.
The Vice-Dean clicked his tongue.
"Professors should know better than to act so shamefully."
"…We’re sorry."
"Our apologies, Vice-Dean."
As the professors flushed with embarrassment, the Vice-Dean sighed.
"I understand. The recent string of misfortunes at the Academy must have everyone on edge. I get it. But shouldn’t we at least maintain some dignity?"
"…"
"What we need now is unity. There’s no guarantee this won’t happen again, so how can we fight among ourselves? You can never be too prepared. Whether there’s a thief or not isn’t the issue—what matters is what measures we take to prevent future incidents."
Pausing briefly, the Vice-Dean looked at the two department heads.
"You two, strengthen security across the Academy grounds. The guards alone can’t cover this vast area, so have the professors form teams and patrol at set intervals."
"Patrols, sir?"
"Yes. Each department head will create a schedule and submit it to me."
Allen, frowning, asked, "When should we have it ready by?"
This was a roundabout way of asking how long the professors would be tasked with patrolling.
Allen was displeased that professors were being made to do the guards’ job.
"That depends on the Development Department."
But the Vice-Dean shifted the responsibility to the Development Department Head.
"What do you mean by that?"
"Starting today, the Development Department, along with the Magitech Research Institute, will work on perfecting countermeasures for those ‘special weapons.’"
At that, the Development Department Head, who had been silent, jolted in surprise.
"What?"
"Why so shocked? Don’t tell me you weren’t planning to do it."
"N-no, of course not."
"You’d better hurry. If those countermeasures aren’t perfected, the professors will have to keep patrolling. They’ll have to make up for it with manpower."
In that moment, every professor in the room, regardless of department, turned their eyes to the Development Department Head.
Sweating profusely, he wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.
"And Guard Captain, investigate which organization Ged was dealing with."
"Understood. Oh, and Vice-Dean, do you…?"
"Yes. I can’t shake the feeling that this organization is tied to the entrance ceremony attack. Am I getting paranoid in my old age? I worry too much."
"No way, sir. I’ll look into it."
"Please do."
"Yes, sir!"
"Then let’s end the meeting here. You’re dismissed."
Having swiftly resolved the agenda, the Vice-Dean waved his hand tiredly.
One by one, the professors left the conference hall, their expressions uneasy.
But they didn’t know.
In the shadowed corner of the ceiling, a small creature had hidden itself, observing the entire meeting from start to finish.
With eight eyes, it diligently transmitted everything it had seen and heard to somewhere else.
And not a single professor noticed.