Chapter 95

Chapter 95. Return

Fwoooosh, bang!

A signal flare rose into the sky again. This time, it was a white signal flare.

White was a signal telling anyone who saw it to reveal their location with a signal flare.

After Sir Axel fired the signal flare, all of us looked up at the sky.

It was because the knights searching elsewhere might fire signal flares as well.

We waited for quite some time, but no other signal flare rose.

Since no signal flare had gone up when the rescue request was sent, I had not expected much, but now it had become difficult to hope for the survival of the other knights.

Sir Miro and Sir Axel headed with me toward the cave where Professor Katrine and the students were waiting.

Because I was not moving alone, I could not travel over the trees.

Because of that, it took quite some time to reach the cave.

“Is everyone all right?”

“Welcome back.”

The knights, and Katrine and the students waiting in the cave, were glad to see one another.

For the knights, it was because although they had heard what had happened from me, they now saw with their own eyes that the students were alive.

For Katrine and the students, it was because they were glad that the knights who had come to save them were safe.

However, a considerable number of knights had died or gone missing, and there had also been a missing student, so none of them could simply be happy.

While they exchanged greetings, I was reading the message before my eyes.

[The crisis situation has ended. A new ‘save point’ has been set.]

It was a save point I had expected, but when I thought about it, both the time and location were truly ambiguous.

Unless a save point was created through another event, if I died, I would restart from this time and this place.

‘Well, I have repeated years before too.’

I dismissed the message and approached the group, who were talking.

---

Living in the sealed grounds was by no means easy.

First, food was a problem.

The knights had each prepared a week’s worth of food, but the students only had enough for a day or two.

If food had not been an issue, we would have remained inside the cave until it was time to return. Unfortunately, we had to find the food we lacked in the forest.

During the day, we searched for tree fruits and animals that could be eaten.

However, in the forest of the sealed grounds, there were more monsters than edible fruits and animals. We fought monsters far more often than we found fruits or animals.

Fortunately, with the help of the students, the knights, and even Katrine, we were barely able to secure food.

On top of that, the cave was not entirely safe either.

One night, we were attacked by monsters.

Everyone stepped forward and succeeded in killing the attacking monsters, but that night, all of us had no choice but to stay awake until morning.

We considered moving to another shelter, but until the final day, we could not find a better place nearby.

Many things happened, and we suffered a great deal, but by the final day, everyone had become fairly close after all the hardship.

On the morning of the seventh day, when the headmaster had said he would return.

We headed toward the clearing that had been our original destination.

One professor, two knights, and five students including me.

A total of eight people crossed the forest.

I, who had acted as the guide throughout the entire week, took the lead.

However, a guide was not particularly necessary.

Before long, a pillar of light soared up ahead of us.

The knights fired the final remaining signal flare.

Fwoooosh, bang!

Blue smoke embroidered the sky.

Blue. A signal that survivors had been found.

---

“You were alive!”

When we arrived at the clearing, the headmaster spread both arms and welcomed us.

The knights who had come with the headmaster also seemed surprised to see us return alive.

They had seen the signal flare, but it seemed they had not expected most of the students to be alive.

“Are these all the people who came here?”

At the headmaster’s words, Sir Miro and Professor Katrine nodded.

Throughout the week, we had searched whenever we had time, but we could not find the other knights.

“I have many things I want to ask and many things I want to say, but for now, let us return to the academy first.”

After closing the box that had been shooting out light, the headmaster gathered us and the knights who had escorted him.

Once people gathered around him, he activated the magic circle.

I could see mana move at his gesture.

The fully gathered mana wrapped around us and then connected far beyond the sky.

“We depart!”

Before the headmaster’s words had even ended, the world rippled, and in the next moment, we had arrived at the academy.

---

Instead of a forest full of vines, hard stone walls appeared before Katrine’s eyes.

This was inside the building where they had been before departing for the sealed grounds.

“Katrine!”

As Katrine let out a sigh of relief, a small child threw herself into her arms.

“It is a relief. I am so glad.”

It was Princess Aisha, still only a young girl.

She clutched Katrine’s clothes and rubbed her face against her.

“I am dirty. I smell too.”

“It is all right. You are not dirty at all. Katrine came back safely.”

She was a niece who had been forced to imitate an adult far too early because of her frightening father and older brothers.

Katrine had found her admirable, yet also worried about her. But now, Aisha had thrown away her mask and was crying like a baby in her arms.

Seeing the princess cry made Katrine feel even more sorry for her niece.

She quietly stroked the princess’s head, and after a while, the princess stopped crying and put on the face of an adult again.

Regrettably, it was time for the princess to do what she had to do.

“I heard Aisha sent Alex.”

“Yes. I made an unreasonable request of Young Master Alex.”

“It is enough that you know that. Still, because Aisha asked, everyone was able to return safely. Thanks to Alex, everyone returned alive.”

“Is that true? I must thank Young Master Alex immediately.”

Perhaps because she had heard that her decision had saved everyone, the princess approached Alex with a bright face.

