Chương 21: Book 2 Chapter 2: Who is this guy?

The next two days continued the trend of being primarily confusing. Jim kept wondering who the actual bad guy was in this scenario. Alice, obviously, was evil. If she wasn't evil then why did she open the gate to allow monsters to storm Sredina? Those thieves shooting random high-class citizens in the slums were also obviously evil, after all, there he'd been minding his own business, only to get ruthlessly attacked. The headmaster however…

He'd been the first one to kill Jim back then and was involved in something more in addition to that. In the past Jim had thought the man was part of some nefarious conspiracy, but considering that the man had hunted down Alice in one of the instances, this again put into doubt how nefarious this conspiracy actually was. In the end Jim could only sit at his windowsill while looking up from his history book and scratch his head. The calamity coming was definitely bad. In fact, it was very bad. Very, very, very bad.

But, the thing was, the calamity had only ever killed Jim the first time. He'd never forget that stupid looking dragon slapping him into the sky like some sort of children's toy… The rest of his deaths? All at the hands of humans, or in the case of Alice, things pretending to be humans. Another common factor: almost all of his deaths had occurred in Sredina. He paused and furrowed his brows.

Trying to leave the city before the draft of the students, whatever it may be for, had been his priority before finding out about Alice. Had the priority really changed? The calamity seldom reached Riche anymore, at least according to the book. At most, the capital was overrun and served as the last line of defence for civilisation. If he could simply leave the city at the right time, alone this time… He could escape. Until then, there were too many open questions that he now desperately needed answers too.

He'd never been overly curious before, preferring to leave everyone to their little games. But now that those little games could potentially threaten his life, it was time to start looking. Alice was unimportant, her scheme was basic and idiotic, he'd fallen for it because of his kind-hearted and trusting nature, always trying to think the best of others.

His parents had scolded him for his empathy many times in the past, locking him inside his room on many occasions as punishment when he'd been a young child and showed any concern or interest in the servants. As usual, they were right. Kindness and empathy should stop where personal interests began. Knowing how to fake it was important, but actually having it was detrimental. Today was the day of the exams, again, for the umpteenth time.

He would secure his access into divination, talk to that investigator, see if he would be more useful in investigating the big figures than he had been the smaller ones. To avoid pitfalls, you needed to know where they were buried and the thing Jim lacked most at the moment was information.

-/-"Your shield and missile spells are of a surprisingly high quality," professor Waters commented with narrowed eyes after Jim had finished his demonstration once again, stunning the entirety of the arena with his ability and charisma. Jim looked above the beautiful woman's head, the only way to avoid looking at her curves, and recognised that the statement was more of a question.

However, he was obviously unable to explain that one's skills generally improved quite fast while being chased by a laughing skeleton who wanted to bury a fist in your chest and whose tenure at the academy was more akin to a war crime than progress.

"My family hired a tutor," Jim said briefly, and it wasn't even a lie, it was just that the tutor had long since been dismissed.

"I see," the professor nodded.

"Have you put any thought into what electives you will take?" she asked, as if him receiving the slots was a given. Maybe it was?

"Divination," Jim said with furrowed brows.

"I've often found myself stumbling blind into idiotic situations recently. Not by any fault of my own perception of course, but rather because of the insidious behaviour of others." The blonde woman standing across from him raised an eyebrow at that.

"Well, I would suggest External Mana Awareness then. After all, if you can sense someone's signature, or attack, long before it comes close to you, then it is quite hard to be taken off guard." She paused, before committing to a slightly too passionate speech.

"In fact, mana sensing is the clear next step for you considering that it is a prerequisite for higher level external mana manipulation, such as your shaping exercise which attempts to harness two shapes at once and move them in separate directions. Improving on this would allow you to have more control over your spells once they are cast, extend their range, tighten their shape and increase their power. It's also a necessary skill for fields such as enchantment, warding, ward breaking, illusions and many more."

