Infestation III / Unlikely Alliance

“Whoa, it’s so tidy in here. It only took like a week for me to turn my room into a complete mess.”

“Responsibility is an important quality for a student, Akio, and that includes maintaining a high standard of cleanliness.”

“Yep. Everett’s pretty on top of things like that. I haven’t seen this place get dirty once.”

“Akio, you should use him as a role model. You could learn a lot.”

“Ouch. Shade from Kerne? Back me up here, Everett!”

“Why would he do that? It’s his maturity that’s showing you up in the first place.”

I scowled at the chaotic sight before me. How did I let this happen?

Two fresh visitors scanned my chamber with interest, while one familiar freeloader was strangely complementary as she plopped onto my empty bed, making it her nest as usual.

My room was nothing to write home about, which was exactly why it felt so uncomfortable to have an entire group of people scour it. I’d barely gotten used to just Shina spending many of her afternoons and evenings here, so dealing with three people at once would be a challenge.

“Oh, I know where we can meet in secret. Let’s just use Everett’s room.”

Shina had dropped an absurd suggestion yesterday, one I was so shocked by at first that I failed to dissent before the others agreed.

You have your own room, you know! Why didn’t you offer that up? It was too late to complain now, so I kept my thoughts to myself.

Ignoring my grimace, Akio slid over to me in excitement and whispered into my ear. “Dude, she’s sitting on your bed.”

“Uh, yeah. She does that all the time. She’s a lot bolder than you’d think, and I’m pretty sure she never learned to respect boundaries.”

“All the time…?” He slapped my shoulder hard enough it hurt. “Damn. Good for you!”

I feel like you’re misunderstanding something here…

Before I could quash whatever he was imagining, Shina clapped for our attention, imitating the habit of our professors. “Okay, let’s get down to business. I’m sure Everett will want his room back eventually.”

Don’t pretend like you care now!

“Yes, ma’am.” Akio gave Shina a goofy-looking salute, as if she would have any idea what the gesture meant.

“Agreed.” Kerne nodded, his demeanor the exact opposite of Akio’s. “Though, to begin, I would like to explain my reasoning for joining you all in this endeavor.”

“I’ve been wondering about that too, so go ahead.” Shina, as the de facto leader of this meeting, accepted his proposal.

“I believe your theory is correct. Making the academy seem incompetent by stifling its efforts to keep us safe would be an effective method of forcing us out from its sphere of influence. However, I fear the rot may run even deeper than that.”

“How so?” she probed.

“Who is to say the factions vying for control of us are merely capitalizing on the actions of the Iccasius Army? From their perspective, it would be more efficient to support the Iccasians directly than sit idly by in hopes their goals will align. As much as I would like to entrust this matter to the academy alone, they are pressured from both sides: the infiltrators from within and the hawks hunting from without. If those two halves are in close collaboration, as I believe is possible, resolving this matter cleanly may be too tall a task, even for our professors.”

“So you think if we can handle one of them, the academy will be able to do the rest?” I asked.

“Precisely. That is why I believe we should be proactive in purging the academy of its current infestation. I see it as our duty to do so, both as Inheritors and as students.”

“Sounds like we’re all on the same page, then,” Akio said. “What’s our plan, though? Since we need to be secretive about it, how are we supposed to collect info to find out who’s sus?”

“I have a plan for that,” Shina answered. “I don’t know how much you’ve all learned about sigil magic, but to simplify things, the process of utilizing them can be divided into two major steps. First, you obviously have to draw the sigil. Inventing a new one requires a lot of knowledge and practice, but pretty much anyone can copy someone else’s spell just by looking at it, so this step isn’t helpful for our purposes. Second, though, you need to activate it, and that process is far more complex than invoking an incantation. You can think of a sigil like a sentence, where each stroke or symbol represents a word. To actually use it, you need to be able to read the language, not just know the end result.”

“Are you saying most students do not possess the knowledge necessary to read sigils, then? Is that how we narrow them down?” Kerne asked, seemingly as unfamiliar on the topic as I was.

“Yes and no. I kind of oversimplified things there. When it comes to sigil magic, only similar spells share the same ‘language’. There are tons of students who would be able to activate simple spells even if they only dabble in the art—myself included. But something as complex as the Anomaly Beast summoning spell? I doubt there’s more than 10 students here capable of that. You’d need to hyperspecialize in sigil magic to even have a chance.”

