The Fabricated Truth and the Living Floor

As expected. Whether it was true or not, one does not ascend to the seat of an heir to a family that holds the Empire’s commerce in a death grip by accident. Elliot, having discarded his usual snide attitude, completely mesmerized the Headmaster by dragging out time with seemingly trivial topics.

However, even that had its limits. While individual ability is crucial for holding the top position of the Magic Tower and the Academy, the eloquence to maintain that position is also essential. The Headmaster was no pushover.

Having been held up by Louis for so long, the Headmaster was clearly looking for an exit from the conversation. While the couple looked perfectly at ease, Louis was the only one restlessly shifting his gaze.

He wanted to trust them, and they certainly looked reliable, but the prestige of Pisa Tecon was far too high to be held back indefinitely by the daughter of a Marquis and a future Head of House who hadn’t even graduated yet. Even if the Count himself had come instead of Elliot, it would have been a stretch. Perhaps if it were the Crown Prince, it might be a different story.

Lucia tugged on the arm of Elliot, who had been conversing leisurely. Elliot willingly leaned down to offer her his ear. As Lucia whispered something, Elliot straightened his back with an “Ah,” and pulled something out.

“I was so delighted to see you, Professor, that I nearly forgot something important. I recently invested in a product presented by an Academy undergraduate… and this, well.”

“An investment? What kind of…”

“I believe you might be keeping an eye on it as well, Professor. It’s long-distance communication equipment.”

“Ah, ahh. That.”

The Headmaster’s composure cracked for a brief moment. Quickly smoothing his expression, he gave a jovial laugh.

“I invested heavily, thinking it was a remarkable product that would turn the Empire upside down if commercialized.”

“Then, by any chance, the Lepson Merchant Guild…”

“It is a guild operated by my family. I am currently in charge of it.”

The Headmaster’s attitude, which had looked ready to cut the conversation short at any moment, shifted instantly. Once he confirmed that Elliot held a status worth speaking to, his demeanor softened dramatically.

“We shouldn’t just stand here. Why don’t we sit down and talk?”

“The thing is, actually…”

Elliot furrowed his brows in a troubled expression.

Knowing that he wasn’t the type to be flustered by most things—and even if he were, he wasn’t the type to let it show on his face—Lucia and Louis watched him with internal disgust at his audacity. But the Headmaster, who had no way of knowing this, took it seriously.

“I heard that it might be a case of plagiarism.”

His quiet voice carried a dangerous word. The Headmaster looked around, startled. There were no eyes watching them here. But one could never be too sure. He hastily cast a barrier of isolation magic around them. A large-scale spell cast with a single gesture. He really is impressive, Louis thought.

In any case, even Louis was intrigued. It was a fascinating topic. He hadn’t heard who had created the communication device Elliot mentioned, but the answer was obvious. If it was something that even he, the runner-up, couldn’t make, there was no one else but the top student, Cedric Klein.

“Plagiarism? What on earth do you mean by that?”

“I discovered this.”

“This is…”

What Elliot pulled out was a leather-bound notebook.

The only thing unusual about it was the visible passage of time. The notebook itself looked ordinary. The Headmaster took it and leafed through it with a puzzled expression.

“It looks like just a normal notebook.”

“I thought so too, at first.”

“Miss Isen.”

“That was until I found it in the library,” Lucia said. “I wondered why a blank notebook was tucked between books, but I didn’t think much of it. Sometimes other students’ assignments get caught in there.”

Lucia swallowed a short sigh as she looked at the notebook. Her gaze was as if she were looking at something ominous—an expression completely different from the bored person who had been staring at the floor behind Elliot just moments ago.

“I didn’t have a reason to look at it for a while. There was no reason to use such an old notebook. But then, the notebook that had been neglected on the shelf for a long time caught my eye again, and since I happened to have no blank paper, I tried to take notes in it. But…”

Lucia bit her lip. Elliot offered her comfort.

“The letters disappeared. Even then, I thought a student from the Magic Department was playing a prank. Disappearing ink… I’d never heard of such a thing, but I have enough knowledge to know that there are many unannounced spells out there.”

“The letters disappeared?”

“Yes, and…”

As if the real shock was yet to come, her voice dropped lower.

