Chapter 399: 399

After leaving the elders in the hall, Michelle went into her room, relaxing into a chair in the courtyard.

If anyone wanted to come look for her, she would welcome it.

Lazily, she closed her eyes, wondering who would be the first one to disturb her peace.

And, to her surprise, it wasn’t anyone unpleasant.

“I see causing chaos amongst the elders didn’t throw you off the least bit,” Benjamin, the ancestor, walked into the courtyard.

Michelle opened her eyes to look at him.

“Grandpa!” She sat up straight, a smile on her face.

“How have you been while I was at the Academy?” she asked, motioning to the chair near her for Benjamin to sit down.

Benjamin didn’t let Michelle ask him again.

He strolled over and sat down.

“You know, just the lazy life of an old man.”

He had a slight smile on his face.

It was clear he was pleased with the ruckus Michelle had caused.

Or maybe he was just smiling because he loved and doted on his granddaughter so much.

Michelle didn’t know the answer, but she wasn’t even all that curious.

Who knew?

Maybe both her guesses were true at the same time.

“I hope nobody bothered you because of me while I was in the Academy,” she sat up straight to talk.

Around an elder like Benjamin, she would act respectful.

Only the dumbasses from the elder hall would get the nasty treatment.

“Come on, who do you think would dare bother the family ancestor? Do I look like a weakling to you?” Benjamin looked as careless as ever.

“But I heard someone tried to bother you back at the Academy. What was that about?”

Though he was still smiling, Michelle could see he was annoyed solely by the thought of someone bullying his granddaughter.

Michelle smiled.

“It was nothing really, grandpa!” she reassured him.

“I wasn’t even in the Academy at that time.”

The last sentence made Benjamin frown.

“You left the Academy for some period? Why? Did something happen?”

The sudden question made Michelle realize that while Benjamin knew that she (as Ana) had a lover who was a Guest Teacher in the Academy, he didn’t hear the story of how Alexander appeared in the Academy for the first time.

So, she told a bit of a crook of the story again, mentioning that she got kidnapped, but making it sound not all‑that‑dangerous.

She made it sound like someone was just trying to prank her by bringing her out of the Academy, and in that time, she met Alexander.

She also avoided the topic about the fact that when she returned, her dorm bathroom was riddled with blood, dissected organs, and gore.

But Benjamin already knew about that part and started questioning her about it.

He also told her that from what he had been seeing in the residence for the last months, he had a good guess about who the culprit of that was (and that guess aligned with what Michelle knew).

Benjamin had noticed that Andrew Ostrich Senior had been frequently having secret conversations with one of Vincent’s enemies.

And Andrew had his son in the Academy.

Benjamin was nearly certain that Andy Junior was the one who brought Michelle out of the Academy and put the gore into her room.

He was trying to threaten her, not prank her.

That was Benjamin’s assumption when he had limited information because he didn’t really bother himself about the family.

Michelle actually knew similar things.

The one who put the gore into her room had to be Andy.

But he wasn’t behind her kidnapping, since there was nothing like that.

It was just Alexander who brought her out of the Academy.

But the knowledge to the whole of the Ostrich family would remain that she had been kidnapped.

That was the plan from the start and there was no changing it.

Michelle talked with Benjamin for a long while.

He thought she was his granddaughter, and even if she wasn’t the real granddaughter, she took quite the liking to him.

Not all that much — she didn’t consider him her grandfather — but she liked talking with him.

He was one of the very few people in the Ostrich family that weren’t antagonistic toward her.

That was actually why the Academy was better, but also more boring.

In the Academy, Michelle mostly interacted with people who had a positive relationship with her.

Those were Vincent and Francis Ostrich, Lucas Deeber, John Anatoly, and Marcus and Anthony Julians.

Naturally, there was also Alexander, Noctis, Unlucien and Caelith, along with her fellow disciples of Marcus and Anthony.

