Ch.89Chapter 89. Must Catch (1)

# <Sub-Quest (3-1) ‘Thorough Until the End’>

Objective: Eliminate Landgar’s subordinates

Description: Eliminate the remaining members of The Nameless Organization hiding in the academy.

Reward: 4 Stat Points

Penalty: Leave of absence from Crescen Academy

‘There were still some left?’

That was my first thought upon seeing the quest description.

Come to think of it, Landgar couldn’t have been working alone.

He must have had collaborators or subordinates.

I just didn’t expect they would still be in the academy even after Landgar was captured.

“How do we find them?”

“Hmm. If the captain mentioned it, there must definitely be remnants left, right?”

Yuria asked me as if seeking confirmation.

Instead of answering, I nodded with certainty.

If this were information I’d heard somewhere, I would have verified it first, but this was a quest.

In a way, it’s the very reason for my existence here, so it couldn’t be false.

“The most ideal method would be to get cooperation from the academy staff and thoroughly search the entire academy, but…”

Yuria trailed off with a troubled expression.

“The academy would probably be reluctant to conduct an open search. They would cooperate if I asked, though.”

The ideal method is always the hardest to implement.

That means we need to think of alternatives.

“What about Landgar?”

An alternative.

Getting information from Landgar, the leader of the remaining subordinates.

Yuria shook her head at my question and let out a small sigh.

“He’s being very stubborn. I never expected to get a confession from him while he was sober, but even mental magic doesn’t work on him.”

“Hmm.”

A brief silence fell over the office.

Yuria was the first to break it.

“We don’t have a choice. I’ll talk to Professor Amillion. The academy will probably take action once they learn about Landgar’s remaining subordinates, but…”

“But?”

“I’m not sure if we can find them even by thoroughly searching the place. They’re extremely thorough at hiding their traces.”

Yuria furrowed her brow as if dealing with a headache.

This was coming from Yuria, who had been tracking Landgar’s organization for years.

If Yuria, who sometimes has faster information than our Black Shadow Corps, says this, it must be truly difficult to find them.

“Then why don’t we draw them out?”

“Huh?”

Addy, who had been quietly doing her work in a corner of the office, suddenly chimed in.

When both Yuria and I focused our attention on her, Addy shrugged and continued.

“It’s one of the simplest methods. If you can’t find a hidden opponent, lure them out.”

“…That’s actually a very good point. Addy, do you have any good ideas?”

At Yuria’s question, Addy’s gaze turned to me.

Why is she looking at me?

“Me? Why me?”

“Captain, you have something that would make excellent bait. Something that would tempt those who have lost their leader and are weakened.”

“I do??”

What do I have?

Despite Addy’s confident statement, I couldn’t immediately think of anything.

As I struggled to figure it out, Addy continued with a surprised expression.

“The horse you brought, Captain. The undead horse. It looked quite powerful, enough to serve as bait, don’t you think?”

“Ah.”

“Oho.”

I nodded immediately upon hearing Addy’s words.

Judging by how Yuria widened her eyes and snapped her fingers, she seemed to have the same thought.

That’s right, I have Greenie.

“That’s not bad?”

It was truly a good idea.

**

“Sir Nigel, what should we do?”

“Ugh. Shut up.”

Nigel gestured dismissively at the subordinate who was asking for his opinion with an irritated voice.

The subordinate quietly bowed his head and left the room.

‘Damn it!’

The situation was truly awful.

Once the subordinate left, Nigel read the letter on the desk once more.

He had already read it so many times he could recite it from memory, but he read it again out of habit.

At first, this letter had seemed like salvation.

The 3rd Elder Landgar, his superior in the organization, had been defeated in battle.

Not only that, but he had been captured by the Empire.

Because of this, Nigel thought it was only a matter of time before he was caught too.

Until now, he had been able to hide under the shadow of the academy’s vice principal, but not anymore.

But contrary to expectations, Nigel and the other organization members hadn’t been caught.

Although Landgar had been captured, he wasn’t dead, so the barrier he had set up was still effective.

Thanks to this, Nigel and his group were hiding in plain sight within the academy, but no one could detect them.

But that was all.

They weren’t being discovered, but there wasn’t much the troops could do without their leader.

Besides, logically speaking, if the strongest 3rd Elder had lost in battle and been captured, what could the remaining people do?

