“You are aware that I am in a foul mood.”
I could tell just from his voice.
This wasn’t an angry voice.
“And yet you choose to play games with me.”
This was the voice that only came out when someone was truly, insanely, fucking pissed.
You couldn’t just call it “angry.”
If she’d been standing in front of him, Charlotte might have been split into Char and Lotte by now.
“I have never once abused the honor and position I possess.”
Charlotte flinched.
This was just a phone call. We couldn’t even see his face.
There wasn’t even a hologram, yet I could feel the murderous intent.
“For you, who would make a fool of me, I will abuse them with everything I have.”
My whole body tingled.
“I will hear no excuses for the mistake you made today. I will simply make you understand, very clearly, what it means to weigh things against my disciple’s life.”
Charlotte shot me an urgent look.
Ah, I see.
I’d been waiting for Charlotte to say something, but she’d been so overwhelmed by his aura that she couldn’t even speak.
“If you were involved in my disciple’s death, I will use every method at my disposal to…”
There was no choice but for me to cut in.
“Professor.”
Professor Zeke’s words stopped dead.
For a second, I thought time had frozen.
“Professor, it’s me, Deep.”
The silence stretched on for quite a while.
Just when I was starting to feel like I couldn’t breathe, an answer finally came back.
“Prove that this is not voice modulation or a recorded voice.”
The principle of presuming guilt was kind of hard to deal with.
How was I supposed to prove that I was Deep?
Was there anything only the professor and I knew, or something no one else would have told anyone even if they did know?
It felt like there should have been something special.
Ah.
There was.
“Your maid outfit, Professor.”
Charlotte’s eyes went wide.
“That Zeke Pride wore a maid outfit?”
If I said that much, I might die.
When I didn’t answer, Charlotte caught on and shut her mouth.
A brief silence passed.
“Of all the many things you could have said, the fact that you deliberately chose the one I told you I’d kill you for mentioning means you really are Deep.”
There were bones in those words.
A really fucking huge bone was lodged right in my throat.
“I knew you’d be alive.”
You were just talking about someone being involved in your disciple’s death and all that.
It seemed he wasn’t exactly in a rational state.
“So, how did you survive?”
“The Luna Count family targeted me, so I defected to the allied forces.”
“The Luna Count family, is it.”
“Yes.”
If it was Professor Zeke, I could trust him.
He had never once shown any aristocratic tendencies, and he hadn’t been born a noble either.
When he judged someone, he never looked at their status.
That was why I could trust him.
“I see.”
His reaction was surprisingly mild.
Which made it even scarier.
I had no idea what he was thinking inside, but it felt like he was tearing someone apart this way and that.
“Where is your next destination?”
“Next is…”
Was it all right to say?
Could I say it to Charlotte, not just Professor Zeke?
When I stared quietly at Charlotte, she narrowed her eyes, then let out a sigh.
“This is the first time I’ve ever been kicked out of my own command room.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, well. I’ll just think of it as Zeke Pride kicking me out.”
Professor Zeke and the Keria family were different.
They were favorable toward me, and they were actually helping me even now.
Even so, they might have ties to the Luna Count family.
Charlotte left the command room and closed the door.
“I’m going south.”
“South. The reason?”
“Suppressants.”
A short silence passed.
“You saw it?”
Saw it.
He didn’t say exactly what I had seen, but I understood.
Professor Zeke knew about the things the Luna Count family had done.
“You knew?”
I felt betrayed.
And then it vanished immediately.
There was no reason for Professor Zeke to tell me, a commoner cadet, about the Luna Count family’s evils.
If anything, hearing something I couldn’t handle would only have made things more dangerous.
There was no way Professor Zeke could have known about my past, so it was only natural.
“I knew.”
I took a slow breath.
In my head, I could accept it, but my heart wasn’t following along.
At least it was a relief that we weren’t face-to-face.
If he’d seen my face, he would have seen right through me.
Trying to calm down, I drank the water beside me.
“I lost my disciple because of that matter.”
“Ghk—cough.”
It went down the wrong way.
I hurriedly wiped the water with my sleeve.
“Y-your disciple?”
I’d heard the story before.
Professor Zeke had once had a disciple from the commoner class too, and that disciple had died.
According to the story, the disciple died because he charged into danger more than necessary.
Was that related to the Luna Count family?
Because I’d heard something so unexpected so suddenly, I actually calmed down.
They said that if you wanted to wake up, spilling coffee on yourself was faster than drinking it.
Sure enough, spraying water was better for clearing your head than drinking it.
“Are you done?”
Looks like he heard everything.
I had sprayed it pretty dramatically.
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll ask again. Are you going to get suppressants in order to save and recover the person who was in your core?”
“Yes.”
“In that respect, you’re better than my old disciple. Better than that bastard who earned a baron title, was still called an AI-fucker as a slur, realized the truth, and then tried to smash his head into solid ground.”
