Chapter 37
Unmanageable Affection?
“Lady Idnia, Duke of Betelgeuse…
Earlier, you deflected the magic missile aimed at me, didn’t you?
Thank you.”
To Idnia’s surprise, Izolde Polchen expressed her gratitude.
Although Izolde had despised Idnia for openly breaking off her engagement with Crown Prince Rudolf, she understood that different matters could be treated separately.
The attack had been impossible for her to block with her own abilities, but it had come from an angle she couldn’t predict, making it dangerous.
And, from the moment Idnia had deflected it, Rakias had suddenly gone berserk, starting his rampage…
‘Of course, it was because of the Emperor’s Will, but she wouldn’t know that…’
Idnia cleared her throat and accepted Izolde’s thanks.
“Please, just call me Idnia. I call you Izolde, after all. And there’s no need to thank me. I just interfered where I shouldn’t have. You could’ve blocked it yourself.”
“No. You were a great help. I can’t even imagine what would have happened if I had gotten caught in that.”
“By the way, if Professor Rakias’ classes are like this, we might be in trouble moving forward. What do you think, Assistant Clarisse?”
Idnia turned to Clarisse, asking if such incidents were common in Rakias’ classes.
“It’s not a frequent occurrence, Lady Idnia. It’s quite rare. Well… maybe once a month?” Clarisse answered, yawning as she spoke.
“…Rare?”
Idnia was incredulous. However, Clarisse, with a serious face, didn’t seem to be joking as she yawned again.
“Ah… Anyway, since class ended earlier than expected, I should at least take a 10-minute nap. I have to watch over the magical creatures’ cells in the lab tonight to make sure they don’t escape…” Clarisse sighed, her voice tired.
Idnia clicked her tongue, hearing this.
‘Those magical creatures used to escape all the time… like in the game…’
After the shocking events, the students naturally headed to the snack shop.
Until then, students had mostly been focused on snacks, but now they found themselves looking at other items in the shop.
Amulets were being sold on the counters, but they were not so much amulets as cheap tin badges with a necklace string attached.
The design was intentionally poor so they could burn away easily…
But perhaps the academy was intentionally mass-producing such low-quality amulets to make money from students.
An amulet to counter Rakias’ charm cost 10 Akacoins.
An amulet to resist Magram’s fire magic cost 5 Akacoins.
“Hmm. If these were permanent items, they would be incredibly cheap… But as consumables with a time limit and durability restriction, they are quite costly.”
Idnia looked at the amulets and, with a hint of sadness, bought one to counter Rakias’ charm.
Unlike the other students, Idnia, who had elements that could provoke Rakias’ obsession, couldn’t afford to ignore this.
“Ah, Lady Idnia. Are you alright?”
Her roommate and fellow saint candidate, Mari, approached her.
“Ah, yes. Mari, how about you?” Idnia responded.
“Well, I shamefully ran away. The energy Rakias exuded was so menacing and… how should I put it… creepy? It gave me chills. Even though I’m a saint candidate, I couldn’t stand it,” Mari said, embarrassed.
“No, you did well to run. There were too many people at the time, and if everyone had panicked, we could’ve blocked the path and risked people trampling each other.”
“Still, it’s embarrassing. But I heard you jumped out the window, Lady Idnia? Are you okay?”
“Yes.”
At that moment, Sendia Aspinal approached.
“What are you two doing here? Hungry? Have you eaten everything I gave you?”
“Ah, Sendia.”
“By the way, students from the South Notos dormitory look unhappy now that the shop is open. The academy is selling proper goods now, so the black market vendors have lost their edge. It’s nice to see them caught off guard,”
Sendia said, grinning with satisfaction.
Sendia seemed pleased that the black market vendors, who had been taking advantage of the students, were being pushed out by the academy’s legitimate sales.
‘If Lorenzo knows about what the shop is selling, he must have anticipated it. The black market vendors are just a distraction for their real objectives… But I must not reveal that I know this.’
Idnia, thanks to the game, already knew why Lorenzo had started the black market at the academy.
But she knew revealing this would turn Lorenzo and his followers into enemies. Worse, they might become dangerous foes. So, Idnia kept quiet.
