The Academy is Doomed

Chapter 82

It had been less than ten minutes since Amon and Ami had promised to keep their familial relationship a secret, but it was already exposed!

‘What? How did they figure it out?’

He wondered if it was because they looked alike, but no one had ever mentioned such a thing before.

Amon resembled their calm and dignified father, while Ami was the spitting image of their fiery-tempered mother.

In short, Ami’s appearance screamed “troublemaker” in every sense of the word—completely different from Amon’s composed demeanor.

‘Did they just take a wild guess because of our similar names, Amon and Ami?’

Although he couldn’t determine the exact reason, Amon decided to deny it for now.

Ami tilted her head and said,
“Hmm? What are you talking about?”

She playfully feigned ignorance, a calculated display of innocence designed to charm younger students!

Of course, it didn’t work one bit.

Boris and Raymond only looked confused, while Chloe smiled knowingly, as if she had just confirmed her suspicions that Ami was indeed Amon’s younger sister.

“Unnie.”

“Huh, yeah?”

“Your behavior is exactly like Amon’s.”

“What…!?”

Ami, who could flip her attitude like turning over her palm whenever addressing seniors or juniors, froze at Chloe’s remark.

The students had eyes, after all, and they clearly remembered Amon’s sharp transformations during the “Academy Exchange Battle.”

Moreover, they had witnessed countless instances where Amon stubbornly held his ground before suddenly yielding. Amon himself called it “flexibility,” though how others perceived it was another matter entirely.

Hearing Chloe’s assertion that her behavior mirrored Amon’s, Ami trembled slightly.

‘She’s younger than me, but her provoking skills are top-notch.’

To a younger sister, being compared to her brother was nothing short of an insult!

Suppressing her annoyance, Ami forced a smile and said,
“No, I mean it. I only met that teacher today.”

Despite Ami’s continued denial, Chloe smiled gently.

“Really? If you say so.”

“Y-Yeah.”

“Then, unnie, I’ll be counting on you from now on.”

When Chloe politely bowed her head, Ami awkwardly nodded with a stiff expression.

Moments later, Ami, exhausted from rushing here, fell asleep early, leaving Boris to cautiously speak up.

“Hey, Chloe.”

“What?”

“Is that girl really Amon’s sister?”

Raymond chimed in, “She does act like him, but I’m not entirely sure.”

Even Raymond, with his keen observational skills befitting a Sword Master, found it hard to be certain about Ami’s relation to Amon.

But Chloe, with a confident expression, said,
“She’s definitely his sister.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Her behavior is similar, and more importantly…”

Chloe tapped her nose lightly and said,
“She smelled like Amon.”

“What…!”

Boris’s face twisted in shock.

“Chloe! How could you say something so rude…!”

“Huh?”

Chloe and Raymond tilted their heads in genuine confusion.

“What do you mean?”

“What’s wrong with mentioning smell?”

Faced with their innocent reactions, Boris flinched and shook his head.

“N-Never mind. It’s nothing.”

“……?”

Recently, Boris had been secretly reading a romance novel, “My Lord, You Can’t Do This.” Mistakenly associating the situation with something from the book, he felt a bit embarrassed.

Boris, who disguised the novel’s cover to look like a magic book, continued flipping its pages whenever he had free time.

Meanwhile, Raymond, interpreting Chloe’s statement as figurative, remarked,
“Smell, huh… I guess you could call it a similar vibe to Amon.”

Thinking she had meant atmosphere rather than literal smell, Raymond dismissed it lightly, but Chloe shook her head.

“No, I mean it. She literally smelled like Amon.”

“…What?”

“At first, I thought she was just some clingy troublemaker, but after watching her for a bit, I realized she wasn’t. The smell was similar but slightly different.”

“……”

Sighing, Boris opened his disguised book and shook his head.

‘Chloe’s getting weirder by the day. I have to keep my own head straight.’

Raymond also let out a sigh, stroking a doll that looked just like him.

‘I’m the only sane one in this academy. Right, Raymond?’

In this odd scene, Boris secretly reading a risqué book and Raymond conversing with a doll, both of them regarded Chloe as the strange one for obsessing over “smell.”

Though Chloe’s comments seemed odd, they stemmed from her upbringing in the Aran Kingdom, located in a high-altitude region. Her lineage, honed in such an environment, had heightened her senses, particularly her sense of smell, to extraordinary levels.

As Boris and Raymond shook their heads, dismissing Chloe’s words as nonsense, Rustianel, who had been sitting silently like a statue, finally spoke.

“They are siblings.”

“W-What?”

“They share the same familial scent.”

“…Huh?”

Adding weight to Chloe’s claim, Rustianel doubled down on the idea of a shared scent.

Chloe nodded as if to say, I told you so, while Boris and Raymond exchanged pitying glances at Rustianel.

“How can you even tell…?”

“How can I not?”

With a face that seemed to ask why they were questioning the obvious, Rustianel replied matter-of-factly,
“I’m a dragon.”

“…Ah, of course.”

Raymond smiled faintly, accepting it with a resigned sigh.

‘Another weirdo added to the mix.’

Boris, flipping through his book, nodded in agreement.

‘Wow, not a single normal person in this academy.’

Even Chloe shook her head, thinking to herself,
‘Amon, you’ve got your work cut out for you.’

Meanwhile, Rustianel tilted her head in confusion, looking at the warm, pitying gazes directed her way.

Anar’el was lost in deep thought.

