I laid absent-mindedly in bed for nearly an hour. I didn't have the energy to do something right away.
At that point, I felt it was unfair.
‘No, how can an executive in a secret society get involved in a train attack and die?’
If he was a secret society executive who planted nearly 40 people in Sören Academy, he should have survived in that situation!
“Haa.”
Yes, I know. Even if I got angry like that, a dead person wouldn't come back.
I had to admit it…
‘I'm now Ludger Chelysie, and I have to hold on for two years while maintaining this damn identity.’
'To be frank, I thought it wouldn't be difficult and that it didn't matter as long as I was not caught by the Academy.'
Still, I thought I could imitate a teacher's behavior pretty well because I had a related experience in my past life.
…Because I could use magic, and I didn’t lack theoretical knowledge.
Believing I could spend about two years without difficulty was a conviction that was thoroughly calculated and not reckless bravado.
But that wasn’t right.
I couldn’t believe he was in a secret society, moreover an executive.
‘Besides, according to the conversation I had with her, they're not some ordinary dangerous people. The assassination of some of the Academy's key figures? Dealing with a traitor? Their method is also quite brutal.’
Even the gangsters and mafias in the dark part of the Earth wouldn’t go that far. Wasn't it an extreme move that only some bad people would do?
‘Isn't it too much to create an inflation in the difficulties by adding a new mission?’
In other words, it went from normal mode to hellish mode.
"Let's think."
‘Now I have one more target to be aware of if I want to keep this false identity from being revealed.’
—The academy and an unidentified secret society.
If either of those two communities caught me red-handed that I was not Ludger, I would be dead meat right away.
—Whether it was by the hand of the principal, or the empire's law, or by the purging of the secret society itself…
Death was closer to me than ever.
"I have to think."
Ludger Chelysie was an executive of the secret society.
Ludger was also a made-up identity, so it might be an alias, but anyway, he was in a position that was commonly referred to as the First Order.
Among the members of the secret association that had penetrated the Academy, there were only two First Orders, including me. I didn't need to know what their purpose was at the moment.
The important thing was to find out who the other First Order was.
I couldn't ask it directly, so there was no way to know right away unless they approached me themselves and held a secret meeting with me.
'For now, I can ignore the Second and Third Orders.'
I assumed the real Ludger to have been quite an ill-tempered character within the syndicate.
Although I had only lowered my voice and bluffed a little, it was possible to infer from the expression of his subordinate who had become pale.
Since he had a trash personality, she wouldn't irritate him for the most part as his subordinate. That was well-welcomed by me.
In the end, I only had to pay attention to one executive, another First Order, which was equivalent to Ludger's status.
The problem was figuring out who the First Order was.
'I can't ask about it brazenly. No matter how distant they are, there is no way executives don't know each other. If I do that, I'll immediately garner some suspicion.'
I had to deal with the existence of a secret society that was lurking in the Empire and not only the Academy and Empire.
I thought I was riding only one tiger, but I couldn't believe I was riding two tigers.
I thought I was an amazing guy. Even a circus athlete wouldn't do that kind of thing.
As soon as either side went awry, I’d be over with.
The moment the balance collapsed, I was to be considered dead.
'Yeah. Now that it's like this, I have no choice but to do it.’
I immediately took out the books in the suitcase and opened the letters within them.
'First of all, I have to gain some information.'
‘This letter must be a secret cipher used by their organization.’
…Then it was necessary for me to interpret it.
There is a fixed pattern in every cipher.
And it was the books in the suitcase that would help me analyze the pattern.
'He's a teacher at a magic academy, so if I discount the magic books… There were some unusual books other than that.'
I looked through the books.
[Watcher in the Rye], [Lingert's Philosophy Book], [Trace of Totalitarianism], and [100 Years of Solitude].
—Novels, autobiographies, and even the bestsellers of non-fiction books.
Among them, there was one book that stood out to me.
[Gentleman's Culture]
* * *
* * *
'This is it.'
I remembered Ludger's appearance that I had seen on the train.
—His trivial actions and somewhat unkempt behavior… The way he shook his legs slightly or tapped his fingers.
If he had really seriously considered the Gentleman's Culture and read that book, he would not have acted like that.
'Moreover, this book is the most shabby.’
A part of the book's cover was worn out and deteriorated.
‘It means that he read it often, but was there a reason for that?’
'This book was being used as an interpretation of the cipher.’
I opened the [Gentleman's Culture] book and turned the page.
Whirrrrr.
There were marks of wear in between the book’s pages.
Some pages had not been read, and some pages had been read to the point where the papers were worn out.
The regularity hidden in the irregularities slowly caught my eye.
When I looked carefully at some particularly worn pages, I saw something between the letters.
I immediately brought the letters and compared them side by side.
'The continent is said to speak a unified language, but each country has a slightly different language.'
The traces of Ludger Chelysie originated in the Kingdom of Queoden, so I could think of the Queoden language.
In particular, the letters explicitly contained traces of some proper nouns or dialects used in the Kingdom of Queoden.
Although it was a small and barren kingdom in the north, Queoden, which had produced a considerable number of great writers, had 20,000 words used in its dialect, of which 8,000 words among them are high-quality vocabulary.
‘This must be the point of the cipher.’
Given the connection between the arrangement of the language and that letter, it was not difficult to distinguish between the ciphers.
—Because I know the Queoden language.
‘As expected.’
