Chapter 110: Armani’s Help
Zac briefly recounted the confession he had extracted from the group’s leader, including the identity of the person who had secretly orchestrated the attack.
Armani listened without interruption. When he finished, she calmly took another sip of tea from her cup.
Her nonchalance, even after hearing about the involvement of the Ritchie family’s son, left Zac somewhat perplexed.
"You already knew, didn’t you?"
"Yes."
"Then why did you bother asking me?"
"I wanted to see whether you trusted me enough to tell the truth."
"I don’t..."
Before Zac could finish, Armani interrupted him.
"I know. You were going to say you don’t trust me and only told me because you need my help cleaning up the situation, correct?"
[Save your breath. She’s already read tomorrow’s script.]
Zac ignored the remark.
"If you already knew, why didn’t you help me or do anything to prevent it?"
Armani raised an eyebrow.
"Weren’t you the one who declared that you would deal with the matter yourself? You even delivered that grand speech about a man taking responsibility for his own mistakes."
She continued in a mocking imitation of him. "If I come running to you every time I get into trouble, what kind of man would that make me?"
Zac stared at her. "Did I really say all that?"
[Every. Single. Word. The speech was painfully self-important but remarkably memorable.]
Armani narrowed her eyes. "Why are you looking at me like that? That is what you said, remember?"
[Your past self really had no interest in helping your present self.]
Zac remained silent for a moment before changing the subject.
"Matilda said the academy would examine everyone’s VSB location records this afternoon."
"I already altered yours."
Zac paused. "What?"
"Your location history. Specifically, the record showing that you were present where those students were killed."
"You already changed it?"
"That’s what I said."
"When?"
"The same day you killed them."
Zac grew even more confused. "How did you alter my location history without having access to my VSB?"
Armani looked at him as though the answer were painfully obvious. "I’m the vice principal."
"Fair enough."
"Your location history now shows that you were wandering several kilometers away from the cave during the estimated time of death."
"So there’s nothing connecting me to them?"
"Of course there is."
Zac looked at her in confusion.
"Most of the teachers already know it was you."
His expression stiffened slightly.
"The only reason you haven’t been formally charged is because you’re connected to me, possess exceptional potential, and the people you killed were little more than wasted space within the academy."
Armani lifted her cup. "It also helps that they were the ones who attempted to murder you."
She then pointed a finger at him. "But don’t become careless. Erasing evidence once does not mean I intend to spend the rest of my life cleaning up every corpse you leave behind."
"I don’t plan to make it a habit."
"You will."
Zac raised an eyebrow.
"To reach the pinnacle of variant society, you’ll have to bury plenty of bodies along the way," Armani said calmly. "And they won’t always belong to cultists."
She took another sip of tea. "So learn how to erase your own evidence."
[Why do I find this woman more delightful with every conversation?]
"You are a pervert who would admire the word ’woman’ if someone wrote it on a wall."
[Only if the handwriting possessed adequate curves like a woman.]
Zac drank another mouthful of tea before asking, "Did my mother and Kerry arrive safely?"
Armani smiled. "What do you think?"
[Yes, host. What do you think? Apply that neglected organ inside your skull.]
Zac scratched the back of his head. "Right. I should have known."
"No harm will come to them while they are under my protection. They’ve already settled into my estate in the core district."
Zac contemplated that for a moment. "Was it really necessary to have them live in the core district?"
Armani laughed softly. "Your mother complained about the exact same thing. They’ll grow accustomed to it."
Zac lowered his gaze toward the tea in his cup. "Can I visit them?"
"No!"
"I already refused before going to the Mellow City."
"And my answer remains unchanged. You must complete your first six months of academy training. Until then, you will remain inside the academy unless you have an official reason to leave."
"They’re already in Central City. It wouldn’t take long."
"I said no." Armani’s tone permitted no argument. "Rules become meaningless if everyone breaks them whenever they feel inconvenienced."
She paused, then added without the slightest shame, "Naturally, that principle doesn’t apply to me. But everyone else must follow it."
Zac stared at her, utterly baffled.
[I admire her commitment to double standards.]
He finished the remainder of his tea before asking, "There’s one more thing."
"What?"
"Earlier, you called those second-years sloths. Is that an official term used by the academy, or did you invent it yourself?"
"It isn’t an official term." Armani lifted her cup again. "I merely categorized them accurately."
She considered it for a moment before saying, "Well, you would have learned about it sooner or later anyway, so I suppose there’s no harm in telling you."
"Resources are limited, especially when it comes to cultivating high-level talent."
"Because of that, New Dawn Academy normally recruits only exceptional variants, those with immense potential, rare abilities, extraordinary determination, or formidable willpower."
She paused briefly.
