Chapter 28: The witch’s wish will come true (2)
“Hee-hee, that was delicious. This tonkatsu is quite a delicacy.”
“Alber, what did I say? Didn’t I tell you not to pick your teeth at the table, it’s disgusting?”
In the academy’s cafeteria, bathed in the midday sun.
As she tasted the school lunch provided by certified chefs, Saintess Antiopea reprimanded the Hero who was using a toothpick.
Klomes Academy was a place of exchange where talented individuals from all over the world gathered.
Naturally, it offered a variety of menus from various cultures.
One could satisfy their diverse tastes with just the school lunch, without having to go down to Lapland Town.
The dish Alber had just devoured six plates of was none other than ‘tonkatsu’, a pork cutlet.
From Antiopea’s perspective, who didn’t prefer greasy food, it was an incomprehensibly oily dish.
“Besides, you’re overeating for lunch, Alber.”
Scrape, scrape. Antiopea said, scooping up the remaining omelet rice on her plate.
“You know you have to study hard to maintain your ranking, right? Classes will start soon, what are you going to do if you get food coma?”
“Kehehe, my stomach is strong, so there’s no need to worry about that! Rather, I can’t concentrate if I’m hungry, so I have to eat a lot!”
“Yes, yes. Of course.”
Although Alber was smart, as befitting a half-dragon, her lack of will to study was a problem.
Imagining the Hero drooling in front of the professors made her feel embarrassed.
If only she showed as much passion for basic studies as she did for fighting.
“So, Alber? What was the class you were going to take after lunch? Did you memorize the course name and the classroom location?”
“Uh, well… the course name was…”
“Black Magic Defense. It’s a lecture that will be held in Opal Hall, room 302. It’s taught by Professor Anastasia, the one you went and bothered at dawn.”
“Aha, that’s right!”
Alber grinned, baring her fangs at Antiopea’s hint.
Stab. She stabbed a yellow pickled radish with her fork and grumbled.
“I wanted to duel right away, but it’s a shame I have to wait until Friday. I don’t know how I’m going to endure the itch until then.”
“The professor has a schedule too, Alber. She can’t accommodate the demands of just one student. This is the academy, not the Holy See.”
“Tsk, I know that. But… I want to get stronger, even if it’s just for a day.”
At Antiopea’s admonishment, Alber frowned and trailed off.
A faint shadow fell over her eyes.
A shadow of serious and firm will, different from her usual boisterous self.
“So… so I want to be acknowledged by ‘him’.”
Him.
Antiopea bit her lip at the mention that complicated her feelings.
The instinctive competitiveness inherited from her mother, a Gold Dragon.
And the man who had driven Alber to obsess over fighting the strong.
To Saintess Antiopea, he was a benefactor, but at the same time, a heartless being who had ruined Alber’s ordinary future.
“…Don’t think too hastily, Alber.”
She sighed lightly and stroked her head.
“Compared to your peers, Alber’s achievements are extraordinary. In a few years, you’ll definitely be stronger than me.”
“Stronger than Pea? Is that really true?”
“Hehe, of course. So just try to look at the situation a little more calmly. Let’s find something else fun to do until Friday.”
Antiopea said with a saintly, gentle smile.
At the same time, she thought of the warlock professor in question.
The center of the storm that had caused a huge commotion as soon as she replaced the former professor.
‘I knew she was going to take Alber…’
But I never imagined she would sweep up the second and third place students as well.
And even the chairman’s daughter, known for her high pride, and the princess of the Vǫlsunga Empire.
I don’t know what she did, but it was certain that the Obsidian dormitory had become the center of attention in an instant.
The three most watched students among the golden generation.
They had all gathered in one place, hadn’t they?
It would certainly be a great honor for an academy housemaster, but…
‘It would be quite difficult to control them, wouldn’t it?’
Following the half-dragon, there was the unparalleled genius who had received the alias of a constellation, and the indomitable swordswoman who was considered the next Sword Saint.
Weren’t they too formidable for a rookie housemaster to handle?
From the perspective of the Saintess, who didn’t know Anastasia’s true intentions, it just seemed like a beginner’s reckless greed.
