The Return of the Iron-blood Sword Hound

Chapter 294: Last Semester (1)

"...."

Vice Principal Morg Banshee.

He frowned as soon as he got out of bed and into the morning light.

His face did not straighten as he took off his cute, mismatched sleeping cap, eye mask, and pajamas.

"Not a good dream."

He had a strange dream the other night.

A nightmare so unpleasant that it left not only his clothes but his bed soaked in a cold sweat.

It was a dream of a giant one-eyed snake and a unicorn fighting each other.

The one-eyed snake wrapped itself around the unicorn's massive body, squeezed, and tried to swallow it in one bite.

The unicorn tried to resist by waving its horn, but everything was in vain as soon as the one-eyed snake opened one more of its closed eyes.

With its left eye glowing an unusually golden color, the snake wrapped itself around unicorn and swallowed it in one bite.

"Why, this is such a bad dream on a day when I have to report to the principal. Is it because of stress?"

Professor Banshee grumbled and got ready for work.

He walked out of the guesthouse and made his way to the lecture hall.

He ignored the greetings of his students, and even those of his fellow professors, and headed straight for the principal's office.

In his hand, he carried a stack of reports that he had prepared until last night.

Knock-knock-knock.

The knock ended, and the door opened by itself.

Inside, Principal Winston sits with his usual mild expression.

"Well, Professor Banshee. I see you're early."

"Yes. About a minute and a half early. If you're in a hurry, do you want me to wait outside the door until your appointment?"

"No, no, no. Just come on in."

Winston motioned for Professor Banshee to come in.

Banshee dropped a stack of reports in front of him.

"This is the accounting for the greening of the school."

Winston had redesigned the Academy's landscaping as soon as he returned to his position as principal.

Greening. It was a project to more than double the number of trees and plants on campus.

Winston had a gentle nature and loved planting trees.

The principal's office alone was filled with plants of all kinds, and no one thought it was strange.

"We also put in new magic stones."

During the recent midterms, a student named Vikir had found a gap in the magic wall and entered the arena through it.

It was a potentially disastrous event if misused, and Winston had increased the Academy's security with the new magic stones.

However, Professor Banshee was skeptical.

"Compared to the old ones, the new ones have the advantage of better mana efficiency and higher hardness of the magic walls, but their durability hasn't been proven yet."

"Hahaha. Isn't that why you alternated the old and new magic stones, so that the invaders wouldn't know where the old magic walls are and where the new ones are, and they'd be confused... no, there wouldn't be any invaders in the first place."

Winston finished and looked at Professor Banshee with sympathetic eyes.

"You're always concerned about the safety of your students, I admire that."

" ...I'm just a little guy who's worried about preserving his position."

"That's not true, Professor Banshee, and I know that even though you say it on the outside, you don't feel it on the inside, so I've worked hard to live up to that."

As he spoke, Winston held something out in front of Banshee.

It was a bracelet decorated with black seeds that looked like jewelry.

The seeds had grayish roots that grew out from beneath them, and it was designed to be sized to fit around the wrist.

"It is the key to passing the new magic wall. It's a bracelet type. These days, many people are replacing locker rooms in bathrooms and gyms with something like this, right? It looks like the security is good."

"So it's an artifact that contains magic, do you think you can mass produce it?"

"I'm making them by hand whenever I have time. I've already made enough for the students, I just need to distribute them. I'll make some for the professors when I can afford it."

Winston smirked, and Professor Banshee grunted and groaned.

Then he thrust a new sheet of paper in Winston's direction.

"That's enough of the security stuff. Next on the agenda."

"Hmm? What is this? I don't think I've been briefed before."

"This is not a formal report, but there's something I wanted to bring to your attention personally...."

"Hoo-what is it?"

Winston stretched his neck toward the document with interest.

Professor Banshee hesitated for a moment before speaking.

"The mood within the Imperial Capital has been odd lately."

"What does it mean to say it's not unusual...?"

"Look at the statistics."

Professor Banshee gestured to the various graphs, diagrams, and charts in his papers.