“Ah!” Akio snapped his fingers to signify his understanding. “And since you’re a mage student, you’d know who those people are. So our list of suspects can start from there.”

“H-heh, about that…” Though she’d held on for a long time, Shina reverted back to her bashful state as she grappled with Akio’s confident assumption. “I’m not… the most well acquainted with my peers, so… I have no idea. B-but I know more than enough to eliminate someone from the pool if I can learn a bit about them and their magic. It’ll take a lot of effort to collect that information though, so I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help than that…”

“Thanks, Shina.” Without thinking, I gently patted the top of her head in an attempt to comfort her. I’d never done something like this before, but it just felt natural. “I’d have no idea where to even start without you, and you’re the only one who can parse that data in the first place. If anything, we’re holding you back by not being smart enough to do more.”

“Yeah!” Akio, with more than enough emotional intelligence to read the room, jumped in to support me. “I can’t do any of that, but I can ask around to help you out. So feel free to delegate any menial tasks to me. You’ve got more important stuff to deal with.”

Shina brushed away my hand without saying anything, but a small grin had replaced her look of defeat, so I felt content with my decisions. And thanks for the backup, Akio.

“So if we can learn the specialization of every mage student, you can narrow it down to a handful of suspects from there?” Kerne, ignoring our brief deviation, went straight back into the logistics.

“That’s right.” Shina said, neutrality returning to her visage as she started reasoning through the problem again. “I know it sounds like a lot, but we can probably outright disqualify anyone who doesn’t deal with sigils frequently. I’ll have to dive a lot deeper into anyone that does, though. I want to make sure there aren’t any false positives or negatives, so it’ll take time.”

Kerne nodded, unfazed by her caveats. “I walked into this meeting expecting we would have to investigate all students, so knowing the pool is limited to just mages is already significant progress.”

Shina let out a quiet sigh of relief, subtle enough that only I could notice. Kerne had a respectable, mature aura about him, so I could understand not wanting to disappoint him.

“I am acquainted with many of the faculty and upperclassmen, so I shall begin my search there,” he continued. “We need to hide our true intentions, so be sure to have a cover story. I will behave under the pretense I am searching for a magic tutor for Shina. That way, I can ask about individuals beyond my immediate network.”

“Hey! I don’t need a tutor!”

“There is always wisdom we lack that others possess. But, regardless, it is merely a fabrication to cover my trail.”

“Hm, I guess I can do something similar,” Akio said. “I don’t know a ton of mage students, but I have a decent number of friends, so they probably know some people. I’ll pretend I just want to learn more about magic. That should be believable, I think, since I’m a Foreigner and all.”

“And, uh, Shina and I’ll figure something out. I don’t know a lot of people, but she takes a bunch of magic classes, so her classmates should be a good start.” I knew we weren’t going to have as strong of a plan as those two did, so I chose to speak on behalf of both of us. Shina, presumably glad I did so, nodded emphatically as I concluded my statement.

Kerne sighed. “If Mara were here, her social network would reach many of the places our current coverage lacks. But I suppose we will have to make do with what we have.”

“Then it’s decided. Come on, team!” Akio threw out a hand in the center of the four of us.

“…”

“…”

“…”

Sorry, man. I know what you’re trying to do, but I can’t back you up here. It’d look crazy to them.

Akio slowly rescinded his hand in response to Shina and Kerne’s confused stares. “Ahem. Uh, meeting adjourned or whatever. I gotta go back to my room and cry from this betrayal.”

“Before you do that,” Kerne said, in a tone making it unclear whether he treated the previous statement as a joke or not, “I would like to remind everyone to stay cautious. It will always be better to gather no information than to push too hard and expose our intentions. If you believe you have made a mistake, contact the rest of us immediately.”

Akio, Shina, and I nodded in response, aware of the danger we would be putting ourselves in the moment we initiated this plan.

But if it means protecting my life here, it’s worth it.

I glanced down at Shina, still sitting on my bed. She, too, looked determined as ever.

But the first hurdle that faced us was not a physical threat. It was far, far worse.

… We’re gonna have to talk to strangers, aren’t we?