A Famous Traitor and Treacherous Genius

126 – Sweet and Bloody Academy (6)

Late evening.

Squeak.

The door to the Academy Imperial International Student Dormitory opens.

“Oh, are you here?”

“…”

The imperial students on the first floor, including the international student in room 202, saluted towards Astasia who opened the front door and entered, and Astasia sat down on the sofa in the living room on the first floor.

“Hey, Chairman Gray…?”

“After lunch, we had tea time until the afternoon, but then went back saying we had work to do in the evening.”

“…”

A low-pitched voice reciting as if reporting.

“Is there any way to see you off…”

“I came to see him off. His leg hurts, right?”

The international students each exchanged glances in the dull atmosphere, which was clearly different from their usual bright appearance in the morning.

“Granddaughter Hwang. Did things not work out with Gray Gibraltar?”

“What?”

“Gray Gibraltar, princess-“

“Princess, what do you mean?”

Astasia raised her head and asked No. 202 harshly.

“How dare you?”

“…I apologize, Granddaughter Hwang.”

“Don’t call me princess so carelessly. I don’t like that.”

“Yes. …That, the granddaughter. The meal with Gray Gibraltar…”

“We ate, drank tea, and talked well. That’s why he dragged me around in the first place.”

“Then can’t we call it a success?”

“Yes, it’s a success. I guess you could say she’s taken a step closer. She… If it weren’t for the vice-chancellor’s interference, she would.”

Some international students are shocked to hear the word vice president.

“If it were Lord Erzsebet…”

“The two of us were talking when she suddenly stormed into her restaurant room.”

“Are you saying you booked a room and had a meal? Gray Gibraltar booked a room?”

“Yeah. I really did. They came in thinking I was going to be attacked or something.”

As Astasia said with a grin, the students studying abroad in the empire smiled humbly.

“More than that, was there anything that was said? Did anyone see me being taken to Gray Gibraltar and heard anything about the students?”

“Those who viewed it favorably said that Gibraltar was in love with the imperial granddaughter.”

Room 305, Scarlett answered while serving tea.

“Who are the people who look at you negatively?”

“How could Gibraltar do something like that to a woman of the empire? It would be better to do something like that to Princess Naria. That’s what I said.”

“…No ordinary stories?”

“Everyone was perplexed, but most people often said, ‘He looks like the son of Lord Crimson.’ I heard that the Margrave and Countess often showed that kind of appearance at the Royal Capital Academy.”

“Yes. That’s right…”

Astasia sipped her tea lightly and closed her mouth for a moment.

“Is there anyone among these people from ‘Magic Factory’?”

“I came from a factory, Granddaughter Hwang.”

“Blonde, you?”

“Yes. I worked as a research assistant for ‘Pungseok’ at the 3rd factory.”

Room 201, the blonde came to Astasia’s right side and sat down, bowing his head.

“Have you ever heard anything about Vice-Chancellor Erzsebet?”

“No, I haven’t heard anything about it. But he is someone we need to be wary of.”

“Border?”

“Originally, the person who would become the vice-chancellor of the kingdom was Sir Paracelsus, who was studying Pungseok at the 3rd Factory.”

The blonde took out one of his paper bags from his chest and put it back.

“Until half a year ago, Lord Paracelsus was appointed as the head of external affairs at Orosol Academy. I overheard the Crown Prince directly say to him, ‘You should go to the kingdom.’ However, His Royal Highness reversed that decision. “

“…That’s how I know it.”

“Do you know anything else…?”

“I know. But, you guys don’t know that.”

Astasia shook her head at the blonde’s report and got up from her seat.

“Everyone, cheer up tomorrow. I’m going to go to my room and sleep.”

“Are you already asleep?”

“I’m tired. Let’s clean the room and prepare for tomorrow morning.”

“I will take the throne-“

“No.”

Astacia headed toward her elevator, extending her hand directly toward Scarlett, who was trying to catch up.

“No one can come into my room.”

“…”

Astasia left her international students behind her, and she immediately got into her elevator and headed to her own room on the fourth floor.

“…”

Even the moment she opened the door and entered, her expression was not good at all.

“…”

Her own face reflected in the mirror at her entrance she was extremely pale.

To be more precise, she didn’t know how to straighten her stiff face.

Jeopuk, Jeopuk.

The moment I took off her shoes, passed through her passage, and entered the main room.

“.. Hehe.”

Astasia’s cold expression instantly loosens, and she closes the door with a smile on her face.

She walks through the master bedroom’s dressing room with light steps and stands in front of the secret wall.

“Hmm. Hmm. Ah, ah.”

