Three days trip had come to an end and Soma returned to Akud with his students and Marina. By looking at the student’s faces once they reached the Academy, Soma could figure out that he had accomplished his goal of showing them what it’s like to kill people. Seeing people being killed in front of your eyes for the first time in your life or even doing the killing yourself is bound to leave a deep impression on most people’s minds. Thinking about killing people yourself needs a lot of resolve, and hesitation is not an option when dealing with fellow people. People in this world tend to learn about those things the hard way by being suddenly thrown into wars between nations, or by facing a band of bandits during a trip. And whenever they hesitate to take down their enemy they lose someone or something important to them and end up regretting it for their whole lives.
But by taking his students with him and showing them himself killing the bandits without any hesitation, and by showing them how low people are ready to stoop in order to fulfill their desires and how evil people can be during the three days trip. Soma was able to install that hesitation into their hearts without them having to lose anything at all. And now all they have to do is to think hard and long enough to find their own answers to that hesitation and to find their reasons to fight. All of them were able to fight Monsters normally without any problems, but fighting fellow people needs resolve, especially when you are fighting to kill your enemy.
This weekend marks the end of the First Quarter of the Academic Year, but there is a one-week vacation before the start of the Second Quarter of the Academic Year. And this one-week vacation is going to be used by the students to look for their answers. As for Soma, with the start of the weekend, he headed to Leona’s office and told her about everything he learned from the Bandits’ Boss.
“…I see…. So some of those assholes have been sending slaves to those bandits and all of them have been turned into Zombies and Ghouls!! How could something like this happen to my people without me even realizing it?!”(Leona)
“In Akud, you make sure to record anything and everything that comes to town or leaves it, right?”(Soma)
“…Yeah, we certainly do record that and more. We have people working on that and all of them are people that I trust! So you are thinking that if we look through those document will uncover who are those nobles and merchants!..... But this is strange…. The moment someone tries to take slaves to Elm I should know about it…”(Leona)
“What do you mean?”(Marina)
“Slavery is illegal in the town of Elm. That town is controlled by two lords. A human from the kingdom side, and a whaleman from the side of the Marine Beastmen living in the sea there. And as an agreement between the kingdom and the Marine Beastmen, slavery is prohibited in that whole territory, and the lords in the kingdom are tasked with making sure that no merchant is allowed to send slaves to Elm. That’s why if slaves were taken towards Elm from Akud, there should be a report sent to me from the people doing the recording at the gates…”(Leona)
Leona called for the one responsible for the recording crew, and after explaining everything to him he became very confused.
“What’s wrong?”(Leona)
“…I’m sure reports about this were sent to you! I even have some copies of them even now!.... I was sure to hand the reports to the Archiving Crew as they are the ones responsible for delivering all the important reports to where they belong!”
“…So the information flow was cut off once they reached the Archiving Crew”(Soma)
“Those bastards!!”(Leona)
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“Calm down. Don’t you think that this is our chance?”(Soma)
“….*Sigh* you mean to catch and expose them?”(Leona)
“Here is the plan….”(Soma)
After telling Leona about his plan, she decided to put it into action right away. Soma headed to the Archives building along with Marina. The building was near the Academy at the center of Akud, Soma walked there with Marina and once they reached the building they both were stopped by the guards.
“Sorry, but you can’t enter this building without permission! You can get one from Leona-sama”(Guard)
“I have permission here with me”(Soma)
Soma took the full-access card provided to him by Leona when he agreed to become a teacher at the Academy and showed it to the guards. For a moment they were surprised, but they nodded, apologized, and allowed Soma and Marina to enter. The card Soma showed them was something only the lord possess and that’s why they were surprised for a moment.
Soma entered the building and right away started looking through the documents and reports concerning the nobles and slavery. In the building, there were other people working on making copies of important reports and documents, as well as arranging important documents related to each other to be next to each other in chronological order. Soma realized that some documents were missing from the chronological order and when he asked one of the workers there, they became as puzzled as he was. The confused workers started looking for the missing documents but to no avail. From the way they were searching, Soma could see that they were serious about looking for the missing documents. But then, Soma noticed that no one was looking inside one of the rooms and when he asked the workers about it.
“No one is allowed to enter that room. The manager prohibited everyone from going in there… come to think of it, sometimes the manager could be seen taking some documents to that room, the ones you are looking for are properly in there. But, no one other than the manager has gone in there, so I don’t know for sure”
Hearing that, Soma went right away towards that room and when he tried to open the door it didn’t open as it was locked. Soma added more pressure to his grip and pushed the door one more time and the whole door came off its hinges with a loud cracking sound. Soma placed the door against the wall outside the room and entered right in, and in there he went straight to the documents arranged in there and started reading through them. but then suddenly…
“Oi! Oi! Oi! What do you think you are doing?! No one is allowed to enter this room! And how dare you break the door like this?!”(Manager)
“Not allowed? See here, I have a full-access pass to all documents and information in Akud”(Soma)
“Not to this room!! The only one allowed in here is me and no one else!!”(Manager)
“Of course you would say that. You have been hiding documents and records that would be harmful to certain people in this room, after all”(Soma)
“…What are you talking about?”(Manager)
“See here, this is a report about the Mist Household sending slaves to Elm. This one here is about the Bennet Household doing the same thing… Wow, this room is full of such reports and evidence that would be disadvantageous to the nobles… I see I see so you were the one helping those idiots to hide their crimes from the lord”(Soma)
Hearing the sound of the breaking door, the Manager of the Archive building came out of his office only to find Soma reading through the documents in the room that he made sure no one is allowed to enter. He even made sure to reinforce and lock the door. And as Soma went on and uncovered the purpose of the room and what had the man been doing for years now, his expression changed from one of a surprise to one filled with rage.
“Guards! Guards! We have an intruder in here!! Come and catch this intruder!!”(Manager)
“On it!”(Leona)
“That’s the guy! Make sure to kill him-!”(Manager)
“Ara? Isn’t it Soma? I was passing by when I heard the sound of something breaking, and when I entered here to check on things I heard screaming about an intruder…. But, what is the meaning of this? Soma should have a full-access pass to everything in this building along with all the documents in the whole town”(Leona)
“I have no idea myself. But it seems that the Manager here was hiding some important documents in this room, and when I got in the room he started spouting nonsense about me needing his permission to read what's in here. But it turns out that a lot of the important reports that should have been sent to you were being hidden in here”(Soma)
“Manager? What’s the meaning of this?”(Leona)
“Tch…. You leave me no choice! Burn everything to ashes {Fire- Ghua?!”(Manager)
The Manager was about to use Fire Magic to burn the whole building down, but before he was able to chant properly, Leona’s fist connected with his face slamming him to the ground knocking him out, and breaking a few of his teeth.
“You have overstepped your limits, fool!”(Leona)