Ghila, Holst, Rockman, and I took turns to fight the cadets, with Holst's teaching assistant, an old elf with a similarly dry personality, eventually joining us. The cadets had to survive for thirty seconds, and although the fights had been mostly one-sided, I was happy with the grit they had put into the exercise.

By the end of the session, every cadet had managed to survive for thirty seconds at least once. Rockman was Lv.29, and although the power gap between him and the cadets was immense, when paired against five of them, they developed tactics to survive the Geomancer's attacks.

In between matches, I got to know my team better.

At first, I was surprised by Rockman's comparatively low level, but the Gaiarok cadets told me that Ghila changed assistants every few weeks. They muttered something about dueling them to exhaustion, but she caught up to our gossip, and the cadets fled like cockroaches.

Holst's assistant was a Scholar who spent his youth trying to become a Tactician. His [Mana Manipulation] and sword skills were top-notch. It was hard to tell what kind of relationship he had with Holst because they both had mastered the art of the resting bitch face to legendary levels. I guessed they had some sort of mentorship-type relationship. Holst's assistant was Lv.38, but his baseline physical prowess was limited due to his Scholar class, which gave the cadets the chance to barely survive for thirty seconds.

The only loser of the session was the Fortifier. Although the mana cost of maintaining the barriers was cheap compared to my mana barrier, the sheer amount of work had almost depleted his mana pool. We chipped in to give him a handsome tip, but I made a mental note to ask Prince Adrien for a high-level Fortifier to help us nonetheless.

During the training session, a stack of paper floated outside the ring, supported by a mana hand. A second hand carried an inkpot, while the third scribbled down a simple treatise on Logic and Set Theory.

It attracted some odd looks, but I was so short on time that, if I wanted to get everything done, I had to multitask whenever possible.

When I had inquired about the best way of boosting one's mana pool, Holst had told me that Novice titles gave a lot less mana than Journeyman and Adept titles. The most efficient way of getting rid of Prince Adrien's and Althea's Corruption was to aim tall instead of wide. With my knowledge, however, I knew I could do it in a short period.

After the morning training, I walked down the ramp of the Imperial Academy.

I was deep in thought when someone bumped into my back. It was Kili. Her messy hair was drenched in sweat. She had endured [Intimidation]'s effect better than other cadets, and her agility had almost allowed her to survive twenty seconds against me. The mental effort had seemingly taken its toll, because she only realized it was me after a second. Her shocked expression set off every alarm in my brain.

After spending years of my life around kids and teenagers, I instinctively knew when one of them had something up their sleeve.

"Didn't I tell you to go rest?" I asked.

"I-I just have to do a little thing out there," Kili stuttered, vaguely pointing at the East Ward.

"Are you visiting Wren?"

"Y-yes?"

Kili seemed to be too exhausted to lie with a straight face.

"Alright, send Wren my greetings, and don't return too late." I gave her the thumbs-up and continued on my way as if I had important things to attend to. I wanted to buy a couple of good swords to give to Harwin and Odo as 'graduation' presents, but Kili was acting too suspiciously not to follow her.

Tailing students wasn't particularly respectable behavior for a teacher, but Kili had the strange tendency to either get in big trouble or not at all. There was no middle ground. After getting off the ramp, I turned to the south and made a detour before returning to the main street. I pulled the cloak over my shoulders and used [Mirage] to appear unremarkable to the onlookers.

Kili walked twenty meters in front of me.

We crossed the inner wall, and Kili turned away from the main street into the poorer side of the Eastern Ward. The streets were empty. Half of the stores and taverns had 'closed' signs on their doors. The shutters of the old houses were tightly closed, and the people on the streets walked fast, their gazes fixed on the ground. Even the vegetable market was half empty.

Near the entrance of an alley, two guards questioned a man.

Kili walked faster past the scene, always sticking close to the buildings.

The atmosphere was weird.

"Hey, you! Stop! Wearing cloaks is prohibited! If you don't want to visit the dungeon, uncover your face!" Someone shouted behind me.

I was the one with the cloak. I turned around just to find Willow and Osprey walking towards me. Osprey was using his visor down like the other guards, but Willow's dark purple face was exposed. Otherwise, it would've been impossible to recognize them. I pulled my cloak down, and the two guards stopped short like they had seen a ghost.