‘First, I’ve put out the urgent fire at the academy.’

The giant blaze that had engulfed the entire academy was gone.

The debts were gone, all the teachers had returned, and with the rebuilt King of Mango farm, there was a regular income, and even two new students had been added.

However, there was still a smoldering fire, crackling and threatening to burn the academy down!

‘Right, in the end, I need proper results. Only then can I do anything I want.’

Emperor Amonis the 18th.

That is, with Sandrio still sick, it wasn’t a situation where she could contact him separately to ask for funding.

So, in the end, she would have to formally pressure the Ministry of Education for sponsorship, but she couldn’t just demand money with no results to back it up.

In other words, she needed solid proof that they were educating students!

“…Phew, okay.”

After careful consideration, Anar’el spread several piles of documents across the table and snapped her fingers.

Then, after a brief silence.

“…Ah, I don’t have a secretary anymore.”

She muttered awkwardly and stood up, moving to summon the teachers herself.

“Practical training?”

“Yes, Mr. Amon.”

“Hmmm… Now that I think about it, I heard that we would start full-fledged practical training from the second semester.”

In the first semester, the students were given basic foundations like knowledge and other fundamentals.

Then, from the second semester, they would move on to practical training based on the knowledge they had acquired.

That practical training was none other than the academy’s highlight: dungeon exploration!

That meant it was a risky endeavor, and only students who passed the strict judgment of the teachers could take part in the training.

‘Chloe is good at swordsmanship, so she should be fine. Raymond is already a Sword Master, no problem there. And Boris…’

Amon, lost in thought, nodded his head.

‘The kid is kind-hearted.’

And for the other students, Ami and Rustianel, it went without saying.

It wasn’t because she was his younger sibling, but Ami used to wield dual swords and share a camaraderie with monsters in the Arma Mountains before coming here.

‘As for Rustianel, a dragon…Does she really need practical training? Any monster would piss itself and flip over its belly just by making eye contact with her.’

Well, it couldn’t be helped since the curriculum required it.

Amon shrugged his shoulders and looked at Marion.

“Which students do you think should take the test?”

“Hm, what do you think?”

“Well, I think all of them can do it. I’m a bit worried about Boris, though.”

At Amon’s concern, Marion suddenly frowned.

“Why do you think Boris is a problem?”

“Eh? Well, Boris has only learned the theory of magic so far, right? His mental state is also still a bit worrying.”

At the continuous concerns, Marion made a sharp sound.

“Oh! This guy! You’re worried about our Boris?”

“Uh, what?”

“Our Boris works so hard on his magic practice! And recently, I’ve been teaching practical magic use too! Tsk, you’re just blind, aren’t you?”

“……”

Now that he thought about it, Boris was the only student focused on magic.

‘So this drunkard is favoring Boris.’

Although they say no finger is free of pain when you bite it, there are always some fingers that hurt more when bitten!

For Marion, it seemed like Boris was a particularly special finger.

Well, it wasn’t like Marion discriminated against other students, so Amon decided to let it slide.

“Alright, alright. I misspoke.”

“Cough! Be careful from now on. Anyway.”

“Yes?”

Marion pounded his chest with a thump.

“I’ll be the teacher supervising Boris during this dungeon practical.”

“Eh? Oh, okay…”

Amon was about to respond readily when he suddenly looked around at the other teachers.

‘Wait!’

Marion’s statement meant that each student had to have a supervising teacher.

It seemed the other teachers knew that, as they all had shining eyes.

At that moment, Sloth raised her hand.

“Then I’ll take Chloe as my student to supervise.”

“What!”

Amon got angry.

“Senior! I should supervise Chloe!”

“What? Why?”

“Chloe follows me so much!”

“I taught her swordsmanship, so it’s only right that I supervise her during practical training.”

“Tch…!”

Amon, trembling in frustration, couldn’t rebut the sound argument!

Sloth, with a proud expression, looked down at Amon with her head held high!

Seeing this, Marion thought to himself.

‘They were talking about some marriage thing earlier, and now it’s like parents fighting over custody.’

Anyway, Amon, who had realized that he couldn’t take Chloe’s custody away, was about to weakly say he would take on Raymond’s supervision.

‘Since he’s a Sword Master, there shouldn’t be any problem with the practical training, right? There’s nothing for me to point out.’

It meant he could work comfortably.

Just as he was about to speak with that thought.

“Raymond, I’ll take him.”

“What!? Kai, you little!”

As expected, Kai was trying to flip over his own bowl of rice, and Amon scolded him, but Kai tilted his head in confusion.

“Why are you so mad, Senior?”

“Raymond is under my supervision!”

“Eh? Why?”

“A junior…talking back?”

“I’m sorry, Senior, but Raymond really follows me.”

“…Huh?”

That couldn’t be true.

Amon had heard Raymond always badmouthing Kai to Reinbelt after class.

Unaware of this, Kai chuckled and shook his plump chin, which had grown from all his national duties.

“Well, after all, the names are Kai and Ray. They’re similar, right?”

“……”

“I guess that’s why you two get along.”

“…Yeah, yeah. Do whatever you want.”

Amon waved his hand at Kai, who didn’t listen to him, and suddenly frowned.

‘Wait, then what about the remaining student…?’

Ami, the younger sister who would be too painful to even put in my eye.

Rustianel, a dragon.

It was clear that this was a combination likely to cause trouble, and Amon smiled wryly.

“As a history teacher, I hereby resign from supervising this practical training!”