novelraw Chapter 166 : Chapter 166
Chapter 166 : Chapter 166
166
Gwen felt as though she might literally faint.
She had stood before monsters. She had seen demons, if only from a distance. She had received audiences with countless nobles.
When the Empire's students had come flooding in, she had even personally received high-ranking Imperial nobles she had only ever heard about.
The highest rank among them had been an Imperial Marquis — a position equivalent to a duke or even royalty in a small kingdom like theirs.
She had been the one trembling before that person, not knowing what to do.
And now what was happening?
She was being told to go stand before the Royal Knight Commander they had just defeated and lecture him to never target the Academy again?
If she had that kind of nerve, she would not be working as a teacher here — she would be holding some important position somewhere.
Like a school chairman, for instance.
"You are the Chairman."
Oh. Right. That was the problem.
Because she was the Chairman, she had to take responsibility for all of this.
"There are plenty of ways to take responsibility! Huh? This is just — this is a parent going around apologizing on behalf of their troublemaking brat, no, it is even worse than that!"
"I am counting on you."
"AAAARGH! Teacher Cassian! You could just do it yourself! Huh? I will give it to you! I will give you the acting chairmanship! Huh? Or even the full chairmanship......"
"The chairmanship belongs to your father."
"Down with hereditary succession! A return to meritocracy!"
"A princess who inherited her position through bloodline succession should not be saying that."
Cassian and the others all withdrew en masse.
And what remained was nothing but an eerie silence.
Gwen clutched her head and slumped over.
She knew.
This silence was not true silence — it was merely the eye of the storm before the Knight Commander's fury came roaring up.
Sure enough.
"Chairman!"
The door to the Chairman's office burst open with a bang.
Palmer, hair disheveled and unable to even brush the dirt from himself, strode into the office.
"Wh-what manner of outrage is this?! An Academy City that drives out a lord legitimately appointed by the Crown!"
"Um......"
"I am an envoy bearing a royal decree — an envoy! Even in wartime, an enemy nation's envoy is afforded respect! Am I the enemy here? Huh? Am I not an envoy carrying the King's own orders?!"
"The thing is, our Academy operates as a semi-autonomous......"
"Furthermore, from now on, all of you are to follow my commands! Budget! Regulations! Institutional frameworks! Everything must be conducted under my administrative guidance, and yet my very first encounter here is a rebellion — ha! Do you think I can show my face and report this?!"
"We did not rebel — until proper handover procedures are established......"
"And what is the deal with those students?! Huh? Lounging about during class hours instead of focusing on their studies — the height of indolence!"
From Palmer's perspective, this was born of humiliation.
Before the duel, he had considered the prospect of fighting before an audience to be a sacred procedure.
But now that he had ended up on the losing side, the shame of having displayed his disgrace before the entire student body was unbearable.
That was undoubtedly why he had brought up the students.
"What did you just say?"
Unfortunately for him, his opponent was Gwen.
She had shown no particular reaction when he had been going on about administration and royal decrees.
But the instant students were mentioned, Gwen shot to her feet.
A small vein had risen on her forehead.
"You are the one who came here and disrupted classes!"
"What?"
"This whole handover business — you could have handled it quietly at the Lord's Castle, but instead you made a spectacle of yourself with all that pomp and noise!"
Akarind Academy was an Academy City.
Which meant the entire Akarind territory was the Academy, making a quiet handover at the Lord's Castle fundamentally impossible.
Palmer had presented his letter of appointment within the Akarind territory, as was perfectly lawful.
"And excuse me? The one who disrupted the students' class time was you, was it not? You caused a commotion during class hours and broke their concentration!"
As it happened, Cassian had declared self-study during his own class period, which — by pure coincidence, truly pure coincidence — had resulted in students being down in town.
And the moment the commotion had broken out, they had come swarming in.
So strictly speaking, none of it was Palmer's fault.
"And in the end, you lost!"
"Wh-wh-what?!"
"A man! Without! The ability! To back it up! Calling himself lord of the Academy City — what kind of lord is that?!"
Palmer's face swelled bright red.
He looked as though a single prick of a needle would make him pop.
The fact that he had not drawn his sword was, in itself, a superhuman feat of restraint.
"Do you have any idea who Lord Murray is — the man you fought?! Huh?! He is the weakest among all of us! A loser who cannot even use Aura! Do you know what Aura is?! It is the ultimate weapon that can cut down even demons!"
This was something that should have been run past Murray first.
Unfortunately, Murray was not present.
"The students of Akarind Academy are demonstrating the skill to take down Ogres single-handedly! And yet someone without the ability just swoops in claiming to be Knight Commander and takes over? One of our students was even offered recruitment by the Imperial Knight Commander! Are you better than the Commander of the Empire's Lionheart Knights?! Huh?!"
The one who had offered Pan recruitment was not the Knight Commander but the Senior Knight.
Gwen had, of course, received that report.
"What kind of nonsensical drivel are you spouting?! Huh? Senior Knight? The Empire? Are you living in some delusion?!"
"Get out! Go look at reality with that king of yours!"
To be precise, it was not "that king of yours" but "our king."
And so Gwen rattled off a string of words steeped in cowardly agitation, slander, fabrication, and defamation.
The fury radiating from her was strangely imposing for a woman barely in her twenties.
Palmer glared at her viciously, his mustache quivering, before storming out of the room.
