The Academy’s Top Executives Meeting

In an office room, a meeting was currently ongoing involving the top characters of the First Dawn Academy. Right after the director, there was the assistant director and finally the six deans. All eight individuals were currently seated in this room with the director, Roland, presiding over the meeting.

"Explain to me exactly what happened." Roland said with a deep tone.

Three days ago, he was informed through a long-distance communication channel that the venue of the test was attacked by unknown mages. Such a development could only be described with one word: horrible.

When he had heard the information, Roland could only imagine how the nobles would react once it got to them. One should know that the First Dawn Academy trained the kingdom's best geniuses, the future pillars of the kingdom and nobility. As such, while it seemed that the academy had a lot of influence by being the training ground of such figures, they were also under a lot of pressure.

As per the rules of all intense growth programmes in the kingdom, a few deaths were allowed as long as it didn't exceed 5% of the population. However, in this incident alone, more than 5% of the current population of students in the third-year division had died. The consequences of such were severe and being the director of the academy, Roland would be the one to suffer the full brunt of the nobles' dissatisfaction after all, those who died were their successors or valued descendants.

"Yes, director." Zero sighed before reiterating his previous explanation from three days ago.

"...an unexplored cave was found and the students were tacitly permitted to go in after all, recent and past studies have shown that such areas around the outskirts of the Manchurian forest weren't deadly to third-stage Guardian mages. However, we had miscalculated a bit but it was nothing too serious as a team of protector mages had been dispatched to carry out recon activities. One of the encounters in the cave was a beast that looked like this." Zero presented a drawing to Roland.

It was an image of a shadow beast drawn based on the students' descriptions.

"A special object possibly on the level of a national treasure had also appeared in the cave. However, while the team of mages had got their hands on it, they failed to report back to us alive."

"And why is that?" A dean who sat by the side asked.

"Because we weren't the only ones there. A mysterious squad of mages had arrived and from my investigation, one of them had descended into the cave; a peak rank fifth-stage Guardian mage." Zero replied.

"How is that possible?!" Some of the deans were surprised.

It should be known that prior to his arrival, Zero had only informed the director, Roland, about the attack. No one else knew about it, except dean Alfos, who had to be informed earlier on as it was his division that was affected. As such, it was no surprise that the other deans reacted this way.

"Alfos, isn't this your division? Wasn't the test your idea and the location approved by you?" One of the deans suddenly asked.

"What are you implying, Modrick?" Alfos frowned.

Modrick was a dean of a division just like himself, except that he was in charge of the second years. The duo were so similar to each other both in terms of strength and age that they ended up as rivals. Since they basically competed with each other in all areas and aspects of life, it was inevitable that their relationship was like water and oil; very incompatible. At the same time, both belonged to different factions which made things worse.

An attack on the third year students would create problems for the academy, and this would affect the interests of all the deans.

"You have some explaining to do, Alfos." Modrick replied.

"I have nothing to say to you." Alfos harrumphed.

He might keep that genial wise old man façade with the students, but when dealing with Modrick, Alfos didn't maintain any manner of civility or maturity with him.

"What do you mean you have nothing to say? Lives were lost, most of all, lives of the future of noble households. How do you feel those families would react?! They would all ask for an explanation and if we can't give them one, what next? The integrity of the school will be at stake and this would ruin its image. Operating under such conditions would eventually turn the academy into a ghost town. So stop acting like a little child and explain!"

"Call me a little child one more time and I swear I'll send you six feet under." Alfos lost it and stood up.

"Between the two of us, you're the one most likely to be six feet under." Modrick retorted despite being of the same age as Alfos.

"That's enough." Roland released his aura and interfered with the duo's argument.

'Sighs. I should have kept them away from each other right from the start.' Roland sighed inwardly while maintaining a serious expression on the outside.