It's what I expected. When I racked my brain and checked the code in Queoden language, I found a connection between the words in the letters.
, , , , , , , etc.
Next to it was a mixture of some words that symbolized numbers.
The numbers represented the pages of the cipher codebook, and if I interpreted the other words and combined them…
'First Order. Infiltrate into Sören Academy as their teacher and gain their favor. I'll keep track of the situation and deliver the order to you.'
It became like so.
I couldn't get any crucial information, but that much was enough.
I leaned my head back after I closed the [Gentleman's Culture] book.
“Haa.”
The remaining two years…
I had to live as a teacher at the academy and an executive at a secret society.
Of course, I couldn't live like that forever. Even if I spent two years as a teacher safely, there was still a barrier of the secret association.
Their presence was very annoying to me.
If things get awry in the middle, I'd most likely be killed.
'But I can't get rid of all the secret society members by myself. I don't know how the organization is structured, but they even planted spies at Sören Academy. I'm sure they're pretty dangerous.'
It'd be impossible to deal with them individually.
However, if I left them be, that secret association would be a shackle that held me back, so I had to get rid of them.
Then how?
'I should use the power of the Academy.’
There is a saying of ‘let the barbarians fight it out among themselves’.
Control a barbarian to handle another barbarian.
Sören Academy was not a mere school. It was a place that symbolized the future of the era by fostering the future of the empire.
Although it carried the name of an academy, it was not impossible for the Academy because it had so much power that it could make an impact on a country.
If Sören and the secret society go against each other, no matter how great the secret society was, they’d obviously be pushed back.
How many soldiers and wizards are staying there? There was even a possibility that the Knights Order would also make a move because it is within the scope of the Imperial Decree.
They knew that, so instead of choosing to take the bull by the horns, they had planted spies.
In other words, I had to carefully dig out their information and leak it to the academy in a way that wouldn't let me get caught by the secret society.
'Of course, if I take quite a long time to do that, my tail will get caught.'
The secret association could purge me for betraying them, and the other way around, the academy could suspect me as a spy and rule me out.
In the end, it was important to keep the right line.
The moment I leaned too much on one side, all that'd be waiting for me was absolute destruction.
It's like riding on a single rope while holding a long pole.
I should never be biased against either side.
'For now… Let's think about the first class that's going to be held in a week.'
There was no mention in the command that ordered me to do anything. It was for me to gain their favor, so it meant to positively engrave my image as a teacher.
If so, first of all, performing my duty as a teacher was the priority.
Sören was a place where smart students went, so if I showed any lack of skills for even a bit, I might have been bitten by the students.
Talented children at the age of growing up usually think they are the best and will even look down on their teachers.
I didn’t know what the place was like, but I knew from my long experience that the places where people live are all similar to each other.
'…There are so many things to consider.’
I should not look ridiculous to the students
And I shouldn't look suspicious to the academy
And I should not let the secret society find out about me.
I wondered what this was all about, but if I endured all of it, I would get a suitable reward.
Yes, I could bear it enough for that.
After I got out of bed, I entered my private study and opened a magic textbook.
I had to make plans for the future and prepare for how to proceed with the class.
The remaining two years.
I couldn't just play around throughout the years.
***
The first day of school had come.
Students who went down to their hometowns during the vacation returned one by one, and new students of the current year came in along with a new semester.
The students who were previously first-years crossed the school gate in anticipation of what new classes they would take in the future as they advanced to the second year.
Throughout the classroom, the sounds of students meeting their friends again, which they had not seen for months, and the sounds of them greeting each other happily, could be heard loudly.
But…
All of them were learners who took classes at the same academy, but not all of them were the same students.
There were noisy students and quiet students.
Naturally, the atmosphere was divided among students, and of course, it was determined by their status in society.
Inside Sören Academy, students were largely divided into three classes.
—The upper class, led by royalty, aristocrats and high-class clergy.
—The middle class, led by wealthy merchants.
—And finally, the lower class consisted of poor commoners.
Even if they were all students, they could not ignore each status, and accordingly, they built walls without realizing it and divided their classes within the academy.
While the nobles smiled brightly and greeted each other, on the contrary, the commoners often looked around or gathered quietly among themselves.
It was the same with the upcoming classroom of magic casting.
"Hey, did you hear about it?"
"What?"
"There's the theory of magic casting and the understanding of element class. I heard the new teacher will do it."
"A new teacher teaches second-years, not first-years? I guess he's pretty good?"
"They can't help it. The former teacher is out. I heard that his past records are pretty fancy. I've heard that he's from the military and he has published a lot of theses."
"Doesn't that mean he's an amazing person? He's extraordinary."
"But you know what?"
"What?"
"He's from a fallen aristocrat family."
At the words of the fallen aristocracy, naturally, sneers emerged from the mouths of the faction that was leading the conversation.
—Those who disgraced the noble name of aristocracy.
It was common for the fallen aristocracy to be treated less honorably than a wealthy merchant among the nobles.
I think they could only be a little bit higher than commoners?
‘Since he was appointed as a teacher of Sören, he might be skilled, but he was bound to be looked down upon by the upper-class students.’
At the same time, aristocratic students had similar thoughts.
If the new teacher was from a fallen aristocrat family, it'd be a piece of cake to get a good grade in his class.
As soon as each student talked about what kind of person he would be, the front door of the classroom opened silently.
Everyone's eyes turned to the front door.
A man was entering the classroom through the opened door.
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