The first arboreal excursion of the freshman class B of the Magic course very nearly ended in a disaster. The rest of the day (and most of the remaining week) was spent in the careful study of why.

  Timely treatment saved the injured students’ lives, but the academy ended up losing several talents in the aftermath, anyway.

  Silla didn’t press charges over the stolen relic and wanted this part kept from public, but Elisa Canth confessed the theft in a staff hearing. She explained the whole course of events without trying to beautify her own involvement in it. Audrey Trudeau and her friends were forced to admit their responsibility in tandem, as well as their violation of about a dozen academy regulations along the way.

  Canth could’ve gotten away with a suspension, since her participation was coerced, but being honest to a fault, she ended up dropping out of school of her own will. Our classmates tried their best to talk her out of it, since her father's occupation wasn't in real jeopardy, but Canth argued that the classes had been an uphill battle for her from the start, her magical talent was middling at best, and she was better off looking for employment.

  Simon Kelleger, the second-year fencer who forsook his watch duty in favor of guiding Trudeau and her friends off the designated route, and did nothing to stop their misconduct, was expelled. Since he was an older student in a responsible role, many freshman lives depending on him, his conduct was deemed no different from a soldier deserting his post. Unforgivable.

  Kelleger had been under the impression that he and Trudeau were dating, and helped them because he wanted to impress the girl with his ranger skills. Trudeau denied the relationship, saying they were never more than friends, and that she did nothing special to leverage his cooperation. Whatever the truth, their relationship was now definitely through.

  Kelleger’s pair, Marco Cohlman, suffered injuries serious enough in the fiends’ teeth that he was unable to continue training and needed at least two months to make a full recovery. Being left behind his peers in training, he could only either repeat a year, or drop out. He chose the latter. His family wasn’t wealthy enough that he could extend his studies by a year, and his physical performance was going to be permanently lowered in any case. He could never become a star swordsman.

  Cohlman insisted he’d tried to stop his partner and the girls, but the faculty felt he should’ve tried harder. I personally agreed. It was Cohlman who tossed the smoke bomb at us on the forest path, and he sure didn’t seem reluctant back then. But I was the only one who knew this small detail, and didn’t bother to bring it up. He’d been punished enough.

  In the most controversial twist, Audrey Trudeau herself was only suspended for a month.

  Her tagalongs, Amanda Norfik and Liviela Harrod, got a two-week timeout each for their lesser involvement. Trudeau’s crimes were judged to have been mainly inciting in nature. She didn't personally steal anything, and a novice on her first excursion couldn't be expected to know all the rules, or fully understand the perils involved. She would have to live with knowing that three people's lives were permanently changed because of her antics.

  But many students drew their own conclusions about the outcome. Those who were let go were commoners of modest backgrounds; meanwhile, the Trudeau family owned a major trading company with contractors among the aristocracy. The business employed thousands of people, including Canth’s father, and were among the academy’s regular suppliers of lighting and instruments.

  Expelling the lady could’ve caused friction with the family and logistical problems down the line, so she was let off lighter than she should have…Or so the rumor said.

  The incident kindled ire towards the corrupt rich—and nobility by extension, even though the only noble involved was Silla, the victim. There were even a handful of duels fought over the rising tensions.

  But when all was said and done, it wouldn't have been fair to roll all the blame for the hellion attack on the pranksters of our class, or the seniors. Additional investigation revealed that the case was more complex than it seemed.

  This also made the main topic of our session in the prefect office that Friday.

  “The trail in Greenfall Dale has been closely watched the past weeks,” Harding reported, “and the survey area was confirmed secure on two occasions only that very same morning. So where did the Nightmanes suddenly pop out from? To begin with, the Nightmane is not a hellion native to the Dale. Sometimes, monsters do cross over the borders to other Domains, but rarely very far and never without a reason. So something had to have lured the pack there beside the stink of the smokers.”

  “Pray, keep us in suspense no longer,” the third prince said. “This thing has given me enough sleepless nights, as is.”

  Harding, standing in front of us, the faculty’s summary in his hands, responded,

  “Well, my friend, it’s because the monsters had food on this side.”

  “Food?”

  “Indeed. A dead stag.”

  “What, a stag?” The president blinked at Harding.

  He nodded. “A stag, as in a male red deer. As we all know, hellions, being mana-based entities, do not hunger the way common animals do. They’re sustained by mana. They eat when there’s an element the forest wants to get rid of. Such as a misbehaving student, or the rotting corpse of a dead animal. In this case, a stag.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “In other words,” Rosslyn Graves injected, “you’re saying that the stag was wounded by another predator, then wandered into Greenfall Dale where it died, and the Nightmanes of another Domain followed the blood trail to clean it up?”

  “Very close, but not quite,” Harding answered. “By what was left of the corpse, Instructor Howard concluded that it had been expertly skinned, the meat cleanly stripped off. All the hellions got were the animal’s bones and entrails, removed from the corpse before dismantling.”

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  The more prestigious members in the room were grimacing at the visceral description.

  “So it was a human who hunted the deer?” Vanille asked.

  Harding folded the report and nodded. “Yep. That’s what it comes to.”

  “Poachers…” the third prince muttered. “On academy property? How awfully daring of them.”