Astasia made a very small gesture, and she immediately stretched her arms left and right in the light coming from inside her walls.

Drurr.

With the sound of machinery moving inside, a man in a red coat appeared.

“What are you doing?”

“A hug for joy of reunion?”

“…It’s been 30 minutes since we broke up.”

Gray Gibraltar obediently opened her arms towards Astasia.

“What are you doing?”

“Please come first.”

“I stretched my arms to the left and right first?”

“If I don’t hug you, will I go back?”

“…”

Wow.

“If this is the case, you won’t die overnight?”

“I have no intention of going back tonight.”

“…Eh?”

“We talk all night long.”

Astasia’s face began to turn red.

* * *

“Vice-Chancellor Bathory Erzsebet. I think we should definitely get her on our side.”

“What is it? Did she even bring her pajamas to talk about that?”

“There is still time before bed, so she should talk publicly and plan her future response.”

I sat next to Astasia, who was lying face down on the bed, and massaged her back.

“Is it true that the Vice Chancellor is a leader in magic engineering?”

“It’s true. She took over her position from the previous Escobar about 10 years ago, and she has been the leader in the Imperial Magic Workshop.”

“Escobar…”

A name that is not revealed to the public.

Since it is not an official name, I could not help but have completely different expectations about Vice Chancellor Bathory until Astasia mentioned this name.

“Princess. I thought she was a blood elf.”

“Blood elf…Vampire?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm… He suddenly appeared 10 years ago, and although I have rarely met him, he is probably not a vampire. Even when he was in the Empire, he was walking around under the sun just fine.”

“Is that so? It’s not like there’s a vampire who just overcame the sun or something, right?”

“Why? Are you worried? Are you afraid that the vice-chancellor is a vampire and he will turn people into ghouls or something?”

“If you were a vampire, you would have been caught when you met the Duke of Winchester. And you wouldn’t be able to come to the royal capital, the place with the strongest sunlight in the Kingdom of Nostrum.”

Vampires hate the sunlight, and the land where golden blessings similar to the sunlight are most dense is the Nostrum capital, Geo Nostrum.

“If this were the Seville territory adjacent to the contaminated area, you might wonder if they were vampires or not, but I guess that’s not the case.”

“But you can’t get rid of suspicion that he’s a vampire, right?”

“I think he is either a blood elf or a human who helps the blood elves.”

“Why?”

“It’s a hunch.”

It is merely an inference made based on information from the future, combining the information obtained as traitor Gray and the Chairman of the Gorge Foundation.

So intuition.

Although the actual evidence is poor, the feeling of a traitor makes it impossible to erase the hypothesis.

The crown prince disposed of all vampires and blood elves just before the war.

A large amount of silver was manufactured using the discarded corpses of vampires.

Bathory Erzsebet did not exist in the unified continent.

In other words.

‘I was purged by the crown prince.’

A being that produces the result.

‘I don’t know anything else, but I know that Escobar manufactured silver.’

No matter how great an alchemist he is, the alchemy and recipe he created with his genius ideas can be passed on to others and reproduced?

‘Make the silver manufacturing method a manual, and kill the creator of the silver. And it is recycled into white silver. It’s a terrible ending.’

I’m not sure yet.

But if Bathory Erzsebet is really the ‘Silver King’ I think…

“I guess I’ll have to take her as my mother.”

“Yes? What do you mean all of a sudden?”

“It is not a strange thing to say as it is understood that he is somewhat acquainted with Chairman Erwin. Considering that he is a close associate of His Highness the Crown Prince, he also has considerable political influence.”

“Ah, no, that’s right, you’re my mother… ?”

“I feel comfortable treating an older woman who is involved with me in any way, whether politically, economically, or technologically, as her mother. “A mother is a kind of good.”

I climbed on top of Astasia, clenched my fists on her back and pressed them.

“You don’t look like a woman to me. You present your own line.”

“You can create an ideal mother-child relationship, but don’t even dream of seeing me as the opposite s*x?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“If a handsome younger man approaches me, wouldn’t I feel strange thoughts? For example, he might see me as a substitute for his father.”

“Uh, um…”

Astasia smiled bitterly.

It wasn’t because I thought what I was saying was nonsense, but it was a subtle laugh because I actually thought what I was saying had validity.

“If I had not treated Queen Carmen as her political mother when she was young, if I had met her for the first time by now and shared her story with her-“

“Ah. I understand. I guess they at least forcibly dyed your hair red and made you call yourself ‘Carmen’, right?”

“That’s it.”

Treating her as a mother means making her someone on my side her, but at the same time, it is an ideological message that rejects the relationship between men and women.