"L-lord Clarke?"

"In the flesh," I replied.

"W-what are you doing here, Sir?" Willow asked, and Osprey smacked her helmet. "If you don't mind answering, of course. I mean, it's dangerous for the members of the Academy after the attack… not that Lord Clarke could be easily defeated."

Osprey untied the curtain of chainmail that covered his face. Considering his expression, he was about to smack her again.

I looked over my shoulder. Kili had disappeared.

"I'm visiting a friend," I said. "Where is everyone, by the way?"

"Hidden," Osprey begrudgingly said. "The guard was tasked to find the anti-nobility movement and… it's better not to be suspected of anything, whether you are innocent or not."

Willow cleared her throat.

"I-I didn't mean to order Lord Clarke around… I-I just wanted to tell Your Excellency to keep his face uncovered so you won't have problems with the other guards."

Osprey signaled with his head up the road. The guards who were questioning the man had taken his bag from him, and its contents lay on the muddy street. Eggs, a loaf of bread, and wood carving tools.

"The last time the anti-nobility movement gathered momentum, I was a teenager. Half of the East Ward burned down during the clashes between guards and rebels," Osprey explained with a tired voice. "Half of the people here blame the guards, the other half blames the movement".

Evelisse hadn't told me that part of the story.

"Who was to blame?" I asked.

"Both."

Willow smacked Osprey's back.

"Traitor," she grunted.

"Back then, the movement allied with half of the known criminals in the city. They were not free of blame when things escalated," Osprey pointed out.

Willow seemed to be more of a supporter of the anti-nobility movement than Osprey.

"Why become a guard, then?" I asked.

"To change the system from inside, of course!" Willow puffed out her chest.

"And how is it going?"

She slowly deflated. "Not great, to be honest. I'm still waiting for a promotion… it will happen any time now, I-I know it."

As usual, Willow and Osprey offered to be my escort. I accepted it with pleasure. After all, an escort was the best thing to discourage other guards from getting in my way. I walked to Wren's house. The more we ventured into the poorest section of the city, the more the buildings curved over the alleys, barely letting the light of the sun pass through. Still water gathered in the holes on the cobbled streets, giving a foul smell. Shady individuals guarded the corners of the streets, but the guard presence was almost gone.

"Do you have friends here, Lord Clarke?" Willow nervously asked.

I had guessed that criminal groups controlled this part of the city to a certain extent, but things might have been worse than I anticipated if Willow was so nervous. We turned the corner and arrived at the street where Wren's house was.

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I wasn't expecting the house to be surrounded by half a dozen guards.

"Open the door! We know you are hiding criminals inside your house!" the one who seemed to be the leader of the group shouted, hitting the old door with a gloved hand. "Open up or we will burn the place down!"

Willow cursed, but Osprey held her before she could approach.

"That's a Sergeant," he simply said.

Earthling Rob stepped aside to give way to Ebrosian Rob.

Before my escort could even blink, I had already covered half of the distance between them and the guards—not threateningly fast, but nimble enough thanks to [Light-Footed]. Willow and Osprey rushed behind me, but before they could stop me, the guards had already spotted me.

"I will give you one chance, and one chance only, to walk away, Sergeant," I said, mimicking Holst's disdainful tone.

I wasn't in the mood to negotiate or be rational.

The veins in the neck of the man were going to explode if he got even slightly angrier.

"You two, detain this idiot for aiding insurgents!" the Sergeant shouted.

Although Wren's house usually hosted urchins and Kili's little thief band, he was as insurgent as chickens were good drivers.

[Geokinesis] activated. I stomped on the floor, and a square cobblestone popped up. I kicked the cobblestone directly into the sergeant's face with enough strength to hurt a Lv.30. Stone and bone shattered.

I remembered reading about the nose area being one of the most vascular regions in the body, but seeing the amount of blood flowing from someone's broken nose was a show on its own.

Unlike in the past, I felt no hint of guilt for escalating things.

Time slowed down. I didn't even have to use [Identify] to guess the guards' levels. The mana flowing through their bodies and reaction speed were enough for me to know they were in their mid-to-late-20s. I used [Identify] nonetheless, maybe searching for a justification for my actions.

