Chapter 233 : Chapter 233
Chapter 233
Avril had a great many siblings.
Abrahal was the eldest, with one brother and two sisters below him.
Of those, the second brother had been killed in the Avril siblings' war.
He was the one who'd once branded me a fraud.
That was the problem.
The other siblings had verified Aura's effectiveness and immediately set about collecting it.
They'd trained swordsmen and assembled escort units.
Only those who'd done so had survived.
The eldest sister refused the summons.
Her excuse was that she'd married into Imperial nobility and left the merchant world.
"It's less about that and more that she doesn't want to untie the goods she's sitting on."
Abrahal snorted.
"Left the merchant world after marriage? What nonsense. Do you have any idea how many guilds she runs under her husband's name?"
Avril's second sister, Jusepin, who was sitting nearby, sneered as well.
"The scale's small, sure. But when a noble runs it directly? She's built a perfectly legal tax-evasion pipeline that wipes every transaction record clean. She's got more than ten guilds like that."
In the end, only one person had answered the summons.
Jusepin alone.
"So, Mom's making googly eyes at someone?"
"Oh, don't say it like that. Doesn't Mom deserve to find love too?"
"She popped out that many kids and you're gonna tell me there was no love? Please. Mom. Drop the midlife delusions and just keep traveling quietly."
"You get more disrespectful by the day."
"Wonder who I got it from."
Jusepin's words weren't wrong.
She was said to be in her early thirties, but she looked remarkably young for that age.
Like the first time I'd met Avril, she was draped head to toe in luxury, yet surprisingly, she wore few jeweled accessories.
A single green earring was her only adornment, and it lent a curious finality to her aura.
Polished, understated, yet impossible to dismiss.
She carried a boldness about her.
"Nice to meet you. We've spoken by scroll, haven't we?"
"Pleased to meet you."
"Back then, Avril completely severed our trade line. I had a rough time trying not to get killed by him. I was looking for connections when Abrahal had already settled in here ahead of me."
"Abrahal would have been a safe choice. Why didn't you come then?"
Abrahal had participated in the war, true, but he wasn't the type to ruthlessly kill siblings.
Jusepin shrugged as if the answer were obvious.
"I'd survive, sure. But I wouldn't make money."
"Is that so?"
"Abrahal was already on good terms with you. That meant there wasn't much room for me to break in and earn here. Investments were already his territory...... at that point, it's better to do business somewhere dangerous, even if it means risking my neck."
"I'm curious. Who were you trading with?"
"I sold goods to the Wolf King's side."
What a remarkable person.
Perhaps Merea in her youth had been someone just like Jusepin.
"But here you are now."
"The Wolf King's pulling out of the Empire. Plus, I heard you pay well for my kind of goods."
"That's right."
She'd brought an enormous quantity of cloaks, clothing, and bedding made from hides and cotton of the Great Forest.
Her stock alone could outfit more than two-thirds of the two-thousand-strong force.
A staggering volume.
But that wasn't all she'd brought.
"And if this place is really as safe and profitable an investment as they say, you'll take our guild in too, won't you?"
She'd brought her entire guild—people and all.
"I hear you've proposed an Academic Exchange Conference to the major Imperial academies. All three have accepted the invitation, apparently."
That was information even we hadn't yet received.
"Oh, I have my ways of finding things out."
That alone told me everything about Jusepin's capabilities.
The ability to read the board and its strategy.
The ability to independently gather Imperial intelligence outside Abrahal's network.
The boldness to identify exactly what the other party needed and offer it without asking for anything in return.
She passed on every count.
"I look forward to working with you."
I extended my hand, and Jusepin clasped it with a bright expression.
***
"Ahem. Hrm."
A small lecture room.
Five or six instructors were seated inside.
The most senior was the Head of Department, a veteran who'd served the Academy for twenty-three years.
Below him were teachers with fifteen, ten, and seven years of experience, with the rest being newly hired junior instructors.
"Summoning people and then making them wait. Honestly."
The fifteen-year veteran complained loudly, clearly intending the others to hear.
He was a professor who'd taught public administration and political science at Akarind Academy for years.
"Don't you agree, Head of Department?"
"Oh, well, hmm."
The Head of Department offered a passive agreement.
The kind of agreement that looked like assent but left enough room to pull back and claim he'd never actively supported it if anything went wrong.
A textbook political maneuver.
But the senior instructor treated it as full-throated endorsement.
His voice grew louder, more self-satisfied.
"When you think about it, since when was Akarind Academy all about swordsmanship? We are a liberal arts academy with heritage and tradition!"
It wasn't a lie.
Akarind Academy had indeed focused on diverse academic development, going so far as to assign a retired professor as the library's head.
But that had only been a fallback—chosen because they couldn't compete with the Imperial Royal Academy's swordsmanship curriculum.
