Chapter 45 – Questions (2)

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Translated by Jinmu

Read only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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“…And so, as of today, Cadet Saki Ryozo has been reassigned to our Wolf Class. I hope everyone gets along. That’s all for announcements, and you are to change clothes and gather at the training grounds within thirty minutes. Dismissed.”

Even as he said it himself, Lee Won-bin wore a dumbfounded expression as he left the classroom. Immediately afterward, the class turned as noisy as a marketplace.

“Is that for real? Lady Saki is in our class?”

“The bald instructor said it himself. He said she asked to be reassigned. That’s insane.”

The cadets surrounded Saki Ryozo, making a fuss as if they had just met a celebrity.

That was only natural. She was one of the Four Seats among this year’s cadets, who were also called the Miracle Generation. She was the top student in the written exams, possessed an intellect as brilliant as her martial strength, and was exactly the sort of Kyushu girl for whom the phrase master of both pen and sword was perfectly suited.

On top of that, she was also the daughter of one of the Seven Heroes, the Absolute Bow, Saki Kojima. For the record, according to the setting, Saki Kojima not only bore the epithet Absolute Bow, but was also the Prime Minister of Japan.

Unlike Sword Emperor Siegfried von Nibelung, who disliked being exposed to the public because of his stiff personality, Saki Kojima actively made use of the fame of the Seven Heroes and had remained the head of Japan’s administration for a full forty years.

Just like on Earth, Japan in this world did not have a presidential system either, so Saki Kojima was effectively no different from a lifelong prime minister. To that extent, she could practically be called the ruler of a nation.

Because she was such an unusual figure, one whose conduct was clearly different from that of the other Seven Heroes, public opinion was that her influence externally was overwhelming and the pressure she exerted on world society was greater than that of the other three.

Therefore, the standing of Saki Ryozo, daughter of Saki Kojima, was also equivalent to that of a princess of a nation.

In a world where actual princesses also existed, that might not have looked special at first glance, but if you considered the standing of Japan as a country, it was tremendous.

For reference, in the world of Miracle’s Blessing M, the hierarchy between nations was displayed even more blatantly than on Earth.

The strongest country was, naturally enough, the heavenly nation of America, probably reflecting reality. Proudly, Korea came next. The game company might get cursed out for its K-management, but I really liked that part.

After that came Germany, Japan, Britain, China, and so on, but in effect it was a two-strong system between America and Korea.

Of course, Japan was only weaker than our country. There was no disagreement that it was still a major power in fourth place. Saki Ryozo was the daughter of the national body of such a Japan.

That was why, even within the Star Class, which was made up of the children of the highest-ranking nobles, I knew that Saki Ryozo was the cadet most people wanted to approach.

Of course, her pretty appearance also played a large part in why the male cadets wanted to approach her.

“Lady Saki, were you really reassigned to our class?”

“May I ask the reason?”

“Hey, hey, move! Are you the only one who gets to ask Lady Saki questions?!”

“Lady Saki! What kind of men are you into!”

Despite the continuing barrage of questions from the cadets, Saki Ryozo simply smacked her lips as if tasting something and let it all go in one ear and out the other. Her lovely eyelids blinked languidly, as if refusing to take any of them in.

“Yaaawn.”

Without warning, Saki Ryozo let out a large yawn and started walking with quiet steps. Hundreds of eyes stuck closely to her feet.

The reason was obvious. Everyone was watching to see where she would sit, each of them coveting the seat beside her.

It felt like once Saki chose a seat, a bloodbath over seating rights would break out. That was how much attention her choice of seat was drawing. And yet….

She took a step. While looking steadily at me.

Light began to fill Saki’s lifeless eyes for an instant. I deliberately ignored her gaze.

Anxiety seeped into my chest. As expected, all attention instantly focused on the two of us, Saki and me. At this point, even that did not feel new. Once she came right up to me, Saki asked.

“Is this seat taken?”

“……”

Her voice was languid yet intelligent. The hair swept neatly behind her ear resembled a clear sky. With her eyes, she indicated the seat next to me.

It was the seat Chloe always sat in. She was bedridden with a cold, but it was still undeniably her seat.

Fine, even if I gave in a hundred times and accepted that Saki Ryozo had suddenly been reassigned to our class.

At the point where the Sword Emperor, one of the Seven Heroes, had taken on the position of shared class instructor, Wolf Class was no longer an ordinary class anyway.