The amount of [Coercion], [Interrogation], and [Extortion] passives was worrying to say the least.

They pointed their halberds at me.

Ebrosian Rob got slightly angrier.

"I will skin you alive," the Sergeant bellowed, channeling his mana into his sabre as he clutched to his broken nose with the other hand.

That was the magic power of a Lv.30.

The Sergeant disappeared. My eyes couldn't follow his movement, but I didn't need to. Instead, my mana sense did. He reappeared behind and above me. I smirked. Janus had been ten times faster.

I manipulated the cobblestones to create a stone barrier around my back. [Minor Geokinesis] was more mana efficient than [Mana Mastery], which allowed me to control it further from my body. I grabbed stones past the guards and violently pulled them to me, hitting the back of their knees and elbows.

I hoped it hurt.

Osprey and Willow dropped their halberds and joined the fight. Osprey shoved his buckler on the face of one of the guards, using his bear-like frame for maximum destruction, while Willow squared up, her fists shining with a white strengthening spell. I wondered if they both were Brawlers. Osprey had the physique of one, Willow the spirit.

I focused on the Sergeant.

The man was talking seriously when he said he was going to skin me alive. Mana surged through his body, destroying my stone spells and barriers with ease. Adrenaline shot through my veins. His sabre could probably cut through metal, but I wasn't going to wait to find out.

It took two more cobblestones to the kisser for the Sergeant to realize he was fighting way above his league.

"Sir, please, he's a VIP," Osprey gasped, just an instant after throwing an unnecessarily strong hook to the liver of one of the guards.

The guard in question squirmed on the ground despite the chainmail and the gambeson protecting his body.

The Sergeant stepped back, although I was sure the reason was his shattered nose and not Osprey's words. He gave me a murderous look and signaled the other guards to withdraw. The group retreated with their tails between their legs while one of the guards shone a green mana light on the Sergeant's nose.

"That was unnecessary," Osprey said.

"I know," I replied. "I was picking a fight."

Osprey and Willow exchanged a curious look but didn't ask further questions.

Logically, I knew I could've fixed everything with words, but I felt no hint of guilt. When did Ebrosian Rob become so prevalent in my mind? It took me a moment to realize where the lack of emotional response came from. It was the death of the students during the selection exam.

I knocked on the door, and Wren opened it. Behind him, Kili was trying to stop him with little success. The left side of her face was swollen, and I swore I could count the plates of the guard's metallic gloves printed on her cheek.

"Ah! Robert Clarke, it's good to see you," he said with his usual spacey expression. "What brings you here?"

Kili gave me a guilty look.

"I heard you were sheltering enemies of the state," I jockingly said.

"I'm sure that's a misunderstanding. Please, come inside. Your friends are invited too," Wren smiled, as if the ones threatening to burn down the building weren't dressed the same as Willow and Osprey.

Wren was as 'gone' as ever.

The room had changed since the last time I was there. The piles of rags had disappeared. Instead, there were three long tables and a huge cauldron steaming over the fire. It smelled like coriander and Dire Cress. The shelves were full of wooden bowls. On the counter were fresh vegetables and sacks of flour and lentils.

In the corner of the room, six kids and a woman as old as time itself huddled together in fear. One of them was part of Kili's thieves group. The others were too young to even have a Class.

"Ups! It's boiling already! Kili, please set the table. More friends should be coming soon," Wren happily said, waddling to the cauldron like nothing had happened. "This is Robert Clarke. He's Kili's teacher at the Academy."

Wren's introduction didn't help to make the kids less scared.

We sat near the fire. Osprey and Willow remained in silence. Just as Wren had said, people started pouring into the single-room house. Most of them were young kids and elderly people with withering bodies. I guessed not even the System could protect people's health against poverty.

"So, you are managing a charity kitchen now, Wren?" I asked.

"I try to tell him to save his salary, but he doesn't listen! He even bought salt! Salt!" Kili complained from across the room.

"You can't eat coins, though. What is good about them if they are gathering dust in a drawer?" Wren replied.

I couldn't help but smile. It was good to see there was at least one person whose heart remained untouched by the harshness of life.