She would like to say that Andy Ostrich was antagonistic toward her, but that guy was smart and quickly realized that she was not to be messed with.

After the incident of putting the gore in her dorm room’s bathroom, he didn’t try anything more.

And Michelle was sure that he had been ordered to do more.

Also, it wasn’t like he didn’t have a chance.

So he must have realized she was someone out of his realm of power, even if she was said to be a weak cultivation trash.

While Michelle talked with Benjamin, a figure appeared in the gate into her courtyard.

A servant of the family head.

“Come in,” Michelle beckoned at him.

“Why did your Master send you to me?” she asked, leaning back in her chair.

Like she straightened up when Benjamin came, when the servant appeared, she dropped her posture.

“The family head calls you to the Spirit Onslaught room…” he spoke hesitantly, worried the ancestor (Benjamin) would snap when he heard that.

And Benjamin was far from happy when the servant’s words reached his ears.

For a moment, he just stared at the servant before moving his gaze over to Michelle.

“You don’t have to go. I will protect you.”

Though he said that, he had the feeling that his granddaughter wouldn’t take up the offer.

Michelle stood up from her seat and looked at the servant.

“Lead the way! I don’t remember where it is.”

That was plain arrogance.

Every member of the Ostrich family knew where the Spirit Onslaught room was, and saying they didn’t know where it was was the same as saying they didn’t know where their own room was.

But the servant (having already heard of what had happened in the elder hall) didn’t dare defy her and led her to the place.

Once again, Michelle walked lazily and slowly, not caring that the servant was casting her passive‑aggressive glances, trying to make her walk faster.

After a good while (which Michelle took as a stroll through the gardens of the Ostrich family), Michelle stopped in front of the Spirit Onslaught room.

There, two guards were already waiting for her to send her in.

Michelle didn’t even look at them and walked into the room.

The two guards closed the door behind her.

It was heavy, and they had to work together to shut it.

Inside the room, Michelle glanced around.

The machines had yet to start shooting, so she could focus on pinpointing their location.

But she didn’t have long time for that.

After under a minute, the spirit stones in the machines got to work and they started shooting at Michelle.

And she, instead of taking it like the guards and elders expected, summoned some void around herself to block out the strikes.

She could see through the walls of the void and observe the machines working.

They were much cruder than the machines Lucas prepared for her in the Academy to train with.

But at the same time, they had additional spirit stones which constantly sucked in the spirit energy from the surroundings to evaluate the level and rank of the person in the room.

So the power of the strikes could be adjusted and wouldn’t kill the one being punished.

While Michelle was in the Spirit Onslaught room, back in the Academy, Alexander was finishing his business.

While it was mostly the three shadow guards who worked, Alexander had to coordinate them and conceal them from the gazes of the Academy people so they wouldn’t have more memories to twist in the Academy’s teachers and students.

To make sure nobody escaped the memory manipulation from the shadow guards, Alexander erected a huge barrier all around the Academy.

That was the only additional thing the shadow guards had to wipe from the memories.

Once things were done, no one would remember Alexander’s real name, nor the barrier.

When things were done, Alexander felt like going to Michelle, but he knew the Night Dwellers were causing trouble, and as the Dark Lord, he should at least check things out.

So, Alexander went to Noctis’ faction to look through the information the people there had gathered.

Noctis had already told him a lot, but going through the information himself could let him have deeper insight into it.

It took a while for Alexander to go through everything.

The Night Dwellers had already been a nuisance for a while, so the documentation about them was quite big.

But Alexander went through it systematically so as not to get lost in things.

Even like that, it took him over a day to get through everything, but anyone else would have spent longer.

Also, getting the information like that let him understand more than just from what his subordinates told him.

In reality, Alexander wasn’t yet planning to engage himself in the Night Dwellers thing, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t get some information beforehand.

Just so when he eventually had to get involved, he wouldn’t get lost in the loads of documents.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep