Awaiting soft rains(An extra's novel)-Chapter 89: Exams
Stepping out of Alice’s office, I couldn’t help but feel a growing headache. She’d sent me out without saying much, just a list of suspects and to contact her in case any issues arose.
The hallway was dead silent, and somehow, I could tell that night had already fallen. Stuffing my hands in my pockets, I began heading back home, my mind already circling around how to catch the skinwalker.
There were some things I knew for sure. It wasn’t stupid. It would know by now that it was being tracked by the administration. Who exactly would be tracking it was unknown to it.
But it’d likely suspect staff. Which was why Alice had chosen me.
If the monster was smart, it would know the first group to be suspected and searched would be those that had entered Ramona’s room on Friday. It’d likely pay attention to anyone acting weirdly around them.
’So, I can’t go randomly touching them.’
There was no doubt it would be tipped off, then begin actively avoiding me. Worse still, it could just decide to go out with a bang if it realized that.
I had a feeling that was the plan already. It must’ve already known that its days were numbered, so it wouldn’t be long before it decided to cause a massive incident.
’What I need is a mask.’
A mask to hide my intentions in combing through the suspects. Alice had already told me to use the disciplinary arm of the school council.
The school council appointments happened during the past weekend.
Naturally, given Racheal was the president of the council, and I her assistant, everyone in that disciplinary arm was a cadet within Racheal’s faction.
In fact, most positions in the council had been decided by her. Even though the vice president had similar rights, I’d largely stayed out of the whole delegation process so as not to antagonize her.
The only person I’d appointed was Ayo, to club management. An appointment Racheal easily accepted as a token of peace.
Hence, I couldn’t really control the disciplinary arm—or, as some preferred to call them, Enforcers—to do my bidding without Racheal giving the go signal.
More important than that, however, were the identities of the suspects. Most were nobles. After all, Ramona was a noble, too.
Normally, that would make the situation worse, as using a group of students mostly in Racheal’s faction to comb through nobles that generally leaned towards Varic would worsen the already tense relationship between them.
But here it was almost a godsend excuse. No one would find it weird if a disciplinary department under Racheal began harassing the nobles under Varic.
In fact, it would be expected.
If I used harassing as an excuse to search through the suspects, even the skinwalker wouldn’t be able to tell it was an attempt to find him.
To reduce further suspicion, and perhaps for a little satisfaction, I could even harass some random nobles not connected to the case at all.
As long as i didn’t overplay my hand, It wouldn’t make the tension between both factions much worse than they already were.
Afterall, compared to the original story, they were in a relatively normal state now.
I sighed, rubbing my face as I realized I’d already stepped out of the building and up to one among the many walkways in the Academy.
As I’d guessed, it was already night now. The storm outside was still raging as always, its constant pounding against the barrier forming an almost comforting hum in the background.
Although there wasn’t much difference between night and day in the Academy due to the storm perpetually blocking out the sun, the silence was enough to separate the two.
With the sea of blackgrass covering the space between white walkways, the warm street lamps that lit up the path intermittently, and numerous fireflies that swam through it all, the Academy became a rather sleepy place again.
’Unfortunately, I won’t be getting much of that anytime soon.’
For now, I needed to find a way to convince Racheal into letting me control the disciplinary arm without letting her co-opt me into her faction.
I could feel a headache just thinking about it. More so, I still had cultivation and training to do tonight and in the morning.
’Haa... Damn it all.’
---
As always, I had a pretty awful morning. A pounding sense of nausea hammered against my skull throughout the morning class; I felt so weak that even taking notes felt like an insurmountable task to me.
Needless to say, everything our passionate lecturer spoke about entered through one ear and left through the other.
It was only at the very tail end of the class that I began feeling like a human again. By then, it was already too late to make sense of anything.
Shin, long used to this sight, made no comments about my state, merely focusing on the lecturer. Though he did occasionally glance at me, just in case I looked like puking.
Fortunately for both our sakes, I did not puke.
’Man, I hate my life.’
The lecturer soon stepped out of the hall.
Shin finally looked at me properly.
"Did you get any of that?"
"Somewhat."
The wolfman held his gaze.
"Maybe... fine, no. Not a single thing."
Shin couldn’t help but chuckle at that.
"You do know there is a written exam."
I waved his worries off.
"Don’t worry. I’ll probably manage... somehow."
"Mhm... Mhm... if you say so. Don’t come begging for help later."
"Yeah, right. Like hell I would."
Although I spoke with such bluster, even Shin couldn’t begin to understand how fucked I was academically.
I honestly had no understanding of most theory classes, and barely paid attention to anything due to my morning exercises.
But it really wouldn’t change much even if I did, given the fact that I dropped out of high school. This was college-level stuff, of a world even more advanced than Earth.
I was good at memorizing stuff but shit at almost everything else.
My only saving grace was that the theory aspects weren’t really considered that important in the Academy.
They were raising soldiers, not scholars.
Shifting onto more important, more hopeful topics, I scanned around the classroom, soon finding Racheal’s seat. She was right next to Rowan.
’Guess, I better get moving now.’
