novelraw Chapter 184: The Blade Will Fall
Chapter 184: The Blade Will Fall
The moment Ignotus found himself back in his training room, thanks to Dante’s portal, a cat crashed into him.
It was Eris, purring out Her despair, with tear-filled eyes that stared at his unblinkingly.
Ignotus smiled softly at Her and sat down.
She quickly settled into his lap, brushed away Her tears, and looked at him with eyes that hid sadness of a magnitude so immense that he likely couldn’t begin to fathom.
’...Can I?’
He didn’t know what She asked permission for, but he didn’t bother asking and simply nodded his head.
Eris got even closer and tried Her best to wrap around him even more, Her little legs pressing into him.
She had Her head shoved into his chest, Her ears listening to his heartbeat while the rest of Her kept touching him all over, checking for injuries, knowing full well that he had none.
Thump.... Thump.... Thump....
The heartbeats were controlled, even more than usual, but that didn’t register in Her mind.
Eris wanted—no, needed—only one thing.
She needed to confirm that he was alive.
Satisfied after a long while, She continued to rest against him. Ignotus did the same, and they quietly enjoyed the silence.
Their minds were away from all that happened, away from all their responsibilities, just taking a few rare minutes to relax without thinking of the noose that never left their necks.
Ignotus could feel that Eris’s relief was being shared with him, and he found that endearing.
But he also saw it somewhat as an issue.
It was only one moment that they lost their connection, and yet this was the consequence.
There was no denying that She currently saw him as her reason for living; She lived through him, literally, to the point that his highs and lows brought Her to tears.
They reached a point where he was Her everything, and that meant everything, literally.
If he died, so would She, Her goals be damned. She’d end it all with no regard for anyone else, not even his people, whom She grew a little fond of.
Ignotus didn’t want that for Her.
Eris must have noticed that. She knew that he wanted Her to be her own person, thinking that She would be better off that way... Her, not as his Calamity, and he, not as her Luck.
She denied such a notion.
What was wrong with living for him and only him?
She saw nothing as the answer.
"..."
As did he... because of course he did.
They both knew that such a ’want’ was no more than an excuse. He was lying through his teeth, or rather, his mind, as neither talked of this outwardly, nor would they ever talk of it. Neither wanted to fully acknowledge it.
In any case, Ignotus wasn’t one to judge a person’s way of living; he only wanted Eris to stay alive so that she could take care of his people in the case he failed, like he did last time.
Eris knew that, but for the first and last time since they met, She was going to go against his wishes.
She wanted to be selfish.
She wanted to die alongside him.
She wanted to always be his Calamity...
And She wanted him to be Her Luck.
This was Her true wish—the very thing she wanted to request when in her pampered cat mode.
Ignotus, like earlier, nodded, silently acknowledging and accepting Her unspoken request. Granting Her a grave alongside his if the need ever arose for it.
While he felt slight regret for saying yes, he would do it again if given a choice.
He was a bad man, a cruel man, but he wasn’t evil, not to his people at least. And besides, this only proved to him that if his people were to live, he needed to live as well, so sacrificing himself wasn’t a viable option, no, not at all.
The two then showed genuine smiles to each other, ending their little ’talk.’
Sure, neither of them uttered a single word, yet with their emotions alone, they spoke more than most did in their entire lives together. An obsessed Goddess and Her sole Follower.
...
It wasn’t long before the hour finally rolled around, the one Dante and Ignotus had been quietly waiting for.
As a natural consequence of the attack, tension spread across the Academy so thick it felt like one could pick it up, roll it into a ball, and throw it at someone’s head. But despite the pressure humming under every piece of marble...
Nothing looked all that unusual; it was just a normal morning.
Well, aside from one very, very important thing.
Classes were canceled.
The holy grail, the treasure, the miracle...
The one thing that could unite all students of every class, race, or family lineage:
A day off!
Sure, only one day, but Ignotus heard the cheers from at least five buildings away.
But class cancellation wasn’t even the first announcement of the day. The Academy administration had already put out their "official statement"—full of all the expected performance lines:
"We take full responsibility."
"Our deepest condolences."
"The situation is under control."
Which Ignotus added a silent fourth to:
"Please don’t riot."
Damage control was predictable. What wasn’t predictable was how badly it backfired.
The Third Stratum was already on fire.
Every faction, every Lower House, and every political group with opinions they weren’t asked for released their "insider report" within minutes of each other.
Some claimed it was sabotage from the higher strata. Some blamed the Academy. Some blamed the headmaster, Dante, himself. Some said that the Demons were evolving, which wasn’t exactly wrong. Some said it was a conspiracy caused by Death’s main rival Houses.
Basically, everyone was talking, nobody knew anything, and the death toll of the guards hadn’t even been made public yet.
Funerals weren’t scheduled, either. Dante was probably going to announce those during his speech later.
But Dante wasn’t thinking about speeches.
He was thinking about the mole.
And right now?
The trap was dying to be set off.
He’d pushed each version of the fake plan through his command chain. One leader passed it to the next, and then to the next, funneling through those he trusted until it hit the boots on the ground, where each received what they believed was "direct intel from the headmaster."
One-on-one trust.
Exactly as Ignotus designed it.
And every suspect had swallowed the bait whole, making it so that hours before midnight arrived, one of those plans had indeed been found to have been leaked to the Demons.
Such a find was all thanks to Dante’s network, which operated in complete silence. They tracked everything from rumors whispered between students to even merchant chatter traveling between strata through both the Academy’s hidden channels.
One of Dante’s people appeared before him and shoved a report directly into his hands.
Apparently, one of the small cohorts stationed at an eastern Hell entrance had heard that Demons were being dragged out to mass graves to be burned in piles.
Exactly one of the false intel paths.
The details weren’t complete yet; they hadn’t trickled down, but it didn’t matter.
It was enough.
Enough to make the Demons stir, and enough to confirm that someone had opened their mouth.
Dante didn’t waste time.
Picking up a quill, he wrote down a few words, folded the note into an envelope, and sent the newsbearer straight to Ignotus’s room.
Less than a minute later, Ignotus opened it while lounging on his bed, Eris sprawled across his lap.
He read a single line.
—
[Hook, line, and sinker.]
—
"Ah. That confirms it, doesn’t it?"
Eris’s voice brushed against his thoughts:
’...Yes. No doubt about it.’
She kneaded his leg with Her paws, purring softly.
’But what’s next?’
Ignotus looked at Her, then back at the letter, a Demonic smile creeping across his face.
"We keep up the illusion for now..."
His fingers tapped the edge of the envelope.
"When the time comes, the blade will fall."
He folded the letter closed.
"It’ll fall on them all."