Chapter 91 Volume III – Chapter 12: Academy Cleanup

I stopped practicing and looked at my watch when I received a very loud notification on my watch, which was almost impossible not to notice.

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CDA: Students within the boundaries of our academy are kindly requested to stay where they are. Your locations are monitored via your watches and if you move 100 meters away from your current location, you will face sanctions. Necessary explanations will be made in the following hours.

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Oh? So they’ve started… Melany acted fast.

Right now, while I’m training in my training room, the royal soldiers outside must be searching everyone inside the academy, and if they’re using the system I’m thinking of, everyone’s location is clear as day.

After all, the smartwatches provided by the academy have a feature that shows the location of everyone within the academy. The only problem is the location of the employees other than the students, but this can be solved simply by an update to the smartwatches or any other technological device used by the employees, to be introduced in advance by royal decree.

In this way, those who are currently on the move will be able to send feedback to the system, allowing soldiers to catch them quickly. This will also minimize the number of people fleeing.

From this point of view, they won’t go to those who are not moving, catching those who are moving should be a higher priority for them, but since we have identified a few people who are direct targets of the organization, and I am one of them, it shouldn’t take too long for them to arrive.

With these thoughts in mind, I waited where I was, and while I waited, I kept repeating the first phase of the style I had been practicing so as not to sit idle. Sometime after I started practicing, a sound echoed around the room.

~knock! ~knock! ~knock!

Ah, it seems like they’re here.

I stood up, and headed for the door, opening it to find two tough-looking men holding what looked like modern rifles from my world.

“Aiden Tenebra, right?”

The man who had spoken had short brown hair, shaved to a number three, and brown eyes. The other man looked like a copy of him, but his eye color was blue, not brown.

“Yes, it’s me. What did you want?”

As I said this, I looked out of the corner of my eye.

A lot of students, academy staff, and royal soldiers were spread out in the corridor where my room was, and I could also see people standing at the end of the corridor that led to my room. The students and academy staff were being searched by the royal soldiers, and some of them had a bracelet on their wrists that, if caught, they were immediately slapped to the ground.

It was a bracelet that the organization gave to its spies. It looked like a simple accessory, but in fact, it was as functional as the watch on my wrist.

Normally in the game, we would learn about the bracelet from a spy we captured on a mission, but I already knew the game inside and out.

“Aah!”

A student around my age was pinned to the ground like the others after the black and red mixture on his wrist.

Other people were panicking at the sight of this and similar scenes, but the royal soldiers seemed to have the situation well under control.

Of course, this was in the corridor of the building, I’m not sure what it’s like outside, but it’s probably not much different from what I’m seeing now.

“A major operation is taking place inside the academy. We will do a small search on you, then you will come with us to your room and there will be a search there too. If you come up clean, you will have to stay in your room for a short period of time.”

“I understand.”

I have nothing to fear from them. I don’t have the wristband that those already in the organization have, so I have nothing to worry about.

Without doing anything extra, I left the training room and closed the door, so they did a quick body search. They checked my pockets, especially my wrists, and said they found nothing important and would escort me to my dorm room.

When I went outside I found the scene I expected, a certain amount of chaos, but the soldiers controlled it quite well. After all, they were royal soldiers, much more professional and efficient than the academy security.

I was walking along, looking around, when suddenly there was the sound of an explosion, not very loud, coming from the right side.

Okay… it’s normal for them to resist, but I didn’t expect an ‘explosion’… it shouldn’t be a problem… right?

“Hey… Is there an attack or something…? What’s going on?”

I had put as much shock and fear into my voice as possible when the soldiers looked at me and then toward where the explosion sounded and frowned.

“We will continue toward your room. Please don’t ask questions.”

Despite the look of horror on my face, the soldiers and I continued walking. They seemed distracted by the explosion, walking faster than before, and so when we reached my room, they stormed in and placed a device on the floor.

When the device activated, it scanned the whole room, emitting an ever-expanding holographic wave around it. Then a green tick appeared on the device and the brown-eyed man spoke again.

“Thank you for your cooperation, now… please listen carefully to what I have to say.”

I nodded curiously.

“The activities of a terrorist group within the academy have been detected and the aim of the current operation is to put an end to these activities. You have attracted their attention with your actions so far. This means that you are very likely to be a target for the organization. Therefore, for your own safety, we ask you not to leave your room.”

I listened to what the man said without interrupting him, adjusting my facial expression accordingly.

“Now, please just stay inside the room. That way there will be no problems.”

The dormitory buildings were all heavily guarded and the guards were all royal soldiers. It was almost impossible for the organization to somehow reach the students. We had caught them unprepared and too suddenly, there was no way they could respond quickly to what had happened.

“I unde-”

I was interrupted by a scratchy, low voice coming from one of the soldiers.

