Information on the current Academy staff that Kal brought over was just a simple list of names stored in the administration.
Compared to what Karia had shown me last time, this was incredibly sloppy, but it was enough for me at the moment.
After all, I already knew most of the names on this list. Finding suspicious names among them wasn’t going to be a problem.
This guy’s attached to the First Queen’s faction.
This one should belong to the knight order, but did he come here because of the Second Queen’s influence?
This guy’s an NPC who’s supposed to join in the second year, so no need to worry about him. And this one...
As I continued to look over the list, crossing out certain names and skipping over some ambiguous ones, I scanned for anything suspicious.
There are a few who stand out. Ones who shouldn’t be here at all right now. Or those I don’t recognize. Or those who are so sloppy that it wouldn’t be surprising if they fell under the influence of the Evil God at any moment.
If it were up to me, I’d want to provoke them all and see what happens, but I can’t do that.
If I make a scene in the Academy again after the trouble I caused in the streets, the Void’s followers will certainly work even harder to cover their tracks.
So, I need something solid.
I glanced at Luca’s name, remembering he was part of the First Queen’s faction, and I shook my head.
Although I’ve placed many restrictions on him, I didn’t fully trust him.
Luca, that crazy person, would probably laugh and say that as the chaos grows, talented people will be refined.
For now, I’ll leave him as a last resort. There are just too many things that bother me about relying on him right now.
“Gomeric can be excluded from the suspect list. He’s someone brought in by the First Queen, so he won’t cause any problems immediately.”
Arthur, who had been looking at the list next to me, added his opinion.
“Copenhagen is the same. When I met him at the last social event, we had a deep discussion about Pyromancy. His answers were excellent—better than anything a normal professor could give.”
Joy, following suit, gave her opinion as well. After listening to them, I briefly pondered and decided to accept their judgment.
I had no solid leads at the moment, and I trusted the good judgment of these two. There had to be a reason for their evaluations.
As I nodded and moved my pen, Phoebe spoke up softly.
“Ettinger can be excluded as well. When I saw him last time, he came to pray at the church, and there was no sign of anything unusual.”
After taking their advice and eliminating people from the list, only three names remained.
If the information I gathered was correct, one of them should be a follower of the Void.
Two are from Dungeon Studies, and the other is from Combat Studies.
...Wait. Dungeon Studies?
As I looked at the academic subjects the suspects were involved in, one thought struck me.
During Soul Academy’s entrance ceremony, there’s an event where golems created by the Academy attack the students.
Under normal circumstances, this event should end with no injuries, carefully controlled. But if one of the Evil God’s followers is involved, the situation changes drastically.
If someone posing as an Academy professor interferes with the golem’s magic and alters its commands, there would certainly be chaos.
I’m not certain yet, but it’s worth checking.
I stood up abruptly and headed to the Dungeon Studies professor’s office.
“Lady Allen. Long time no see.”
The Dungeon Studies professor, whom I hadn’t seen in a while, greeted me with a bright face.
She tried to make small talk about how the Academy’s honor had been boosted because of the dungeon I created, but I cut her off, pressing her about the two names on the list that were related to Dungeon Studies.
“Two nobodies. What are they doing now?”
“...Oh, they’re the new professors for this semester.”
The professor tilted her head but still answered my questions.
One is helping with the creation of the upcoming Academy Dungeon, and the other is working on the maintenance of the golems that will appear during the entrance ceremony.
“They’re just being assigned the grunt work. It’s a tough and thankless task, so they’re probably getting criticized a lot.”
Although the Dungeon Studies professor’s words showed sympathy, I wasn’t really listening to her.
The fact that one of the new professors was in charge of the golem maintenance during the entrance ceremony made my suspicions even more likely to be true.
“The golems’ location? ...Well, that’s difficult to say. It’s confidential, even for you, Lady Allen.”
“The so-called professor. Keep this up, and I’ll spread the secrets of how to destroy the trashy dungeons at the Academy.”
At my threat, the Dungeon Studies professor panicked.
“Ah, alright! But please don’t touch the golems! They’re a tradition of the Academy!”
I ignored her plea and dashed out of the room.
“Did you find any clues?”
My friends, who had been waiting in the hallway outside the professor’s office, immediately surrounded me as soon as I came out.
I didn’t tell them to follow me, so why were they here? I had planned to move with just Kal and me.
Hmm, it wasn’t bad having them with me. With them around, they could easily handle a fight and suppress anything that happened with their positions and reputations.
