Chapter 43: Conclusion [2]
They made it back to the academy by nightfall.
The Student Council was summoned to the meeting hall within the hour. Darius was already seated when they arrived. Claire had recovered enough to be present. Still pale around the edges, still quiet, but upright and steady.
Some students looked at her when she walked in. Not all the looks were kind.
Seris stood at the front of the room and began.
She laid it out from the beginning. The snowy mountains. Vincent appearing from the passage inside the cave. His transformation, what he’d been doing inside the academy for however long he’d been doing it. Working for the vampires as a spy embedded inside humanity’s walls.
The room went quiet before she even finished.
It stayed quiet after.
Professor Vincent spent two decades at the academy, teaching hundreds of students and earning the unconditional trust of the colleagues who fought beside him.
Nathan was the first one to say anything.
"Unbelievable." He said it quietly, like he was still checking the word against the facts and the facts kept coming back wrong. "Professor Vincent... joined the vampires? He wasn’t like that."
Darius hadn’t moved.
His eyes were on the Helion Core, which sat inside a reinforced glass container at the center of the table. The golden light pulsed from it in its steady rhythm. He was quiet for a long time.
When he spoke, the room sharpened.
"This tells us one thing."
Everyone looked at him.
"The vampires are planning something." He kept his eyes on the Core. "And whatever they’re planning, the Helion Core factors into it." His expression darkened. "Power sources. They’re building toward something that requires enormous power."
Nobody spoke. The implication settled over the room by itself.
The Helion Core in the hands of a capable bearer meant an army of mana beasts. The stronger the bearer, the more dangerous the army. And the vampires had sent someone to take it.
"There’s something else that shouldn’t be overlooked." Darius’s eyes moved and found Alden.
"Vincent specifically targeted Alden after realizing how quickly and accurately he figured everything out. If Alden hadn’t caught the inconsistencies and moved when he did—" He paused. "The Core would likely be out of the kingdom by now."
Augustus leaned back in his chair with the air of a man reviewing a situation from a comfortable distance.
"So. Thanks to Alden, we have the Core back." He stretched his neck to one side. "Sounds like everything worked out. Are we wrapping up?"
Nobody answered.
He glanced around. "...Right. Guess not."
"I still don’t understand." Nathan’s eyes had found Alden.
"Last time, you somehow detected the Core Bearer before anyone else even knew where to look. You knew how the Core worked before anyone explained it. You figured out that Claire was framed. You predicted the real culprit was still inside the academy." He leaned forward. "And now you’re the one who found Vincent in a mountain cave and came back with the Core."
His voice sharpened.
"How?"
The room went quiet in a way that had texture to it.
Nathan’s eyes didn’t move from Alden. "How is it always you, Alden?"
’Not this again.’ Alden kept his expression even. Before he could say anything—
"What exactly do you mean by that, Senior Nathan?!" Leon stood up.
Nathan looked at him.
Leon looked back without dropping it.
"Did you not just listen to everything Vice-President Seris explained?" He pointed toward the front of the room. "Alden was the first person to find the Core Bearer. The first person to understand that Claire had been framed. He tried to explain it to all of you—" His jaw tightened. "And what did everyone do?"
A few students nearby looked at something other than Leon.
"You doubted him. You accused him. You started suggesting he was the culprit. While he was out there fighting an S-rank dragon and carrying Claire out of an underground chamber, you were in a meeting room discussing whether he was behind everything!"
His voice had risen without him pulling it back.
"And Professor Vincent himself told us why he followed us to the south. Because Alden’s head runs faster than everyone else combined ’here’ and that made him dangerous. That’s the reason Vincent tried to kill him!" Leon stared at Nathan. "So after all of that, after all of that, you’re still asking why it’s always him?!"
"Leon." Nathan’s eyes cooled.
"Think carefully about who you’re speaking to."
Leon’s teeth pressed together. The fight in his expression held for another second before he went quiet.
Alden walked over and put one hand on his shoulder.
Leon glanced at him.
Alden smiled. "It’s fine." He turned to look at Nathan.
"Sometimes the best approach—" He kept the smile perfectly in place. "—is to listen to the intelligent ones when they’re giving their opinion. And—"
A pause.
"And just nod."
Someone near the back of the room put their hand over their mouth. Several others suddenly found the table extremely interesting.
Nathan’s expression did something complicated.
"...Are you mocking me, Alden?"
"Mocking?" Alden put one hand over his heart. "Senior Nathan, that’s not something I would ever do." The smile hadn’t moved. "You’re the head of the Discipline Committee. You have my complete respect."
He held Nathan’s gaze with total innocence.
Nathan stared at him.
’That absolute—’
Across the table, Seris watched the exchange. Her eyes held a quality they got when something was amusing in a way she found genuinely worth noting.
’Hmm... Let’s make the Student Council a little more interesting.’
A thought had arrived. She held it there while Darius raised his hand.
"That’s enough. Let’s conclude."
The room settled.
"The Helion Core was recovered because Alden identified the situation and acted on it. Seris and the rest of the southern party located the true culprit and brought everything back." He looked at Claire. "With what we now know, it’s clear that Claire had no involvement in the attack on the academy. She was used, not a participant."
Claire let out a breath. She looked at Alden and gave a nod.
He just nodded back.
Darius stood.
"With that, this meeting is—"
"One moment, Headmaster."
Darius turned. "Yes, Seris?"
"There’s a proposal I’d like to put forward before we close." She stood from her chair, unhurried. "The Student Council Advisor position has been vacant for a while now."
The remaining council members looked at her.
She looked back at them. Then her eyes moved across the table.
Past Nathan. Past Nicholas. Past Augustus.
They landed on Alden.
A faint smile settled on her lips.
"Why don’t we fill it with someone who has already shown he’s more than capable?"