章 101: Secret Love
The harvest of the night's hunt wasn't as bountiful as the preceding day, nevertheless, Arthur was satisfied.
He was going to stay quite a while in the Nemia Academy, therefore, he would have ample time to further increase his stats. Of course, killing every beast that lurks in the Blue Blossom Forest might give rise to some complications from the Principal's end.
Furthermore, it would ruin the place's ecosystem, though that was the least of the parasite's worries.
To begin with, the Blue Blossom Forest was around the same size as the entirety of the Nemia Academy, thus making it decently-sized in terms of landmass.
Arthur had just been hunting in the outskirts and only tonight did he venture deeper. The black tiger he had encountered must've been one of many, and if there were a stronger variation of the tigers, then the same could be said to the cunning and annoying baboons and the burly boards.
Moreover, Arthur's side-objective wasn't to earn skills but stats, so clearing the weaker beasts first was time-efficient and significantly easier.
…
Julian was a first-year like Verno and Nader Coach. However, he was in class 'Beta', which didn't have as many prominent students as class 'Alpha'.
Still, when he attended the first period, Arthur did notice a handful of talented students that had above-average Mana Reservoirs, but they weren't at the level of Teresa Moon.
Besides acting like a normal student, Arthur spent all of his free time in the library, which was where the vault was located.
It was on the top floor of the massive building of Elvish architecture. Very much like the rest of the building in the campus, the Library, or more precisely, the building it was in, was made from special white stones called 'Elven Brick.'
It was a high conductor of Mana and allowed protective magical formations to be cast on it, thus facilitating the procedure of building layers of defense that resisted outside assaults, specifically magically-asped ones.
'Most students aren't allowed access to the third floor and fourth floors. Teachers can access all the four floors but aren't even allowed to use the staircase leading to the vault… at least not without proper identification and permission from the Principal. Unless I get close enough to touch it, I won't know if I'll be able to break the barrier. The golems seem frighteningly strong too.'
Just in case the Sun Alchemists failed in obtaining the Alchemy Scripture, Arthur wanted to formulate a safe plan to acquire the prize, but it was a near-impossible task, even with his arsenal of skills and his racial abilities.
The place was guarded to the teeth and protected by massive golems that emitted a dangerous aura. Furthermore, there were layers upon layers of translucent blue barriers around the whole top floor.
Arthur had gotten a good look at Jonathan, and while the youth was definitely stronger than normal students, he was still not that impressive. Even Evelyn could beat him, which made Arthur wonder if a special magical artifact would be used… or if there was an unknown helper he hadn't discovered yet.
'If I remember correctly, the Principal's most trusted confidant is Melissa Crimson. However, there is another distinguished mage… hmm.'
Arthur deliberated for a while, Arthur left the library and headed to a church-like building East of the building.
After greetings to the two priests conversing outside, he entered the 'church' and was welcomed by rows of students with heads lowered and praying in unison.
At the back of the spacious room was a middle-aged man with a well-shaved beard and an eye-catching white robe with a long and wide red stripe going from the left collarbone to the ankles.
'Parmenas, one of the former Deacons of the Holy Church and now the Teacher of Holy Arts in the Nemia Academy. I've heard people talk about his rocky relationship with Sonia. Could it be him?'
Parmenas looked like a kind-hearted man as he chanted the prayer with a clarion and soothing voice. His hands were clasped near his chest as he knelt on the ground.
Even when Arthur entered, no one paid him attention, so he joined the ground and imitated their actions while probing Parmenas.
He could feel an immense quantity of Mana within the man's body; It was pure and serene as it flowed through his body. In terms of Mana quantity and quality, he was superior to Melissa but weaker than Sonia, though that wasn't enough to accurately gauge his prowess.
'I need a better appraisal skill. 'Magic Sense' isn't that reliable and doesn't allow me to plan ahead.'
Before making risky moves, Arthur liked to properly know what his opponents were capable of. Even though he was strong, this place was different from Wilsden, which made any acts of recklessness highly-risky and possibly life-threatening.
In the evening, Arthur- still in Julian's body- headed to the coast and snuck into the Sun Alchemist's new hideout.
The three didn't go there daily, so there were no risks of being discovered. Then again, with what he was about to do, being discovered wasn't that worrying.
He planned to go in and out quickly.
With the use of the rarely-used ability he had gotten from the private investigation, Arthur used [Keen Senses] to locate the hidden mechanism. He imitated what Jonathan had done and was able to open the hole and retrieve the contents stored inside.
Instead of leaving it empty, he took out a letter from his pocket and stored it inside.
Green mist swirled around him as he swiftly left the hideout.
Moments later, Jonathan barged in, looking slightly panicky. He cautiously looked around before dashing to the hidden hole. However, when he opened it and only saw the letter, his face distorted.
He shredded the letter open and read its contents.
"Nader…"
A distance away from the hideout and the campus, Arthur was taking a walk and enjoying the coastal breeze.
He had a box full of letters in his hand, which made him slightly surprised. He expected an artifact or something special, but they were just letters.
"Hm? It's perfumed."
Curious, he opened one of them and read its content only for his surprise to deepen.
"Really?"
