Chapter 46 - Stalker vs. Stalker (1)

As previously noted, each of the United Kingdoms worked hard to cultivate its own intelligence organizations.

Among the twelve member nations, the four that qualified as great powers—Droan, Kallion, Thilles, and Krasilof—were somewhat more professional about it than the others.

Droan's intelligence organization, for instance, worshipped the four elements.

Water, which always knew the answer.

Magical fire, which made people cough up the truth when burned.

Mystical wind, which made people divulge their past when hung from a pole.

The silent earth, which concealed every truth once buried.

Combine the love of all four elements, and you had an intelligence organization, Droan-style. In practice, this meant dragging people in and beating the crap out of them.

The elves of the Kallion archipelago, on the other hand, preferred highly sophisticated methods. As the leading practitioners of Mind Sorcery (the school of mental spells), their espionage was exceptionally sophisticated and friendly.

Their specialty was friendly intelligence gathering through the enthusiastic use of making friends (brainwashing) and playing pranks (memory manipulation).

Thilles, the kingdom of knights, simply asked outright when they wanted to know something. A remarkably honorable approach, apart from the fact that they took refusal to answer as an insult and initiated trial by combat.

In contrast, the Extermination Unit Ivan had served in, its predecessor, "Enrique's Children," and its successor, Krasilof's Counterintelligence Command, preferred surprisingly modern intelligence work.

"Observation," "evidence collection," "signals intelligence," "technical intelligence," "terrain intelligence," "establishing human intelligence networks"...

In other words, they practiced the orthodox espionage that the other great powers described as "foolish."

[Had a sandwich for lunch again today. Filling: chicken breast. Sauce presumed to be mustard. Nutritional imbalance a concern. No vegetables apart from tomato. Recommend a vegetable-based diet.]

Responsible for the safety and health of the Hero's Party's children, Ivan recorded this vital intelligence in his notebook and took his hand off the telescope.

* * *

The unprecedented hospitalization of every Knight Department freshman had an unexpected consequence.

"This can't be reaaaaal!!"

Exam season had been extended by a week.

Had only one or two examinees been absent, the department might have failed them or arranged makeup exams. But with nearly every student seriously injured, it declared a weeklong suspension of classes.

Practical exams were one thing. Written exams were another. These PE students, studying for exams for the first time in their lives, ground their teeth and vented their fury.

Their principal targets were theology, magic, fine arts, and music students...

Especially the music students.

"Why just yoooou?!"

"We're in the same College of Arts!! Why do only you get to be this happy?!"

"Ican'tbelievethisthisisn'trealitcan'tberealwhydoesaknightneedtostudyforwrittenexams?"

For the record, music students also studied for written exams. Musical movements, formal analysis, counterpoint, harmony. In fact, they had more courses assessed entirely through written exams than the Knight Department did.

Naturally, such facts meant nothing to sword-wielding brutes.

Those music bastards.

They would suddenly start bellowing unaccompanied vocals together in their clubrooms. (Vocal performance majors practicing for practical exams.)

Or randomly twang and plonk their instruments while walking around campus. (Orchestral music majors practicing ensemble performance.)

While upstanding members of society sweated and struggled to make a living every day, these people earned money just by sitting in the marketplace and singing! (Busking is extremely difficult.)

"Ugh. That sweat stink. Mister, you're supposed to shower before coming into the dining hall. That means pouring water over yourself, working up a good lather with soap, scrubbing every part of your body, then rinsing it all off."

"You crazy bitches...!!"

Scenes like this were a common sight around campus at this time: enraged Knight Department students, and music students laughing at them.

No one knew whose idea it had been to group the Knight Department and the College of Music together under the same College of Arts, but may the Lord curse them.

In this turbulent age, Esidisi was singing a song of sorrow.

"Next."

"Crazy bitch... Crazy bitch..."

At the College of Arts' outdoor gymnasium, Esidisi held Fiddle upside down, staring chillingly at its warped fingerboard.

Behind her stood her classmates.

Before her stood Knight Department students who had lost the will to fight.

Beneath her feet lay five corpses (no, they weren't), each with part of their head split open.

All of this was the result of the strongest music student in history rising up in the name of justice.

Fiddle I had sacrificed its life for a friend.

Fiddle II had met a tragic, untimely end.

And here, now, Fiddle III was making its last stand for her honor.

As previously noted, an instrument was a musician's life. Wielding it as though she wielded her very life, Esidisi punished the lawless scoundrels who had set foot through the College of Music's gates.

"That's five Knight Department students beaten senseless by a freshman music student!"

"Ahahaha!"

"Do you see, you ignorant fools? Sufficiently advanced 'music' is indistinguishable from 'martial might'..."

"Go back. Tell everyone... The College of Music shall now 'reign supreme' over every department in the College of Arts..."