“The academy is scary. I can kind of understand why they make the graduates keep their mouths shut. If such monsters can show up through the teleportation portal, people will definitely be terrified.”
“Even the Holy Trinity Church would be shocked. No matter how dangerous they are, if they find out such blasphemous beings are teaching the students…”
“The church knows already. They just don’t announce it.”
Mari replied, and Sendia nodded in agreement.
Meanwhile, some students could still be seen approaching the black market vendors, buying items from them.
While the shop’s items were expensive and mostly snacks, the items sold by the black market vendors, like spices and condiments, were more practical for making meals palatable.
It seemed the students could not live on snacks alone, and when considering cost-effectiveness, the black market items still had value.
‘But what about tonight? I still have some mana left, so I want to sneak into the alchemy classroom, but the principal already knows… I’ve seen all five of the empire’s criminals with my own eyes now.’
Having seen all five of the empire’s criminals in person, Idnia decided to assess their respective dangers and characteristics.
First, there was the Dragon Mage, Vülemhide.
He was reckless, violent, and greedy, but he hated being confined at the academy. He couldn’t stand the idea of his sentence being extended, so dealing with him was relatively easy.
Though he spoke roughly, he would avoid harming students because doing so would only extend his sentence.
Next was the Succubus Revolutionary, Sadia.
She was an ideologue.
Dedicated to her revolutionary ideals, Sadia could extend her sentence voluntarily if her ideals demanded it, unlike Vülemhide.
In that sense, she was extremely dangerous, but fortunately, Idnia had already grasped her ideology and didn’t have a temperament that would clash with it.
‘Well, I’m not particularly supportive of the rigid caste system either. As long as I’m not the object of Sadia’s weird, flawed love, I’ll be fine.’
Next was the Lamp Demon, Magram.
Outwardly, he appeared gentle and communicative, but as a being who grants wishes, he was more dangerous than any demon.
Magram obsessed over tangible goods like cash and treasure, and he saw the academy as the easiest place to acquire them. That’s why he hadn’t left and remained here.
His powerful wish magic was a complex and destiny-altering form of magic, something other prisoners of the academy couldn’t wield.
If you didn’t wish for anything, you’d just struggle with his greed for material things.
Then there was the Fallen Angel, Rakias.
His mere existence was dangerous.
In the Holy Trinity Church, angels were considered apostles of the Trinity gods, but in magic research, angels were beings from another dimension. The gods could only summon some of their domains and control them.
But angels were separate beings, not fully under the gods’ control.
Angels descended to the material world as lesser beings, not as gods, and their essence was beyond human comprehension. Rakias’ nature was precisely this.
He felt intense love and affection for all living humans, but he especially fixated on Yurik, the ancestor of the Betelgeuse family.
But his love was an unbearable curse for mortals.
At worst, he could become an assistant at the academy.
‘Hmm. This is serious. I definitely don’t want to become an assistant. Not ever!’
And then there was Vampire Principal Ludwig Blackblad.
The other prisoners had their reasons for being imprisoned, but Ludwig’s history remained a mystery, even beyond three seasons at the academy.
‘At least, the game didn’t reveal any information about him while I was alive.’
However, it was speculated in online communities that he was one of the founders of the academy.
Among the five criminals of the empire, Ludwig was said to be the most powerful, and even the arrogant Vülemhide bowed to him.
Despite being the principal, he had a vampire’s natural weakness, making him weak in the daytime.
Though not as bad as the vampires of old who turned to ash in sunlight, Ludwig seemed more like a reasonable person compared to the other professors.
Moreover, he seemed to have a liking for Idnia.
Was it because she was the descendant of Yurik?
Or because she fought against Rakias when he went berserk?
Either way, the event that didn’t happen in the game seemed to have left a good impression.
‘I did show him the Emperor’s Will, but I didn’t think it would matter. Well, he probably thinks I suppress the Emperor’s Will because I have some intentions in the social world? But because of Rakias, I have to keep it suppressed at the academy anyway.’
Idnia shuddered as she recalled Rakias’ rampage when she had unleashed the Emperor’s Will.
