Ch.226Chapter 226 – An Outcome No One Expected

Early morning.

Waking up from sleep, I checked the student management window to see if there had been any news overnight, and found one alert waiting.

[Notification: A letter has arrived for Count Pathos Severio.]

“A letter?”

A letter first thing in the morning? What could this be about?

Unable to tell who sent it, I tapped on the alert and detailed information about the sender appeared.

[Letter Sender: Imperial Palace of the Gelebrio Empire]

[Letter Recipient: Count Pathos Severio, Special Admission, 2nd Year, Glesius Academy]

The sender was the Imperial Palace.

When sending letters, one is required to include both the affiliated institution and the individual’s name.

So when only the sending institution is listed like this, it’s quite easy to identify who actually sent it.

“His Majesty the Emperor has sent me a letter.”

Knowing it was from His Majesty, I became curious about what might be written in it.

“Hmm… where are you going?”

“His Majesty has sent me a letter. I’ll just go pick it up quickly.”

“Okay… take care…”

Leaving behind Sister Regina, who was still half-asleep, I slipped out through the back door of the Tower of Documents.

Being early morning, the academy was very quiet except for the chirping of birds.

How long has it been since I’ve walked through the quiet academy like this?

I’ve been moving around so much that I’ve spent far more time outside the academy than within it.

“I hope I can enjoy a proper academy life starting next year.”

Well, I wouldn’t mind graduating right away, but… the battle with the Demon Cult wasn’t over yet.

I heard that the Demon Cult had recently caused a major disturbance, and Sister Regina and Eterna had to personally intervene to suppress it.

The reason Sister Regina could leave me behind and go to the scene was, of course, because of Cheonhyeryeong.

With the Heavenly Horse God, the leader of the Heavenly Horse Divine Sect, volunteering as my guard, who would dare touch me?

Thanks to that, while Sister Regina was away suppressing the disturbance, I was able to converse with Cheonhyeryeong and grow closer to her.

Currently, Cheonhyeryeong was in the Eastern Continent.

She left because the Demon Cult had been showing increasingly fierce resistance in the Eastern Continent, and it was determined that the current forces of the Heavenly Horse Divine Sect alone would not be enough to completely suppress them.

So as soon as Sister Regina returned, Cheonhyeryeong departed for the Eastern Continent using the Heavenly Horse Dimensional Step.

Seeing how she could freely come and go without being affected by the magic barrier protecting Glesius Academy… the barrier might seem useless, but when I heard that only the Heavenly Horse God could do that, I had to accept it.

“I’ve come to pick up a letter, but is anyone here?”

Arriving at the main gate, I knocked on the door of the guard post where a security guard should be on duty.

“I wondered who it could be so early in the morning. It’s you, Count.”

After I knocked, a tired-looking guard on duty opened the door and appeared.

“I heard there’s a letter for me.”

“Yes, there’s a letter that needs to be delivered to you, Count. Would you mind waiting a moment? I’ll go get it right away.”

“Please do.”

With my permission, the guard immediately closed the door and went back inside the post.

Judging by the clattering sounds coming from inside, he seemed to be searching diligently for something.

After a while, when the noise subsided, the door of the guard post opened.

But what the guard brought out wasn’t an envelope containing a letter, but rather a somewhat large box.

“Here it is. It took some time because it’s such a confidential letter that I had to bring out the entire box.”

“A box?”

Certainly… sending it in a sturdy box like this would be a safer way to preserve a letter than just a plain envelope.

But this seemed a bit excessive.

Anyway, after receiving the box from the guard, I lugged it back to my quarters, struggling with its weight.

When I returned, Sister Regina was wearing an apron and preparing breakfast.

“You’re back early? What’s that box?”

“This is supposedly the letter.”

When Sister Regina asked what I was holding, I showed her the box as I answered.

“Really… that guy always uses such troublesome methods.”

