Temple’s Alchemy teacher Aaron Mede was in a bad mood.

Even among all the talented teachers, he was in a class of his own. He was someone who only taught elite students, so the students that were in his lectures were excellent students of either the Orbis Class or a general class.

Personally, he didn’t like the Royal Class because they only believed in talent and had too many arrogant kids.

Strictly speaking, he didn’t hate the Royal Class, he just preferred the Orbis Class.

He liked their desperation.

He liked their attitude of being willing to do anything for success.

That kind of desperation blinded one’s insight, and if one held out a tempting offer in their blurred state, most children would simply fall for it.

A place that gathered the best talents of the Empire where one just had to stretch out their hand to catch those with the greatest potential.

A place where one could execute biological experiments and see the results in real-time. A place where experimental subjects simply replenished on their own.

Temple was the only place that met those requirements.

However, that cradle suddenly vanished.

The psycho of Royal Class, Reinhardt, had suddenly decided to mess everything up.

Technically speaking, the real cause was the strange collective action of the Orbis Class students and teachers, but even so, the root of it was still Reinhardt.

The place that supplied him with willing test subjects, among them the most capable new additions, suddenly disappeared.

The one who messed up his experiment…

He couldn’t do anything about the collective Orbis Class boycott, so he put that matter aside.

If that guy died inside of Temple, the problem would just grow bigger and pose a threat to him, so he tried to kill him outside of Temple.

He felt confident that he wouldn’t get caught if he used his forbidden arts.

People could die surprisingly easily. No matter how strong a knight was, it was common sense that they would die swiftly if they were stabbed in their sleep.

Furthermore, no matter how excellent he was, he was still a student. Killing him should have been easy.

If that guy died, it wouldn’t be him who would get suspected, it would be the Orbis Class, so the circumstances were perfect, and he wouldn’t get exposed.

However, for some reason, he immediately felt the presence of the assassin Aaron planted a worm in. Seeing his target flee in a hurry, the assassin felt the need to stay hidden.

After that guy sensed the danger he was in, he didn’t leave Temple from that point on.

He could have killed Reinhardt inside of Temple because he wasn’t kicked out like the Orbis Class Teachers. However, he felt immensely reluctant to take on any risks.

There was no need for him to do that.

As long as Reinhardt remained in Temple, he was within his range.

He wouldn’t be able to stay in Temple forever, either.

The moment he crawled out of Temple, his demise would be sealed.

However, things were taking a rather strange turn.

The other student who was with Reinhardt at that time… When he noticed her leaving Temple, he thought that it was an opportunity he had to take.

He would secretly follow her, overpower her, and use her as a hostage to drag Reinhardt out of Temple.

Even if she was part of the Royal Class, she was just a first-year at most. He thought it wouldn’t be a problem as long as he took her by surprise.

There was no need to expose himself because he could simply use the parasite hosts.

However, where did things go wrong?

She was already aware that someone was tailing her and actually seemed to want it.

It turned out that the girl was the strongest monster ever recorded in the history of Temple, although he didn’t really know any details.

His error was that he neglected to gather information on students of the close combat majors because he was a wizard himself.

Fortunately, his taboo arts were completely unknown to the world outside of the Order.

They wouldn’t be able to find him with just that. The evidence was already gone, after all.

It was a forbidden spell the Order used to secretly kill people.

All of his anger and irritation made him feel restless.

How could he have expected that a first-year student of Royal Class would seemingly have eyes on the back of her head?

As such, he tried to find a more definite, detailed way to kill Reinhardt.

However…

“A bug that can control people?”

‘‘Yes, can someone make something like that with alchemy?”

The girl who had caught his host last time actually went to his mansion with another student in tow.

What were the chances?

Aaron Mede was dumbfounded that things were going so well for him.

***

Aaron didn’t know about Ellen up until then, but he already knew the magic major student, Harriet de Saint-Owan.

He was a lot more interested in Harriet than Ellen.

She was the greatest magic genius in the famous Saint-Owan family’s history. No, she might’ve even been the greatest genius of the whole continent.

A kid with the ‘Magic’ Talent had never appeared before.

While it seemed like the person herself wasn’t aware of it, she was the one that gathered the most interest from his acquaintances.

Of course, Aaron Mede didn’t share that interest.

Those who were born with talent were always arrogant.

He liked the ungifted who fought for their strength—like those in the Orbis Class. He believed the ruthlessness and viciousness of those who struggled to get stronger made them susceptible to temptation.

That was why Harriet de Saint-Owan, who was born with great strength and didn’t know what she lacked, only seemed like a human without any desperation for improvement.

