The Demon King’s Castle, peak of the Washburn Mountains.
This place was originally the hideout of Legion Commander Magnus and the main base of the Fifth Legion. Now, however, no trace of that remained. It was just an empty castle.
"Well, well."
A middle-aged man surveyed the empty castle. Draped in a feathered cloak, he frowned and scratched his forehead. He was a necromancer from Kizen’s ’Crow’ unit.
"Looks like he left a while ago."
This was unexpected. The necromancers who knew Magnus’s temperament couldn’t help but be surprised that he had abandoned his castle and fled.
The man waved his feathered cloak, scanning his surroundings. The place was clean, eerily quiet. It seemed Magnus had packed up everything and moved elsewhere. All that remained was an empty, masterless throne and a hot spring that reeked of sulfur.
The man spoke.
"Search every floor, all the way down."
"Yes, sir!"
The agents waiting behind him bowed their heads.
"Use any means necessary to extract a clue."
"Understood!"
The agents moved with blinding speed, descending to the lower floors. Left alone, the Crow necromancer walked over to the sulfur hot spring. White steam billowed up, carrying the smell of rotten eggs. He knelt on one knee and briefly touched the tip of his finger to the water before pulling it back.
"A disgusting hobby," he muttered.
"Yeah, right? It’s really damn disgusting," a voice drawled from behind as footsteps ascended the stairs. "We went through so much trouble to corner him here. I can’t believe he knew and ran away beforehand."
A young man, also wearing a crow-feathered cloak, sauntered up with a delinquent’s swagger, his hands stuffed in his pockets. His hair was styled in a bizarre shape, like the leaves of a plant, and he was chewing on a strange twig he must have picked up off the street.
"You’re here."
"Isn’t it obvious, senior?" he sneered, stopping with a smirk. "Information is leaking from within the Crows."
"Huh..."
"You know, that one? The ’Needle’ Necromancer? Senior Evangelos was a follower in league with Magnus, wasn’t he? That means there could be more spies in our ranks!"
He strolled around, sneering as he spread his arms.
"That traitor was planning to team up with Magnus and screw over Pentamonium during the academic conference, right? Then when he got caught, his brain went ’boom’! ’Hahaha’!"
"Um..."
"Oh, right! My bad! You two were classmates back in Kizen, weren’t you? Special Admission No. 3 and No. 2, was it?"
"Cut the useless chatter and focus on the mission," the senior necromancer said, turning to walk away.
"Hey, don’t be so stiff! You know there’s nothing to find here."
The junior bit down hard on the twig he was chewing.
Instantly, bite marks began to appear all over the castle. On the hard bricks, on the pillars, countless teeth marks appeared like a pattern, as if they had been gnawed into the stone.
"It’s really grinding my gears. That legion commander with his weird tricks... I’ll catch him for sure, senior."
A long set of teeth marks scarred the wall.
"But just in case... just in case, I’m saying! If there really is a spy in the Crows, and they’re secretly leaking information to Magnus like this..."
’Snap.’
The twig he was chewing snapped in two. He spat it onto the floor and hissed coldly.
"I’ll catch that bastard and chew him up so thoroughly that not a single piece of flesh remains."
"That’s enough," the senior warned, his eyes flashing.
The junior just shrugged. "Yeah, yeah. With our difference in rank, I’d better back down."
He turned and walked away with that same strange swagger.
"Ugh, if only my classmate Bahil were here, an investigation like this would be a piece of cake! When is he coming back? Is he going to spend the rest of his life as a professor, wiping kids’ asses? I told him to come play in the field with me!"
"Kyahahahaha!"
Watching his junior descend to the lower floor with a bizarre laugh, the senior necromancer sighed.
’Why does every single one from that class year have a screw loose?’
"Reporting!"
Just then, a necromancer agent ran up and bowed his head.
"I’ve done a quick sweep of the basement, sir, but there were no significant clues. However, there is this."
The agent held out a piece of evidence with a gloved hand. The necromancer, also pulling on a glove, examined it.
"A lock of hair."
White hair. It had been cut unevenly.
"Magnus’s description was a thin build with long, white hair down to his waist. Did he cut it now that he’s on the run?"
"That’s what I think as well, sir."
But for all the trouble of taking his main base, it wasn’t much of a prize.
"Any contact from ’them’?"
"None, sir."
"...Understood. Send that hair to headquarters. The remaining personnel will conduct a thorough search for secret passages once reinforcements arrive."
"Yes, sir!"
The agents scattered. The Crow necromancer slowly walked over and traced the teeth marks on the wall with his fingertips.
The Dresden Royal Library.
This library, which occupied an entire building within the Royal Palace itself, was a renowned landmark on the continent. The successive kings of the Dresden Kingdom were famous bibliophiles and had collected expensive books throughout their reigns. The kingdom was so proud of this library that it often claimed its collection of historical records was on par with Pentamonium’s. Of course, many of the materials were too rare and important to be released to the public, so access was now strictly controlled.
And it was here...
"Sera, good morning."
"Morning."
A woman wearing black sunglasses and a sharp suit was heading to work at the Royal Library. She passed the guards and the magic detectors with practiced ease and entered the library.
’Heh, a detection spell of this level is child’s play for me,’ she thought.
Slightly lowering her sunglasses, her blue eyes briefly flashed crimson before returning to their original color.
Her true identity was none other than the Captain of the Seventh Legion, Erzebet. Under Simon’s orders, she had infiltrated this place, stealing the personal information and schedule of a librarian and impersonating that employee while she was on vacation.
