Ch.328328 – Private Operation 3

<328 – Private Operation 3>

As I was heading back to the dormitory with a gloomy face after leaving the office, I sensed something suspicious.

“I’m not joining any club.”

“That’s a misunderstanding.”

“I’m not giving you any points either.”

“I have plenty of points myself.”

“And I’m not accepting any proposal to attack a professor, knock them out, and pretend the assignment never existed.”

“…Are there really idiots who do that?”

Only then did I stop treating them like a peddler I was trying to chase away and looked directly at their face.

A student wearing a robe pulled suspiciously low spoke.

“If you want to save Oknodie, follow me.”

“!”

I turned to follow a beastkin student who had just offered information I couldn’t possibly ignore.

The beastkin student led me to a secluded, quiet warehouse area so remote I wondered if such a suspicious place even existed within the Academy.

“Who are you? How do you know how to save Oknodie?”

“I’ll answer all your questions at once. Wait.”

I realized that not only me but other students with familiar faces had been called to this warehouse area.

“It’s been a while since the cruise ship incident.”

“Who gathered this group?”

“Could it be Oknodie?”

But strangely, students with strong combat abilities were noticeably absent.

Neither Hestia, Irene, Zhang, Zigoku, Ishtar, nor Titosoga—none of the reliable fighters were present.

I thought perhaps I was the only senior year student randomly called, but that wasn’t the case either.

Even powerful underclassmen like Rozini or Sandcooker weren’t invited.

They deliberately gathered only weak students.

Or rather, students they perceived as weak.

…I sensed impure intentions.

“I don’t like this. Everyone should leave…”

“It’s already too late.”

As students hesitantly tried to leave the warehouse, a group of robed students pushed their way in.

Animal ears poking out from under their robes and tails protruding from beneath pants or skirts revealed their identity without words.

“Beastkin…?”

“That’s right. We are beastkin. Beastkin who hold many grievances against you humans.”

“We don’t particularly think badly of beastkin.”

“We didn’t particularly think badly of you humans either. But it was you humans who betrayed us first.”

A male beastkin student stepped forward in anger, pointing at me as I represented the group.

“You will be sacrificial lambs for our Beastkin Revival Movement’s crime statement. You must pay the price for daring to raise an army and invade the Great Forest beyond the human boundary.”

“Wait a minute. I really don’t understand what you’re talking about. Invading the Great Forest? That couldn’t happen in today’s world. Besides, it has nothing to do with us.”

“Our homeland was almost invaded without any justification. If you want to blame someone, blame your own kind…”

The male student’s speech couldn’t continue to the end.

One of the people standing behind him in a robe stuck a syringe into the back of his neck.

“Who… who’s betraying… why, fellow kin…?”

“Fellow kin? Don’t make me laugh.”

The male student in the robe pulled back his hood and removed the animal ear headband he was wearing.

“It’s the Foundation’s order. Die quietly, Morrdor.”

Morrdor, a Beastkin Revival Movement member enrolled as a student.

His true identity was a Foundation scholarship student under the beastkin quota.

Morrdor couldn’t hide his sense of betrayal.

“I’m also… a scholarship student… why……”

* *

“Oknodie demanded we strike against the Beastkin Revival Movement, but isn’t that quite the coincidence?”

The Chief of Staff, who had no desire whatsoever to agree with the Chairman whose humanity was questionable, found himself aligning with him on this occasion.

“It is indeed a coincidence. Haha. I sometimes wonder if I’ve given birth to a child I don’t even know.”

The Chief of Staff asked.

“I think there’s a possibility that Oknodie might have made the suggestion knowing that the Revival Movement is a subordinate organization of the Foundation.”

“What do you think, Chief of Staff? About ignoring that child’s advice and leaving the Beastkin Revival Movement alone?”

“Since it’s an exposed organization anyway, leaving it alone would only make me uneasy. Moreover, if their planned operation has been leaked, it’s even more dangerous.”

The Beastkin Revival Movement had planned a mass killing order targeting regular students to eliminate Oknodie’s position and drive scholarship students out of the Academy.

If that had been discovered, Oknodie wouldn’t have gone down quietly, and the professors who valued her wouldn’t have ignored such information.

The connection between the Beastkin Revival Movement and the Foundation would be exposed anyway, and the Foundation’s subordinate organization would be cut off.

