(Heartfelt thanks to Yume no Shouyou, Lei Xiang, Yunqi Qinggu, Seven Sins Shattered, Erciyuan de Shuangxiezuo, and "I Have No Integrity" for their tips!)
It was too clean!
Every clue related to the "Magic Eater (cannibalcandy)" seemed to have been deliberately erased. Other than the wreckage of the "Automatons (automaton)," nothing else had been left behind.
Walpurgis Royal Academy of Machinart was the highest institution of learning in the magical world!
If the "Magic Eater (cannibalcandy)" really was just a rat lurking in the shadows and launching attacks, how could the academy have failed to find even a trace of it until now?...
To commit crimes so cleanly within the highest academy of the magical world was like murdering someone in a police station, successfully escaping afterward, and leaving the victim without so much as a drop of blood before they vanished from the face of the earth.
That alone was already suspicious.
And if the academy's powerful institutions were behind it, then it would explain why the crimes had been covered up so thoroughly.
Whether the missing students were alive or dead, they were clearly not meant to be seen by anyone.
That meant moving the missing students out of this prison-like academy was unlikely.
If they were being hidden within the academy, there had to be an extremely secret place where outsiders could not discover them.
But if the academy's upper ranks, the guards of the security force, and the Disciplinary Committee members truly intended to investigate, what place in this academy could not be entered with special authorization?...
The only explanation was that this so-called "investigation" was merely for show.
Therefore, the academy's upper ranks, the guards of the security force, and the Disciplinary Committee members might very well be in league with the "Magic Eater (cannibalcandy)"!