‘But it might not be greed.’
The power of her spell that destroyed the state-of-the-art golem from the Magic Tower’s workshop in a single blow.
The skill to easily separate space with a single gesture.
And the brainy play that cleverly attracted outstanding students.
As Dean Roakan said, she was undoubtedly an unprecedentedly great professor.
‘…Could this also be fate?’
A powerful black mage who could even make the current Sword Saint, Antiopea, wary.
And under her command, the completed, unprecedented dormitory lineup.
Somehow, it didn’t seem like a simple coincidence.
The time of disaster is approaching. The time when the red full moon rises and the legions of the demonic realm come rushing in, as prophesied.
If that time really comes, the Hero and the Saintess will have to stand on the front lines of the battlefield.
Perhaps this lineup was a divine arrangement for that time.
The completion of the next Hero party, who would eat, sleep, and breathe in the same place, and work together to prevent the return of the witch.
It might be a tangled, complicated thread of fate for that purpose.
‘Well, for now, it’s just a meaningless fantasy.’
Pfft. She was chuckling at her own fantasy.
“Huh? Is that woman perhaps?”
Alber, who had thrown away her toothpick, suddenly lit up her eyes.
The half-dragon’s gaze was directed at a quiet table in the distance.
Princess Krimhild, who had just finished bathing, was eating gracefully.
“It’s Princess Krimhild of the Vǫlsunga Empire. The one who went up on the podium with Alber.”
Was it because she was in plain clothes? The atmosphere was quite different from when she was at the celebration banquet.
Her hair was tied up tightly like Alber’s, and her clothes were just simple.
It was no wonder that the simple-minded Alber didn’t recognize her at first glance.
“The Vǫlsunga Princess? Then is she the one who is said to be the next Sword Saint? The one who was unfortunately assigned to Group B and didn’t have a chance to fight me?”
“Yes, that’s right. You were also very disappointed about that, weren’t you, Alber? You wanted to fight the next Sword Saint as the next Hero, but it didn’t happen…”
Flinch. Antiopea suddenly stopped speaking, feeling a chill.
She had belatedly noticed Alber’s true intentions while she was chattering away without thinking.
“Alber? Are you perhaps…”
“Hee-hee!”
Alber, with a troublemaker’s big smile, stood up from her seat.
Then, before she could be stopped, she strode towards the princess.
“…!”
Perhaps noticing their attention, Krimhild, who had just put down her spoon, also met the next Hero’s eyes.
The two monsters who had been assigned to the same dormitory, but were meeting privately for the first time today.
Watching the sparks fly between them, Antiopea slapped her forehead.
“Oh my gosh, for goodness’ sake…”
The guardian of the next Hero, who had been too complacent today.
A miserable sigh escaped her lips.
“This is the record, Professor.”
I arrived at the Coral Hall, guided by Eve Vellam.
Compared to the bustling other buildings, the Coral Hall was rather deserted, to the point of being eerie.
Combined with the old, antique interior, it was reminiscent of an abandoned school from a ghost story.
What enhanced the atmosphere even more was the strange arrangement of characters scrawled on one wall.
It was an unidentified message that the witch Altra was said to have written just before she died.
The ancient battlefield where the first Hero and his companions defeated the ancient witch.
A message that Altra had personally engraved on the wall of a temple there using necromancy.
After the Klomes Academy was officially built and underwent continuous expansion, this wall was also absorbed as part of the school.
“How is it, Professor? Isn’t it a bit creepy? The shape is also very strange.”
“…It certainly is.”
I replied in a low voice, looking at the excited Eve like a child.
At this, Eve touched the wall and told me the prophecy that had been passed down in the academy.
“The day the moon is dyed with blood and the gate of the demonic realm opens anew. The long-cherished wish of the vanished witch will finally be fulfilled.”
Then, she shrugged her shoulders and added in a nonchalant tone.
“But no one knows what that wish is. Not the academy’s historians, nor the necromancer clan who were said to be Altra’s descendants.”