Seeing me struggling with the box, Sister Regina used magic to help move it more easily.

After placing the box, which was now floating in the air, on the table, I put my palm on the lock part, and with a clank, the lock opened.

Removing the unlocked padlock and opening the box, a letter wrapped in an elegant envelope was revealed inside.

“They used such a heavy box just to protect this one thing?”

“That’s how it is with letters from the Imperial Family. If I remember correctly, this box is used for sending the most confidential letters…”

“When did they start using these?”

“Let’s see… about 150 years ago?”

…

I knew she was old, but when it hits me suddenly like this, even I’m surprised.

Anyway, since they’ve been using this method for a long time, I could only hope that the contents inside were actually important.

I broke the seal of the letter, took out the paper inside, and slowly read its contents.

Well, “read” might be an overstatement since there was only one sentence written on the paper.

[It appears the Demon Cult has completely withdrawn from the Empire.]

Though there was only one sentence about the complete withdrawal of the Demon Cult, I couldn’t believe this fact, so I showed the contents of the letter to Sister Regina as well.

“W-what? Is this true?”

Sister Regina seemed unable to believe the contents of the letter I showed her, reacting with surprise.

In truth, I was also quite shocked.

The Demon Cult has completely withdrawn from the Empire?

Since it was written in a letter from His Majesty the Emperor, it must be true.

“The Demon Cult has completely withdrawn from the Empire… is this really believable?”

“Well… could it be related to that riot they caused?”

Sister Regina was suspicious about the large-scale disturbance the Demon Cult had caused previously.

“Is there something suspicious about it?”

“Yes. The Demon Cult typically flees when the damage exceeds a certain level. But this time was different.”

“Different how?”

“The Demon Cult followers who caused the disturbance this time were not only numerous… but individually powerful, and above all, they showed an extremely strong will to fight to the end.”

A strong will to fight to the end…

From my limited understanding, it seems the Demon Cult had some reason they absolutely needed to buy time.

In other words, a diversionary tactic.

In military operations, one side creates a distraction while the units with the real objective move stealthily, right?

“So they deliberately caused a disturbance there to protect something, or to buy time somehow, trying to draw people’s attention.”

“That’s right… and that was probably…”

Sister Regina didn’t finish her sentence, but I could easily guess what she was trying to say.

“You mean they sacrificed themselves to buy time so that all the Demon Cult members in the Empire could escape abroad.”

“That seems to be the case. Really… we fell perfectly into their strategy of sacrificing the few for the many.”

Sister Regina reacted as if she’d been blindsided.

“Was there any detection of their activities near the borders?”

“The borders are too vast. They probably slipped out before being detected.”

“Or they might have dug tunnels to escape.”

“Sigh…”

Neither I nor Sister Regina had anticipated this.

What we thought was a last stand turned out to be just a diversionary tactic to allow their people to escape abroad.

The one fortunate thing was that the Demon Cult’s activities had completely disappeared from the Gelebrio Empire.

Is it a small consolation that now we only need to worry about attacks from outside?

I could only hope that they would never return to this Empire.

◈◇◈◇◈◇◈◇◈◇◈

The remnants of the Demon Cult who fled from the Gelebrio Empire.

“Don’t you know that only death awaits foolish heretics?”

Standing before them was Eterna, the Holy Maiden of the Solar Order and Chief Inquisitor.

She had been tracking those who fled from the Gelebrio Empire, forming an encirclement with holy knights from the Solar Order and other orders.

“The Sun God’s hunting dog…”

“Quiet. I’d like to end this tedious battle now.”

The Demon Cult members gathered here had numbered as many as 23,000, making them the largest group of Demon Cult members active on this continent.

But now, only about twenty of them remained.

All the others had been hunted down during the pursuit.

As Eterna lowered her thumb, which had been raised upward, the holy knights who had formed the encirclement approached the remaining Demon Cult members.

The future that awaited them was obvious without needing to be said.