He opened a second one, but it was similar to the first. At first, he suspected that code words were being used but they were actually love-letters between Jonathan and a girl.
That was really it.
"Is he having a secret affair or what? Why so much secrecy?"
There were nine letters in total, all of which were directed at Jonathan and written by 'J'.
From the loving words and the perfume, it wasn't hard to determine that 'J' was a girl, and a young one at that.
In summation, the contents of the nine letters were responses to questions, flirtatious words, and promises about a soon-to-happen meeting.
Nader had just finished his last class and was heading to the dormitory, but, out of the blue, Jonathan charged at him.
He held Nader by his collar and glared at him menacingly.
"Where are they?! I'm going to kill you!"
It was apparent that Jonathan wasn't in his right state of mind. His face was red from anger and his hands were trembling.
"What?"
Naturally, Nader was startled and perplexed, however, he kept his calm and didn't retaliate.
"Do you think this is the right place to act like this?"
Nader motioned at the students around them, who stopped their chatter and were throwing cursory glances.
"You… this isn't over!"
Jonathan let go of Nader and backed off. He looked livid as he contained his rage and controlled his breathing. He knew that he shouldn't attract any attention and act rationally, but he got heated in the spur of the moment.
Nader watched as Sun Alchemist Spy angrily stormed away. His eyes narrowed as he remembered the letter he received from Jonathan.
In it, there was the location of the Sun Alchemist's temporary hideout, but Nader perceived that letter as an invitation to trap him and eliminate him.
'Something weird is going on. Verno is too stupid to do any of this.'
It wasn't long before Nader started suspecting foul play, but he had no target in mind. He knew which spies were part of the Sun Alchemists and which spies were under Verno. The only variable was the traitor, whom Nader was aiming for.
Four days later, around midnight.
Arthur pushed away the tree trunk crushing his lower half and grunted in annoyance.
He didn't miss a single day of hunting, thus increasing his stats at a relatively fast and steady pace. Nevertheless, each time he fought that big black tiger, he wasn't able to kill it.
It was exponentially growing stronger, so much so that with each confrontation, Arthur was left amazed and speechless.
Its bodies were riddled with scars, not just from his magic but from battles with other equally-strong beasts.
Either they were doing it purposely or not, Arthur had not caught a scent of powerful beasts like the tiger. He kept hunting the weaker ones while regularly tailing Jonathan.
For now, the plan was to make use of 'J' to threaten Jonathan and force him to get the Alchemy Scripture.
Arthur didn't wait all year for the Sun Alchemists to initiate their plan, so he was going to use Nader as bait.
Basically, he would make it look as if Nader abducted the girl, therefore using her to get the Alchemy Scripture and exchange it with Verno for the traitor. At least that's what Jonathan would presume.
By no means was it a brilliant plan, but it had a high probability of working. Moreover, Arthur would remain in the shadows and would not have to reveal himself.
Plus, by tailing Jonathan, Arthur would get to know if the former Deacon was in cahoots with the Sun Alchemists or not.
"You have three days left, but I need to make you understand the cost of failure."
Verno kicked Julian to the ground before grabbing his hair and snapping his fingers with his free hand.
A spark of vermillion fire appeared, emitting a dangerous heat.
Julian whimpered tearfully, but he wasn't able to break free nor was he brave enough to do so.
"Ahh!!"
While cackling manically, Verno burned Julian's upper arm. He seemed to be enjoying seeing the youth cry and groan in pain, so he didn't stop.
After a couple of minutes, Julian laid on the ground, his face wet from tears and snot and a third of his right arm scorched.
One of Verno's lackeys dragged him to his feet and forced him to bow towards Verno before dragging him outside.
"Be grateful and do your damn job."
"I-I will" Stutteringly responded Julian as he dragged his shaky feet back to his room.
Unexpectedly, just as he reached the door, Joshua exited. The youth was wearing a conspicuous black robe as he fearfully and anxiously looked at the injured Julian before dashing away.
'Heh, couldn't be more suspicious if you tried.'
Once inside the room, Arthur laid on the bed and switched hosts. This time, he used one of the 'special hosts' he got stored in his magical bag, which he had constantly been keeping on him for precautionary measures.
Its storage capacity was pitifully small, but Arthur was able to squeeze one large host and several small ones, though it was the smaller ones that were dangerous and very useless.
One of them was the 'Acid Lizard'.
It was about twice the size of a hand, particularly thin, and capable of merging with its surroundings, thus becoming invisible. To add more, it was able to use deadly acid and had an elastic tongue that could reach a target up to 50m away from it.
It could run at a remarkable speed while also keeping itself invisible. However, due to its relatively 'elastic' or 'squishy' body, Arthur wasn't able to exert a lot of strength while using it. Nonetheless, it was the second best host in Arthur's possession.
The parasite waited for Joshua to exit the dormitory before jumping from the window and tailing him from a safe distance.
The youth was slow to begin with, so the procedure was easy, especially since Joshua barely checked his surroundings.
He ran outside of the campus and made his way to the Sun Alchemists' hideout.
There, Jonathan, Stella, and Frey seemed to be waiting for him. When he passed the barrier, Arthur was right behind him.
'He was with them all along?'
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