Even I, her descendant, had only first heard of the ‘Altra’s wish’ just before dying in the sewer.
I had never received a similar tradition from my damn mother or father.
“Actually, if we could decipher this, a part of the mystery would be solved, but it’s a shame. Not a single person who could read it has appeared so far.”
Eve said with a very regretful expression.
Glancing at her, I quietly asked a question.
“These characters, Miss Eve. Was it really impossible for anyone to read them? Even Altra’s descendants?”
“Of course. After Altra died, they experimented with the slightly more cooperative descendants.”
Eve shook her head, denying my suspicion.
“But no one succeeded in deciphering it. They said it’s almost like a coded message, not an existing language. Maybe only Altra herself could read it.”
A coded message that only Altra herself could read.
It was a half-guess, but it was surprisingly close to the truth.
Because Crowley Altra, whose gender had changed.
I, who had become the spitting image of Altra due to the manifestation of her ancestor’s thoughts, could read these characters clearly.
“Historians speculate that it might be Altra’s will.”
Eve calmly told me as I scanned the characters on the wall.
Perhaps because she had once worked as an investigator, her own information network was considerable.
“Not only was it written just before her death, but the survivors who fought the witch also fell ill and died soon after. All of them, as if they had been cursed by a powerful spell.”
“…Are you saying Altra cursed her enemies with her last words? As a guarantee of her last flickering flame of life?”
“It’s quite possible. She was that powerful. It wouldn’t be strange if she burned with resentment towards those who defeated her in her final moments.”
No, that’s absolutely not it.
What Altra had written on the wall was not some frivolous curse or will.
The content I deciphered through my ancestor’s eyes told a completely different story.
‘This is a memorandum.’
A memo prepared to not forget important points.
It was a passage written to convey a specific fact to a future generation.
What that memorandum pointed to was none other than…
‘Altra’s own magical artifact?’
An ancient witch whose records, let alone a single portrait, did not remain.
It mentioned the unidentified weapon she was said to have wielded on the battlefield.
A weapon that could tear through solid steel like paper, and reap the heads of enemies like sheaves of straw with every swing.
It was information about the magical artifact she had forged to control her own overflowing magic power.
‘…Why on earth would she write something like this?’
And in the form of a strange coded message that even the Altra clan couldn’t recognize?
It was as if she had anticipated that a descendant like me would appear at the academy someday.
A descendant of the clan who had taken on the shell of Altra through the thoughts of her ancestor.
“…?”
As I was carefully examining the contents of the wall, my gaze suddenly met Eve’s.
She had been staring at me with a strange expression for a while now.
“Miss Eve? What’s wrong?”
“It’s nothing. It’s just…”
Eve, who had been fidgeting with her plump lips, avoided my gaze.
Then, she muttered in a small voice.
“I just thought you looked like him when you’re concentrating.”
“…”
Perhaps because she had lived as an investigator, her observation skills were much more excellent than I had expected.
To have noticed such a small thing in the midst of the drastic changes in my gender and atmosphere.
Of course, it would never happen, but…
‘If Eve finds out my true identity.’
If she finds out that I am the only remaining witch in the world, a necromancer like a ticking time bomb.
What should I do then?
[P-Professor! Professor Anastasia! Can you hear me?]
It was at that moment.
The school’s emergency communication network using short-range communication magic.
Through this, the urgent voice of a staff member was transmitted to me.
“Loud and clear. What’s the matter?”
As I responded to the reply with magic, the staff member let out a sigh of relief and took a deep breath.
Then, he spoke in a slightly calmer voice.
[I’m near the Peridot Hall! Something big just happened! I think you need to come quickly, Professor!]
“…Me? I have to go to class soon. If it’s not a very urgent matter, it would be better to call another professor nearby…”
[It’s an Obsidian dormitory problem! You’re the one in charge, so you have to check it yourself!]
An Obsidian dormitory problem.
At those words, a chill ran down my spine.
Just hearing those words, I could sense that a big accident had occurred.
And to me, who was momentarily speechless.
[There’s a fight between the high-ranking students of Obsidian right now!]
The staff member delivered some truly infuriating news.