Jim stood frozen like a deer in the headlights of a carriage. Never before had a professor been so enthusiastic to get him into their class. But… Well, he was a genius.

"Ward breaking, you say?" he inadvertently muttered after thinking it over.

"If you can't perceive an enchantment, you can hardly break it, can you?" Professor Waters asked rhetorically.

"A ward would be something like, an enchantment to make a door appear to be a wall if one is not keyed in?" Jim asked.

"Technically a ward is any enchantment cast over a designated area, rather than on an object," the professor exclaimed, before looking at something over Jim's shoulder and suddenly nodding.

"Anyway, I hope to see you in my class the day after tomorrow. I always suggest it as the starting point for higher tier magic," she said, before shooing him off with a dainty pale hand. Jim turned around, walked past a gaping Lebowski and Waterflower and disappeared from the academy grounds in the search of a detective. -/-"So, let me get this straight," the tall, stubbled detective asked from behind his cluttered desk.

"You want me to investigate a secret organisation that is building tunnels beneath the city and the Headmaster of the magic academy, at the same time?"

"Yes," Jim said with a nod.

"I'm glad you're so quick on the uptake," he praised in an attempt to use some positive reinforcement on the obviously stupid man. Harry dragged a hand down his face and leaned back in his somewhat too small chair. Silence descended onto the room as the pigeons on the balcony cooed and gurred.

"Why?" the man eventually asked.

"Why what?" Jim asked, confused.

"Why do you want me to investigate these things?" Jim crossed his arms doubtfully.

"Is that any of your business?"

"... yes?"

"Well they're suspicious, aren't they?"

"Who?"

"The secret organisation and the headmaster. They're up to something, and I want to know what."

"You're going to have to tell me a bit more than that," Harry said with a sigh. Jim furrowed his brows.

"Alright," he started, ordering his thoughts, he hadn't expected an interrogation, sheesh.

"I won't name some sources, but it recently came to my attention that the academy is planning to send out their students into Mitelos after this semester because they are suspecting that the calamity might erupt at any time. At the same time as this deployment, the headmaster is planning some sort of ritual at an undisclosed place. As for the secret organisation, it is being organised by a woman called Alice, but she's not really a woman, rather she seems to be some sort of shapeshifter with a big mouth for a head.

Her plan is to collect the people who wish to flee from the chaos, which will likely erupt fully on the day of the calamity, and lead them down some underground tunnels where she is planning to open a gate with the assistance of the recruited mages.

However, instead of leading to a safe location the gate leads directly into the depths of the Hrust mountains which allows the city to be breached from within, or rather, from underneath," Jim said with a nod, avoiding any mentions of seeing the future, which had been what had set of the headmaster during his first attempt to communicate his worries. Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

Harry narrowed his eyes as he listened, before leaning forward and propping up his chin on interlaced fingers. He looked like he'd just stepped in shit.

"What're you, some kind of seer?" he asked sarcastically, causing Jim to flinch, try and fail to stand up and fall over backwards along with his chair, hitting his head on the floor on the way down. After the loud clatter subsided and Jim was laying on his back, nursing his head, he finally answered.

"No, why would you think that?" he asked affrontedly. Harry stood up, walked around the desk and offered Jim a hand, hoisting the student up with surprising force for such a tall muscular man.

"No reason," he said in a deadpan voice.

"It's a weird question," Jim continued.

"To which the answer is no."

"Obviously," the private investigator stated.

"I'll ask however, hypothetically of course, if you were a seer and shared your worries with anyone, let's say, Headmaster Leigh, what would happen?" Jim furrowed his brows.

"Well, hypothetically, I guess he'd kill me," he answered simply. Harry took a few steps back, kicked an empty food canister of take-out food on the way and sat back down.

"I don't have the connections I used to, but I can kick this higher up the chain," the man offered.

"Don't," Jim said quietly, refusing to meet his calm gaze. Harry remained silent for a moment.

