novelraw Chapter 28
Chapter 28
Chapter 28
“The library remained completely intact. The main house, however, had been reduced to a handful of ashes.”
The answer that came out of Banshi’s mouth was far too unexpected.
They had carried out the massacre with such determination that the entire Emmet Family had been annihilated, yet only the library had remained untouched?
Of course, I hadn’t lived through that period, so I didn’t know the exact circumstances, but at the very least, Tylant wasn’t the kind of guy who moved carelessly.
In my previous life, he had deliberately shown a diligent appearance, and even when he was guarding the sealing stone where I had confined Sylarid at the top, he had selected only the tea I liked and sent it up.
A guy who executed his plans that meticulously—there was no way I could accept that he had left the Emmet Family’s library as it was.
“Then, you’re saying that the Emmet Family’s library is still intact?”
“The facility itself remains as it was, but a large number of books have disappeared. I barely managed to salvage a small portion and stored them separately in a secret place in the lower world.”
While brief words passed between us, we eventually arrived at the cafeteria.
After returning the dishes, and just as Banshi was about to head toward the garden first, I spoke.
“We’ve got time until ten anyway. I’ll tell Kiena to rest in the dorm for now. You and I will finish that conversation.”
“Yes.”
Maybe because tomorrow was the weekend, students were scattered all over in various places.
I searched for an appropriate place to continue the rest of the conversation with Banshi, but after failing to find one, I ultimately chose my dorm.
Banshi sat on the bed as I told her to, and I turned my chair around to sit facing her.
“What is it that you’re curious about?”
“Knowing that only the library remained intact means that despite going through something like that, you still returned to the Emmet Family’s main house.”
This must have been a painful memory for Banshi, but I judged it important, so I asked.
As expected, her expression wasn’t bright at all.
“Yes. I secretly went back because I wondered if there might be another survivor besides me.”
“What would you have done if the Ed Family had guards posted there…? That was reckless.”
“It was my family, so I knew all the secret passages.”
She had been quite young back then, yet she had done something truly brave.
“But there were no survivors, and I went straight to the library.”
“Why?”
“Because I had to master powerful magic to carry out my revenge on the Ed Family who destroyed my house.”
“And the book of my master was also in the Emmet Family’s library?”
“Yes.”
Besides that book, there had been many useful ancient texts, even by modern standards.
The reason Banshi had been able to implement 6th Circle magic without anyone’s guidance was because those ancient books had greatly helped her.
“But at that time, only a particular category of books had disappeared from the family library.”
“What kind of books?”
“Pharmacology books. As if the reason my family was destroyed was specifically to obtain those books.”
What did that even mean?
Tylant, who surely had planned the fall of the Emmet Family, did indeed possess deep knowledge in pharmacology.
But would that guy have coveted the texts held by the Emmet Family to such an extent?
“What kind of missing books were they? Were they rare works, like forbidden pharmacology equivalent to forbidden magic itself?”
“That, I do not know. I couldn’t possibly know every book in such a large library. Only the head of the family knew.”
But he was already dead.
Therefore, there was no one left who could give a definite answer.
“So I hurriedly took only the books I needed, and afterward, the remaining library books that had been left unattended gradually disappeared. I believe commoner merchants stole them, thinking they would fetch a high price.”
‘That was entirely possible.’
To commoners, swordsmanship manuals or magic books were treasured like priceless artifacts, so people would have rushed to snatch them up like tomb raiders.
“So among the books you brought, there was also a summoning magic book, and you plan to show it to Kiena?”
“Yes.”
If that was the case, then I no longer had to worry about Kiena’s future prospects.
Just then, Banshi’s Mob rang loudly.
“Who is it?”
“…Kiena.”
Even though there was plenty of time left, she must have contacted early because she wanted to study as soon as possible.
“All right, you’d better get ready too. I understand.”
I stood up first and opened the door.
Before leaving, Banshi bowed politely to me.
Just before she stepped out, I firmly told her one thing.
“Oh, Banshi.”
“Yes, Archis.”
“If I suddenly contact you with my Mob late at night and say something strange, just play along.”
Banshi didn’t seem to understand what I meant, but she answered with a confident expression, “Understood.”
It was simply a sign that she trusted me.
Then she left my dorm.
“Only the pharmacology books owned by the Emmet Family disappeared…”
Was this also something related to me or to Sylarid at the top?
My head only grew more tangled.
Etar, who had cut off contact with 1st Class professor Nide, exhaled deeply.
His snort was so loud that for a moment, a sound like an eerie wind blowing through an abandoned house echoed through the Headmaster’s office.
Kugugung!
At the same time, the scenery outside the Headmaster’s office changed.
Headmaster Former instinctively turned his gaze toward the window.
Only the Headmaster’s office was precariously floating above a cliff, and deep below the cliff, lava sloshed like crashing waves.
It reflected Etar’s displeased mood.
“Vice Headmaster Former.”
“Yes, Headmaster.”
As Etar opened his mouth in the silence, Former became tense and answered.
“First, completely revise the student ability evaluations for 1st Class.”
“May I ask for what purpose?”
“To expel 1st Class’s Artel.”
“But… he’s the student you had such high hopes for. Isn’t expulsion too excessive?”
“That is exactly why I made the decision. If we leave him as he is, that student Artel will be in danger.”
Former still didn’t fully understand his meaning.
“For the past fifty years, despite expelling students on purpose, do you know why I never sent them to the main school?”
