149 It's The Same
The next day, both Jay and the others had been admitted to the bronze city hospital, with everyone, thanks to the treatment that the first mentioned had performed on them, being out of danger.
The person who had the highest priority was Jay, who caused the surprise of more than one medical staff of the hospital for all the damage his body presented, which in part seemed to have been made by a monster and on the other hand seemed to be things that his own body did.
Anyway, this made Jay to be admitted in a special wing of the hospital in which were taken those cases that had to be attended first hand by the best doctor of the Eitsirc Academy.
As for the others, since their condition was not serious, they were placed in normal rooms until they recovered.
With that, it was clear that they were now safe and could rest after a night in which everything went wrong for everyone.
And now, it was someone else’s turn to worry about what all the above mentioned had suffered.
***
“…”
“…”
In a meeting room in an unknown location of the Academy, all the executives were present, with no one but the esper’s head teacher, Amara Pieren, sitting at the head.
At this point, silence reigned in the room, with none of the executives daring to even make a sound for fear of incurring the wrath of the esper head teacher.
Something that was as clear as day thanks to the fact that one could feel the overwhelming pressure the head teacher was releasing, making even breathing become a bit of a chore.
“…Again… it really happened again…”Â.
Breaking the silence, the melodious but firm voice of the head teacher rang out, in her head passing on a piece of information that all the executives were present for.
The fact that just on the night of the previous day, without a month having passed since the previous event, another group of students had been attacked by an unknown monster.
While it could be said that this time it was not entirely part of the academy because the students in question left the city when they had been forbidden to do so, the head teacher was aware that this would only be an excuse to avoid responsibility.
A pathetic excuse considering that the forest where they were attacked was closer to the city than even the crop fields.
This was something that had happened right next to the city, after they had put more security in place to prevent this kind of thing from happening.
To her, it seemed that the monster was making fun of them, and more importantly, of the Academy.
*Bam!*
Slapping her hand against the table, the head teacher then looked up and turned to the headmaster’s secretary next to her, “I want all the assistants in charge of the doors last night demoted. If they couldn’t stop some kids from getting out, they won’t be able to do anything if a monster wants to get in.”
Without refuting or saying anything, the secretary then proceeded to write down the order the head teacher had given him, as for the executives, they said nothing, agreeing.
“Now, when will the manager of the bronze city’s magic circles arrive?” Asked the head teacher again addressing the secretary.
Turning over the pages of his little notepad, the secretary replied, “He’s already on his way, he’ll be here in approximately a couple of hours.”
“Well, what about Tome and Marcus?”
“Miss Tome is already on her way back and will be arriving in the next few days according to her own words, as for Mr. Marcus, he is busy making preparations for the event.”
Hearing this, the head teacher let out a sigh, she had expected Marcus to also be present when being informed of what happened, but she couldn’t do much either since what he was preparing was also important.
For lack of the vice-principal and as the person who spent the most time at the academy, she was now the person who had to take care of all the tedious things, giving her a considerable burden that she had had to carry alone.
Fortunately, Tome’s return to the academy was already a sure thing, being a comfort to the busy head teacher.
“Schedule a meeting with the one in charge of the magic circles the moment Tome arrives, we’ll both deal with the circle problem then.”Â
Stating that, the esper woman shifted her focus from the secretary to the other executives and asked a question towards one of them specifically, “To avoid questions in the room, read me the summary of what happened last night.”
The executive who had been singled out, a woman in her 20’s with short hair and wearing a suit then stood up as she turned on a small electronic device and placed it on the table.Â
*Chik!*
With a small electric sound, the device then turned on and displayed a holographic cube which showed the face of the bronze city training center instructor along with the face of the group of students involved.
A small information card on each of them was visible below each face.
“From the right we have the training center instructor, Svatha Houge, rank (B) pugilist with the title of executioner, then we have Jay Sacrest, rank (D+) esper with a special ability, Faith Alard, rank (C-) esper with a special ability, Vilda Lundell, Kai Sorge, Tom Bulder, all rank (D+) espers with active abilities and finally, Nico Doyle, rank (D+) light branch mage.
Although the reason they were all in the forest late at night is believed to be for a settling of scores between students due to the testimony of the student receptionist at the training center, both this and the encounter they had with the monster is yet to be confirmed with the students in question.
At the moment we only have the information from the instructor’s point of view after she encountered the group of students who appeared to have successfully escaped, so I will start from there.”
As the woman had said, the executive began to read aloud the testimony in lavish detail that the instructor had sent.
“Last night, realizing that student Jay Sacrest was nowhere to be found with the new student locator feature of the magic artifact, she proceeded to alert her other colleagues to initiate a small search in various locations of the city.