He didn’t do his experiments under the guise of granting others strength because he was evil. Rather than that, he very much thought of his experiments as gifts.

He didn’t grant anything to those who weren’t desperate. Therefore, even though she was a top talent, he was uninterested in Harriet de Saint-Owan.

She was simply amazing.

Just how did that coincidence come to be?

Did two high-quality pieces of bait that would be perfect for luring Reinhardt out of Temple really just walk to him freely?

They said they were there on the recommendation of the Royal Class teacher, Mr. Mustrang.

Ellen was there after she unsuccessfully asked around while trying to find out the truth about the worm that crawled from the host.

She had no idea that she was in a place she should have never stepped foot in.

Those two students, who had no idea that he was breeding hundreds of those worms in the basement, just seemed like innocent kids who simply wanted to sate their curiosity.

They were the two students who actively decided to get involved with the assassination attempt on Reinhardt.

Those two had to be very precious to Reinhardt, so they’d certainly make great bait.

Being granted the pleasure of trampling on the arrogant, budding talents of the Royal Class was a bonus.

“Hmm… While I do believe that there is nothing in this field that I don’t know, I do have to say that alchemists are the types of people who like to experiment if they even believe there is a hint of success.”

However, that was difficult to do at the moment.

If those two students who were there on the recommendation of Mr. Mustrang were to disappear right then, there was a high chance that he would be immediately suspected.

“I think I’ve heard of some people who use such things…”

“R-really? Are you sure?”

“…”

Harriet’s expression suddenly changed at the mention of a possibly meaningful clue. Ellen’s eyes also slightly widened.

“It’ll take me some time to go through all the data, so I’ll send a message to Royal Class when I’m done.”

“Thank you! Thank you very much, teacher!”

He sent them back for the moment because it was close to stupidity to lay his hands on them right then.

“Since you came all the way here, how about a cup of tea?”

He poured some warm tea into cups for the two innocent students.

He would send them back, but he needed some insurance.

Alchemy was a science that could work with or without magic.

In that case, magic wasn’t part of it.

In other words, Dispel wouldn’t work on what he was doing.

Aaron Mede was poisoning the two.

He used a slow-acting poison. Its symptoms would only appear after more than a month. The functions of their cardiovascular system would gradually worsen, and their hearts would eventually stop.

Without the antidote, they would simply drop dead one day.

It was already verified that there was no other way to cure the poison. Not even divine magic would work.

If the situation didn’t pan out as he wanted, he could use the antidote as an excuse to lure out Reinhardt.

It was that kind of insurance.

“Ah, yes… Thank you.”

Harriet carefully placed her hands around the cup.

Drink it.

* * *

* * *

Aaron Mede smiled faintly at the thought that he would receive the corpse of that arrogant madman who had ruined all his experiments if he just waited a month.

He himself had the antidote, after all, so he could casually savor the poisoned tea.

It was a tasteless and odorless poison that couldn’t be detected.

Ellen didn’t even touch the tea. It was like she wasn’t even tempted to drink it.

Harriet was about to drink from her cup but then tilted her head slightly and put it down.

“By the way, I have a question I want to ask you.”

Aaron Mede noticed a sparkling green earring hanging from Harriet’s ear.

Wearing jewelry wasn’t forbidden in Temple, but for something the young lady of the Saint-Owan Duchy was wearing, the earrings design didn’t really seem all that luxurious.

Harriet put her cup down completely.

“Why aren’t you asking us why we’re curious about something like that?”

Harriet felt uncomfortable.

Everyone else had been curious about their interest in such things. Even she had initially questioned it.

When she had initially heard Ellen ask about those things, she also wondered why the hell she wanted to know about something like that. It was an alarming and bizarre question.

The members of the Magic Research Society were the same, and so was Mr. Mustrang.

All of them had asked why they were curious about worms that could control humans.

However, Aaron Mede wasn’t curious, and that was what made her feel uncomfortable.

That, however, wasn’t much of a problem. Aaron Mede simply smiled softly at Harriet’s question.

‘‘Wizards, especially students, are curious about a wide range of things, after all. You’d be surprised at how many bizarre questions I’ve heard since the start of my career. I’m simply used to answering strange questions at this point.”

“Oh, I see.”

Aaron Mede’s answer made sense.

He noticed that the little kids in front of him didn’t even touch their teacups and that they were wary of him.

They weren’t just some talented kids, they also had great insight.

He knew that trying to force them to drink the tea would backfire. Harriet looked around the mansion’s office.