“Yes…”
“Fifty-one years ago, the last thirteen graduates we sent to the main school—are you in contact with any of them now? Do you know where they are or what they’re doing?”
Former shook his head again.
Until now, all the students sent from the Ed Branch School to the main school had been from commoner backgrounds.
However, even among the students sent from other branch schools, only those of commoner origin had all contact severed, and mysterious deaths were unusually frequent.
Etar, who found it suspicious that only commoner mages were disappearing or dying under strange circumstances, immediately began an investigation.
Why had the students vanished?
What reason was there for mysterious deaths to occur at the school?
Just what had happened?
And only then did he finally discover the truth.
The main school was a place like an antlion’s pit—once you set foot in it, you could never return alive.
It was a place that selected only commoner mages and slaughtered them like livestock.
About a hundred years ago, one of his own students who had gone to the main school suddenly lost all contact and went missing, and Etar had found the situation suspicious. When he investigated separately, he belatedly uncovered Tylant’s unethical actions.
Draco Tylant, the current Archmage, used talented students as a type of “ingredient.”
Unlike other elements, the dark element had forbidden magic.
Its formal name was “black magic,” commonly called “magic that must go extinct.”
There existed a spell called “Drain Spell.”
Its effect was to forcibly extract a mage’s soul and confine it into a designated object.
Tylant used that forbidden spell on main school students, extracted their souls, and dissolved them into a drug he had specifically created.
Then he drank it himself, enhancing his mana.
With a single, simple act, like drinking tea, he maximized his mana without any strenuous training.
“To save the students, I intentionally expelled them starting fifty years ago. If they couldn’t graduate from the branch school, they couldn’t enter the main school. I was using that rule in reverse.”
Only elites among the branch school’s graduates would be selected and sent to the main school.
That was the rule Draco Tylant had established.
After learning this shocking truth, Etar agonized over how to protect his precious students.
Fifty years passed from then, and beginning fifty years ago from now, he had completed all his plans. There had not been a single graduate since, and no students had been sent to the main school.
Those fifty years spent planning were for Etar days just as agonizing as the time he had watched his master, Archis Eimer, die.
The graduates had headed to the main school full of expectations… but what awaited them there was nothing but black death.
“But didn’t you hope that Artel might become the new leader of mages, Headmaster? Planning the expulsion of such a student… wouldn’t that place us, or Artel himself, in danger instead?”
“No. If we leave him as he is, Artel will absolutely be killed by the Archmage’s royal guard. This is the only way to save him. And to save all of us.”
That was the certainty Etar had after hearing about Artel’s abilities from Nide.
If Artel were allowed to grow safely, Etar was convinced he could drive out Draco Tylant—someone even Etar himself could do nothing about—and become the new leader of the mages.
“But the student’s ability is far too immense. I may be the head of this school, but I also have many enemies. Especially since all dark-element instructors in every class are mages from the Draco Family.”
Of all things, Artel was a dual caster, and the elements he handled were fire and darkness.
Since he had to take classes from Draco Family mages, during those classes he would inevitably display his talent to Draco members without filter.
If that happened, even as Headmaster, Etar couldn’t guarantee Artel’s safety or protection.
Etar continued explaining for that reason.
“It would be better to send him to the lower world and make contact there to train him separately.”
There was also a swordsman family in the lower world, so even a family that produced an Archmage couldn’t behave recklessly there.
It was a rule that neither the Archmage of the magical society nor the Grand Swordmaster of the swordsman society could violate.
“But… considering what happened to the former Emmet Family, it’s not absolutely safe, is it?”
Former pointed directly to the annihilation of the Emmet Family’s main house in the lower world.
Etar’s face instantly darkened, and with another tremendous sound, the scenery outside the window shifted again.
“…My apologies.”
“No. And the situation is different from then. So prepare a plan to expel Artel. Former. I believe this is the correct choice.”
Then Etar met Former’s eyes firmly.
“But…”
Former still maintained a passive attitude.
“Rute, please. As your father.”
“…”
Vice Headmaster of the Ed Branch School, Draco Former.
But that was an alias; his true name and family were Etar Rute.
When he had been a newborn, Etar had deliberately abandoned his son near the Draco Family estate so he could be taken in as an adopted child.
To Etar, he would become a spy monitoring the Draco Family and later be brought back as Vice Headmaster of his own school.
Everything had been planned and executed with meticulous precision.
Since Former might change as he grew up in the Draco Family, Etar administered a conditioning drug before abandoning him.
It worked similarly to a hallucinogen, and until he ingested the antidote, he would repeatedly dream of witnessing Archis Eimer’s death as Etar had experienced it.
The plan was possible because Etar had an advisor skilled in pharmacology.
In that way, Former returned to Etar exactly as planned.
Ethically questionable as it was, Etar carried it out believing it was for the sake of future mages.
And raising Rute (Former) to adulthood and bringing him into his school as Vice Headmaster had taken fifty years.
This was why, despite being Etar’s son, Former—who had spent his infancy and youth in the Draco Family—possessed the dark element instead of the fire element.
An element was influenced more by environment than by birth.
Former’s expression hardened solemnly upon hearing Etar’s words.
To hide their father–son relationship, Etar had always refrained from using the terms “father” and “son,” instead speaking stiffly, using only “Headmaster” and “Vice Headmaster.”
For such words as his real name and “as your father” to come from his mouth now meant this was a firmly chosen, certain decision.
“Yes, Father.”
Understanding that sentiment well, Former answered clearly and distinctly.
“I will devise a plan immediately.”
“I’ll be waiting.”