"However, over the past twelve years, the academy has gradually declined to its lowest point since its founding."
"The number of truly gifted applicants has diminished year after year. As a result, the academy was eventually forced to lower certain standards."
"Students like those ten were admitted because they possessed decent potential, but they lacked conviction, discipline, and the willingness to work hard."
Armani poured herself another cup of tea before continuing.
"Although they had the ability to climb, they preferred lying at the bottom and complaining about the height."
"So that’s why you call them sloths."
"Exactly." Armani nodded.
Zac considered her words for a moment before asking, "Why did the decline begin twelve years ago? Was there a particular reason?"
Armani hesitated slightly.
"Twelve years ago, an incident occurred because of a small act of negligence on the academy’s part. It severely damaged our reputation and caused an enormous uproar throughout the world."
For the first time, Zac saw Armani appear reluctant to discuss something. He remained silent and waited for her to continue.
Armani calmly took another sip of tea.
"Then, only a few years after that incident, your father, one of New Dawn Academy’s most renowned graduates and a world-famous variant, was branded a traitor by the Variant Association."
Zac’s anger flared the moment he heard his father being branded a traitor.
However, Armani’s reaction was even more pronounced. Disgust twisted her expression, while barely restrained fury burned in her eyes as she spoke of it.
Seeing that, Zac suppressed his own temper and chose not to comment.
[It seems you aren’t the only one enraged by that accusation.]
Her gaze lowered toward the tea in her cup.
"He had once been praised as the most talented person the world had ever seen. His downfall damaged the academy’s reputation even further."
"The other major academies naturally seized the opportunity to weaken New Dawn’s influence and attract talented applicants to their own institutions."
Zac nodded, understanding how the situation had deteriorated.
He wanted to ask about the incident from twelve years ago and about his father, but deep down, he already knew Armani would either evade the questions or give him another answer veiled in ambiguity.
So he did not bother.
[It seems you’ve finally learned when to ask and when to keep quiet. Is that a little sprout of growth I see?]
Zac finished the remaining tea in his cup, stood, and prepared to leave the cottage.
"Wait," Armani called.
Zac stopped and turned toward her, waiting for her to continue.
Armani studied him for a moment before asking, "If I hadn’t been here to clean up your mess, what would you have done?"
"You mean the second-years?"
She nodded.
Zac answered without hesitation.
"I probably would have handled it more professionally. I would have concealed my tracks, disposed of the bodies, and ensured there was nothing connecting me to their deaths."
Armani stared at him for a moment, seemingly unsure how to respond. Then a faint smile appeared on her face.
"Go."
Zac turned and left the cottage.
As he made his way back toward his house, a thought surfaced in his mind.
"Did she just smile at me?"
[Yes, she did.]
Watching Zac descend the hill from her cottage, Armani remained seated beside the table, her fingers tightening slightly around the handle of her teacup.
"He only comes here whenever he needs something," she muttered. "What does he think I am? Some sort of free assistance service that solves every problem he throws at me?"
Her gaze followed his retreating figure until he disappeared farther down the path. "That ungrateful idiot." The irritation in her voice was genuine, but beneath it lingered something far more complicated.
"Sister told me to earn his trust so he could eventually accept me as family. I offered him tea, spoke to him patiently, cleaned up the mess he created, and even gave him several hints about the past."
She placed the cup down with a little more force than necessary. "Yet he didn’t ask a single question about me, where I was all these years? Why only appear now?"
Armani leaned back in her chair, replaying their conversation in her mind. She had deliberately told him that being unseen did not mean she had never been around him.
Anyone with the slightest curiosity should have questioned such a statement. But Zac had simply sat there, drank his tea, and moved on as though she had said nothing unusual.
"This is infuriating."
A part of her wanted to drag him back up the hill and explain everything herself. Another part stubbornly refused to reveal anything unless he showed enough interest to ask.
Why should she be the only one making an effort?
Then she abruptly froze.
"Wait."
Armani frowned at herself. "Why am I even thinking about this so much?"
She drew a long breath and straightened her posture, attempting to recover the dignified composure expected of someone like her.
"Get a grip, Armani. You’re not some lovestruck little girl waiting for a boy to notice her." She pressed two fingers against her forehead. "Get him out of your head and focus on what needs to be done."
Her eyes briefly drifted toward the path again. "For heaven’s sake, you’re the infamous wild."
The words sounded far less convincing than she had intended.
Meanwhile, completely oblivious to the turmoil he had inflicted upon one of the strongest variants in the world, Zac leisurely made his way back toward his house.
He carried the provisions he had purchased from the marketplace in one hand, walking at an unhurried pace as though his visit to the cottage had been nothing more than an ordinary afternoon conversation over tea.