The upperclassmen had no intention of joining in the freshmen's games. The Knight Department's upperclassmen were eating popcorn and watching their freshmen get beaten to tears, while the music upperclassmen had never been confident they could beat even a freshman knight.

And so this impromptu "sparring match" was becoming a festival for the College of Arts' freshmen. (Note: The Knight Department was still in exam season.)

The traitors among the department's top students—Yuri, Isabelle, Oscar, and the like—had outrageously ignored this little episode to devote themselves to studying. The students had only one option left.

The one who never studied, yet had brought the entire department to its knees through practical prowess alone... the Heavenly Demon...!

"Bring him... Bring the Boss!!"

"The Boss. Right... Once the Boss gets here, you're finished!"

Spouting lines worthy of third-rate street villains, one freshman ran off somewhere.

Soon, a hulking middle-aged man appeared. It was Morde, the strongest Knight Department freshman in history.

"But I have to prepare for my next exam..."

"Don't lie to us, Boss!! Besides, our department's honor is lying in the dirt! Who cares about some stupid exam?!"

"What the hell are these idiots talking about?"

Hadn't they been angry because they were the only ones still taking exams? If exams no longer mattered, why had they been angry in the first place?

The wise Huscarl of Droan grasped the truth at once. Ah. They just wanted to run away from their exams and have fun.

Gathering his wits and looking ahead, he saw Esidisi clutching a half-broken violin.

"How many months did this one last, Eshi?"

"One month, Uncle..."

"Well done. At least you made it past three weeks."

Morde nodded readily and turned around.

"I forfeit. I lose. Ah, the College of Music is too strong. Einar's daughter, all right."

"Good heavens... Blood ties matter more than school ties, Boss...? What about the Knight Department's honor?!"

"For the record, Eshi and I aren't related. We just come from the same place."

"Droan... I won't forget this...!!"

"Stop talking nonsense and go study some more, you idiots."

"You're not my Boss anymoooore!!"

Only after one young noble from Thilles ran tearfully back to the department's main building did the day's commotion end.

Watching quietly from behind a tree, Ivan raised his pen and amended his notes.

[Esidisi. Better suited to percussion than strings.]

* * *

'Oh, right. I don't have time for this!!'

Esidisi started. She had become so caught up in the commotion that she had forgotten her duty.

Her duty was, of course, to be a student. But Esidisi Einarsdottir, freshman orchestral music major, and Esidisi, "Isabelle's friend," had to be entirely different people.

This moment called not for an ordinary music student, but for a warrior armed with righteousness and chivalry.

As luck would have it, Fiddle had already drunk a decent amount of blood.

Steeling herself, Esidisi set off to find the wicked villain hiding somewhere on campus. To discover his intentions and punish his sins.

Her father, too, would surely support her righteous use of force.

* * *

To emphasize once again, Ivan was an entirely harmless, ordinary-looking university employee.

He was, after all, a master of concealment, infiltration, and covert operations. If he wished to pose as an ordinary person, he could be more ordinary than anyone.

But there was no need for such advanced infiltration techniques. His appearance was fundamentally unremarkable, easily forgotten after a passing encounter.

"Eek...!"

A Magic Department student fled out of Ivan's sight in a fit of terror.

Since Ivan was currently hanging by one hand near the top of a tree, concealed in shadow, the student's keen eye deserved praise for spotting him.

Of course, Ivan had memorized the personal details of everyone on campus. He recognized the young man as a student who had once littered cigarette butts, and whom he had consequently treated to a "smoking cessation clinic."

What a shy student.

Such youthful innocence befitted a university student. Ivan nodded expressionlessly and turned his gaze elsewhere.

Elpihera.

Veolgrin's daughter.

The Magic Department's top freshman, a prodigy who had broken the department's all-time record in the practical entrance assessment.

He narrowed his eyes at her and raised his notebook.

[Poor relationships with peers, apart from a handful of followers. Takes after her father.]

He had been compiling this profile for some time, with nothing but honesty and no malice whatsoever, when...

"Hm."

Feeling someone's gaze, Ivan turned his head.

* * *

"... It wasn't just Bella..."

It occurred to her that Isabelle—and perhaps even Enrique—might not be the man's only "prey."

The terror of that predator, "observing" someone from a distance in search of "weaknesses," weighed down upon her.

The man rumored to have sent all fifty Knight Department freshmen to the Theology Department's intensive care unit. The mad cigarette collector. The nightmare behind the trees. The bearded freak... The man with handsome eyes (that was Isabelle's opinion)...

Drawing ever closer to the horrifying truth with every rumor she collected about the "gardener," Esidisi hid in the bushes and watched Ivan: the strange man hanging from a tree, staring at someone from the Magic Department and taking notes.

"Stalker..."

She had become a stalker stalking the academy stalker.