A Regressor's Guide to Hunting in the Academy-Chapter 41

Chapter 41
"It can't be sick leave! Nothing like this has ever happened before! He hasn't replied to my letters, and even the communication crystal we secretly made together isn't working. Father says Oliver returned to the main house... but there's no one at the main house..."
"Let's calm down first."
Henrik soothed the rambling Julia and hurriedly led her into the classroom.
"Let's organize the facts. You can't contact Oliver. He supposedly went to the main house, but there's no one there. Is that what you're saying?"
"Yes... I don't even know if that place is really the main house..."
"..."
Oliver's disappearance.
This was a critical matter.
His disappearance could mean he'd noticed something related to the demons.
"I'll look into it."
Henrik looked at Julia calmly and spoke.
He'd struggled so hard to regress-he couldn't afford casualties already.
Oliver was a knight, but he was someone who honestly judged Henrik by his abilities rather than social status. He couldn't lose a knight like that now.
The place where his trail had gone cold was the Mandolin Family Mansion. If he searched that place, something would surely turn up.
He'd been wondering when he should infiltrate anyway, so this worked out well.
Henrik decided to infiltrate the Mandolin Family Mansion tonight.
* * *
The situation was growing increasingly urgent.
Henrik strode out to find Ted. He needed his help.
"Ted."
When he flung open the door to the dean's office, Ted, who had been smacking his lips while holding a bottle of 200-year-old wine, hastily set it down and looked at Henrik.
"I told you to knock! Ugh... So what is it this time?"
"I have a favor to ask."
"A favor? From me?"
"Yes."
As Henrik spoke, Ted glanced at the bundle Henrik was carrying.
The bundle was enormous, as if it contained something very heavy.
"Don't tell me you want me to do something with what's in that bundle?"
"Of course."
-Thud.
Henrik set the bundle down in front of Ted and said,
"Take this to Volkan Smithy. Hand it over to a blacksmith named Grayson, and he'll take care of the rest."
"What?"
Having said his piece, Henrik turned away as if he had no further business. Ted quickly grabbed Henrik and said,
"You could just have the students do this, couldn't you?"
"I can't trust them. If they're attacked, they don't have the skill to protect it."
"What about me?!"
"You're from a duchy."
"What the hell is this anyway..."
Ted glanced at what was inside the bundle.
It was a pure white ore. It was a type of ore he'd never seen before, but Ted could immediately sense this wasn't ordinary ore.
"I see..."
"It seems to be one of the things the Demon King is after, so be careful when you transport it."
"What? You're handing something like that to me?!"
"You're the person I trust most."
"Huh? Um..."
Ted started to say something, blinked his eyes, then scratched between his brows.
"I-Is that so?"
"Yes. Well, I have other business to attend to, so I'll be going. The sooner the better, so please hurry."
"Other business? Did you find another Sovereign's vessel or something?"
"Probably?"
When Henrik answered Ted's joke matter-of-factly and left the dean's office, Ted stared blankly at the Sephirum.
Henrik's action of entrusting him with ore the Demon King was after.
'And Grayson of Volkan Smithy?'
He knew the smithy had recently entered the city and was making a name for itself, but he'd never heard of a blacksmith named Grayson.
However!
[You're the person I trust most.]
Ted mulled over Henrik's words.
"...Heh."
Somehow he felt quite good. Ted's shoulders rose as he stood up from his seat.
'Of course, I'm the only one Henrik can trust.'
Ted gathered up the bundle as Henrik had instructed.
"..."
His excited expression lasted only a moment before cold sweat began to form on his forehead.
"Hup...!"
He tried to lift the bundle with force, but it didn't budge. Only the cloth of the bundle stretched long and trembled.
Ted pushed the bundle to the edge of the desk. Then he tried to lift it onto his back.
At that moment-
-Crack!
Unable to bear the weight of the Sephirum, Ted threw out his back.
"..."
Groans of agony quietly flowed from the dean's office.
* * *
On the street where noble family mansions gathered, Henrik looked up at the large mansion before him. He flipped up the hood attached to his coat and entered a small alley branching off to the side.
There, an old man was waiting for him.
The old man was William.
When Henrik appeared, William closed the cover of his pocket watch and approached him.
"That outfit... You're planning to infiltrate the mansion?"
"Yes."
William had come to confirm whether he'd properly received the letter. Henrik, wearing his black infiltration coat, hat, and even a mask for the first time in a while, had returned to his appearance from his Hunter days.
"Seeing you like that, you truly look like a Hunter. That suits you far better than your usual formal wear."
"I agree with that assessment."
As Henrik prepared to leave, William fell in step behind him.
It seemed he too intended to infiltrate the mansion alongside Henrik.
"Must I really come along?"
William asked.
"Of course. If I die, Carmine will have a hard time becoming Clan Head."
Henrik answered matter-of-factly.
"......."
William looked at Henrik.
His instincts, honed through countless battles, told him something. This man wasn't even considering death.
'I don't understand why.'