Now, in a position to lead the entire world in swordsmanship—
That argument was no longer valid.
"And yet he takes everyone—field trips, savage monster hunts—and drags them all off! You'd think he was the Chairman himself."
At his complaint, the Head of Department and the other instructors' faces grew complicated.
Because he had a point.
Cassian was undeniably strong.
And he was pouring everything he had into world peace.
But his methods were sometimes too unilateral.
Why did it have to be their students bearing that burden?
And when making those decisions, he'd go straight to the Chairman or Queen Charlotte as if he were some direct arm of the leadership.
"He could at least hold one meeting before telling us!"
The door slid open.
"Everyone's here, I see."
It was Cassian.
The room went quiet the moment he entered, everyone averting their eyes with a cough.
The junior instructors especially.
All three were swordsmen at the Runner level.
Meaning they knew firsthand just how sharp mana-awakened senses became.
They'd been talking that loudly inside this room—there was no way he hadn't heard it as he approached.
'Is Cassian going to purge us along with the rest?'
'Honestly, they weren't wrong, but for us, well, we're just grateful he takes the students off our hands......'
'He said he'd teach us pedagogy next semester. Why did they have to drag us into this?'
While the instructors were reading the room—
Cassian bowed his head in greeting first and took a seat.
"Thank you for gathering despite your busy schedules."
"Ahem. What's the occasion?"
The Head of Department and the senior instructor asked.
"I pushed ahead aggressively with the field trip and final exam, so I imagine there are many misunderstandings. I wanted to come and clear the air."
The three junior instructors heard "clear the air" and interpreted it as I'm going to clean house and walk out.
The other instructors interpreted it similarly.
The only difference was they heard it with a stronger undertone—something closer to you're really going to obstruct my plans? Want to die?
"I apologize. I'm still lacking in seniority and experience, and I made mistakes."
Which was why Cassian's apology that followed wasn't easy to receive graciously.
Cassian continued, unfazed by their reactions.
"However, changing the schedule at this point is impossible. This isn't about my personal ambition—it's about the children and the future of humanity."
"Well, that...... we know, ahem."
The senior instructor cleared his throat and glanced around.
"So I'd like to hear your opinions and learn from you."
"Hmm?"
"Learn from us?"
Every eye in the room locked onto Cassian.
"I may have a bit of knowledge in swordsmanship, but education isn't something one person can handle by being clever and talented alone."
"......"
"All of you have years of field experience teaching students. I invited you here today so we could share that experience with each other."
"A-ahem! Well......"
At Cassian's words, the senior instructor—who'd done nothing but clear his throat and watch for cues—finally spoke.
"How modest of you."
Huh?
The three junior instructors' eyes went wide as they stared at their senior colleagues.
Every one of them was beaming, looking sheepish.
"Who among us doesn't know what you're capable of!"
"Just good at swordsmanship, you say? The students can't stop praising you. It's nothing but acclaim for your lecturing prowess!"
"And yet you say you need help from the likes of us? Let's skip the pleasantries, shall we? Ahem."
So this was the politics of the faculty world?
The three junior instructors felt as if scales had fallen from their eyes.
Cassian waved them off.
"I humbly ask for your guidance."
"Oh ho ho ho. That's supposed to be our line. Well then, where shall we start? Right! The students have been at each other's throats lately. I had a student about ten years back......"
***
"You know that the praise for you among the faculty has suddenly gone through the roof lately, right?"
Not "do you know" but "you know, right?"
I smiled wryly at the Chairman.
"More or less. I engineered it, after all."
"Honestly, people are so gullible. They seem to forget that before you were a swordsmanship instructor, you majored in political science, public administration, philosophy, and history."
"I wouldn't say I'm good at politics."
"You're bad at it? Really? You genuinely, sincerely believe that?"
I turned my gaze out the window with a dry smile.
Beyond it, countless people bustled about, each handling their own tasks.
When had the Academy grown this active?
There seemed to be more people moving around for external business than students.
"There'll be early arrivals coming for the Academic Exchange Conference. Families and entourages may show up even sooner to secure positions."
In that situation, a fractured Academy would only deepen the cracks.
"Especially the news that we'll be leaving for Aislard during finals—that's spread everywhere by now."
I'd made a spectacle of things on purpose to draw Avril out.
Even beyond the Underground Magic Tower and Avril, there were plenty of people who'd target Akarind Academy.
"The people who stay behind need to hold things together."
"And we're about ready for that."
Knock knock.
A rapping at the door.
"Looks like the timing's right."
The man who entered was a face I knew well.
Hollow cheeks, heavy dark circles, and neatly slicked-back dark indigo hair.
"Starting this week, this is our temporary instructor, Blue Light—ah, rather, Samuel."
"Goddammit. What a sorry state of affairs."
Blue Light walked in, neatly dressed in an Academy instructor's uniform, letting out a long sigh.