The Magic Academy's Physicist

Chapter 237: Unification (1)

There was a familiar scent as soon as she entered the classroom.

It was strange, because today was the first time she came here yet she could smell someone she knew.

Freyr sniffed without thinking and tracked the smells around her.

The Youko who were based off of foxes had a keen sense of smell so they could even distinguish between smells that were subtly similar. And so sniffing out a familiar scent in a small, tight classroom was a piece of cake.

“Uhh....”

The smell came from exactly two places.

One was at the teacher’s desk, and the other was the seat diagonally to the front of her.

Professor Heisenberg was at the desk, and an unknown white-haired girl was in the seat diagonally across.

“Doesn’t that white-haired girl and the professor look similar?”

Someone said, and Freyr nodded.

She hadn’t seen the face of the white-haired girl, but she had a rough idea of what she looked like based on the smell.

“Oh.”

In that moment, something flashed across her mind.

Her beastkin instincts were telling her–the person in front of her was the thankful friend who protected her clan from the flood.

And at the same time, a poor friend who had to leave the Academy for being labeled as a Beast despite having protected Vermel in the seat next to her.

Something bubbled up within her.

The friend with whom she had parted in the worst way was before her eyes.

Freyr scrubbed at her reddened eyes with her sleeves, then lightly slapped her cheeks and composed herself.

The only ones here who knew that Aether was a Beast for sure were Vermel and herself. The rest didn’t know the truth because they had only heard about it through the news, so she couldn’t act like she knew Aether right this moment.

Of course, Freyr knew that not all Beasts were bad. So that was why, since that day, she wanted to reconnect with the friend who had left.

But who should she discuss this with?

And as she was thinking that–

“We’ll stop here for today.”

Before she knew it, three hours had gone by. Aether, who had been giving a rapid lecture, just left the classroom with the white-haired girl.

Freyr stared intently at the two of them.

Height, physique, everything was the same.

“T-two Aethers....”

Was one of them a fake, perhaps?

Freyr suddenly thought of the doppelgänger story.

It was a creepy story about a young girl who had seen her friend’s doppelgänger while playing in the woods until late at night, and how her real friend had died of an illness while she was occupied with playing with that doppelgänger.

It was a famous dark fairy tale in the west part of the Empire where there were many rough, mountainous areas.

“Uh, ah, augh.......”

Her shoulders trembled.

She knew that the doppelgänger tale was literally a made-up story, but the shock she had felt as a child hearing the ending from her mom left her traumatized.

It seemed that she was going to have to sleep with the lights on tonight.

“Freyr, Lotte. About today’s essay homework, do you want to work on it together?”

What drew Freyr from the prickly fear was none other than Vermel’s voice.

“I’d like that.”

“Uh, huh? Yeah, let’s do it!”

Freyr accepted the offer on impulse.

Rather, she welcomed it with open arms, because it would get lonely if she had to study alone late at night.

“Alright, then let’s meet at 6 p.m.”

So, the three of them had to suffer through lecture after lecture until it was all done.

As expected of Iliad, a prestigious academy comparable to Tilette. It didn’t give students a break.

The three were exhausted from the first day. Freyr rubbed at her sleepy eyes and scrubbed her hands over her face like a cat.

The next thing she knew, she was on her way home.

“Ah.”

She suddenly snapped out of it.

It was because there was something she wanted to check before working on the assignment with the other two.

“Hey, I have to stop somewhere. You guys go ahead to the dorms!”

After saying that, Freyr followed the sidewalk up the hill.

It was a very steep uphill path. To the right there was a distant mountain and wide lake where ducks were splashing around on the rippling waters. Freyr caught herself drooling, composed herself, and continued up the hill.

“I made it....”

At the top of the path, there was a building that looked like it took up quite a bit of floor area.

The private office Aether had told them about during the orientation should be in this building.

Freyr fumbled through her memory and went up to the second floor. ‘Asteya Heisenberg’. It wasn’t hard to find the sign with that name.

She could see her friend, and she was all smiles at the thought.

Freyr ducked her head and put her ear to the iron door.

[...Well, we don’t have to burn down the World Tree right away.]

What in the world?

[If we need, we can retreat for a bit then come back with the main forces. It’ll take a good two months to get the right number of bombs, anyway.]

[What, then what are we supposed to do. Pull out quickly?]

[You have to be able to discard the small sketches in order to see the big picture. Wouldn’t that Youko brat also have noticed by now?]

“Wa, wa, wooow.......”

Freyr froze on the spot like she got struck with a petrifying beam.

“Don’t you think?”

Click.

When she came to, it was after the door of the private room was wide open.

The white-haired girl she had seen in the morning leaned her arm against the door, watching Freyr while snickering.

“See, I told you she was going to come.”

“Hic.”

She ended up hiccuping.

“The Youko are too curious for their own good, always wanting to die before their time comes.”

The girl carefully ran her hand down Freyr’s back.

No matter how she thought about it, this girl looked exactly like Aether.

Her hairs stood up stiffly like ears of rice planted close together.

Her mind had a flashback to the doppelgänger tale which brought back the cute yet terrible memories of her childhood.

“Now, come here.”

Freyr kneeled on top of the chair like someone who was guilty.

Whitie in the back, Blackie at the front.

It was like she was surrounded by a pair of black and white stones.

“You heard, right?”

“W-what do you mean?”