  “It's rare but not unheard of. Nethercite prices are at an all-time high, and rising still, and nethercite can only be made from crystallized mana found in hellion bodies. There are also many rare animal and plant species exclusive to the Scarlet Forest, the parts of which are very desired among alchemists, apothecarists, mages, crafters, collectors—well, everybody, pretty much. Although the punishment for getting caught is also not pretty.”

  As said, the part of the Wood within a country's borders belonged to the country—or its King. So poaching was considered stealing directly from His Majesty. It wasn't very long ago that this meant a speed ticket to the gallows. In the peaceful modern times, you could get away with between ten and twenty years of labor, depending on how much profit was made.

  But were we only dealing with poachers? That was the question.

  “Was the stag’s head missing?” I asked.

  The others gave me weird looks.

  “Why is that important…?”

  “Who knows. It could be extremely important. Or not at all.”

  Harding shrugged. “I don't know. I'd have to ask Instructor Howard about that. He was the one who examined the remains.”

  “Please do. As soon as possible.”

  I could physically feel Vanille's curious stare, though I did my best to dodge it.

  “What are you thinking, Hope?”

  “It's still too soon to say.”

  “Hmmm…”

  The missing head was a strong clue, but didn't necessarily prove anything. It was premature to start scaring the students by rambling about foreign terrorists. Leaving such a clear sign of themselves so close to the school was pretty amateurish. Or maybe they just didn't care?

  “Then,” Lycan spoke up, “is there anything specific the faculty would like us prefects to do about the case?”

  “Not a lot we can do,” Harding answered. “Poaching is more a problem for the Border Guard than us. Of course, we should keep our eyes open when in the Wood, and report any unusual activity there directly to Instructor Howard. Also, sucks, but our second-year fencers’ reputation kinda took a collective hit through this mess. We need field experience, but the staff is now discussing bringing third and fourth years to supervise the forest excursions, going forward. So, thanks to our friend Simon. Rest in piss.”

  “Come on now,” Vanille lightly scolded him. “That’s not very nice.”

  “Neither was what he did. Without Hope and Lady Silla, I’d be dog poop myself.”

  “Hope to the rescue. Again!”

  “I did nothing,” I said, beating the typewriter keys.

  By now, I was familiar enough with the device that I could do the session records directly on the computer without first taking notes by hand. The convenience of technology was slowly starting to dawn on me.

  But I also realized that instead of making me work more effectively, this machine was making me feel even lazier. I found myself missing a system that could turn speech directly to text and spare me the trouble of pressing the keys. Wasn’t this invention going to ruin humanity?

  “Come to think of it,” I said, “Did they find out why the communicators stopped working?”

  Harding shrugged. “They did work, though?”

  “Our class tested all the compasses,” Alexander Lycan said, “but none were found broken.”

  “But we weren't able to contact the teachers.”

  “It's possible audio transmission was only temporarily obstructed,” Lycan explained, “but the alarm pings did come through. Perhaps the Grand Maple's mana interfered with the transmission. You were pretty close to it, right? Or maybe the novices just didn't know how to use their devices correctly. You're supposed to hold down the button to speak and release it to hear the response.”

  “...”

  Was that really it?

  Then again, it could only be tested by provoking the host tree. Not the safest experiment. Guess we'll never know for sure.

  With that, the case was concluded. Though I had to wonder if this wasn’t only the seed of a much larger headache.

  The imagery Silla saw in the Greenmere that day, the deer hunted on crown-owned land...These signs suggested the Tarachian commando unit had already arrived in Calidea. The possibility of erring was not zero, but the case began to look plausible enough that I probably had to act on it. The forest was not a place where I could go casually, but informing the Emerald Blade’s unit in Grimons was doable. The less contact I had with their lot, the better, so I decided to pass a note to Rafel.

  I couldn’t keep these developments from our own authorities either, of course, but penned a pretty report addressed to the manor. Charlotte could send it forward from there. I'd already told them what I'd heard about the enemy unit's composition, numbers, and likely plan of attack, after meeting with the Tarachians, but now I had possible firsthand confirmation of their presence.

  We still missed the most important details: the location of the Locusts' hideout in the vast forest; the exact time window of their strike; the key targets and the method of attack. But just knowing they were somewhere in this sector of the Wood narrowed down the options significantly. Manpower could be directed to the appropriate routes and regions, instead of trying to watch the whole western border at once.

  I was still working on the report in my room on Sunday morning, when an abrupt knock on the door interrupted me.

  If only my telekinetic control were better, I could’ve opened the door without having to get up from my seat, walk across the room, and not interrupt my thinking, but I could only do it manually.

  Outside awaited a guest I didn’t expect.

  In the tidy hallway stood our own housemaid in her frilly uniform, smiling widely.

  For some reason, the brighter this woman’s smile was, the more unnerved me, as good as it looked on her.

  “Charlotte?”

  “Good morning, Ms Hope,” the maid said. “Forgive me for interrupting your studies without informing you in advance, but this was sprung rather suddenly on us as well. That being said, a suit or a dress?”

  Charlotte raised her right hand, which held a long, black dress on a hanger, and then her left hand, which had an equally black men's suit. I looked at the outfits and then the maid and scrunched up my brow.

  “Excuse me?”

  “What was unclear? Will you put on a suit today? Or a dress?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “It'll be either one or the other now,” the maid told me, her smile even wider—and more frightening. “Because you’re going to the Castle.”