"Hmph!" Nagi stretched her arms slightly.

"Well then, shall we head back?" she suggested.

I manifested laedingr around my forearms as I prepared to swing back with her. But right as the gauntlets settled, a violent, cold chill shot straight down my spine.

The air behind us suddenly felt heavy with invisible pressure.

I stopped, immediately dematerializing Laedingr back into my Loom storage.

"Go ahead," I said, keeping my voice level so she wouldn’t catch the sudden nervousness I’m feeling right now.

"I’d like to be alone here for a little bit."

Nagi looked at me, her eyes narrowing slightly through my hazy vision.

"Is that so?"She didn’t push it and flipped her wrists, materializing her signature kunai into her hands.

"Don’t be late, or else Sis will definitely bite your head off."

With a fluid, fearless motion, she leaped off the massive ledge, anchoring her threads into the skyline and swinging herself back toward Excelia until her silhouette dissolved into the city lights.

The moment she was gone, I turned around to face the shadows of the clock tower. The air rippled like disturbed water, and the small, eerie figure of a child slowly manifested from the dark, alongside Cwal, who stood silently at his flank.

"Did you wait long, Sire Ariel?" I asked, bowing my head slightly to play the part.

"Has the little girl gone off? A shame," Ariel murmured, his childish voice carrying a disturbing, ancient weight.

"Allow me to apologize on her behalf, She truly did not mean to ignore your presence."

"Hph... you and your sweet tongue." Ariel smirked, tapping his small fingers against his arm.

I glanced toward Cwal, desperately hoping for a subtle cue or a proper explanation as to why the hell Ariel was standing right in front of me.

But Cwal just blinked back at me, deadpan and unhelpful.S

hit. So I’m completely on my own with this one, huh...

"You see," Ariel continued, his amber, gem-like eyes locking onto me,

"The Inquisitors will be conducting their formal investigation tomorrow. I have been given a specific mission to harvest one of them."

"With your capabilities, everything will surely go just right," I said, feeding his ego.

"Naturally. However, there are a few complications," Ariel grumbled, his youthful brow furrowing.

"It seems the academy is tightening its defenses against intruders. They’re pouring far too much effort into thwarting future threats now."

"That is indeed true," I agreed, gesturing vaguely to my own state.

"I only woke up recently due to the incident, but even I noticed the shift in security across the campus. Would you like me to help you secure a blind spot to get in?"

"Heh, you help me? Don’t think too highly of yourself, boy." Ariel scoffed, tossing his head back.

"I am merely here to warn you to turn a blind eye to what is about to happen."

"What is about to happen, you say? May I know the details?"

"No," Ariel snapped coldly.

"However, since you will technically be affected by the fallout anyway, I’m just telling you to keep your mouth shut for a while."

He reached into his tailored vest, pulling out a sleek gold pocket watch. He popped the latch, his eyes scanning the hands.

"Hmnnn... I am running late for today’s experiment."

He snapped the watch shut and looked up at me with a terrifying grin.

"Well then, Snow White, I appreciate your cooperation. I shall be on my way now."

He turned his back on us. The very instant his foot made contact with the air, he shattered the sound barrier.

Ariel vanished instantly, leaving nothing behind but a deafening crack and a violent, localized hurricane born from his sheer velocity.

The sudden, explosive pressure hit my chest like a physical wall.

Rip!

Rip!

The plastic buttons on my pajama shirt tore clean off their threads, fluttering away into the sky.

"Urk..."

I gasped, coughing as the heavy wind shockwave nearly took me off my feet.

"What an absolute monster..."

I gripped my torn shirt, my mind racing as my heartbeat slowly stabilized.

On one hand, it was a massive relief that this specific part of the hidden scenario was still tracking perfectly with the original web novel’s timeline.

Ariel was still making his move against the Inquisition. But on the other hand... something felt incredibly fishy.

In the original novel’s plot, after the brutal survival episode on the island, the High Court’s Inquisitors were supposed to march into Excelia to dig up secrets.

Solaris, Maku, and Waffel had reacted exactly the same way, using their high-ranking noble status to stall the investigations. But there was one massive, terrifying rewrite in the script. In the book, they were trying to cover for Finster.

Now, the targets have shifted completely. They aren’t protecting the protagonist anymore.

They are covering for me.

As the Inquisitors prepare to begin their formal investigations the next day, the tension is already reaching a boiling point.