But Saki sitting right next to me was a separate issue. Even if she was a character whose airification progressed quickly, she was still one of Leon’s women.

Which meant that, from my point of view, Saki Ryozo was a seriously burdensome person.

It seemed that, after what happened in Buffalo Dungeon, she had developed a certain degree of interest in me, but I needed to maintain an appropriate distance from her.

And on top of that, our first meeting had not exactly been a pleasant one, had it.

“That’s Chloe’s seat.”

“Ah, really?”

And yet, after asking that, Saki Ryozo sat right down in the seat as if it were the most natural thing in the world. I went blank for a moment. It was absurd.

“…What?”

“If she hasn’t come by homeroom, then either she’s late or she can’t make it, right? Considering where the girls’ dorm is, it seems more like she can’t make it than that she’s late. And besides, since when are there your seats and my seats? Whoever sits there first owns it.”

I had nothing to say back. Her way with words really left no opening at all. If Chloe had seen this scene, blood would’ve flown without question. I let out a low sound.

The murmur of the cadets buzzed around my ears. Still, after the spar with the Sword Emperor, they could no longer openly belittle or ignore me.

The duel had taken place in the mind and could not be seen, but even to cadets of Hoakin Academy, I was now a pretty substantial special advancement student in terms of standing.

When I gave them a glance, the cadets cleared their throats and one by one hurried off to go change clothes.

A few were still waiting for a chance to speak to Saki, but in the end they smacked their lips and left, promising themselves another chance later.

Once most of the cadets had left the classroom, Saki looked at my face for a moment and then fished out two pieces of yokan.

“Want one?”

The taste of the yokan, sweet enough to make my head swim, seemed to come back into my mouth. I shook my head immediately.

Saki made a pouty face and put one of them away again. Then she unwrapped the remaining yokan and started savoring it. Her low, quiet eyes flashed open.

“This is damn good.”

“……”

The more I learned about her, the more the image shattered.

I badly wanted to ask why Saki had been reassigned to Wolf Class, but morning homeroom training was right around the corner.

I let out a short breath and got up from my seat to go change clothes. Whether I did or not, Saki continued chewing her yokan with a soft, slack expression.

“Saki, aren’t you going to training?”

“I’m an archer, so mental discipline comes first over running around outside. This sugar intake is my own kind of training.”

Saki Ryozo, her face all soft and pliant, brightly raised her index finger to emphasize the point. I let out a hollow laugh and turned toward the classroom door.

“Ah, and.”

Saki called out to stop me in a low voice.

“Call me Ryozo instead of Saki.”

“What?”

“Friends usually call each other by their given names instead of their surnames, don’t they?”

“Speed Weapon calls you Saki too.”

“Well, he’s him. Anyway, go train hard. I’m going to take a nap.”

Mumbling her way around it, Saki Ryozo nodded off a few times and then promptly collapsed onto the desk and fell asleep.

I looked at her for a moment as she slipped into deep, comfortable sleep. Then, leaving behind a faint snort, I headed for the changing room.

* * *

At that same time, in Cheorwon County, Gangwon Province.

In front of Buffalo Dungeon’s checkpoint, yellow tape marked with the words No Entry – AGENT LINE – Under Investigation was tangled together in layers like a barricade.

In the distance, just inside the entrance, agents wearing sunglasses like something out of a western sat with the checkpoint employee in the middle, interrogating him.

“So, what exactly did he say before entering the dungeon?”

“Th-that… he said he was worried about the cadets and had to go in and check for himself.”

With a face full of tension, the employee moved his lips while glancing nervously at the agent’s face.

One of the agents pushed up his sunglasses and indifferently wrote down the employee’s words in a notebook.

“Were there any other unusual circumstances?”

“…Hmm, let me think. Ah, come to think of it, for some reason he took anti-personnel gear with him when he went in. At the time I just thought nothing of it, but looking back, his complexion didn’t seem very good either.”

Then the checkpoint employee, as though something had come back to him, began recounting the situation from then in a smooth stream. The agents’ sunglass lenses flashed as they wrote down what he said.

People dying in dungeons was not such an unusual thing. From the moment you entered a dungeon swarming with monsters, you had to steel yourself to lay your life on the line.

For that reason, investigations into fatal accidents inside dungeons were not conducted with such great care. But this case was unclear.

Since it was a dungeon crawling with monsters, the agents sent in were all graduates of hero academies.

