The blind villain of the academy

Chapter 189: Second and Third Day [1]

Chapter 188

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Episode 45 - Second and Third Day [1]

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Before stepping into the brothel’s hallway, we both returned to the main room and headed toward the exit.

Now that I had accomplished my objective in this place, it was time to report to the Knights what lay beneath it.

I decided it would be better to do so through an anonymous letter.

The reason was to prevent the other three hideouts in the city from discovering who had killed the two villains hiding here.

As I walked, my exhausted body and the constant fatigue from having used up all my mana made me feel like absolute shit.

’I’ll barely be able to sleep for three or four hours. Damn it.’

Just as we were leaving the brothel, I heard someone muttering.

"Heh, look at that girl. She slept with a blind man and left him completely worn out."

"....?"

***

After leaving the anonymous letter, the Knights stormed the brothel.

Everyone present was arrested and interrogated.

Lumina had been watching from a distance to see what would happen, so when she returned, she told me everything.

Shortly afterward, we returned to the Tower.

I had already recovered my mana, so both the fatigue and the exhaustion in my body had disappeared.

So I went straight to bed. The other members of the Field Exploration Squad had already gone to sleep.

Arwen was the only one who wasn’t there.

The following morning, all the cadets were summoned to the main hall of the Central Tower.

Lumina, Clana, and I quickly made our way there before taking our seats.

Not long afterward, Professor Ashly stepped onto the podium and said,

"Today, we’ll announce the examinations for Day Two and Day Three. Yesterday’s exam was simple: to gain firsthand experience and familiarize yourselves with the daily work carried out by each squad of the Abyss Containment Team."

"Now, over the next two days, you’ll be taking a different kind of exam."

"Not far from here lies a place called the <Frozen Sword Tomb>, an area filled with monsters, located within a forest that contains the ancient ruins of a former base."

"The objective of this exam is simple: choose one of the available missions at the main entrance of the Central Tower."

"These missions will all be related to the Frozen Sword Tomb. Regardless of which mission you choose, your performance will be evaluated through Honor Points."

"Whoever earns the most Honor Points over these two days will receive the highest grades for today’s and tomorrow’s exams. Oh, and the minimum number of Honor Points required to pass is 100."

"This is an individual exam, so anyone planning to form a team can forget about passing."

"And that’s all for today’s announcement. The Day Four exam will be revealed after this one ends."

With those words, Professor Ashly stepped down from the podium.

The cadets immediately began murmuring among themselves, and not long afterward, several maids brought in breakfast.

After breakfast, the cadets began leaving the hall.

At that moment, Rinna approached me and asked if we could go together.

So the two of us, along with everyone else, headed to the main entrance of the Central Tower.

When we arrived, the cadets were crowding around the reception desk in the lobby.

The receptionist displayed the different missions. Most involved hunting monsters, others focused on exploration, and a few were related to the recently discovered ancient ruins.

Most of the cadets, of course, chose the easier ones: monster hunting missions.

Hunting missions awarded up to eight Honor Points. Exploration missions, regardless of what you discovered, could award up to twenty Honor Points.

Lastly, ruin exploration and clearing missions awarded up to thirty Honor Points.

’Mhm, if I don’t rest and accept nothing but hunting missions, it’ll take me an entire day to accumulate one hundred Honor Points. But if I take the ruin-related missions, I can secure nearly two hundred points in a single day.’

That was without taking a single break.

’Well, this is obvious.’

’I’ll start by selecting about ten hunting missions and three ruin-related missions.’

For me, combining both types of missions was the fastest and most efficient way to earn points.

My goal was, of course, to rank first in every exam.

’Securing first place for the second semester will earn me a huge number of points.’

The minimum requirement to pass the first year at the Academy was to accumulate thirty thousand points.

At the moment, I had nearly twenty thousand points.

’I’ll be pretty busy during the second semester. Chapter Three and Chapter Four will be quite tough, especially the first part of Chapter Four.’

