Chapter 72
Chapter 72
'This kid has absolutely no idea how dangerous he is right now.'
Iris clicked her tongue inwardly as she watched Cassian nod with a dazed expression.
Before Cassian arrived, when Head of Department Eric had come to the laboratory and irritably asked, "You call yourself the assigned disciple, and yet you don't know anything at all?" she had already been in a pretty bad mood.
The feeling that her disciple was causing major incidents somewhere she didn't know about, while she alone was left in the dark.
But the moment Cassian came to her of his own accord and laid out the main point, those petty feelings vanished without a trace.
Instead, her heart sank.
Just remembering the inside of that grotesque dungeon Cassian had personally smashed to pieces still sent a chill down her spine.
To put it bluntly, the relaxed disciple in front of her had no awareness whatsoever of his own power.
He didn't even have the basic common sense to know how terrifyingly dangerous it was to wield that power without restraint.
'This actually works out better.'
What if, without her stepping in this time, Cassian tried to resolve the cult-related issue on his own?
Without a doubt, his ignorant yet overwhelming power would have sparked an imperial-level catastrophe, like bloodshed or even dimensional collapse.
She needed to make this into an opportunity.
She would give this disciple, gifted with such brilliant and terrifying talent, a proper lesson from the fundamentals onward.
It was then that Iris's eyes sparkled with scholarly zeal.
Bang!
The tightly shut laboratory door was shoved open roughly without a knock.
Normally she would have frowned and lectured him about manners, but right now she couldn't even ask why he hadn't knocked.
"Haah……."
Because the expression on Head of Department Eric's face as he came through the door was a miserable wreck.
He waved a bundle of papers with eyes that looked as hollow as if he'd been cursed with accelerated aging.
"Cardinal Barneo of the Temple has officially lodged a complaint."
"……The cardinal himself?"
"That's right. Never in my life did I imagine that, while serving as head of the Department of Magic, I'd receive a summons from the principal's office telling me to explain myself because a formal complaint bearing the name of a Temple cardinal had been delivered."
Head of Department Eric pressed a hand to his forehead and let out a deep, heavy sigh.
The bundle of parchment in his hand was trembling violently.
"Haah. Just how many pages do I have to write explaining this mess? At this rate, all the research funds I got from Lady Müller are going to be spent on ink."
"……."
The department head shot Iris a resentful look.
"If the Academy followed its own rules, the initial cleanup and paperwork for a political mess like this would be such a pain that, by tradition, it would've been the junior-most professor's job, wouldn't it?"
"I'm sorry."
Iris ducked her head with an awkward smile.
If it had been the old her, she'd have snorted and ignored this man's annoying grumbling while continuing her research.
But today, it was definitely her disciple who had put the department head in such an awkward position, so she had to generously tolerate a bit of fussing.
"I'll transfer some of my research funds to you separately, or at least do something to show my sincerity."
"No need. Then I'd just have to listen to Dean Hicks nagging me about it."
The department head grumbled as he walked over, then spotted her disciple sprawled in a very comfortable position on the sofa.
His eyebrows twitched.
"Oh. So the very person at the center of all this trouble is here too."
"Hello, Head of Department. I'm sorry for the trouble."
Cassian greeted him lazily with a nod from his seat.
Normally, just the combination of "department head" and "cardinal" would be enough to turn any student pale and shaking.
But her prized disciple was as relaxed as a neighborhood kid watching someone else's house catch fire.
"You're awfully calm. Because of you, we're on the verge of huge diplomatic friction between the Temple and the Academy."
"All I did was feed the saintess something delicious."
"The problem is that you're protecting that saintess without permission."
The department head pressed his temples as if he had a headache.
"Anyway. An emergency meeting has been called in the principal's office, so both of you need to come with me."
At the department head's urgent urging, Cassian slowly rose from the sofa.
His reply, slipping through his lips, was very dry and flat.
"Yes. Well. Understood. Let's go."
"……."
Iris carefully studied Cassian's face for that split second.
Zero tension.
Zero sense of crisis.
That indifferent reaction was even worse than being shooed along with a "If you're a student, go eat in the cafeteria" dismissal.
She quite liked Cassian's almost arrogantly laid-back, bothersome attitude.
When that stance was directed at her, it made her feel like she was being led around by a young disciple, which was a little—just a little—annoying and disappointing.
The fact that the disciple she was supposed to be in charge of could somehow end up feeling like the one in control was also a bit disconcerting.
But when he used that attitude to needle other people, it was pretty entertaining and oddly refreshing.
Especially since Head of Department Eric had just been giving her grief a moment ago. It was, admittedly, rather satisfying.
A tiny crescent smile formed at the corners of Iris's mouth.
* * *
"Well."
At my involuntary dry laugh, Professor Iris, who was walking ahead, turned her head.
"What is it?"
Her intelligent eyes sparkled at me from behind her glasses.
"I sort of figured it might happen since you were darting around the Academy, but I never expected you'd actually come this far."
"Huh?"