“An answer comes back… to the words that vanished.”

No sooner had she spoken than the Headmaster cast a spell. His movements were urgent.

A pale green light settled over the notebook. There was no reaction. The Headmaster did not give up and layered another spell on top of it.

One, two, three… The spells of the current Head of the Magic Tower piled up on the old notebook. The paper trembled as if it could hardly withstand the weight. Louis, who knew better than anyone except the Headmaster what those layers meant, was stunned.

He knew there were spells to reveal used magical formulas. But this was the first time he had seen it used in practice. Naturally, the more complex the magic, the harder it is to layer. Most mages can’t even perfectly overlap two. Layering a formula-deciphering spell—which is known as extremely high-level magic—so many times was essentially an impossible feat.

And he’s doing it silently, without even chanting. The Headmaster really is something…

Only after seven spells were layered did the formulas written in the notebook finally unfurl. Most of the rapidly expanding magic was beyond comprehension, and even the parts Louis managed to grasp were entirely foreign concepts.

Someone who knew more than he did would probably have been even more shocked. This was a kind of magic that had never existed before. The Headmaster’s face, which had been smiling kindly, transformed into that of the Master of the Magic Tower. Louis understood his heart. The man probably wanted to run to his lab with this notebook immediately. His own hands were itching too.

“You said you found this in the library?”

“Yes.”

“If this is a tool that allows communication with others, it becomes a problem,” Elliot added. “Because I paid a large sum under the impression that the product from the Academy was an Imperial first.”

Attacked from both sides simultaneously, the Headmaster completely lost his will to fight. He seemed to have forgotten all about his plan to return to his office.

Looking at the Headmaster’s bewildered face, Louis cast aside the doubts he had been harboring. It felt like a lie that he had been worried just moments ago about how those two could possibly hold the Headmaster back. Right, I should have known those two would handle themselves perfectly.

It was dark and I couldn’t see the floor, but I was confident I could land safely no matter when I fell. Before long, I felt something touch my feet. I immediately rolled to absorb the impact. Contrary to my expectation of a hard surface, a soft floor caught my body.

I pressed down on the floor with my hands. I felt a resilient surface, like a rubber hose filled with water. Although light was falling from the ceiling, it was so faint that I couldn’t identify exactly what it was. Regardless, it was fine since I was able to land without taking damage.

The priority now was to get out of here. My heart raced at the thought that I had wasted more time than expected on the portrait riddle. It would be a disaster if Pisa Tecon entered his office now. I shouted toward the invisible distance.

“Cedric!”

My voice only echoed in the darkness; no answer came back. Damn it. My best bet was to just keep moving forward. Whichever way I walked, I’d eventually find a way out.

Just then, I felt the floor shake, and soon it tilted precariously. Maintaining my balance wasn’t hard, but I had to move immediately. Something surged up from the floor.

I peered into the dark, but my eyes hadn’t adjusted yet, so I couldn’t see much. I listened. A sound of something stiff rubbing, a squelching noise.

A curse escaped my lips involuntarily. The sound moved from the distance to right beside me. This wasn’t an isolated anomaly; the entire floor was heaving. And the floor was moving with me as its center.

It was an attack aimed explicitly at me.

The moment I grasped the situation, I sprinted forward. Since I couldn’t see, the best strategy was to minimize the time my feet spent on the ground and dodge by instinct.

“Dammit…”

When the hall echoed with the sound of the final trial being cleared after I finished the portrait puzzle, I’d felt relieved. That was a stupid move. I thought it was some kind of kindness, but it seems it was a high-level strategy—lulling the intruder into a sense of security before striking when their guard was down.

The writhing floor was part of a creature that looked like a mass of vines. Its thick and thin appendages were visible here and there in the dim light. Having uncoiled itself from the floor, it lunged straight at me.

Dodging wasn’t difficult. I used the incoming vines as stepping stones to leap upward, gauging the height of the ceiling from my previous impact. I braced my feet against the ceiling, curled my body as much as possible, and then lunged back down. Each time I swung my sword during my descent, the vines were hacked away in chunks, revealing the hard floor beneath.

My margin of error was shrinking. If I were in top physical condition, this wouldn’t have been such a difficult opponent. I wiped the sweat dripping down my chin.