Even if they had not graduated from Hoakin Academy, the most prestigious academy in the world, those who had graduated from academies competing for second or third place were scouted by the Hero Association under the administration.

Because Hoakin Academy graduates would never choose to become civil servants with meager salaries and pensions worth almost nothing.

Even in a dungeon where people often died, bodies were usually left behind. Once a missing-person report came in, agents were deployed to confirm and retrieve the corpse.

Shim Du-jun, the team leader in charge of the investigation team for Buffalo Dungeon, frowned at the sense of unease. There were one or two too many unsettling details.

When the investigation team led by Shim Du-jun entered the dungeon for a preliminary search, all of the team members’ eyes went round at once.

They were veterans among veterans, but they had never seen a scene like that before. A mountain of bloody flesh piled up from buffaloes.

They had heard that cadets from Hoakin Academy had visited, but it was impossible to believe this was the handiwork of mere cadets. According to the employee, those cadets had returned safely at the time….

The biggest problem was that the corpse of the employee who had said he was going in because he was worried about the cadets had not been found. As if he had never existed in the first place.

And yet there was no way he had crossed the stone gate. The stone gate of Buffalo Dungeon, one of the popular dungeons, had never been opened before.

Shim Du-jun’s eyes naturally shifted toward the dungeon ledger. He had already identified the cadets’ names long ago, but there had been no progress.

Hoakin Academy was extraterritorial. Even agents under the administration could not carry out an investigation there freely without a warrant.

And the chances of their superiors issuing a warrant to search that place, a banquet hall of noble brats from every direction, were slim.

“This is driving me insane.”

Just as Shim Du-jun was muttering bitterly, he noticed the face of a woman approaching the checkpoint. It was the first time he had seen her, but the clothes she was wearing made it possible to identify who she belonged to.

“Hello, Agent Shim Du-jun. I’m Instructor Kim, one of the instructors at Hoakin Academy.”

The woman stopped before him, smiling politely as she greeted him. Caught off guard by the sudden greeting, Shim Du-jun awkwardly nodded.

“Actually, I heard you’re conducting an investigation related to our academy.”

“Ah, yes. Well, a few days ago, four cadets from Hoakin Academy visited the dungeon, and afterward one of the checkpoint employees disappeared without a trace.”

Even though the Hero Association and Hoakin Academy were clearly separate organizations, Shim Du-jun found himself, as if bewitched, explaining the situation in full.

“Hmm, I see.”

A slimy curve formed at the corner of Instructor Kim’s mouth. At that, Shim Du-jun suddenly jolted at a violent sense of incongruity.

How did this woman know his name when they had not even introduced themselves? And on top of that, investigations by Association agents were carried out in complete secrecy.

No matter that it was Hoakin Academy, there was no way they should know. Then how had this woman known and come here at just the right time?

As shock and alarm mixed across Shim Du-jun’s face, Instructor Kim pulled out a lollipop and put it into her mouth.

“Then the only people who know about the state of this scene are the employee here, Captain Shim Du-jun, and your team members, correct?”

“…!”

Shim Du-jun’s head nodded against his would. It was not by his own choice.

“Hmm, I see. The higher-ups who dispatched you probably know too, but that’s not really my concern.”

Instructor Kim smiled brightly. Then her expression hardened for an instant, and she snapped her graceful fingers.

“Mmph, mmph!”

Not only Shim Du-jun, but also his team members and the checkpoint employee all stiffened, able to produce only muffled sounds as if zippers had been sealed across their mouths.

Instead of a panorama of his life, Shim Du-jun’s mind guessed the identity of Instructor Kim, who wielded this unprecedented power. It was the final struggle of an investigator.

Within the Association, beings like that woman were classified as half-human, half-demon. But the public had another derogatory name for them. Humans who had made contracts with devils. The public called them Villains.

Instructor Kim walked past them toward the dungeon door. Then, without even turning back, she snapped her fingers once more.

Fwoooosh.

Purple flames washed over the men like a tide. Because their mouths were sealed by something, they could not even let out a single scream before they were engulfed in an instant. A demonic blaze covering the retina. That was the final image Shim Du-jun remembered.

A few minutes later, the charcoal husks in human form fell one after another. Only then did Instructor Kim turn her head just slightly and show a crooked smile.

“Working hard is good, but you lot really have no sense at all.”

Saying that, she hummed to herself and entered the dungeon. The gemstone in her earring swayed and shone with a sinister light.