“Clear- target- contr- begi-”

At first, I didn’t understand what was happening. Even the other soldier was looking at his friend in confusion, but then the man who had just heard a noise pointed his gun at his friend.

“What are you doing?”

The blue-eyed man looked at his friend for a moment with a strange expression. It was as if he was hesitating, I could even say he was sad, but then the sound of the trigger being pulled echoed in the room.

Everything had happened so fast. Neither I nor the man who was shot at was expecting it. So the bullets from the gun had literally riddled the man they were aimed at.

“Br- Bryan…”

The brown-eyed man said the name with a meaningless shock on his face. And then collapsed.

The man, whose name I learned was Bryan, pointed his gun at me after brutally killing his friend. Even though they were determined, I could see the pain in his eyes.

All this had happened in just one second.

“Put your hands in the air if you don’t want your end to be like his.”

*******

With quick but timid steps I made my way through the silent and intimidating corridors. After a few quick security checks, I swallowed and knocked on the large door in front of me.

“Come in.”

I swallowed again at the sound of an authoritative female voice from inside. Then I slowly entered.

It was quite a big room. There were decorative ornaments, paintings, and furniture I had never seen used. Apart from these, at the far end of the room, behind countless holographic screens on a table in the center of the wall, a woman whose face I could barely make out was looking at me.

“I’m… here for an urgent report.”

“Something’s going on at that academy, isn’t it? Some spies’ wristband has been disconnected one after another.”

When did she find out about those disconnections when she didn’t even need to do that? How many different things was she checking at the same time?

“Y- ye-”

“Don’t stammer, I hate people who stammer.”

“I apologize…”

I straightened my posture and took a short breath. Even though I had a simple report to make, my life was on the line. Things had changed a lot on this side of the organization since the previous leader had changed, and even if we were afraid of the leader before, this one was… something else.

“Although we don’t know how she did it yet, Melany Quie learned the identity of the spies and the existence of the wristbands they wore. On top of that, she colluded with the royal soldiers and now the academy is sealed off. All our spies are being hunted down one by one.”

She clicked her tongue and the holographic screens in front of her suddenly changed to show almost everything about the academy. For a moment I thought I saw desperation on her face for the first time, but then I realized I was wrong.

A bright smile suddenly appeared on her face.

“How long have you been working for the organization?”

Huh? Why is she asking that…?

I felt boiling water pouring down my head.

“About six years…”

“And how long did you work for the leader before me?”

“About four years…”

The woman kept her eyes on the holographic screen and continued to smile, tilting her head with her hand supporting her chin.

“What do you think Larry, your former leader, would do in this situation?”

I didn’t understand where she was going with this, but I didn’t have the luxury of not answering.

“He would probably arrange for a quick withdrawal of all the spies.”

“Wouldn’t he?”

The woman’s eyes turned from the screens to me.

“But I’m different.”

She seemed amused, she loved comparing herself to Larry, our former leader.

“We will not run, but rather attack while we have the chance. Pass an announcement to the spies and those in the organization, we will counterattack.”

Counterattack? This woman… is she blatantly planning to have all her employees captured or sent directly to their deaths?

“Hmm? Do you have a problem? If you have any objections or suggestions, let me know.”

H- huh? Is this… a trap or something?

“Don’t be shy, I like to listen to the opinions of the people around me. Sometimes there are people with very interesting ideas.”

“I… I think a counter-attack would cost us a lot of casualties. Even if we send in reinforcements from the organization, won’t it be over by the time we get there?”

The woman chuckled lightly and smiled.

“So you are worried. I like the way you say it in front of me without stammering, but you have nothing to worry about.”

“But the royal soldiers…”

“I have nothing to fear from them.”

The woman pushed one of the holographic screens in front of her in front of me. On the screen was a bird’s eye view of the academy and everyone involved in the organization had a red veil around them.

My eyes widened as I looked at the red-veiled people.

Even the headquarters of the organization had never attempted this before because it was too risky. The slightest mistake and the organization could be exposed, and that could ruin all the plans. And the image in front of me… showed that it was happening.

Some of the people wearing the red veils were royal soldiers.

When the woman saw me staring at the screen, her smile widened in anticipation. She looked like a child waiting for praise, but when I didn’t say anything for a while, she lowered her smile and frowned angrily.

She grimaced like a little girl who didn’t get what she wanted and this time she put on a serious expression.

“Stop staring, go and pass the announcement to the organization. Have our men mobilize for the gates to the academy.”

Gates? Since when do we have gates into the academy…?

After only a few seconds of these thoughts, it dawned on me.

The increased number of spies… The gates installed inside the academy and the recent events inside the organization…

When I put it all together, doesn’t it look like the organization is preparing to take over somewhere soon?

This madwoman has been planning a raid on the academy from the very beginning… Now she just needs to execute her plan early.

This woman… Syla Formida may be the bravest- no, the most reckless and frightening leader the organization has ever seen, even if she’s only leading a project right now…

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