Looking at my friends, who were waiting for my response, I briefly thought and then shared my thoughts.
“Is that possible?”
As soon as I finished speaking, Arthur raised a question.
“I think it’s possible to infiltrate and embed magic there. But if the Dungeon Studies professors aren’t idiots, they’ll inspect everything. Would that even matter?”
“If it’s a follower of the Void, it’s entirely possible.”
Before I could answer, Phoebe spoke in a more serious tone than usual.
“Their power is specialized in blending in. Even the Church, which has fought the Evil Gods for a long time, couldn’t easily detect them. The Academy professors wouldn’t be any different.”
“Foolish question, I see.”
Phoebe’s words carried the weight of her position, having faced countless calamities caused by the followers of the Evil Gods.
Because of that, Arthur didn’t ask any further questions and quietly backed down, but Freya wasn’t like that.
Not understanding the weight of others' words, she said what was obvious to her.
“So why are the followers of the Evil God targeting the Academy? Is Soul Academy really that special?”
“...I’m sorry. I don’t know either.”
“Lucy? Does Lucy know?”
“Yeah. She knows.”
“What is it?”
“But I’m not going to tell you. You’re too much of a fool to understand anyway.”
“...Tch. So Lucy doesn’t know either.”
“No, I do. I’m not a useless idiot like you.”
My friends thought I was just joking around, but the truth was different.
I really did know why the followers of the Evil God were targeting this place.
I had witnessed the salvation and destruction of this world countless times, so how could I not know their purpose?
But it wasn’t time to speak about it yet.
Since that cowardly Agra could be watching me anywhere, this would remain my secret for now.
After the conversation ended, we moved quickly and soon arrived at the location the Dungeon Studies professor had mentioned.
Dungeon Studies and the basement of the building.
The place where the golems for the Academy Dungeon are made and stored.
This was the place I had been in and out of countless times while making the dungeon myself.
Since I had the layout of this place perfectly memorized, I didn’t get lost once and headed straight to where the golems used for the entrance ceremony were kept.
“Lady Allen?!”
There was a graduate student guarding the entrance, but upon seeing us, they didn’t say anything and simply opened the door for us. Our statuses were far too intimidating for them to resist.
“...It seems your intuition was correct, Lady.”
<No wonder I couldn’t find anything on the street.>
As soon as I stepped inside, Phoebe’s sharp voice and my grandfather’s annoyed voice reached my ears.
The moment their opinions aligned, there was no longer any doubt.
The golems in this space had long been under the control of the Void’s followers.
“Saint, Third Prince, Partlan Lady, Allen Lady, Kent Lady, and Professor Kal, too. What brings all of you here?”
The professor, who had been working with several students inside, expressed genuine confusion at our visit.
His acting was so natural that anyone who didn’t know better might have passed it off as nothing.
But unfortunately for him, we weren’t just anyone.
Crack! I pulled out my mace and smashed the golem beside me, then grinned at the flustered professor.
“Just couldn’t stand seeing a piece of shit doing the same shit.”
The professor froze for a moment, then quickly regained his composure.
“Professor Kal. Why is Lady Allen acting like this all of a sudden?”
“Good acting. Must be a pathetic idiot serving trash like you.”
“...I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”
“How can you be so shameless? ♡ Have you convinced yourself that you believe in something you don’t even know exists? ♡”
“...”
“Congratulations ♡ Your death will be a meaningless one ♡ The one you worship won’t even remember you ♡ A fitting end for a sly piece of trash ♡ Isn’t it? ♡”
As my mocking laughter echoed, the door behind us slammed shut with a thud.
And the moment a disgusting aura settled on the door, the expressions of the professor and everyone in the room shifted. The confusion in their faces disappeared.
“You want to die that badly? Fine, I’ll grant your wish. Dying alongside those who are all name and no brains won’t be a bad outcome, I suppose.”
I watched as the aura of the Evil God spread from the edges of the room. Blocking Phoebe, who was about to cast holy magic, I raised my mace high.
The source of this c𝓸ntent is freewebnøvel.coɱ.
“Lazy, useless Evil God. Do something.”
Though my tone was irreverent and audacious, to the point it could hardly be called a prayer, the perverted, lazy Evil God eagerly responded to my request.
The divine power within my mace spread out, purging the Evil God’s aura from the room.
“If you have any last words, say them now ♡ If your final words are 'please save me~' right before you die, won’t that be too pathetic? ♡”
As I laughed, hatred filled the eyes of those facing me, and the golems in the room began to move.