So I got in line, and after a while, I selected the ten hunting missions that offered the highest rewards and the three most difficult ruin-related missions.

With that done, I said goodbye to Rinna and the others before setting off, guided by several Knights.

Toward the Frozen Sword Tomb.

***

"All right, fifteen hunting missions and two exploration missions for the Red Zone of the Frozen Sword Tomb."

Clank!

The receptionist stamped the documents.

"And remember, if you fail even a single mission, thirty Honor Points will be deducted."

Clana nodded with an expressionless face.

After accepting several missions, she left the Central Tower and headed toward a Teleportation Array.

Although the Frozen Sword Tomb was not that far away, it was better for the cadets to maximize their travel time.

Clana was, of course, no exception.

She stood at the center of the circle beneath her feet. Several other cadets surrounded her. Before long, the circle began to glow.

The next second, Clana found herself standing in the middle of an enormous pavilion.

The pavilion was guarded by dozens of guards clad in full-body armor.

A vast forest stretched out before her.

The Frozen Sword Tomb was a massive forest divided into different Zones.

Each Zone was identified by a different color.

The White Zone was considered the least dangerous, while the Purple Zone was regarded as the most dangerous.

The Red Zone, where Clana was headed, was the second most dangerous Zone in the Frozen Sword Tomb.

After leaving the enormous pavilion, Clana and the other cadets split up, following the directions and instructions given by a guide waiting at the entrance to the forest.

Clana approached him and asked,

"Where is the Red Zone?"

The man answered in a mechanical voice.

"On the northern side, about ten kilometers away, near the central area of the forest."

Nodding, Clana entered the forest and began to run.

Like everyone else, the faster she completed her missions, the more Honor Points she could earn on the first day of the second examination.

Before long, she reached the Red Zone and began hunting the monsters that lived exclusively there.

Each time she killed a monster, she collected a sample as proof that she had completed the mission.

A couple of hours passed like that.

It was already around noon.

During those hours, she had run into several cadets, one of whom was Adel.

Out of pure curiosity, Clana asked him where he was headed.

Adel replied that he was going to the Purple Zone.

That meant he was planning to complete missions related to ruins.

Ruins were usually located within the Purple Zone.

It was the only Zone that remained largely unexplored because of its immense size and the many dangers lurking there.

Furthermore, from the Purple Zone onward, the entire environment became completely different, resembling a Demonic Zone.

Clana sat down on the trunk of a fallen tree, half-buried in the snow.

She let out a sigh as she quickly recovered her Mana.

Then she rubbed her temples and thought about the previous night.

Adel and Lumina had returned almost at midnight.

Clana had noticed that the two of them went to Ortlock City and came back about three hours later.

"What exactly were they doing...?"

Her thoughts were focused solely on Adel.

She could not get the resemblance between Adel and the mysterious figure known as the Prophet out of her mind.

’At the Academy, Lumina and Adel never interact so openly. They don’t even walk together; it’s as if they’re merely... acquaintances.’

’But just yesterday, the two of them went to Ortlock, which is rather strange.’

’And according to rumors I overheard from some of the guards, near midnight yesterday, they discovered an underground laboratory beneath a brothel, where they found the body of a female villain.’

’And it just so happens that those two left at around the same time the laboratory was discovered.’

Clana sighed as she rubbed her temples.

If there was one thing she had noticed, it was how unusually Adel and Lumina behaved.

On top of that, during the first few hours of exploring the mountains the previous day, Cassian turned out to be a villain.

And naturally, the person who had been with Cassian was Adel.

Other people might think it was just a coincidence.

But Clana had noticed a strange pattern.

Throughout the entire day, Adel seemed to be waiting for the perfect moment to go to Ortlock, and the very next day, rumors about a villains’ laboratory began to spread.

All of that happened after Cassian’s death. On top of that, there was Adel’s decision to specifically go exploring with him.

Which, to Clana, could only mean one thing.

’It’s as if he had known from the very beginning that Cassian was a villain.’