“And this place… How should I put it…? It’s strange.”

Harriet continued to calmly look around.

She wasn’t merely looking around; it seemed like she was trying to sense the space itself.

“I can’t feel any power coming from the leyline.”

“Leyline? What do you mean?”

Harriet was constantly ordered to do absurd things by Reinhardt.

Why don’t you try studying dimensional magic? While you’re at it, try to activate magic with external instead of internal mana.

She hadn’t succeeded in any of that, but she was in the process of getting there.

Natural mana… She was far from being able to use magic with it, but she had gotten very used to feeling and analyzing the mana present in the atmosphere. Of course, other wizards could do that as well, but Harriet, who had focused on it, was a lot more sensitive.

Mana was omnipresent, but the concentration varied from place to place. Even in the same space, its concentration could be different. Being able to control such irregularly concentrated mana was a rather doubtful prospect.

Although she hadn’t reached her true goal, what she gained from her research was enough for her to sense the peculiarity of the place.

She couldn’t feel the leyline’s mana below the mansion at all.

It felt as if a huge hole was in the middle of a vast ocean.

She didn’t know what was below the mansion, but she could tell that a barrier constructed with the function of obscuring what was down there was in place.

“I know that barriers intended to hide things have similar effects.”

There was a space underneath the mansion enchanted so that outsiders wouldn’t be able to look into it through magical means.

“Wizards, especially alchemists, are sensitive to such matters. It’s not surprising that I had something like that made. I’m an alchemist, after all.”

Aaron Mede was an alchemist.

It was a legitimate argument that alchemists were especially concerned with security. They wouldn’t want others to look into their laboratories, after all.

Harriet knew that as well, but there was something else she found suspicious.

Its scale…

It was simply too large.

Although he was said to be an excellent alchemist, for him to have a laboratory under the mansion that stretched out for six floors underground was a bit excessive.

“This is quite uncomfortable. You said that you wanted to ask me some questions, but is it just my imagination, or is this an interrogation?”

Aaron Mede didn’t hide his displeasure.

He let those two in because he was curious, but they suddenly began to notice something strange and started to doubt him.

He couldn’t let it go on any longer.

He had to make them leave.

He could forcibly capture them and use them as bait right then, but that would completely blow away the foundation he had built in Temple.

He was just trying to lure out that useless guy, but things had become twisted.

However, it was then that Ellen, who had been silent up to that point, opened her mouth.

“Do homunculi disappear when Dispel is cast on them?”

“……What rude kids you are. Fine, I’ll answer. Homunculi are creatures made of magic, so if Dispel is cast on them, they disappear.”

“…Then, if the type of homunculus we’ve been talking about was controlling a human, what would happen to them if it was Dispelled?”

“……”

Aaron seemed to feel a cold shower running over his back.

What was that girl talking about?

“Well… While I don’t know the details, the parasitic Homunculus would disappear from their bodies or they would die.”

Aaron Mede knew that it was the latter. The infestation of a Homunculus was permanent. When the Homunculus died, so would its host.

No, as soon as someone was infested and controlled by one, they would already be dead.

“Why are you asking something like that?”

“We’re going to deploy an Antimagic Field throughout this mansion from this point on,” Ellen said calmly.

“……What?!”

“If anyone in this mansion is controlled by a Homunculus, they’ll drop dead. If nothing happens, I will apologize. If you want to punish us and have us pay you compensation for property damage, we will do so.”

An Antimagic Field…

It was a magic barrier that far surpassed the effect of a wide-area Dispel that suppressed all use of magic.

A student was capable of casting that high-ranking of a spell?

Aaron Mede’s eyes widened.

Harriet de Saint-Owan might actually be history’s greatest genius in the field of magic.

That was a serious problem.

Those kids were about to do something incredibly insane on the grounds of mere speculation.

If they were to deploy the Antimagic Field, naturally, many of the slaves he kept in this mansion would turn into corpses. His expression calmed again.

“There really are only annoying people in the Royal Class.”

He didn’t like either of them.

He would end up losing everything if he kept being passive.

He had to resort to extreme measures to prevent that from happening.

“Die.”

-Flaare!

A fireball flew out of Aaron Mede’s wand, which was promptly blocked by Harriet’s forcefield.

“I really… didn’t expect that it was actually you.”

“I told you, Harriet.”

Aaron Mede looked at the silver sword that Ellen had suddenly summoned into her right hand.

“Threatening works a lot better than interrogating.”

“Right…”

Those two had been suspicious of Aaron Mede from the start.