That night, Frondier summoned Elodie and Pielot.
He wanted to call everyone else too, but Arald was busy with the three-dimensional map project, and waiting to brief the whole group would waste time.
First, he needed to talk with the two who were actually moving around Atlas: Elodie and Pielot.
He’d already shared the situation with Elodie, so he only needed to explain it to Pielot.
"......Good thing you didn’t run your mouth."
After hearing everything, Pielot wore the same face Elodie had in the after-school classroom.
Had it been the old Pielot, he might have gotten excited by the praise of the surrounding students and, without realizing it, blabbed this and that—maybe even let slip a word or two he shouldn’t.
But at Atlas, Pielot had spoken so few times you could count them on one hand, so there was nothing to worry about immediately.
"Is this dorm safe?"
"Yeah. I checked beforehand. What we’ve got here is just a normal unit."
Pielot relaxed at that.
The worry lay rather with Frondier and Elodie.
"No wonder he kept obsessing over what you and I are to each other, Elodie."
Frondier let out a sigh.
At that, Pielot asked,
"Does that have to do with the wiretap?"
"A wiretap is for digging up the other party’s information. He’s wary of a new face who suddenly showed up. It’d be worse if the two turned out to have a preexisting connection."
Wiretapping is, of course, a crime. It’s only natural for someone who’s been doing that from the start to be wary of outsiders.
If Frondier and Elodie shared information, Giotto might in turn grow suspicious about what they said. When you’re spying on someone, there’s a risk your target catches on.
In fact, that guess hit the mark; Frondier had suspected Giotto from the beginning.
He just hadn’t expected the scale to be this excessive.
"Giotto had his eye on Elodie, so he probably tried harder to wiretap her than me. Did you ever say anything risky?"
"I don’t think so. Inside Atlas I mostly focused on classes. I had no interest in Giotto to begin with."
Poor Giotto.
Not that he’s pitiful in the least.
"......Then one problem remains."
"Yeah. The part where the two of us talked alone in an empty classroom."
The bugs weren’t limited to Frondier’s homeroom. They were all over Atlas.
It wasn’t that there were literally zero blind spots, but at least anything that could be called a "room" had one installed. Wherever there was a speaker, there was a wiretap.
"If Giotto heard that, he would have known right away that you and I were close. He’d also have figured out our fake fights."
"And I think we said a few other dangerous things, too."
The truly dangerous part was the decision on the array, but Frondier believed that just by listening to the audio from that time, there’d be no way to parse what it meant. It was his original, and even Elodie had never seen it before.
Still, the mere presence of a bug in that room didn’t mean Giotto had actually listened in.
Luckily, Giotto had been in class at the time, so he hadn’t seen their bickering in the faculty office nor that they changed locations afterward.
"What if Giotto’s the kind of pervert who eavesdrops even while he’s teaching?"
"That’s possible, but if it were me, I wouldn’t take a risk like that. The students here aren’t ordinary. If he had something in his ear, or if he used weird mana, someone would notice."
The odds that Giotto listened to their conversation were low.
Even so, Frondier and Elodie’s expressions were dark.
So Pielot asked,
"If Giotto didn’t hear it, then isn’t there no problem? Now that we know the bugs are installed everywhere, we can just report it."
"The problem is whether we can report it."
"Sir?"
Not understanding Elodie’s words, Pielot asked again.
Frondier explained,
"The speaker I examined had nothing that looked off from the outside. Sure, I don’t know the original schematics of the speaker or the bug, but there weren’t any bulges, misfits, or signs of something jammed in by force. So the design was like that from the start."
Pielot’s face cooled at that.
"......Made from the outset to allow a bug to be installed?"
"Or the speaker originally has a ‘wiretap function.’"
The reason the bug doesn’t trigger mana-sense: it can be masked by the mana the speaker itself uses.
That alone made it clear the two weren’t operating separately.
"It’s also hard to think they ripped out and replaced the existing speakers. Atlas has a huge number of them. Taking them down and putting up new ones would be a major construction job. There’s no way Mr. Giotto pulled that off alone without being noticed."
"......So it isn’t just Giotto."
"Right. That’s the problem."
Frondier and Elodie exhaled together.
When they shut their eyes, the thin slits they left looked alike.
"How many people are involved in this large-scale crime play?"
"......"
Pielot fell silent and looked at the two.
If Dierre had been here, Pielot would have glanced at him without realizing it.
Normally, at times like these, he would say, "In my view," and breathe a new perspective into the room.
From watching him up close, Pielot knew Dierre wasn’t just quick-witted; he could look at a situation from a third party’s vantage. He had a knack for observing even himself as if from afar, like a passerby.
Pielot couldn’t do that. He was intensely personal and subjective.
"......In stories like this, typically,"
So his take wasn’t a rational, logical derivation.
He’d seen something similar in a novel. Ias’s case had missed the mark a bit, but—
"The head of the institution turns out to be the mastermind, right? Like the principal. Hahaha."