"There has been a subtle increase in criminals within the Imperial Capital lately."

"That's because whenever there's a big event in the Imperial Capital, there's an influx of people."

"No. This is the rate of increase in crime relative to the incoming population, which means that the crime rate itself is higher than normal due to the influx of people."

Professor Banshee narrowed his eyes. Then, in a cold voice, he analyzed the current situation.

"Criminals from across the Empire have been flocking to the Imperial Capital lately. Reports of witnesses to wanted criminals have also increased."

"That's a big deal. What is the Imperial Guard doing?"

"Strangely enough, they've noticed that their arrest rate has dropped a lot lately. They say the criminals have been fleeing suspiciously, as if they knew in advance that they were going to be arrested, and some of the most wanted criminals have even become elusive, which leads them to wonder if someone is helping them run and hide...."

"I see, but what does that report have to do with the Academy right now?"

"Well, as the principal knows, we're about to have finals and parent-teacher conferences at the same time, and with the way things have been going lately, I thought you might want to push back the date...."

Then Winston chuckled.

"Isn't this Colosseo Academy the place where geniuses who will one day become the great heroes of the Empire are educated? And the professors who teach them? And the parents of the students, every single one of them. The backbone of the Empire's military might."

"...."

"This is where all these great people come together. Who cares if there's a bunch of criminals running around outside?"

"...."

"But I understand and respect your caution, Professor Banshee, and that's why I, too, am concerned with improving security by replacing the magic stone, isn't it?"

Professor Banshee could only nod.

Well, no matter how hard the criminals out there try, they won't be able to do even the slightest harm to the parents who come here.

They weren't an 'organization' in the first place, they were lowly beings who had no ability or reason to harm the Academy.

"Indeed. And a final report."

Professor Banshee turned to Winston.

"It concerns the matter of Professor Sady's dismissal."

For the first time, Winston's expression changed.

He had a truly embarrassed and sad expression.

" ...Did Professor Sady cause something again?"

"Yes. We've received a tip-off that she has been dishonest in her duties as an advisor to the Imperial Guard."

"...Uh-oh."

"It's said that she was sloppy and negligent during search and intelligence activities, getting into feuds with colleagues, losing or missing important supplies or information, and even showing up unauthorized during arrests, which we later found out she had fallen asleep in her office while drunk."

"Haha... that damn alcoholism. Professor Sady is a very capable person if she doesn't drink."

"That too is a thing of the past. To be sure, back in the day, Professor Sady did a fine job as an advisor to the Imperial Guard's tracking team, in fact, so much of the criminality of the time was captured by her that it almost rivaled the exploits of the Marquis de Sade in his heyday. She was even called 'the second coming of the Marquis de Sade,' but now she's just an alcoholic loser who does nothing but bemoan her lot and deny reality."

Professor Banshee snapped, as if he had a lot on his plate.

Then Winston closed his eyes and fell silent for a moment.

Silence. A heavy silence.

Winston opened his eyes and spoke with a heavy sigh.

"I'm going to discipline ...."

"Something as light as a pay cut or suspension cannot be accepted...."

"Understood, I'm going to use my title as principal to severely discipline her in this case."

Only then did Professor Banshee shut up and retreat.

I was wondering if saying that would end up as a light punishment.

After his report, Professor Banshee walked out of the principal's office.

Thud, thud, thud, thud, thud.

As Professor Banshee walked down the darkened hallway, a black shadow flickered by his side.

Stopping in his tracks, Professor Banshee spoke in a low voice.

"Did you recognize it?"

The shadow behind him leaned in behind Professor Banshee and spoke.

"Yes. There was definitely a lot of stuff going on behind his back."

The Banshee had unleashed a separate informant to do a background check on the principal.

'I'd like to know why you're so cheap with Professor Sady.'

It was enough to get rid of her as an eyesore.

Then. Professor Banshee's confidante told him something surprising.