"Putting aside the modest goal of quietly living on as a loner, I've now gone and ended up in the principal's office."
That was my honest feeling.
Even when a bunch of professors had learned my name and come up to me, I'd already been so uncomfortable I felt like dying.
But being called to the principal's office was on a whole different scale.
Creeeak—.
Head of Department Eric politely knocked and opened the heavy oak door.
And the moment the scene inside the room came into view, I clicked my tongue in disbelief.
"……"
Ugh, just looking at it makes my breath catch.
It felt like I'd wandered into a parliamentary audit hearing or something.
The huge oval table in the room was already mostly filled with stern-looking old men and women.
Among those suffocating faces was a familiar one sitting right beside the seat of honor.
The leader of the magic faction and the real power in the Department of Magic, Dean Hicks.
It was that old man who'd been using telekinesis to lift and set down the chalk before.
"Professor Iris and student Cassian del Farne."
Head of Department Eric introduced us with a respectful bow.
Then the old man sitting at the seat of honor adjusted his magnifying glasses.
It was the academy principal, whose face made me wonder if my memory had gone wrong—he'd definitely been wearing a kindly smile at the entrance ceremony.
"Good work. It seems this matter is closely tied to the magic faction, so Head of Department, please sit in as well."
"……Very well."
Eric's answer was flat, but I noticed it at once.
That department-head grandpa is cursing his head off inside right now.
Isn't that exactly the face of an office worker who got held up by their boss on the way home and got forced overtime confirmed?
'That's self-inflicted disaster, plain and simple.'
Enjoy it; that's the price you pay for letting Lily into my lab.
I took the empty seat next to Professor Iris.
The moment we sat down, the principal opened his mouth in a heavy voice.
"We also sent someone to Lady Müller, but she notified us that she could not come."
"She skipped this important meeting?"
The stern-looking old professor sitting across from him frowned and asked.
"Yes. She said that because she has to personally take care of the saintess, who currently needs rest, she cannot move even a step."
The moment I heard that, I couldn't help but admire her inwardly.
'No way?'
Lily did need to rest, but she wasn't that fragile.
Rather, Lily was so composed that unless you noticed her arm trembling, you wouldn't even realize she'd been mistreated yesterday.
"Hmm."
'It really felt like the kind of attitude that said just being there was enough.'
That was absolutely just an excuse to use Lily and dump the annoying duty of explaining things on us.
Or maybe she just didn't want to get tangled up in this suffocating nest of old fogeys and tossed it to us.
But on the other hand, it wasn't exactly an excuse that made no sense.
If we brought Lily, who had a surprisingly delicate streak, into this bleak meeting room, she'd probably freeze up and stammer.
Honestly, that'd be better.
If she even said something like, "If it's Lord Cassian's choice, it's fine,"?
Hmm, fair enough.
That'd be hard to deal with.
"It seems Lady Müller thinks the two of you are the most suitable people to explain this complicated situation."
The principal continued, lifting the pure-white parchment lying on the desk.
"We don't have the time to listen to a long explanation either. First, hear this."
What is it?
Looks like that old Cardinal Barneo is coming down way harder than I expected.
"It's an official letter sent under the name of Cardinal Barneo of the Temple."
The principal cleared his throat as he unfolded the parchment.
Every eye in the room focused on the principal's lips.
"I demand that you immediately allow the Temple's Holy Knight Order to enter the Academy."
"……!"
"If you refuse, we will regard the Imperial Academy as having illegally detained and kidnapped the Temple's saintess."
As the principal's reading continued, the air around the table grew colder and colder.
"It also states that they will immediately inform the imperial family of this illegal act, while announcing that they will force their way into the Academy even if they have to mobilize holy force."
"Holy force, my ass……!"
Dean Hicks couldn't take it anymore and slammed his fist on the table.
The content was so sharp-edged that you could hardly believe this was a letter the Temple had sent to the Imperial Academy, where imperial nobles' children gathered, at the very start of the incident.
A blatant threat that threw diplomatic wording and polite manners to the dogs.
After hearing the principal's reading, I could instantly see why the academy's top brass had all been called in and why everything had turned into a frantic mess in a hurry.
Because this was basically a declaration of war by a huge religious organization saying it would come in with an army, not just some random noble.
But.
'Pfft.'
I almost burst out laughing in this solemn atmosphere.
To other people, that threat letter probably looked like a religious-war-level crisis, but to me it was a completely different story.
'You're really sweating bullets now, aren't you, you old cardinal geezer.'
Going that far and jumping the gun without thinking was proof enough that the other side was on the verge of losing its mind because it had absolutely no control over the situation.
Of course, the old professors here didn't know the whole story, so they probably couldn't read the situation that far.
Not only had the puppet saintess he had been controlling slipped out of his grasp, she had also hidden herself in the Academy, of all neutral places; how could he not be burning up inside?
'You think you can just pin it down with brute force, leave everyone dazed, and haul her out?'
You're a total fucking amateur, you old cardinal bastard.