Chapter 20 - A Status Window Opened on the First Day of School (4)

“Narrowed it down to three... have I?”

It had taken three days to get this far. Ivan rose, pressing hard around his dry, aching eyes.

His screening criteria had been as follows: people who had suddenly distinguished themselves, people whose personalities or inclinations had changed drastically, and people who displayed strange behavior or speech.

Without Counterintelligence Command's support, that information would have been impossible to obtain. It required digging into the House of Nobles itself.

“The problem is... these three.”

One was an orphan, admitted through a scholarship program for exceptional practical ability. The other two were connected to the House of Nobles. In other words, they belonged to the Crown Prince's Faction.

They were difficult to touch. Ivan might be working under cover, but anyone who traced his connections would inevitably find a link to Counterintelligence Command personnel. And Counterintelligence Command was Elizaveta's right hand. Recklessly provoking the House of Nobles and giving them leverage would damage her political influence.

“Would kidnapping all three be a problem...?”

Ivan tapped the table as he said something that would have made Dmitry foam at the mouth (along with Elizaveta).

One was a much-talked-about freshman admitted on a full scholarship. An orphan, but a promising talent already coveted by institutions across various fields. Rashly antagonizing that one would not end well.

The other two were noble children whose families both held seats in the upper chamber of the House of Nobles. Obviously, he could not simply kidnap them.

If they really were Possessors, he would act more boldly. For now, though, he had only suspicions, no concrete evidence.

Therefore.

“Let's mark these three and watch them for a while.”

He could kill them at any time. Even kidnapping them would be easy. But handling the situation as cleanly as possible, with no repercussions, would require preparation.

And so Ivan decided to report to work at the academy for the first time in three days. From that day onward, rumors began circulating at St. Jansk University about a mysterious prowler.

* * *

Trapped in the shackles of social exclusion by some incomprehensibly malicious twist of fate, Esidisi had few options left.

Fortunately, the semester had only just begun. First impressions might last, but surely there were any number of ways to turn things around. One possibility, for instance, was finding someone even her uncle would hesitate to mess with.

'Dad's friend's daughter...!'

Whether by an arrangement between their parents or some astonishing coincidence, the Hero's Party's children were all gathered in the same year. However thoughtless her uncle might be, he would not dare casually interfere with the hero's child.

That was how this lunch gathering had come about.

“It's nice to meet you, Miss Einarsdottir...? Is that... what I should call you?”

“Oh, that just means I'm my dad's daughter. Between us, please just call me Esidisi.”

“Hmm... But still, you're... a princess, aren't you?”

“Ahaha, a princess, she says. No one's ever treated me like this before. I'm actually tearing up...”

With tears welling in her eyes, Esidisi vigorously shook the pretty girl's hand.

“Oh, that was a bit rude of me, wasn't it...? I'm sorry. I've known Isabelle for a while... You're a freshman in the Knight Department, right? May I ask your name...?”

“Yuri Frank, Miss Esidisi. Please, just call me Yuri.”

“Eshi, stop gushing and back off. This girl is someone veeery important, you know?”

“I'm sorry! I don't know the names of the nobles at Krasilof's court...!”

“No, what are you talking about...! No! I'm not a noble! You'll get me into trouble saying that!”

Chuckling, Isabelle gave Esidisi a nudge. What was with her? What bloodline could possibly rank above royalty?

As Esidisi hesitated, unsure what was going on, Yuri blushed and spoke.

“I'm just an orphan. Even the surname Frank... honestly, it isn't my real father's name.”

“And Yuri's a boy's name.”

“But it's hard to survive on the streets with a girl's name.”

Yuri answered with an easy smile. Isabelle chuckled and turned to Esidisi.

“She's our department's full-scholarship student. She's really good with a sword.”

“Wow, better than you, Isabelle?”

“Better than me, and even better than Oscar. Honestly, I was surprised. Where did someone like her come from?”

“You flatter me. I just got lucky.”

“If your luck beat us, that counts as skill.”

Esidisi felt her heart thaw with warmth. Yes, this was it. This was how it should be. The liveliness of spring, warm sunshine, sharing meals and complimenting one another's abilities, building friendly rivalries... This was the dream.

She sniffled without realizing it, doing her best to banish the image of her uncle, who was probably off chatting with the Knight Department students by now.

* * *

Isabelle, Esidisi, and a freshman, then.

Perched in a tree, Ivan looked down at the chattering group and flipped through his notes. He had not approached within earshot, but his lipreading was extraordinarily accurate.

The conversation was ordinary. The name was Yuri or Yuli. Both names appeared on the freshman roster, but if it was someone on his suspect list, Yuri was more likely.

That presented a problem. A suspect was making contact with the Hero's Party, of all people. And her name happened to be Yuri.

Naturally, in Krasilof's culture, that was a male name. But in Korea... and, to broaden the scope a little, in Northeast Asian cultures, it was used as a female name. A woman who went by Yuri was likely to be a Possessor.

He added one red underline to her entry on the suspect list.

* * *

“What the hell is he doing?”

Wearing a wide-brimmed hat, Enrique stared blankly at her disciple. Normally, his senses were so keen that getting this close would have been difficult. Now he was so absorbed that he had not even noticed her approach.

She turned to follow his gaze. Far in the distance, a few freshmen were chatting on a bench. An ordinary sight.

“Hmm... Is that Isabelle...? That one looks like Esidisi... Those two were already friends... No idea who the other one is.”

