Chapter 43: The Witch Takes the Stage
Far from the auditorium's chaos, the masked leader traced another hidden runic circle into a cracked floorboard. Twenty minutes had bled away since the barrier's activation.
Two hours. That was the standard response window for the Royal Knight Order and the Adventurer's Guild to mobilize from the capital. He couldn't afford to drag this out any longer.
Seraphina hadn't shown up. The core objective of this entire operation had been gone from the very beginning. Lingering would only get him caught in the crossfire.
He walked toward the teaching building at a measured pace. His hands moved with practiced efficiency, tracing hidden magic circles into corners, door frames, and the cracks in the floorboards as he passed.
The only thing making him frown was Klein's total radio silence.
The man in the brown coat had taken his orders and left without a single word. Even if he ran into trouble, protocol dictated he send up a signal flare. This kind of absolute silence meant one of two things. Either he had clocked out early to slack off, or—
He shook his head sharply and banished the absurd thought.
Impossible. Absolutely impossible. Klein was a freshly minted Mithril-tier fighter. Who in this academy could possibly take him down, especially inside a mana-suppression barrier?
The kid probably just got bored and wandered off somewhere. Kids these days.
The long-haired man cursed under his breath. Then he remembered the files in the Headmaster's office still needed to be scrubbed. He had planned to send Klein on that errand. Now he would have to do it himself.
He climbed the stairs with a deep scowl.
---
The situation in the auditorium wrapped up fast.
The last few men in black were subdued and shoved into a corner. The students' collective mood shifted from sheer panic to the loud, chaotic buzz of survival. People chattered over each other, searching for friends, leaning against walls to catch their breath, or just staring blankly at the massive hole in the ceiling.
Uriel used the chaos to slip into a small side booth in the auditorium. The door was locked. The breathing leaking through the crack was rapid and erratic. Someone had been trapped in there for a long time.
He kicked the door open.
Princess Angelica was huddled in the corner. She snapped her head up. Her long hair was a tangled mess, and half-dried tear tracks stained her cheeks. But her eyes had already switched into the defiant "I am ready to scream at someone" mode.
The person standing in the doorway was not who she expected.
Uriel met her guarded stare with perfect calm. He didn't waste time with small talk. He walked over, untied the remaining knots binding her in three swift motions, and took a polite, detached half-step back.
"You're safe now."
He didn't give Angelica a single second to ask questions. He turned and cleared the path.
"Head out this way. Your guards should be looking for you."
Angelica froze for a second. She gathered her skirts and walked past him. A few steps outside the door, she glanced back. Her lips parted, probably to ask who he was.
But Uriel had already turned and walked the other way, leaving her with nothing but a profoundly unremarkable silhouette.
Mission accomplished. Time to delete the search history and vanish into the night.
The Holy Sword Witch stood atop the rubble and surveyed the room. Students were untying each other and casting healing spells. Some had already started organizing a cleanup crew. Her job was done.
She leaped through the shattered hole in the ceiling. The jump was effortless and completely silent. She vanished above the rim just as cleanly as she had arrived, leaving zero trace behind.
Three shadows followed close on her heels. Lumina, Fenria, and Kira vaulted out one after another.
Uriel squeezed out through a side door. He looked exactly like any other student. He hugged the corridor walls, dodged two kids who were still standing around in a daze, and slipped out the lateral exit of the teaching building.
He power-walked across the covered bridge connecting the teaching building to the auditorium. The Brigade had already reassembled.
Uriel stopped in front of them and put his hands on his hips.
The operation had been a solid success overall. Student casualties were minimal. The men in black were either dead or in custody. The princess was extracted. And most importantly, the Brigade hadn't been flagged as a hostile faction.
A spectacle this massive shouldn't trigger a deep internal investigation at the academy. Even if it did, the surface-level narrative was airtight. The Curse Cult attacked the school, and a mysterious third party intervened. At worst, it looked like a turf war between villains.
It was perfect. He gave a satisfied nod.
He had handled an incident of this scale so cleanly that even a thorough academy audit wouldn't dig up anything incriminating—
He stopped dead.
The Headmaster.
He mentally reviewed every location. The teaching building. The auditorium. The monument of skulls on the roof.
Oswald had been completely absent from start to finish.
Uriel stood perfectly still and began running the risk analysis.