If the original novel’s timeline holds true, three of their men are going to be mysteriously killed. This will spark a massive controversy, with the public screaming that Excelia is murdering officials to keep its secrets buried, or worse, that the academy is actively collaborating with Aberrants.

The accusations will spin completely out of control, but it is all a brilliant, dirty ploy orchestrated by Roy.

By orchestrating these three deaths, Roy intends to systematically diminish the connection between the school and the Royal Family, eventually fracturing the kingdom and triggering a bloody civil war. He will then take advantage of the chaos, selling his sinister magitech inventions to both desperate parties to maximize the carnage.

Yet Ariel said it would affect me?

How?

I don’t think the death of some random Inquisitors will touch me in any shape or form. I was once again clutching at loose ends, frantically trying to tie the pieces together even though I supposedly know so much about this world.

Arg... dammit, it’s better to just ask directly.

"Yo, Cwal. Mind filling me in?"

He looked down at me, and I caught the slight, rare furrow of his eyebrows for a fraction of a second.

He pulled a crisp sheet of parchment from his storage and held it directly in front of my face.

I leaned in, squinting hard through my blurry vision to decipher the handwritten text.

It was the official mission brief. The instructions were cold and precise: terminate the targets exactly at 5:00 PM, methods left completely to the operatives’ discretion.

Below the instructions were the three specific names marked for execution. The first two were standard high-ranking officers, Arthur Pendel and Marcus Vance. But my eyes locked onto the final name on the list. Ren Kazuma.

Ren Kazuma... where the hell have I heard that name before? Based on the naming style, he was definitely born in the Kingdom of Taiyo.

Why is a Taiyo native running around as an elite Inquisitor for the Salem High Court? The pieces weren’t lining up.

Before I could read any further, Cwal pulled the paper back into his storage ring, cutting off my view.

"Worry not, Ariel will not be infiltrating Salem himself," Cwal explained.

"He will most likely deploy some of the sleeper students he personally raised and embedded into the academy to poison the targets from the inside."

"May I know who those students are?" I asked immediately.

Cwal fixed me with a sharp look.

"So that you can stop the harvest?"

I snapped my fingers at him.

"I’m glad we’re aligned," I said, leaning forward.

"Yes, I want to stop the assassination of those three Inquisitors. If we can intercept them, we also need to—"

He raised a single hand, cutting me off instantly.

"Huh?"

"There is no ’we’ in this, Matt," Cwal said firmly.

"As much as I owe you, I cannot help you on this specific operation."

"Each named operative directly under Lord Roy is free to do whatever they please, so long as they answer his summons. Since this operation was handed directly to Ariel and not Snow White, I have absolutely no authority to dig for details or pass information to you."

"Oh, is that so..." I muttered.

"So I’m back to having zero leads for now, huh..."

"I apologize," Cwal said quietly.

"No, it’s fine. I’ve been getting way too dependent on you lately anyway, so it’s time for me to step up my own game."

I shook off the disappointment and manifested the loom gauntlets. I needed to swing myself back to the dorms before curfew caught up to me.

"Well, I’m off now. Anything else I need to know before tomorrow?"

Cwal hesitated, shifting his weight slightly. For a brief moment, he actually looked a bit shy, his tough exterior cracking.

"My mother... when will your next visit be to check up on her?"

I stared at him through my blurry eyesight.

This guy is surprisingly a total mama’s boy.

"I’ll visit her the second I find a free slot in my schedule," I promised with a small smile.

"Well then, see you tomorrow."

I took off into the night, swinging through the shadows of the campus.

When I finally slipped back into the dorm room, the place was completely dark. Nagi was already fast asleep, breathing softly, and it seemed Kaye had already left for the night.

She was probably sleeping over in the campus guest manor, the Lumina Pavilion.

I let out a sigh of relief and walked over to the kitchen table, fully intending to raid the fridge for a midnight snack before going to bed.

Instead of food, I found a neatly folded piece of paper waiting for me under the light.

"Stop eating fatty foods for a midnight snack. Your body cannot digest them well when you are sleeping. Eat something light instead. P.S. Kaye~"

"That girl just couldn’t leave peacefully, can she?"

I crumpled the paper into a tight ball and threw it into the trash can.

Even when she isn’t physically in the room, she is still the most annoying, overbearing cousin ever.

I opened the fridge and reached straight for the leftover chicken karaage, determined to spite her rules.

But as my fingers brushed the container, I hesitated. I looked at my reflection in the dark glass, remembering the doctor’s warning about my weakened physical state.

With a groan, I pulled my hand back and grabbed a simple red apple from the counter instead.