Astasia is the first to tell that to others.

“You won’t treat me as your mother, right?”

“Not a mother, what does she think of being a mother?”

“Is she going to be Gray Gibraltar’s mom?”

“Let me just tell you in advance that the thought that just came to mind is the correct answer.”

“Oh my. Be bold.”

Astasia giggled and turned her body around, and I went down under her and pressed my hands against her legs and her thighs.

“So when will I become a mother?”

“When you give birth to a child and an environment is created where the child can live comfortably without any worries?”

“…It might take a long time.”

Astasia’s expression looked a little sad as she looked up at the ceiling.

“Maybe it could take more than ten years.”

Even if you don’t say it, Astasia knows.

What is the biggest obstacle in our relationship?

And why is that obstacle an obstacle?

“It won’t take that long.”

I reached up and straightened Astasia’s disheveled hair.

“In order to pull that off somehow, they are trying to treat Vice-Chancellor Bathory as her mother.”

“You know that you are His Highness the Crown Prince’s closest aide, right?”

“I know. So, we have to steal it somehow.”

“That wasn’t just a smoke screen?”

Astasia stands upright and looks at me seriously.

“How are you going to appease the vice-chancellor? She is someone who cannot be persuaded by money.”

“You have to persuade people.”

“How are you going to call Count Crimson and seduce him? Are you going to make him fall in love with you?”

“I know very well that you are a person who will not be easily charmed by something like that. I will approach you in a different way. A new way that Vice-Chancellor Bathory will never refuse.”

“You can never refuse…?”

“Yes. I am planning to use an incentive that will allow people to choose to stay at Orosol Academy even if they give up all the titles, authority, and property they previously had in the empire.”

Here.

“We need to make good use of the academy’s characteristics. So…”

I laid down on top of her and brought my face close to her.

“Today, princess, you will have to spit out everything you know about Vice-Chancellor Bathory.”

* * *

The first weekend of the Academy.

If you’re asked to work on the weekend, you never want to come out voluntarily if you don’t get paid, but if it’s important work, you have to come out and work.

“Chairman Gray? Why did you call me so special?”

“Please sit down for now, Vice President Bathory.”

“…Even to the honorific level?”

“Originally, I tend to be respectful.”

“…”

I invited Vice President Bathory to the foundation’s chairman’s office and sat down with him.

“Let’s get straight to the point. Are alchemy classes open?”

“…”

Vice President Bathory-Professor of Alchemy’s expression hardened.

“Next week, after the second week of lectures, ‘course registration’ will be confirmed in earnest. Until then, courses with less than 15 students will naturally be canceled.”

“That’s…!”

In the kingdom, alchemy is an apostolic and worthless science.

“How many people came to OT?”

“Well, that is…”

“Excluding the 10 imperial students, how many kingdom students came?”

“…”

“Well… There may be people who want to come but can’t come to the lecture because they hide in the shadows because of what others think, but in the end, there will be less than 15 people.”

“…”

No matter how many of the empire’s leading scholars come and give famous lectures, if those who come to listen to the lectures are as ignorant as monkeys about alchemy, they cannot even be interested.

“I will help you. I will guarantee the opening of the lecture and save Professor Bathory’s face.”

“…Why?”

“I’m somewhat interested in alchemy, so I can’t see the course being canceled just because it was the students’ choice.”

In order to get Bathory Herzhebet on our side, we need to lay the groundwork for her.

“Next week. After the weekend is over. There is an event scheduled on campus.”

“Huh? I’ve never heard of anything like that…”

“Yes. I caught it at dawn.”

“…”

I presented a plan approved by Vice President Bathory.

“This is it.”

“…On-campus club operation rules and weekly event plan for club formation?”

“Yes.”

Club.

“The Gorgok Foundation will provide a portion of the scholarship as club operating support expenses.”

“No way.”

“If roughly 30 clubs are created, it is not a big problem if one of them is related to alchemy.”

“…”

Department of Alchemy.

“Those who join this club will become interested in alchemy, and someday, after graduating from the academy, they may want to continue studying alchemy.”

“After that… “

“Orosol Academy, graduate school. The first in the kingdom.”

“…!!”

In the Kingdom of Nostrum, there is a magic tower and a university, but there is no graduate school.

“As the mother of education, would you like to leave your name in history?”

Mother Bathory.

“The vanguard of the educational revolution front that enlightened these foolish and idiotic nostrils of Nostrum. Sign a contract with me and let’s raise graduate students. So…”

Successfully introduced an alchemy graduate school to Nostrum, opening an era of academic research.

“We are introducing an imperial-style graduate school system to Nostrum.”