"Principal Winston's affection for Professor Sady wasn't due to any of these trivial things, full honors for a descendant of nobility, to be an elite arresting agent with a high rate of arresting criminals, and to increase the number of members of the principal's faction, which is already very small, by at least one more... It wasn't because of these little things."

"Then what was it for?"

The confidant answered in a very small voice.

"Perhaps it has something to do with the '47 people riot'."

It was a report that made Professor Banshee's eyes widen to tears.

* * *

"Now- today's lesson is about the major events since the Unified Empire~"

The professor said, tapping the blackboard.

The first-year students were listening to the lecture with eager expressions.

The professor said.

"There are many big events that happened after the Unified Empire, such as the 'Western Front Barbarian Subjugation', the 'Merger of the Five Swordsmen', and the 'Great Escape from Nouvelle Vague Prison', but... the biggest one would have to be the '47 People's Riot'. Who can tell us about this event?"

A few hands went up among the students.

The professor pointed to the first student to raise his hand.

"Okay. Let's see if Sinclair, the head of our Hot class, can answer."

There was the sound of a chair being dragged out and a female student rose from her seat.

Sinclair, a girl with white hair and a calm voice.

She calmly began to share what she knew.

"The '47 People's Riot' was an unprecedented event that occurred thirty-five years ago, when the Empire had just been unified. It was caused by 47 people, but each and every one of them was the head of a family, hence the name '47 Family Riot'."

"That's great, can you tell me more about it?"

"It was a rebellion in which 47 people staged a coup d'état, slaughtering countless people and storming the imperial palace. As a result, 46 of the 47 were summarily executed on the spot, and the one survivor is currently imprisoned in the 'Nouvelle Vague', a prison in the remote corners of the continent. It is also believed that their motives for staging the coup are still unknown, and that they were simply after the throne...."

Sinclair answered without a pause, and the students around her let out a small gasp.

"Hasn't something changed, Sinclair?"

"Huh? Like what? I think she's still smart."

"Not that, I mean her demeanor, her vibe."

"Ah, yes, she's been strangely cold lately."

"But that's kind of charming, too. It's like she's grown up."

"That's what I was thinking, too. She's grown up overnight. She's gone from a girl to a woman."

She was always a cheerful little girl.

Sinclair, who used to remind me of a playful puppy, has changed a lot in recent days.

For some reason, something has changed in her that is impossible to pinpoint, but she has grown quite mature overnight.

In the same way that a girl grows into a woman through some unknown process of her own, Sinclair seemed to calmly accept and embrace the inner changes that were happening to her.

When she finished and sat down, the professor clapped.

"That was a good answer, Student Sinclair, and I hope you'll be just as good in your final exam for Hot Class this afternoon."

The professor glanced around the room.

"As I'm sure you all know, not only you but also many parents will come to the final exams that will be held later."

There's no way the students don't know that.

For the past few days, there has been no fuss about the greening project, security project, or whatever, and the principal personally planted trees and plants and rearranged the magic stone.

So the students were mostly moody.

After all, the finals were for Tudor and Bianca, the cold class, and Grenouille and Sinclair, the hot class, because it was the stage for these four and they were the bridesmaids..

While some students were excited to see their families for the first time, others were worried that they would be scolded for their poor grades.

Is that why? The professor revealed another piece of news to get their attention.

"And guess what, we're about to have a new friend in our school!"

A new student. That's always a fresh interest.

One student raised his hand and asked.

"Professor, is there a transfer student coming?"

"That's a great question, but unfortunately, no, not a transfer student!"

The professor waved his finger in the air.

"It would be more correct to say that it's a transfer student, not a new student, this is because it was not transferring the academic records from another school, but rather enrolling in a new school during the semester. Anyway, it's good to have new friends!"

"Wow – what kind of friends are they – girls, boys, ages, and oh yeah, I'd like to know what class they're in too!"

The students asked curiously.

The professor smiled and replied.

"Gender is female. Her age is 19, which is one year younger than the average first-year student, and she belongs to the Hot Class. Since she is transferring from the famous 'Mage Family Morg', I think you can learn a lot from her. Her name is...."