While doing so, they noticed that other students were also missing, so the search became large-scale, at which point a certain student, a receptionist at the training center, noticing all the commotion, gave a valuable clue as to where one of the missing students might have gone.
While the other teachers and assistants were still searching the city, the instructor, being a shadow pugilist, decided to follow this lead and take a look at the forest, taking with her the student Syvis Genna, Jay Sacrest’s partner for educational purposes.
And it was at that moment that the instructor found a magical barrier, barrier of rank (B-) at least, with the functions of obstructing the tracking ability of magical artifacts and especially high defense against esper abilities.”
After saying this, the head teacher’s brow furrowed, at the same time as the air around the secretary cooled considerably, again increasing the pressure among the executives.
But paying no attention to this, the short-haired executive continued with her summary.
“After breaking through the barrier, the instructor came upon the student Jay Sacrest, who with the aid of a small sled presumably made by himself, was carrying his other classmates, all unconscious due to the effects of the monster’s attacks.
The student, due to his serious physical condition, collapsed before they could ask him any questions, so the instructor ordered the student Syvis to take them all to the city as soon as possible and to bring other teachers while she stayed to check the forest.
Thanks to her speed, she was able to comb the forest quickly, finding what appear to be signs of confrontation between the group of students and the monster.”
At this point, the hologram cube had changed from being faces of those involved to showing the state of Jay’s body as well as various parts of the forest with dozens of trees cut down.
These images caused different reactions from the executives, from surprise to pity.
Surprise for the degree of destruction that could be seen, and pity for the students who had to face the culprit of that disaster.
As for the head teacher and the secretary, although they remained expressionless looking at the holograms, especially the one of Jay’s body, anger was forming inside them.
“Finally, the instructor managed, after having traversed almost the entire forest, to meet the monster first hand.” After saying this, the executive once again changed the hologram.
In front of everyone, the three-dimensional figure of a large mass of dark flesh with organs on the outside and a large amount of black liquid pouring out of its body appeared.
This sight, even though they had already seen it, again chilled the blood of all the executives, who instinctively could feel how out of the ordinary this formless monster was.
Instead, the face of the head teacher as well as the secretary showed an expression of absolute seriousness due to the fact that they also did not recognize what kind of monster it was.
“According to the instructor, the monster was in a weakened state, so she defeated it after a quick confrontation, but at the last moment, the monster burst out in a final attack, managing to slightly injure her.”
The hologram then changed to that of an image of the instructor’s arm, whose veins were completely black in color.
“The instructor managed to heal from this with her pugilistic flames and also made sure to burn all the remaining pieces of the monster, but stayed to check the forest anyway, albeit with null results.
At this moment, the forest is under intense search by the assistants as well as the team in charge of magic circles of the bronze city. And that concludes my summary.”
After having spoken so much, the executive coughed a couple of times to clear her throat, satisfied with her performance.
This summary, no doubt, no matter how many times they heard it, the executives could only say that it created more questions than the answers it gave.
At that moment, one of the executives, a thickly built man well into his thirties made a comment on the summary, “A female instructor from the bronze city managed to defeat a monster that escaped someone from the silver city?”
In his tone was not only mixed with disbelief, but there was also some disdain, especially when he mentioned the words ‘bronze city’.
“Wouldn’t it be better to transfer that instructor to the silver city? It would seem that her power is wasted being there.” Continued the same executive, “In fact, we could even exchange the one in charge of the hunting grounds with her, the bronze city is better suited to someone who failed in her task, a proper promotion and demotion.”
As he finished saying that, the gaze of the other executives fell on this man, who had proposed something that was outside of what the others were thinking.
“…With all due respect, Mr. Roscher, things aren’t as simple as someone did a better job or not, and ultimately, it’s not up to you to decide promotions or demotions, so it would be better to focus only on matters that concern you.” Replied the short-haired executive looking directly at the man in front of her.
Although there was a considerable age difference between the two and that in any other job that would mean keeping a respect, the young executive was not afraid since the position of the two was the same.
Besides, she truly did not like the way the man had expressed himself about two valuable workers at the Academy.
Faced with this not-so-subtle provocation, the middle-aged executive merely looked at the young female executive before saying, “…If Miss Lyla wishes to protect ineptitude, I will say no more.”
With that, the atmosphere became tense thanks to the exchange between these two executives, as for the person with the most authority present, namely the head teacher, she was thinking about a certain image she had seen.
Specifically, the image in which the instructor’s arm had been affected by the monster’s attack.
‘That black liquid and that kind of infection… it’s the same as what that other student is suffering from…’