So they were essentially trapped inside the academy, unable to do anything.

In this situation, a letter from the organization was like rain during a drought.

Nigel had read the letter with hope that they would come to rescue him and the other subordinates of the 3rd Elder.

“Damn it all!”

Nigel shouted, unable to contain his anger as he roughly threw the letter.

The contents of the letter were completely different from what Nigel had expected.

It instructed them to carry out the original plan even without the 3rd Elder.

Furthermore, the organization would not provide any support, and if the planned task wasn’t executed soon, they would all be executed.

In other words, they were being told to die one way or another.

If they tried to execute the plan without the 3rd Elder, they would obviously fail, and if they did nothing, the organization would come to kill them directly.

The organization had no intention whatsoever of rescuing them.

“Haaah.”

Nigel took a deep breath, trying to control his trembling body and think calmly.

He didn’t want to end his life so pathetically.

Not after everything he’d been through.

As bitter and disgusting as it was, he needed to think about the option with the highest chance of survival.

‘If I do nothing, I’m 100% dead.’

Nigel knew very well that he couldn’t escape the organization’s execution.

The Nameless assassin.

It was a name every organization member knew well.

Anyone who betrayed the organization or revealed even a bit of information to outsiders would definitely die.

By the Nameless assassin, whose true identity no one below the Elder level knew.

Then the only way with even a slight chance of survival was to execute the original plan.

‘Ugh. If only we still had the undead wyvern.’

The original plan they had been working on with the 3rd Elder was to turn the academy into an undead fortress.

Crescen Academy was in the middle of the Empire’s capital, but that made it even better.

If they succeeded, it would be like infiltrating the center of enemy territory, right in the middle of the Empire.

In reality, with the 3rd Elder’s black magic barrier and the Founder’s power, the plan had a fairly high chance of success.

Even the great mage Willian wouldn’t be able to break through the barrier surrounding the fortress.

If that happened, they could continuously produce stronger undead using the talented students with good bloodlines in the academy as sacrifices.

Nigel thought this plan had already failed when Landgar was captured.

Because the most important person who could create the barrier was gone.

The spell scroll given by the Founder to deploy the barrier was still there, but…

‘This alone isn’t enough.’

Nevertheless, the organization ordered them to proceed with the plan.

It was a suicidal act with even less chance of success than hitting a rock with an egg.

If they at least had the undead wyvern, their chances of success might have increased by even 1%.

But that wasn’t the case, and numerous undead had been annihilated in the festival incident.

It was questionable whether the remaining undead could handle even the academy staff, let alone the imperial army.

‘But at least it’s not 100% certain death.’

Perhaps it was because he was in a crisis.

Normally, Nigel was hot-tempered and his judgment clouded when angry, but now was different.

The option with even a slightly better chance of survival was still to execute the plan.

They didn’t have Landgar’s barrier, but they did have the Founder’s spell scroll.

‘Yes, perhaps now is the opportunity, when they’re letting their guard down because the 3rd Elder has been captured.’

Besides, the remaining undead were quite powerful.

Unlike those skeletons that froze solid with just one area-of-effect ice magic.

Better to choose a 1% chance than 0%.

Just as Nigel had made up his mind and stood up, a shadow passed by the window where moonlight was streaming in.

For a moment, he startled, thinking it might be an assassin, but fortunately, it wasn’t.

Nigel reflexively looked out the window.

Perhaps because he was in what was essentially an underground basement, the moon seemed unusually high in the sky.

And blocking that moon, something was floating in the air.

‘W…what?’

Nigel squinted, staring at whatever was floating in the air.

It wasn’t a bird, that was for sure.

It clearly had no wings.

The thing floating in the air, seemingly looking around, was a horse.

A horse without skin.

“Huh?”

Nigel jumped in surprise, pressing close to the window as if about to break through it.

A horse floating in the air, surrounded by green flames and pawing the ground.

It was certain.

That undead which had disappeared so unceremoniously during the competition.

The green-flamed Death Knight.

The problematic skeleton horse that had vanished into the dungeon that day was now right there.

“W-why is that here!”

As if hearing Nigel’s exclamation, the horse that had been floating still in the air began to move.

Slowly, as if out for a casual stroll.

‘I must capture it!’

The thought intuitively flashed through Nigel’s mind.

He had to capture that horse.