Alfos and Modrick eventually returned to their seats, albeit with some remnant negativities to the other. Even if they were older than Roland was, they were of a lower rank and strength than he was, and in the Great Dawn kingdom, strength was everything. This could be seen from the fact that simply having the appropriate strength qualifications can enable one to become a noble.

"Alfos, in the end, Modrick is right. You're the one who proposed the idea for the test as well as changed the location from the usual Cayenne Valley without informing me. It would be hard for anyone to not be suspicious of you." Roland frowned.

In truth, Roland was 70% sure that dean Alfos had nothing to do with the incident. Unlike most people, dean Alfos was obsessed with studying magic in his early days. As he got older, he lost interest in earthly matters and only found joy in learning and teaching magic. It was to the point that he rejected any opportunity to become a count simply because he found such a title demanding and it would reduce the time he spent doing what he enjoyed most. The only reason Alfos had ended up teaching in the academy was after he had lost a wager and was further tempted by the records made available to deans by the Purple Sun sacred land. Although as time went on, Alfos eventually found the job fun to do.

However, Roland knew that simply saying he felt Alfos was innocent wouldn't be enough to clear his name. The dean had to provide enough valid information or facts to substantiate his innocence.

At the same time, Roland had been dissatisfied with the dean's act of changing locations at the last minute so he wanted to use this opportunity to keep him in line.

"I really don't know anything. The only reason I changed the location was that I felt like it. The Cayenne Valley has been utilized in the past years and it's inevitable for this information to leak in future years. In other words, they could prepare much better for it and get through easier. If that's so, then that defeats the point of the entire test. There were two locations I decided to make use of as replacements. The first was the Great Mountain-Wind range in the west, but the increased assaults by the Kingdom of Terra cancelled that out. So I was left with only one choice." Dean Alfos sighed.

Roland thought about it for a moment and understood Alfos' points.

The Great Dawn kingdom only had three sites where monsters had turned into their niche: Cayenne Valley by the central area; Great Mountain-Wind range that spans along the border of the Kingdom of Terra and the Great Dawn kingdom, or to be specific, Black Ridge province; and finally, the Manchurian forest at the North. All three areas were home to monsters with the strongest suspected to be 11th or even 12th-stage Guardian beasts. For this reason and some others, the regions weren't conquered but their range was controlled.

Of them all, Cayenne Valley, which was close to the centre of the Great Dawn kingdom, was the safest in comparison to the others, so it was the usual test spot for the First Dawn Academy students. However, for this reason, it was quite possible that there would be higher pass rates in the future as the incoming members might be informed by outgoing ones about the environment. While not disastrous, this could affect the final evaluations of students and make them less transparent, and it was exactly this that dean Alfos wanted to avoid by changing the venue.

As for why he only did so at the last moment, the dean had been holed up in his office reading new magical theories that he almost forgot about the test. It was only a day before the test that he recalled about it and began making arrangements for the change. He was in such a rush that he had forgotten to inform Roland but even then, Alfos felt that there wasn't a need to do so. This was because Roland barely paid attention to activities like this and so, Alfos thought it would have been the same this year.

"So, you're saying it was a mere coincidence?" Roland asked.

"Hard to believe but it's the honest truth." Dean Alfos replied with a sigh.

"Bull crap!" Modrick yelled.

"That's it!" Alfos shouted back. "Let's settle this outside."

Roland sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, ignoring the duo and recalling the details so far.

'No matter how I look at it, something feels off. How did they know where the students were? Alfos had done the change almost in a hurry. The Manchurian forest is very far from the Cayenne Valley so without an aircraft, it would be impossible to reach within three days. That means that the enemy either had flight capabilities or knew from the start. But how come?' Roland frowned.

'Asher Arnhaunt, why are you a walking disaster magnet?'

"Let's skip the discussion about how they found the students and instead focus on who the attackers might be." Roland said.

"You're free to drop your thoughts and share your opinions. No matter how wild they might be, there could be some truth to them. Let's begin."