The Magic Academy's Physicist-Chapter 255: Déjà Vu (6)

Chapter 255: Déjà Vu (6)
0% “I’d like you to guide the students on the upcoming World Tree field trip.”
Aether paused at Cecil’s request.
“This is about what you mentioned on the dorm rooftop.”
This was a trap.
They were planning to lure her to the World Tree and kill her right away as soon as she acted suspiciously.
If she went ‘this is it’ and took the bait here, she was going to get caught immediately. She had tread carefully.
Aether chuckled ‘huhu’ and waved her hands back and forth.
“I’m not qualified.”
“Miss, there’s no one else who can do this if it’s not you.”
Cecil put both hands together and pleaded.
Well, well.
“This is the best academy on the continent yet there’s no one besides me who can guide them?”
“There were other people originally, but some died and others are in critical condition due to Leviathan’s attack.”
“Oh dear.”
Aether put her hands together in a praying pose.
“That’s awfully unfortunate. As I practice rituals, I will offer a moment of silence for those souls.”
As she bowed her head, Cecil’s eyebrows twitched. Aether shifted her eyes subtly and caught that tiny change in expression.
“Still, it’ll be difficult for me.”
“May I ask why?”
“Of course.”
There were two reasons that Aether came up with.
“One is that I am an amateur professor who’s still green, and the other is because I could be a Beast.”
She could garner a lot of looks from people at the World Tree reception because she was new.
Also if Aether was truly a Beast, Cecil would be making a grave mistake as the president because she’d have brought the enemy into their main camp.
“The second especially. What would you do if I was a Beast?”
“Miss Asteya.”
Cecil’s pupils flashed in multicolor.
“You talk as if you yourself are going to steal the Lodestone.”
“What will you do if I really do so?”
Eyes clashed with eyes.
A momentary silence. The two looked over each other in the meantime, Aether seeming to figure out Cecil’s intention and Cecil Aether’s.
Cecil turned her head away first.
“If you were really a Beast, you wouldn’t have brought it up in the first place.”
“You never know, they could be much more deceptive than you think.”
Aether smiled wryly.
But there was no malice being shown, not provoking Cecil’s Elementals.
“If I was a Beast, I would have told the truth like a lie and assured you.”
But the president didn’t change her expression one bit.
“You don’t need to worry.”
Pat, pat.
Cecil patted Aether’s shoulder and continued.
“My eyes can distinguish people from monsters.”
There was a strange certainty in those worse.
Aether snorted inwardly.
Distinguish people from monsters? Then let her try.
Cecil said a bunch of things and tried to assign Aether as the guide to the World Tree trip, to which Aether finally nodded after refusing a few more times. It was then that Cecil smiled brightly and waved with a ‘see you later’.
“Ah, also.”
Before leaving, Cecil turned around with a smirk.
“Originally professors are also a kind of Beast.”
“...Intersting joke.”
“Well, I’ll be off now.”
Aether licked her lips the moment Cecil left. Her throat was caught like she’d eaten a cold sweet potato
1.
“She’s got quite the brain.”
“Akasha.”
Akasha appeared from where she was hiding behind the opposite wall.
The child who was like her alter ego; she sidled up next to her chuckling.
“Do you get what that person’s trying to do?”
“Of course I do.”
She was trying to test her.
“If I’m a human then I’d lead the students and come back without incident.”
“And if not?”
“If I’m a Beast then she’d be thinking that I’d try to get close to the Lodestone....”
It was an obvious scenario in that case.
“...President Renay is going to have an Elemental lie in ambush and kill me when it’s time.”
Was she trusting her as a human or suspecting her as a Beast?
There were two choices.
“Wasn’t it on purpose, making the president suspicious?”
“It was.”
She wasn’t her twin for nothing, able to guess her intentions like a psychic.
Over two days since yesterday, Aether acted both trustworthy as a human and suspicious as a Beast.
She showed how Yufiel and Leninya followed and listened to her, but also expressed the malicious desire to exterminate the elves.
But that malice came from her concern for the Golden-Eyed, and Cecil came to doubt her unconsciously as a result.
Plus, the downpour stopped not long after flashing the beacon.
“I wasn’t able to see it properly then, but what signal did you exchange, exactly?”
“You don’t want to know.”
Aether let out a long sigh.
When they were signalling each other, Leviathan responded with thunder.
If her interpretation of the code was true, then it was a bit of a headache.
“First, we’re not going to touch the Lodestone even if we get into the World Tree.”
Even marshmallows tasted better after waiting to roast it nicely.
She refused to get a stomach ache from taking the raw thing. The original plan was to use the atom bomb anyway, so Aether decided to wait until she received word from the base.
**
Inside the Demon Castle.
A sheet of an urgent fax was being printed.
[Heed, Sea Dragon.]
I am listening.