"......"
"......"
At Pielot’s words, Frondier and Elodie simply looked at him.
"I—I was joking."
Shrinking back, Pielot spoke, but Frondier covered his mouth and sank into thought.
"It’s possible."
"If it’s the principal, they could be involved however they like, without fear of being caught. It would be their own idea and their own project. No matter how flashy the construction, no one would find it strange."
Elodie agreed.
But even as she agreed, she tilted her head with a conflicted look.
"......If Lord Ospreit had actually been that sort of person, it would be too shocking."
"Even among principals, there’s that much difference."
To Frondier and Elodie, "principal" still meant Ospreit—an emblem of wisdom, a sage who had given them countless help and favors.
He insisted he wasn’t a sage yet, but to them Ospreit already was.
Maybe because of that image, they hadn’t thought deeply about Atlas’s principal.
"Come to think of it, who is Atlas’s principal? I don’t think I’ve ever met them."
Frondier asked.
From the moment he entered Atlas, he hadn’t met the principal once.
Normally, when a new teacher comes in, the principal gets acquainted with them, right? Even if not, you’d think they’d run into each other while doing faculty work—but it had never happened.
Elodie said,
"From what I’ve heard, they often meet with nobles. The type who minds their social circle. They barely do any internal Atlas work at all."
"So that’s why we haven’t seen them. Sounds almost like they’re doing diplomacy."
"Not so different, I’d say."
Certainly, a principal completely unlike Ospreit.
Then Pielot said,
"......Among the students, their reputation wasn’t bad. Of course, not many had seen their face, and hardly any knew what they actually did."
"......? How does someone you can’t see and don’t know the work of end up with a reputation?"
Frondier asked.
If you can’t see them much and don’t know what they do, you wouldn’t expect any reputation at all. Treating them as nonexistent would be normal.
Pielot, looking awkward, answered,
"Uh, people say she’s incredibly beautiful."
"......Atlas’s principal is a woman?"
That surprised Frondier first.
A woman—and if she’s called beautiful, then quite young. It was someone for whom any comparison to Ospreit would be absurd.
Elodie then asked,
"But ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) could a reputation form just because she’s pretty?"
Frondier turned to Pielot and asked,
"Did the students ever compare her to Elodie? Sounds like the kind of talk they’d have."
"Why—why are you bringing me into this?"
Elodie flustered, but Pielot nodded as if it were obvious.
"Of course it came up. I only heard about the principal in the first place because people were talking about Senior Elodie."
"I see. And the verdict?"
"Mm. Since people have preferences about looks, putting personal likes and dislikes aside—"
As he spoke, Pielot retraced the chatter he’d heard. To be honest, he hadn’t been that interested at the time, so recalling it now was a bit hazy.
But it had been such a noisy topic. Thinking of the mood back then—
"......They couldn’t say who was superior—that kind of feeling."
At that answer—
Elodie, finding this conversation impossible to participate in, hemmed and hawed, while Frondier’s expression changed.
"......What?"
He looked as if he couldn’t believe it.
"The principal of Atlas can be compared to Elodie in looks?"
"I find it hard to believe too, but that was the general sense."
Hearing that, Frondier’s pupils wavered, as if blindsided by an unexpected response—like someone whose plan had just crumbled and was rewriting it. Then he looked at Elodie.
"What do you think, Elodie? Does that even make—"
"Don’t ask me!!"
Elodie shouted, face bright red.
Frondier thought a moment more, then nodded as if convinced.
"Fair. If it’s to that degree, I can see how a reputation could form from her merely showing up."
"Yes. If it’s true."
With very serious faces, Frondier and Pielot nodded to each other as if a small riddle had been solved.
'A principal who prioritizes ties with nobles so much she almost never shows her face in her own institution—and a face that rivals Elodie’s.'
How, if at all, did that relate to the bugs installed across Atlas? Or was there no relation whatsoever?
To know, they needed more investigation.
'......I’ve got more to ask, then.'
And Frondier had a way to conduct that investigation soon.
***
And on the weekend.
As promised, I found the address, went to the front gate of a certain house, and pressed the doorbell.
Ding-dong—
While I pressed it, I took a moment to admire the mansion.
'It’s enormous. As far as mansions go, it’s more opulent than Roach.'
House Roach is indisputably the top house on the Falind continent, but the family as a whole isn’t very interested in luxury. So their mansion isn’t overly extravagant; it’s somewhat restrained.
By comparison, the mansion before my eyes spared no effort in splendor. Beyond the bars on the gate I could see a walking path with a lake, a well-tended garden and trees—and above all, the scale was overwhelming.
[Who is it?]
A man’s voice came through the intercom installed with the doorbell. Gentlemanly, yet curt; heavy and slow in enunciation. I presumed he was the household’s butler and answered.
"This is Frondier de Roach. I’m here today for a home visit with Miss Jenita."
