“Due to certain complications, the Academy’s flying competition will be postponed. The exact date will be announced later.”
“Eh~”
In the classroom, Beatrice was announcing the newly issued notice from the Academy to the students.
The fact that cultists had somehow infiltrated the Academy without warning was strange in itself. The barrier she had placed could only be freely passed by those recognized by the Academy, which meant someone had deliberately brought the cultists inside—or some students had been manipulated by them.
But none of that was Beatrice’s concern. She didn’t care. As long as it didn’t affect her or Aurora, the fate of this Academy had nothing to do with her.
Sitting in the first row, Aurora glanced back anxiously.
She hadn’t seen Ivira at all since this morning. Ivira had never skipped a class before, yet today, she hadn’t shown up at all. Could something have happened to her?
“Silence,” Beatrice snapped her fingers.
Instantly, the previously grumbling students fell quiet. They had all been hit with a Silencing Spell. Even if their mouths could move, they couldn’t utter a word.
“Take out your dictation sheets…”
Thud.
Just as Beatrice was about to lazily assign a magic array dictation as usual, the classroom door suddenly burst open.
Beatrice turned her gaze slightly toward the door. Her usually beautiful brow furrowed at once.
Clatter…
In the next moment, chaos erupted inside the classroom. Chairs and desks were knocked over, magic books scattered across the floor.
Even though the students couldn’t speak, their panicked expressions revealed the terror in their hearts.
“You’re late, Ivira.”
Beatrice turned around and looked at the girl standing in the doorway—her face streaked with blood.
“Apologies, Professor… I was just taking care of a little trouble.”
In her right hand, she was holding something—something that was still dripping blood.
It was a severed, bloody head. A long trail of blood followed behind her wherever she walked. Her clothes were soaked through, and her golden hair was stained a vivid red.
Ivira casually tossed the head forward. It landed on the ground, rolled once, leaving a thick smear of blood, and came to a stop against the podium.
The face on the head was twisted with rage, its eyes wide open and mouth agape, as if still screaming in agony at the moment of death.
“The trouble’s been dealt with… So the competition can proceed as scheduled, right?”
A calm smile never left Ivira’s face as she scanned the room, her gaze finally resting on Aurora.
“Aurora!”
She ran toward her cheerfully, her face full of unconcealed joy.
As she dashed down the steps, the students panicked and scattered in every direction. Some even flew out of the classroom in terror.
Smack.
A loud snap echoed from the podium.
A moment later, a glowing purple chain appeared in midair, binding Ivira tightly.
Though she was physically restrained and unable to move, her mouth certainly wasn’t.
“Miss Aurora, I can now use magic proficiently. I’ll definitely win first place in the competition! When that happens, no one will ever look down on me again—not those classmates who bullied me, not even Professor Beatrice…”
Seeing her like this, Aurora instinctively took a step back.
Anyone could sense there was something off about Ivira.
She kept smiling at her—but the smile was disturbingly unnatural. It was a naked expression of desire, like someone on the verge of obtaining exactly what they’d always wanted.
Within that seemingly placid smile, there was something raw and unfiltered—the purest hunger.
“…Tch. Troublesome.”
Beatrice didn’t even wait for class to end.
With a flick of her hand, she hoisted the bound Ivira onto a broomstick and exited the classroom. Because of the restriction placed on her, Aurora had no choice but to follow at Beatrice’s side.
They soared up the stairs and headed for the top floor of the Academy building.
At the very top, they stopped in front of a large door marked with a glowing blue magic circle.
Beatrice snapped her fingers again. In the next instant, the magical glyph vanished.
“I still think knocking would be more polite, you know,” Aurora muttered.
“Ha.”
BOOM!
The door exploded inward under the force of a blast spell.
A woman with long blue hair stared at them in shock from inside the room.
“Professor Eisenberg?! Have you forgotten how to knock?!”
“Here.”
Without sparing her a glance, Beatrice flung the bound Ivira forward, letting her land with a thud in front of the bewildered woman.
“Have you lost your mind, Professor Eisenberg? Why is she tied up like that?!”
Albert Eisenberg rushed forward on instinct to untie Ivira—but as she approached, she saw the fresh blood soaked through the girl’s clothes and froze.
“Oh, right—one more thing.”
Beatrice casually tossed something else toward her.
It was the severed head of a man, his face contorted in a grotesque expression of fury and pain.
Albert still hadn’t processed what was happening.
Her hand, halfway through the unbinding gesture, stopped mid-air. Her eyes flicked between the head on the ground and Ivira, drenched in blood.
It took her a second—but then it clicked.
“She… killed this man?”
“Director, he was a cultist. I ran into him in the forest. Is there something wrong with killing a cultist?” Ivira asked matter-of-factly, her tone completely unbothered.
Her sky-blue eyes were vacant, utterly devoid of light. It was as if killing someone didn’t disturb her in the slightest.
“You’re Ivira Maestar, correct?”
“Yes, that’s me. The lowest-ranked student in the Academy—the one everyone looks down on. Ivira Maestar.”
“…”
“Director Albert, you’re just like the rest of them, aren’t you? You all look down on me—just a failure who can only cast flight magic through inscription.”
Albert also sensed something wrong with Ivira. She didn’t respond to Ivira’s remark, and instead asked calmly, “How did you kill him? Did he do anything to you?”
“He… didn’t.”
At that, Ivira’s eyes flicked to the side, deliberately avoiding Albert’s gaze.
That evasive movement didn’t escape Aurora’s sharp eyes.
‘She’s definitely hiding something from us.’
Albert crossed her arms, frowning. She hadn’t sensed any magical irregularity from Ivira, but even so—how could someone ranked dead last in the academy manage to kill a cultist alone?
That was just too far-fetched.
She was convinced: the cultist must’ve given Ivira something—something that granted her the power to kill him.
“You’re lying,” Beatrice, who had been standing silently with her arms crossed, suddenly spoke.
“I am not!”
Slap!
“Heh.”
With a snap of her fingers, Beatrice summoned three wolf-shaped Rift Demons that appeared beside Ivira in an instant.
“Professor Eisenberg! What are you doing?!”
“Tear her apart.”
Beatrice’s calm words fell, and the three Rift Demons lunged toward the bound Ivira.
But just as their sharp fangs were about to reach her, a sharp jingle echoed through the room. Black spike-like spears burst from the ground, impaling the three demons in an instant.
“Heh. And you still say you didn’t do anything?”