[In the name of Winter Heaven, you will stop the tsunami and heavy rain immediately.]
I am only doing as Summer Heaven commanded.
[It is not yet time to strike Iliad.]
Summer Heaven said that now is the time.
[If you do not stop immediately, you will be severely punished according to military law.]
Understood.
[And this to Spring and Summer Heaven.]
Speak.
[Interfere with my mission again and die.]
Understood.It was a series of dialogue records. The sender was Winter Heaven, and the responder was a Great Mecha in charge of the menial tasks.
The man with hook-arms burst out laughing as read over the record with his two eyes.
“So you mean that that lowly bitch said this, hm?”
The man’s name was Gilach.
One of the top executives of the Demon Army with the name ‘Clear Moon’.
After laughing incessantly, Gilach wiped his smile away. A dark cloud hung over his face.
“She not only dared take my slave but now she’s trying to take all the credit, too?”
Riiiip─!!
The printed paper was ruthlessly torn apart.
Baaang!
Gilach slammed straight down onto the desk and both it and the fax machine were destroyed at once.
The strike didn’t end there. Gilach swung both arms and sliced the fax machine into dozens of pieces.
“That bitch who wouldn’t be able to lift a finger if skewered dares to act like she doesn’t know her damn place─!!”
“Why don’t you calm down, Summer.”
“Does it look like I can calm down!”
Another Heaven, Pasmo, snickered.
“That fiery personality of yours might get you into trouble one day. You better start practicing killing that temper now.”
Pasmo patted Gilach’s shoulder with his long arm.
He didn’t know if this was comforting or annoying.
“You and Winter are different in every way.”
Gilach was a High Elf and Aether was a lowly street urchin.
Gilach was cruel and Aether didn’t even treat prisoners carelessly.
And while Gilach was formidable at martial arts, Aether excelled in intellect.
“Of course you wouldn’t get along like water and oil.”
“What on earth are you trying to say, Spring?”
“I understand you’re angry that Winter not only stole your slave but also put an abrupt stop to Leviathan’s attack.”
Leviathan’s attack this time was ordered by Summer Heaven.
There were a few reasons, but one of them was because he didn’t want Winter Heaven to take all the credit for reviving the Demon King.
He was trying to help out of comradery, but to think that she’d realize and make the Sea Dragon back off.
“I don’t think I can stand this without killing someone.”
“Then do it.”
“...Hmm?”
The long corners of Gilach’s mouth stretched to his ears, and Pasmo grinned with him.
“So, this may be sudden but I have a secret just for you.”
“Go ahead.”
“Do you really think that the Demon King was trapped inside the Lodestone because of being subjugated by the Elemental Kings and the Goddess?”
Hearing that, Gilach’s eyes widened into full moons.
“What nonsense is this all of a sudden, Spring?”
“Haa, listen for a moment. I mean, would our lord who usurped the seat of the Elec Elemental King not be able to defeat the other Kings....”
“Hmmm?”
He did think that part was odd when he himself was sealed away.
Even a Heaven couldn’t defeat an Elemental King, but the Demon King possessed overwhelming intellect and power. As such, he devoured the Elemental King of Electricity head on and usurped their place.
“Think about it. His Majesty gained the Elec Elemental King’s ability. With that much more added to his natural abilities, how powerful would he have been during the Great War?”
“Then why at the time.......”
“He let himself be sealed.”
After the explanation, Gilach licked his lips, a habit that came out when he was greatly surprised.
“Why are you telling me this now?”
“His Majesty originally told me to keep silent, to never let this leak out.”
But now, it was okay.
They only needed to get one more Lodestone, and even getting it was a given.
Even if the Four Heavens took it easy, the Demon King with his thoroughness would have implemented some kind of device that guaranteed his resurrection.
“Then the seal stone would already be under His Majesty’s control.”
“Your brain is uncharacteristically working.”
“Because someone warmed it up. Huhahaha!!”
The conclusion was simple.
Aether could try all she wanted, but she wasn’t going to be given credit.
“With or without Winter, whether we act or don’t, the Demon King will inevitably return.”
“When?”
“I don’t know, but what I do know is I am waiting for the right time.”
When will that be, indeed.
It was as Gilach was reflecting on the conversation with Pasmo with his head quirked.
“Ah, that’s it!”
Now he got it.
“The Elemental Kings weren’t his concern at all!”
“Yes! Keep going!”
“The Goddess.”
The Demon King was seeking the death of the Goddess.
“He means to obliterate the god!”
“That’s right. And who does he need to devour to get such power?”
Gilach’s eyes rolled. His mouth opened slightly, and his cheeks kept contracting and relaxing.
There was no more anger, and laughter kept spilling.
“...That would be Winter.”
Footnotes
1. Eating sweet potatoes is like the equivalent of having dry crackers which make you thirsty, a common expression used for feeling emotionally frustrated/caught
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