Before she knew it, she was using respectful speech.

She felt like she was choking like she was being swept away by the thick currents of fear.

The gazes that were stabbing into her like well-sharpened blades from either side gradually pressed in on her.

Help me.

“Our conversation, I mean.”

“I-I didn’t hear anything.”

“Lies.”

Akasha whispered into her ear, her voice cold as frost.

Thunk, thunk, thunk!

The lights in the lab all turned off for some reason, every light source disappearing except for a single, dim one in front of her.

A pair of gold eyes glowing like lanternㄴ in the front, and two pairs behind.

Wait.

Two pairs?

[Grrrr....]

She heard a heart-gripping sound.

Boom, boom–the room shook along with the sound of something heavy falling. Highly tense, Freyr perked her ears and searched for the source of the vibration.

The thing was coming closer and closer to her.

Thunk!

Eventually, a nearby light turned on, forming a spotlight.

What she was was an enormous monster who looked well over three meters tall.

Its mandible was protruding forward with steel ears that were round and pointed, and its face looked hideous enough to send someone into an early grave.

A black-blue wolf of steel.

Fenrir.

“You better tell the truth, or this Fenrir might devour you.”

She had learned in the first semester of last year in the ‘Understanding Magic Beasts’ course.

Fenrir was a Calamity. Unless an Ultimate Magic or Flare was used, it was impossible to subdue it in one shot.

And with Aether and Aether’s doppelgänger in front and behind her, it was almost impossible for Freyr to break through this gap and go report to the president.

“I’ll give you three seconds. Did you hear or not?”

“Ah, uhh, ah.......”

She felt like she might wet herself.

Although she wanted to just go ahead and confess ‘I did hear’, her mouth wouldn’t move as she wanted when she saw Fenrir’s sharp teeth.

“Three.”

It was over.

“Two.”

She was screwed.

“One!”

She was going to be eaten...!

“I-I heard everything...!”

“Yeah, so you won’t readily admit, hm? Then... huh?”

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry, mom...! I’m ahead of you...!! I’m sorry for being a bad daughteeer......!”

Freyr broke into tears she had been holding back and began sobbing.

Fenrir shut its gaping jaws at the sight of her bawling, and Akasha just looked back and forth between the brat and her sister with wide eyes.

“Haah, you morons.”

Aether turned on the lights with a sigh that was deeper than the abyss.

That the highly inquisitive Youko who was sensitive to smell was sure to come here after school.

And so they had prepared this event here with the intention of keeping her mouth shut.

So they thought.

[Whine, whine.]

Fenrir was in a corner licking on a lead bone like it was feeling guilty.

For a large thing it looked weird, but whatever.

Every single carnivorous Beasts that they borrowed from the First Brigade was programmed so that they couldn’t directly harm the beastkin.

This was all because of Jǫrmungandr.

“W-what the. The two of you were twins?”

Freyr listened to Aether’s explanations as she wiped her tears away.

They were actually going to just give her a scare and see if she would hide what she overheard or not, but it became troublesome because the answer was different from what they had expected.

“She didn’t lie even though she was about to die.”

“Yeah.”

Freyr was one of the few who knew for certain that Aether was a Beast.

And so when they threatened her using Fenrir, they had deemed that she would lie that she didn’t hear anything to save herself.

But to think that she would just fess up and make a scene by bawling.

Bursting into tears was plenty childlike, but the decision itself was adult enough to be commended for its maturity.

Having calmed down, Freyr spoke up.

“Aether, are you not coming back to us...?”

“Excuse me?”

“Coem back to Tilette.... Duke Hasfeldt said he’ll vouch for you. So....”

“Hah.”

She wanted her to believe that?

Even though she had already suffered a thousand times with similar repertoire?

“Did you forget what I told you at the time? I’m a Beast. I was always the Demon Army. Your enemy, understand?”

“But....”

“Within the next few months, the World Tree over there is going to be burned by us. You should have heard it. So if you want to live, then drop out. If you tell this to anyone.... You know, right?”

That was all she had to say.

Aether patted Freyr’s shoulder.

“Get out.”

“Ah....”

Freyr hesitantly got up and backed away. She slowly walked backwards with her ears and tail drooping.

Her eyes, which were damp like the morning dew, were filled with regret and sorrow.

It was as if she still had a lot of things she wanted to say but was leaving without being able to do so because Aether had told her to go.

“...See you tomorrow.”

In the end, Freyr said those words and left after lingering by the door.

Tatata–the sound of quickly running down the stairs faded away.

Aether perched on the chair and sighed for the umpteenth time.

“Damn it.”

She thought she had cleaned up everything.

Her heart ached like a large nail had been driven through it.

“Now what?”

Akasha asked about their next plan, to which Aether answered with certainty.

“That brat is surely going to tell someone about what happened today.”

“Of course.”

“And so if anyone tries to report me.......”

Then she would be able to clean up everything with no burdens.

It would make it clear that Freyr and co. and Aether herself were enemies. Hence whether she was killed by Elementals or she roasted them all, one side was going to be destroyed. Either the World Tree was going to burn or it would be the Demon Army first....

“Let’s see what happens.”

Since it came to this, she would take a gamble.

Although the first prediction missed by a mile, the experiment wasn’t done yet.

“I vote that they will report. Akasha, be prepared to pack up.”

Despite Aether’s wry smile, Akasha only shrugged with a ‘who knows’.