Harem Training System: Every Girl I Train Makes Me Stronger!

Albert held William’s gaze for what felt like an eternity. The air in the office had grown stale and heavy, charged with the static of an impending storm.

William could feel the unspoken warning vibrating between them: the threat of ruin, the danger of crossing the Valestria lineage. He could see the conflict warring behind Albert’s eyes: the duty to protect the academy’s reputation versus the moral burden of knowing something was rotting at its core.

Finally, something in Albert’s shoulders relented. The rigid formality drained from him, replaced by a weary resignation that looked almost like grief.

He reached into a side drawer, his fingers finding a small brass key. He placed it on the polished mahogany surface between them.

The metallic click as it touched the wood sounded as loud as a gunshot in the silent room.

"The lower archives," Albert said, his voice rougher now, stripped of its diplomatic veneer. "You’ll need to go to the same section Olivia accessed during the Hollow Circle investigation."

"The records for the kingdom’s major noble houses are kept there... cataloged with excruciating detail but buried deep enough that they aren’t easily searched."

"You will need patience, Instructor Wade... More patience than I think you currently possess."

He paused, leaning back as if the effort of the conversation had physically drained him. His eyes fixed on William with a level, unblinking seriousness.

"I will send word ahead... The archivist will know to expect you, but they will not know why."

"And listen to me carefully... whatever you find, Instructor Wade, and whatever horrors or secrets you unearth, you must keep it contained."

"If this leaks... to the point that this becomes a matter of academy gossip rather than a genuine, private investigation into a student’s wellbeing, then... you will destroy her."

"The Valestria retaliation will not be a court case because it will be a massacre... It will hurt her far more than any truth ever could."

William didn’t hesitate. He reached out and closed his fingers around the cold brass key, feeling its weight, the weight of a potential death sentence.

"Understood," he said, already rising from the chair. His body felt coiled, like a predator sensing blood in the water. "Thank you, Headmaster Albert... Genuinely."

As William turned to leave, Albert’s voice caught him at the doorway. It was quiet, almost a whisper, but it carried the chilling conviction of a prophecy.

"Don’t thank me yet, William."

William stopped, his hand hovering near the doorframe. He turned his head just enough to catch Albert’s profile.

The headmaster was staring at the untouched cup of tea, his reflection distorted in the dark liquid.

"Based on the look in your eyes right now... the hunger for answers and the fury I see simmering beneath your skin that I suspect you aren’t going to like what you find." Albert finally looked up, his expression grim. "I suspect you’re going to find exactly what you’re afraid of."

"..." William didn’t answer that other than leaving his office with a bow.

...

The lower archives smelled exactly as William remembered from the one previous occasion he’d been forced to descend into this subterranean tomb: a suffocating cocktail of ancient dust, decomposing parchment, and a faint, metallic undertone—the copper tang of old ink that had long since dried into the fibers of history.

It was the smell of secrets that had been buried alive.

’Smell like someone’s dead out here...’ William thought while covering his nose.

As William’s boots crunched softly on the stone floor, a hunched figure emerged from the gloom behind a desk cluttered with brass instruments and half-melted candles.

The gnome, whose face looked like a roadmap of deeply lined wrinkles, peered up from behind a pair of spectacles perched precariously on the tip of his nose. His eyes narrowed behind the glass, sharp as flint.

"You," the gnome croaked, his voice like grinding gravel. "I recognize that scowl..."

"You’re the instructor who nearly got the vice headmaster’s assistant thrown out of my domain for asking too many questions! "Gnome held his chin. "Ah! That’s it! The dickhead with the... aggressive approach to curiosity."

"Who are you calling a dickhead?!" William exhaled sharply, a muscle jumping in his jaw. "That was Olivia’s doing, not mine."

"I have no interest in interrogation tactics... I’m just here to read."

"Hah! ’ Just here to read," the gnome mimicked in a high-pitched, mocking warble. "That’s what they all say right before they start tearing pages out and making my life a misery!"

"Last time someone said that, I had to spend three weeks re-cataloguing the forbidden necromancy manuscripts because some hotshot decided he needed to ’cross-reference’ them."

William suppressed the urge to sigh. "I assure you... I have no intention of causing you extra work."

"But that necromancy thing sounded cool, so I’ll check on that later."

The gnome grunted, snatching up the note Albert had sent ahead. He squinted at it, his bushy eyebrows knitting together until they nearly touched his glasses.

After a long, theatrical silence punctuated by a series of suspicious sniffles, he threw the note back onto the desk with obvious reluctance.

"The fuck is this?! Valestria records," the gnome muttered, shaking his head. "Great... Just what I needed."

"More noble drama to pollute my precious silence." He pointed a stubby, ink-stained finger toward the darkness of the eastern stacks. "You can find it in section seven, east wall, third shelf from the bottom."

"The bindings are brittle; if you handle them like you handle your training sessions, you’ll turn them to confetti."

"Try not to disturb the dust too much; some of those pages haven’t been touched in a decade, and I’d prefer they didn’t become part of your lungs."

"I’ll be careful," William promised, though his mind was already racing ahead, past the gnome and past the dust, toward the truth waiting in the dark. "Thanks."

"You’d better be," the gnome warned, leaning forward until his face was illuminated by a single guttering candle.

His expression suddenly lost its crankiness, replaced by something uncomfortably grim. "Listen, Instructor."

"Last time someone came down here digging through noble family records, we ended up neck-deep in a conspiracy involving dead squad members, missing knights, and secret cults that made my hair turn gray faster than intended."

"I’d prefer this visit stay boring... and I’d prefer you find some harmless tax records and leave me to my silence."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever you say." William managed a thin, humorless smile despite the weight pressing down on his chest. "And no promises."

"Yeah, yeah, ’no promises,’" the gnome grumbled, already retreating back into his mountain of paperwork. "Just try not to start a war down here."

"I don’t have the budget for emergency mop supplies."

The gnome muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like a curse involving incompetent humans and impending doom, waving William off toward the east wall with a dismissive flick of his ink-stained wrist.

"And if you hear any whispering from the restricted shelves, don’t engage!"

"Just walk faster and pray to whatever gods you believe in!"

William ignored the old man’s theatrics, stepping deeper into the labyrinthine stacks. The further he moved from the gnome’s desk, the more the silence seemed to press against his eardrums.

The air grew colder here, carrying that ancient, preserved chill that made every breath feel like swallowing ice.

’Section seven... east wall...’ William mentally recited the directions, his boots clicking rhythmically against the stone.

As he walked, his mind refused to settle. Images of Lia kept intruding: the way her shoulders hunched when she thought no one was looking, the way her hands trembled when she held a practice blade.

’What kind of monster makes a child flinch at their own bloodline?’

"Come on, where is it?" he whispered to himself, scanning the endless rows of leather-bound spines. "Silver blade... rising sun... don’t make me wander this tomb for three hours."

He passed a shelf labeled ’Ancient Alchemical Texts’ and felt a strange shiver crawl down his spine.

’Probably just the draft,’ he told himself. ’Or the gnome’s ominous warnings getting under my skin.’