’My date with my Lord Commander is on the line, so I’d better search hard.’
Her mission was singular: to find information about the unidentified group that had captured and researched Richard’s former Ancient Undead, ’Carl, the Plague Fiend’. All she had to go on were the documents written in an unknown language recovered from that place. The key was the language. She planned to sift through the ancient texts of the Royal Library to learn about these mysterious characters. The continent’s history was long. Before the continental language became standardized, countless languages were used interchangeably by country, by fiefdom, and even by village. It could be one of them.
Erzebet gathered books related to lost languages, found a seat in a corner, and spread them out. Then, she compared them to the characters written in the book from Carl’s dungeon.
’Not this one, and not this one either.’
Just as she was diligently flipping through the books...
"Sera!"
A man who appeared to be Sera’s superior poked his head out.
"You’re on vacation. What are you doing here?"
Erzebet was startled on the inside, but she played along nonchalantly.
"Ah, well, I was bored sitting at home. You know how it is, right? Legally slacking off while everyone else is working! There’s nothing more healing than that!"
"Hmm, is that so?" The superior scratched his balding head. "You have a more eccentric side than I thought. When I’m on vacation, I don’t even want to think about my workplace."
"I may not want to look at my workplace, but I love books. I figured I’d take this opportunity to read to my heart’s content."
"Alright, do as you please." He waved his hand dismissively and left.
Erzebet let out an internal sigh of relief, but then the superior poked his head out again.
"Oh! I’m really, really sorry to bother you on your vacation, but could you take a look at this? It’ll only take five minutes. Just five minutes!"
’Right, that must have been the real reason from the start,’ she thought. Erzebet stood up with a smile. There was no need to make a big deal out of it by refusing.
’Humans sure do live such strenuous, difficult lives.’
She had anticipated this and had familiarized herself with this woman Sera’s duties before transforming. Erzebet grabbed only the book from Carl’s dungeon and followed her superior.
’Hm?’
Just then, Erzebet’s eyes narrowed. The Royal Library and the Royal Palace were connected. But among the people entering the palace, there was someone strange. A woman whose face was obscured by a shadow, making it impossible to see. As a legion spy who favored various stealth techniques, Erzebet could tell. That was a considerably high-level stealth technique. No one else had noticed anything unusual.
’Who is that? Why is such a suspicious person at the Royal Palace?’
"Hey, what are you doing over there?" her superior called, turning to look at her.
Erzebet quickly snapped out of it and put on a smile.
"Yes, yes, I’m coming!"
Inside the Dresden Royal Palace, a private reception room.
The woman with the shadow on her face sat down and took a sip of tea. An elderly man sitting across from her spoke.
"How is the research coming along?"
"So-so," she replied with a shrug. The shadow obscuring her face shrank and expanded with the sunlight. "It’s just that recently, some pests within the fiefdom have been trying to bring in outsiders, which is annoying. Complaining to the great lord does no good, so it seems they’re trying to talk to the kingdom or the Dark Alliance directly."
"I will handle that matter," the elderly man said, clasping his hands. "More importantly, you could have sent a letter. Why did you come all the way to the palace in person? I thought you were busy with your experiments."
"It’s one of the arrangements the elder made." She held out her hand. "It’s in this palace, isn’t it?"
"It is."
"The elder’s instructions are to start preparing it. I wanted to check on its condition myself."
The elderly man nodded with a serious expression.
"Follow me."
Simon was spending his hectic days at Kizen. ’Regal Studies’ in particular, a general course he had to take among third-years, was a mountain of material to learn. It taught not only leadership for governing the people of a fiefdom, but also management, military affairs, law, geography, diplomacy, administration, etiquette, and composition.
"Student Polentia. We are now practicing the etiquette of the Dresden Kingdom, not Baldwin. The position of your fork is incorrect."
"Ah, my apologies, Professor."
Simon, who prided himself on having learned proper etiquette from his father, found that there was still much to learn in the Regal Studies class. For an elective, it was quite demanding.
After having his mental fortitude so thoroughly tested, he felt a little better when he attended Jane’s Jet-Black Dynamics class in the afternoon.
"Simon!"
"You’re here?"
The Student Council members, who had reached a point where they could understand each other with just a look, greeted him warmly. There were many familiar Class A students in this class as well. It was amazing how good it felt to be surrounded by people he knew. And of course, it was Jane’s class. The content was, without a doubt, beneficial.
And then came Bahil’s Cursology.
"Student Simon Polentia! Please come to the front!"
Bahil would call Simon up to the podium and have him demonstrate all sorts of things. Simon had to write out curse equations in front of students from other departments, sweating bullets. The attention was rather burdensome.
"To think the drain formula could be interpreted this way!"
Bahil even praised the parts where Simon made mistakes as being original, pouring out interpretations that Simon hadn’t even considered. Simon could feel his face flush with embarrassment.
"Welcome back, Bahil’s boy," Dick teased with a chuckle as soon as Simon returned to his seat.
Simon glared at him, and he could see Kamibarez and Meirin trying to hold back their laughter.
And the problem was the last class: Hong Feng’s Combat Magic. After a long time, they were back on the mountain peak, having clung to the ’Hama’ to get there.
"Alright, everyone! It’z a zhame to zee that your ztamina haz dropped zo draztically from all the eating, zleeping, and playing you did over the break!" She clapped her hands together and smiled brightly. "Firzt, let’z get your ztamina back to itz original level!"
He should have run away then.

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