Chapter 44: Return to the Academy (2)

After leaving Silence at the academy stables, I glanced up at the night sky. Stars adorned the darkness, illuminating the heavens.

Using the starlight as my guide, I returned to my room and froze while unpacking when I saw parts of the statue of Pierre.

‘Why did I bring this?’

I couldn’t fathom it. I had no idea why I’d done something so ridiculous.

If pressed for a reason, I could only explain that I’d acted on impulse in a moment of anger.

I shoved the hideous hunk of metal into a corner of the room and unfolded the letter that had been stuck to my door when I entered.

‘A letter from Otar?’

Nearly two weeks had passed, so it wouldn’t be strange if he’d set up the new workshop by now.

Reading the contents, I found a map to Otar’s new forge and instructions to visit if I was still alive, just as I’d expected.

The location of the new workshop, quite far from the city center, was similar to where it had been before.

‘I’ll go there tomorrow….’

Upon returning to the academy, my first stop was Hori’s room.

I needed to greet her and return the potions I hadn’t used while fighting Lobo.

‘Should I take this too?’

The staff and rapier I’d torn from Pierre’s statue in Ponpon Village.

Keeping such monstrosities in my room felt wrong. I figured I could pass them off as tacky tourist souvenirs.

I decided to pawn the rapier off on Otar and headed to the girls’ dormitory with the staff.

Sneaking past the guards patrolling the girls’ dorm like a ninja, I found myself in front of Hori’s room, just as I had before.

The coast was clear. The patrol had just passed through, so they wouldn’t be back for a while.

I scaled the wall to Hori’s window and gave it a gentle knock.

Light shone from inside, so she couldn’t be asleep, but there was no response even after several knocks.

‘Did she fall asleep with the lights on?’

Peering inside, I saw Hori at her desk, writing something.

She was so focused that only her writing arm moved; the rest of her body was perfectly still.

‘No choice, then.’

With her so engrossed, I had no other option. Using the wall as a foothold, I leapt up and aimed a kick at the window when it came into view.

-Swish!!

Punching through would make too much noise. I had to slice the window with my sword to minimize sound.

One pane of glass split into an X and fell away. I reached through the gap to deftly unlock the window.

I slipped inside, but despite my entry, Hori remained absorbed in her work, not even turning around.

“…”

A mental sword strike flew toward Hori’s head. She jolted as if doused with ice water and leapt to her feet.

“I-Ian?!”

“Hey, I’m back.”

With no spare chair in Hori’s room, I perched on the edge of the bed. Hori clutched her head and exclaimed:

“W-what just happened?!”

“Remember what I told you about fighting those thugs? I can strike at opponents just by thinking about it.”

Finally realizing what had happened, Hori’s hands trembled as she spoke:

“Don’t ever do that again! I’ll really get angry if you do!”

“Alright, I get it. But you were so focused you didn’t respond to me knocking, so I had no choice.”

“Knocking?”

Recalling that her window had been locked, Hori turned to look.

Seeing the missing pane, she asked incredulously:

“Um… there’s a piece of glass missing from the window….”

“Use this to fix it.”

I placed a few silver coins on her desk. Hori let out a defeated laugh.

“I’ll… tell the dorm supervisor about the window later. But how was that Marang beast? Was it strong?! Did the potions I gave help?”

Hori peppered me with questions about the potion’s duration, effects, and side effects, but unfortunately I had no answers to give.

Instead, I handed her the unused potions and pills. Hori’s eyes widened as she said:

“Y-you didn’t use any of them? Why…?”

“I meant to use one, but the right moment never came.”

“The right moment?”

If this were a game, I could just press a button to pop a pill. But reality isn’t so simple.

You have to reach into your pocket for the pill bottle, take out a pill, and swallow it.

It sounds easy, but against a formidable foe like Lobo, there’s no time for such openings.

Moreover, I couldn’t risk it without knowing the exact duration or severity of side effects.

There was a chance when Lobo was transforming, but it’s proper etiquette to wait patiently during an enemy’s transformation.

Besides, I doubted all future enemies would give me such convenient openings, so improvements were needed either way.

“I see. Then if we made it something you apply to your skin instead of ingesting… No, we could lower the potency but greatly extend the duration so you could take it before battle…. That would reduce side effects, or we could modify it like assassins do, implanting it in a molar to use when needed….”

After hearing my thoughts on the Lobo fight, Hori grabbed her pen and a stray piece of paper, furiously jotting down notes.

Figuring this would take a while, I snatched the pen and paper from her hands. Hori snapped out of it and looked up at me.

“I’m sorry…. I have a habit of writing down ideas as soon as they come to me….”

“Don’t worry about it. But can I ask you a favor?”

“A favor?”

“Yeah, could you give this to Peter… the Knight Department professor?”

I handed her the duel challenge I’d written on the way back to the academy.

Hori took the letter-like challenge, and upon hearing what it was, she flinched and said:

“N-no way! If you pull something like this again, you might really get expelled this time, not just suspended for three weeks!”

“It’s fine. This time I specified a location outside the academy for the duel.”

“But still…!!”

“I’ll use the potion you made during the duel.”

“So I just need to give this to Professor Peter?”

At the mention of her potion, Hori’s previous objections vanished, and she nodded eagerly.

“But when is the duel scheduled for?”

“The date?”

I’d written two days from now in the letter, but Peter might have his own circumstances, so it could end up being later if that didn’t work for him.

“Two days from now…. I’ll try my best to improve the potion by then! Please make sure to use it in the duel!”

“…Don’t make anything too weird.”

“Weird? When have I ever made something like that…?”

While it’s true she hadn’t overtly made anything strange so far, I vividly remembered seeing the names of torture herbs written down the first time I came to this room.

“Anyway, this is a souvenir I brought from the village where we went to hunt Marang… Lobo. You can have it, use it as a decoration or whatever.”

“What? Oof…!”

Hori took the staff statue, but her alchemist’s strength wasn’t enough to hold it, and she promptly dropped it.

I quickly caught the falling staff before it hit the floor.

“Be careful with that!”

“It’s a bit heavy for me…. I appreciate the thought, but I don’t think I can move it.”

With no other choice, I had to take back the Pierre statue’s staff that I’d brought.

I’ll have to pawn this off on Jessica later.

The staff’s blunt shape is kind of similar to a hammer, so she’ll probably like it.

“What the…”

The next morning, after a light breakfast, I couldn’t hide my disappointment upon seeing Otar’s new forge marked on the map.

The new workshop wasn’t a dilapidated ruin like the previous one, but it was far from the grand buildings in the city center.

If I had to describe it, I’d say it was ordinary. The kind of place you’d be directed to if you asked about a decent blacksmith in any random town.

‘It’s not like I’m living here anyway….’

I should have expected this kind of building when I heard it was on the outskirts, far from the city center.

-Knock knock.

I knocked on the door like I had the first time, but it didn’t open, nor did I hear any invitation to enter.

No smoke rose from the chimney, and I couldn’t hear the sound of hammering metal, so he probably wasn’t absorbed in work this time.

‘Is he still asleep?’

It wouldn’t be strange for him to be asleep at this early hour. I thought about waking him with a sword strike as I opened the door….

“…Wow, you really came.”

“…I’m not sure if that’s fortunate or unfortunate.”

Otar was waiting for me, along with a black-haired woman I’d never seen before.