"Yeah, you're right. They already know."

"Who is they?" Jim asked. Harry shook his head.

"The relevant authorities," he stated with a sigh and a far-away look.

"Predicting the calamity has not been as big of a challenge as people think for many centuries now. The kingdom's divination experts can essentially measure the build up and predict the release. Us private individuals can then simply follow the logic of the steps taken. Why has most of the army been repositioned? Why are all the fortresses in Mitelos being filled to the brim with knights?"

"Everyone knows?" Jim asked.

"No, of course not, if everyone knew they would panic, they would leave the kingdom and then there'd be real problems. A smaller population to draft from, chaos in the streets before a single monster has emerged. The army likely thinks they're doing a field exercise in case of another rebellion, the knights do what they're told because that's how they're trained and the mages and adventurers will be drafted when the time comes due to their higher mobility," Harry explained briefly. Jim suddenly realised something.

"The headmaster, would he, hypothetically of course, be afraid of a student in the know spreading this information and creating chaos?" Harry rolled his eyes, tapping a finger on the table.

"Hypothetically, wait, no, not hypothetically." He sighed.

"The kingdom is split into several factions, the Royalists, the Aristocrats and the Republicans. Each of these factions have their own idea on how to benefit from the chaos of the calamity, and each faction would absolutely loathe the existence of a prophet that could reveal their plans to the others. Upon revealing himself, this prophet would technically be at least imprisoned and milked for information and at worst, killed immediately."

"Which faction does the headmaster belong to," Jim asked with furrowed brows.

"The headmaster, just like most mages and adventurers, belongs to the Republican faction. They believe Rotto would be better off without the royal family as a free Republic. The knights usually belong to the aristocrats, while the army is controlled by the king." Jim had obviously, to a certain extent known those things. The army swore their loyalty to the royal family. Knights, in virtue of being composed of noble sons, were generally loyal to their families first, themselves second and the royal family third.

Mages, as the most educated of the lot, tended to believe more progressive ideas. However, this information had never been so directly applied to political action in response to an outside force.

"But this doesn't explain what the headmaster is planning," he complained. Harry spread out his hands.

"That, I don't know, but in general you can assume that each faction wants one thing and one thing only. To come out on top of the chaos caused by the calamity. Historically it's always been a time ripe for regime change." Jim remained silent as he mulled over the new information.

"I need to know more. Who, when, how, why." Harry nodded.

"Coincidentally, so do I," he said with narrowed eyes and brought up a hand to adjust the wide-brimmed cap on his head.

"Now, where are those tunnels you told me about?"

"There's an abandoned smithy on Charl street. Or well, hypothetically it should be abandoned within the next few months," Jim said dodgily.

"Good, I'll go verify that first. Faction or no faction, having a bunch of monsters suddenly emerge from underground straight into Sredina is how innocents die," Harry said as he stood up.

"Wait, the payment," Jim said.

"I'm rich, obviously, but we should first discuss the cost before you start investigating!" Harry turned to give him a sardonic look.

"There is no payment," he explained as he grabbed a large gnarly staff from the wall and ushered Jim out of the office. They emerged onto the bright morning outside. Jim had come here first thing. Together, they rushed down the stairs to emerge into the bustle of the fabric factory.

"Kid," Harry said seriously as they walked down the road amongst the slowly awakening city.

"A pigeon will find you when I have some confirmation for the things you just said. Something tells me we'll have a lot of things to discuss."

"You believe me?" Jim asked dubiously.

"I think you at least believe what you're saying, I also believe you're so in over your head it's not even funny," the detective muttered.

"Go back to the academy and learn something useful." -/- An hour later, Jim was standing in front of the notice board and looking at the bold 'two' emblazoned next to his name alongside the very high placing in the practicals and a mediocre theoretical score.

"Learn something useful," Jim muttered to himself, hesitated one last time, before making note of the two electives he'd chosen. Divination, and External Mana Awareness.