Option one. Do nothing. The Headmaster stays undercover. He spins tonight's event as a "failed external raid." He remains the Headmaster, remains the cult's inside man, and remains perfectly positioned to launch his next operation on campus. Unacceptable.
Option two. Wait for the Crown to arrest him. The Headmaster gets hauled off, put on public trial, and the cult's inner workings get exposed. It sounds heroic, but it would turn the academy into a massive spotlight magnet. Investigation teams and rival factions would swarm the campus. His entire plan of attending school in peace would be torpedoed. Also unacceptable.
That left exactly one option.
Kill him under the Brigade's banner. Clean, quiet, no loose ends. No witnesses. No trial. No future problems.
He turned to the girls and delivered a concise tactical summary. He capped it off with a final directive.
"The Headmaster needs to be eliminated."
Lumina nodded. She didn't ask unnecessary questions.
She glanced sideways at Fenria and Kira. All three of them spoke at the exact same time.
"Leave it to us."
Uriel looked at the three of them. His expression remained perfectly serious. But his mental spreadsheet was already calculating at lightning speed.
Based on his Aether readings, their combined combat stats were more than enough to take Oswald. But Oswald was a veteran fox who had operated in the shadows for years. Experience was one stat that raw power levels couldn't simply overwrite. The Headmaster had spent decades as an adventurer. He definitely had a deep bench of trump cards and contingency plans. These three girls had the firepower, but they lacked the mileage. If the old man pulled a dirty trick, they could easily get hurt.
That was reason number one.
Reason number two.
If three junior members cleanly soloed the enemy boss, where does that leave MY dignity as the Scribe?! I already don't even know my own combat ranking! If it turns out I'm actually weaker than them in a real fight, my future orders are going to carry zero weight!
My authority would completely implode! Absolutely unacceptable.
The final and most critical point.
They had spent the entire evening carefully building the Holy Sword Witch's brand. Cold, overwhelmingly powerful, dripping with theatrical edge, and rocking a mask that had turned into an accidental style bonus. The final boss fight absolutely had to be the Witch's solo stage. Nobody else was allowed to steal the spotlight. This was the closing act of the script. The protagonist had to be there for the finale.
"The target is dangerous."
Uriel shook his head. He deliberately pitched his voice lower and deeper than usual.
"He has held the Headmaster's seat for years. He will not be short on trump cards."
He lifted his gaze and looked at the Witch standing beside him.
"This one requires the Witch to take the stage personally."
Lumina didn't argue. She took a half-step back.
If the Scribe was making this call, the Headmaster had to be an incredibly nasty opponent. She accepted the logic, nodded once, and retreated.
Fenria's ears twitched, and she followed suit.
Kira stepped back as well. Her face was plastered with pure disappointment. She was bummed she wouldn't get a front-row seat to the show.
All three girls stared at the Witch. Their eyes were screaming the exact same thought. Holy crap. If even the Scribe is taking this seriously, the target must be an absolute raid boss.
The Witch noticed everyone looking at her. Her shoulders gave a tiny twitch. She had clearly been zoning out during the entire hype-building strategy meeting.
"Hey."
No response.
"Mo—"
Uriel slammed the brakes on his tongue and pivoted.
"Witch."
The Witch blinked, the imposing glacial void in her golden eyes instantly melting into a dopey, oblivious warmth.
"Oh."
Leaning down from her terrifying height, she reached out and gently ruffled Fenria's hair like a doting mother. Then she made a pinching motion in the air toward Lumina and Kira, virtually head-patting the empty space above their hair.
"Everyone head back and get some rest. You all worked so hard today."
Her voice was soft and syrupy. She dragged out every vowel with ridiculous affection. That wasn't the Witch's voice. That was Mommy's voice.
Uriel's composure cracked. He bared his back teeth in a grimace.
The rest of the Brigade exchanged bewildered glances and began to disperse. They had apparently interpreted the order as some kind of profound, high-level directive they simply weren't cleared to understand yet.
Uriel pressed his hand against his forehead and rubbed his temples.
These three girls had enough combined firepower to go toe-to-toe with a dragon. And one sentence had just frozen them in place. They looked exactly like exhausted office workers being told "good job today, get home safe" by their boss. They were touched, but also slightly haunted by the suspicion that they had just been treated like toddlers. And deeply confused about whether it was actually okay to just go home.