"Do you have paper, Wren?"

"No, but Lucky's grandfather is a Scribe. Maybe he has some?"

A little kid no taller than my knee jumped up and ran out of the house, returning less than a minute later with a single sheet of cheap scroll. As I didn't have ink and a quill, I used [Magic Ink] for a change. I wrote a heavy-worded letter to the captain of the guard about the attack on the charity kitchen sponsored by Thane Robert Clarke of Connecticut and the Marquis Tauron of Farcrest.

"I didn't need your help, by the way," I said as I added some concealed threats of escalating the issue to my contacts in the royal family if hostilities continued.

"I was protecting them from you, Lord Clarke," Osprey replied with his usual inexpressive, tired clerk voice. "I'm sure Willow thought the same."

The half-gnome's bloodthirsty expression told the opposite tale.

"Hand this to your superior and tell them what you saw in here," I said, handing the letter to Osprey. "I will hang a flag with my crest outside so everyone knows this is the place."

The guards refused their servings and left the room, saying they had work to do. Wren walked them to the door, visibly disappointed.

I signaled Kili to sit in front of me, and she begrudgingly obeyed.

"I did tell them I was a cadet of the Imperial Academy," she excused herself before I could say anything.

Considering her swollen face, they didn't seem to believe her.

I rummaged through my pouch and handed her a low-grade healing potion.

"Use it, don't sell it," I warned her as Wren put a soup bowl in front of me. As it was lunchtime already, I didn't refuse it.

Kili ate in silence. She didn't have anything to tell me, and I knew anything I tried to say to her would only bounce. Still, I used my [Teacher's Glance #5] to get the message across: I'm not mad, just disappointed.

In the meantime, I tried to convince Wren to let me chip in to help with the kitchen, with little success.

Kili faltered as Wren refused a monthly gold coin, but the little kids were kind enough to let me know they were open to receiving the grant instead.

After arranging the details with Kili, I got lost in thought. It had been a week since the cadets returned to Cadria from the midterm selection exam, which meant the guard activity wasn't something new. For everyone in the East Ward to be hidden in their houses, things must've been going strong for a couple of days already. Somehow, I expected Kili to seek my help on day one.

I drew the crest of the Rosebud Fencing Academy on the table with magical ink. It would disappear when the mana within the ink ran out.

"Have Wren hang a flag with this symbol on the entrance," I said, looking towards the corner of the room where the urchins who tried to rob me during my first day in the city ate their food. "And tell your friends to lay low until things are resolved. If they get traced back to you, you and the Cabbage Class will be in trouble. Don't give Astur a reason to make things more difficult."

Kili nodded, her eyes fixed on her soup.

A knock on the door took me away from my thoughts. Everyone else had just entered Wren's house without knocking. Before I could turn around, Wren was already turning the knob.

A man dressed in good traveling clothes stood on the other side of the door. Behind him were two individuals who looked like his bodyguards. Their clothes were designed for combat rather than traveling. I was instantly on guard.

"Robert? A gentleman is looking for you," Wren announced, just to turn back to the unknown man. "Would you want to join us for lunch?"

The man shook his head and watched me cross the room. As I got to Wren's side, he extended a square package wrapped in cheap linen and hemp cord, and a letter.

"Anselm, Courier of the Greymarch Company. This is for you, from Lady Elincia and Lady Nasiah," the man said.

I realized these were Lip's men. The high-level Courier and his escort, the Wind Mage, and the Wind Fencer. I had paid good money for their services, but it had been worth it. I grabbed the package, smiling.

"How did you find me here?" I asked.

"That's a Class secret," the Courier replied with a charming smile. "Please, check the contents."

I did. Inside the square package was the Scry Ledger with a small note threatening me with a painful death if something happened to the book. I opened Elincia's letter and skimmed it. It was written in a rush, with smears of ink here and there. She skipped the formalities altogether and listed the ingredients of the purple potion from the most common to the rarest.

"Everything checks out. Thanks," I said.

"Greymarch Company at your service, Lord Clarke," he said before performing a well-rehearsed bow.

I glanced at Elincia's letter once again.

The purple potion's secret ingredient was Ashthorn, which only meant one thing: whoever was behind the potions was extremely wealthy.

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