“AI-fucker?”
There had been someone before me who was drawn to a person installed in their core?
And that person was Professor Zeke’s old disciple?
Then was that the most interesting cadet he’d mentioned before?
“It’s just an old story. You don’t need to know.”
“Yes.”
I wanted to know more.
But it didn’t feel right to keep bringing up someone who was gone.
We weren’t on this call to talk about that in the first place.
“When are you leaving?”
“Probably tomorrow morning.”
If I hadn’t been able to contact Professor Zeke, I would have had to stay here tomorrow too.
It was a relief that I got in touch with him faster than expected.
“Why the hurry?”
“To secure suppressants as quickly as possible.”
I wanted to treat Ailee as soon as I could.
Professor Zeke was silent for a moment.
“If you’re going south, you’d better be careful.”
Was there something dangerous in the south?
The relationship between the imperial army and the allied forces was fairly smooth.
It wasn’t as if the allied forces were making a huge fuss trying to invade the Empire.
Then what was there to be careful of?
“Public order is poor in the south.”
“What?”
I hadn’t imagined that at all.
“Even though it’s inside imperial territory?”
“The Sinis Count family, which is responsible for the south, has effectively delegated territorial management to the Otto Viscount family. You know that much, don’t you?”
Count Sinis had been defending the southern front for a long time, and the Sinis County was practically treated as the Otto Viscounty.
I’d heard that from Ian during last year’s midterms.
That was why the Otto Viscounty was said to have a fair amount of war experience too.
Wait a second.
War experience?
Who exactly had they been gaining war experience against?
It wasn’t the southern allied forces.
The southern allied forces didn’t clash much with the southern imperial army.
“The Otto Viscount family is in the south. They don’t have ties to the Luna Count family in the north either. And yet they’re extremely aristocratic. Why do you think that is?”
A professor was a professor.
Even in a moment like this, he made me think for myself.
War.
Aristocracy.
“Is there conflict between nobles and non-nobles?”
“What are you talking about? If that were the case, it wouldn’t be an issue of aristocracy. They would’ve just massacred them.”
That was true.
“Then what is it?”
“There are many marauding criminal groups in the south. Taking the name of a criminal organization that existed in the past, they’re called clans.”
There could be criminal organizations inside the Empire too.
Now that I thought about it, it was stranger that I’d never seen a criminal organization until now.
In the west, they were being pushed back in the war, so even if there were criminal organizations, they wouldn’t have stood out.
And in the north, it wasn’t the criminal organizations—the bastards in charge of the north were the criminals.
“For the most part, they’re men who used to live as mercenaries in the east, then came down south and joined the clans.”
“Eastern mercenaries?”
I’d heard of them.
Though the one I’d heard it from was Revan.
“They’re bastards who’ll side with the Empire or the allied forces if you pay them. They’re not trustworthy, but they have skill.”
“Why doesn’t the Empire clean up the clans?”
“It’s not that they don’t. They can’t. No matter how strong a lion may be, it’s difficult for it to clean up hundreds of rats.”
He didn’t mean there were hundreds of clans, did he?
I hoped not.
“How do you plan to travel south?”
I hadn’t thought that far yet.
“Probably by Titan and vehicle.”
But if I had to choose, it would end up being a Titan and a vehicle.
“You haven’t considered the train?”
“Even if it’s a train departing from the west, it’s still ultimately under the Empire’s surveillance. I don’t want to catch the Luna Count family’s eye in any way. The west is at least…”
“The moment you stood out in the west, word already reached the Luna Count family’s ears. But don’t take the train. And don’t tell anyone your destination.”
“Anyone?”
“When you first depart, move toward the academy to scatter their attention. Then, once the western Titans and drones are no longer visible, start moving south.”
He was telling me not to trust anyone.
I already didn’t.
“Yes.”
“And there’s one last thing I have to say.”
“What is it?”
Ahem.
Professor Zeke cleared his throat once.
“I also had a share in your survival.”
“…What?”
What share did he mean?
Had he had some connection with the allied forces in the north?
Or had he been involved in the Luna Count family’s movements to some extent?
“I sent you a wish for your safe return through Sumeragi, didn’t I?”
That killed the mood instantly.
It didn’t seem like he was wrong.
It didn’t, but still.
“If you want to be precise, Professor, you didn’t deliver it yourself, so wasn’t it Professor Sumeragi who wished me safe return?”
I couldn’t resist nitpicking.
Professor Zeke was quiet for a long while.
Thud!
I knew that sound.
That was the sound of someone rage-slamming the desk.
“You ungrateful bastard.”
Beep.
The call ended just like that.
“What was that? What was that sound?”
Charlotte flung the door open and came in.
“Uh, um.”
How should I explain this?
“The sound of the professor sulking.”
“What are you talking about? Zeke Pride sulks? There’s no way.”
I know, right?
I couldn’t have imagined it either.