Counterintelligence Command had pleaded so desperately that she had decided to check on him, only to find him tailing freshmen like a field agent.

“He doesn't look like he's lost it. Were they just making a fuss?”

Emotionless eyes, near-perfect concealment even with his guard down. The usual Ivan, meticulous about his conduct to the point of paranoia. Enrique shrugged and concealed herself in the shadows.

* * *

“Yevgeny! Wait for me! What class do you have this afternoon? I-I'm going to the Biblical Hermeneutics orientation!”

“I have Gospel Original Language Reading. Sorry.”

“Oh, n-no problem! See you... see you later! Enjoy your class!”

After smiling as he saw off the student whose name he could not even remember, the young man called Yevgeny let his expression harden and walked down the academic building's corridor.

What a pain. Confusing, too. Had he known there would be so much to learn, he would never have chosen the Theology Department... But at the time, it had been his best option.

'I can't do physical work.'

That was an obvious conclusion. He had never even held a kitchen knife in his life. He could hardly start crossing blades with monsters and demons now.

But choosing a career path that excluded him from combat entirely would be just as problematic. He had to pick a class that at least went out into the field.

Hence, the Theology Department. The priest training program would teach him all manner of buffs and healing skills, as well as holy smite spells.

'And this body is well versed in swordsmanship.'

Eugene, the protagonist of <The Swordsmanship Genius and Scoundrel of the Northern Grand Duke's Family>, was a genius with the sword. The system itself had clearly proven that.

While all the freshmen around him languished between levels 8 and 10, with paltry abilities that barely qualified as combat skills, this body had boasted the impressive achievement of [Sword Mastery Lv. 5] from the very first day of possession.

That put him just below the first-year instructors in the academy's—Jansk University's—Knight Department. In other words, he was already beyond freshman level.

The problem was that knowing swordsmanship on a technical level and using it to butcher people were two entirely different things. For a modern Korean who had never so much as wrung a chicken's neck, that was far too much to ask...

“Which is why a priest is the best choice...”

A backline role with no need to stand on the front lines. A simple class where all he had to do was throw out heals. Add above-average swordsmanship, and there was his picture-perfect overpowered character.

They had always said to make what you were truly good at your side job. After all, wasn't it only natural for an idol who could act to be more popular than a talented actor?

There were only two problems with this. First, the Theology Department's curriculum at St. Jansk University was grueling enough to rival anything in modern Korea. Second, a deranged, stone-slinging Santa Claus was after him.

'Seriously, what the hell is he...!'

The original novel had contained no event like this. In fact, this world was nothing like the original novel. The original hadn't been set in this vaguely commie empire, and it hadn't featured a Demon King or a Hero's Party.

It had just been an ordinary noble-house story where they fought an evil family of mages for about 1,000 chapters...!

The only things this world had in common with that novel were the familiar skill tree, the familiar Status window, and the familiar family situation.

A northern grand duke...? This entire country, Krasilof, was in the north! How could there even be a northern grand duke?

'And why can't I see his level...!'

He knew the displayed rating changed to “???” when the level gap grew beyond normal bounds. But there had to be limits. Why was an academy gardener's level like that? He despaired at the thought that even the head of his house was only level 59.

Though he resolutely looked away, a bearded weirdo was glaring down at him from a tree at the edge of his vision, eyes wide. No one else seemed to notice, so he was doing his best to ignore him, but the man was close enough to show up faintly through [Expanded Intuition Lv. 3].

* * *

“He's tailing three people in total.”

Enrique was certain. At first, she had assumed he had been ordered to protect the Hero's Party's children and was going to let it go. But something had bothered her, so she had followed him, and that was what she had found.

The problem was... those three had nothing in common. One was in the Theology Department, one in the Knight Department, and one in the Magic Department.

Their backgrounds were no help either: a duke's son, an orphan, and a viscount's youngest daughter. There was simply no connection.

And then there was that killing intent. He glowered and growled like a tiger crouching in the bushes, as though he were looking at some mortal enemy...

“Aren't those kids supposed to be off-limits?”

The little orphan had practically smashed through the scholarship admissions process and seemed to be getting offers from all over.

The two noble children came from the House of Nobles, clearly members of the Crown Prince's Faction. Nothing good could come of touching them, and worse still, they were in the Magic and Theology Departments. Those departments did have one thing in common: neither department head was from Krasilof.

The Theology Department was, naturally, headed by the Saint, while the elves of Kallion ran the Magic Department. In short, attacking an undergraduate would cause a major incident.

“Oh, surely not. Come on. Surely he wouldn't go that far?”

Enrique chuckled, but privately, she thought that lunatic might well do it for some reason or other.

The Hero's Party's thief, the vampire who had reigned over Prizhenkaya's back alleys for a century, stalked the student stalker, ready to intervene at any sign of an emergency.

* * *

'He looked me in the eye.'

He had been tailing the boy from a considerable distance from the Theology Department's main building, yet the boy had noticed him.

Ivan stared dry-eyed at the young man on his suspect list.

Yevgeny Novikov Karamzin.

Yevgeny was an ordinary name. Nothing special. But in Asian cultures, the name Yevgeny was also used in the form Eugene. Naturally, it carried a different meaning from the Catholic saint Eugenios. In other words, it was a personal name used in both Asia and Europe.

Thus, this boy on the list was also likely to be a Possessor.

Ivan drew two red underlines. Detected concealment. Suspicious movements. Suspicious name.