"Who spread this? Have Monaster investigate it thoroughly!"
"Understood."
Asna nodded, her expression smooth and unperturbed.
In truth, she knew very well that the origin of this whole affair was likely President Monaster casually chatting with them about Dean Loren's past in the student council room, only for the information to be leaked by one of them—Lanqi, Hyperion, or Frey.
And it had most likely leaked into the hands of someone truly dreadful.
Oh, she knew exactly what had happened.
Yet Asna kept her mouth shut.
Morning sunlight poured in through the side window. Perhaps because the rain had only just cleared, it seemed especially glaring.
The beam fell squarely across the side of Loren's face, making his gaze appear all the deeper and sterner.
"..."
His eyelid twitched faintly. The expression on his face shifted from calm to solemn, his lips pressed into a tight line.
Asna sensed the shift as well. Resting both hands against the file folder, she maintained her silence.
The office was quiet save for the ticking of the wall clock. The steam curling from the coffee on the desk seemed to slow as well; in such an atmosphere, time appeared to crawl, every second dragging on interminably.
"No wonder our school's reputation has been going downhill in recent years."
Loren took quite a while to compose himself.
He couldn't shake the feeling that the atmosphere at the academy had taken another turn for the worse lately.
Though, truth be told, the academy's culture had always had issues—even the Dean of the School of Alchemy had ended up behind bars.
"By the way, did Lanqi accept Adams's challenge? How did it turn out?"
Loren had always known that blessings never come in pairs, but misfortunes never travel alone. At a time like this, he was especially worried about what sort of "surprise" Lanqi might have in store for him.
"..."
Asna fell silent once more.
Frey was exerting strength behind the scenes, while Lanqi had already hauled in the net.
Hesitating, Asna pondered how to phrase things to describe the whole sequence of events to Loren.
In that brief silence, a melodic, piercing ring suddenly broke into the enclosed space—
It was the communication terminal on Dean Loren's desk.
It was an antique magical apparatus, its base crafted from heavy, black-lacquered metal, with thick, winding cords connecting it to Ikerite Academy's central communication terminal, capable of patching calls through to Dean Loren's office at any moment.
Loren furrowed his brows in mild confusion. Raising his hand slowly, he picked up the receiver from its base and brought it gently to his ear.
"Juliana? What is it you need?"
He had no idea why Juliana would contact him first thing in the morning.
"..."
Silence hung on the other end of the line for a moment, as though she were perplexed as to why Loren would even ask such a question.
"How did the duel between Lanqi and Adams go?"
Juliana's voice remained as cool and haughty as ever, yet beneath it lurked a faint anticipation; she cared immensely about the outcome.
Loren glanced up at Asna.
He caught the conflicted expression on Asna's face, the look of wanting to speak yet holding back.
Loren had a very bad feeling about this.
He knew it! With the way Adams stubbornly refused to turn back until he rammed headfirst into Lanqi, he was practically begging to suffer!
Still, Loren genuinely hadn't expected Juliana to care even more about this match than he did.
"I've only just returned to the academy and haven't had time to look into the situation yet," Loren hurried to explain.
"..."
Juliana hesitated for another moment. "Adams hasn't reported the match's outcome to me for an entire day."
Her voice was laced with a hint of bewilderment.
Ordinarily, with stakes this high, Adams should have contacted her immediately regardless of whether he won or lost.
Yet a full day had passed without a word, as if he had dropped off the face of the earth.
"..."
Cold sweat began beading on Loren's forehead. "Don't worry, Juliana. I'll go check on what happened right away."
The news coming from the other end was clearly anything but good. As the conversation went on, Loren's expression grew steadily heavier, his brow tightly furrowed. The relaxed look in his eyes was now completely replaced by worry and confusion.
"All right," Juliana replied crisply.
Soon, however, she added at the end, "Win or lose, I hope you will honor your promise."
"What promise?"
Loren sensed that something was terribly amiss. He repeated the question twice into the receiver, but by the time he asked, Juliana had already hung up.
"Where is Adams?"
The very first thing Loren did after putting down the receiver was look at Asna, his voice carrying both resolve and deep trepidation.
Asna had been hesitating and mincing words earlier; he no longer had the time to sit and listen to a drawn-out explanation.
"The seventh-floor atrium."
Without waiting to ask Asna for details, Loren's figure vanished from the office on the spot, leaving behind only the faint hum of the antique magical apparatus and the flickering shadows cast across the desk by the sunlight outside.
...
Above Ikerite Academy, the normally azure sky was often darted through by birds swift as a sudden tempest.
Now, high in the air, the wind swirled around Loren. His figure seemed to transform into a feather carried upon the currents, merging as one with the wind as he soared at high speed.
The academy's clusters of buildings rapidly shrank in his field of view. He flew past structures with red bricks and green roof tiles, past ancient oaks and serene lakes, and in an instant spotted the Learning and Education Building.
Loren's black coat fluttered wildly in the wind, its hem dancing like a phantom in the night.
His face was resolute, eyes gleaming as though he could see right through all things in the world.
The wind rushing against Loren's cheeks from the high-speed flight generated a faint heat, but he paid it no heed. His mind held only one objective: get to the seventh-floor atrium as fast as possible to see what was going on.
The situation actually wasn't all that terrible right now.
An upright man had nothing to fear.
Sure, there were some rumors.
But it wasn't as if he was going to make a special trip to the Aloran Kingdom just to see Juliana.
There was no official business that required him to travel there in person, and going on a date was utterly absurd.
Even if, taking a step back, he really did meet Juliana, there was no way in hell the two of them would go on a date.
Gossip like that would collapse under its own weight soon enough.
What he needed to find out most right now was what kind of stunt Lanqi had pulled this time.
As Loren flew over Ikerite Academy and was about to land directly onto the rooftop terrace of the Learning and Education Building, two familiar figures suddenly caught his eye.
Lanqi and Hyperion were strolling along the broad stone path leading to the School of Sages, walking at a steady pace while conversing with a young student he didn't recognize well.
Loren's heart skipped a beat. He decided to halt his wind magic, easing its force so that he could touch down gently.
As the soles of his feet made contact with the ground, the tempest surging beneath them began to contract slowly, ultimately fading into nothingness.
Having landed lightly from the air, Loren looked straight at the three students before him.
Lanqi remained as calm and poised as ever, looking perfectly unbothered every single day.
Hyperion, on the other hand, displayed a hint of vigilance upon seeing Dean Loren, appearing somewhat guilty.
Beside them was a student Loren didn't recognize. He looked quite ill at ease and didn't seem to belong to their academy; he was likely a member of the academic exchange delegation from Aloran Royal Academy—and, by the look of him, an honest, simple fellow.
Chapter 200