His pride was wounded, and his rage had risen so high that reason could no longer contain it.
He had to get back to the Royal Castle at once and have this place crushed.
That single thought consumed him entirely.
After Palmer's departure, and before Gwen's heaving breaths had even settled, Cassian stepped into the Chairman's office.
"Well done."
"......Did you hear all of that?"
Cassian nodded.
Perhaps because mana had sharpened his senses, sounds from beyond walls and doors like these reached him as clearly as if they were spoken right beside him.
At Cassian's words, Gwen slammed her head onto the desk and collapsed into her seat, looking as though she might burst into tears.
"......You need to handle the aftermath yourself. You made me do something you could have just done on your own......"
"Well done. I mean that sincerely."
Cassian said this with a smile.
She had been stumbling over everything else, but the instant students were brought up, she had raised her voice.
It was precisely that quality of Gwen's that he valued so highly.
She was a teacher worthy of respect.
"I want to be like you."
"Huh?"
Cassian left the Chairman's office without answering.
Gwen had performed far better than he had hoped.
So now he had to do his part.
For instance, going on a scouting mission with some of the Firestorm Mercenary Guild members who happened to have requested leave just as the semester began.
Or perhaps building siege weapons using the construction tools that happened to have been left over after the Academy City's expansion.
Or, since so many new people had arrived, leading the students in a large-scale mock battle.
Trivial matters like those.
***
"It is treason!"
Palmer roared upon his return to the Royal Castle.
"Murray of Akarind Academy City has conspired with the Academy's people to persecute me and ambushed me with vile schemes!"
In crude terms, he had lost his mind.
Having ridden his horse in a frenzy, his dirt-caked clothes were thick with dust, his hair was in wild disarray, and his bloodshot, exhausted eyes were traced with veins.
In other words, he truly looked like someone who had been victimized through underhanded plotting.
"What did you say?"
The nobles who had been safely shut away in the Royal Castle could not help but lose their minds as well.
A mere backwater academy in the rural frontier had the audacity to look down on and persecute their people?
The Knight Commander himself had gone down to deliver orders, and those country bumpkins dared?
Fury erupted from their mouths, and talk of war, subjugation, and severe punishment poured from every direction.
And just before Belmain Royal Castle could muster its army and march on Akarind Academy.
An incident struck.
———!
It was the result of a chain of very small coincidences.
One.
The Phantom Steed had been a demon that slaughtered the cavalry of the Kingdom of Triban.
The Traivan Royal Family had continuously conscripted soldiers, and as a result, vast quantities of weapons had gathered around their royal castle.
But now, the Phantom Steed of the Traivan Royal Family had been instantly dismembered by Cassian.
Peace was maintained for the Traivan Royal Family without the need to organize an army.
Two.
The Belmein Royal Family, oblivious to reality, had actually begun assembling an army.
Palmer had concealed his defeat by reporting that Akarind Academy's students possessed armaments beyond what the Crown had authorized.
This was partly a result of Gwen's bluffing having worked to some degree.
As a consequence, massive quantities of military supplies had been concentrated there.
Three.
Somewhere far away.
From that place, someone who bore a grudge against Akarind Academy had actively supplied military provisions.
High-grade weapons were delivered to the Belmein Royal Family, and their equipment level was outfitted to a standard that put the Imperial army to shame.
"Wh-what in the world is this?"
All those conditions converged and called forth a demon.
Entity name: Iron Eater.
A being whose body was made of iron, that devoured everything made of iron and spewed fire.
Born to annihilate humanity's weapons — it was the same demon that had once appeared in the arsenal of the Traivan Royal Family, which had stockpiled powerful military weaponry.
The demon that had devoured every last weapon of the Traivan Royal Family in a single night and ultimately brought about their downfall.
"A demon! A demon has appeared!"
It materialized right in the center of Belmain Royal Castle.
— ROOOAAARRR!
The Iron Eater — one of the most powerfully armored and physically devastating among demons — bellowed.
To soldiers who did not use Aura, an Iron Eater whose entire body was made of iron was as good as invincible.
It was not just the soldiers — even every knight and noble gathered there could not defeat the Iron Eater if they all attacked at once.
The Iron Eater, having consumed their weapons and grown in power, unleashed a massive torrent of fire.
***
"......And so the Belmein Royal Family is supposedly on the brink of collapse overnight."
"Son of a b......"
Rozalin barely swallowed the curse that had almost escaped her lips.
The appearance of demons was always sudden, but this time was more sudden than ever.
The timing being accelerated was one thing, but the location changing as well was a first.
Regressors had always been living through a past they had never personally experienced, but this was a past they had not only never experienced — they had never even imagined it.
And yet it was reality.
"What are you going to do?"
Rozalin asked Cassian.
If they simply left things as they were, the Belmein Royal Family would certainly be destroyed.
So if they just closed their eyes for a week — no, a day or two — Akarind Academy would naturally gain independence as an autonomous territory.
"We go."
But Cassian rose from his seat without a moment's hesitation.
Seizing freedom and being abruptly abandoned were two different things.
Moreover, the Traivan Royal Family still possessed its military might intact, and the Empire was still watching Akarind Academy for any opening.
Whether they liked it or not, the Royal Family had to serve as their shield.
"Let us go show them."
So it was better to use this opportunity to make things perfectly clear.
The true strength of Akarind Academy.
The power of Aura.