Katrine looked at Alex, who was talking with the princess.

Around Alex, several students besides the princess had gathered.

Bria, who had spent a week with him, had not gone elsewhere and was standing beside Alex, and was her name Valea? The female student from the Inherited Ability Department was also handing him a towel.

“He is strangely prepared somehow.”

They were not the only ones.

The students who had spent the week with him also acted as though they knew him, and the knights who had been with them, as well as the male student who had been talking with Mirisa, also seemed to be thanking him.

It was a completely different sight from when he had first entered the academy.

“There still seem to be many students pretending not to know him, but even this much is impressive.”

As the person who had recommended him to the Queen and summoned him to the academy, Katrine found the sight before her extremely satisfying.

“Professor Katrine, may I speak with you for a moment?”

At that moment, the headmaster called her. After also calling Sir Miro, he created a soundproofing wall with mana around them.

“You must be exhausted, but I believe I need to hear, even briefly, what happened.”

The headmaster had said that it could not be helped if people died in the sealed grounds, but the academy students were all awakened nobles.

The disappearance of students and a professor who was the Queen’s younger sister was no ordinary matter.

There were many people, including the headmaster himself, who wanted to know what had happened.

Katrine explained what had happened from the moment they disappeared until they returned, as objectively as possible. After they joined the knights, Sir Miro added his own experience to Katrine’s account.

After listening carefully, the headmaster smiled once Katrine and the knight finished speaking.

“I heard it from the princess as well, but Student Alex truly did a great deal. At the very least, we should give him extra credit.”

At the headmaster’s words, Sir Miro also praised Alex.

“Yes. Not only his character, but his ability was excellent as well. I do not know what ability he possesses, but he was stronger than most knights.”

“He is Duke Gresia’s son, after all.”

Although Katrine knew it was not because of the ducal family’s ability, she did not bother to object to the headmaster’s words.

That was because there was something more important than that.

“I also thank Sir Miro and the knights who participated in the search party. We will contact the families of those who could not return separately.”

The headmaster expressed his gratitude to Sir Miro.

The knight understood that the headmaster’s words were a kind of dismissal, so he greeted the headmaster and headed toward the other knights.

Only the headmaster and Katrine remained inside the soundproofing wall.

The headmaster’s expression changed. With a hardened face, he spoke to Katrine.

“According to what you said, Professor, it is highly likely that Student Ride caused the group to take the wrong path, correct?”

There was no one listening other than Katrine, but the headmaster’s voice had grown quieter than before.

At the headmaster’s question, Katrine let out a sigh.

“Given the circumstances, there is a high possibility that Ride used his ability on us while aiming for something. However, it is only a possibility. There may have been another reason, or it may have simply been a coincidence…….”

Katrine tried to find another reason until the end.

However, both she and the headmaster who had heard her account believed that Ride was the culprit.

The headmaster shook his head.

“Even if Ride caused the problem, this time, we have no choice but to report it as a simple accident. The person involved has gone missing, and there is no evidence, so we cannot accuse a count’s son as the culprit based only on circumstances.”

Katrine agreed with the headmaster’s words. In her opinion, that way seemed less painful as well.

“However, if it is reported as an accident, Professor Katrine’s evaluation score will be lowered. Your salary will be reduced for several months.”

The headmaster looked apologetic, but Katrine did not particularly care. Her house was a count’s house, her older sister was the Queen, and she also had quite a bit of money she had earned as a mercenary.

The reason she had accepted the academy professorship was also because of Princess Aisha, so the evaluation score and salary reduction meant little to her.

---

Katrine and the headmaster had been talking seriously for quite a while.

Judging from their expressions, it was clear they were talking about Ride, not me.

There was no conclusive evidence, but when one looked back on everything that had happened, there was no choice but to suspect Ride.

However, the person involved had gone missing—no, had been eaten by monsters—and since there was no other evidence, this matter would obviously be buried while remaining only a suspicion.

While I was watching Katrine and the headmaster, Valea and Bria were chattering beside me about what had happened in the sealed grounds.

“So Young Master Alex appeared splendidly at the end and saved everyone?”

“At that moment, I truly thought an angel had descended from the heavens.”

Valea and Bria seemed happy to have met again, and they appeared to have become even closer friends than before.

“When we found out that Professor Katrine’s group had gone down another path, the princess clasped her hands together and looked at Young Master Alex. Seeing that, he said, ‘If the princess wishes it, I will go, even at the risk of my life!’ Then he vanished into the forest alone.”

“Oh! So that is how Young Master Alex came to find us.”

Meanwhile, Valea was exaggerating what I had said to a ridiculous degree.

As I listened quietly, my face grew so hot that I could not possibly stay there.

The other students were returning as well, and the princess seemed to have gone back after greeting me, so I decided to slowly return to the dormitory too.

My first field training. My first visit to the sealed grounds. Truly, many things had happened.

This time, I had gone looking for the incident myself, but it seemed an ordinary academy life was impossible after all.

Tap, tap.

I tapped the pouch at my waist.

Still, since I had received a reward, I felt satisfied.