Being with him felt like accompanying a veteran warrior who had survived countless battlefields.
He was clearly young, yet he possessed presence.
That indescribable aura that only those who'd accumulated real combat experience could exude.
The two quickly disabled the alarm devices installed on the perimeter wall and climbed over, hiding themselves in the Mandolin Family mansion's garden.
Inside the brightly lit mansion, numerous maids and butlers could be seen moving about busily. Yet none of them paid the two any attention, each focused on their own tasks.
Since no alarm had been triggered, it was difficult for ordinary people like them to notice the intrusion.
While William searched for a route to infiltrate the mansion, Henrik concealed himself in the bushes and carefully observed the interior. Butlers giving instructions, maids nodding and moving about, bringing out dishes and bedding to wash and clean.
"......."
Again the butlers nodded, and the maids once more brought out dishes and bedding to wash and clean.
'The scene is repeating.'
Having spotted maids he hadn't seen during the banquet, Henrik watched carefully and noticed the mansion's interior scenery was continuously looping.
'An illusion-type barrier. That must be a decoy.'
The moment Henrik moved after identifying the trick, William approached in a low crouch and spoke.
"Professor Henrik, I've found a route into the mansion."
"Wait a moment. There seems to be a barrier."
"A barrier...? W-wait! Henrik!"
William called out urgently.
Henrik had suddenly stood up and begun running around the garden as if searching for something. Not yet knowing the people inside the mansion were an illusion, William was horrified and tried to stop Henrik.
'To project an illusion over the entire mansion, they would have placed the barrier's core somewhere rich in atmospheric mana along the ley lines.'
Swish-Henrik pulled a blue flower from his pouch.
The flower immediately reacted, beginning to sway its head back and forth.
A Blue Mana Flower, known to turn its head toward places rich in atmospheric mana.
Following the direction the flower indicated, Henrik stopped in front of a large woman's statue placed near the garden fountain.
The gemstone embedded in the woman's statue's eye was reacting with the flower, glowing blue.
'A gemstone, no... a magic stone.'
He calmly raised his head and stood before the sculpture, then destroyed the magic stone embedded in its eye.
In that instant-
The brightly shining mansion's appearance wavered and vanished, revealing a dark and silent mansion.
There wasn't a single person around the darkened mansion. However, when they approached the mansion building, they were blocked by an invisible transparent wall like a membrane.
"This is... remarkable. Am I seeing things?"
William muttered with a dazed expression at the sudden change in scenery.
"It's illusion magic."
"To think they were hiding their appearance with illusions..."
-Hum, huuum, hum.
Various magic circles were attached to the transparent barrier membrane, moving here and there. It was as if they were announcing themselves as a complex barrier. Henrik quietly drew his dagger and glared at the magic circles.
'To use this type of barrier, they're quite vicious.'
Henrik from his previous life had memories of being trapped in a barrier of this same type, so he recognized what this barrier was at a glance.
It had been deployed to block intruders approaching the mansion, and they had to break through this membrane to enter the mansion.
It was a demon barrier that completely sealed the surroundings in a spherical shape to prevent entry and exit, with trap formulas embedded so it could never be breached without following the correct dismantling sequence.
What made this barrier vicious was that you had to destroy the correct magic circle at the precise timing among those rapidly moving magic circles.
The task of selecting the real one among the fakes.
"...I've never seen this kind of barrier before."
When William spoke, Henrik destroyed one magic circle with a pop! and opened his mouth.
"It's a demon barrier. My area of expertise."
Having bled because of this more than once or twice in his previous life, the current Henrik knew this barrier's dismantling method perfectly.
As if opening an invisible transparent door, Henrik destroyed the magic circles one by one. When he destroyed the sixth magic circle, hum-! the transparent barrier vibrated and rippled.
Only then did Henrik lower his dagger and speak while catching his breath.
"It's open."
"The barrier is open?!"
William tentatively reached out to touch the barrier.
The barrier shimmered like heat haze rising and passed William's arm through without resistance.
It was unbelievable that a barrier's door could be opened with a dagger.
"To think it had to be dismantled in such a complex way... No, you who know this are exactly..."
"......."
Henrik slipped inside the barrier while explaining.
"It was a barrier structure I've seen to the point of exhaustion, so it was possible. If you understand the barriers demons use, it's not that difficult."
"...Haha."
Watching Henrik's back as he said it wasn't difficult was even more astonishing.
Though he made it sound trivial, understanding demon barriers was itself already a formidable task.
Yet he had opened the barrier's door as easily as entering his own home.
Seeing his competent Hunter-like appearance, William too felt motivated and stepped ahead of Henrik as if he wouldn't be outdone.
"You said you're looking for Professor Oliver? Then I'll use the tracking scent's smell to find where he is."
"You're saying the tracking scent still works?"
When Henrik asked with a tilted head, William smiled slightly and said.
"This old man, as the MacClane Clan's hunting dog, takes pride in at least having a good nose."
And so the two crossed the barrier and entered the mansion.