“That’s wise. In Go, the chess of the East, there’s a saying: Don’t cling to stones that are already dead.”

The Chairman and the Chief of Staff were in agreement.

“Begin the disposal. After the semester has started, so the Academy students can witness it clearly.”

Mainstream Chapter 2 – The Criminal Organization Attack Incident.

It was the moment when the victims became spies from a criminal organization rather than ordinary students.

* *

Primer, a Foundation scholarship student, brazenly responded even in front of the professor who came to investigate.

“Those beastkin bastards were going to kill innocent students. If I hadn’t stopped them, what would have happened? I did nothing wrong.”

“…There are mitigating circumstances. However, killing a fellow student and being released without any punishment might make the Academy’s regulations seem like a joke. Please understand that detention will continue at least until we confirm that Primer’s statement is true.”

Primer willingly accepted such a minor punishment, thinking it was nothing.

When he first received the Foundation’s order, he was honestly dazed.

The faction within the Foundation that wanted to eliminate Oknodie was very disappointed with Primer for not fully completing his mission.

He thought they had issued an unreasonable order to dispose of him, but looking at how things were unfolding, the target the Foundation was aiming at was behaving suspiciously.

Primer, a master of betrayal, quickly assessed the situation.

‘Is the Foundation trying to cut ties with the Beastkin Revival Movement?’

While pondering Professor Layve’s attack motive, Primer realized something.

Even Oknodie had only warned the imperial students she was at odds with by injuring them, not killing them.

Those who were trying to cross a line that even the top scholarship student hadn’t crossed were fools blinded by revenge.

━━━

Eliminate Morrdor, a Beastkin Revival Movement scholarship student, just before he implements his plan to kill other students.

━━━

The Foundation’s order clearly specified a condition.

Dispose of him right before he crosses the line.

Morrdor might have survived.

If he had suppressed his desire for revenge.

If he had tried to assess the situation rationally.

All unrealized possibilities.

‘Don’t think too badly of me, friend.’

It’s not my fault you died because of your stupidity, is it?

* *

Arcadia went to find someone who could explain the incident that had occurred the previous night.

“Zaku. Since you’re a Foundation scholarship student, you must know the whole story, right? Is the Academy’s official announcement true that both the perpetrator and victim were affiliated with the Foundation?”

“It’s true. I can roughly guess the cause too. It’s the result of Primer succeeding in a <Command Reset> against Morrdor, both of whom received heavy orders due to accumulated failures.”

The Foundation’s orders become more difficult and dangerous as failures accumulate.

For things to escalate to murder within the Academy, they must have failed quite a few orders or important missions.

“What benefit does the Foundation get from doing this? They’ve only exposed their scholarship students’ identities. Six more Beastkin Revival Movement spies were caught too.”

“The scholarship students who were planning the massacre with Morrdor were attached to a different tail than mine.”

“By different tail… you mean the Foundation’s contact person, right?”

“Yes. You’ve studied the Foundation well.”

“When you have a knowledgeable colleague nearby, you learn a lot of information whether you like it or not.”

Although it felt unsettling, the incident was already over.

Arcadia, who was trying to forget it as a thing of the past, learned the full story of the Foundation’s staged play from Oknodie, who returned to the Academy the very next day.

“Ddidda! You’re back. Are you hurt anywhere?”

“I’m fine! More importantly, Arcadia unnie. Did you receive my gift?”

“Gift?”

“I issued the order to kill those bad beastkin who were going to harm everyone!”

“…!”

An order issued by one faction of the Foundation to kill members of another faction.

The strange source of that order was finally revealed.

“It was your order, Ddidda!?”

Ddidda is a good child.

Not a bad child.

But if she issued a kill order to save us, should she be considered good or bad?

I don’t know.

I really can’t figure it out.

In her confusion, she noticed Sing snickering behind Oknodie.

“Think simply. You owe her your life. What else matters?”

“…That’s right. Ddidda helped me again this time.”

To have doubted such a child, even for a moment, thinking she might be bad.

Arcadia felt intense self-loathing.

“Ddidda. I won’t doubt you anymore. No matter what happens.”

Oknodie, embraced in Arcadia’s arms, smiled brightly.

“Really?”

“Of course.”

“Liar.”

One resolute word of distrust.

Arcadia was startled.

“Why… would you say that?”

“Because Arcadia hasn’t reached 100 affection points yet.”